Zack rolled a weed and light it up. Stretching his back on the rocking bamboo chair, he drew the smooth spicy smoke into his lungs and deeply exhaled.
Awaiting the sunrise from the east, a part of his daily spiritual routine, Zack was more than pleased with life.
At his age he probably shouldn't be smoking, but unlike the devastating effects of cigarette on the respiratory system, weed had a natural smooth feel to it that can help a conscious user without any serious damage. A puff from a tiny roll can do wonders to a sagacious mind.
And this morning he wants his mind to dissect what lay ahead.
And so did his thoughts drifted to the guests he will be receiving. Powerful men of a different caliber, men who created wealth out of sheer dedication to the land they called mother, up in the mountainous valleys of a hidden mystical land.
Old boy Zack is not from this world, but bump into it by faith or chance, perhaps a destiny of some sort.
As a kid he was pirated from the other side, by a group of strange men from this land who came to his part of the world to do business, the mother land of Cygon as it was known is a hidden land through the mystical volcanic mountain; the legends surrounding it are nothing but legends any way; because no one ever came back with a story to tell…
If only they knew that was a gateway to a different world, totally different from the one they were living in; a world he was now living in, and have come to love so much after having married one of them Keera, the love of his life, the mother of his only son Kato, the best thing that ever happen to him.
Zack in his cynical ways had known earlier on, it was too perfect to be true as life love its imperfections, a painful conclusion he had finally come to embraced in the loss of Keera right after the birth of Kato.
Things became bleak for zack afterwards, the loss of his wife filled his heart with bitter bile, oblivious to the world around him as living itself became a burden, zack found himself in a dark world of misery and sorrow until Drida came into his life. A new born orphan, the most adorable thing zack had ever seen, a light to his dark world and forlorn life, a new hope for him and his son who was now on the verge of adulthood.
Drida restored happiness and meaning to Zacks life as she grows up. A special child, aging with grace, everything was blissful for a while until Drida started having strange dreams. Zack did everything he can for the little girl but to no avail. Then one night, there was a knock on the door, but when zack reach the door, there was no one on sight except a package lying on the floor. So he picked it up and unwrapped it revealing a book, a book he had come to love reading; a book about none other than Dreeda, her past and probably what lays ahead.
Everything that was happening begun to make sense, especially the dreams, the story was about her ancestor Dreeda, who bravely cross the flames a thousand years ago to these rich lands, whose name she now bares, Zack picked up the book and continue from where he left off.
...
The fire feeds on fear, devoured is s/he who approaches it in fear. The heat can be felt a thousand yards away. Half a thousand yards and it becomes intolerable, any step closer than this and it becomes absolute torture, and the skin literally pill off the bones. But beyond this is an unexpected lukewarm temperature.
So when a 28year old white woman showed up one day as a tourist on these lands, more than ten centuries ago, as the story read, and gave a notice to the chiefs of Umbonawura about her intentions to come and bath in the immortal fires, the chiefs declined and forbade her not to do so until they consult their gods and counsel of wise men.
On the day the meeting was organized with the chief priests of the lands, the white lady Dreeda as she was called told her own story about the dreams she has been having about the ancient fire for the past nine-years, and been searching ever since but to no avail until now.
The dream is always the same; in the dream she saw herself walking towards the fire, all sense of fear gone, and the fire welcomed her in a warm embrace. How ironic it all seem; from her part of the world superstition has no role to play, logic and rational thought always prevail, even faith has to play within the boundaries of reason. She had spent many years researching into the formation of fire and how volcanos evolve, visiting as many sites as possible but none ever clicked until she visited this one.
After telling her dream, the seven old priests contemplated silently among themselves for some time and finally called her into a private chamber with her interpreter, and each in turn gave their own versions of the same dream in bits as each successive one merged into the other completing Dreedas dream. Finally, the oldest among the guardians of the gate spoke in fluent English with a little west African accent, and Dreeda looked at him in surprised.
"the prophecy has been fulfilled on this day; we have been waiting for you centuries after century. We never thought this day will come in our time as those before us never witness it before they pass the legend down to those that came after them. We are honored to welcome you oh white one onto our lands. We will give a pass into the forbidden by way of rituals which will last for one quarter of the moon orbit to prepare you for the journey ahead.
That night Dreeda couldn't sleep, she was filled with anticipation, and anxious about what truly lay beyond the flames. Mischievous as she was, the adventure of it all fill her bosom with chilling thrills she had never experienced before in her adventurous adult life.
As the days passes by; the intensity of the experience only sky rockets until she feels numbed as event upon event climax towards D-day which seems like a million years away.
When the day finally came, Dreeda was taken through a series of rituals in one of the secluded caves that dominate this region. Stripped naked, she lowed herself into a bath carved out from a rock filled with herbs. And was forced to chew some bitter leaves, all in the hope that her chi will rise to meet the challenge ahead.
Any normal person would have freaked out, but not Dreeda, even the priests were amazed at her abject gallantry. Here she was, far away from home in a land of pagans as most of her country men will classify it, she can die here without the honor of a burial….
Wondrous is the way of nature as she come to know; a vail of mysteries beyond mysteries, suspense upon suspense. As she went through ritual after ritual, the bitter leaves made her head spin and her bowels loose…she couldn't believe so much waste could come out from a human being. She loss weight rapidly and feel so drain and exhausted.
To pass through the fire, her chi has to dominate her physical form, the chief priest candidly explained with details, making him looked like a scientist that really knows his stuff.
It was a full moon night, when she came out of the cave on the last day of her incubating period, now it was time to hatch, she thought. The air was cool after the rains, the earth moist and turgid; Dreeda could feel the cold wet earth beneath her feet, injecting icy chills through her feet up the spine to the brain where it registered in her mind making her shiver. By now, word have spread to all the neighboring villages, bringing different warring tribes to come together to witness such a great event.
She walked the first five hundred yards with the seven priests and covered the remaining distance all alone to the base of the mountain and began her ascend. At two hundred feet in her climb she reached the first opening on the side of the mountain like the priests described.
From this position she could make out the continues height of the mountain towering on high into the night sky above her head, she could sense the overpowering heat all around her, but her entire body acted as though insulated with an invisible shield. She took off the long white gown she was wearing and hanged it on a hook by the entrance and was stacked naked, this was definitely a death wish, but no doubt could register in her mind right now.
She passed through the opening and started walking on the rocky pathway bridge gently sloping as though into the flames more than ninety feet below her current position stretching into the darkness ahead. On her right stood the majestic cave walls rising into the darkness, on her left lay the flaming large canyon containing the floating molten lava. Although the lava seems to dwindled as she walked on, the heat intensifies, and delirium seizes her mind. Mindless of where she was as the fatigue took over, her heart begun to pound in panic, any misstep and she will fall into the fire down below.
She knew right then what her fate will be if she stopped walking, she is not an immortal after all, she kept pressing on but very slowly, her throat felt so dry, she felt dehydrated, her lips blistered, cracked open trickling with blood, she thought nothing was supposed to happen to her, in her dreams the fire maybe.
Albeit; this was no dream, this is actually happening in real time, she could hear the voice of the chief priest before they part ways "keep in mind white one, you will be tested in the forbidden flames, but clear all doubt before your soul fall out…" what did he mean by that? Thinking about it now only filled her with so much rage. Exactly what she needed right now, anger will clear all doubt from her mind; oh what is it? regret, how futile it all seem now, what is the point, she is going to die right here anyway, how stupid she had been.
Perhaps this is the test the old man was talking about; she can't afford to die here, she had to fight the edge to give in, she had to keep walking, but to where, her mind was getting cloudy making her vision blurry. Seriously she didn't know where she was any more, all she knows was that her feet never stopped moving although aching with excruciating pain. How long has she been walking in the hot dark caves? Perhaps a thousand years or a couple of hours; what is the difference, time itself has melted into oblivion in this forsaken place.
In her blurry visions she made out a tall dark figure approaching her. Ah finally the devil himself have showed up to drag her with him into the flames of hell. Off Couse this is hell, she has come to hell at her own choosing; so much confusion in her mind, she wonders what is taking the devil so long to reach her, perhaps another phantom casted by the mirage of the flames.
All of the sudden Dreeda found herself falling, or was she floating, she knows not which, she only realizes that she was hitting no bottom, she fell into oblivion with no thought in the mind anymore. Maybe this is what it feels like to die.