Ikú And The Serpent That Was No More

It ends now, thought the king of Ayashenilu.

He was alone in his chambers, dark drapes pulled tightly so no light entered. Pacing the floor, his feet kicking up dust, he held his head in his hands as he walked; his breathing was fast and shallow and he shook. “It was all so simple in my father’s day,” he whispered to the dust that floated in the razor-sharp slice of light that had forced its way between the drapes. “Each month, he offered one child to Ikú to spare our village from disease and death. Everything was so simple then.”

Now things weren’t as simple anymore. His father was dead, and after the funeral he had been installed as king, the monarch’s only heir. How can we live with such superstition? he asked himself. And then he answered: We can’t. His father’s morals were outworn and outdated.

That night, the full moon would rise over the hills, casting its pale glow over the village. That night, Ikú would slip through the shadows of the village looking for her sacrifice. “She won’t find it, not from my hands,” he said. His voice was strong, unshaken. “No child will I offer under my reign.”

When word went out, the town issued a collective sigh of relief. Still, they were afraid. Wasn’t it better to send one so young and unwilling to his death instead of watching untold numbers die?

No one knew the answer. No one dared defy the king.

That night, a great bonfire was lit in the village square to fend off the darkness—lit in the same place where each month for untold years a single child was tied to a pole. It was as much a statement as a warning from the town—there would be no more lives offered willingly to Ikú, the spirit of death. No more innocence offered or taken randomly, no more feeding a spirit whose only reward was to let everyone else live out their natural lives. So tonight, there was no child tied to the stake. Instead there was only fire, its yellow flames licking the night hungrily as shadows danced beyond its reach.

Ikú came. She came while everyone slept; they were confident that the fire would scare her away.

She slipped through the village, umbrous and sinister, sniffing the brisk night air. She slipped to the center of town where, with each full moon, one child lay sleeping under the full moon’s light, tied securely to a pole by its feet. She never understood why the children slept, why they never understood the danger they were in. Innocence—it consumed her with its possibilities. Each time she came, she would stand over the child, feeling the life that lay before her, the unrealized potential youth held, and then she would lie next to it, embrace it, and take it into herself. Thousands of children had she taken like this, the life of each one settling in her belly before it was snuffed out, the soul having fled beyond her reach.

For just a moment, she felt that life move within her, reaching and stretching her belly, and her hands would flutter down and feel that movement. A child—all she wanted was a child of her own, but death could not give life. When the soul fled each time, she felt emptier than before.

A child. All she wanted was a child of her own.

Tonight, there was no child. There was only fire, and Ikú screamed. Everyone in town woke up, and for the first time everyone was afraid.

Ikú declared war on the town of Ayashenilu.

It began with the dark of the moon. At the edge of the village, Ikú reached up to the sky and stretched, her body elongating and her limbs fusing into one long tube. She grew and stretched, grew and stretched, grew and stretched. And then she fell back on herself in coils. Slowly, silently, she slithered through the town, a serpent of mythic proportions. With darkness as her cover, she worked her way through one house after another, sucking down entire families with her great jaws before she was sated.

She would do this each night until the first pale crescent moon rose, its waning silver light dissolving her disguise like smoke. One night, she was sucking in a palace guard when the moon rose, and he screamed in pain until her smoky jaws could no longer hold him. He lay on the ground in terror.

Word spread: Ikú was angry, and her anger took the form of a pitón, an evil serpent.

Even the king felt fear.

One morning, the king’s advisors gathered around him. “This plan is no good!” said one of the youngest in his court. “We sacrifice one life a month to save dozens, perhaps a hundred. If Ikú returns each moonless night to have her revenge, within months none of us will be left alive!”

The king paced. It seemed that all he did lately was pace, his feet pushing his mind forward to think, to plan. “We are not in the dark ages!” he said, turning to face his advisors. “We should not make offerings to the osogbos to placate them; we make offerings to the orishas to overcome the osogbos. Since when did everyone in our kingdom decide that sacrifice to Ikú was wise?” Everyone went silent. “This,” he said, striking his left hand with his right fist, “this is why we are so far removed from the other kingdoms—for our barbaric ways. We should not send children to their death. We should not sacrifice innocence so that the old among us can live a few more years.”

“What else can we do?” the young man asked.

There was a soft voice from the back of the room, almost a whisper, so shrouded in age was it. “We should consult the orishas and make ebó, a real ebó,” it said. The crowd in the king’s chamber parted, and, shaking, an old man walked to the front. “We should cast the diloggún on the mat and see what the orishas can do to save us.”

“And who are you, ancient father?” asked the king.

“I am Ofún,” he whispered. “I was there when your father seceded from the kingdom. I was there, and I warned him of the evil he was about to bring to us. And I was there when he tied his first child, your brother, to the great beam that was pounded in the earth at the center of town. I was there, and I begged him not to do it.”

“I have a brother?” The king’s mouth fell open. The room was silent.

“You had a brother,” Ofún corrected. “Ikú took him when he was quite young.”

A quick flick of his hand in the air, “Leave us!” the king commanded the rest of the advisors.

The room was empty save Ofún and the young ruler.

Ofún spread his mat on the floor and sat with his back to the wall. He invited the young king to do the same. “What is this?” the king asked the old man.

“Divination,” said Ofún. “An art all but lost here it seems.”

“What happened here? In this town?” he asked.

“I was young when it all began,” said Ofún. “Young, about your age, I was. I was here when your father and his wife had their first child. And then the plagues came.” Ofún sighed, holding sixteen of the twenty-one cowries in his left hand. “Your brother was barely a toddler, still holding on to chairs and tables when he stood, his milk teeth barely cut, and your mother was heavy again with child. With you. When the first people got sick no one paid much mind. But when they started to die, one by one, and the sickness continued to spread, that’s when everyone took notice. And everyone came to your father looking for answers.”

“What did he do?” the king asked.

“There wasn’t much he could do. He sent me out to tend the sick and the dying. I was able to save a few. But I’m only one man, and one doctor among the hundreds who were slowly falling ill? Well, it was a losing battle,” Ofún sighed. “I wanted to divine. I wanted to make ebó. But your father, he had little faith in anything outside of himself. And when his wife, your mother, caught the plague and died, he was beside himself with grief. To lose the love of your life is a tragedy, but to lose the love of your life and your unborn child—that was worse.”

“So your father was sitting by your mother’s bedside, and I was trying, in vain, to heal her. I had the ashé to fight death, to save people, but I saw the candle burning at her feet and I knew there was nothing I could do. It was late when Ikú came to collect her soul, and the soul of her unborn child, you. Until that day no one could see her but me, but somehow your father saw her. Maybe it was because I was there and Ikú herself was my godmother. Maybe it was his grief and his love. But Ikú was moved by it, and she offered your father a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Your brother’s life in exchange for your mother’s and that of her unborn son, you. I warned your father not to take it. I told him, ‘Sir, it is her time.’ But he wouldn’t listen. And your father was a man of duty. Hundreds of villagers were ill, many of them dying, and being a smart man, although misguided at times, he asked Ikú, ‘What of the others in the village? How can I save them?’

“‘A pact,’ Ikú had said. ‘You would need to make a pact with me.’

“‘And what would that pact be?’ asked your father.

“‘One young child every month with the rising of the full moon. Twelve children a year to save the lives of hundreds in your village.’

“Your father grew silent and buried his head in your mother’s breast, holding her hands tight with his. ‘Time grows scarce,’ Ikú had said. ‘Soon, with or without me, your wife will die. Make your choice.’ And while I protested, your father made his choice. He offered your brother in exchange for you and your mother. And he agreed to send one child to its death in the middle of the town square every month for the rest of his reign as long as the lives of his villagers were spared. Your brother died that night. The plague lifted from the village. You were born, and no one died an early death. As long as your father was in power and kept the pact, people here have lived to an old age and have died peacefully, in their sleep. But you, my king, you have changed all that by your refusal to honor the pact. And now we must look for another way.”

Ofún rolled the cowries out on the mat. “This is what we are going to do. We are going to make ebó. You will need a sturdy cane and a pigeon. You will need to feed Elegguá a rooster, smoked fish, jutía, and red palm oil.”

“What do I do with the pigeon?” the king asked.

“Tonight, tie it to the pole and wait in the shadows with the cane in your hands. You will be safe from Ikú, and once she arrives you will have your chance and will know what to do.”

The king did as he was told. Again, at night, Ikú arrived as a great serpent. The king was resting with his eyes closed in the shadows when the pigeon, tied to the pole, woke up to warn him. Ikú, not wanting the young monarch to wake up, rose up against the pigeon and tried to swallow it, but the great pole was caught in her mouth and she could neither swallow nor vomit it out.

And then the king rose up with his cane. He began to beat Ikú on the head until the form of the pitón fell down, dead itself, and Ikú flew out into the night, no more than a specter, a shadow.

She could no longer take the form of the pitón, and Elegguá made sure that she would never be able to return to that town again unless Olódumare decided that it was, indeed, someone’s time to die.

The king of Ayashenilu returned to the way of the orishas, and in his kingdom no one ever again made pacts with the osogbos.