Nyumbani Tales

by Charles R. Saunders

  “Finally exhausted, I, too, dropped out of the sky, coming to earth near your Spirit Grove, where Ekupanin’s father found me near death in my human form. And I have lived here, practicing my true calling and hoping Mungu’s Spear truly slew my sister. For I knew that if she survived, she would seek me out; no matter how many marches she had to travel, no matter how many rains washed through her life.

  “If she lived, Ishigbi would find me ... and she has! The knife-that-strikes-from-afar ... the blood-that-is-not-seen ... it is mchawi. I know it well. It is Ishigbi.

  “And now I will be banished from Aduwura, as I was from the Gikuyu and the lepers and the mganga, because of what I am, and what I have now brought among you.”

  Kipchoge fell silent then. And among them, his wife, his son, his chieftain and his colleague could not muster a single word.

  ISHIGBI GLIDED LIKE a ghost toward the unwalled city. Behind her marched an army of shadows, streaming from the Spirit Grove like a horde of hyenas on the track of wounded prey. The shadows were her servants. Her will was their will. She dispatched thoughts into their death-dimmed minds, directing their movements as a commander directs troops. At her bidding, the shadows surrounded the city in a dark circle.

  No longer did Aduwura pulse with the excitement of the Yam Festival. News of Kipchoge’s sudden collapse had spread swiftly among the revelers. Sobered by the healer’s misfortune, a sizable crowd stood in silent vigil near the abosonnan.

  The three sentries who guarded the road into Aduwura were also preoccupied with Kipchoge’s condition. None of them noticed the hunched shapes creeping stealthily toward them. Only when lithe, powerful figures suddenly sprang upon them did the sentries become aware of the doom about to be unleashed on Aduwura.

  Ishigbi’s lips twisted in a smile of anticipation.

  The Ancestors of Aduwura walked.

  And Odomankoma remained silent.

  SALIFAH WAS THE FIRST to speak after Kipchoge ended his grim narration.

  “Cast you out?” she cried, cradling his thin body in her arms. “Never! Not while I live and have name. I will slay this Ishigbi myself if she seeks to harm you!”

  “And I also, Old One,” said Adjei, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Kofi the diviner turned to Ekupanin.

  “This could well become dangerous for us, my akuapem,” he said in a low voice. “Suppose this sister of Kipchoge’s decides to strike at us, too? What do we do then?”

  Before Ekupanin could reply, a scream of terror tore through the night, followed immediately by a chorus of similar cries. Kofi and Ekupanin rushed to the doorway of the abosonnan. Adjei was about to follow. Then he remembered his father. Once again, Kipchoge had struggled to a sitting position.

  “Help me up,” he ordered Adjei and Salifah.

  “But you’re sick,” Old One,” Adjei protested. “You’re still too weak to ...”

  At the expression that crossed his father’s face then, Adjei bowed his head and, along with his mother, lifted Kipchoge to his feet. Together, they helped him to the doorway. What they saw outside the shrine caused even the battle-hardened Adjei to shudder in dread.

  Horror had invaded Aduwura ... horror in the form of leaping, rending monstrosities rendered all the more ghastly by their unmistakable resemblance to humankind. So swiftly did they move that their appearance was revealed only for fleeting seconds – yet those moments were more than sufficient to unravel the courage of even the boldest.

  The invaders were man-sized, but went on all fours. Their smooth, naked skin was slate-gray in hue, as were the tangles of hair sprouting from their sloping skulls. Beast-like talons tipped their fingers, and dog-like snouts jutted from faces otherwise human in configuration.

  The creatures swarmed over the people of Aduwura. Blood fountained from slashed throats, spattering against the white clay walls of the houses. Hearts were torn from chests pierced by iron-hard talons. Limbs and heads tumbled through the air like rotten, dripping fruit ...

  By now, the celebrating Akan had been transformed into a shrieking, terror-mad mob. Most were pulled down from behind by the rampaging beast-things. Others, who had retained their weapons even on a night of revelry, hacked and stabbed at their snouted tormenters, opening great, gaping wounds from which no blood flowed. Like a flood at the height of the wet season, the melee swirled around the abosonnan.

  “Look after the Old One, Mother,” Adjei said as he released his grip on his father’s shoulder.

  Before Salifah could protest, Adjei unsheathed his sword and plunged into a knot of beast-things attacking a group of desperately battling Akan. Adjei’s sword decapitated one of the monstrosities. Two others leaped on him, but his armor thwarted their fangs and claws. Heartened by Adjei’s courage, other armed Akan clustered around him. Together, they began to take a toll on the gray creatures, thought the invaders seemed impossible to kill.

  “Maybe they can hold these things off,” said Kofi.

  “No, old friend,” said Kipchoge. “These are tuyobene – living dead. They are the spirits of your ancestors, given shape and purpose by the mchawi of Ishigbi.”

  “Those ... are ... my ... ancestors?” Kofi choked.

  “She has warped them to her own ends, Kofi,” said Kipchoge. “They do not know what they are doing. My son and the others are brave. But they cannot kill the tuyobene, for the tuyobene are already dead.”

  “You brought this upon us!” snarled Ekupanin, bitterness overcoming his fear. “It is you your sister seeks, not us. Where is your healing now, outlander?”

  “How dare you?” Salifah hissed between clenched teeth.

  Before she could further berate her nephew, Kipchoge spoke.

  “Only mchawi can offset mchawi,” he said. “And there is still mchawi left in me. Even after all these rains, I can feel it. I am still a mganga. Ekupanin: will you denounce me, or be the akuapem? I will try to stop the tuyobene. You must get all your people out of the city.”

  Turning from Ekupanin, Kipchoge looked at Salifah.

  “When I came to Aduwura, I made a vow to Mungu never again to make use of mchawi,” he said. “If I use it now, I will never again be able to heal.”

  “Do it,” said Salifah. “You will still be the same man.”

  “It’s too late, healer!” cried Kofi. “They are coming for us now!”

  Half-a-dozen tuyobene, their muzzles dripping Akan blood, loped with appalling swiftness toward the abosonnan. Salifah screamed and tightened her arms around her husband’s waist. Both Kofi and Ekupanin raised their arms in futile gestures of self-defense.

  Kipchoge swung his arm in a slashing motion. It was as though he had materialized a taut, unseen wire in front of the tuyobene: they halted in mid-leap and tumbled to the ground.

  Now Kipchoge stood straight and steady, his pain and fear forgotten. The old, dark ecstasy of the stirring of his mchawi warred with his deep loathing of that joy. He thrust the loathing aside.

  Again, his arms slashed the air, this time in a raising motion. And he spoke a word of command that echoed over the cries of the beleaguered Akan.

  The tuyobene halted their attacks ... and suddenly rose several feet from the ground, where they dangled like fish caught on a line.

  “Run! Now!” Kipchoge shouted. He shoved Salifah toward Ekupanin, who reflexively grasped her in his arms.

  “Go! All of you!” he cried. “There is nothing more you can do here! But do not run toward the river!”

  “Yes, run!” Ekupanin echoed. “Do as he says ... now!”

  The authority conveyed in the akuapem’s voice galvanized the Akan. Almost as one, they fled the blood-splotched streets, carrying the wounded with them and leaving the dead behind.

  Adjei was not among those who fled. He lay facing the sky, his throat opened by the fangs of a tuyobene.

  Salifah fought savagely in the grasp of her nephew as he bore her away from the carnage.

  “Kipchoge, Kipchoge, I cannot leave you!” she wail
ed.

  But Ekupanin would not let her go.

  Kipchoge did not hear her. He knew the tuyobene would not long be forestalled by his spell ... not against power such as Ishigbi’s. Within moments, she would free them from their bonds and they would course like hounds through the bush, hunting down the fleeing Akan.

  However, Kipchoge had never intended to wrest control of the tuyobene from Ishigbi. His mouth opened. His tongue flicked across the roof of his mouth. His voice emerged in a chant that sounded as though it were being spoken underwater:

  “Lolololololololololololololololo...”

  Through the quiet that suddenly enveloped Aduwura, the answer to Kipchoge’s summoning came. Loud splashing from the river ... thunderous bellows louder than the roar of a lion ... the crash of heavy bodies moving swiftly through the bush ... Kipchoge knew then that his mchawi had been successful. He re-entered the abosonnan just as the tuyobene were released from his binding.

  Then the first of the crocodiles entered Aduwura. Like a scaly green tide, the giant reptiles attacked the tuyobene. Huge jaws closed on writhing gray forms, tearing them in half. Silently, the tuyobene fought back, fastening their doglike fangs on the throats of the crocodiles and rending scale-armored hides with their razor-sharp claws. The dead of Aduwura were trampled into the mire as the supernatural battled mindlessly against the untamed.

  One of the tuyobene detached itself from the maelstrom and rushed toward the abosonnan. As it approached the shrine, the creature rose to its hind legs. Then it wavered, changed, stretched until the lean form of Ishigbi stood naked in the firelight. Mchawi radiated from her skin in a faint nimbus. Neither crocodile nor tuyobene dared to approach her.

  “Brother!” she shouted stridently. “Do you think to hide in the shrine of these people’s puny gods? Come out and face me, or I will burn you, and your gods with you! I will burn you with Mungu’s Spear, as you once burned me!”

  Kipchoge emerged from the abosonnan. In his hands, he carried the images of Mawu-Lesa, still linked by the long, wooden chain.

  “Sister, it was Mungu who hurled his spear at you, not I,” he said calmly. “And my mchawi is still alive in me, for all that I have denied it. I have called the crocodiles to put an end to your tuyobene.”

  “As I will put an end to you!” Ishigbi snarled.

  “For the sake of vengeance, you have corrupted the souls of a people’s ancestors,” Kipchoge said, anger showing for the first time. “My people! No mganga, not even Kambui, would have committed so heinous a crime. Sister, you have finally taught me the meaning of hate ...”

  “Worth it, worth it to see your suffering ... and your end!”

  Then she dropped to all fours, and became a lioness. Like a tawny tongue of flame, she launched herself at Kipchoge’s throat. Yet with a swiftness belying his age, Kipchoge sidestepped the lioness’ leap and looped the chained god-images around her throat. But he was unable to maintain his grip. She landed a few paces away from him.

  Kipchoge rose. Before he could move further, the lioness caught him across his ribs with a swipe of her paw. Bones broke; Kipchoge fell. Yet no outcry of pain escaped his lips, even as the lioness opened his belly with another slash of her claws. Her jaws gaped wide, poised to drive gleaming fangs into Kipchoge’s face. Kipchoge smiled ...

  Suddenly, the lioness screeched in pain. She rolled frantically along the ground, clawing vainly at the Mawu-Lesa imaged looped around her throat. For a fleeting moment, her shape altered: limbs lengthening, head shifting to quasi-human form. Then the abortive transformation faded, and it was the face of a lioness glared in feral hatred at the smiling face of Kipchoge.

  “Sister, have you not guessed what I’ve done?” he said.

  With one hand, he pulled aside his slashed garments. At the center of his chest was a wound that had not been inflicted by the lioness.

  “Sister, I am already dead,” he said. “In the shrine, I bled my soul into Mawu-Lesa. Their power is bound to me. This body is only a husk; it serves me as the tuyobene serve you. Do you feel Mawu-Lesa destroying you, Ishigbi? Are the gods of the Akan still ‘puny’?”

  Then the body of Kipchoge collapsed: eyes closed, lips still smiling. The lioness writhed and mewled, her struggles growing progressively weaker. And around them, the crocodiles and tuyobene warred savagely for possession of a city of the dead ...

  WHEN THE SURVIVORS of Aduwura reached the garrison of the Ashonti soldiers, few believed their garbled tales of terror. But when the akuapem and diviner both confirmed the gruesome account, the commander of the soldiers decided to send a hundred armsmen to free Aduwura from the grasp of Ishigbi’s creatures. Of those who had fled Aduwura, only Ekupanin, Kofi and Salifah ventured to accompany the troops.

  The sun rode high in the sky when the group arrived in Aduwura. Cautiously, spears upraised behind the protection of metal shields, the Ashonti soldiers advanced into the city.

  They found no life in Aduwura other than the crocodiles that retreated sullenly before the soldiers’ spears, and the carrion-flies that infested dismembered corpses ... or what was left of them after the crocodiles had finished with them. Of the tuyobene, there was no sign.

  Near the abosonnan, the searchers found two bodies strangely undisturbed by crocodiles or flies. One was Kipchoge. A serene smile was fixed on his stiffened face. The other was a naked woman of an age with the healer. Despite the grimace of pain and the burn-scars that distorted the woman’s features, the resemblance between her and Kipchoge was unmistakable.

  The twin images of Mawu-Lesa lay near the woman. Part of the broken chain between the statues was looped around the woman’s neck.

  At the sight of Kipchoge’s corpse, Salifah tore the front of her garment and fell howling to her knees. Ekupanin, Kofi and the commander of the soldiers conferred in hushed tones. Shaken though they were, they yet agreed swiftly upon the things that needed to be done. The commander spoke to his troops ...

  They dragged the mourning Salifah away from her husband. Later, she would die of grief. They recovered the Washer-of-Souls from the abosonnan. The object was still sacred, even though the Mawu-Lesa carvings were now profaned. They placed the Mawu-Lesa images in the abosonnan, along with the bodies of Kipchoge and Ishigbi. They razed the shrine, leaving only a pile of rubble, which they set on fire.

  Then they tore down the houses of Aduwura, and burned them as well. Never again would the Yam Festival be celebrated there. Never again would Kwomo’s drum-poems be heard, for Kwomo was dead. They speared the crocodiles. They burned the Spirit Grove and slew the dik-diks, for they were defiled, and therefore cursed.

  The Ancestors of Aduwura slept beneath charred, smoking stumps. Never again would they be disturbed; never again would they be brought to eldritch life.

  And silently, Odomankoma accepted his due.

  THE SILENT GHOSTS

  A SONG INSPIRED THIS novelette – “Pirate Jenny,” as performed by the late, legendary Nina Simone. The song told the story of a chambermaid toiling in a “crummy hotel,” sullenly enduring her condescending bosses’ admonitions to “earn your keep here.” The maid, who’s “counting their heads as she’s making the beds,” ultimately gains vengeance in spectacular fashion. Although the plot and characters of “The Silent Ghosts” do not much parallel those of “Pirate Jenny,” the way Simone sang the song planted the seed for this tale, which draws more on my imagination than any specific African legends or folktales. It first appeared in Space and Time in 1982.

  The broad Zaikumbe River flowed slow and sluggish, as if stupefied by the heat of the Nyumbani sun. Narrow, muddy banks flanked the murky brown stream. Huge trees with twisted roots lined the banks like votaries at the temple of a river-god. Other than the occasional splash of bright-scaled fish at the river’s surface, silence hung like an unseen shroud over the Zaikumbe.

  Along the banks, the only other signs of life were large butterflies and a small antelope that darted from the trees to drink furtively at the river. After a pars
imonious sip or two, the antelope returned to the trees as if fearful to linger at the river ...

  A peal of child-like laughter broke the silence of the Zaikumbe. From the trees lining the north bank, a young woman emerged, tugging at a golden chain attached to something still hidden between thick, twisted boles.

  Zuriye was not much older than sixteen rains. Her ebony skin shone with perspiration; her only garments were a tightly wrapped turban of silver cloth and gossamer trousers loosely caressing her long legs. Rows of silver bracelets clinked along both arms, and silver-colored paint coated her lips, eyelids and the tips of her bare breasts.

  With a final, determined tug, Zuriye hauled the creature on the other end of the chain from its hiding-place. Frightened, the animal scurried to the side of its mistress, who now knelt with one hand outstretched. Approximately the size of a small dog, the young woman’s pet was a chevrotain: a deer-like creature with tiny, cloven hoofs, a hunched, russet-haired body speckled with white, and tiny fangs protruding from its delicately pointed snout.

  “Do not be frightened, Siki,” Zuriye soothed as a mischievous smile curved her full lips. “Bambullah will be so angry with me for straying this far straying this far from the encampment! He will never harm you, though, Siki. He knows I love you. I will protect you ... from the butterflies that float so dangerously above this river!”

  Neither soft words nor light stroking reassured the chevrotain. Its senses, dimmed though they were through domestication, detected ophidian eyes staring from a tree-branch hanging low over their heads ...

  The snake coiled tautly on the branch, its dark-brown scales and octagonal markings identifying it as a jaculi. More venomous than a mamba or spitting cobra, the jaculi waited silently, no telltale rattle or hisses betraying its presence.

  The wedge-shaped head moved minutely, aiming at the precise center of Zuriye’s back. Its muscles tensed for the strike. At the moment its serpent brain decided was correct, the jaculi uncoiled with the speed and force of an arrow shot from a strong warrior’s bow.