CHAPTER 10
On the Subject of Monsters
Perhaps more than in any other place, Ekon found his home in books.
He inhaled, taking in the familiar smell of old books all around him, listening to the faint creak of his chair as he shifted in it. Around him, the leather-bound tomes of the Temple of Lkossa’s library seemed to reach into the heavens, stacked so high that some shelves required ladders to reach. In the time he’d been there, he’d counted one thousand nine hundred and eighty-six volumes. He knew there were thousands more, but he stopped there—best to leave things on a dividend of three.
He closed his eyes and listened. Distantly, he imagined he could hear the low hums of the temple’s brothers in the adjacent wing’s worship hall, the scuffle and slide of their sandals as they prepared for the day’s visiting patrons. It wouldn’t stay quiet much longer; eventually, he’d be called away. He opened his eyes again and sighed.
The table he was sitting at was surrounded by books of every size, color, and genre. There were yellow-paged dissertations like Master Kenyatta’s In Defense of East Eshōzan Dendrology, thicker-bound treatises like Master Azikiwe’s A Chronicle of Curious Creatures, even a somewhat-concerning old pamphlet on the varying benefits of carnivorous plant life written by a scholar simply called Nyerere. The published works around him were considered priceless treasures, the very history of his region and his home carefully recorded and preserved.
And yet, none of them were helpful.
Ekon inhaled again, but this time the exhale was more frustrated. He liked books, generally speaking, because they could be trusted to be consistent. A book could be read a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, but the words on the page would never change. Unlike people, books couldn’t be disappointed in you. They couldn’t abandon you; they couldn’t fail you.
Well, until now.
One-two-three.
He watched his fingers find that easy rhythm, a beat that felt steady.
One-two-three.
Three. Three was a good number.
He shifted one of the stacks on the table just slightly so that they were even, arranged from thickest and largest to smallest and thinnest. He didn’t need to do that quite as much as he needed to count, but the exercise still brought him some comfort.
He’d been there for hours searching through books. The sun seemed to be mocking him, deliberately growing brighter to remind him of the time. A piece of his brother’s words echoed in his mind.
A hunting party is being assembled.
Kamau had said it would happen over the next few days, but he hadn’t said exactly when the warriors would then head into the Greater Jungle. That bought Ekon some time, but not much—he had to figure out a plan to hunt down the Shetani before then.
He had to beat them there.
He screwed his eyes shut, recalling the moment he’d last seen the Shetani. He remembered its teeth and eyes well enough, but the most vivid part of the memory was the fear. It had gripped him, then consumed him like a living thing, and it wasn’t the first time. He’d now seen the Shetani twice and lived to tell the tale; both times, he had been completely useless when it came time to face it. He hated himself for feeling that way, but it couldn’t be helped.
He needed a way to defeat that fear.
Behind closed lids, he reimagined the entire scene outside the Night Zoo’s walls. He saw the creature stalking forward, then stopping short as something distracted it. The girl. The thought of her still plagued his mind almost as much as the monster, but for an entirely different reason. That girl had single-handedly faced down the Shetani; more than that, she’d commanded it.
Go.
He heard her voice, the calm in it. She hadn’t even had to yell. She’d given the monster a simple order, and it had obeyed, returning to the jungle without a second glance. He gnashed his teeth. What he would give for that kind of ability, for that lack of fear. The girl’s face swam in his mind, and he groaned. It had been foolish to let her go. No doubt she’d left Lkossa entirely by now.
His eyes flitted to one book sitting on the very edge of the table, small and opened up so that its pages seemed to soak in the morning sunlight. He’d cast that particular book aside early in his browsing, but he picked it up again. It was brown, the binding was unraveling slightly, and its etched title was barely visible. Myths and Fables of the Eshōzan Continent. He turned to its index until he found the reference he needed—page 394. He flipped to it and let his eyes skim until he found what he was looking for, a single stanza, written in tight elegant calligraphy:
On the subject of monsters, those mundane and those divine, none is so wretched and feared as the Shetani. It is a vicious thing, and a cursed thing, surely to be cast away by gods and men alike. We the scholars of the Temple of Lkossa’s Great Library thusly deem that no literature about it shall be recorded or preserved, except for a simple record of those whose lives it takes.
He groaned. Useless. The words were useless. He already knew the Shetani was a vicious thing, knew that it had killed plenty of innocent people. What he needed was a book that gave him information about its origins, its diet, its weaknesses. He stared down at his baba’s hanjari, still looped into his belt. Could he kill the thing with a simple dagger? He thought of how big the creature had seemed and shook his head.
No, better to go with a longspear, or two—
“Okojo!”
Ekon jumped. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard Brother Apunda enter the chamber. The old man had a stooped back, a sagging belly, and a concerning amount of white hair peeking out of his ears. He was regarding Ekon much the way one might regard a spider in their morning tea.
“Sir.” Ekon stood to attention at once. Brother Apunda’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re supposed to be shelving the medical journals for Brother Ifechi,” he croaked, voice full of disapproval. He pointed to the other side of the room, where the aforementioned journals were still stacked, notably untouched. “What are you doing in here?”
“Uh—uh—” Ekon stammered. “Well, I was . . .”
“Never mind.” Brother Apunda waved a dismissive hand. “You’re needed elsewhere. I’m afraid Brother Dansabe’s gout has gotten him again, so in his stead you’re going to supervise the apprentices while they muck out the stable this morning.”
“I—” Ekon barely hid his disbelief. He wanted to spend this morning in the library, not in the stable. “But, sir—”
“That is . . .” Brother Apunda raised one bushy gray eyebrow. “Unless you’d like to do the mucking yourself? It needs to be done quickly, as the temple will be opening to patrons in an hour.”
Ekon shut his mouth quickly. Two days ago, he’d lost a lifelong dream, his chance to prove his manhood, and his opportunity to fulfill a family tradition. He wasn’t interested in adding his personal dignity to this week’s losses.
“Sir.” He bowed his head and kept his voice level. “I’ll go immediately.”
If Ekon loved the Temple of Lkossa’s library, then he hated its stable.
He scrunched his nose on principle as he descended the last set of stairs and headed down the hall that opened up to it. Down here, in the temple’s literal bowels, there was no faint smell of ink and parchment, only the clashing smells of old wood, sweet hay, and mucked dung. It was a place of unending noise, of constant movement. There was no order here, no calm—it was just the opposite of a library.
He stepped onto the straw-swept floor and frowned. Wooden stalls contained under a thatched roof stretched for several yards in every direction, full of the temple’s varying livestock. There was no one else in here that he could see, and he noted that the broad shovels and pitchforks typically used for mucking were still propped against a wall to his right, untouched. It took exactly one more minute before he heard the distinct groan of a cow in distress on the other side of the stable. His eyes narrowed. By the time he turned a corner and found the three apprentice boys crowded around the poor creature’s udders and snickering as they sprayed each other with milk, he was in a foul mood.
“What are you three doing?” He almost winced at the sound of his own voice. He may not have been an anointed Son of the Six, but he could certainly talk like one. At once, all three boys whirled around. In different circumstances, the looks of terror on their faces might have almost been funny.
“Sir!” One of them, a scrawny boy no older than thirteen, spoke up first. His eyes stayed downcast. “We were . . . uh, just waiting on Brother Dansabe—”
“Brother Dansabe is indisposed today.” Ekon shook his head and crossed his arms. “So I’ll be supervising you this morning. First services of the day begin in less than an hour; is there a reason you haven’t started your work?”
“Uh . . .”
“What? Think you’re too good to do what every man in this temple has once done?”
All three of them bowed their heads, chastened. One at a time, they mumbled quiet apologies.
“Get to work, then, starting with the pigsty first.” He paused, then added: “And don’t touch the cow’s udders anymore. It’s immature and probably blasphemous.”
Ekon watched with a small pang as they bowed in respect, then scampered off without another word. In a sad way, he felt for those boys. Years and years ago, this had been one of his and Kamau’s jobs as temple apprentices. Technically, apprentices were supposed to start their work at age twelve and gradually matriculate into higher roles, but Kamau—ever charming, ever likable—had appealed to Father Olufemi. With the help of Brother Ugo, who’d unofficially taken them on as wards, they’d become two of the youngest apprentices in the temple’s history. Ekon sighed. Even from boyhood, Kamau had been saving him. He hadn’t appreciated at the age of seven how bad it was to have no parents, to be an orphan in a place like Lkossa. In any other circumstance, he and Kamau would have been sent to one of the city’s orphanages, and perhaps they would have been separated, but his brother hadn’t let that happen. From the time they’d been little, Kamau had protected him from the worst things this world had to offer. He’d always tried to find a way for him. Yesterday, he’d done it again.
Promise me that, whatever you do, you won’t let trying to find that thing be more important than your life, he’d said yesterday. I can’t lose you too. You’re all I’ve got left.
You’re all I’ve got left.
Ekon sighed. By not telling Father Olufemi about his plans, Kamau was helping him, but also giving up the one thing he had fought so hard to hold on to—his younger brother. He was making a sacrifice, letting go of the one thing he had left.
Ekon couldn’t waste that kind of sacrifice.
With the apprentices off doing their work, he was alone, but that didn’t make him feel better. He didn’t want to be there; he wanted to be in the armory gathering weapons, in the kitchen grabbing food, and in the library collecting information. He thought of that stack of books he’d left. None of them had had what he’d needed, so he’d have to go back to the shelves as soon as possible. He’d mostly looked at academic papers, but maybe there were more encyclopedias behind the medical journals Brother Ifechi had asked him to shelve . . .
He stopped midthought, stunned. Journals. Journals. Of course.
There was a book that would have information on the Shetani, information about the Greater Jungle and everything he needed. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? It had been obvious.
Master Nkrumah’s journal.
He’d only seen it once, many years ago, when Brother Ugo had shown it to him in passing, but he still remembered it vividly. A green hardback book with golden lettering on the cover and deckle-edge pages. He remembered the book because he thought it had looked beautiful, magical, like something cast from another world entirely. Goose bumps covered his arms the longer he thought about it. Yes, a journal like that of Satao Nkrumah—a famous scholar of Zamani natural history—would surely include vital information on the Shetani. After all, the man had probably been around when the Shetani’s attacks had first started all those years ago.
Yes.
His heart began to race. Where would a journal like that be kept? The temple’s library was plausible, but unlikely. Master Nkrumah’s journal would be considered invaluable because of its age, almost sacred. He suddenly recalled something Brother Ugo had said to him just yesterday.
I believe Father Olufemi has several of his works in his study; he keeps the oldest volumes there.
Of course, Father Olufemi kept the temple’s most treasured books in his study, which meant if he wanted Nkrumah’s journal, he’d have to find a way to—
His thoughts were interrupted by a whisper.
“This is as far as I can take you.”
Ekon stilled, not daring to move an inch. From his place leaning against one of the stable’s walls, he was partially obscured in shadow. He squinted between the partition’s wooden panels, curious, and noted that two people had just stopped mere feet away on its opposite side, a boy and a girl. He could see them, but they couldn’t see him. Both were wearing identical gray tunics that had seen better days. The boy was facing him and looked a few years his junior. He was the one who’d spoken before. He cleared his throat, then went on.
“You’re on your own from here.” His whisper sounded raspy, like someone getting over a sore throat. “You sure you want to do this? The penalty for trespassing in the temple—”
“I have to,” the girl replied quickly. Her back was turned away so that Ekon couldn’t see her face, but he was surprised to find her voice almost sounded familiar, like the tune of a song he’d heard before but couldn’t place. He leaned in slightly, trying to hear more without being noticed.
“Then, good luck,” said the boy. “I love you. We both do.”
Ekon tensed, and for a moment all thoughts of the Shetani and finding Nkrumah’s journal were abandoned. He didn’t fully understand what he was overhearing, but he didn’t like the sound of it at all.
There was a pause, and then the girl spoke again. “I love you too.”
Ekon watched the boy and girl hug, then pull apart. The boy offered a final nod before turning on his heel and heading toward the stable’s exit. The girl faced the opposite direction. She was eyeing the entryway that led into the temple, the very entry Ekon had come through just minutes before. He could still only make out a sliver of her profile, but yet again something plucked within him. A second passed in which the girl squared her shoulders, as if bracing herself. She cocked her head left and right, searching a moment, before she started for the entry. She didn’t run, but her steps were quick, lithe, and silent like a stalking cat’s. Ekon couldn’t believe what he was seeing. An intruder was trespassing in the temple before his own eyes. He watched the girl cast one final wary look over her shoulder as she reached the doorway; then she disappeared into the building’s shadows.
He waited a beat, then followed.