16 - Mama

Chapter 16 (Mama)

The woman sniffs him again and quickly turns away.

“Tsote…” the woman takes his face into one of her hands and studies him in the eyes. She drew back in an instant as though she just saw something in him.

 “Yes. Please don’t hurt me…” Tsote pleads this time.

“I won’t if you aren’t a liar…” The woman told him.

“I’m not lying Mama Naruba…” Came Tsote when the roots slid from his lips. All the same, he was straining in pain. And before even the woman could add a thing, he concluded.

“Wha-!” The woman asked in total surprise. She couldn’t believe the little thief new her name. How do you know I am the one…?”

“I overheard the king call you by the name…”

“How long have you been sneaking around out there…”

“Not long because…” Tsote began.

“What else did you hear child…?”

“J-just your name and… and…” Tsote stammered in confession. “…only, only your name!” 

He completed the statement with his voice rising in a yell again.

“Mmm! The owls can tell... Nothing goes past them unseen.” Naruba spoke grabbing his mouth.

“Besides that, what business have you up here… if I may ask!” the woman inquired furiously. Tsote shook from a twinge of fear, which washed up his whole body.

 “I was only following the king when I, I happened to…” Tsote quickly responded while the woman felt his face critically. Finally, she turns her back at him waving at the antiques she had settled down on the table. And blowing away the dark dust he’d spread onto the table earlier with a simple but powerful breath.

“Impossible…!” Came the woman still surprised. “Tell me. How did you bypass the fog’s enchantment, the King’s camp watchmen not to forget the children of Olkai…?”

“Mama Erusa…” The moment he mentioned Mother Erusa’s name, the woman span one more time to face him! Nevertheless, Tsote could not uttered anything else because he was chocking!

“Mama Erusa…?” Came the Naruba adding. “How many are you?”

“Alone…” came Tsote changing responses. Tsote cringed and struggled to get loss of the roots’ grip. The woman realized something about her prisoner and loosened the roots around the Tsote. She squinted at Tsote and immediately started back while the antiques settled down on the shelf again. She just heard a name so familiar

“Only one way to find out liar…!” The woman told him and slowly reached for his head. She took one of Tsote’s hair and plucked it!

“Ouch!” Tsote yelled in pain. Naruba walked to the fire and tossed it in followed by several owl feather she plucked off from the edges of the cloth she wore around her. She then began whispering to herself. Nevertheless, nothing happened and this puzzled the woman. 

Se tried again and still nothing was happening. She became furious and the next thing Tsote heard was a snap of his finger breaking the silence. The snap came like and order to the roots. They loosened on him and he fell with a loud thud on top the wooden table. 

However, hardly had Tsote collected himself up when the woman waved her arm aside. Before Tsote knew it, an invisible but powerful force picked him up midair thrusting him hard against one of the largest roots on the other side of the fire, seven feet off the ground. Things around the cave shook and every bit of his body felt stretched and pressed!

The tree’s bark started deforming behind him. It grew hollow and creepy. Strange things were growing out of it from the back and crawling against his back toward the front. The next thing he saw were many human finger sized owl feet protruding from the bark, grabbing him back against the root, and limiting him from any locomotion. 

Hanging upside down still, Tsote yelled and struggled just when something dangled out from under his cloths but hanging from his neck. At the sight of this, the woman’s mouth fell and eyes widened. He slowly drew nearer speechlessly. He reached up and touched the necklace. It appeared, she knew the beads on his necklace!

She lowered her arm and Tsote fell to the ground. Tsote gasped for breath. His neck hurt and everything around him had started growing fuzzy. He now struggled to speak.

“Did Thalkona Erusa give you those too?” The woman asked abruptly.

“Thalko…?” came Tsote. “I said Mama Erusa.”

“Erusa, the blind storyteller…, from Marakusha?”

“You know her?” The woman did not reply. But the beads seemed to interest her even more than her Prisoner.

 “So you are the one…”

“What do you mean…” Tsote asked her. “She said the beads would…”

“Would guide you… to me.”

“To you?” came Tsote. “Not to you but to someone important to me…”

The woman smiled and waved at the roots, which released Tsote at once. He fell with a thud to the floor. The woman looked at him with great interest Tsote did not expect.

“And you did not have sway me around like calabashes on your shelves…” Tsote went on to complain hitting the dust off his clothes and staggering to his feet. But the woman was no longer responding. She only watched him with great surprise. Then tried to hide the surprise when she realized he was beginning to question with a strange frown and the cocking of his head.

“What are you...!” Tsote began but then saw beyond her shoulders how strange and capped the shelter and its antiques.

“No, What’s your name again?” Naruba asked again confusedly. Just to be sure. 

“Tsote…” He repeated his name while glancing around with the clearing of his sight! He saw how old fashioned and strange everything around woman’s cave was. Moreover, seeing nothing worth stealing inquired stubbornly.

“Who gave you the name…?” The woman inquired with some sort of strange interest that no longer bothered Tsote.

“Thalko, Chief of Marakusha. He raised me and …. He is like a father to me and…”

“Okay so…” came the woman…

“I just wonder what’s here that’s worth stealing…!” Tsote stated with despise just when the woman walked past him with a calabash to some trickling pool on the other side of the shelter. She scooped some water from a glowing the little pool capped in usual rocks. Thereafter, she brought him the water. Tsote held his hand out to stop her from getting any near, meanwhile he struggled to his feet!

 “It’s safe and pure…”

“I am fine Mama Naruba.”

“Just call me Naruba.” The woman replied placing the calabash on a small table made of twisted roots.  

“You knew Mama Erusa?” Tsote asked her.

“Yes but… “

The woman could tell the boy was impressed by her response. It like this provided him with a gap to air out his reasons. However, everything around him fascinated him and as he went around the cave, he checked this and that never realizing how uneasy the woman looked. 

“Were you good friends?”

“It would serve you well if you minded what you are touching now…” Came the woman seeing the boy checking her things across the table and walls. Tsote froze before he could pick up one of the wooden fascinating creature carvings the woman had on one of the shelves. 

“Best we started from the beginning with how and why you are here…” 

“Okay.” Came Tsote turning to face her again. “My name… oh you already know.”

“The name Tsote is Kobewa and… and that gives me lots of questions.” The woman told him.

“But I, -” Tsote began in confusion concluding. “I’m the one with so many question. Coz… I even got no idea where or how she got the beads. All I know…”

“All you know…?”

“All I know is I needed answers.” Tsote stammered unsure about how to tell the woman what he needed. He too was not sure what the core reason was or what the major question should have been. Whether it was this mean woman, she needed to speak to about everything. “Answers about me, my life and….”

“Do you know why she chose you…?” The woman asked him.

“She says I’m different and special but I have grown up despised and…”

“-and alienated…. Oh, yes we all have come across challenges. Sometimes even worse. Why?” The woman told him. 

“Why…?”  Tsote repeated. “I hate how they treat me because of the failure of my…”

“Your Kurota…” Naruba completed the statement for him.

“And…” Tsote continued. “I came to realize that Thalko set more rules for me compared to those he has for his real children… as in, there are so many secrets he won’t reveal to me.”

“And Thalkona Erusa…?” Came Naruba. “She was such a friendly though mysterious woman with such fascinating stories and secrets… why did you not ask her for assistance earlier…”

“Yes. everyone loves her tales and tricks and… but Chief Thalko refused me getting in contact with her or even communicating with her. Not until I broke the rule and…. And she gave me these beads.” Tsote explained.

“Oh Thalko must have been such a bad god father…”

“No…” Came Tsote. “I know he loves me.”

“Oh…” Came Naruba “However I might have known the story teller long before you were even born.”

“Really!”

 “She was a unique Yakunko woman. And the greatest story teller of this generation most probably. Well, how is she then?”

“She died today. Today in the morning…!” 

“The blind dream chaser, you mean…!”

“Yes…” Tsote replied and when he saw how touched and heartbroken she was from the news, he stopped talking. There was a moment of silence. The woman looked lost in deep thoughts until Tsote saw a little tear roll down the side of her face. She sniffled and rubbed it away with a few whisper escaping her lips like a prayer to the gods to grant her a safe passage to the next world.

 In the midst of her feelings, Tsote braved to conclude. “You must have been very good friends. But before she died, she told me the beads would guide me to all the answers I need…”

“Have you heard anything from them? Anything like a voice from the beads ever since you wore the beads?” The woman inquired.

“Uhm- , the beads?” Tsote asked critically. “She did not tell me the beads talk!” Mama Erusa must have forgotten to warn him.

Anything else Mama Erusa told you…?”

“Well, the other things is -I saw her in my dream the night she passed on.”

“Oh…” Came the woman. “That’s strange now…”

“And one of the last things she said was my mother was Kobewa, a few days after Chief Thalko revealed to me that the King O’mondo was my father…”

The woman was silent. He froze in front of Tsote for a few seconds.

“Yes your mother was Kobewa though, but a lot Shorango…”

“Shorango…?” Tsote asked immediately as though he could have heard her wrongly.

“Undeniably…!” The woman replied with full confidence as though she too knew his mother.

“She did not tell me that…”

“Cause it is complicated.” The Woman replied with a little smile.

“Everyone tends to says so when they don’t want to reveal the exact truth...” Tsote begged.

 “Well, not me. I am Naruba, one of the last few surviving pure blood Kobewa. However, when we met Olkai and learned Olko magic in addition to what we little magic our people initially used in the assistance of the Kings of men, we became Shorango.” The woman explained. “-the rest is deep and complicated as I already said… cannot go into details right now.”

“I’m not rushing…” Tsote interrupted.

“Well then I believe you know what happened to the Kobewa in the past…” the woman spoke.

“Yes I know…”

“To survive the spread of the Kurota rule, our fore fathers found refuge along these slopes. From here, they made an eternal alliance with last Kuoka guardians, Olkai. Our fathers were given twenty one Olko beads and taught how to use Olko Magic contained within for self-defense and the rescuer of others Kobewa.” 

“Mama Erusa told us tales about him… the wise owl Olkai…” Tsote said.

“Well, she aught.” Came the woman. “What she may have not told you is, Olkai accepted to teach not more than twenty one Kobewa priests and priestess’s Kuoka Oko magic.”

“Why?” Tsote asked.

“Because there were only twenty Olko beads.” The woman replied

“Okay…”

“In addition, it required the twenty one Kobewa three years to completely bond and learn to control the magic in the beads Olkai gave them.” the woman said. 

“How then does a Kobewa become Shorango…?”

“The beads were inherited by the children of the chosen twenty one. But because Olko magic wasn’t meant for humans, descendants of the beads keepers succumbed to the half backed effect.” Naruba explained touching the golden parts of her flesh. She possessed none uniform golden skin tones like those the other Tsote saw on the Shorango women while Thalko took him to Sambura.

“The ultimate sign that one has finished their training is when they can speak to their beads.”

Tsote was quiet for a while...

“Being able to speak to their Olko beads made the two inseparable companion and the beads the keeper’s first hand weapon.”

 Naruba told him while reaching out for the beads. Tsote felt uneasy by her move until her saw that she had her eyes on the two red beads around his neck. 

“Can I touch them one more time…? She asked so politely. Tsote looked confused. Nevertheless, he saw no reason to deny her the chance to touch them. Her hand shook but her face showed desire and curiosity for what they could do… She got her fingers as close as an inch away and then paused.

She smiled and withdrew her hand. The face she wore a few seconds back returned to normal.

“What… they don’t burn…”

“No, no no!” she responded but in presence. She all of a sudden feared about something and this she could not hide from her face even in the fake smiles she was sprinkling at him. “Do you hear you beads speaks?”

“Ye-…” Tsote began with a hesitation. Then changed to say “No…” 

“Oh, I see …!” The woman replied with great confidence followed by a judgmental look. “-but, but they ought to if they got you here!”

“Yes they did... but then stopped completely when I came to the tunnels.” Tsote finally 

The woman turned to him with such a calm face…

“Then you are my son.” came the woman standing up and her eyes getting watery. Tsote looked puzzled.

“You?” came Tsote. “My Mama?”