Dominion

by Nicole Givens Kurtz

  After a while she noticed that there were glowing yellow lights moving around the forest. These glowing lights, she realized, were eyes and not lights. She shivered and clamped her mouth shut. Her heart started to tremble. Was this the answer to her cry for help—these unknown eyes whose owner was likelier to devour than to liberate? And then the yellow eyes strayed away. They kept dancing out of reach, never quite coming close enough to keep her dread alive. It seemed to her that something was keeping the monsters at bay, if monsters the eyes were. Or the something was the monster and eyes the redeemer keeping other predators at bay. Tied up as she was, she found it difficult to focus on anything. The pain of the ropes around her and the sheer exhaustion of the hike took its toll on her and she dozed off.

  IMADEYUNUAGBON

  Imade reached for the knife she had strapped to her lap. It was the dagger that Morako had given her to protect her from the world, from himself, from all who meant her harm. She could cut herself loose and run. But there was nowhere to escape to. So, she did not even bother cutting herself loose.

  She held the knife to her gut. She breathed in and out several times, her eyes bulged but unseeing, her mind unfocused despite the clarity of the decision she had made. She removed the knife from her throat, held it out as if to give it to a nearby person, took a deep breath. But before she could expel the breath, she returned the knife to her gut and plunged it in. The knife fell from her fingers and her lifeblood flowed freely down her body.

  Her life fled fast as the blood poured from her gut. The universe spun to her quavering eyes. This was it, she thought in a mind that reeled, a morass of images and memory. The end of the last woman, with her child. This was the end to all the steps that evolution had taken to preserve Ife-Iyoku.

  This was for her the finest moment, to triumph over her life and the lives of the race of Ife-Iyoku and all those who had thought to use and triumph over her. This tremulous end was all it took, this disorderly liquidation. Her mind wobbled as her blood filled the ground.

  Then her heart stopped; her head went blank and the last woman in Ife-Iyoku expired.

  ✦✦✦

  The dead woman’s eyes opened. She was in a clearing in a forest but not the forest, still tied to a tree. The place had the surreal feel of somewhere that was, but wasn’t. It was like a dream, but a dream in which she knew she was dreaming. The dagger was not there; the rejected were not there; she was all alone. Then she saw a woman walking to her.

  The woman had not been there before. It was Mama Inkiru. She seemed to have walked through the space behind her, as if there was a doorway, but one she could not see. Mama Inkiru walked towards her; no, Mama Inkiru did not seem to walk, though she was moving. She could not see Mama Inkiru’s steps.

  She felt the blowing of a chilled wind, but Mama Inkiru’s wrapper did not stir in the wind. Mama Inkiru sailed slowly to her, and now she realised why everything had seemed so hazy to her, why the wind had had no effect on her, why she had cast no shadow: Mama Inkiru was dead. Her throat became dry and she could not utter the cry that had formed inside her head. She watched Mama Inkiru as she stood a few steps before her.

  “You killed us Imade,” Mama Inkiru said in a voice more declaratory than accusatory.

  Imade recoiled from her. They appeared to reach beyond the haze that clouded her thoughts. Mama Inkiru lifted her hand and slapped Imade across the face. Imade was too shocked to react to the slap, and before she could respond, Mama Inkiru walked right into her body and disappeared.

  And now she saw several figures she had not noticed all sailing towards her in the same manner as Mama Inkiru, faces bland of expression. The next that came was her friend Sade. There was no recognition on Sade’s face, and she said no words as she approached Imade, gave her a slap and walked right into her as Mama Inkiru had done. Next came Mama Igbinola and did the same as Sade had done. And so continued some other figures, some known intimately to her, others casual acquaintance. But each entrant into her body left her colder, so that when the last of the figures had slapped her and vanished into her body, she was shivering.

  The last in the procession was Ologbon the Weaver. As Imade raised her bowed head to look at her—for she had delayed in her approach than the rest—she trembled more at recognition than from the cold in her body. The Weaver approached her and cupped her trebling cheeks with her palms, and instantly she felt warm, not from the Weaver’s palm but from within. Tears streaked from her eyes.

  The Weaver looked so unlike the other women; she did not have the dull, ashen look of the dead. She smiled warmly at Imade, and when she spoke, her voice was soft but firm. “My daughter,” the Weaver said.

  “I killed them?” Imade asked.

  “Yes,” the Weaver said. “Your actions led to their death. But if you hadn’t done what you did, someone else might have brought about their death as well. Still, you are responsible for what happened. Through you the intruders discovered their hiding place and dealt death on all.”

  Imade slumped. The Weaver caught a droplet of tear running down her eye. It sparkled on her finger before dropping to the ground and being absorbed into the substance of the place.

  “I failed everyone,” Imade muttered.

  “I did not say so.”

  “But I killed them.”

  “You did. But you did not fail.”

  Imade’s mouth moved wordlessly as she struggled to form the thoughts into words. The Weaver answered her unspoken questions.

  “That a thing ends badly does not mean it was bad, or not the required or needed end. And that an end is favourable does not also make it the required or needed end. Things have ended as they are meant to end.”

  Her voice became sad and hardened. “You did what you were bound to do and lived how your spirit led you to live. It is what it is that your life is their death. Life must yield to death, till it refuses, then it is death that must bow to life. You were the harbinger, the centre. You have taken their deaths into yourself, and now you must live for them.”

  She opened her arms. “Step forward daughter and receive your final reward. Step through and beyond the chains of your human coil, into the spirit one and serve finally the purpose for your pain.”

  Imade noticed that the ropes had loosened around her and they parted as she stepped away from the tree. The Weaver clasped her in her arms and kissed her. She closed her eyes in surprise, having braced for a slap.

  The Weaver became a flame and Imade, still closing her eyes, sucked the Weaver into herself. Thus the Weaver’s spirit and the spirits of all the dead women of Ife-Iyoku were absorbed in her. Her eyes were still closed, but she knew she was no longer in the spirit plane where she had but lately encountered the residue of the dead of Ife-Iyoku.

  Imade felt in her the spinning of the machinery of evolution. The sky opened its huge and infinite mouth and began to pour rain to the earth. And in that moment, an Orisha was born in the rain of rejuvenation. And this is how Orishas are born: in moments when the universe loses control of its measured pacing. Only then are beings of immense powers born. The phenomenon birthing each Orisha differs, and that is why all orishas are different. In this new birthing, all of evolution poured into the old being and the butterfly spread its wings, a caterpillar no more.

  Imadeyunuagbon’s eyes finally opened. They glowed fiercely, with power.

  ✦✦✦

  The battle loomed at the boundary between Ife -Iyoku and Igbo Igboya, the people of Ife-Iyoku on the one side and the Mbadiwe on the other side. The hunters of Ife-Iyoku stood with their weapons out. And on the other side of the boundary, the Mbadiwe stood yapping and eager to savage those who had rejected them, and in command was the towering form of the Ooni. The two armies confronted each other. But before they attacked, something alerted the former Ooni and caused him to look back. And as he looked back, he saw a ragged, dirty female figure staggering towards them. Her eyes were wide open, and she was stained with blood and mud and he
r hair was wet from the rain.

  The Ooni looked with profound disbelief. He reached a hand towards her, trying to seize her with his power. But nothing happened. She only smiled at him, her lips curling into a mocking grin. His eyes narrowed in anger and he pointed at her and screamed at his creatures: “Bring her to me!”

  About a dozen of the rejected began to rush at her. The hunters of Ife-Iyoku also charged forward. As both sides sought to recover her, it seemed as if all the powers of evolution and of the material universe coalesced together in her form. Obatala was indeed returned, and he was female.

  She inhaled and pulled at the earth. Sharpened spikes formed of earth and debris and wood tore forth and impaled and blasted the rejected rushing at her. The earth rippled further, throwing them off their feet. The hunters of Ife-Iyoku were too far away to suffer similar fate.

  Two of the rejected made it through the blast and advanced with dogged determination. They were almost on her now. Imade glanced at them and pulled again; water and fire. Water from the air, a spear of ice. The icicle took the first Mbadiwe in the chest, tearing out his heart. She kept pulling. The other Mbadiwe was almost face to face with her now. She pulled the heat from the sun, guiding it and moulding it with her fist. A ball of fire that blew outward, consuming the second Mbadiwe. It rushed past her in flames, screaming until the flames consumed it, its screams blown away with the ashes.

  She took a step towards the remaining Mbadiwe. They turned and fled, running sideways from her and from the hunters of Ife-Iyoku. They vanished into the forest. The Ooni watched in anger as they departed. He shot a look of pure hatred at Imade before he joined his fleeing servants. Some of the hunters wanted to chase after them, but Imade walked to the lead hunter and signalled him to call them off.

  “Nature will deal with them,” she said. “Nature is a woman now. And she will not let leave loose ends.”

  “Would you like to return to the village now?” the lead hunter asked. “Morako,” she

  replied. “Take me to Morako.”

  MORAKO

  Imade stood tremulous. This was her first cause of disquiet since her transformation. She beheld Morako hanging from the mango tree in their favourite hangout spot. It was the very mango tree under which they had made love many times. Several villagers stood behind her to witness the scene and her reaction. The headhunter was beside her and other chiefs were chattering. Words like “taboo” drifted to her ears.

  She raised her hand and the lot fell silent. She pulled fire from the sun. The rope caught fire and snapped. The body crashed to the ground. She walked to it. It was cold, although it had not been long dead. She held its throat. She healed and pulled. Heat went into him. His heart began to beat. A gurgling sound came from his throat, a sound of agony, as of one dying, struggling to breathe. Some of the villagers wailed in fright, some ran from her, some moved closer. She ignored them all. She pulled more intensely, and it seemed as if the air passed through him. His windpipe repaired itself and caught the breath, his brain cells were regenerated. And his eyes opened.

  ✦✦✦

  Imade stood with Morako. She did not tell him what she had done. She did not tell him how she had woken him with her power. The blood on her was not hers even though it came from her. She did not tell him how she had snuffed the life of her unborn child, ripping it from her womb, the blood running down her legs as she made her way to confront the rejected. She did not tell him what she felt about any of all this. He had not told her before he put the child in her, so she did not tell him when she removed it.

  She only said to him: “I did not bring you back so I would be with you. What has happened cannot be undone. I brought you back because you did not deserve death, either as punishment or reward. You will live with what you have done. That is fitting.”

  He nodded, looking at her eyes. He understood her and accepted her pronouncement. They walked to the village town hall where everybody was gathered. She addressed them and told them she would be leaving the village. The village of Ife-Iyoku was no place for her any longer.

  When she finished talking, one of the elders asked, “What of Ife-Iyoku and our sacred charge to survive? You are our last woman.”

  She was silent until the silence became uncomfortable. Then she said, “Ife-Iyoku will be open to the world again. You will have a way to go out. The radiation and corruption will be dealt with. You shall meet women of other races and use them to fulfil your purposes of procreation and survival, if they so wish to be used. But I will not be used for that, anymore. I am Imadeyunuagbon. I will not fall to the expectations of the world.”

  She turned and walked away as the heavens opened and the deluge of change poured forth.

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  JOSHUA OMENGA (Line Editor) is an editor and writer of literary fiction. He is a practicing attorney who divides his time between the legal and the literary professions. He can be contacted via the following media: Email: joshuaomenga@gmail.com; Blogs: www.joshuaomenga.wordpress.com; www.lexgius.wordpress.com; Facebook: /JoshuaOmenga; LinkedIn: /joshua-omenga.

  ZELDA KNIGHT (Publisher & Editor-in-Chief) writes speculative romance (horror, science fiction, and fantasy). She’s also a cryptozoologist in training. Under the pen name Odyssey Rose, Zelda explores science fiction romance. She pens LGBTQIA+ speculative romance using the pen name Iris Sword. Keep in touch on social media @AuthorZKnight. Or, visit www.zeldaknight.com. You can also email zelda@zeldaknight.com.

  EKPEKI OGHENECHOVWE DONALD (“Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon”) is a Nigerian writer and editor. He has been awarded an honourable mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, twice. His short story “The Witching Hour,” made the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List and won the Nommo award for Best Short Story by an African. He has been published in Selene Quarterly, Strange Horizons, Tor, and other venues, and has works forthcoming in several journals, magazines, and anthologies. He has guest edited and co-edited several publications, including Selene Quarterly, Invictus Quarterly, and the Dominion Anthology.

  He is a member of the African Speculative Fiction Society, Codex, the Horror Writers of America, the British Science Fiction Association, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

  You can find him on Twitter at @penprince_NSA and on his website https:// www.ekpeki.com

  Twitter: @AureliaLeoCo • Facebook: /AureliaLeoCo • www.aurelialeo.com

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  TANANARIVE DUE (Foreword) is an American Book Award winner who teaches Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. Her website is at www.tananarivedue.com.

  NICOLE GIVENS KURTZ (“Trickin’”)’s short stories have appeared in over 30 an-thologies of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels have been finalists for the EPPIEs, Dream Realm, and Fresh Voices in science fiction awards. Her work has appeared in Stoker Finalist, Sycorax’s Daughters, and in such professional anthologies as Baen’s Straight Outta Tombstone and Onyx Path’s The Endless Ages Anthology. Visit Nicole’s other worlds online at Other Worlds Pulp, www.nicolegivenskurtz.net.

  DILMAN DILA (“Red_Bati”) is a writer, filmmaker, and author of a critically ac-claimed collection of short stories, A Killing in the Sun. His works have been listed in several prestigious prizes, including a nomination for the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards (2019), a long list for BBC International Radio Play-writing Competition (2014), and a short list for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2013). Dila’s short fiction and non-fiction writings have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including Uncanny Magazine, A World of Horror, AfroSF v3, and the Apex Book of World SF 4. His films have won many awards in major festi-vals on the African continent.

  EUGEN BACON (“A Maji Maji Chronicle”) is a computer scientist mentally re-engineered into creative writing. Her work has won, been shortlisted, longlisted or commended in national and international awards, including the Bridport Prize, Copyright Agency Prize, L. Ron
Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest and Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards. Eugen is a recipient of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Emerging Writer-in-Residence 2020. Publications: Claiming T-Mo, Meerkat Press. Writing Speculative Fiction, Macmillan. In 2020: A Pining, Meerkat Press. Black Moon, IFWG. Inside the Dreaming, Newcon Press.

  NUZO ONOH (“The Unclean”) is a Nigerian/British writer of African Horror. She holds a Law Degree and a master’s degree in Writing, both from The University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Dubbed “The Queen of African Horror” by fans and media, Nuzo has featured on multiple media platforms as well as delivered talks on African Horror at numerous venues, including Libraries, the Warwick University Law Society and the prestigious Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, London. To date she’s the only African Horror writer to have featured in Starburst Magazine, the world’s longest-running magazine of cult entertainment. Nuzo is included in the reference book, “80 Black Women in Horror” and her writing has featured in multiple anthologies. Her short story, GUARDIANS, which won second place in the Nose-touch Press contest and featured in THE ASTERISK ANTHOLOGY: VOLUME 2, is arguably the first African Cosmic horror story published. She lives in Coventry with her cat, Tinkerbell.

  MARIAN DENISE MOORE (“Emily” & “A Mastery of German”) converted a childhood love of science into a career in computing analysis. Her love of literature led her to writing both poetry and fiction. Her poems have been published in periodicals ranging from Bridges to Asimov’s SF. Her fiction has appeared in the anthology “Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic” and the online journal, rigorous-mag.com. While Marian did some writing while attending LSU-BR, she began to first sharpen her skills in George Alec Effinger’s UNO workshop and then in NOMMO Literary Society, led by the New Orleans writer and activist Kalamu ya Salaam. Her book of poetry, Louisiana Midrash, was published by UNO Press/ Runagate in January 2019.