Olokun pt1 (the wind of destiny)

Interlude (II)

CHAPTER 15

17 AUGUST 1985

It was night fall when Ese got home, Izevbihien had been calmed down and was already fast asleep in his chambers, she was extremely relieved to find him asleep, for she was not ready in any way to give him the news that she had gotten from the Eziza priest; they were not glad tidings. As she made to sit on the cushion chair in the dark parlor and reminisce on the day’s events, when someone she did not know was there suddenly asked; “Welcome sister, how was the visit to the priest’s shrine?” Ese’s spirit almost left her body, she was surprised at how silent her brother had been. “Iye me, how long have you been sitting there Osas? For a moment, I thought that we had been visited by ghosts again”, she replied, clutching her chest before sitting down. “I apologize if I made you afraid in any way Aunty, I fell asleep here while waiting for you’’. “ I am sorry I took so much time my dear, I did not meet the priest at home when I got there, I was told that he had gone to the forest to gather herbs, how long has he been sleeping?’’ “He fell asleep not too long after you left, he kept mumbling ‘It is my fault’ and nothing I said could pacify him or allay his fears, I fear we will have to send a message to Osaigbovo in the big city and ask him to come back, I do not know if this matter is one that we can settle on our own”. “Not yet Osas, let us work on the Eziza priest’s instruction first before sending any message, we do not know for sure what state he is in currently, You know it is no rumor that he is not in the best of terms with his father and sister and that he left Obti in a rage so blind that if not for the gods who guided him he would have been crushed by a truck”, She replied. Osas was surprised by what his sister had just said, he had always thought that his brother’s family was a very happy and private one, he was perplexed to hear that all this was happening and he knew nothing about it. “If that is your decision I will accept it, anyways what happened in the Eziza priest’s house and what were his instructions?” He asked with resignation. Ese’s face was a picture of pure gloom and doom, Osas knew immediately that she had bad tidings “Hmm, his tidings were not too pleasant, it turns out that the man who paid Owain a visit was none other than Esu god of the underworld, he came to claim his bride who had evaded him for generations but ended up being reborn as our Belinda”, Osas was shocked beyond measure, this was the strangest thing that he had ever heard of in his life, this was beyond his understanding and his imaginations. “This is the most incredulous thing I have heard in a while”, he said with nervous laughter in his voice. “If Esu was a wizard I would have said that it is possible because of the human blood that flowed through his veins, but that the demon lord would cross the veil, I find that hard to believe” he stood up waiting for his a reply, when none came, he continued whilst pacing. “According to Obti folklore, to cross the veil, he would have to evade all of Olokun’s best spirit foot warriors and sacrifice his immortality, that is something can never do not even for Osalobue his father”, “Your point is fair my brother, but do not forget that true love has been the bane of many a man in the past generations, many men have abandoned their families, made enemies of sworn brothers, befriended foes and even offered their pride at the altar of this feeling called love, many have given a hand and a leg just to be with those who owned their hearts, I do not find it strange that a god would feel the same way. According to the Eziza priest, twice every year, the elite spirit guard who guide the veil are switched, this of course would never have happened if not for the mistake of our ancestor; Omogiate the cursed puppet king had not traded his common sense for a small fee of revenge to Azeh the head of all black witches, he let his anger get the better of him against his better judgement, therefore playing a part in Esu’s ploy to tip the balance of life, the death of the last connector increased the work load of the elite spirit guard. Seeing as there was no one to help the Olokun priests prevent total desecration of the great Orogodo river, Olokun divided the members of the elite spirit guard into two, one set was to protect the veil so that evil witches, wizards, witch doctors and greedy human vermin would not be able to cross the veil at will, this of course is a foolproof plan at all times of the year, only that at such time of year when the rotation is switched the veil is open for some seconds. It was at this time that Esu had a perfect opportunity to cross the veil”.

Osas was more than perplexed, he rubbed his head roughly and paced the room even faster than he had done before, “So what is the way forward now?” he asked as he sat on the armchair, “The Eziza priest said the only way to save her is to steal her from the underworld” she replied with a yawn, Osas did not know what to do at that moment, he felt like laughing and crying at the same time, this solution was the craziest thing he had ever heard of, this was like telling an hungry man that the only way to quench his hunger was to eat his own child, the suddenly felt uncomfortable again so he stood up and paced slowly, “Sister, so how does he think we are going to carry out such a task? Seeing that we are humans and it is unheard of for a human to enter the underworld with breath in his nostrils”, “Whoever is going to take this journey has to become undead”, seeing the incredulous look on her brother’s face, she continued, “According to the Eziza priest, it is possible to put a man in a state in which his spirit leaves his body but his soul is left behind, he is not totally dead, just unconscious but not like one who fainted or who is in a trance”, she ended. Osas stopped pacing and sat down with a sigh, “I have a question though, seeing as how hectic the journey is, will the sacrifice items be simple or a list of complicated items, that one would have to replace with money?”, Ese smiled sadly, “They are simple items actually; a bowl of salt, roasted yams, water from the Orogodo river, a ball of white cotton yarn, a keg of palm oil and a picture of the person whom the missing person loved the most, everything is easy to get, the only problems we will be facing are two; Someone who will go on the journey for us, and how to buy the items”, Osas laughed, “When did buying common soup ingredients become a grueling task?”, “Look at this one”, Ese said, giving Osas a look of contempt, “Do you think that if I could get this items in the market I would not have brought them home by now, I have to buy them from the witch market by midnight a fortnight from now”, “Hmm, that is not too hard, I have a friend back home in Okpai who is a hunter, he can get those items for us before the day of the ritual”, “Will he be able to get them for us before the end of the week?” She asked giving him a quizzical look, “Yes, today is Monday, tomorrow is general market day so he will surely be able to get them for us before Friday, and that settles all our problems”, Ese was confused, had he forgotten that they had not found someone who would embark on the cursed journey? So she asked; “How does that solve all the problems? Have you forgotten that we have not found anyone to embark on the journey? Or do you have that settled too?” Osas smiled and said; “Sister you do not have anything to worry about that, I already have it sorted out”, “How if I may ask? Do you plan on embarking on the journey yourself?” “Yes sister”, He replied with a smug look on his face, Ese was terrified, yes she had expected that someone would embark on the journey, but certainly not her brother, “You are joking right?”, she asked hoping silently that he was joking, “No sister, I am not, in fact I have not been more serious about anything in my life before, she is my brother’s daughter, therefore she is more or less my daughter too”, “Please, Osas do not do this, Agoy is dead, and Izevbihien is at the boundary between life and death, I do not want to lose you too, please let us find a hunter who has some experience in this type of situations, and pay him to take on this task, you are barely a man and you neither have a wife nor a child of your own. Please have pity on me, please” she said with a teary voice, kneeling at his feet and clutching on his woolen trousers, “Sister, there is nothing you can say or to do to make me change my mind, it is made up already, because our people say that it is only a man’s brother who can shave the hairs in his private part without cutting his scrotum”, “Do not be stubborn Osas, please listen to the voice of reason”, “No sister, my mind is made up” he said defiantly as he escaped her grip on his trousers. “There is no need for any arguments, if anyone is to save Belinda from the clutches of Esu, it will be me because she is my daughter after all”, came Izevbihien’s voice from the darkness, Ese and Osas were shocked, they had not expected to see him till morning. “What are you doing here and how long have you been standing there?” Ese managed to say as she came out of the shock, Osas sighed and moved to his side, touching his shoulder he said; “Eepa let me take you inside, you need all the rest you can get, you are in no position to be worrying yourself over Belinda’s disappearance, it is a small matter that sister Ese and I can settle”, Izevbihien was not impressed with his brother’s reply, there was no way he was going to allow them make plans concerning his daughter’s life and this disappearance behind his back, he was not going to allow anyone treat like a sick and dying old man, especially on this matter, so pushing away Osas’ hand, he said; “Do not grope over me, I am not a sick and dying old man, I have every right as her father to decide who plays whatever part in my daughter’s life. My decision at this moment is that I will be the one to go on the cursed journey and that is final”. “What beats me at this moment is that the both of you have become so stubborn that the voice of reason has become a discordant tune in your ears, the both of you are behaving as if the journey to the underworld is just a small journey, as if it is a journey from here to Agenegbode, it is so hilarious to hear someone like Osas who cannot stand the sight of an ordinary cockroach say he wants to journey to the land of the worst vermin that Osalobue has ever created. I do not know what evil spirit entered your bodies this night”, Ese grumbled to no one in particular as the objects of her frustration left her to her thoughts in the parlor.

Early the next morning, the siblings went to the Eziza priest’s house to finish what they had started, the journey ahead of them was going to be a tedious one so they had to have an early start in order to make sure that the solutions to their problems were found on time. While Ese and Osas went to the market to find the hunter who traded in the witch market, Izevbihien was left with the Eziza priest who left no table unturned in making him aware of the horrors of the underworld, he told him about; the seven eyed giant frog whose tongue could pull out a man’s eyes from his head while he stood, the vultures who created illusions that made men to see them as beautiful maidens when in reality they were old hags with bald heads and faces as that of the vulture, the spirit of emptiness that fed so much on a man’s joy that at the time when they decided to let him go he had a sadness so deep that all his thoughts were on the most painful way to end his life, the chariots of death whose horses had worm infested eyes on their heads, Izevbihien did not take him so seriously at first, taking his stories as fibs woven by a mischievous to make a man lose his resolve, not until he spoke of the beautiful deer lady named Etinosa, who had the ability to make a man feel intense pain by just batting her eyelid, did he take him serious, there had been tales of the rabbit eared demon whose powers rivaled even those of Olokun woven by mothers to erring children who wanted to play deep into the night, these tales had the ability to send children who were wide awake crawling deep into their beds and reaching for their mother’s wrappers. Izevhibien had thought that these stories were fables but he was surprised when the Eziza priest mentioned her name, he felt very afraid and would have changed his mind on the journey if not that the person in question was his daughter and that he had made a promise to his wife on her dying bed that he would do everything in his power to keep both his children from getting in harm’s way, he would have accepted his sister’s suggestion of finding someone to go on the journey for them. After telling him all the eerie stories he had up his sleeves, the Eziza priest finally began the process of Izevbihien’s preparation for the journey to the underworld. First he was to be soaked in a pot of herbs which the Eziza priest had specially selected from the deepest parts of the evil forest for two days, then he would eat the entrails of the wild boar that was used for special sacrifices such as this, before the final cleansing with the materials gotten from the witch market.

Finally the day came that Izevbihien would take the cursed journey, Ese was filled with fear as he was put into the trance, the past few days had been the strangest in her life, first she and Osas had come back from the general market to find their eldest brother in pot of herbs that smelt like peppermint slowly cooking over a fire, the Eziza priest had not told her this was part of the requirements for the journey, so nothing had prepared her for this sight, she was so scared as the Eziza priest pointed to the large pot nonchalantly and said that her brother was in there when she asked of his whereabouts, the priest had found her reaction very funny but it had taken all her strength to hold Osas back from dragging her brother out of the pot, they had stayed in his house for the two days required for this part of the sacrifice to be completed and if not that the Eziza priest had warned that her brother would burn to death if she opened the pot, she would have opened it to check how her brother was faring. Osas was not left out in this, he could barely sleep a wink on any of the nights of the two days each time he closed his eyes, he saw the pot engulfed in flames, with his brother’s hands reaching for his, and each time he tried to reach out to him, a large crow ran off with the pot, in some instances, the air was filled with the eerie cries of different strange birds and in the midst of all this his brother stood stark naked, half of his body was burnt while the other half looked like it had been pecked by a cow, with blood and greenish pus flowing out of each hole, and in his arms he held a baby whose head lolled backwards and whose tongue bloated like it had been fed with poison, this baby in turn held two other babies, one was wrapped in white swaddling clothes and was sucking on his thumb but the other, a girl was wrapped in black swaddling clothes and she fed on a man’s private member, on her head were deer-like horns that were lodged in Izevbihien’s heart, this particular dream terrified Osas because it felt very real and seemed as if it was a process that had already started. When Izevbihien came out of the pot he was a different man from the brother they knew, the man who had entered into that pot was a desperate man who was ready to give anything to save his child, a man who was ruled by and filled with fear, a man had run out of options and was holding on to his last straw of hope. The man who came out was different, he was filled with life and hope, his courage was contagious and his brother and sister had no choice but to go with the flow of his joy, next he was fed on the bloody entrails of a boar, this of course was not done in the presence of his brother and sister, the Eziza priest had sent them away for fear that they would ruin his backyard with vomit, after the bloody feast, the priest bathed him in white chalk from head to toe and made him sleep by the hearth for the night, this he said was to prepare him for the perpetual flames that guarded the gates to the underworld, seeing as he would be lodged there for two days. The next day which was the actual day of the journey was a strange day, it was a wet and muddy, the sky shed so much tears that so many people had to bail water from their houses, some houses were filled to the brim, and some people had to take a few of the mountains for fear that the floods would carry them to the Orogodo river, Ese was not happy about this, she saw it as a bad omen that was pregnant with evil occurrences, and as she walked to the Eziza priest’s house she grumbled her misgivings to him, her fears that the journey would be a failure and that they would lose both her brother and his daughter to the god of the underworld, she cursed their luck and asked the gods why so many bad things had to happen to them in such a short time, first one brother dies mysteriously, a demon god uses his form to take his brother’s daughter from her father’s house and takes her to a destination that no living person had ever visited and now her other brother who happens to be the child’s father is planning on taking a dangerous journey to the underworld without any thought of what would befall him, as her eyes brimmed with tears she silently prayed that the journey would be a success because she did not know what she would do if she lost two brothers and a niece to the underworld. In the midst of all these, all Osas had to say were words of encouragement, not because he was not afraid but because he knew that the only that their brother needed was their strength and their faith to take him through the terrors of the underworld.

As they got to the Eziza priest’s front door, Ese heaved in fear as cold tears rolled down her cheeks, as she reached her wrapper to get her kerchief which she would use to clean her face, Osas blocked her way and prevented her from entering the house, “What is all this nonsense Osas?” She asked with annoyance, “Do not be annoyed sister, it is just that I have something to tell you, and I do not feel it would be proper to say it in anybody’s presence”, “Be quick about it then, our brother’s trance will start by midday and it is almost time for it”, “All I have to say is that you should try to be strong, because I heard that spirits sensed fear more than anything in this world and it would not be healthy for our brother if we entertain any form of fear”, “Okay, I have heard you” she replied. When they got into the ceremonial hut, their brother was ready for departure, the only thing he said as he lay on the mat was; “Be strong” and as the priest sprinkled concoction made from the sacrificial items on him he fell into a deep trance. Just as his siblings were coming out of the shock, he said to Osas, “You and I will be sleeping at the foot of the largest Mahogany tree for the next 9 months, as we await your brother and niece’s return.