The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2021)

by Oghenechovwe Ekpeki

  Outside, the villagers all headed north, families striding together or trotting on horses, some with eyes yet bordered by sleep vestiges. It was still early dawn, the kind with the cleanest air, before the poised harmattan dusts would begin swirling. I meandered between horses, half-hoping no good-natured faithful would offer to transport me. I dodged faces, focused on the flanks of horses.

  Close to the Okhahs’, I saw Nata, Esohe’s father, riding his old mule. I quickly dropped my eyes. If I looked straight up, I was sure to find his eyes piercing me—the girl who was luring his daughter away from the divine tenets. (If I too had a father, he would have thought same of Esohe.) Yet, I was relieved knowing I wouldn’t be encountering him at the house and enduring the monologue of how errant today’s youngsters had become.

  Esohe was a morning sleeper who had seen the first white clouds fewer times than a cock had crouched to pee. I whistled at her window, loud enough to eclipse the shrill of the larks and penetrate the cedary window. Footsteps loomed from the other side of the cabin. She emerged, holding a chewing stick and cup, dressed in her cottony cloak.

  “I thought you said you’d be going to the temple,” she said.

  “Mudia had to take the horse.”

  Seeing Esohe dressed on a Sabbath morning was rare. But I did not want to make a fuss of it, especially since she was already acting like it was a habit.

  “You’re going to worship?”

  “It’s been a long time,” she said.

  “We’ll ride together then.”

  “You can ride her alone.” She gestured at her mare in the shack, whose neck was stretched up toward the teasing leaves of a crooked coconut tree. “I’ll go on foot.”

  “Foot?”

  “You’ll be faster riding alone.” She laced and unlaced her fingers. “It’s already late.”

  She started to say something but stopped. She was fumbling for words; it was not hard to see.

  “You dressed up to deceive your father,” I said. “You have no intentions of going to the temple.”

  The contrived cheer from her face waned out. She knew I could perceive that something was off. We’d done things together for eons.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” she said. “I’ve made plans to visit the sanctum today. Now is the best time, it’s first Sabbath, the sanctum will be empty.”

  Visit. That was our codeword, but we visited only at nights.

  Before she said it, I had sensed it. Lately, she had been rambling about the sanctum of the Order of Zephyrs; would poke it in the face of an unrelated discussion. I had been waiting for her to build the courage to voice it, only I never expected she’d schedule a visit to the sanctum on a Sabbath. But thinking about it now, no other day than today could be better.

  “What if we have the same intentions?” I leaned against the hardwood wall of the cabin.

  “I’m going to the sanctum to seek more knowledge of the pantheons. You’re least interested in that.” She began walking toward her horse’s shack. “We could ride together. You’ll dismount at the temple.” She untethered the mare.

  I was tempted to burst out, shout at her, hit her on the head and remind her of how she’d be useless without me. Esohe was a deft thief, but without me, she wouldn’t last a heartbeat before being seized by one of the sentries. “I know the inner sanctum of the Zepyrs is adorned with gold. If you dare to steal alone, I guarantee you’ll be seated in the prisons by dusk.”

  “I have no intentions of looting!” She was frowning at me. “I never knew the sanctum has gold.”

  I decided to return home. I rose without sparing her a look.

  After I’d walked a short distance, her voice sprang forth behind me. “Alright, Obehi, please come back, we go together.”

  I was still chafed that she could think of venturing without me, and I made sure she saw it on my face.

  “You’ve thought about this?” I asked. “What’s your plan? How do we get past the lock?”

  She reached into her boot and slipped out a roped key. “I’m a thief.” She smiled. “We enter, grab, and dash out.”

  The Order of Zephyrs were our link to the gods. They were the closest to the gods. Stealing from them might have divine consequences.

  Esohe must have sensed my thoughts, because she said, “The Order do not care a tad about gold.”

  She was the most avid and informed pantheon scholar I knew of; spent most of the night fixed on her papers. If she affirmed that the Order couldn’t care less about gold, robbing them was a reasonable risk. A handful of such pure nuggets could make a person rich enough to say no to an extra penny for the next ten years.

  * * *

  The streets were almost empty, with a few youngsters loitering and some senile faithfuls slowly riding their old horses to the temple. I imagined some of these faithfuls grimacing at us. Esohe didn’t have the best reputation in the village. “Money thief,” some persons have named her, and of course, some of the reputation must be rubbing off on me, but having a marred reputation was better than being a penniless saint hounded by the tax collectors.

  I’d known Esohe since before we could walk, from those evenings when children convened in circles at the moonlit square to listen to folktales. She was a story lover, especially those stories related to the pantheons, the Order of Zephyrs, or pilgrimages to the Sahara, but she was also a known irritating pedant; even as a child, she intruded in the storytelling to uncourteously correct any factual flaw in the tale. She had grown to be a savant in matters of the pantheons—which might have made her overfamiliar enough with the gods to breed a little impiety—and would have been a great story weaver, but no parent would allow their child sit near a notoriety like her.

  We slowed to a walk when riding past the temple to avoid causing a distraction (doing that would be giving the guards a reason to stop us and ask questions), and we heard the faint mumblings of the faithful villagers. The early sun spilled over the dome of the enormous temple, whose spire glistened softly.

  We trotted into the third quarter of the village, so empty and quiet it hummed; clean streets and green air, perfect alleys between uniformly separated buildings: the relics store, cabins inhabited by the households of the sanctum keepers, temple marshals, holy faithfuls who had never missed a prayer in their lifetime. We trotted past the village court, hedged by towering squirrel-nested trees rustling in the gentle breeze. The air became serener as we approached the sanctum, its dome gleaming like varnished porcelain. As we rode nearer, my chest tightened, and I willfully shoved away the fear, but I kept my ears open for the slightest uncharacteristic noise. Esohe, as always, continued riding resolutely, and I comforted myself with some of her boldness.

  We stopped, tethered the mare to a nearby palm tree, and scanned around us. When certain no eyes were on us, we circled the sanctum to arrive at its entrance. Esohe fetched the key from her boot and slotted it into the lock, pushed the door open to an unending line of downward-sloping stairs. Any attempt to peer to its end and I might topple over. We climbed down side by side, the air growing damper and dimmer with every step, my legs growing wearier. Faint echoes of our steps began to reverberate from the round walls.

  Hung on the walls were stingy lanterns that shed their light on a small sphere, barely illuminating the etched glyphs on the wall. After the stairs was an underlit narrow passageway, with sidewalls lined with alcoves that contained reliquaries. Stealing relics would be unwise, as an attempt to sell them could raise suspicion, and they weren’t even gold. The gold adornments, I supposed, were in the innermost sanctum. I remained expectant as we journeyed the passageway. We might be a hundred feet below the surface.

  “Where is the gold?” Esohe asked when we were out of the passageway into a less sweaty space. In the encompassing quiet, I heard faint steps shuffling from behind. I froze. The steps didn’t continue, but it wasn’t a trick of the ears. I waited for a voice, closed my eyes, tried to breathe, waited for the next steps. The quiet lingered and the steps di
dn’t come. I turned to look.

  It was no keeper, no sentry, not anyone I would have guessed in a thousand trials. Standing there was a Zephyr, shrunk like the hind legs of a sickly calf, floury skin clothed with silk, tiny bristly hair on its head. Today was the first Sabbath of the month; all the Zephyrs were supposed to be in the temple. I was engulfed with a different kind of fear. I bowed slightly and was not sure why; reverence or shame.

  With tilted head, the Zephyr looked at us giants, its petite eyes barely reaching our waists. Around the creature’s narrow neck, wrists, and ankles were rings of gold that managed to glitter in the dim. Esohe remained still, staring.

  When trouble comes, don’t give it a chair. The Zephyr probably had not gotten a good look at us; now was the time to dart out. I reached to touch Esohe’s stiff hands. She, too, was staring, entranced, with head tilted as the Zephyr’s.

  “Let’s leave,” I said.

  She remained stiff, not seeming ready to flee. I started to walk past but halted at her voice.

  “We came hoping to see the sacred relics,” she said to the Zephyr. “And to pray,” she added as an afterthought.

  Esohe might be daring enough, but I wasn’t getting hanged with her. “I’m leaving, and you should too.” I strode off, while she remained there.

  I paced back through the passageway, gathered my frock at my waist to hurry up the stairs, and when outside, I continued straight ahead, occasionally looking behind, hoping to see Esohe. The worship would be over soon and the villagers would start pouring out of the temple. I continued walking until hooves and footsteps became audible and I was amid a handful of villagers before I turned and headed for my cabin, still hoping to bump into Esohe.

  Esohe was a sage friend, I had never thought her otherwise, and though I had never deemed her wisdom infallible, I had also never thought it so lowly. Wisdom was also knowing which way to run when pursued by danger. I prayed she had recovered from her hesitation early enough to have hurried out before the keepers returned.

  I didn’t leave the cabin for the remainder of the day, didn’t even head to the drying lake to refill the pails. I lounged on the chair at my porch and studied the face of every passerby, if they bore news of any abominable trespass, the kind so treacherous like a young thief caught in the sanctum on a Sabbath. The haunting ill-defined face of the Zephyr couldn’t leave my mind. The Zephyr was supposed to have been in the temple. Zephyrs were wind lovers, even if the wind shrank them; breathed through their skin so that it became loosened enough that it turned floury. They only came to the surface and gratified their wind lust on first Sabbaths, at the temple. I stayed out on the porch till the orange sun became haloed by its lush shadows, hoping to see Esohe riding toward the cabin.

  Before it became too dark to see, Mudia, my brother, trotted home in coal-stained clothes, holding by the tail a dangling rabbit he had found shackled in its cage. Far behind him was Esohe astride her mare, slowly riding.

  Mudia, after tethering our horse at the yard, headed for the kitchen, howling that he was unbearably hungry and needed to grill the rabbit immediately.

  Esohe had the same mien she bore after every other visit.

  After she came inside the cabin, I said, “You could have landed us in trouble. Perhaps you have already.” I tried not to yell at her. “Where have you been?”

  “The only thing I landed us in is this.” She upturned her goatskin bag, and gold and silvery utensils, bowls, spoons, cups, fell on the floor with a clatter. “I dug more after you left. I never knew of such gold, we should have raided there long ago.”

  I quickly shoved them back into the bag, looking behind to check if Mudia had come into the room. “Where did you find these? How?”

  “I located the dining room. It happens our Zephyrs don’t eat with mere earthenware.”

  “The Zephyr will report you to the keepers.”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, fear not.” She cocked her head. “Aren’t you happy?”

  “I’m worried.”

  “Don’t worry. This is all on me.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m worried about you.”

  She chuckled. “That’s charming, but there’s nothing to worry about. The Zephyr won’t talk, nobody will notice, there’s still a lot in there.”

  “This has to be buried and never unearthed until it’s clear you’re in no danger.”

  She shrugged.

  I reminded myself of the day’s events, her folly, what could have happened, what could still happen. “It’s best we no more visit together,” I said. “I’ve never been this close to death.”

  “Aren’t you curious of what information I got from the Zephyr? We had a long talk.”

  “I’m not.”

  Esohe remained with us for dinner. I couldn’t eat much of the bushmeat. Mudia had rushed the grilling and the meat was too sinewy for my teeth. He and Esohe munched most of it, chewing noisily, and for a moment the usual friction between them seemed to have dissolved (my brother had never liked Esohe and was strongly against our friendship). I gulped the most of the palm wine. After the meal, Mudia staggered to the bed and quickly started snoring.

  Esohe requested I accompany her home.

  We walked alongside, while Esohe held her mare’s rope, leading her. It was already dark and Esohe had begun to ramble some things that made me conclude she was near drunk or sleepy or both. In this possibly drunken state, she was so intent on telling me of what information she learnt from the Zephyr, while my mind drifted to the loot at my cabin, imagining if it was possible for Mudia to awake and stagger to the high shelf where I had placed the bag. Merely seeing the bag could implicate him. Esohe had asked I keep it for the night; she could encounter her ever-suspicious father at home, who might try all means to see what was in the goatskin.

  “Where did you find the sanctum’s dining room?” I asked.

  “I’ll draw you a map tomorrow.”

  After a while, I said, “At least you got gold.”

  “I have no use of gold.”

  “Yes, just the money in it.”

  The streets were thick with flickering fireflies and a bit auburn from the few lambent torches tilted from the walls of stone cottages. Occasionally, we ambled past circles of children playing games that made them lace their ankles against each other’s.

  “Give my share to Mudia.”

  I stopped walking. “You said?”

  “My share, give it to Mudia,” she said, “even if he doesn’t like me.”

  “You— Did you hear yourself? I mean you did all of the work.”

  “I don’t need it. I was honest when I said I never knew the sanctum had gold. If you’d been listening to me, you’d know I have bigger worries than gold.”

  Her words prickled and unsettled me. “What are you saying?”

  For a while, she said nothing, her face solemn. She started to talk but stopped, and for a moment I feared it had something to do with the loot.

  “I am like those of the Order.”

  If she had said this at another moment, I would have indulged her with a feigned laugh. But now, even though she was muttering gibberish, laughing might only worsen things. So I said, “Is that what the Zephyr told you? That you too are a Zephyr?”

  “I went to the sanctum hoping to find a panacea that retarded the shrinking or assuaged the wind lust. I’ve known I’m a Zephyr for some years back. But only recently have I noticed my flesh and bones shrink under the gentle yet irresistible air. The Zephyr at the sanctum said I’ve reached the growth peak. I can now only shrink, and I will only last few weeks if I don’t vacate the surface and come dwell in the deep sanctum with them.”

  The Zephyrs came from the Sahara, sent by the gods to be an intermediary with us humans. I still expected her to burst into a laugh at her facetious joke of being a Zephyr. “You were birthed here. You have lived amongst us your whole life.”

  “Yes, I’m not from the Sahara. Not all possibilities are contained in the parchments. The Zephyrs
come from lands far beyond the Sahara, where they are deemed abnormal and cast away. They find us in search of safe harbor.”

  There was no glimmer of cheer on her face.

  “But you don’t have the gifts of the Zephyrs,” I said. “You can’t foresee the rain, the storm, a good planting season.”

  “Obehi, I know the wind. I feel her, her movements. That’s all required to foretell a good planting season.”

  We were almost at her cabin. “I don’t know what—”

  “You can’t voice this to anyone. Not even Mudia.”

  I nodded, still trying to put my head together, still half-expecting her to break into a chortle at how she caught me. “But you were born here.”

  She nodded and exhaled loudly. I stopped walking and watched her stride to her cabin, leading her mare, and then I saw her silhouette, atrophied, shriveled, clearly noticeable despite her cloak.

  * * *

  That last image of her stayed with me the whole night. I rushed to her cabin the next morning. Nata, her father, was gratingly whetting his carpenter’s knife at the porch and, on seeing me, did not bother to keep straightened brows to hide his resentment.

  “I’ve come to return this.” I showed Esohe’s goatskin. I had buried the gold at my garden before dawn.

  When I entered Esohe’s room, she was still in her smock, pooled on her bed like liquid. Her breasts were almost flattened, no stomach bulge, brown skin already turning clayey. Everyone now would conclude her ill.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I’m neither cold nor sick.” She grinned. “In a different circumstance, you’d be reverencing me. I don’t need the pity.”