Michael Bishop - No Enemy But Time

“‘Very well,’ said Ngai. ‘Go back down to the plain and practice your running.’

“The reem did so. She discovered that the Creator had given her speed of a kind. In short bursts she could run as fast as the antelope. However, she tired easily, and it struck her that animals with more endurance would still be able to trifle with her, to treat her as meanly as they liked. She returned to Mount Tharaka and bearded Ngai in a garden of fragrant succulents.

“‘It is a help,’ she said, ‘but it is not enough.’

“‘Not enough?’ the Creator demanded, scandalized. ‘Not enough?’

“‘No, Your Godship. And I do not intend to leave until you have made it possible for me to do so without fearing for my safety among the other animals of your creation.’

“Scowling, the arrogant little blue monkey picked a pair of nearby palm leaves, shaped them into funnels, daubed them with silt from his sacred stream, and stuck them into the reem’s open ear holes. What a difference! Full of wonder, the reem listened to the wind, the lyric babbling of the water, and the plangent cries of tiny, cloistered birds. She rotated her ears to catch every quiver and frequency of sound. Her augmented hearing pleased her greatly. Nevertheless, another objection took shape in her mind, and she hurried to intercept Ngai, who was busy climbing to a nest of woven twigs and colobus fur.

“‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Wait! Some of those who torment me are as silent as the stars. The leopard and the dog still have power over me. Please, O Mighty One, have pity on my helplessness.’

“The Creator was so angered that he took his own name in vain, but his exasperation did not alter the fact that the reem had spoken truthfully. Ngai calmed himself down by degrees.

“Night had fallen by this time, and a horned moon floated above Mount Tharaka like a weapon. Seeing it, the Creator gathered so much air into his monkey lungs that the reem was left gasping for breath. He thereupon grew into his primordial incarnation as Big Gorilla Ngai. In this awe-inspiring form he strode to the top of Mount Tharaka and ripped the gleaming moon from the sky.

“This was not easy, however. The moon did not want to come down from the sky and so put up a struggle. Gorilla Ngai nearly had to herniate himself to achieve his goal. When the moon finally came unstuck from the heavens, his anger was such that he snapped the horned moon across his hairy thigh and carried the halves down the mountain in heavy-footed disgust. As he descended Mount Tharaka, he grew smaller and smaller. By the time he reached the astonished reem, he was no bigger than an adult baboon and still shrinking.

“‘Here,’ he said peremptorily, and he fixed the halves of the moon to her snout, one behind the other. ‘Now, my impertinent bicorn, I beg you to leave me—so that I may sleep and, sleeping, recover my godly strength.’

“He had dwindled to the size of a tree mouse.

“This display, besides literally taking her breath away, thoroughly impressed and chastened the reem.

Indeed, she forgot to petition the Creator for better eyesight. Considering his current disposition, though, that was probably just as well.

“Down the mountainside she galloped, scything her head this way and that. Her heart, like a gemsbok melon, was brimming with sweetness, and the world seemed altogether lovely, one glorious, balmy wallow.

“Alas, several hours from home the reem found herself face to face with the pestilent dog. After circumnavigating her great bulk and gazing scornfully at her snout, he began to snigger.

“‘Horny toad will be envious,’ he declared. Then, disdainfully, he trotted past the reem. Once behind her, however, he whirled and nipped at her backside. The reem also whirled, so quickly that the dog was dumfounded. His snout was inches from her warty face.

“‘Have a care for my feelings,’ the reem admonished him. ‘If you do not, I will be forced to deal harshly with you.’

“This warning, from such a notorious weakling and blunderer, infuriated the dog. Determined to put her in her place, he leapt for her throat. He did not come down alive. The reem impaled him on both her horns, shook him loose, and kicked him into a gully like a pancake pile of steaming dung. So much for the dog.

“Upon learning of his death, the other animals fell into a lengthy round of debate and recrimination. How had the reem become so powerful? All were outraged that the butt of their merciless merrymaking had suddenly acquired strengths comparable to, or greater than, their own. Who could be behind this heinous betrayal? Why, only the Creator, of course, and he must be made to pay.

“‘We must annihilate Ngai,’ the tusk-bearer told the behemoth and the other animals. ‘We must kill the Creator.’

“Soon everyone on the plain had taken up the cry ‘Kill the Creator!’ And so aroused, they shambled off in unruly ranks toward his dwelling on the mountain.

“The reem, alerted to their intentions by their cry, hurried to warn her unsuspecting benefactor of the mischief afoot. In his dwelling on the slope the reem found Ngai febrile and shrunken, no bigger than a dung beetle. Quickly apprised of his subjects’ intentions, he begged the reem to take him aboard (he would sit between her horns) and give him passage to the safety of an uninhabited southern desert. The reem readily acceded to this request.

“When the tusk-bearer, the behemoth, and the others found the gardens on Mount Tharaka bereft of Ngai and saw the dust clouds billowing from the southern plains, they deduced that the reem was assisting the fugitive. Still, a vigorous pursuit would accomplish their capture, for she had insufficient stamina to maintain her pace and the Creator himself could hardly be at his best if he had chosen this unorthodox method of escape.

“Indeed, the reem soon began to tire. She halted in the broad vacancy of the savannah to recover her wind. Instead she lost a little—for at that moment she felt the necessity of relieving herself and let fall several droppings. Almost at once a coprid beetle that had been sleeping nearby awakened and scurried over to make use of this unexpected windfall.

“‘Hurry,’ the Creator squeaked, peering over the reem’s brow at their pursuers. ‘They’re nearly upon us.’

“‘Yes, oh yes,’ the reem acknowledged, holding back tears. ‘And the next time I stop they will certainly overtake us. Even though I am willing to die with you, Ngai, I would far rather die for you—but I’m exhausted, almost at my limit, and whatever befalls us, befalls us.’ She tactfully did not mention that Ngai might have solved this problem by granting her stamina along with his other tardy favors, but she was sensible of the irony of their plight.

“The dung beetle, who was not blessed with a sense of the ironic, had overheard this exchange between Ngai and the reem. He forsook the reem’s droppings to circle the beast and address her from a point just below her drooping snout.

“‘I love the Creator well,’ he piped, ‘for he has provided for me abundantly. The world is full of manure.

Tell the Sacred One to come down from your horns. I will then enclose him in a concealing brood ball.’

“‘ A brood ball? ’ exclaimed Ngai and the reem together.

“‘At your service, O Mighty One,’ replied the coprid. ‘By this expedient the reem may run ahead as decoy while you husband your strength and purchase enough time to reestablish your rightful rule.’

“The Creator, won over by the beetle’s sincerity, agreed. It was not pleasant being plastered up inside a dung ball, but it was preferable to being murdered.

“The reem, meanwhile, trotted off to the south, drawing the Creator’s enemies after. When next she stopped, they surrounded her—rather warily, she noted—and vilified her as both a traitor and a trollop.