The Ancient Beast (Adere's Mission)

Chapter 74

The time came when it was already part of the whole plan to start what Adere could not finish. He was not sure if it was real, if he was in reality or having an illusion. He waited in the hut inside the strange village where he found himself until the woman and her daughter who was smashing firewood approached him and said, "We have called the one that will come to you to examine you. She will take you to where you need to be and when you get there you will be made to be able to speak our language fluently" Adere still did not understand what they meant by that and he was not ready to have anything to do with such ideas. He rose up from where he was seated and said to them, "I am not sure if there is anything that I wish to do right now which I have not been doing before. The truth of the matter is that I am beginning to have double mind concerning the way things are working here. My mind is telling me that this is a dream. I need to stop this dream, I need to wake up right away. This is not real, I can't see the reality in this and I am beginning to doubt this whole thing. The daughter of the woman said, "Let me explain to you what you do not know; this is not a dream. I do not know why your mind keeps telling you that this is a dream. It is not a dream, instead it is something more" Adere stood up, walked passed the two women and could not believe his eyes as he stared at a distance. He saw a lady approaching and the one who was approaching was none other person but Mori. Mori was dressed in a strange cloth and her hair had a different kind of braids. She was holding a long staff and looked mean. Adere stood there and waited to see what she would do or say..When Mori was upon them she bowed before Adere and said, "Come with me, for you have something which you must have a meeting with" She made to walk away but Adere had stopped being scared and hated the confusion that had beclouded his mind. He reached out with his hand and grabbed Mori, whirled her and made her to face him. There was shock in the eyes of Mori as she wondered why Adere had to do that.

"What is happening here? Is this the training that you were talking about in the land of Abah?" asked Adere as confusion was written all over his face but it appeared that there was something wrong somewhere. The Adere did not know that Mori was trying to fathom what he was driving at and when she started speaking he was shocked even the more.

"I do not know what you are talking about. I was told that you came to our land and that you are a chosen one, one sent to come to our aid against a powerful witch. I have nothing against you or against your confusion but do not make me confused with your own confusion. Like I said earlier, I do not know who you are and this land is not called Abah, the second name given to this place is Ameri and this land is a land known to have been existence for over a thousand years. You are here because you have been chosen..Now I am going to take you to the man who trained me in witch hunting. He will speak to you for a while, get you ready for what lies ahead and then it is between me and you to determine if this land will be free or not. You already know what I am driving at; the man that you will be going to speak with shortly while we leave here is none other person than the one that we have always known to be my father. He is my father and he is well known to be the man that hunted the witches fifty years back when he was still a youth. Now he is old and has decided to hand over the mantle to me but as an elder and as my father no one comes to me without going to greet him and to tap from his oil of knowledge and experience. I know for sure that the confusion in your eyes is written there because you are new in this land but wherever you came from you will surely return there after you must have done what you have to do in this land of Ameri. Do you understand what I am saying?"

"I think it is you who is missing alot here. I do not think you understand where I am driving at but truth be told you have to understand something very important and one of the things that you must understand is that I have nothing against you, I have nothing against your people and I have nothing against your father. Listen you act as if you have been here in this land for many years but I came into this strange land together with you. Why are you acting as if the name Abah is sounding new to your ears, have you forgotten the other names? my mother, Renu, Edu and others whom we had to escape the land of Zinu because our land was attacked by the savages from the land of Agori under the leadership of Aboro? Have you forgotten that it was Aboro who killed my father? Have you not remembered what happened? Please do what you have to to be able to remember what I am talking about. This is not where we come from, we come from the land of Zinu and it was you who..." Adere was still speaking when Mori slapped him across the face and he went silent immediately. He could not understand why the slap and why Mori suddenly became angry.

"Listen to me man, you must know this truth so that you will be able to do what needs to be done; there is no one here in this land of Ameri who is going to help you the way that I will be able to hep you and the truth is that for me to be able to help you you will have to do what needs to be done. You can help me to help you by doing what needs to be done. You need to raise your hand for me to take it down, you need to stretch forth your hands for me to take them and be able to lead you to where you need to be. If you keep on doing what you are doing and making my life as miserable as you are making now I am going to leave you and you will be trapped in this land, unable to go back to your Zinu or to Abah or wherever you say you descended from" Mori was about to walk away when Adere spoke, "Very well then, if you have said that you are willing to take me to a man who is going to offer me the solution to my problem then so be it. I will go with you"

Mori returned and pointed straight to his face and said, "You ingrate, listen to me and listen good, it is not always what you think. I have told you exactly what you will be going to meet my father for and when you must have met with him you must do exactly what I am going to tell you right now; you must greet him, recognize the authority in him and then go ahead to listen to all that he has to say. I have volunteered to help you throughout your assignment in this land that you found yourself but until after that you will not be able to go back to the land whence you came from. I mean what I have just said and I am seriously warning you again, do what you have to do and stop being stupid" She tried to move again but stopped and turned to face him once again, "Listen to me once again, I have come to realise something, you are being quite, quieter than normal but that does not worry me, it won't worry me for too long. All I want you to do for me is to go ahead and do what you have to because for me to be able to help you you will have to help me too by listening to me. If you do not listen to me you will find out that you have failed woefully. I am going to take you to my father. You will have to follow me now and stop asking too many questions at a time" She then moved and the woman and her daughter motioned Adere to follow him because that was as far as they could help him. Adere did not know what to say to them but he wanted to thank them in their own language. He reasoned that he was going to make it back to them to thank them after he must have done what needed to be done. He wanted out of that land by all means, he did not want to bother how possible that was going to be but he was not going to play into the tune of Mori who had suddenly become another person, a person he Adere had never expected; Mori was now harsh, fast with words and mean in the face. He did not know if he was still dreaming or whether he was still under the training that he embarked on back there inside the chamber in the house of the king of Abah kingdom. He sighed and kept following the lady Mori.

When they got to the house where Mori lived she turned and said to him, "listen you will have to wait outside for me. When I come outside I will tell you to come inside. I do not know why you are becoming so stubborn with the way you have been asking questions but I am not here to answer your questions or to answer to you instead I am going to guide you, to help you realise that which you have come here for" she tried to move but Adere stopped her.

"I want to understand something please; you said yourself that this land needs me because I am destined to help this land get liberated from whatever it is that is hunting it. Now the way you treat me makes me believe that you are not the one that needs me instead that u am the one that needs you. If I am the one that needs you it is very much insane for me to be acting the way that you are acting towards me now. The only reason I had to accept that slap you gave to me in good faith is because I do not have another choice but have you asked yourself this question; what if I get the right, power and the authority to decide do you not think it will be very terrible for you? What I am saying and cautioning you is to be careful with people that you tend to render help to because actually you can never know what it means to have such kind of people. I am now telling you right here and now that I am not going to wait outside for whatever nonsense you think you have to discuss with your father first before I come inside to meet with him" At this moment Mori got angered and tried to slap him once again but Adere held her hand and swung it away from his face.