Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy #1)

by Marlon James

“You blaspheming the gods?” “Blaspheming means you believe.” “You don’t believe in gods?” “I don’t believe in belief. No, that is false. I do believe there will be antelope in the woods and fish in the river and men will always want to fuck, which is the only one of their purposes that pleases me.

But a lie is a house carefully built on rotten stilts. A liar often forgets the beginning of his tale before he gets to the end, and in this way one will catch him. A lie is a tale carefully told if allowed to be told, and I would seek to break his untruth by asking him to tell a different part of the tale.

I searched through her five robes, found her koo, spread its lips west and east, then flicked my tongue on the little soul deep in the woman that the Ku think is a hidden boy that must be cut out, but is beyond boy or girl. She made noises louder than when whipped, but since I was hidden under her robes, her slaves thought it was the recall of a whipping, or the god of harvest giving her rapture.

Rikolino

I felt like I was around children waiting on the grandfather to tell them a new story about old Nan-si, the spider demon who was a man once. It reminded me to never take the story of any god or spirit or magical being to be all true. If the gods created everything, was truth not just another creation?

“I don’t know why you would know,” Mossi said to me. “What would I know?” “Why the boy’s trail goes hot, then in a blink goes cold, then hot again.” Behind me walked the buffalo, and behind him, Sadogo. “They are using the ten and nine doors,” I said.

You act if as arousal means anything. It does not even mean consent.”