There are a lot of things to be considered about the village of Sembe, the first of which being that if you live there, you have ungainly signed your death warrant.

As Zainoebe reached the boundaries of her village once more, she turned her back to the sun and spat on the anthill to her left as she had done so many other times, and continued in the direction of the village.

An outsider would describe Sembe as uninhabitable. An arid, famine-scorched wasteland without hope of redemption for vegetation or life. They wouldn’t be wrong. The village was suffering a famine and it had not rained for four years now—but did the sun show mercy? Of course not! The sun reducing its glare and heat and flare on the African soil? When the world was not yet completely mad?

Zainoebe trudged back to the village at a speed slower than she had initially walked, chanting under her breath as she sped past huts in different conditions of deterioration.  She crossed the threshold and stepped into the market.

She  could feel the eyes of the villagers behind her. They had such powerful eyes; she had watched their eyes dig holes into the backs of others before her. None withstood their piercing gazes for too long. They were always staring, boring holes with those intense eyes and wishing that they could drill through her flesh.

She knew now, even without looking, that the villagers–scattered like lentil seeds around raffia mats displaying arrays of merchandise: fruits, gold jewellery, gourds and vegetables, and yet stranger objects–were slowly leaving the business they previously tended to glare at her.

She wondered vaguely if they knew that she too did not want to continue this pointless ritual walk to and from the boundaries of the village every day.

She was aware of their piercing gazes: deep brown eyes set in heads that were just as hard and flat as their soil. Like sun-baked earth thirsting for water, so did their eyes thirst.

But Zainoebe suspected that the eyes of her villagers thirsted now for something else: blood—the total eradication of her line. She continued walking.

“What are you doing back here?” Mama Tauru questioned, but Zainoebe continued to walk, muttering under her breath, the prayers she had recited every day for the past three months.

Mama Tauru’s light skin shone in defiance against the glare of the sun that was still so impossibly hot even now that it was near evening. Her pendulous sagging breasts swayed in front of her as she heaved around Zainoebe.

“So you won’t talk, eh? I never trusted you lot. To’h keni l’ ö’dât.” She spat in Sembene. “You Skywalkers will soon face the king’s wrath. Always thinking you can coax and coerce the universe into doing your will.”

 The sides of Mama Tauru’s lips curled until she looked beastly: large shining forehead, impossibly-light skin and a stature that easily cowed people, she stared at Zainoebe, eyes dark and dangerous as she trailed her, malevolence exhaling through every puff of dust her feet raised.

“I hope you realise that this is the fourth year since you promised us rain. And have we seen so much as saliva drop from the skies? Hmm?” she taunted. “There is so much heat that you cannot even find anyone sweating because before the skin even thinks to produce sweat, the sun has burnt it out.”

Zainoebe ignored her and continued her mutter-chant.

Mama Tauru fumed. “The king will have your head, I tell you! Just three or four more days, and we’d be rid of one more lying Skywalker.”

Mama Tauru, since the past month, had made it a point of duty to assault her daily. Zainoebe’s tongue flicked over her lips quickly. Yes, the skies were barren, and so was the land, but how was that any of her doing?

Surely, the king and everyone would have realised by now that if she could do something, anything, about the rains, she would have. But the rains came from the gods, and they were fickle beings, to say the least.

She saw it so clearly now. This was all going the way of Lambu.

Wise Lambu who for all his wisdom, had been foolish enough to fall into the king’s trap, declaring himself and his entire line responsible for the rains. Wise Lambu who did not know that the king needed a scapegoat—some sacrificial lamb to carry the wrath of the people. Lambu who did not know that he had unwittingly signed a death contract when he made his boastful proclamation to return the rains. That was the second year the rains did not come, and the people had been desperate for a solution; offering sacrifices… libations to gods who had gone mute, and had eventually wanted to fall upon the king for their misfortune.

Stupid, wise Lambu who would not see that the gods did not want to be reasoned with. She saw it now. She saw it all so clearly now. In three days, the king would pretend to sympathise with her, as he had done with Lambu; as he had done with Kisou, and Kalma, and Koutan, and Neriye, and every single descendant of the Uhuru line before her, and ask in the presence of the villagers, why there was no rain.

She would reply that the gods had not sent rain, and the king would coyly instigate a mob against her, claiming that she had not done enough, and wanted them all to die. The villagers would not need much instigation, anyway. They were ready to rip her to shreds if it would assuage their consciences. And on the fourth day, he would order her to be beheaded in appeasement of gods he did not know or understand.

Her mutter-chant continued, unobstructed. Four years ago, the skies had closed up—and everyone else had sought something, never the actual thing, to blame for this great devastation.

Zainoebe continued to plod along, the words of Mama Tauru fading from her mind as everything tended to these days. The winds changed, and the smell of ozone filled the air. The sky darkened, but Zainoebe still walked. It was all a farce. The rains would come if they wanted to and only then. Not because a Skywalker still roamed the earth. She sighed deeply and marched on.

By the time she had crossed the threshold of her family compound, the clouds that threatened to break over her head had dissipated back into nothingness and darkness had fallen. She walked past the first ring of mud houses which no one lived in anymore, and into a small hut and sat down cross-legged. She muttered a few words in the native language of the Skywalkers  and stood up warily.

“Ururu!”

She whipped her hand back, reflexes still as sharp as the cutting harmattan winds, and with gestures smooth as a gentle breeze. She pulled the hand towards her slowly as the figure of a child with a head full of wild locs draped across it came into the light.

The child laughed as she pulled him into the room, all chubby fat and as round as a ball. His brown skin gleamed as she pulled him into the oily light. His movements were no different. He dove between Zainoebe’s legs, but at the last second, she caught him again in her strong arms and whirled him around the room, laughing.

“I was praying, Ibara. You know you are not supposed to interrupt me.”

He said in a flurry of the old tongue, “I waited until you were done.”

She laughed; the boy laughed too, even as she lowered his head to her own. Then she went rigid.

“Stay here,” she said sternly to the boy. She plucked a wooden staff by the door and stepped out of the hut.

The air in the compound was still, too still.

Something was here. Something was here that should not have been here. She could feel it in the tingle of her skin and the way the air tasted like copper.

She straightened her back until she was at her full height—which was a lot taller than a tall man—her tight-pulled plaited hair stretching across her forehead until the skin of her head turned mask-like. She gripped the staff in one hand.

“I’baaká!” Show yourself.

The compound remained empty. A slight wind rustled through the yard. She gripped the staff tighter and widened her stance. She cocked her head and threw it back, closing her eyes.

A rattling noise like the sound of ichakas filled the empty compound as she drew in a breath. When she opened her eyes, one of them smouldered as if a fire had raged in them a long time ago, and her hair which  had always grown outward now seemed to further spread away, defying gravity.

“I am Zainoebe of Sembe! Ninth Skywalker of the ninth generation of the line of Uhuru,” she rattled in the old tongue. It was a harsh language, full of clicks and hisses. “Declare yourself.”

The wind picked up in the courtyard, spinning and raising dust, and just as abruptly, it stopped. At the place where the wind had been raising dust, the figure of a man walked out. 

He was as dark as midnight sand–perhaps blacker–and his skin glowed faintly with the pulse of liquid gold. The voluminous folds of white cloth he was draped in must have been lighter than the air itself, because they stayed suspended in the air, trailing after him with every motion he made. But I could not divine the clothes themselves.

Despite the thick golden bands on his neck, he showed no impediment in his gait, even with the heavy looking gold-wrought chain that hung upon his neck.

There were circlets of silver on his legs and ringlets on his heavily tattooed face. His black eyes shone against the black kohl that ran like tears, thick as blood from his eyes down to his mouth. His bald head seemed to perfectly reflect the soft light of the moon, except that there was no moon.

His face cut into a crooked smile, and just for a fleeting moment, Zainoebe could see through him. He linked his arms behind him and walked towards her.

His gait was slow, and regal, like a predator that is too much at ease in the presence of its prey. He could have been royalty, but no royal stepped as lightly and soundlessly as he did, and most certainly, royalty did not leave burning footprints in the sand.

“I am Chak-Tum.” He also spoke in the old tongue of the Skywalkers. “Air of Chak-Rün. Filler of the void, destroyer of men, gift of the gods, herald of rain.” He paused. His voice sounded unnaturally soft, devoid of depth and yet her insides quivered. Like wind. “What do you desire?”

Zainoebe lowered her head in reverence, then spoke, “Great One, the village is dry. The rivers boil, the land cracks, and yet there is no salvation. The people of the gods suffer, they thirst and hunger, for their crops are not grown, and their prayers and pleas, they fear are forgotten.”

She paused.

When interceding with the gods, one was careful not to sound too eager. The gods tended  to be fickle, demanding unreasonable things when one appeared too eager. They also waved off requests if one did not show sufficient interest, and could sometimes wreak havoc on the intercessor for trifling with them.

Zainoebe inhaled silently. Pleas were not made to the gods. This she knew. They did not understand compassion or human empathy. They only knew power and how to wield it.

Zainoebe struck the ground once with her staff and it burst into flames in her hand. Chak-Tum smiled hungrily.

“I, Zainoebe, Skywalker of Uhuru, daughter of Sembe, demand rain. Do this, and you will earn the worship of the people for a thousand years.”

Chak-Tum breathed in the promise with a slow, satisfied smile on his face. “The praise of a mortal is more satisfying than their prayers and grovelling…” His eyes shot open. They looked hungry. “But that will not suffice.”

“Mama!”

The sound cut through Zainoebe. She watched, horrified, as Chak-Tum’s eyes darted snakily from her. She felt like all the air in her body had been cut off. She’d asked the boy to stay inside. Why, gods?

It happened so fast—one second, Chak-Tum was in front of her, and then he was not. She blinked, and there he was again, his eyes glowing ingots set into a smiling head. Zainoebe faltered and in the time it took for her to regain her composure, Chak-Tum was no longer standing where he had been. A slight wind ruffled her clothes as the god rematerialised beside her, grinning. He whispered into her ears, the fire in his black eyes dancing manically, “We want a sacrifice.”

       Part Two

***

The next few days involved watching and watching steadfastly. One could not afford to doze, for was that not how calamity came? Right at the moment when you closed one eye, took a breath, sneezed… at the very second that you faltered and your shield dropped, calamity struck. 

Zainoebe would not make that mistake.

She wielded her staff tightly in her hands as she sat in front of the door of her home. The boy was asleep, drooling wonderfully on her lap. The floor was hard and warm, but save for the fire crackling merrily away behind her, the room was bare. Zainoebe blinked sleep-crusted eyes, once, then twice in rapid succession. Her grip on her staff faltered and her head dipped in a jerky nod.

Cackling laughter erupted around her and immediately, she sat straight back up, her grip on her staff tightened once more. She stretched her eyes wide open and inhaled until her chest expanded to twice its size, then she slowly exhaled. A draught quickly filled the room.

The danger had passed, but even as her breathing evened out, she could still hear the cackling in her head. In her mind’s eye, she could see the gods crowded around, faces long and evil like a masquerade’s unknowing mask, laughing, watching… waiting for her to fail.

She gnashed her teeth and struck the floor with her staff again. Dawn was still a long way coming. She could not afford to fail now.

* * *

It happened when she thought the danger was gone. That was the first sign that she was fighting a losing battle: she had allowed her mind to believe that the danger was gone. The danger was never gone. Not with the gods.

Zainoebe had long since abandoned the ritual of walking to the outskirts of the village and trudging back again as some sort of penance. The gods had been clear about what they demanded. She, too, had been very clear. She would not give up her only son, last in the line of Uhuru, to some fiendish gods that would or would not bring down the rains.

The king and a small contingent from the palace—his instigators, she called them—had announced themselves at her home only a day ago. The king had smiled like it was the last time he would be able to use his teeth, but she could feel that roaring ancient beast lying just beneath his skin. It wanted to consume her.

It had been just one day after Chak-Tum had presented himself. Much earlier than she had predicted the king would make his move. Two full days since she had completely lost all sleep, keeping constant vigilance over her son. She was going to break down sooner or later. It was best to do the reasonable thing and leave now, while she still had the strength to do so. She had no personal belongings of any sort. They were Skywalkers. They did not have any need for material belongings.

The boy, Ibara, who was tied securely to her back with a cord of tough, flattened vines, was fast asleep. Zainoebe had just clutched her staff when she felt that familiar swirl of wind pick up in the yard. She heard the dread cackling in the wind and whipped back, but the wind quieted down immediately. The susurration died away.

“I find that it is best to do—”

Zainoebe’s head whipped in the direction of the small wooden gate.

“—what must be done when it must be done. Otherwise, one suffers an inexplicable case of procrastination and eventual frustration, and lethargy, and… death.” Onini, the King of Sembe levelled his ganwa, a short, thick decorative tusk, at her. He was smiling as if he was making idle chatter with a very dear friend.

But Zainoebe could hear the madness in his voice; she could see the beast in the shine of his small, beetle-like eyes.

 “I have no plans of dying,” he said.

“Nor do I.” 

“Ah, but you will have to die. Unless you can suddenly… call down rain?”

Zainoebe paused and tilted her head ever so slightly as if she was thoughtfully contemplating the king’s words. Then she said slowly, so that even the armed guards would hear, “No.”

The  king taunted. “No? No, what? No rain?”

Zainoebe narrowed her eyes. “No. To both of them.” She spun her staff quickly over her head and slammed it into the ground. “Tell Death you did not find me.”

The hairs of the king and his guards prickled and stood at attention, crackling softly, but the king only regarded this with an amused expression and faint interest. A soft wind picked up around Zainoebe, ruffling her billowing, dirty white clothes. The guards inched towards her.

Zainoebe lifted her staff and struck the earth again. This time, a pulse of wind blew everything away from her. The guards flew into the wooden fence and crumpled. More guards poured in. The king stood, impassive. Zainoebe’s skin went several shades darker. The air around her quickly whipped itself up into a haze. Her eyes were white now and her staff had burst into flames at the top.

Ibara  stirred, eyes still full of sleep. “Mama?”

“Not now, Ibara,” Zainoebe grated. “Just close your eyes a little longer.”

“Let sleeping babes lie!” The king growled. He took a widened stance and palmed the air in front of him. The wind roared even more but still did not seem to do anything to him.

She had only been distracted momentarily, but that was all the king needed. He lunged at her, looming large. She did not want to touch him at all. She could feel something dark and sinister inside him–that ancient thing.

The beast inside him was not something that she wanted to encounter. She dodged clumsily to the side, but King Onini caught her by the head and slapped her hard enough for her nose to bleed. Ibara wailed. Zainoebe cursed, but it was to no avail. The king tore the staff out of her hand, causing the fire and raging wind to go out immediately. His hands were blistering red and his eyes were deep and dark.

He held Zainoebe by her neck. Ibara shrieked dreadfully, still strapped to his mother’s back.

“You can come and take her now, you cowardly lot,” the king growled. His hands were returning to their normal colour. He grumbled as his guards picked Zainoebe up.

“Stupid people. I say, hold one woman, and suddenly, they are all impotent. And put the sleeping child to sleep. His screams are assaulting my ears. Oh—no, wait. Or should I take him up?”

He folded his arms thoughtfully and struck a pose.

“Are we moving with the boy, your majesty?” a guard asked.

“Hmm. It won’t make any difference either way. Unless the rains come, we’re all going to die. The least we can do is ‘help’ him along.”

The child whimpered, his face, a palette of snot and tears. One of the guards stretched a hand towards the boy, but at that moment, Zainoebe’s eyes shot open. A fierce gust of wind blasted everything away. The king was only pushed back a few feet. Zainoebe unfastened the vines from her body and flung the boy away from her. The guards lay groaning, all unmoving. King Onini wiped his face clean of the dust, glaring murderously at Zainoebe as he stomped towards her. 

“Ibara, listen to me. You have to run away, run—”

The king snatched her by the neck and slapped her across the face again. She fell to the ground, her vision bloody. She saw him snarling and shouting words that she could not hear. She could taste blood in her mouth and her split lips dribbled blood and saliva. Another gust of wind, weaker this time, exploded from within her, but the king held her firmly in place.

She cackled maniacally even though it hurt her throat to do it. The king’s face was calm now as he regarded her.

“You will not have him.” She croaked and then coughed. “We will never go extinct, no matter how many times you feed these sands our blood…”

“What did you do with the boy?” King Onini asked calmly.

The most stupid thought flashed through Zainoebe’s head. She spat at the king, blood and saliva, an out-of-place thing on his dark black skin. Then she grinned bloodily.

“There’s that Skywalker blood you can’t seem to get drunk enough on.”

King Onini looked at her as an elder does a rude child. She did not see his hand when it moved next. All she knew was that the buzzing in her head disappeared and everything fell away to darkness.

In the distance, thunder rumbled.

* * *

Chanting riddled the air. It started as a faint buzzing noise in her head, but as she slowly became conscious of her surroundings, one beaten and nearly shut-in eye opening feebly, she understood the true gravity of what was going on. She would have laughed if her throat would allow her.

Instead, Zainoebe stayed kneeling, hands bound behind her, and watched with her bloodied face, as the throng of villagers that had done nothing but scorn and mock her since the past year spat and screamed and raged. She did not need to look to know that Gambo, the enormous man with the large curved sword stood ready beside her, braced for her execution.

“Witch! I told you the king would have your head! Die, liar!” Mama Tauru screamed and tore at the few strands of hair left on her head. 

Several other people were declaring several different things that she could not hear. Her ears were ringing painfully, and the right side of her face where the king had slapped her felt numb. Her eyes were almost completely closed. She felt a weariness in her like she was centuries old.

In the midst of all of this, King Onini sat on his very low chair, with his impeccable clothes, and stared thoughtfully. As though he truly felt sorry for her. Zainoebe thought that she might be able to manage that laughter, after all, even if it ripped out her throat.

           Part Three

The wind tore at his clothes and his hair. He could not find the breath to scream as rough branches and barbed bushes tore at his skin. His mother’s blast of wind had flung him away. He shot through the sky until the cold wind settled on his skin like a blanket. And then Ibara began to fall.

His locs waved about in front of him, making seeing impossible. He could only feel the thousand and one scratches on his skin, and then he hit the ground with a soft thump. His ears were numb and his eyes were closed.

When they opened, it was dark and he could only make out the sounds of chirping animals in the trees.

“Mama?” he called out shakily. He drew his legs to him and stared wide-eyed at his surroundings. The trees were large and looming and stretching out as far as he could see. There was a waning sliver of moon in the sky, but the trees blotted that out too.

Ibara thought he heard the bough of an enormous tree creak wordily. His shaking became a tremble.

“Mama!” he screamed.

The trees did not dig out their roots. The air did not rend. The earth refused to cleave itself in two, and though the forest was silent for a while, the animals soon resumed their chatter, louder now that they knew they had a competitor. Ibara cried; there was no succour. Then he got up, even though he did not know where he was going or what he was doing, and began to trudge out of the forest.

He ran whenever the forest noises sounded a little too loud or too close, and once, he had run straight into a tree when he walked into cold vines hanging off a tree. The night was steadily getting colder.

Ibara was tired of walking. He sat on the root of a large neem tree. Then, he thought he heard the sound of music. His short legs were stamping in the direction of the music without a thought. Tears filled his eyes as he ran, some desperate burst of hope beating a panicky drumbeat in his chest.

“Mama,” his lips formed the words several times, but could not produce the sounds. He thought about his mother’s face and how the firelight from when she cooked made her look like fired clay. He remembered her laughter as she swung him up and down, through the empty huts in the compound. He could almost feel the wind roaring in his ears. Whispering noises and the sounds of ichakas filled his head. And then he saw his mother kneeling, arms bound and head bowed. He heard, rather than saw, the wicked glint of a metal-sharpened blade being lowered onto her neck—

“MAMA!” Ibara screamed.

This time, the trees did bend and give way, and the air split with the sound of breaking trees. But Ibara was not aware of all of these. He was not aware, too, when he shot into the night sky like a streak of darkness. All of his locs were floating now, upended as if in water. But Ibara could only still see his mother kneeling. He heard cackling laughter around him and opened his eyes. He fell out of the sky.

His eyes closed wearily as he hurtled to the ground. He could barely make out the glow of several flaming sticks as he fell. His eyes closed, but this time, he forced them quickly open.

He was still in the forest.

He shrugged off wood splinters and tree bark, and so many leaves off his body as he jumped down from a tree. The fires and the music were closer now. He could even hear faint voices carried over on the wind.

He staggered to the ground and continued running. The people and their noise and fires were not so far away now. They would know where his mother was.

When he saw them, he felt a great hopelessness sweep through him. There were too many people, and they were all shouting and whispering excitedly.

“Ciraawe,” he whispered to a couple standing together. “Have you seen my mother?”

Their response was an annoyed grunt.

“Have you seen my mother?” he asked a group of gaggling girls. 

“Go away, snakehead,” they replied. 

“Have you seen my mother?” he asked a gangling man, but did not hear the man’s reply because everybody suddenly surged forward and the crowd took him along with them.

They were chanting at the tops of their voices. “LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!”

Ibara squeezed himself to the front of the crowd at the moment that Gambo, the executioner placed his large curved sword at his mother’s neck. His mother’s eyes shot open, piercing his.

He saw resignation in her eyes. She saw childish innocence in his.

Gambo hefted his sword.

Bitter anguish exploded through Ibara’s veins as his eyes met his mother’s. All four eyes turned white, and an unspoken conversation passed between them.

He would survive.

Zainoebe closed her eyes as Gambo’s blade came down.

But Ibara felt the severance in his soul. His eyes were still white, so he did not see his mother’s head thunk dully to the raised floor she knelt on.

Ibara did not see her blood swirl through the air; he did not see the hungry gaze in King Onini’s eyes as they narrowed at the sight of the blood.

Ibara did not seem to notice the fact that the earth was splintering under him or the fact that people were falling away beside him. He could not hear the roar of the wind or the fact that he was suddenly floating feet above the ground. He could only hear the cackling laughter in his head and the deep deep sadness he felt.

He curled in on himself, not feeling the wind around him. Trees bent and broke with great creaking noises. The sky darkened even more. Peals of thunder and flashes of lightning; the people were not so jubilant anymore.

A bolt struck the place where Gambo stood, charring him instantly. His blade was rendered a lump of useless slag. King Onini cackled as the wind blew him away.

Ibara opened his eyes and looked up into the sky. They were white; the sky responded by flashing white with lightning. His hair was upended again, locs dancing in the wind. A raindrop kissed his face. And then Ibara began to cry. 

Ibara could not hear the sound of rain. Only his grief remained.

Up above, the laughter of the gods echoed.