Tears welling in her eyes, Ayoti raised her face to the metallic blue sky, spread her arms, and cried out to Nyame, God of the Sun, Giver of Life.
“O Nyame, Nyame ... why has this terrible thing happened to my people?” she asked. “Why has this ... thing come to take them away? What can I do to bring them back? I will give my life. I will give the life of my child-to-be. What must I do? Please tell me, Nyame!”
But Nyame’s only answer was the initial pain of childbirth.
HOURS LATER, AS THE sun set in a crimson blaze, Ayoti sat cradling her boy-child in her arms as he suckled hungrily at her breast. Her mind was numb; the trauma of giving birth so soon after the attack of the swallowing-monster would have driven a lesser woman to madness. As it was, only the birth-rituals she had learned since childhood provided the anchor to which her sanity was attached.
Now she remembered that she must find a spirit-switch, with which she must gently strike her child to rid him of any evil ghosts that might seek to possess his helpless young body. Such a stick would not be difficult to find now, Ayoti reflected grimly. She knew it would be safe to leave her infant in the shelter she had hastily constructed while she went to get what she needed.
Only a few moments passed before she returned. And, for the second time that day, her eyes widened in amazement. The spirit-switch dropped, unnoticed, from her hand. For as she looked into the shelter, she saw that her infant son was gone. But someone else was there ...
Standing tall beside the shelter was the most magnificent warrior she had ever seen. Pantherish muscles rolled lithely beneath his smooth, ebony skin, and the hide of a leopard girded his loins. From a leather thong around his neck hung the ditaola, a pair of bones from the hand of a baboon that only a great chieftain was permitted to wear.
His hand gripped a spear the like of which Ayoti had never seen before. Its shaft was made from a glistening, silver-white metal, and its point shone with the brightness of the sun.
“Who ... who are you?” Ayoti choked out. “Where is my son?”
The warrior’s teeth flashed in his dark face as he smiled.
“I am Moshanye,” he replied.
Ayoti gasped in shock, and fear as well. No one, not even her husband, had known that if her child was a boy, she intended to name him “Moshanye.” In a sudden flash of insight, she realized who this warrior truly was – and she prostrated herself before him.
Strong hands raised her to her feet, and she found herself staring into dark, compelling eyes.
“Sleep now,” said Moshanye. “I will see that no harm comes to you. Tomorrow, I will go to seek Khodumodumo.”
“Khodumodumo?” Ayoti repeated dazedly. “But he ...”
Against her will, Ayoti’s eyes grew heavy. The last thing she recalled before slipping into slumber was the glow of Moshanye’s spearpoint penetrating the darkness into which she slipped.
When she awoke the next morning, Ayoti was again alone in the wreckage of Mwandishi. Unmindful of the painful glare of the sun, she raised her eyes and whispered a prayer of thanks to Nyame. She could not know that her gratitude was premature.
MOSHANYE STOOD AT THE edge of a low valley of flattened grass. The valley had been made by the crushing weight of the swallowing-monster as it heaved its way east of Mwandishi. It was an easy trail to follow – if one dared.
Shading his eyes against the fierce sun, Moshanye peered across a wide stretch of territory. Of the teeming herds of zebra, antelope, and wild cattle that usually roamed there, he could see no sign. All the animals had been swallowed by the relentless creature.
And, on the other side of the valley, the warrior could see the monster itself. Vast beyond belief, the shapeless thing was caught in the pass between the two mountains that marked the boundary of Mwandishi territory. So huge had the creature grown that it could not squeeze its bulk beyond the crevice. Still, as it expanded and contracted its resilient substance, Moshanye could hear the grind of breaking rock, and see boulders bounce like pebbles from its glistening surface.
Moshanye knew he needed to act at once. Raising his shining spear high above his head, he sprinted the length of the valley – an anomalous vision of motion in a landscape otherwise devoid of life.
Soon, he was standing next to the swallowing-monster. Tall and powerful though he was, Moshanye was reduced to ant-like insignificance beside the towering mass of the creature. Even so, before the slit-mouthed pseudopods could lash out at him, Moshanye plunged the glimmering point of his spear into the quaking flesh.
Where weapons of iron had merely bounced off the rubbery substance, Moshanye’s spearpoint sliced through it. A rent that was not of the monster’s own making appeared before him. Then he leaped into it, gripping his spear tightly in both hands. Behind him, the opening closed again, without leaving a trace of its existence.
INSIDE THE MONSTER, the warrior blinked incredulously at a scene out of the nightmare of a madman. The inner substance of the creature was like a mixture of water and mist. It seeped into his nostrils ... yet he found that he did not suffocate. It clung to his limbs like creepers in a dense forest. But he found that he was able to move in a half-walking, half-swimming manner.
It was what he saw around him, however, that nearly caused his courage to depart him. Floating aimlessly through the filmy substance were the people of Mwandishi. Some of them thrashed their limbs in feeble protest. But most simply hung passively, like flies caught in a gigantic web.
Beasts of all kinds also wafted through the eerie milieu, frozen
