Cautiously I went to look at my two pit traps but found to my great disappointment that I had caught nothing. It was while I was staring in disgust at the second trap that I heard a rustling sound behind me. I froze with fright, took a step forward – and, with a savage curse, plunged into my own trap!
The tall, incredibly beautiful apparition of living silver stood looking down at me where I was lying on my back in the pit. A dazzling smile lit her face and she mused gently: ‘Oh my reluctant lover, most stupid and cowardly . . . do you make a habit of digging pit traps to catch yourself?’
‘Aieeee!’ I cried. ‘Go away and leave me alone, you unearthly monster.’
‘You may not be aware of it, but you are equally unearthly, and in this world I have chosen you as my husband. But what an unfortuante bride I am! My new husband goes running like a madman and he even has the habit of setting traps for himself. Shall we now go to your cave and consummate our marriage?’
‘Listen, you unnatural demon, go back to wherever you come from and leave me alone, do you hear? I am not your husband – I have never heard of such nonsense . . .’
‘Now, now, now, who believes in demons? Did you not once tell a fellow slave that gods and demons are nothing but figments of the imagination? As far as you are concerned I do not exist. I am a figment of your imagination . . . is that not so?’
The apparition sat down on the edge of the pit, her feet dangling an arm’s length above my head. ‘Oh my great grandmother, can’t the thing go away . . . vanish like the unearthly phantom it is?’ I thought to myself.
‘No, beloved one,’ it said with a weary smile, ‘I cannot just vanish into thin air. In this world I am too real – and besides, far too much in love with you – simply to vanish and leave you alone.’ I had forgotten that the thing could read my thoughts.
I was determined to stay in the pit to the end of time and the apparition, growing tired of my stubbornness, stood up and went away. I decided to wait till night came, so as to make my escape under the cover of darkness. But towards sunset she returned with a bundle of writhing mambas in her hands and coolly threw them into the pit in which I was still lying.
I do not know how I got out of the pit – all I know is that it was considerably faster than the way I got into it. ‘Let us go home, Oh my husband, there is much that we have to talk about.’
Outside, the night was alive with the sounds of animals of all kinds, from the faraway roar of lions to the lonely hooting of an owl in the tree at the mouth of the cave. Loudest was the croaking of frogs in the marshes on the edge of the lake. In the heavens above the stars shone like so many lost jewels against the dark expanse of the moonless sky. The Fire River, today called the Milky Way, was one broad band of smoky brilliance that stretched from one end of the heavens to the other, and a dethroned star streaked across it as it fell in disgrace.
I was now looking at creation with new eyes, and everything I looked at seemed to have assumed a new beauty – a new freshness. I had been listening to a very strange story: the story of creation – the story of how life came to this earth and the One who was telling me this story was none other than the Creator herself. She told me all about the First People, about Amarava and about Odu. I was feeling very small, a mere speck of living dust in a universe so utterly incredible.
‘Great Mother,’ I said at long last, ‘but what does one so great as you are want with a wretch like myself. I am hardly worthy of the love of a crawling louse.’
‘Lumukanda, eternity is a vast and incredibly lonely Darkness – and even a goddess has to have someone in whom to confide at times, to escape from the futility which human beings have misnamed Life. I grow tired of roaming the Outer Darkness alone – deceived and rejected by my erstwhile spouse, the Tree of Life – a lost leaf in the Tempest of Eternity. I wish to make a comeback to earth and communicate with the human beings I have created. And I wish to do so through you, Lumukanda.’
‘Goddess . . . I am not worthy of the honour!’
‘Who is, Lumukanda, who is? Who in this mad, evil world is worthy of attention from me? None! But I had to choose someone, and that someone happens to be you.’
‘A blood-stained matricide . . . a slayer of his own parent?’
‘Yes, Lumukanda, a blood-stained parent-slayer. Because your deed has opened your eyes to the falsehood called Life – which is nothing but a lie and a failure from birth to death. You have experienced Life as but a horrid nightmare in which only pain, suffering and death are real. I have chosen you because you are one of the few human beings who have seen Life most closely for the useless, futile nothing that it is. I can see in you the kind who will never use anybody or anything to gain domination over fellow mortals – simply because you have grown to hate life and all its useless pleasures, its mock glories, the senseless futility of it all!’
‘Goddess, how can you, who have brought Life on earth speak thus?’
‘Listen Lumukanda, I did not create the Universe and the earth, and life upon it, out of my own free will. I obeyed the order of a Great Master who, for all that even I know, in turn has to obey the orders of an even Greater Master. The heavens conceal more secrets than even I can understand. Even I was told to do as instructed, and ask no questions.’
‘Then what is the purpose of life on earth, Oh Great Goddess? Do I understand there is really none at all?’
‘The only purpose of Life is Death. A man is born and before he dies he gets the opportunity to ensure that others after him will also be born and die. You may deceive yourself by thinking that there is more to life than birth, growth, mating, old age and death. But, sooner or later, Naked Truth makes itself apparent.’
‘Naked Truth – like you, Oh my Goddess?’ I said, in an attempt to change the subject.
‘Look at the race of men whom you call the Strange Ones. See what trouble they went to, in coming to your country, seizing it, enslaving your people and despoiling themselves. What have they gained by it all? All they have gained is a useless toy called wealth – and softer couches on which to mate and die. They do not know it yet, but within a few moons you, Lumukanda, will go back there to lead a horde of savages, like yourself, to raze their plaything empire to the ground. And men born a mere hundred years from now will look in vain for traces of the Great City of the Empire of Karesu and Makira-Kadesi. You will leave no trace of it; turn it into a legend. Even thousands of years hence people must search in vain for the Lost City of Makarikari.
BEHOLD THE DECEIVER
In the Great City of the Strange Ones there had been chaos and bloodshed. Piles of dead bodies choked the narrow streets. Blood had flowed like water as two opposing forces had clashed like wild cats through the shocked city. But now there was peace and jubilation in the land, because the cruel one, the Emperor Karesu had been overthrown and captured in one short bloody revolt by the followers of the Empress Makira-Kadesi.
As night fell the city blazed with lights. The singing and noise rose higher and higher into the jewelled heavens even as the night deepened. Wild celebrations were in progress in the Great Palace and people crowded the gardens and the steps of the palace like flies on a pot of honey. Whenever the victorious witch-queen Kadesi made an appearance in the doorway of the Great House with her harp in her hand and her voice raised, singing their ‘song of victory’, loud cheers split the moonless night
