Lion Time in Timbuctoo
By Robert Silverberg
In the dry stifling days of early summer the Emir lay dying, the king, the imam, Big Father of the Song-hay, in his cool dark mud-walled palace in the Sankore quarter of Old Timbuctoo. The city seemed frozen, strange though it was to think of freezing in this season of killing heat that fell upon you like a wall of hot iron. There was a vast stasis, as though everything were entombed in ice. The river was low and sluggish, moving almost imperceptibly in its bed with scarcely more vigor than a sick weary crocodile. No one went out of doors, no one moved indoors, everyone sat still, waiting for the old man’s death and praying that it would bring the cooling rains.
In his own very much lesser palace alongside the Emir’s, Little Father sat still like all the rest, watching and waiting. His time was coming now at last. That was a sobering thought. How long had he been the prince of the realm? Twenty years? Thirty? He had lost count. And now finally to rule, now to be the one who cast the omens and uttered the decrees and welcomed the caravans and took the high seat in the Great Mosque. So much toil, so much responsibility; but the Emir was not yet dead. Not yet. Not quite.
. . .
