Chapter 4
FOUR
SIGIDI
There was something missing.
I stared at the automated tools that hung above my head, noticing that several of them had been broken off, and the entire mass of them was still and silent. I blinked up at them, realizing that I must be lying down on one of the processing tables.
I tensed, but there was something holding my head down against the table.
"Adesewa, keep him still," a woman said out of sight above my head.
The loveliest of the dross leaned over, her face coming into my field of vision, the soft squish of her chest pressing against me as I felt her hands on either side of my face.
"Please don't move," she said.
"What are you doing to me?" I asked.
"Something useful," she said, those full lips spreading into a smile as her eyes glinted. "Do you know what a Sigidi is?"
"It is a name," I said.
"It is a story," she said. "One I will tell to you now."
Her tone changed, her words taking on a rhythmic element.
"Here this and keep your ears open to the ground," she began. "The elders say: 'The dog that will get lost does not hear the hunter's whistle.' If you summon what you cannot control, you are merely preparing a bed for your own head to lie on."
She took a deep breath, and I could feel the press of her abdomen against my arm as she leaned her weight on me, holding me down.
It wasn't enough to stop me from sitting up if I really wanted to, but I had no reason to.
Her face was right there, taking up my vision.
The way she had begun to speak was mesmerizing, like her full attention was on every single word that came out of her mouth.
Even though her phrasing didn't make sense to me, I had no idea what a dog being able to hear a whistle or not had anything to do with whatever reason they had me on this table, but that didn't matter. I wanted to hear the story.
No one had ever told me a story before.
I had watched stories, of course, pulling them from the collection we units had stashed away, a collection that the Plexus Command never seemed to take note of, which seemed strange to me, but I knew better than to ask it why and draw its attention to the illicit files.
"Long ago, in the ancient kingdom of Oyo, there lived a wealthy merchant named Alao.
Alao was a man with a chest full of cowries, but a heart full of dry grass…
highly flammable, and easily set alight by jealousy.
He believed his neighbor, a quiet farmer named Bade, was secretly plotting to ruin his trade," she spoke, her words filling the room.
I could feel a tugging sensation on the side of my head, but I ignored it.
There was something far more important going on.
Why was having a chest full of seashells important to Alao?
Why did that matter? How could a human live with grass inside of their body instead of a heart?
It made no sense at all. Why did the story imply that an emotion could start a fire?
In the shows I'd watched, some characters would make similar comparisons that didn't make any sense.
Sometimes they would be explained the more I watched offerings from those cultures.
It was likely these were specific elements of the culture that this story came from, things from its past that had been carried forward into the future to give rich color and depth.
Perhaps the seashells were some form of early currency.
Adesewa continued despite my rampaging thoughts: "Alao did not go to the king's court. He did not seek the counsel of the chiefs. Instead, he wrapped his cloth tightly around his waist and walked under the shadow of the night to the hut of a powerful herbalist.
"I want Bade gone," Alao whispered, placing a pouch of silver on the mat. "But his household is strong, and my hands must remain clean."
Wait, why would he pay the herbalist in silver if the shells were the currency?
I didn't interrupt with my question; instead, I waited and listened.
Adesewa continued speaking:
"The herbalist did not smile. He went to the riverbank and gathered the red clay of the earth. He mixed it with sacred herbs, ashes of a dry leaf, and the blood of a black fowl. With his bare hands, he molded a squat, heavy figure with a broad, flat face and eyes made of sharp white cowries.
When the clay was dry, the herbalist breathed into its face. The cowrie eyes seemed to shift, catching the flickering light of the oil lamp.
"This is Sigidi," the herbalist warned. "He is your clay-messenger. He travels on the wind, and where he goes, he brings the weight of the dark sky. He will enter Bade's house while he sleeps. He will sit on Bade's chest, and he will squeeze the breath out of him until his soul departs."
Adesewa paused, her eyes searching mine like she was looking for a reaction.
I knew what she was looking for. She was looking to see if I understood the reason she was telling this particular story.
She was telling me, indirectly, that she knew that I was a creature that had been crafted instead of born.
I hadn't told her anything about me, other than I had an implant.
She was telling me, indirectly, that she knew what I was.
If she knew that about me, and I was on a processing table, then she must know why she was held captive.
She must know that she was slated to be killed and stripped down to her individual parts before they were mixed and matched with other creatures and machines until a Calicium unit was created, perfect for its purpose.
She knew, and instead of killing me, she was holding my face in her soft palms and telling me a story about a creature made out of clay, sent out into the world to harm others.
I was utterly captivated.
She continued to tell the story:
"Alao’s heart leaped with dark joy.
"But hear me well, merchant," the herbalist’s voice grew heavy as iron.
"A messenger sent into the night must be waited for.
When Sigidi goes on his mission, you must not close your eyes.
You must not let sleep steal your consciousness.
If you fall asleep before Sigidi returns to his clay vessel, the tether of your mind will break.
He will lose his way, and he will return to destroy the one who summoned him. "
Alao nodded quickly. "I am a merchant. I have stayed awake for days to count my wealth. This is nothing."
Alao took the heavy clay statue home, placed it in a dark corner of his room, and whispered his curse into its ear. He gave Sigidi the name of Bade.
Instantly, the room grew cold. A sudden, howling wind whipped through the shutters, and the spirit of the Sigidi left the clay, flying toward Bade’s compound.
Alao sat on his wooden stool, his eyes wide, staring at the empty, lifeless clay shell.
One hour passed. Two hours passed. The night was silent, save for the rhythmic chirping of the crickets. Alao’s eyelids began to feel as heavy as grinding stones. He splashed cold water on his face, but the fatigue was a heavy blanket wrapping around his brain.
Meanwhile, Sigidi had slipped into Bade's room. He loomed over the sleeping farmer, a shadow of cold, suffocating air. As Sigidi began to lower his weight onto Bade's chest, a sudden warmth flared in the room.
Bade was a righteous man who honored his ancestors and his Orí.
Before Sigidi could choke the life from his throat, Bade's personal guardian spirit flared to life.
A blinding light of protection struck the nightmare spirit, throwing Sigidi backward into the yard.
Bade gasped, woke up, and fell out of his bed, shaking but alive. "
There were more tugging sensations on my scalp, and a slight pinching sensation, like a needle piercing my skin, but I ignored it. My control chip wasn't flagging it, and if I ran a damage analysis, it might take note of what was going on and interfere. I didn't want that.
I didn't want to risk anything interfering with this moment.
The feeling of her body pressed against me, the intensity in her eyes, the sound of her voice, soft and yet so strong…every moment that this gorgeous woman bestowed on me was a precious gift.
Adesewa continued to speak, her words holding me there just as much as her warm hands, gently resting on my cheeks.
"Defeated and angry, Sigidi turned around, riding the midnight wind back to the merchant’s house.
In his room, Alao’s fight against sleep was lost. Just as the third cock crowed in the distance, his chin fell to his chest. His eyes closed. He slept.
A cold draft blew the door wide open. Sigidi entered the room, but his master was asleep, breaking the spiritual tether. The clay spirit, furious at its defeat and freed from its bounds, did not return to the little clay statue.
Instead, it loomed over the sleeping merchant.
Alao woke up to an unbearable, burning heat in his stomach, as if he had swallowed boiling rice.
He tried to scream, but the air in his lungs was frozen.
Looking up through the darkness, he saw the twin white cowries of Sigidi staring down at him, unblinking, as the heavy shadow crushed the life out of him.
In the morning, they found Alao dead on his mat, his face twisted in a mask of silent terror. Next to him, the clay statue of Sigidi sat in the dust…hollow, cold, and silent once more.
Therefore, remember: Do not dig a pit of destruction for your brother, lest the earth collapse and swallow you first."
Adewesa smiled down at me.
"All done," the other woman's voice near my head said. "That was quite the story. Rather fitting."
I felt sadness, a weight like a clay column sitting on my own chest.
"The one that sends me out never falls asleep," I said.
"Are you sure about that?" Adewesa asked.
I felt the stitches on the side of my scalp as I sat on the edge of the table, staring at the small bloody chip that lay in the metal bowl, its long strands draping out of it like fine hairs.