Jackal, Jackal, page 17
“There she is,” said Priest Mide, looking up. She broke away from the group and marched towards Ashâke, scowling. “Where have you been, acolyte?” She gasped as she took in Ashâke’s appearance.
“Look at your raiment, girl!” Priestess Essan cried, mortified. “What have you been doing, climbing trees?”
Ashâke merely stood at the foot of the stairs, suffering the stern gazes of the priests. She had never been caught sneaking back into the temple, always returning before sunrise. She should feel embarrassed, frightened. She should go on her knees and beg for forgiveness, but she did not care. What respect and fear she had held for the priests was gone, burned away in the fires of revelation. All she needed was the truth.
“Are you deaf, acolyte?” asked Priest Dunsin, jowls aquiver. “Where have you been? We were worried sick, we thought...” He exhaled forcefully, nostrils flaring.
Ashâke looked past him to where the acolytes were gathered in neat rows in the courtyard, cowries strewn across their divination boards as they tried to commune with the gods.
Liars, thought Ashâke. You are all liars!
“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” asked Priestess Mide when Ashâke remained mute.
Acolytes gathered outside a nearby entryway, her peers and juniors, whispering amongst themselves, mocking her.
“Ashâke! I’m talking to you! Are you deaf?”
“You snuck out of the temple.” Priest Dunsin’s jowls quivered as he reprimanded her. This is not your first year here; you know never to leave these walls without a senior priest!”
She hated them, every single one of them for making her feel unworthy, tainted. Deaf.
Ashâke thrust her hands into her pouch and yanked out her divination board in a haze of burning rage. She smashed it to the ground, screaming as it shattered into several pieces.
The priests scattered, their faces masks of shock.
“What has come over you?” Priestess Mide gasped, horrified.
“The gods are dead!” Ashâke screamed.
Shocked silence greeted her words. Even the acolytes stopped whispering.
“What did you say?” croaked Priestess Mide.
“The gods—”
“No, you don’t,” growled Priest Dunsin, seizing her by the arm in a surprisingly powerful grip.
He dragged her out of the courtyard and down the corridor. Ashâke staggered after him, barely able to keep up with his strides. As they turned round the corner, Priestess Essien called out in a saccharine voice, “As you were, acolytes. Continue, continue, nothing to hear...”
Priest Dunsin did not lead her up the stairs, but turned to the right through a winding corridor and then down a flight of stairs.
“Where are you taking me?” She asked.
“Silence, you fool child.” His voice shook with anger. “Don’t you know when to keep silent?”
Past more open courtyards, down more winding corridors. It wasn’t until they stopped before an archway with a curtain of beads that Ashâke realized that Priest Dunsin had brought her to the Inner Sanctum.
To the High Priestess herself.
“Wait here,” he growled, then vanished behind the curtain of beads.
Iyalawo the High Priestess was rarely seen. In the seventeen years Ashâke had spent in the temple she had only ever seen the High Priestess twice. The first time being when she presented Ashâke with her divination board and cowries once she was old enough; the second time when the lifeless body of an acolyte had been discovered just outside the temple. She still remembered how tiny the girl had looked, how empty. The priests and acolytes had been thoroughly shaken, Iyalawo more so. But all through the burial ritual Ashâke had found herself wrestling with a traitorous thought, hating herself for even having it: one less acolyte. Surely the gods will speak to me now.
Priest Dunsin materialized a few moments later. “Go in.”
Ashâke regarded the fury in his eyes, and for the first time doubted herself. She wondered if she hadn’t made a grave mistake by blaspheming in the temple.
But there was nothing to be done now. She was too far down this path.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed past the curtain of beads and entered into the Inner Sanctum.
It was smaller than she imagined. A set of worn stone stairs led down to an oval chamber. A wide stone basin stood upon a pedestal in the centre, sweet-smelling green fumes curling lethargically from it. Massive raffia mats covered the walls like tapestries, with beautiful colourful straw woven into them. Upon closer inspection, Ashâke found that the colourful straw depicted a scene she had seen in the fire not three hours ago.
The Fall of the Gods.
“It is rare,” said a quiet voice behind her, “that an acolyte comes in here knowledgeable of the Fall of the Gods. That usually happens only after I have spoken with them.”
Ashâke turned around in time to see Iyalawo step out of the shadows. She dropped to her knees in deference.
“Rise, child.”
The High Priestess presented a deceptively simple figure. The skin stretched taut over her forehead, pulled back by six stern braids. A simple white raiment draped across her lithe form, with several loops of red coral beads adorning her neck and wrists. But for the white horse-tail scepter in her hand she might have been any other priest.
Her eyes, though...her eyes were old.
The acolytes whispered that Iyalawo was more god than human. And standing here in this dim chamber, and under the scrutiny of those old eyes, Ashâke was inclined to believe them.
“It is true, then,” Ashâke croaked. “The gods are dead.”
“Is that what the griots told you?”
“I—” Ashâke broke off, frowning. She hadn’t told anyone about meeting the griots, not even the priests.
Ashâke had the distinct feeling that the High Priestess could see into her mind, could probe the deepest recesses of her soul. “What do the priests teach you about griots?” she asked.
Ashâke licked her dry lips. “‘Beware the griots,’” she recited. “‘They will embellish for the sake of rhyme, warp to keep in time.’ But it’s all on the walls!” She gestured wildly at the hanging mats. “They were telling the truth—”
Iyalawo raised a finger. “A half-truth. Yes, the Fall of the Gods did happen. Yes, many gods perished on that fateful day.” She paused. “But not all.”
Iyalawo took her by the arm and led her to the raffia mats. “Just before Sango’s rage destroyed Pantheon and the Tower, some gods escaped, fleeing to our world. But this world is not for gods...especially with the GodFather dead.” She tapped at the scene of Olodumare’s death. “The essence of the GodFather was shattered into fragments, with the godkillers claiming parts for themselves, granting them incredible power. In the intervening years, many more gods fell to the godkillers, until they decided to go into hiding, to protect themselves. The gods appointed for themselves a guardian, locking the secret of their location away in this Guardian’s mind.
“But the godkillers are crafty. With the location of the gods’ hiding place locked away in the mind of the Guardian, the godkillers turned to another mode of warfare; a war of belief. For years the priests of Ifa have waged a war of belief against the godkillers. And it is a war we are struggling to win. If enough people believe that the gods are dead, then they will truly die. The only thing keeping them alive is our unwavering belief in them—the few of us who believe, anyway.
“This is the secret I reveal to the acolytes upon graduation, so that they can go out in the world, armed with the knowledge of the truth. So long as there are people who believe in them, the gods will continue to exist.”
Ashâke felt stupid. She was a fool. She had come into the temple screaming that the gods were dead. What would happen, if her raving caused her peers to doubt the existence of the gods, caused their belief to waver for even one moment?
But it wouldn’t have been so easy for them to believe her. They could hear the gods after all; unlike her, who had found it easy to believe the griots because she had never heard the gods in the first place.
She sank under the weight of shame. “I’m...I’m so sorry. I believed the griots. I was...desperate to believe that the gods were dead. Anything to explain why I couldn’t hear them...”
Iyalawo had a strange look in her eyes. “Ashâke,” she said softly. “Do you know why acolytes are prohibited from leaving the temple without senior priests?”
Ashâke shook her head.
“To prevent contact with a disbelieving outsider.” Iyalawo stretched out a hand and touched Ashâke’s cheek. “An ancient magic shields this temple, protects it from the godkillers. And that magic is held up by our collective belief in the gods.” Her eyes filled with sadness. “The moment you walked in here, the seed of disbelief firmly planted in your heart, the shield shattered.”
Tears sprung to Ashâke’s eyes as the implication of her actions came crashing down on her. “No. I believe now. I do!” She thought of that godkiller dressed in white, the one who had killed Olodumare. Terror washed over her. “I have doomed us! They will kill us all! But why? We are not gods!”
“No,” agreed Iyalawo. “But the Guardian dwells within the walls of this temple. The godkillers will come to claim the Guardian, and ferret out the whereabouts of the gods.”
Ashâke frowned. “The Guardian...is here? In this temple?” She looked up at Iyalawo, into those old knowing eyes, and staggered backwards with the weight of realization. “It’s you,” she breathed. “I knew it.”
“No, child.” Iyalawo stepped closer to her, until Ashâke could feel the heat rising off her skin. “An acolyte held back while her peers graduated,” she whispered. “An acolyte frustrated because she thinks she is deaf to the gods. An acolyte safer behind the magic of the temple than out in the world where the godkillers loom at large.”
Ashâke stared in disbelief. “Me?”
The High Priestess nodded. “You were never truly deaf to the gods. You, in fact, are the only one who can speak to them without need of a divination board.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re wrong. It is impossible. I can’t even—”
Iyalawo seized her by the shoulders and blew hard into her face. Ashâke’s head snapped backwards as air rushed in through her nostrils. Heat flared through her body, and a high keening sound filled her ears.
She staggered backwards, grasping wildly as the chamber spun. Iyalawo’s voice came as if from the bottom of a well, distant and hollow:
“...I made a grave mistake...you were just a child, burdened with so much knowledge...”
Ashâke dropped to her knees, gasping. Intricate symbols appeared on her skin, tattoos of ancient glyphs filling out to cover every inch of flesh.
It was the language of the gods and strangely, strangely she could read it.
Ashâke’s mind exploded with a dozen images and she shuddered with the overwhelming knowledge of it all.
She witnessed the Fall of the Gods, felt their pain and terror as they fled to Aye, she knew their fright as the godkillers picked them off one after the other, as this harsh world of men consumed their godly power. She knew the moment they decided to go into hiding; a desperate, last bid at survival.
She knew the moment she was created, as the gods gave up a part of themselves into forming her. She saw the gods whisper the secret of their hiding place into her ears. Her, Ashâke. She existed as their vessel, burdened with their divine secret.
She remembered fleeing, racked with terror as several figures in white raced after her on horseback. Oh, how she had cried to the gods for help, how she had begged to be freed of this terrible, terrible yoke.
And the gods heard her.
She sat in a cave, a little frightened child, rocking herself as a storm raged on outside.
A figure in priestly raiment, drenched from the storm, gliding into the cave like an apparition; Iyalawo, kneeling before her, saying, “Come, my child, you are safe now.”
The High Priestess crushed Ashâke in a hug, whispering a forgetting invocation in her ear.
Ashâke looked up at Iyalawo, panting heavily. It felt like she had awoken from a deep slumber, and with waking came clarity. Everything made so much sense. “You found me,” she said. “You made me forget.”
Iyalawo helped her to her feet. “I should never have done that,” she said. “I thought...I thought it would keep you safe.”
Ashâke thought of the hurt she had felt all these years, the loneliness as her peers graduated and left her. But now it all seemed mundane, childish. She hadn’t come to the temple to become a priest; she was something much, much more. And in her own way, Iyalawo had kept her safe.
Ashâke gripped Iyalawo’s hands in hers. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for protecting me.”
Iyalawo’s eyes glistened. “It has been the honour of my life.”
Ashâke held the woman’s gaze and in the silence, comprehension passed between them.
“Where will you go?” asked Iyalawo.
“I don’t know,” said Ashâke. “But I will find my way. The gods are with me.”
Ashâke turned and started for the stairs.
It took Ashâke six moons to reach the Tower.
It might have taken her a shorter time, but a thousand and one eyes of the godkillers filled the lands of Aye. Ashâke found a world mired in despair, convinced that the gods were dead, and it broke her heart to find the people without hope.
An unprecedented rainfall heralded her arrival at the old capital.
The rain had emptied the streets of people and if anyone looked out their window, they would find a lone figure, bent over against the wind, advancing slowly towards the city centre.
Ashâke stood before the Tower, gazing in awe at the imposing structure. Even ruined, the top half crushing most of the city, what remained of it rose high into the air. Intricate lines covered every inch of the Tower; the language of the gods writ in stone. Ashâke touched a trembling hand to the Tower, and for a moment she did not know where the Tower stopped and her hand began. The same symbols were etched onto her skin, flowing from the rain-slicked black of the Tower and onto the back of her hand: a whisper, a secret, a charge.
Ashâke turned up her face to the rain, basking in it, letting it soak her. The storm clouds churned above, lit with intermittent flashes of blue-white lightning.
And one flash of red lightning. Bright but brief.
The voices came at her at once, riding on the shriek of the wind and the rumble of thunder.
Ashâke grinned. At long last, she heard the voices of the gods.
“Hello.” she whispered. “What will you have me do?”
They told her.
DRUMMER BOY IN A WORLD OF WISE MEN
Dele stepped out of the house and into a world misted over. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, wishing he could have slept in a little more, at least long enough for the sun to rise and chase away the mists. He staggered to the side of the house, still half-asleep, tied several empty water kegs to the handlebars of his bicycle, then swung onto it, pedalling out.
Harmattan had come out of nowhere, and several months early. Dele hated the dry, cold air and how it made his skin ashy and cracked like the bark of an old tree, how it sucked the moisture from his lips so that he was forced to coat them with oil, lest he yawned or laughed or smiled suddenly and his dry lips split in a spray of red blood. Most importantly, he hated how the mists reduced visibility and made him feel like he was the last boy in the world, the others gone someplace far where he would never see them again.
The predawn silence hung heavy as a wet blanket. Except for the rhythmic creak of Dele’s rusty pedals and the occasional small explosion as he crushed a stone beneath the wheels, there was nothing to be heard. He climbed the arched stone bridge leading to the stream. Mists churned on either side, thick and white as clouds. If he squinted a little, he could imagine he was high up in the clouds on a road leading to a happy place. A different world perhaps. One where his mother loved him and his father had not left them—
Dele came to a screeching halt.
Someone was blocking his path. Shrouded in the mists was an unnaturally tall figure. It was hard to tell what they were wearing, but it looked like a single white cloak, made of the mists themselves. A large, fraying wide-brimmed hat cast a shadow over the face. And in both hands was a long staff.
Dele felt his mouth go dry. “Hello?” he called, his voice barely a whisper. Dele was not the bravest of boys, he would be the first to admit. In fact, it was one of the reasons he hated having to get up so early to fetch water from the stream. But it was morning, and all irrational fears belonged in the dead of the night.
He blinked and the figure vanished. Dele shook his head, relaxing his death grip on the handlebars and tried to calm his thrashing heart. His imagination had always been overactive. That, combined with mists, and the fact that he was still half-asleep. He must have conjured something that was not there.
That was what he told himself as he resumed his pedalling down to the stream.
The small wooden shack poking out the side of the main house like an afterthought had been his father’s workhouse. Even now, three years later, Dele half-expected to see Papa striding out, a wide smile on his lips, saying Dele, my boy, would you like to hear some new rhythms? Papa had been a drummer, his talent so unparalleled that he had been courted by several aristocrats in Ibadan, looking to add him to the ranks of their griots. Dele remembered the night he had last seen his father. The man had been standing just outside the shack, a silhouette beneath the half-moon, an unreadable expression on his face. If Dele had known that that would be the last time he would see his father, he would have hugged him tightly and never let go. He would have demanded to know what he was thinking, what that expression on his face had been. Now Papa’s face was a blurred picture in his mind’s eye, as though an unseen hand had smeared it in an attempt to blot him from memory forever.
