In the plains of Africa, in a tiny village whose name had never been pronounced by an English tongue, there was a shaman who lived in a mud-brown hut. But this shaman was no wise and benevolent healer; his heart was wicked, and he served a destructive spirit far older than the village or the plains, or any of the tongues that had ever tried to give it a name.
This spirit at times took a familiar form, the form of a great lion. When the priest had a special petition, he would surround himself with strange objects and sweet smoke, and perform his incantations, and then by night he would make a certain mark on the door of one of the village huts, and the lion would come and carry his sacrifice away. And the villagers never knew what was behind these disappearances, and they trusted their priest to keep them safe.
One year, among the many that passed unchangingly in the little village, a great hunter came through the plains, a European, in search of trophies that would bring him glory and fame. As one of his hunts brought him to the fields near the village, he sighted the greatest, grandest lion he had yet seen. Sure that this would be the most glorious trophy of all, he brought up his gun and sent a bullet through the heart of the animal, whose spirit was the consort of the wicked shaman.
At once, a howling wind swept over the plain. When the fury had passed, the hunter lay dead. The lion he had killed was nowhere to be seen.
That night, the same mighty wind swept through the village, leaving devastation in its wake. When the sun rose, not one of the villagers’ huts was left standing, and of all the inhabitants of the village, the priest was the only one left alive to witness the ruin.
In the desolate light of dawn, in the grip of terror such as he had never known before, the shaman went to the tree that had once stood tall outside his door and now lay blasted and broken on the ground. From the tree, he took a piece of wood and began to carve it into the shape of a lion. When the image was formed, the priest began to pray. For three days he chanted, entreating the spirit of chaos that was his master, to return and commune with him once more.
On the third night, at the same hour that the wind had swept through the village, the carved image awoke. Its blind wooden eyes looked into the face of the wicked shaman, and in that moment, the wind began again.
Many months later, a pair of traders from the East made their way across the African plains in search of rare and valuable treasures to carry back to their homeland. During their travels, they found the ruins of a village. No houses were standing, nothing remained intact, and they were preparing to leave, when they saw a small statue, a carved image of a lion. This statue was the only thing in the entire ruin that was not broken, and the travelers wrapped it and put it in their pack to take away with them.
When the traders reached their ship, they put their packs and their merchandise into the cargo hold, and retired to their cabin to sleep, as they began the long journey back to the Indonesian bazaars where their goods would be sold. That night, the wind blew fierce, sending shudders through the boards of the ship and chilling the bones of its passengers. Nobody ever saw the two traders after that night; when the ship reached harbor, they were not among the crowd of weary passengers coming ashore. Their packs were found, still in the cargo hold, and in the cabin that had been theirs was a small carved statue of a lion, with great staring eyes.
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