The Weight Of Gold

The road leading out of Ọ̀runmìlà was unlike any path Iyi had walked before.

Towering ìrókò trees lined the way like ancient sentinels, their thick branches twisting toward the sky like the fingers of forgotten gods. Moss hung from their limbs like old whispers. A heavy mist blanketed the ground, curling around their trunks, breathing with a life of its own. It was the kind of mist that didn't just obscure sight—it pressed against the soul.

Each of Iyi's steps crunched on gravel and old leaves, yet the sound seemed swallowed by the air. He was alone, or so he believed—until he saw him.

A man sat on a worn wooden bench beneath one of the larger trees, half-swallowed by the fog. He was hunched, motionless, his face turned slightly toward the sky, as if listening to something beyond this world. His clothes hung loosely on his frame, stitched with old thread and time's apathy. His skin bore the wear of years, sun-kissed and scarred in fine lines like forgotten script.

Something in Iyi's chest stirred—a pulse, a knowing.

He approached slowly, the mist parting as if out of respect.

"Are you... awake?" Iyi asked, his voice barely more than a breath.

The man stirred. His eyelids fluttered open to reveal eyes so pale they seemed nearly translucent, milky with time or something stranger. And yet, they saw.

"I am here," the man said, voice rough and hollow, "but not here."

A shiver traveled down Iyi's spine. "What does that mean?"

The man raised a hand, gnarled and gentle, gesturing toward the bench beside him.

"Sit with me," he said. "Let me tell you a tale… of forgetting."

Despite the cold that emanated from the fog and the eerie silence of the road, Iyi obeyed. He lowered himself onto the bench, its old wood creaking beneath his weight. The damp crept through his cloak, biting his skin, but he didn't flinch.

The man inhaled slowly, and when he exhaled, it was like he was releasing centuries.

"My name no longer matters," he began. "Once, I was a keeper of stories. A guardian of memory. I knew the truths others buried, the songs they sang in mourning, the names they dared not speak."

Iyi's fingers clenched around the edge of the bench. "What happened?"

The man's gaze drifted, eyes searching the mist for something long gone.

"I remembered too much. Pain. Betrayal. The fire that consumed my home. The cry of my daughter in the night. I carried it all in my bones. Every memory was a thread, and I—woven of thousands—began to unravel."

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled with the memory he claimed to no longer own.

"So I sold it."

Iyi blinked. "Sold what?"

"My memory," the man said simply. "My past. My pain."

A silence settled between them, heavy as the fog. Then the man reached into the folds of his robe and drew out a small cloth bundle. His hands were careful, reverent, as though unwrapping sacred relics. He untied the knot with the precision of someone who had done so a hundred times.

Inside was a stone—smooth, dark, almost glasslike. But it glowed. Faintly. From within.

Iyi leaned forward, his breath catching. "What is that?"

"This," the man whispered, "is my memory. The spirits sealed it inside. Every moment, every scar, every name I once loved or hated—it lives here now. Removed from me, kept safe… but not gone."

Iyi reached out, but the man gently pulled the bundle back.

"Be careful," he said. "To part with memory is to lose pieces of yourself. It is not a thing to envy."

"But why?" Iyi's voice came softer now. "Why would anyone choose to forget?"

The man's eyes grew hollow. "Because remembering nearly destroyed me."

His words lingered like the cold.

"I begged the spirits," he continued, "to take it from me. In return, I gave them my name, my past, my place among the living. They granted my wish, but they left me this—" He held the stone up again. "A reminder. A burden of absence."

Iyi stared, heart pounding. His own journey had brought him through the chambers of fire and trial. He had heard the river whisper names that didn't belong to this world. He knew the power of memory—and its pain.

"Is it possible to… take it back?" he asked.

The man didn't answer immediately. When he finally did, it was like thunder beneath water.

"Yes. But not without cost."

"What kind of cost?"

The man looked at him, truly looked this time. "To reclaim a memory is to invite the pain again. It is to unseal wounds the spirits have sewn shut. You would remember love, yes—but also loss. You would know your triumph, but relive every failure."

He lowered his gaze. "The spirits do not give freely. They trade. They weigh."

Iyi was silent.

In his satchel were three sponges from the chamber of rain—each one marked by sacrifice. He had felt the cold of the drowned spirits. Heard the scream of the betrayed Echo Queen. He had touched threads of his mother's story in dreams and riddles. He knew the ache of memory like a second heartbeat.

"We all carry burdens," Iyi murmured. "But forgetting… isn't always freedom."

The man smiled, and in that small curve of his lips was the sadness of entire lifetimes.

"True," he said. "But sometimes it is the only way to keep walking."

Iyi's chest tightened. He wasn't sure if the man was speaking of himself—or warning him of what lay ahead.

"Do you regret it?" Iyi asked.

The man paused, eyes once more on the glowing stone.

"Every morning," he said. "And yet, every night, I sleep without dreams. That, too, is a kind of peace."

The wind stirred the mist, curling around their legs like a serpent with no fangs. Somewhere, far beyond the trees, a distant drumbeat sounded—faint, ancestral, like the heartbeat of a forgotten deity.

The man stood, tucking the stone back into its cloth. As he turned to leave, Iyi reached out.

"Wait. What should I do… if I'm offered the same?"

The man did not look back.

"Ask yourself," he said, "if your pain is part of your purpose. And if it is… do not trade it for silence."

Then he walked into the fog, vanishing like a breath in winter.

Alone now, Iyi sat still, the bench beneath him holding the shape of two lives. He closed his eyes, feeling the residue of the moment—the echo of a man who gave up everything to escape his past.

Could I do the same?

His fingers brushed his satchel, feeling the sponge that still dripped with memory. He thought of Ẹ̀nítàn, the drowned one, who bore her agony for centuries. He thought of the girl in the veil, and of his own mother's whispered prayers behind locked doors.

Pain had made him. Memory had shaped him.

No—he could not trade that.

Iyi rose. The bench creaked one last time before falling silent.

The mist parted for him now, as if recognizing a soul who chose to remember. His steps were slower, thoughtful, but resolute.

For ahead, the road curved sharply—and the final trial awaited.

Yet something in him had shifted.

He no longer walked to forget or escape.

He walked to remember.

To carry every burden with honor.

To give voice to what others had silenced.

To become a keeper of stories once more.

The man who sold his memory had surrendered his name to survive.

But Iyi?

Iyi would carry his name through the fire—and beyond.