John Burkitt - Shadow of Makei

Sefu the secretary bird was unconventional, but his advice when given was not taken lightly. And it was to Sefu that he looked for help.

Of course, Sefu was not easily found. Unlike his old friends on Pride Rock, there was no way of knowing when and were the Secretary Bird would show up. Despondent, Simba paused one morning while Timon and Pumbaa continued on to the water hole to get a drink and bowed his head.

“Please, Aiheu, help me! I may not pray every night like I should, and I may be just a fugitive, but Mom said you were merciful. Please give me a second chance, God. Please show me the way--I’m so lost!”

Just when Simba was about to lose his faith in the power of prayer, Sefu surprised them at the watering hole.

“Sefu! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Hey, cat! Likewise!”

While Pumbaa wallowed in the shallows and Timon gargled noisily as he drank, Simba managed to corner Sefu for a moment and try to put into words what was only a feeling of emptiness, a dread of dying alone and forgotten, a creeping despair that eroded him like fungi on a fallen log.

“Hey, been there, done that.” Sefu looked at him appraisingly. “Some of us little folks can fit into a little hole somewhere and hide ourselves from the world. Some of us can’t.”

“Yeah.”

“I heard through the grapevine that you tried to take meat from the local tribesmen. I guess you found out they have a lot of sense for creatures without fur or feathers.”

Simba uttered a short laugh. “No darned kidding.”

“Well they have this custom of making shapes of geese out of pitch covered straw. From a distance, they look real. They are set out in the lake and when the real geese see them, they think its safe and light. Then they get whacked.”

“Is there a moral to this story?”

“No!” Sefu said. “I just wanted you to know that you’re an impostor. You’re not a jungle bum. Hakuna Matata does not fit you. You were meant to be marsh grass, and no matter how much they weave you or tar you, you can't be a goose unless you were born a goose. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly--well, at least most of them do--and lions gotta roar. You don't belong here. You'll NEVER belong here. You belong out there, free and unencumbered. As free as the wind blows. As free as the grass grows. Born free to follow your heart." He threw back his wing, held up his head and burst out with "BORN FREE! AS FREE AS THE WIND BLOWS...."

Timon grabbed his beak shut. "Please, don't sing it!" He turned back to Simba. “Listen, kid! It does no good bringing up a lot of false hopes and stirring up a lot of pain. Hakuna Matata is the only way. You gotta be like Pumbaa here--he’s got it all figured out.”

But Pumbaa was looking at Sefu and Simba wistfully. He was anything but sure about Timon’s logic. He felt sorry for Simba.

“I was afraid this would happen someday,” Pumbaa said. “But when the time comes, I’ll let go. Simba, we’re all born into this world with a destiny. Some of us might have it easier than others, but you can’t escape your destiny.”

“What is my destiny?” Simba asked.

“That is something that you must figure out for yourself, my son. That’s between you and God. And whatever it is, I’ll be there to help you fulfill it.”

Timon looked at Pumbaa disbelievingly. But the warthog had a look of wisdom and nobility shining in his eyes that stunned him. He could not find the nerve to contradict him, and looked away, sighing. “Yeah, IF.”

Makhpil was quick to join the Omlakhs. She was filled with love and idealism, and she expected even more from her God. Even before she saw chinks in the psychic armor of Melmokh, she knew that he was a pretender and evil.

But her suspicions were confirmed in a very real and frightening way. She had never spoken with Gur’mekh, but through her contacts with Shimbekh and Brin’bi she understood at a gut level the possibilities of her powers. And in what was to settle her doubts forever, she lay on the ground and covered her eyes with her paws. “Thou in me and I in thee. Come together let us be!” She repeated the mantra over and over, feeling in her heart the closeness of the one who claimed to be God. That she might not survive was not important. One way or the other she must know.

“Thou in me and I in thee. Come together let us be!”

She rolled over on her back, her breath coming and going in short gasps. Reaching out with a paw, she touched the spirit of Melmokh.

A wave of revulsion filled her as she felt a sensation akin to swallowing a mouthful of spiderwebs. Fighting the urge to vomit, she pulled back hastily, breaking contact and opening her eyes wide in a shriek of horror. The next several breaths she drew in escaped as cries of pain and despair. “Oh my God! It’s evil! It’s evil!”

She got up and ran around in tight little circles as if chasing her tail, the hackles raised along her back. “Help us, Roh’kash! Help us! Great Mother, we’re all being led to Hell! Save us, God!”

The false Roh’kash jumped up with a start. “Who dared! Who dared touch me!!”

The followers were all at a distance and looked around at each other. “Great Mother, no one touched you!”

“Not with a paw, stupid!” Melmokh shot a glance at the hapless hyena and he jumped, yelping in pain. The others fell on the ground rolling over and reaching out with a paw. “Mercy, Great Mother! Mercy!”

With a look of ultimate rage, his hackles raised, Melmokh ran out of the circle and began running around the elephant graveyard looking for the source of the pain. But it was too late--Makhpil had released her without betraying her own thoughts.

Makhpil ran to Ber and fell before him. “Okhim Ber,” she gasped, “I’ve seen the devil himself! I’ll do anything to help you, anything!”

Ber nuzzled her and rubbed her face with his paw. “Blessed bak’ret, daughter of Roh’kash, may the true God reward your faith!”

She knew that the Roh'kash was false. She could not hide that from Shimbekh, who had her own doubts, but could not be sure.

It was Shimbekh that Melmokh suspected, and so as Roh’kash, he persuaded Roh’mach Shenzi to order Shimbekh to give false prophesy. If she refused, she would be killed. If she did not refuse, she would be psychically blind. Either way, Melmokh would preserve his dark heart from the sight of the others.

Meekly, Shimbekh considered the life of her new daughter and put Makhpil’s welfare before her own. And she lied to Taka about his chosen heir, even as she was commanded.

Cut off from her spirit husband and unable to reach her daughter’s heart except through talking, she sank into a deep depression. It was a frightening kind of aloneness. From time to time she would beg Makhpil to take messages to Brin’bi as if he lived in a different land far, far away. When Makhpil explained to her mother who the false Roh’kash was, she bit her own leg till the blood ran down. “So it wasn’t Gur’mekh who led to our downfall. It was me! Oh gods, it was me! I could have stopped this!”

Shimbekh began to grow gaunt and ill kept, looking as she did after the vision of Gur’mekh. Makhpil had to beg her to eat--each bite was a concession to Shimbekh’s love for her daughter, for she did not want to go on living.

Then one day Makhpil prophesied that joy awaited Shimbekh at the gorge. It was the hope that she was looking for.

Shimbekh told Makhpil that as the one remaining seer she had to take care of herself and keep prophesy alive among the people if they were ever to survive. Determined to repair what she had done, she went to Uzuri and confessed her full load of guilt. Uzuri was not psychically gifted, but she could see the sincerity in her eyes and took the message to heart. It awakened hope in her spirit.