15 - Tangled

Chapter 15 (Tangled)

The king crossed the floor after having gained his balance really well and stood a few meters from the fireplace. He picked up a blazing piece of wood from the fire and turned to the woman who looked puzzled now. 

“Mind you I’ve learned to discern foolery and intimidations from a good solution... and since this isn’t a discussion, we may as well proceed like this….” The king spoke walking towards the exit. 

“You don’t want to do that O’mondo?” The woman asked in confusion.

 “You need the beads to summon Olkai. Olkai needs the Halfling child to know how to assist me… total foolery!” The King responded with a tired tone. “-let me see how to help you summon him.”

 “He warned me to bother him with your matter unless when you got the child with you… don’t do this now!” The woman pleaded following the king but daring not to touch him. The king paused all of a sudden and looked back at her. 

 “You just don’t get me… haha!” The king told her with a little laughter of mockery. “I use to think you were stronger and intelligent compared to…, to what I’m seeing here… but what a waste you have become.”

 “There is always more than one face to everything you know. You will never find out what they fully are if you are rigid.” The woman told him with a sincere response. She meant it but not in an abusive way.

“Well, have you ever taken time to see the world from my point of view or… you gave up your lives to become Shorango, a so called intelligent owl’s tools.”

“We are Kobewa… The last pure blood descendant of Leshoto. Olko magic is our final key to discipline, moral, hope and comradeship.”

“You don’t need to explain or prove anything my dear... Klode cursed Olkai with the plague, which he defeated! Then you sought him out for protection against Oladiya’s furry, he took you in, taught Kobewa priests and priestesses Olko magic to survive! Well …what about his children?”

“What do you mean…?” the woman asked.

“Will he still hide when Untu, whom he loves so dearly, goes down in flames?”

“No-!” the woman spoke in terror. She tried to stop him with a magical move but the effect repulsed. His flesh started developing plague effects and she lost her strength! She stumbled with her right arm held out towards the king. She could hardly utter a word at this point. She staggered towards the king begging. The king was serious from the woman’s tension! The tree’s turning to ashes could be the woman’s last wish. 

The king felt the woman’s magic bouncing back from the glow of the beads around his neck. He turned and looked back very expressionlessly before he could continue. That attempt wasn’t the first time! 

“Have mercy, my king. Have mercy on the children of Olkai…!” The woman pleaded throwing herself in front of the king and bowing to the ground. The king paused with the strange white tree looming high over her. This is when the owls noticed the struggle between the sick woman and the Yakunko king whom they have never liked from first time they saw him.

However, the beads he wore could never let them approach him. Their feathers burned but here again, he was holding a burning piece of wood ready to set the tree ablaze from the pools of golden sweet oil... They knew the Shorango woman as a friend and Olkai required them to defend her.

They rose in a twirling swam round and around the tree before they could swoop down at the arrogant visitor! Tsote watched everything that was going on! The owls hooted while they swooped like hail stone but a force repulsing force surrounded the king slowing down the birds attack for all those that got to near. Those that tried to fly closer, their feather’s started to burn!

They rose in terror to prepare for a second attack on the intruder. The king saw them but was full of confidence that they had no way of reaching him. He walked past the woman to stand beside the tree. He held the burning piece of wood over the side of the tree flowing with flammable golden sap. He turned and glanced at the woman followed by a long moment of silence. Tsote listened!

All of a sudden, the king dropped the burning piece of fire into the water at his feet. The stood for a few seconds glaring down at the woman with an air of disgust and impatience. 

“It’s amusing how your lives seem so attached to Untu, a goddess no longer alive…” The king told her with a sinister look across his face.

“You do not know.” The woman replied. “You never have-!”

“Then the fairest and most intelligent of the Shorango shouldn’t be on her knees trembling and wrecking all over, concerning the simplest of all reasoning.” The king told her with despise. The woman was trembling. Getting closer to the woman and squatting down close to him. He takes the woman’s face from under the chin and raises it… 

The woman looked hard into his face while where he touched spread with the plague’s effect down her neck. She sweated and shivered! Not after what the king earlier intended to do to the great tree!

“You have gone so far dear…”

“Summon for Olkai!” The king yelled at her. 

“Okay, okay my king…” The woman replied fearfully wincing from the pain caused by the plague. “Olkai, I will summon but…” 

“What again…?”

“He comes early morning before the sun rises. I will let him know…”

The king was quiet for a few seconds, he understood her because she always told him the sun never found him. He stood up and look down at her as if he finally felt some pity for her!

“Immediately after the Kurotandi games, I will be here… so don’t you fool me again.” he says and steps away turning his back to her but forcing one last word with a sneer. “-friend.”

The woman frowns. As the king throws the burning piece of wood beside her knees and starts away following a path Tsote should have used from the river.

This is when Tsote chose to step through one of the windows of the strange tree shelter to get out his sight. The rocks were several steps away from the tree and he unable to get back behind them lest the owls spotted him too. Where he squatted, he could see half basement of the tree. Light touched him on one side and the warmth was energizing unlike the usual fire he knew! However he had to hold on tightly not to fall in because the floor was about ten feet below though a network of twisting roots. Roots that were hanging with tiny glowing snails.

King O’mondo finally starts around the tree toward the same tunnel Tsote came by… this is when Tsote had to step through one of the windows of the strange tree shelter to get out his sight. 

The rocks were several steps away from the tree and he unable to get back behind them lest the owls spotted him too. Where he squatted, he could see half basement of the tree. Light touched him on one side and the warm was energizing unlike the usual fire he knew. 

However, he had to hold on tightly lest he fell down through the strange network of roots seemingly lit by the glowing snails’ shells. The floor was made of rocky plates arranged into an ancient patter about ten feet below from where he sat and incase he fell, it would really hurt unless.

Tsote sat in the gap in the tree for a while before he heard the woman whistled. The owls collected around her on many rocks. Two landed on both shoulders and one on her lap.

She hooted in conversation with them about what annoyed the king. They hooted back in response. There was a moment of silence. Her wrist was plague but recovering every now and then! Moreover, it hurt! The peeling pieces of flesh levitated and were caught by the breeze while more flesh grew in place. Tsote could see her though a little gap.

Some sort of plague was eating away his flesh. How and why, Tsote had no idea but he felt curious to find out. The woman saw this and he panicked. Calmly, Naruba reached into her pocket and retrieved seeds, which he tossed into the air. The seed transformed midair into many red moths flapping away into the air. The birds rose after the moths. Not one remained on the ground which allowed Naruba space to stand up. 

He returned with an expression stronger than he wore a few minutes back. It’s like the owls helped regenerate her strength and confidence during her most consoling moments. She slowly walked towards the fireplace. Reaching the fire. She began humming a very beautiful song to fire! 

Unfortunately, the song she was humming sounded familiar. Tsote though he knew someone who used to hum the same way! When it reached his ears, it calmed him. He could not remember whether the song had lyrics but it brought peace to his mind like nothing else. Next, Mama Erusa directed the smoke out from the fire to levitate over the large table like some grey cloud.

She cast the black dust on top the wooden round table at the center of the room, took two glowing snails and placed them on the table’s center. They snails started crawling into different directions leaving strange glowing patterns wherever they passed the likes of a message. 

Naruba read whatever the snails formed with a keen eye! They were instruction she followed while she made the remedy to her condition. Nevertheless, it was not easy at all for her coz she struggled with the pain. In pain the chanting turned to humming.

Next thing, she held out an arm towards the shelf on her far left and a few collectibles rose midair, collecting around her on one side of the table at her will. And from the wave of her hands, she did with them what she desired without having touched them for example crashing seed and popping open some gourd filled with preserved leaves. The leaves fell out onto the table immediately turning blood red.

Everything happened according to her will! In the end, she cracked open some coconut-like fruit. She scooped out the contents and smeared it all over her arms and face. Through the shells a side. All this while Tsote watched! Next, she lifted her arm and slapped down on the snails, which had collected back at the center of the table. They squashed under the weight and thereafter, she scooped them up in both her palms, turned towards the fire and thrust them in. An old owl started forming in the grey smoke above the table bit by bit…

Now one of the red moths Tsote saw the woman releasing into the air earlier came to settle close to his foot in the hole in the tree. He pulled his foot away inwards, but he had most of his weigh down on the same leg. To make matters worse, one of the white owls saw the last moth flying crawling behind the largest root supporting the woman’s shelter and followed. However, hardly had it landed on the side of the gap in the tree, it spotted Tsote and hooted loudly its golden eyes glowing with terror. It reduced speed midair and then charged.

Naruba turned sharply to look at the hole concealed by shadows only to see a young by plummeting through. She held out a hand and immediately the network of roots parted under him. He fell and roots grabbed him. They passed him down for about twenty feet before he hang slightly two feet above the stone floor!

Tsote yelled. “Please, don’t hurt me…!”

The woman quickly walked towards him with her arm still held out simply to mean she was in charge of the roots! Tsote hang with his head down. The woman studied but did not utter a word! Then she smelt him!

“…a boy thief…!” Came the woman going around him. 

“No. I’m not a thief…!”

“Who are you and how did you…” 

“Tsote… Tsote is my na…mmm.” Tsote tried to say his name but a root with slimy sup sweet like honey slide over his lips muffling his words. All the same, the woman paused in surprise. Her eyes opened wide with shock!