Chapter 15

Luyanda emerged from the coolness of the shadow. The light in his face was blinding. He shielded his eyes and blinked.

“How long have you been there?” Keita asked.

“Not that long, sir. Please don’t report me, sir. Please-”

Keita threw his head back and laughed. “Report you? Why on earth would I do that? No one would believe me!”

“But aren’t you surprised that —”

“Surprised? Why would I be surprised?”

“I mean,” Luyanda cleared this throat, “You just saw a person step out of a shadow and you don’t seem in the least bit …surprised?”

“Should I be?”

“I don’t know. Most people would --.”

“I’m not most people. I’m more interested in why were you snooping around my office.”

Luyanda hung his head in shame.

“Go on. Out with it.”

He told Keita the whole story.

“Hester’s a tough cookie,” Keita mused, when Luyanda had finished recounting his tale. “But it’s for your own good. Not everyone can be a Dr. Kanu.”

“So you said that you won’t tell anyone?” Luyanda asked, hopefully. “I won’t do it again. I promise. I don’t want to get into any trouble.”

“It’s too late for that.”

Luyanda gasped.

“That’s not why you’re in trouble,” Keita continued. “Do you understand what you just did?”

"I'm really sorry I snuck into your office, sir--"

“That's not what I meant. I mean going in and out of shadows. Becoming the shadow itself. Do you know what that is? Do you understand how you do it?”

“No, I don’t,” Luyanda answered.  “I guess I just - I just do it.”

Keita’s eyes narrowed. “Since when have you been able to do this?”

Luyanda hesitated, as his mind drifted back to the evening he spent at the ward. “I’m not too sure,” he said.

“Take a seat,” Keita said, pulling back a chair. “Tell me everything you remember. Start from the very beginning. And don’t leave out anything at all.”

Luyanda sat down. He told him about the stool, the escape from the sick-bay and the accident. Keita listened with rapt attention until Luyanda was finished.

“In your dream you said that they called you by a different name. What was it again?"

"Magere."

Keita nodded and gazed at his fingertips, lost in his own thoughts.

“Professor?”

“Call me Keita.”

“Sorry. Keita, can I ask you something?”

Keita nodded again, his gray eyes piercing through Luyanda as if he wasn't there.

“How could you tell that I was in the shadow? You’re the first person that’s ever caught me.”

“Concealment from the trained eye is impossible.”

“Trained eye? Trained in what?”

Keita looked at him as if he’d just asked the most stupid question ever. “Trained in detecting Shadow Walkers, of course.”

“Shadow what?”

“Shadow Walkers. What you just did. It’s called Shadow Walking. Though there are some people that would call it skulking,” he added with a grin.

“So you mean I’m not the only one?”

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Shadow Walkers have been around for centuries, though admittedly there have been relatively few and far between. The last reported instance of Shadow Walking was centuries ago amongst the Baganda people of East Africa. They had a shadow walker named Mpobe. But since then, nobody’s heard anything about them.”

He crossed over to the bookshelf and pulled out an old, dusty volume that had no cover.  He set it on his desk, sat back down and flipped through its pages.

“Ah, here we are. Shadow Walking: the ability to merge with the shadows of animate and inanimate objects, and assume the shadow’s exact shape and dimensions. When a shadow walker inhabits a shadow, they can remain concealed in it until the shadow disappears.  They have been known to cover great distances at immense speeds, by inhabiting the shadows of birds, for example. Most shadow walkers can also transfer themselves from one shadow to another. They can do this without assuming their normal bodily shape, if the two shadows overlap.”

Keita paused and looked up. Luyanda stared back at him in disbelief.  Keita continued reading.

“This is another very efficient way for shadow walkers to cover great distances. Also referred to as shadow-hopping or shadow-jumping.” He snapped the book shut.

“What book is that?”

“On the Origins of Myths and Legends."

“Never heard of it.”

“I would be very surprised if you had. The original scrolls were destroyed several centuries ago. This is one of the few existing copies.”

Luyanda peered at the writing on the book. “What language is that?”

“Old Nubian.”

“And you can read it?”

“Obviously,” Keita answered, “though there are not that many people around who can, nowadays.”

Luyanda buried his head in his hands. “Why is this happening to me?” he murmured.

“I am asking myself the same question. You say you’ve been like this for a month now?”

“More like a few weeks.”

“No wonder you’re still so clumsy.”

“What do you mean, clumsy?”

“An expert shadow walker would have hopped as soon as the light was directed at them.”

“What do you mean, expert shadow-walker?  My life is over. I'm a freak! Is thing going to kill me?"

"I doubt that very much."

"Can I get rid of it?"

"I doubt that very much, too."

"So what am I supposed to do? Just continue living like this? I'm not normal. I want to be normal again."

"You might have to accept that you'll never go back to what you call 'normal'."

"So what am I supposed to do now?"

"Learn to live with it. I've never heard of the process being reversed, so it's quite probable that you're stuck with this for the rest of your life. Cheer up. Worse things have happened."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one stuck being weird."

"Your weirdness can come in quite handy, as I'm sure you've realized for yourself. It's all a matter of learning how to use it better. And I can help you."

“You want to help me skulk around better?”

“You have a rare gift, Luyanda. Like I said, it’s been centuries since we had a real shadow walker amongst us.”

“So how exactly are you going to help me?”

“For starters, you need to understand what you can’t do, and how to go about doing what you can. A lot of this knowledge is in books, in languages you can’t read yet.” He tapped the book on his desk. “I can help you understand it.”

“And you're saying none of these books can help me stop being a circus freak?”

“A circus freak? Please. Don’t insult what you don’t understand. Most shadow-walkers have gone on to do heroic deeds. That’s why they are remembered in myths and legends. I’m sure you’ve heard of Marwe? Uncama? Kwasi Benefo?”

The names didn't ring a bell, but Luyanda nodded anyway. He didn't want to look absolutely ignorant.

“They were shadow walkers," Keita continued, "although of course, their abilities were much more developed than yours. It’s no mean feat to go to the Shadow Realm and come back.”

“What’s the Shadow Realm?”

“The underworld.” Keita replied. “Marwe, Uncama and Kwasi Benefo all went there and returned.”

“Good for them. I’m not interested in this Shadow Zone. I just want to be normal again."

“Realm,” Keita corrected.

“Whatever,” Luyanda continued, irritated.  “I’m not interested in this shadow mumbo jumbo. It sounds like a whole load of black magic and superstitious nonsense to me. I want to go back to being normal. Can you help me or not?”

A pained look flashed across Keita’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Luyanda mumbled, “I didn’t mean to be rude. What I meant to say was I would appreciate any help that you could offer in reversing the process.”

“Like I said, I doubt the process can be reversed, and to be honest, what’s troubling me more is why this thing came to you. I have a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t a mere accident. The gift suits the mission and often precedes it. I have a feeling that you’ve been chosen for something very specific. No one is given a gift for nothing.”

“Who gives this kind of gift?” Luyanda asked.

“That I don’t know,” Keita said. “What I do know is where to find out more about your ability. I will scour every book ever written in ancient Egyptian, Meroitic, Old Nubian, Tifinagh, Ge’ez and Nsibidi. If it’s been documented, I will find it. From the little I remember reading about shadow walking, the information is less about reversing and more about mastering it.” He looked up. “I don’t know if you’d be interested in that?”

Luyanda was quiet.

“At least you’ll learn how to use it well, just in case you really need it later. And who knows - perhaps you’ll start to enjoy it and stop seeing yourself as a circus freak?”

Luyanda half-heartedly agreed to Keita's proposal. If he couldn't reverse what had happened to him, then the least he could do was to at least understand it. Perhaps he'd be able to explain better to his parents if they ever found him slinking around the house.  Perhaps he would start enjoying it, as Keita had intimated. Perhaps he could even find a way to make some money out of it. The image of breaking into a jewellery store flashed through his mind, but he dismissed it very quickly. He would never live with himself if he ever did such a thing. Keita insisted that they agree on a time to meet before Luyanda left his office. After taking a look at their schedules, they settled on lunch time the following day.

The next day, when Luyanda stepped into Keita’s office, he found a pile of boxes stacked neatly against the window. They cast a long shadow across the floor.

“What are those for?” he asked.

“Your first exercise,” Keita answered. “I needed to create a shadow that you could step in and out of. “Can you merge with that shadow over there for me, please?”

“Cool,” Luyanda said, slipping off his backpack and rolling up his sleeves. “That’s easy enough. Watch this.” He stepped onto the floor, where the shadow fell. He felt its coolness seeping up his feet, up his chest, up his neck. Then he felt the air leaving his lungs as his body flattened itself.  The floor drew nearer and everything around him went murky and grey. The sounds filtering through the window became distant and echoey. Then all was dark. It was as though the sun had dropped beneath the horizon, but it wasn't yet fully night. He looked around the room, seeing the shadows that fell at different places. He saw one moving across his field of view. It was Keita’s. He heard his voice, far-away and distant.

“Okay, you can come out now.”

He forced a deep breath into his chest, and pushed against his ribs, keeping his nose and mouth shut. His chest expanded with a slight pop, and the warmth returned to his hands and feet as the ground fell further and further away. He rose to his feet and stepped out of the shadow.

“So what did you think? Pretty cool, huh?”

Keita tapped the PAD on his wrist.  “I recorded the whole thing. Want to see it?” Luyanda didn’t get a chance to reply as Keita tapped his PAD again.

Its holographic display popped up in front of them. It was a video of Luyanda melting into the shadow. Luyanda’s jaw dropped as he watched himself step into the shadow, and little by little, he became hazy and obscure, like a blob of brown smoke. He wafted to the ground, and then disappeared, leaving nothing but shadow. Then Keita, offscreen, told him to come back.  Again, a pillar of grey-brown smoke rose slowly out of the ground, bobbing this way and that. The smoke condensed,  and Luyanda appeared in its place, kneeling on the ground. He pushed himself onto his feet. Then the video stopped.

“Gosh,” Luyanda exclaimed, appalled. “That was so disgusting.”

“And slow. And clumsy.”

“So that’s what it looks like to the outside world? I thought I was sleek.”

“You will be. In time.”

He crossed over to the shelf and pulled out the well-worn volume he had shown Luyanda the previous day.

“The haze is a reflection of your mind,” he said, poring over the book.  “The clearer your mind, the clearer the melting and the quicker the whole process will be. You want to get to the stage where your transition is transparent and instantaneous.”

“Is that even possible?” Luyanda asked in despair.

“Yes. But only with practice. We are going to start by learning to build your focus and attention span.”

Keita got Luyanda to sit down in a chair and concentrate on his breathing.

“Feel the breath flow in and out of your lungs. That’s it. Feel it coursing past your nostrils. I want you to feel your nose hairs swaying back and forth.”

Luyanda stifled a laugh.

“Really? Are you being serious?”

“Concentrate!” Keita scolded. After a few minutes meditating, Luyanda tried melting into the shadow again. When he came back, Keita showed him the recording he had made of the entire process. Luyanda’s stomach fell.

“I totally suck at this.”

“No, you’re getting better. It’s all about practice. I think we’ll have to stop there for today.  Let’s meet again tomorrow at lunch.”

They spent the next few training sessions building Luyanda’s focus and attention. When Luyanda’s transition state was almost perfect, Keita gave Luyanda some tips to increase his speed.

“According to the book, it’s all about visualization. Seeing where you want to go. The more clearly you see it, the quicker you’ll get there.”

“But I’m always staring at a shadow when I’m doing this whole thing.”

“A shadow is nothing. It’s emptiness. The absence of light. Think of the light, and the object that’s casting the shadow. That’s where you want to go.”

It took a few more training sessions, but the speed at which Luyanda transformed into a shadow became significantly faster.  They had been meeting every day now for two weeks. Whenever Jabu and Nomsa asked him what was keeping so busy at lunchtimes, his excuse was that he was doing interviews for the project they had coming up.

Luckily for Luyanda, Keita was quite cooperative with giving Luyanda all the information that he needed for the group-work assignment. The fourth group ended up having the highest score of all, which got Nomsa a bit peeved.

After the third week of training, though, Luyanda started feeling bored.

“What’s wrong?” Keita asked him one afternoon, at the end of another of their lunch -hour training sessions. “You are even less present than usual.”

“I have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing much. I was just wondering, how much longer is this training thing going to take?”

“What are you really asking, Luyanda? You think you’re ready for what’s coming?”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’m investing a lot of time, doing some cool mumbo-jumbo stuff. I spend the entire day running from class to training to class to the museum. And what is it all for? For some unknown thing that’s coming. If we could just call a time out for now, or until the situation gets here, I’d really appreciate it. I need my lunch hours back.”

“It’s also a sacrifice for me, Luyanda. But it’s a necessary one.”

“You know something that you’re not telling.”

“You don’t want me to bore you with theories and suppositions, do you?”

Luyanda didn’t answer.

“I just need to test one or two hypotheses, and then we can put a temporary hold on your training.  In the interim, let’s find a time that works best for you.”

They decided to shift the training sessions from lunch-time to the mornings, just before classes begun. The mornings were quiet, and there wasn’t much happening anyway. But they both agreed to hold only two or three more training sessions, and then to call it quits for the time being.

The next day, Luyanda left home early, and got to Keita’s office half an hour before his first class was scheduled to start.

“Good morning,” Keita said as Luyanda stepped into his office. “Today I’d like for us to try something a little bit different. Remember those experiments I told you about yesterday?”

“Yes?”

“We’re going to try one of them today. See that pot over there?” He nodded at a flower pot on his desk. “I want you to hold it in your arms as you melt into the shadows. You think you could do that for me?”

“Sure thing.”

Luyanda stepped across the room, took the pot in his hands, stepped into the shadow stretched out across the floor, and melted into it. As he cast his eyes about in the gloom, he felt the pot, still heavy in his arms, though he couldn’t make it out too clearly. After a couple of minutes, he emerged out of the darkness. The pot was still in his hands.

“How did that feel?”

“Normal, I guess. I had the pot in my hands all the time. I couldn’t see it, though.”

“Were you able to move around normally?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I want you to try something different now.” He reached across and took Luyanda’s hand in his.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“I want us to go together.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Coz it’s kind of uncomfortable. You’re going to feel flattened, and you’re going to find it hard to breathe. You’re sure you can handle that?”

“Let’s give it a try and see what happens.”

Holding Keita’s hand in his, Luyanda stood on the shadow on the floor, and melted into it. As he flattened out, he felt Keita’s hand tightening around his. As the twilight descended before his eyes, he heard Keita rasping and choking.

“I can’t breathe!” Keita gasped.

Luyanda hurriedly stepped out of the shadow. Keita was on his knees beside him, coughing and gulping down mouthfuls of air.

“I don’t know how you managed to do that,” he rasped. “I was suffocating!”

“Told you so.”

Luyanda helped him to his feet. Keita’s face broke into a broad smile.

“I take it the experiment was a success?” Luyanda asked.

“Yes and no. But it proves my theory.”

“Which is?”

“A shadow-walker can take objects and people with them. But if it’s people that go along for the ride, they are going to need a little something extra-special to survive the ordeal.”

He strode over to the shelf, pulled out a book and started leafing through it. After five minutes, Luyanda cleared his throat. Keita raised an eyebrow, surprised at the interruption.

“Yes?”

“So are we finished?” Luyanda asked.

“No. Not by a long shot.”

“But I’ve got class now.”

“Then what are you still doing here? I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time. Don’t be late.” And he turned back to the book in his hands.