Who Fears Death

Ssaiku leaves for an important meeting after the incident; Mwita and Onye spend the evening in his tent. They fall asleep for hours; when they awaken, Luyu has brought them food, telling them that they must eat. Mwita and Onye eat ravenously.

Luyu is impatient to move on, as some of the men had been talking about how bad things are in the West. She says that what waits for them “is of the oldest evil […] deeper than humans” (306-7). She leaves to socialize a bit more, while Mwita and Onye fall back asleep.

When they wake up again, Onye asks Mwita to tell her the secret he’s been keeping from her. Mwita tells her that the reason Onye can “travel within” to alu, is because she received the ability from her mother. Onye realizes that the Kponyungo had been her mother, which Mwita confirms. He tells her that her mother would have passed initiation had she had the opportunity to try, and that she had learned the ability while on long journeys with her father, who would knowingly encourage her to fast. He tells her, finally, that when they were leaving Jwahir, Aro had been considering taking on Onye’s mother as a student.