One of the great joys of doing research for The Hidden Saint was discovering new, fantastic creatures—new to me, at least—that have their roots in the bible and the ancient rabbinic law of the Mishna and the Talmud. That is, between two and three thousand years ago. The cornucopia of information on such creatures is Sacred Monsters by Rabbi Natan Slifkin. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this website, it is an erudite and entertaining look at both the scripture and science behind fantastic beasts such as the worm that eats through stone, Leviathan, Behemoth, “the spontaneous sweat-louse,” and much more.
I’d become acquainted, more or less, with many of these creatures over the years. But the stunning discovery in Rabbi Slifkin’s book eventually became one of the most terrifying creatures in The Hidden Saint: the Yedoni, reputed to be the wild beasts that the Lord inflicted upon the Egyptians during the ten plagues of the Exodus. And while the Yedoni are shaped like men, they’ll never be confused for them. To show you why, here’s an excerpt from The Hidden Saint. Rabbi Adam and his companion, the golem, have begun their quest to save the rabbi’s children, and find themselves in the woods at night…
A sound arrested Adam’s attention: a snort from a creature he couldn’t identify. It was a ways off, but not that far off. Adam moved closer to the golem. Again all was quiet, for a while.
At first he was unsure he had heard anything at all; the sound almost wasn’t there. Then Adam heard it again, a sound different from the one he’d heard moments earlier, this time slight and scratching and rhythmic and low to the ground. The golem turned the higher of his mismatched ears toward the sound. Adam clambered to his feet. The golem, instantly alert, followed Adam to investigate. Something was moving in the underbrush just beyond the curtain of light cast by their fire. Adam picked up a long branch at the edge of the fire and thrust the impromptu torch ahead of them into the darkness.
His eyes snapped open wide. Nothing was moving in the underbrush. It was the ground itself that was moving. It pushed upward in little spurts, as though someone or something was digging from below. The earth continued to fall away from whatever was making its way upward, toward them. A root appeared in the center of the disturbed earth, thick as a man’s wrist. But this was like no root that Adam had ever seen before, because no force was moving it: the root was moving the earth. Adam could feel his heart hammering at his chest. The root was undulating, rising from the ground and creating a hole of increasing size. With a sense of panic, Adam realized what this was. They had to get away from it now.
“Back!” he barked at the golem who, although startled by the urgent tone of his creator, retreated quickly, almost stumbling. Adam ran back too and they reached their fire just in time to see a shape moving purposefully out of the hole. It was a hand. Not the hand of any animal, and not quite the hand of any man, but mottled and hairy like the coiled root through which it was rising steadily into the air. The hand opened and closed vigorously. Another hand punched up through the earth nearby and the pair rose into the night, capped by long, sharp, claw-like fingertips. Adam stared, riveted by the sight. He could see a pair of forearms, elbows, and upper arms. The earth now rose and fell away from the ground between them. What appeared to be a monstrous gourd rose up: gourd it was, but also a head, with mouth, nose, and eyes—hungry eyes that popped open as it sensed its liberation from the ground. The Yedoni—for that was what Adam had recognized the thing to be—planted its two hands on the ground and pushed down on them to pull itself up out of the earth. It did so with amazing power and speed and came to stand no more than twenty feet from them.
The Sages say that the wild beasts that the Holy One, Blessed be He, loosed upon the ancient Egyptians at the time of the ten plagues were not lions or tigers, but the Yedoni, and that this was why the Egyptians grew fearful of the Lord. Scripture specifically warned man against contact with the Yedoni, for such contact meant almost certain death. In Adam’s time and place, most towns and villages were safe because the Yedoni grew only in uncultivated ground. But more than one traveler who failed to reach his destination, particularly those who traveled by night, knew the Yedoni, though it was the last thing they knew.
Human in form but in no other way, the Yedoni stood seven feet tall, towering over Adam and fully as tall as the golem. Its body and face were mottled in the colors of the mud from which it had come, and covered with secondary roots, hairs, spikes, and thorns that added to its volume. Worms and beetles and maggots crawled across its moist, mud-covered skin. The hairy root sprang from the Yedoni’s abdomen like an umbilical cord and snaked back into the hole in the ground from which the creature had come.
Waves of terror pounded Adam. His legs felt weak and not wholly under his control. Nausea roiled his stomach and brought a putrid taste to his mouth. He fought to control these impulses and succeeded at least enough to draw his musket to his chest, ready to shoot.
For the first time, the Yedoni saw the two witnesses to its birth. It took their measure and then smiled coldly; its teeth were enormous and sharp, like the thorns of ancient brambles. The Yedoni shook its powerful, muscled body like a dog shaking off pond water. Mud flew everywhere, hitting both Adam and the golem and blinding them temporarily. In that instant, the Yedoni rushed at the golem, knocking him to the ground. The two creatures wrestled furiously, the ground shaking beneath them as the Yedoni attempted to sink its knife-like teeth into the golem’s neck. As they rolled on the earth, the Yedoni’s umbilical root twisted around the golem, binding him to his foe. The golem used his massive, shovel-like hands to try to push away the Yedoni’s head, to break its jaws, to crack its skull—but the Yedoni was too strong. Nor could the golem get away; he and his adversary were bound tightly together.
All this had taken but a few seconds. The golem was pinned on his back, the Yedoni on top of him. At the sight of his companion’s plight, Adam shook off his terror, at least enough of it to raise his musket and fire, but the creature absorbed the balls harmlessly. Whatever was inside the Yedoni wasn’t blood and wasn’t stopped by musket shot. Adam looked frantically about him. His gaze fell upon the creature’s umbilical root. With a sound that was half battle cry, half hysteria, Adam ran forward and brought the wooden butt of his musket down on it like an ax. For the first time, the Yedoni made a sound, a soul-piercing howl that Adam would continue to hear in his nightmares for years to come. So that got your attention, Adam thought. He brought the musket down again and again upon the root, with a violence heretofore hidden within him, until the root was severed. Disconnected from whatever part of it lurked deep underground, the Yedoni froze and turned as gray and brittle and dead as a dried leaf.
The golem swept off the unholy debris of his adversary and began to return to Adam. But Adam had no time to savor their victory. Another Yedoni rushed from the shadows, shoving him to the ground with a force that sent him sliding across the clearing, the undergrowth tearing at his face and hands. The Yedoni moved toward Adam but the golem knocked the creature down. They fought, the golem trying to avoid entanglement in the root, which stretched back into the darkness. Before Adam could come to the aid of the golem, a third Yedoni appeared beyond the fire, the flickering light from the flames casting a dance of death across its torso and face. This Yedoni, unlike the others, moved slowly in its approach to Adam. He looked into its face, with its mirthless smile and dead black eyes, and Adam knew that this Yedoni didn’t want just to kill him; this Yedoni wanted him to know he was going to die. This Yedoni wanted him to feel fear, and the greatest amount of fear at the moment of his death.
Adam could barely breathe, as though his body had forgotten how. But he hadn’t forgotten how to kill the Yedoni. Adam raised his musket and aimed it at the creature’s umbilical root—and remembered that he hadn’t reloaded the gun. He lowered the musket and groaned. There would be no time to measure and pour the powder, insert the wadding, add the balls, and pack it all tightly. The Yedoni had crossed around the fire and most of the way to Adam, the flames now backlighting the creature and turning it into a featureless, black silhouette that moved closer, closer.
Adam gripped his musket tightly, to use it again as an axe. But he lacked the advantage of surprise and would get no chance to use the musket as he had before. A shiver raced through him as he realized his weapon was useless. In utter frustration, he hurled the musket at the Yedoni, which swatted it away like a twig. Adam bit his lip in concentration. To run might deliver him into the embrace of other Yedoni. Instead, Adam began to move to his right, slowly, just a step, then another. The Yedoni pivoted to match the change in Adam’s direction, and continued its approach. Adam moved further to the right, and the Yedoni again turned as it continued toward him, not about to let Adam get away. Just a few inches more, Adam thought.
Suddenly, the Yedoni stopped, acquired a look of shock, and let out a howl to match that of its fallen comrade. As Adam intended, the creature had unwittingly dragged its umbilical root into the fire as it shifted direction to follow him. The root was now alight. The fire raced the length of the root to the Yedoni and hit it in the abdomen like a cannon blast. The creature was completely aflame now, shrieking, running senselessly through the clearing on the final, fading impulses within its body. And then it collapsed, a pile of smoking ash, and moved no more.
Adam could see the golem still fighting the second Yedoni. The golem rolled the creature in its own root, enough at least to keep its hands and feet under some control. He raised the creature into the air and threw it into the flames. It exploded with a crackling sound and they ducked instinctively. Parts of the creature flew in all directions, hitting them with burnt, foul-smelling debris.
A loud rhythmic sound filled Adam’s ears and he panicked until he realized that it was the rushing of his own blood within him. He didn’t move, trying to gain a sense of what was to come. But nothing more came. Gradually, the racing of his blood and the pounding of his heart relented.
The golem rose from the crouch he had assumed in destroying the last Yedoni and joined Adam. There was concern in his expression, but Adam paid more attention to the golem’s wounds. The Yedoni had left deep gashes in the rough brown and gray surface of the golem’s face, neck, and shoulders and his black jacket was ripped in several places. Adam noticed the injuries with surprise; he hadn’t thought the golem could be injured. But the golem showed no self-pity. He smoothed his clay over the wounds matter-of-factly, like a potter addressing an imperfection in a vessel, and they disappeared.
Now the golem was staring at Adam, his gray brows raised in what looked like surprise. He extended a finger and touched it to Adam’s blood-smeared face. He gazed at the blood in bewilderment. It seemed to Adam that this was one more thing that the golem did not understand, or, perhaps, had not understood until now.
Adam dabbed at his face with his sleeve. The gash wasn’t serious. It would soon heal, although it would likely leave another scar. He massaged his shoulder carefully, attempting to assuage a sharp pain lodged there, and winced. Well, at least he was alive, wasn’t he? He had encountered the Yedoni and lived. How many people since the time of the ancients could say that? He looked over at the golem, who now was bringing another log to the fire. Adam smiled to realize that the golem had been tested in strong fire, indeed. And he had met his responsibility with every limb of his hulking clay body.
Exhaustion came over Adam suddenly like the white cloth unfurled with a flourish across the holy Sabbath table. His limbs were heavy, his mind adrift. Adam slept.