Zaza lay awake on his grass bed. It was a bright night- a full moon one, not a night of sleep for a boy of ten. A gentle wind was blowing outside and it reached the insides of his hut through his window which he had opened after his mother had retired to her hut. He could hear her snoring in her hut which was on the other side of the compound. His mother's snores always sounded like the wild growls of a hungry dog. The flame on his oil lamp flickered wildly because of the wind. Zaza could hear the night, pregnant and alive with the loud playful cries of excited children and the whispers of lovers. Every now and then, the chorus of folksongs rent the air- many children were gathered in groups, listening to folktales being told by their parents and grandparents. Zaza envied them. His mother had no time for folktales and all his grandparents were dead.

The more he listened to the night, the more his blood stirred. He began to toss and turn on his bed. He finally got up and began to pace up and down his hut. This is a full moon night!, he had no business staying in his hut. In an instant, he was out of the hut, tiptoeing out of the compound. His mother continued to snore on.

His feet found their way to the house of old Ikolo. No one knew exactly how old Ikolo was. What people knew was that he was over a century old and still had a grip as strong as iron. He had fought in the great wars and was a hunter of great renown. On the walls of his compound were hung the skeletal frames of several animal and human heads- souvenirs of his exploits in the wars he had fought and the hunting expeditions he had embarked on. He was loved and revered by all in Kamaki land. Whenever he passed by people, they would greet him with his appellation:
'Ikolo, they would say, Ikolo the wild one, Ikolo, one before whom death flees'.
He would stop, and in reply, he would say: 'I am Ikolo, the fire that wrecks the forest in the rain, bringer of death, strangler of snakes, the hot palmwine that drunkards fear'

Tonight as Zaza had expected, Ikolo was in one of his storytelling fits. His compound, always the fullest on nights such as this was as usual, filled to the brim with children and adults as Ikolo told story after story of his past exploits. Above all things, it was his renown in the art of storytelling which endeared him to the villagers. Tonight, he seemed to be at his best. The crowd around him gave him a wide berth for Ikolo loved to tell stories with every part of his being. Tonight was no exception. He as always, never told his stories sitting down. He leapt up, landed on his feet, stamped the ground, hooted, sang and slashed the air with his hands. The crowd sat still, ocassionally giving loud yells of excitement as he thrilled them with accounts of battle after battle from his days of youth.

Zaza had to be content with sitting down at the very back of the crowd. Ikolo was recounting a tale from the war with the Massada tribe.
'I was returning from a great hunt, he said, with the carcass of a great python, hung around my neck. Just as I entered the long path which led straight to the green hills, I heard the bushes move. The untrained ear would have mistaken it for the wind, for it was a windy night. But not I, Ikolo, son of Kakamba, strangler of snakes and killer of death.'
'Ikolo the wind!, the terror of the trees!', cooed someone from the crowd.
'It is I!, he replied and continued. I threw down the snake and pulled out my sword, for when the rains come, the earth must shelter under the foilage of green. At that moment, an arrow whistled past my ear and struck a tree in front of me. An ordinary man would have died, but not me Ikolo, love child of the god of war. More cheers of awe greeted this appellation. Zaza cheered too. He had just heard a new name with which to brand his heroic alter ego. show yourselves!, show yourselves you sons of squirrels, I challenged. Two men emerged from the bushes then, blocking my advance and retreat. They were tall men, huge men, ugly looking as sin, warriors of Massada. I knew from the eagle feathers pinned on their helmets that they were great war heroes. So there I stood alone with these great monsters, our weapons glistening in the moon light, our eyes, sharp like the eyes of hawks, looking for an opening to strike..
At that point, Zaza felt a rough hand pull him from the compound into the village path. It was his mother. She beat him as she dragged him home. Zaza felt more pain from the fact that he had missed the great story than from her blows which rained down on his neck and back. She took him to her hut, threw him on the ground and began to cry. Zaza did not care for her tears. He hated her at that point for cutting short his enjoyment. She began to tell him of his father who had been a warrior and had been killed in battle. His body had not been brought home, it had been left for the flesh birds on the battlefield. She reminded him of his elder brother who had been a hunter and had been gored to death by an elephant. She didn't want to lose him, she said, he did not have to be a hero to prove his worth. She wanted him to be a farmer, get married, have children and grow old in peace. That was why she shielded him from wild play and wild stories of men like Ikolo- which were mere half truths. Zaza sat still and appeared to be listening but his mind had trailed off. His mind was filling in the gaps in Ikolo's story with some elements from his mother's talk. He, not Ikolo was the hero. He did not fight two men but ten, all giants, riding on monstrous fire breathing elephants with tusks shaped like harpooned spears. His end seemed certain, but he was no ordinary mortal, he was Zaza, love child of the god of war. He slew them all with his bare hands and hamstrung all the elephants. Then he was crowned king, no, god of the entire universe.