The unmasking changed everything. It was a crack in the firmament of her reality, and through it poured a light that was both illuminating and terrifying. The King, after that night of shattered silence, had withdrawn. His presence was felt—a watchful tension in the rustling patterns of the city, a certain deference from her attendants that spoke of his continued command—but he did not summon her. He gave her space, and in doing so, he gave her a weapon far more dangerous than any secret she had uncovered: time to think.
The image of that sliver of human skin, that glimpse of a weary, intelligent eye, was burned onto the back of her eyelids. The "Beast King" was a story Ile-Ife told itself to make the enemy manageable. A beast could be hated, feared, and ultimately destroyed without moral complication. A man… a man had reasons. A man had a history. A man could be understood.
And so, Moremi dedicated herself to understanding. Her espionage took on a new, deeper dimension. It was no longer just about memorizing pathways and locating oil stores; it was about deciphering a people. She turned her focus to Bimpe, her young attendant. The girl, since her moment of whispered confidence, had become less a silent shadow and more a tentative conduit.
The lessons began subtly. Moremi would point to an object—a water gourd, a woven basket, the rafters of her pod—and look inquisitively at Bimpe. The girl would respond not with a word, but with a specific, subtle rustle of her own raffia-clad shoulders, accompanied by a soft, clicking vibration. Moremi learned to mimic the sound, her human voice a poor imitation of the Ugbò's resonant biology, but the effort itself was a form of respect. Bimpe's mask would tilt in what Moremi now recognized as approval.
She learned that the Ugbò language was a symphony of context. A single click could mean "water," "river," or "thirst," depending on the accompanying posture and the rustle of the speaker's raffia. A low hum could signify "approval," "contentment," or "the sun is warm," differentiated by its duration and pitch. It was a language woven into the fabric of their being, inseparable from their movement and their environment. To speak was to dance; to listen was to read the wind.
Bimpe, emboldened by Moremi's earnest attempts, began to share more. She taught Moremi the vibrational patterns for the great trees, for the different animals of the forest, for the cycles of the moon. She showed her how the intricate patterns woven into their raffia were not mere decoration, but a visual language denoting lineage, role, and achievement. The King's complex, luminous patterns were a map of his authority and his connection to the deepest, oldest secrets of the woods.
One afternoon, as they sat together weaving simple mats—a skill Iya was teaching her with infinite patience—Moremi decided to ask the question that had been burning inside her since the unmasking. She formed the vibrational query as best she could, layering it with the rustling gesture Bimpe had taught her for "long ago."
"Why… the masks? Why the silence from my people?"
Bimpe's hands stilled. The playful, educational energy around her vanished, replaced by a solemn stillness. She was silent for a long time, her blank mask turned towards the green-gold light filtering through the canopy. When she finally responded, her clicks and hums were slow, deliberate, and heavy with a sorrow that seemed ancient.
The story that unfolded in Moremi's mind was not one of monstrous birth or spirit-world origin. It was a story of fear, of persecution, and of a desperate, brilliant survival strategy.
Generations ago, Bimpe's people were not the Ugbò. They were the Adete, the "People of the Forest." They were humans, like those of Ile-Ife, but they lived in deeper symbiosis with the wilderness, their skin and culture adapted to the shadows and silences of the canopy. They were few in number, peaceful, and reverent. But as Ile-Ife grew, as its farms and fields expanded, the Adete were pushed back. They were seen as primitive, as savages, as less than human. They were hunted for sport, their sacred groves were felled for timber, their children were sometimes stolen.
Driven to the brink of extinction, a wise and desperate chieftain had a vision. If they could not be accepted as men, they would become something else. Something the expanding, noisy civilization feared. They would become spirits.
Using their unparalleled knowledge of the forest, they developed the raffia armor. They treated it with oils to make it supple and water-resistant, and later, they discovered its terrifying flammability, a secret they guarded as both a vulnerability and a last-resort weapon. They crafted the blank, wooden masks, erasing their humanity, becoming faceless archetypes of the wild. They abandoned their spoken language for the vibrational one, a tongue their enemies could not hear or understand. They became the Ugbò, the "Rustling Ones," the Ará Ọ̀rùn. The raids began not as mindless evil, but as a calculated campaign of terror—a defense mechanism on a societal scale. They took metal to make their own tools and weapons, not to conquer, but to arm themselves against conquest. They took grain to supplement their foraging, to feed their children during lean seasons when their traditional grounds were encroached upon.
They became the monster in the story so that the story would keep the real monsters—the ones with ploughs and swords and a hunger for land—at bay.
The revelation settled over Moremi like a physical weight. She saw the Ugbò not as attackers, but as refugees defending their last, treetop sanctuary. Their raids were not the acts of demons, but the desperate, brutal tactics of a cornered animal. The "security" of Ile-Ife was built on the dispossession of another people. Ọranyan's frustration, his feeling of being besieged by a phantom enemy, was the direct consequence of his ancestors'—and his own—failure to see the humanity in the shadows.
Her internal conflict, once a simmering unease, now became a raging civil war in her soul. Her mission, her very reason for being here, was to find a way to destroy these people. To use the terrifying secret of fire to burn their tree-city to the ground, to slaughter them as they had slaughtered the warrior by the cook-fire. She saw the faces of her own people—the frightened child, the wounded Idowu, Ọranyan's weary eyes—and her heart ached for them. Their fear was real. Their suffering was valid.
But so was the fear and suffering of the Ugbò.
She started to see their society not as a strange, alien culture, but as a mirror to her own, reflecting a different, yet equally valid, way of life. She watched their communal child-rearing, where the young were cared for by the entire community, passed from one set of raffia-clad arms to another, learning the language of the forest from infancy. She witnessed their reverence for the great trees, their gentle harvesting of materials, always taking only what was needed and giving offerings of thanks. She saw the intricate beauty of their weaving, the quiet comfort of their family units gathered in the soft glow of the evening, sharing food in a silence that was not empty, but full of unspoken connection.
These were not the mindless, rustling specters of Ile-Ife's nightmares. They were a people of profound artistry, deep spirituality, and fierce loyalty. They were a people fighting for their survival.
One evening, as she sat with Bimpe, watching the fireflies ignite like floating embers in the dusk, the full weight of her dilemma crashed down upon her. She had the power to save Ile-Ife. The knowledge of the Ugbò's vulnerability to fire was a weapon of unimaginable power. But to wield it would be to commit an act of genocide against a people who were, at their core, just trying to live. It would be to fulfill the very prophecy of monstrous destruction that had created them.
She thought of the King's unseen face, of the intelligence and loneliness in that single, glimpsed eye. She thought of his respect for her mind, his willingness to engage her as an equal. He was trying to protect his people, just as she was trying to protect hers. They were two rulers on opposite sides of a tragic, bloody misunderstanding.
A deep, profound sympathy, unwanted and dangerous, wrapped itself around her heart. Her mission was clear, but the path to its completion was now a moral quagmire. How could she be the savior of one people by becoming the destroyer of another? The crown of raffia and thorns she wore no longer felt like a disguise; its weight was the very real, crushing burden of an impossible choice.