Nnedi Okorafor - Who Fears Death

Daib sat back and chuckled again. “I’m getting old. Sometimes a man needs a little help. My memory often fails me, too. Losing these would have been like losing a part of my mind.” He cocked his head. “So is this what you came all this way to say? Is this why you pester me with your childish antics?” He snatched the basket from Mwita and reached in. All the disks looked the same but he was able to find the one he sought in a matter of seconds. He held it up. “For this? Your woman’s honor?” He threw it at Mwita. It missed him, landing and rolling near my feet. I picked it up. It was barely bigger than my nail. Mwita looked at me. He turned back to Daib.

“Get out of here,” Daib spat. “I have a plan to complete. Rana’s prophecy to fulfill—‘a tall bearded Nuru sorcerer will come and force the Great Book’s rewriting.’ What a different book it will be once I exterminate the rest of the Okeke.” He stood up, a tall bearded Nuru man. A sorcerer with healing abilities. Just as Rana’s prophecy had predicted. I frowned, questioning all that I had traveled for. Could Rana the Seer have actually been telling the truth? Was the prophesied one male, not female? Maybe “peace” meant the death of all Okekes.

“Oh, Ani save us,” I whispered.

“But you, girl, I must also exterminate,” Daib continued. “I remember your mother.” He frowned. “I should have killed her. I let my men have their way and leave most of those Okeke women alive. Turning them loose is like sending a virus to all those eastern communities. The disgraced women run there to give birth to their Ewu babies. I brought that part of the plan to the Seven Rivers council head myself. I am her greatest general and my plan was brilliant. Of course she listened. She’s a weak puppet.”

He smiled, enjoying his words. “It’s easy juju to work on soldiers. They become like cows, producing and producing milk. Me? I prefer to bash an Okeke woman’s head in after I’ve had her. Except your mother.” His smile faltered. His eyes went far away. “I enjoyed her. I didn’t want to kill her. She should have given me a great, great son. Why are you a girl?”

“I…” I sighed.

“Because it’s been written,” Mwita said.

Slowly Daib turned to Mwita, really seeing him for the first time. Daib’s motions were instant. One second he was standing behind his desk and the next he was on Mwita, his strong hands around Mwita’s throat. A thousand things tried to happen in my body all at once but none of them allowed me to move . Something was holding me. Then it was squeezing. I wheezed and would have fallen forward if it weren’t for the thing holding me.

I blinked. I could see it. A blue tubule had wrapped itself around me like a snake. A wilderness tree. It was cool, rough, and terribly strong, though I could see right through it. The more I struggled, the tighter it constricted. It was squeezing the air out of me.

“Always, so disrespectful,” Daib said, baring his teeth as he throttled Mwita. “It’s your dirty blood. You were born wrong .” He squeezed harder. “Why would Ani give a child like you such gifts? I should have slit your throat, had you burned back to ashes so Ani could get it right the second time.” He threw Mwita to the ground and spit on him. Mwita coughed and sputtered, trying to get to his feet. He fell back.

Daib turned to me. My face was wet with tears and sweat as the spirit plant released me. The world around me faded and then brightened. I opened my mouth wide as I inhaled and shakily got to my feet.

“My only child and this is what Ani gives me,” he said, looking me up and down.

The wilderness rose around us. More wilderness trees surrounded us like gaping onlookers. Behind him I could see Mwita, his yellow spirit blazing fiercely.

“I’ve been watching you,” Daib growled. “Mwita will die today. You will die today. And I won’t stop there. I’ll hunt down your spirit. You try to hide. I’ll find you. I’ll destroy you again. After I bring the Nuru armies and fulfill the prophecy, I’ll find your mother. She’ll bear my son.”

I lost parts of myself with each of his words. Once my belief in the prophecy began to crumble, my courage went right with it. I was struggling to breathe. I wanted to beg him. Plead. Cry. I would crawl at his feet to keep him from hurting my mother and Mwita. My journey had been a waste. I was nothing.

“Nothing to say?” he said.

I sank to my knees.

Triumphant, he kept talking, “I don’t expect…”

Mwita screamed as he launched himself at Daib. Then Mwita screamed something that sounded like Vah. He slapped his hand on Daib’s neck. Daib shrieked and whirled around. Already whatever Mwita had done to him was working. Mwita stumbled back.

“What have you done?” Daib shouted, trying to reach behind him, scraping at his neck. “You can’t do… !” I felt all the air in the room shift and the pressure drop.

“Come on then,” Mwita said. He looked around Daib, at me. “Onyesonwu, you know exactly what’s true and what are lies.”

“Mwita!” I screamed so loudly that I felt blood burst into my throat. I started running toward them, barely aware of the deep bruises and lacerations the wilderness tree had inflicted on my body. Before I could get to them, Daib leaped at Mwita like a cat. As they both crashed to the floor, Daib’s clothes split, his body undulating, thickening and sprouting orange and black fur, large teeth, and sharp claws. As a tiger, he tore at Mwita’s clothes, slashed Mwita’s chest open, and sunk his teeth deep into Mwita’s neck. Then Daib grew weak and fell over, wheezing and quivering.

“Get OFF him!” I screamed, grabbing Daib’s fur. I shoved him off Mwita. So much blood. Mwita’s neck was half torn off. His chest gurgled out blood. I lay my left hand on him. He shuddered, trying to speak. “Mwita, shh shh,” I said. “I’ll… I’ll make you better.”

“N-no, Onyesonwu,” he said, weakly taking my hand. How was he even able to speak? “This is…”

“You knew! THIS is what you saw why you tried to pass initiation!” I screamed. I sobbed. “Oh, Ani! You knew! ”

“Did I?” he asked. Blood spurted from his neck with each beat of his heart. It was pooling around me. “Or did… knowing… make… happen?”

I sobbed.

“Find it,” he whispered. “Finish it.” He took in a labored breath and the words he spoke were full of pain. “I… know who you are… you should, too.”

When he went limp in my arms, my heart should have stopped, too. I grasped him tightly. I didn’t care what he said. I would bring him back.

I searched and searched for his spirit. It was gone. “Mama!” I screamed, my body shuddering as I sobbed. My mouth felt so dry. “Mama, help me!”

Luyu came in. When she saw Mwita, she fell to her knees.

“Mama!” I screamed. “He can’t leave me here!” I heard Luyu get up and run out and down the stairs. I didn’t care. It was all over.

Daib lay there, a naked human being, slobbering and shuddering. Still stuck to his neck was the piece of cloth scribbled with symbols. Ting must have given Mwita this juju. She had to have used the Uwa Point, that of the physical world, the body. The most useful and dangerous point to the Eshu born. As I held Mwita’s body, a thought occurred to me. I grabbed and immediately acted on it. I didn’t consider the consequences, the possibilities, or the dangers.

Mwita and I had not slept last night. I recalled how he’d moved inside me and released. He was still inside me. He was still alive. I felt them in me, swimming, wriggling. I was not at my moon’s peak but I made it so. I moved my egg to meet what I could find of Mwita’s life. But it wasn’t I who joined them. All I could do was make it possible. Something else chose the rest. Something wholly outside of and unconcerned with humanity. At the moment of conception, a giant shock wave blasted from me, a shock wave like the one so long ago during my father’s burial ceremony. It blew out the walls around me and the ceiling above me.