CHAPTER FOUR: The First Spark
1495 Words
Morning did not arrive gently.
It tore the darkness apart.
Roosters cried before the sun broke the horizon, their sharp calls slicing through Gideon’s uneasy sleep. He opened his eyes to the low ceiling of woven branches and the faint smell of dying embers.
For a moment, memory had not yet caught up.
For a moment, he was still in his room in Buea.
Then he heard the language outside.
And reality returned like a cold blade.
He sat up slowly.
His body ached from the previous day’s fall and the unfamiliar ground. His mind felt raw, stretched thin between centuries.
He stepped outside.
The village was already alive.
Women carried clay pots toward a nearby stream. Children chased one another between huts. Men inspected bows and repaired thatch roofs. Smoke curled upward in thin, disciplined columns.
Life did not wait for shock to fade.
It continued.
He noticed immediately that he was no longer bound.
The guards were gone.
Freedom.
Or observation without restraint.
He scanned for Naya.
She was near the center of the settlement, crouched beside an older woman who appeared ill. The woman’s breathing was shallow. Naya crushed leaves in a wooden mortar and mixed them with a small amount of water before carefully lifting the woman’s head.
He watched, fascinated.
Method.
Intentionality.
She was not guessing.
She was practicing knowledge passed down.
Gideon stepped closer cautiously.
Several villagers noticed and stiffened.
Naya looked up.
Their eyes met.
She gave a small nod—permission.
He approached slowly and knelt opposite her.
The older woman’s skin was hot even from a distance. Sweat beaded along her brow. Her eyes fluttered weakly.
Fever.
Gideon’s brain immediately began calculating possible causes—malaria, infection, dehydration.
He pointed gently to the woman’s forehead.
“Hot,” he said.
Naya tilted her head.
He gestured again, fanning his hand as if signaling heat.
“Hot.”
She touched the woman’s skin.
Then nodded.
“Áru,” she said.
The word likely meant the same.
He gestured toward the water pot.
Then made a wiping motion across his own forehead.
She hesitated.
Then dipped a cloth and pressed it against the woman’s temple.
He nodded approvingly.
She studied him again.
This time, there was something new in her gaze.
Consideration.
Perhaps the elders had not been wrong to delay judgment.
Perhaps the stranger was not purely a threat.
The tall warrior with the scar—he had learned the name whispered around him now: Korin—watched from a distance.
Arms folded.
Unsmiling.
The message in his eyes remained clear.
One mistake.
—
By midday, Gideon had learned three essential things:
First: the village was called Ekanza.
Second: it lay within the territory of a small but fiercely independent kingdom that paid uneasy tribute to a larger power to the north.
Third: he was being tolerated—but not trusted.
The elder, whose name was M’baku, summoned him shortly after noon.
The meeting took place beneath a broad tree whose canopy cast deep shade across the central gathering area.
M’baku sat cross-legged, staff resting across his knees. Several other elders sat nearby. Korin stood behind them like a silent execution.
Naya was present as well.
Gideon understood immediately—she would serve as intermediary.
M’baku gestured for Gideon to sit.
He obeyed.
The elder spoke slowly, pausing often.
Naya listened carefully, then turned to Gideon.
Her English was fractured but growing.
“You… come… from sky?”
The directness of it made his breath catch.
He glanced at the surrounding faces.
They were watching for reaction.
For fear.
For arrogance.
He chose carefully.
“I came… from far,” he said slowly, pointing vaguely outward.
Naya translated.
Murmurs.
M’baku spoke again.
Longer this time.
Naya hesitated before translating.
“You… bring… trouble?”
The question was not accusation.
It was risk assessment.
Gideon met M’baku’s gaze.
“No,” he said firmly. “I bring knowledge.”
Naya struggled with the word.
He tapped his temple.
“Thinking. Making things.”
She understood that.
She translated.
M’baku’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He asked something else.
Naya swallowed.
“He say… if you have power… show.”
The trap was clear.
Demonstrate usefulness—or confirm suspicion.
Gideon’s mind raced.
Gunpowder was centuries away from safe development here without infrastructure.
Electricity required materials he did not have.
Fire?
Too common.
Something small.
Contained.
Impressive but not catastrophic.
He slowly reached into his backpack.
Korin’s hand went to his knife instantly.
Gideon froze.
Slowly, slowly.
He withdrew the small flashlight.
The device looked alien in his palm.
Plastic casing.
Glass lens.
Impossible geometry for their materials.
The villagers leaned forward.
He pressed the button.
A beam of white light cut through the shade beneath the tree.
Gasps erupted.
Several elders recoiled.
One woman cried out.
Korin stepped forward aggressively.
M’baku raised his staff sharply.
Silence fell.
Gideon angled the light toward the ground—not at anyone’s face.
He turned it off.
Darkness reclaimed the shade instantly.
Whispers spread like wind through tall grass.
Naya stared at the flashlight as if it were breathing.
“You… catch… sun?” she whispered.
He almost laughed.
“In a way,” he said softly.
He pressed the button again briefly—on, off.
Controlled.
Not wild.
Power obeying his hand.
M’baku’s gaze never left Gideon’s face.
He spoke quietly.
Naya translated carefully.
“He say… this is not spirit trick. This is tool.”
Relief flooded Gideon.
M’baku continued.
Naya’s voice trembled slightly as she translated.
“If you are tool… then you serve.”
The terms were clear.
You live here.
You contribute.
You do not rule.
Gideon bowed his head slightly.
“I will serve.”
Naya translated.
M’baku struck his staff lightly against the ground.
Decision sealed.
Korin did not look pleased.
—
That evening, Gideon sat beside Naya near the stream that curved behind the settlement.
Water moved over smooth stones, catching the amber light of sunset.
He had been given a small hut of his own—still under watch, but no longer confined.
The flashlight was now kept by M’baku.
A sign of trust—or control.
Naya knelt by the water, rinsing cloth.
He sat nearby, sketching in his notebook.
She watched his pen move across paper.
Her fascination with the act of writing bordered on reverence.
“You make… marks,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What they do?”
“They hold memory.”
She absorbed that.
He turned the notebook toward her.
On the page he had drawn a simple wheel.
A circle with spokes.
She traced it with her finger.
“Round.”
“Yes.”
He drew an axle beneath it.
Then a small platform.
Her brow furrowed.
He mimed pushing something heavy.
Straining.
Then gestured to the wheel.
Then mimed pushing again—easier.
Her eyes widened.
Understanding dawned like sunrise.
“You make… heavy… light.”
He smiled.
“Yes.”
She looked at him with something that felt dangerously close to admiration.
“You change… how we walk.”
The weight of that statement settled between them.
Change.
He had arrived less than two days ago.
Already he was contemplating intervention.
He looked at the flowing water.
History was a river.
He had stepped into it.
But could he redirect it without drowning everyone downstream?
“Naya,” he said quietly.
She looked at him.
“If I tell you… something… you must keep.”
She nodded instinctively.
He hesitated.
The secret pressed against his ribs.
Not yet.
Not here.
He closed the notebook.
“Another day.”
She studied him carefully.
“You carry fear,” she said softly.
He blinked.
“How do you know that word?”
She smiled faintly.
“I learn.”
The simplicity of it struck him.
She was not merely translator.
She was evolving.
Adapting to him as he adapted to her world.
The sun dipped lower.
The first stars appeared.
He felt the distance between 1300 and 2025 stretch inside his chest like a wound.
“You miss… home,” she said.
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
She considered that.
Then she did something small—but seismic.
She reached out and placed her hand over his.
Not boldly.
Not romantically.
Just contact.
Warm.
Real.
“I not let… forest eat you,” she said quietly.
Emotion rose so suddenly it almost undid him.
In a century where he did not belong—
One person had chosen him.
Not as spirit.
Not as weapon.
As man.
From the hill overlooking Ekanza, Korin watched the two figures by the stream.
His jaw tightened.
Firelight flickered behind him as the village prepared for night.
In the far distance, beyond the line of trees—
Smoke rose.
Not from Ekanza.
From another settlement.
Another banner.
Another ambition.
And history, unseen but patient, leaned closer.
Because the first spark had already been lit.
And sparks—
If fed—
Become flame.
- Writer
