The Ancient Beast (Adere's Mission)

Chapter 9

Edu and the rest of the hunters that rescued Adere, his mother and the handful of ladies and young men that escaped from the land of Zinu entered the land of Akuzu, the land where Edu came from. Edu stood before them just before they could enter the home of Edu's parents,

"You see, it is going to be a thing of joy to have you all here in this land with us but you see you are too many, you are over fifty in number and I can not promise shelter to all of you which is why I am going to take you all to see my father who happens to be one of the Chiefs of this great land and maybe after this is done you can now be told what next to do. I am going to tell my father who you are and then you all will have to introduce yourselves to him. I can tell my father to let go temporarily one of his many lands in which I will help you all build your camp and stay in it until it is time for you to know where else to live and how else to live"

At this point Adere was ready to talk.

"Edu you did not only become my friend the very day that I set my food here in the land of Akuzu but today you have shown me and my stranded people that you are a brother. I must say that you have shown me the very best care that I had wanted to become the very thing I am today. Now that I have come here with my people and we are safe from that beast that is called Aboro what else am I going to say except that you have already saved us. What else do I need to say except that you have shown all the care that you can show. Even if you decide to leave us here we are happy that at least you and your men saved us from death, you and your men proved to us that you are the only one necessarily sent to save us. We are so much grateful and I am sure that each and everyone of us here is very much grateful for what the things you did for us right from that boundary where we were filled with so much confusion to this very place"

The words of Adere assured Edu that they were surely grateful. Edu saw as most of the women with Adere were trying to kneel for him to show their appreciation but Edu was not ready to have it so; he was not ready to watch while those women knelt before him. He took them with him to the very place that he called his father's home..There they stood there before the hurt and shortly the father of Edu came out and stood before them but then there was something about his countenance that did not seem welcoming. Adere stared from his face to the face of Edu in order to know and understand what was actually going on but at some point he decided to tell himself the fact that there is nothing like what just happened. They were sure that there was no way anything was going to work out and so Adere looked at the faces of the ladies with them and he pitied them. He pitied them because he knew what it was women pass through in times of war. He looked at his mother and his mother smiled at him to assure him that she was fine and that he should not worry about her. Even that Chere was not yet happy with the whole thing. He was not ready to allow things to go about happening the way that they were happening. He stood there waiting for what it was that Edu's father was going to say. Edu's father looked at the escaped people of Zinu and then looked at his son for a while before he said to him, "You sure do not understand do you? I have seen that there is nothing special that you have not been able to see. There is nothing that is happening that has not happened in the past. You are my only son but I am sure if you understand my principle at all. You have proven to me that you are not a son that would pay attention to his father instead you are focused on bringing me nothing but shame. What a waste of time, seeing that you have nothing else to show for your life except what I am seeing here now. I must tell you son, that you have disappointed me. Here with you, without you having to tell me are the people from that cursed land called Zinu, is that not so? It is so and now what you just want me to do is to look on while things make ways in a wrong way. Permit me to say that you have not actually given me the best choice. My son, these people you brought with you are not going to to stay in my house. You are going to have to take them away from this place and you have to do that fast because if you do not I will be forced to make sure that you do not get to like the way things are going to play out in this house. Your mother is not happy with the way you went about your life and I too I am not happy with the way things went. You are simply not aware yet of how things are played out and that is why you keep making mistakes here and there"

At that moment Edu was done listening to all the things his father was saying. He was not ready to keep standing there and listening to all that. He was not going to stay there as if there was nothing else he could be able to do. At this point he said to his father.

"You only know how to make things look worse of me. You never get to listen to me and you never get to understand me. What you do father at every given opportunity is to make me look bad. You have a way of making me look irresponsible and you do not care of what it means to have such audacity. I have also begun to notice that even though things are not working out the way you would have wanted about me it does not change the fact that I have never for once stopped doing what I think is good. You have looked at this people and you have concluded already of what I can not tell. You have stared into their eyes and even though you neglected the fear in those eyes you have refused to pay attention to the very thing that has brought them which is hunger and shelter. I am not saying all of this so that you will start doing what you do not want to do but then you have what it takes to do better. You have simply decided to disown me infront of those I have decided to rescue and even at that it has not made me to start to neglect the fact that I have done something good. I mean what else would you want from me except to come home with a lion so that I must have hunted and killed so that you will brag amongst your fellow men in the palace of our king of how brave your son is. You want to boast to them that I am such a good killer of wild beasts but these things do not bother me. I do not care about the way things have worked out and most times it is just you making things difficult for yourself. Kindly tell me exactly what you would want me to do and let me bring it to your notice that you are making a wrong mistake. You have made your point and I have made mine as well. Kindly do what else you want to do but I bet you that you will not be doing it with me. It does not make any sense at all. It does not. What you should know quite alright is that there are those despite the fact that they have not gotten what they want they have decided to make something out of it. What else do I have to do Incase you have forgotten; go ahead father" Edu tried to move with the rest and his father then was forced to ask, "What then are you trying to do now son, you want to go with these strangers that you brought to my house? Is this what you have grown to become? Someone that has failed to listen to his parents because of strangers. If these people are the new family you have chosen for yourself then it is quite understandable that you have not gotten what it needed to live a better life. Go ahead away with them and do not come back to my house. From today henceforth I declare you no longer my son and I have nothing to do with you ever again. Go on and go away from here and never you come back to answer my son again..Since you have decided to make yourself a wayward son I will help you by ensuring that you live it to the fullest. When your mother returns then I will tell her exactly what I have told you and then I will make it so simple for her to understand that since you have chosen this path I have also chosen to stop being your father"

Adere looked around and said to Edu's father, "You sound as if you had something against your son before our arrival to this place, you sound like someone that is not in any way helpful to those you feel and know that you are far way better than. Having said this what else that makes sense is the fact that there are those that will surely make you understand what you are missing. Go on and do what you have to do and let it be that way till the end" He turns to the people of Zinu and said to them, "Are we going to abandon ourselves because we are rejected?

"Nooo!!!" They all screamed in unison.

"Are we going to sulk and keep on asking for life when we can choose to have that life for ourselves?" he asked further and they responded with the same voice and he continued, "We have been saved by our brother here, yes, I call him brother even though he is not from our land..Look at him very well and you will get to see that he is not the kind of person that would abandon a hurting mouse let alone his fellow human being. I am going to have to tell us now that the time is now when we have to come together in one voice and live as if we were never hurt. We are going to find a place in the forest of this land of Abuzu and nest there, build our lives there, yes, our fading lives, to have a rekindling, our dying lives to awake again from the gripping hands of death. What else are we going do except to prove to those who think we are not qualified to do what we are supposed to do, who think we are not strong enough to escape the dangerous hands of death..We will prove them wrong and by so doing bring forth the united people of Zinu..We are going to prove to the whole world that it is not about what happens to a man but what a man does with what is offered to him in times of his trouble and lack"