Calabash of the gods (5)
I shivered, my legs turned to jelly, my eyes were stricken with tears and my heart threatened to explode. I made an intelligible cry as I strode towards what was most definitely her corpse, stumbling along the way with the finesse of a drunk man. My nose was runny, my throat hot, my cheeks wet and my mind in shambles. I stumbled and fell beside her corpse, into a pool of her blood.
I looked at her corpse, a nasty gash was visible on her neck. Her assailant had slit her throat and from the look of shock on her face, she was not expecting it. I cried, shouted, and screamed, not knowing how to properly express my guilt.
"Why, why, why?! Why did this have to happen? Aduke, please tell me this is a lie, please tell me this is a dream. Who did this!!! This must be a dream."
"Well, you're not wrong about that." A voice, barely a whisper, but as clear as anything I had ever heard before spoke next to me.
Shock and anger filled my entire being. I looked up to see the owner of the voice. It was a woman dressed in red garments, her face was covered with a red cloth and all sorts of colorful beads adorned her head like a crown. Her waist was adorned with beads and her entire presence gave off an otherworldly feel. I had seen her before but from where I could not recall for my mind was blinded by indescribable anger. Within the woman's hand was a knife drenched in blood, my wife's blood.
"Hmm… I thought this would be enough to awaken you, but there is still some lingering attachment left."
"How dare you?!!!" I screamed, my mind went blank, and rage surged through my body and manifested as Agbara.
I drew the cutlass hung by my waist and slashed at the woman with the fury of a thousand suns. The blade of the cutlass whistled through the air, cutting it apart with the sole purpose of reaping the life of my enemies, but then, it hit nothing.
The cutlass passed through her like she was a ghost. In my fury, I refused to give up, slashing at her time and time again while she just dodged the entire time, mocking me.
"I guess being in this dream for this long has restricted your Agbara. If you calmed down, you would realize that you have been unable to truly muster any of it." The witch spat out from her evil tongue.
I swung my cutlass continuously for almost two hundred heartbeats. My cutlass and my arms not relenting, my fury etched onto my face like the mask of an Egungun.
"That old man did a number on you, eh?" She said again.
"Shut up!!" I yelled and jumped into the sky to bring my blade upon her head.
"Enough of this already." She dodged my attack with ease and then moved in that same ghost-like fashion.
She got into my opening from the wide swing I took. She knocked my cutlass from my hand and slammed her palm into my chin, hitting me with such force that I flew through the air and landed a distance of 7 feet away from her.
"That hurts bitch, I will ki… What, what am I doing here?" I groaned and my head felt clearer.
'What am I doing here? I must do, a mission to complete. But what mission exactly?'
I could remember that I had a duty and I was not supposed to be there. What that duty was exactly, I could not remember. I spat out the blood in my mouth and got up, hellbent on continuing the fight, even if I had to use my fist.
"Oh, that did not wake you still? You are a stubborn one but I guess your pain tolerance plays a part in it too. So, this level of physical and mental trauma is still not enough to awaken you. What about this then?"
"Baba, Baba, please help me." My mind exploded when I heard that voice. Was it not Akanni? I had forgotten I left Akanni in the outer courtyard in my stupidity and fury. I turned around slowly dreading what I might see.
Akanni was there, being held by the woman by the neck, she was choking him while he tried his best to escape her clutch. He kicked and screamed to escape from her grip but it was ineffective.
'How are there two of them?' My mind was unable to comprehend how she could split herself into two.
Her voice, like thunder, broke me out of my thoughts.
"That old fool went out of his way to make them realistic did he not? I cannot fault you for not seeing through his tricks or maybe you did not want to see through them. That would make sense since your belief in them only served to further solidify their realism and feed information to the dream weave to adjust their mannerisms properly."
"What are you saying?" I asked, despite already knowing the answer deep down.
"I am saying this is a dream, conjured up by malicious forces." She replied.
"Baba, Baba, please help. Do not listen to her, please help." Akanni screamed, kicking and scratching with all his might to get free.
This shocked me into action, and I dashed toward them screaming, "Get your hands off my son."
"Well, I suppose this should do it" She brought out a knife, and before I could stop her, she slit Akanni's throat.
His blood sprayed on my face. She threw Akanni's lifeless body at me which I caught. My son's dying body lay in my hands, my mouth unable to hear any sound, my mind blanks, and my eyes became dead.
"Why ?!" Those were the only words that could leave my mouth.
"Is it not obvious by now, to wake you up? So, Yekini, wake up, remember your duty and wake up. For they are coming and they are strong."
Something exploded within my mind, and there was only the clanging of the spirit ward charm at my gate, clanging furiously. Warning me from the very beginning about this twisted nightmare. I had ignored it, wanting to believe all this was true. Before my eyes, the bodies of my wife and son turned to dust and my house and my surroundings started to twist and turn before fading into nothingness. All that was left was a black void and the woman in the red dress beside me. I put my hands into my pocket, pulling out a black calabash.
"Pardon me for making you go through that. It was the only way to wake you up. I know the thought of them and their fates since you left home must have plagued your mind this entire time."
I answered her not, instead posing a question to her.
"Who did this?"
"An old rainmaker, to be more precise, the people from the shrine in the Land 'beyond the river' that your cohort stole the calabash from. They only enlisted the help of the old rainmaker by tempting him with a sacrifice."
"Old rainmaker? You mean the old man that was with you in the shrine?"
"Yes, although, I must admit I am quite shocked he was able to conjure something like this. It's not his usual purview. I guess the old bastard has been picking up a few tricks since he lost most of his authority over the thunderclouds to that upstart over three centuries ago."
"He was able to put me to sleep and manipulate my dreams? But I put up an alarm stone and a warding barrier?" I stuttered in disbelief.
"How naïve! Do you think some barrier made up of salt is going to stop a divinity class spirit? Are you foolish? Even sufficiently strong or experienced spirits would easily break or pass through it without you realizing it, talk less of a divinity class. That rainmaker has been conjuring uncountable rains since the coming of Oduduwa." She shouted angrily.
"Who are you then, why did you help me?" Embarrassed, I quickly tried to change the topic.
"Who I am is of no importance. Just know I was requested by that princess of yours to assist you in situations like this."
"So, you're a spirit too, or maybe a deity?" I asked.
"I am no spirit nor am I a deity. But I am no mortal mind you? My strength comes not from flimsy things like faith, fear, or the power of concepts. My name and my deeds have long been forgotten in this land. Now hurry up, you need to wake up, your enemies are close by." She replied and turned her back to face me, walking away from me.
"Wait, if the princess sent you to protect us, what were you doing when we were being killed left and right? Why did you leave us to suffer the horrors of the evil forest, the mauling of wild dogs, or the hunt of the People from beyond the river?" I demanded.
"Because I could only interfere in situations in which you get attacked by the power of a deity. If I had interfered in the other situations, what is to stop the other gods and Elder spirits from interfering? Besides, my body is nowhere near ILE." She answered.
"I understand, thank you for your help," I said, bowing down to this being of unfathomable strength.
"Wake up now Yekini. Walk towards the light, you have perils ahead of you. I left some gifts for you. I hope they will be of use to you. I wish you goodluck, you shall need a lot of it." She said, disappearing into the blackness.
I turned around and walked towards the light hoping to find myself in the waking world. I could hear voices. Their whispers were like a foregone memory, I could feel wetness too, like a memory from a dream. Their words made no sense, their dialect undecipherable to my brain but a part of me understood what they meant.
"He is waking, I guess you did it, old hag. That princess must mean a lot to you, you're usually not the type to help mortals?" One voice said.
"It's none of your business, Rainmaker. I owe her ancestors a favor, I am just simply repaying it. Besides, what did those humans offer you?" a second voice said.
"A virgin from that ancient family." The first voice answered.
"It's just, like your kind to enjoy things like that."
"Oh please, do not speak with such hypocrisy. After all, before we got here your race was engaged in much worse, old primordial." The first voice chided.
The second voice snorted and said "Take your leave first then old man. I do not trust you enough to leave you with my client."
"Okay ma'am, I was not paid enough to antagonize you. Besides, I owe you a debt. I have stalled him long enough for those humans to arrive. I doubt he will survive this encounter. Remember, you cannot interfere."
I woke up with a start, sweating profusely despite the cold. I remembered my dream and what that entity told me. Panicking, I searched around for my bag and checked its insides.
'The calabash is still here.' I breathed a sigh of relief when I discovered it. I took it out to observe and pinched myself very hard to ensure I was no longer in a dream. I noticed the motifs of the calabash seemed to be clearer. I could not describe it but it felt like I had gained more understanding of what it was trying to portray.
Remembering what the entity told me, I got my things ready and cleaned my face to get away before this so-called 'great peril' arrived. After washing my face with water, I dashed out of the shrine while chewing on a piece of jerky. A piece of my mind gnawed at me, warning me of a bad omen. I arrived at the entrance to the shrine and rushed out, toward my original route.
A little while after I left the shrine, I felt a tingling sensation on the back of my neck. My neck hair rose in fear and goosebumps peppered my body. I felt a wave of a powerful, domineering, nauseating Agbara, descend upon me. Sensing danger, I dodged immediately to my right and bent down, barely avoiding an ax thrown at me and a scythe swung at my head. The ax shattered the ground where it landed and the scythe sliced a nearby rock in half.
"So, we've finally caught up to you, thief?" A deep baritone voice spoke.
"We are here to take back what is ours, prepare to die heathen." A slightly high-pitched voice said.
I turned around to see two entities standing menacingly behind me, dressed and adorned with colorful attire that covered them from head to toe. Ferocious masks are designed to strike fear into the hearts of all mortals. They were Egungun and they were here for me.