The Obanaax: And Other Tales of Heroes and Horrors

By Kirk A. Johnson

"The Obanaax" is a collection of two novelettes and two short stories that take the reader on a journey to the world of Aaduna on the great northern continent of Mbor. This novel's imaginative sword and sorcery world, influenced by several West African languages, sets this book apart from other stories explored in this genre. These narrative elements, naming conventions, and heart-pounding prose makes "The Obanaax" an adventure that will ignite a passion for exploring this undreamed-of new world far beyond the last page has turned. These tales from far afield will introduce to you the adventurous derring-do of those unaccustomed to the monstrous chaos of the unnatural and, at times, its alien desires. An epic for those willing to brave far and away from the world we know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985854312

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The Obanaax: And other Tales of Heroes and Horrors

Copyright © 2022 Far Afield Press LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book, including photo, cover art, and logo may be used in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are a product of fiction or are used in a fictious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events and locales is entirely coincidental.

All inquiries should be addressed to Far Afield Press LLC, 304 Lewis Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11221

The Obanaax © Copyright Kirk A. Johnson

Cock and Bull © Copyright Kirk A. Johnson

The Oculus of Kii © Copyright Kirk A. Johnson

For Wine and Roast © Copyright Kirk A. Johnson

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-98585-430-5

E-book ISBN: 979-8-98585-431-2

In Loving Memory of my dad,

Albert E. Johnson

The sorcerer who set me on the path into the unknown

The major rivers and known capital cities of Mbor and Gaabar. This is after the destruction of the island empire of Xanjarnou which created the Baa-Xarrew Strait.

Far afield from the lands we know, there is a world few would have imagined existed—a world where the living co-exists with the spirits of the dead. Where the twin moons reflect more than just the sun’s glow, and cosmic abominations are held at bay by the mystic cults of legend. A world where the laws of survival are rewritten with every new age and every new tale.

In these tales, barbarian nomads, mercenaries, and vagrant exiles battle against ancient dangers aided by unexpected allies. Stories told of heroes and horrors, sorcery and souls. Adventures where courage and mayhem play havoc with a majestic madness that can only be found far from the lands we know.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Obanaax

The Oculus of Kii

Cock and Bull

For Wine and Roast

Glossary

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

This is a product of the giants for whom I look up to in awe, like Zeus birthing Athena from his cracked skull. These authors have given me the inspiration to create what I now present before you. My first book. And I’m proud to say under my own Far Afield Press logo—with me sweating great streams of salty water—I hope you, the reader, will love what I present before your eyes.

If you permit me the indulgence, I’ll start with how this all happened. Well, to be honest, I can’t remember when the twin blades of the fantastic and phantasmagorical struck me with all the thunder of imagination. I was too young to understand. Too young to see the future. But what I can do is recall to you the moments that still linger with me like the sun’s warmth on a summer day.

After a nice meal and some hang time with my cousins and their parents, I sat in front of their television, exhausted by the playful antics we had engaged in through most of the day. I turned on the tv and boom! Rankin/Bass’ The Hobbit was on. Now I was a kid, so I was already inundated with Popeye and Bugs, Woody Woodpecker, and the like, but this! This was a whole new thing whose artwork felt so adult, creepy, and fresh. They spoke funny and had weird names.

The trolls were so unlike the trolls from the kids’ books I was reading at the time. They were big and maliciously vile as they debated on how to cook dwarves. The bulging goblins with rough skin had eyes that were so much crueler than I was used to or even imagined. It was so weird. So wonderful. And then, there were the shining swords that gleamed in the gloom, stabbing and striking down the horrible monsters that threatened them in the dark. And I remember my parents yelling at me that it was time to leave before it was even over. I slowly put on my jacket while running back and forth to say my goodbyes, constantly circling back to the tv, waiting for the battle that was set to occur. I missed much of it as I helped my little sister put on her coat and say goodbye to my cousins again. But when it was done, I went back to catch the end. The Greatest Adventure played on the screen with rolling credits, and it was done. I needed to know what I just saw. I needed to know how it ended. So I bought the paperback through my school’s book drive program.

The other moment, well, I can’t actually remember the moment. But I do remember growing up and watching the 1958 Steve Reeves Hercules with my dad. To this day, Steve Reeves is the only Hercules I accept. That was confirmed with 1959’s Hercules Unchained, which I still enjoy watching from time to time. I even refused to watch the tv series with Kevin Sorbo (Real talk: he will never be my Hercules).

Then there were the Ray Harryhausen films (introduced to me by my mild-mannered dad). Movies where heroes warred with monsters and villainous wizards (I mean sorcerers cause they weren’t wearing any hats) took me all the way to Hyboria and beyond.

And writing this now, I can definitely say that the culmination of the Hobbit, Hercules, and Ray Harryhausen movies developed my comic-book taste. While most (if not all) of my friends were reading Spiderman, Batman, X-men, and Justice League, I was deep into Marvel’s Conan, King Conan, Savage Sword of Conan. And then there was DC’s Warlord, Arion Lord of Atlantis, and Arak Son of Thunder. It was some time before I found out that Marvel’s Conan was actually a literary pulp hero from the ’30s. Then, I saw a copy of Frank Frazetta’s cover for Conan the Conqueror. And another door was opened to me. I was immediately enthralled with the mad glory painted in bold colors of that heart-pounding tableau. Thus began my journey into Sword and Sorcery literature. Subsequently, it was the same time I discovered Lovecraft with my first reading of The Doom That Came to Sarnath with the Michael Whelan covers. Yes, the cover took me into a spiral that I am happy to say I have never recovered from. I still remember the indescribable chill mixed with awe and delight at the short tales: What the Moon Brings, From Beyond, The Cats of Ulthar(probably answering the question of why I am a cat person), and The Doom That Came to Sarnath. Both made such an impression that I devoured anything and everything I could about Sword and Sorcery and Cosmic Horror, from comics to books and movies.

I began to slide off the genres in college due to their lack of or distasteful representation of black characters. Women of the Lost Vale and Solomon Kane pinched a nerve in me. In college, I studied more African and African-American. And while in film school, I noticed the scarcity of Black characters in cinema—before and after the Blaxploitation area—which drove me into a rage-fueled funk. Then in the early 2000’s, I found one author that invigorated me and two others that would encourage me to more extraordinary endeavors.

While surfing the web, I was looking into Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (I remember seeing their characters in D&D’s Deity’s and Demigods) on a now-defunct dodgenet.com website. Dale E. Rippke(who now has a podcast: The Dark Crusade: A Karl E. Wagner Podcast) ran it, and it was called Heroes of Dark Fantasy. And boom! There he was! Imaro in bold color! I had never known such a thing existed. It was published in the eighties, and I never even came across it in bookstores or libraries. Imaro, created by Charles R. Saunders, was/is a response to… wait for it, Tarzan. Yes. Tarzan. Yet he wrote a Sword and Sorcery character to rival the likes of Conan, Brak the Barbarian, and Hercules in all their power and barbaric fury. And how can I mention Imaro without giving a shout-out to the world of Nyumbani? A world created by Charles Saunders out of the history and culture coming out of ancient Africa. That’s right, Africa the continent, not the imaged country of previous fantasy and pulp authors. This Africa, Nyumbani, was the culmination of years of research and discovery.

From there, I created a world and heroes to inhabit it. I was so focused that a new universe sprouted from my imagination. A place where both heroes and villains fought in exciting conflicts with monsters and gods. My exposure to African—and Middle Eastern—ancient history seasoned my fantasies to breathe life into this brave new world I was giving birth to. And in my journey to develop the craft of writing for my world and heroes, I met Milton Davis and P. Djeli Clark. Though they started their writer’s journey much earlier than me, they both were fans of the same Sword, sorcery, and Weird horror I was endeavoring to be a part of.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to meet Milton Davis. We first corresponded with each other online and met during my trip to Atlanta, Georgia. So, it was during my off-time performing from a software installation/build at a pharmaceutical convention, we linked up and talked about everything under the bright sun of Nyumbani and beyond, including his own desire to create a new world for his imagination. I met P. Djeli Clark online first, discovering we both lived in Brooklyn and are the offspring of Trini (Trinidadian) parents. From there, I quickly arranged a meet-up over beers in Fort Greene at this Biergarten called the Swarte Koln. So here we were limin’ under the awning of a Biergarten on a pleasant summer day, regaling one another with the stories and fantasies we grew up on. And how it flavored out future writing endeavors. And in no small way, enjoying the fact that the love for fantasy, horror, and comic books goes far beyond what the Pop-Culture Machine would have everyone believe. Yes, the African diaspora isn’t just hip-hop, comedic gods, and sports. Remember, in the ’80s and ’90s, no one thought or acted as if this was even the case. It’s not just America, but the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and all over the world. African descended people love the fantastic and are a part of it. This was in the early 2000’s.

Now in 2022, I’m excited to share with you all what those years of learning the craft (still learning, truth be told), reading and critiquing the stories of friends and strangers, and (in no small part) learning from those recent authors who have influenced my voice and imagination.

I hope these stories will deliver the same action-packed adventure, awe, and haunting terror that led me down this road so many years ago. I have created a world that is not only old but still full of the energy and vitality of our own world. Though the stories aren’t related, they take place in a land tied together through history and time as the ancient horrors of The Great Neen hunger for their meat.

The Obanaax

By the time they entered the burial chamber, the two moons, Koi and Kii, had come out to illuminate the valley with a dim glow, doing little to extinguish the darker shadows that seemed so much blacker than would be expected. Wurri was the last to enter but stopped short and turned to face the ruined monuments that had once towered proudly into the sky. Even before the now glorious Xanjarnou Empire held sway over the world, Waata was once a city of bright and tall towers that had now become hills of rubble fallen to time—silent and dead—but not entirely forgotten. All knew that the great Pyramid Tombs of Waata, only a day’s ride from Zouar, were once the monumental homes of the wealthiest and most noteworthy dead. That was, of course, before time and civil strife chewed them up into mounds of stone and dust, with only a few still retaining their arched entrances. But then again, do the dead truly care about the condition of their final resting place? Some would say yes. But certainly not those she now traveled with, hungrily searching to loot the once opulent catacombs.

It didn’t take them long to shovel aside the dirt and debris, finding a vast chamber with arching walls and short, stout stone pillars. Though no one could read the inscriptions adorning its surface, it didn’t matter to the only two who could—education in ancient lore was not their purpose, ancient gold was. And its absence did not go