Aigamuxa

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see...

TRANSMIT - initiate the ogre signal - RECEIVE - initiate the Xhosa frequency - FEE-FI-FO-FUM, I SMELL THE BLOOD - illumine the Khoikhoi mythologies - WITNESS - the Aigamuxa.

Cue curtains to rise on story the first.

Smell the earth and fire of the desert. A parched man runs. Wheezing screams. A giant lopes after, head empty of eye sockets. The man runs. The blind beast gives chase, smiling all the while. Every so often, the giant stands on its hands. Look, sweetling! It has eyes on the soles of its feet.

The man cannot escape. The giant seizes him, lifts him bodily up. The giant presses its face against the man's belly, like a parent teasing a child. A tickling sensation. Razor teeth. Three parts agony and four parts disbelief as the man feels his innards vacate with a slurp before he can even die.

The giant stands on his hands to see the despair in its prey's eyes fade into inert jelly. It drops the corpse. It bellows to earth and sky. It was born in the long ago, when earth and sky lustily met. The monster bellows, but its absent parents do not answer. Petulantly, the giant eats the corpse - skin, meat, and marrow.

Cue curtains to rise on story the second.

A giant chases the trickster Jackal. Jackal dodges and weaves. Yet the blind giant gains and gains, standing on its hands, every so often, to gaze from its soles. Jackal splits from his wriggling shadow, like a lizard from its tail, but the monster is not fooled, not deterred.

The giant closes in, laughing in triumph. But Jackal is clever. The trickster pours tobacco powder onto the hot ground. The giant roars. The eyes on the soles of its feet sting. Jackal makes his escape. The monster shrieks to earth and sky, but neither respond. Earth and sky have not spoken to each other in a long time.

Cue curtain to rise on story the third.

Four giants. Four brothers. The Brothers Aigamuxa. They were born without names, but took an appellation from the object they most liked to collect.

Brother Stone liked the feel of soil betwixt his toes and fetched the shining stones and gems he found on the ground, or in a corpse's pocket.

Brother Tooth growled the loudest and collected the pearly treasures he tore from the mouths of his victims.

Brother Charm was drawn to the esoteric, taking the talismans and holy symbols his meals held up to keep him at bay.

Brother Knick-knack, a very curious Aigamuxa in more than one sense of the word, coveted the devices and gadgets dreamt up by humankind.

Were they, the brothers, children of earth and sky? That was in the long ago. Not even the brothers remember. But they do remember meeting a strange man named Marquard. A man who did not fear them as they approached, hungry and laughing. A man who bound their power by...

Signal disruption! Our omni-dimensional eyes warp. Something protects him! We cannot look long at Marquard.