31 - Exquisite loyalty

Chapter 31 (Exquisite loyalty.)

Makita released the first arrow from her bow, which the ghost Kurota waved aside and majestically land on the ground. Makita panicked for the second shot but her fingers were shivering. As she inserted the second, the creature lunged forwards at them! Tsote pushed Makita out of the way. The creature crushed into an old tree splintering it to pieces. The Basha dog saw what was happening and after having bonded with the beads, it found some sort of loyalty to its riders. It rushed in to help diving from this tree to the other to confuse the Kurota before it attacked on the third jump!

The ghost Kurota saw the Basha dog. It tore the tree stump out from the earth nearby and with all the dirt and moss, hurled it at the dog! The Basha dog clashed with the tree stump and bounced aside into some rock. It landed heavily with its feet well and running along the rock’s sides targeted the shadowy creature’s back. 

Nevertheless, the Oladiya Kurota saw its movement and  when it charged thinking the Kurota was off guard, a cloud of black feathers moved across like a cloud of tinny poisonous arrows in a magnet swam and pierced the animal in the face and across its one side. The animal let out an alarm of pain as it fell back heavily into Makita who was getting her second arrow ready. This made her second shot go astray!

The Basha dog blacked out at once before it could even land. It lay heavily against her waste and the bow fallen from her grip an arm’s stretch away. At this point, she was left hopeless.

Tsote saw Makita fall back and at once requested for the bead’s assistance…

“I can’t… loosen me master. Loosen me from you neck before he gets hold of me.”

“Why won’t you help…?”

“The easier it will be for him to use me… too late. I can no longer.…!” Tsote yelled as the thing sped forwards at him!

The Ghost Kurota took him by the neck and lifted him off the ground. It studied him in the face as though it was hard for it to see him. Tsote made an effort to reach for the beads but his hands had been stiffened by the creature’s power.

“Olkai…!” He tried to utter but his voice was blocked and chocked from sounding! The creature finally started away into the trees. Makita watched them fade away into the grey. 

“Olkai…!” She heard him say again in a little scream that never came out fully.

Tsote…!” She yelled at him as the world turned to silence. For some time she could not move. She was terribly scared. She fought to push the Basha dog off her laps but it would take her some time to recover fully from Tsote’s disappearance. 

After a long struggle, she was able to get her legs out from under the bleeding animal. It was burned black around the heads and on one of its sides. The wounds were many as if the feathers eat away on the animal’s flesh acid way.

She clutched her mouth in terror and stumbled back. It’s like the Basha dog had acted like a shield when the black feathers came. Amidst this silence, she got to her feet. Walked to where Tsote last stood before the thing took him and peered up! The trees rose for about one hundred and twenty feet high but she could not see even beyond thirty tweet up.

All of a sudden, something was falling through the branches. Makita quickly stepped back. She tripped and fell too. Nevertheless, what landed before her was Tsote. Makita was crying. She saw him and ran to him…

“Tsote!” she called taking hold of his hand but he was… 

“No don’t die now. Tsote? Tsote. Please answer!” she cried her whole face covered in tears and mucus from her nose. “No… No!” she spoke reaching out for the beads she last knew were around his neck. They were gone and wherever his bead marks were looked burned.

“This… may be these. Please help him.”

 She reached around her neck and took the King’s Olko bead off. She put them around Tsote’s neck crying and fidgeting confusedly…

“Wake him beads. Wake my friend up! You know how to. Please wake him! Wake him for me!” She begged, bending down over him and shaking him again. There was no responded. His strength may have parted from him along with his mother’s Olko beads and could have survived but what about such a great fall from the trees above! She collected him up onto her lap her eyes shut and this is when she recalled his last words.

“Olkai…” she uttered to herself and opened her eye. He was trying to call for the wise owl’s help!

“Olkaiii!” She yelled out at the sky only to see the fog drawing back all around her and the ground rising on one side again. The night was here and she feared the dark. She worried when a green toad crawled out from under a rock next to her. It jumped over Tsote legs and reaching the opposite side where the earth rose into a slope. It turned and looked at her as if to study her and in then crocked.

Next, it started leaping up hill where the trees glowed from the reflection of some fire that was not burning earlier. She stood up and started up the slope caring not to lose Tsote from her sight. She saw the steps leading to the large owl head made out of stone. Was that Olkai’s head. Was the statue the wise owl the stories told about? She had no time answer herself.

She started back down the slope and tried to pick up Tsote. He was heavier than she expected! She turned him this and that way but failed to lift him from the ground. Whatever was necessary, she had no idea but it occurred to her that getting him to the top of the stairs might attract some help!

She stood above his head and picked him by his armpits. Slowly she dragged him up the slope. It took her time to get to the foot of the stairs. Reaching the foot of the steps she stopped and called out again but the wise owl did not show up. This when she seemly lost hop. Maybe everything apart from the ghost Kurota were mere tales and lies.

She sat down and thought. She glanced up and saw the grey moon starting to appear through clearing night fog and three times larger than they saw below the Olko hill. 

She stood up and slowly dragged Tsote to the top of the steps where she collapsed in exhaustion. “Olkai...!” She spoke almost to herself with her head lain back the statue appearing upside down to her. She shut her eyes for a second to grasp her breath and hardly had she shut them when something flapped its wing over her. She popped her eyes open and there was a magnificent owl unlike any other. She has ever seen.

“Olkai…?”

“You are a true and valuable friend to reckon with.” The owl spoke with such a calm and very welcoming voice. Makita was awe struck and unable to spill out why she was summoning for him. However, she quickly turned a side to show the wise owl her dying friend only to see him fade away into thin air. The owl waived its right wing at Tsote’s body as she showed him. A wisp of wind passed over him and the next moment his whole body started to glow and disintegrate like chaff in the wind. Glowing piece of his body started to rise glowing in the moon light. 

“No. no … please don’t.” she cried hurrying over and trying to stop the disintegration of her flesh but she was gone…. levitating in a cloud of glowing runes similar to those that he had all over his flesh when the beads gave him strength.

“What have you done…?”

“We rescued him the moment he yelled for my assistance… but he was badly hurt by the time I arrived…” the owl told her

“No no… I saw what you just did!”

 “What you have carried to this point was merely an illusion of his condition when we found him. The illusion made possible by the beads you have around your neck.”

“But…” She reached up only to find that she still wore the beads around her neck. How possibly. She thought she took them off and placed the around Tsote’s neck! She tried to remove them just in case the owl wanted them. After all they were the reason Tsote was racing up the Olko hill.

 “Well, better not remove them dear. The Olko slopes are no roaming grounds for your tribesmen.” The owl warned her and she let them be.

“However…” The owl added immediately. “-had you put them too around the real him… The Kurota would have located them too…” The owl told her

“So you tricked me…”

“Not exactly…” Makita spoke stubbornly.

“The reason why he brought a pure Yakunko female child along despite my strict instructions required checking…” the wise owl told her adding. “And the level of your royal for your friendship with him deems you worthy a passage through to our sacred ground...”

 “Okay.” came Makita just when the owl prepared to depart without another word about Tsote. It flapped its wings through the grey glowing ash-like substances to perch onto its monumental statue. Once there, it looked down at her so peacefully as though it would smile with its beak.

“Can I see him then?”

The wise owl waived its right wings once again and at that juncture, the floating runes collected to form Tsote’s exact figure right there before Makita’s very eyes! He glowed like the moon above. Excited, Makita rushed forwards to touch him but he walked right through her and made for the owl’s statue mouth.

“Tsote?”

He did not look back which meant he could neither hear nor see her. He started into the depths of the entered cave laminating the interior with the moon’s very glow wherever he passed.

“Fear not child…” The owl spoke showing her forward after her friend’s glowing form. She started in after Tsote the same way he had come on his very first visit. They came to the tree on top the Olko hill. When Tsote walked through the stream of water at the mouth of the tunnel, he faded. Makita looked confused. This is when he spotted an owl perched on a twig on the other side of the river. She walked across and glanced back only to see the tunnel’s entrance gone.

The owl hooted and flew away towards an opening in the woods. She started after it out of the woods and there was the strange red tree. Beyond the tree was a cloud of many flying in a circle around the something the likes of a pyramid’s top. the owl flew ahead and rose to join the others in the circle. The clouds in the sky formed a ring around the sky and above the clouds, the moon glowed clear and bright.

 The children of Olkai did not stop flying in a circle but the most impressive bit about this was way the moon light touched their wings and their wings absorbing the light, intensifying it and refracting it to land at one small place onto the little pyramid.

The light laminated an altar on the top of the little pyramid and on top this pyramid lay Tsote’s assumingly dead body. Makita started running. On the other end of the little pyramid, there was a stretch of trees, which glowed splendidly in the full moon’s light.

The great wise owl was already there waiting for her while perched on top a block of stone given three animal faces. Between him and the altar a woman knelt waxing Tsote’s uncurious body. It was Tsote himself lying naked with a little piece of bark cloth covering his private parts! His body was lain down facing the moon and nine candles burned around his peaceful head. The melting wax flowed down through some grooves towards his hands and feet where it rose to consume his body naked body.

She wanted to touch him…

“Don’t. He is poisoned by the black feathers and you don’t want that poison to affect you…”

“Can you heal him…?”

“I can no longer…”

“But you are Olkai the great owl…”

“Everyone has a limit for what they can accomplish… and in that state; the gods have mercy on him.”

“What do you mean…?” Came Makita feeling.

“There is no longer need to blame anyone… if that’s what you are coming to.” the woman told her.

“Why… you know this would not have happened to him if you did not send him for these ridiculous beads and…”

“Don’t be angry child… we all have our destiny. We all have a personal battle to fight and…” the Woman explained only to be interrupted by the wise owl.

“Can I tell you a little story child…?” the owl asked and at once began. “When the gods parted from these lands like the sun falls away in the west, darkness consumed everything in could in its wake. Many fell for the darkness but the few that went in pursuit for the fading light learned the truth, which set them free. Those that found the light first chose connived to shield all later comers from knowing the origin and full purpose of the light keeping them under their shadows for generations. None of those that came after ever tested the true power and nature of truth.”

“Why tell me that…?” She asked blankly showing she did not understand a thing!

“Tsote’s destiny is to break through the shadows and let the all the later comers see the purest of light warn the lands once more… the truth.”

“The truth?” She asked in confusion looking at the woman for help. “The light. Well, Whatever the light and… and the truth is… I do not care. But for Tsote? I know he is a good young warrior… caring and… please heal him.” Makita began to cry again while kneeling back down next to the altar. Her eyes were flowing with tears again.

“We can only pray and hope the gods let him live to fulfill his purpose…”

“At the moment, Tsote is wondering through the shadows, a line between the dark and the light. By the time the moon fades, the black feather poison would have left his body. He will search the shadows for the key to his fate and when the sun rises tomorrow, he must have found the key.”

“So he will be awake tomorrow…?” She asked them quickly.

“We hope so….” The owl responded.

“What about his eye…” Makita asked the owl.

There was some silence concerning this question.

“The Oladiya Kurota took them as well as his beads and Naruba will depart to retrieve them both…” The owl responded sorrowfully.

 “Naruba?” came Makita, her gaze flying about from the owl to the woman on the opposite side of the altar. The woman looked back at her.

“Yes I’m…” Came the woman. Makita looked puzzled. “He never told you?”

“But the king… they said Mozia O’mondo’s father, the king murdered…”

“Stories told by those living within the shadows… only crooked truth.” The woman spoke. “However, I’m his mother and it hurts to see my son in such a state.”

“He did not tell me he had a mother or that the mother was Shorango…”

“Well… neither did he know until of recent.” The woman replied.

“Sorry I could have done better to save him…”

“You needed not to...” the woman replied.

“And right now, I can do nothing better than retrieving his eye and Olko beads.” The woman spoke adding. “…by the time the sun rises tomorrow, I will be gone and very far away from here but whatever happens promise me you will not desert my son…”

“Why?” Came Makita. “I have never deserted him before. Then why would I this time?”

“His fate is rough and terrifying. And to make it through all challenges, watch his back as you have always done” the woman spoke. This time a tear rolled down his eyes too. “Why…? -because she loves and cherishes you of all the other.”

“How do you know…?”

“I’m Shorango. Naruba.” The woman replied with a little smile. “And one last thing…”

“What?”

“Lastly and most important, the beads around your neck, my son promised to return them to me because without them I’m no longer the great Kobewa sorcerer you know from the tales.”

“The beads…” Makita spoke as the woman open-handedly held out his palms to receive them.  She reached up and touched them, took one-step back and threw the great owl a glance. She was required to remove them now when a while back the great Owl seemingly signaled that her survival up here depended on the Olko beads.

“Safe here. You can remove them now child…” Came the wise owl adding warmly. “Because much not to forget your friend’s eye depend on it… and he alone can use it to its full potential”

 “Okay…” Makita responded fearfully with a small voice. She showed she did not trust them yet but if Tsote’s survival depended on it, then she was willing to let go of them whatsoever. Slowly, she took them off just in case but nothing happened. She placed them in the woman’s hands. He smiled at her and thanked her again.

Naruba puts on the beads and all at once he regenerates to resemble the sorcerer he out to be. She turns to face the great owl, which stares back. Whatever they were exchanging through these gazes seemed secretly communicative but Makita could only watch on. The woman throws her son her last gaze. She obviously worried about her son’s survival. She feared if she did not succeed where she was going, the child might not survive as well and so his daughter Naruba having died for nothing! 

Olkai instructs him to leave while they still had time. Naruba was to hurry to meet the other twenty keepers before Oladiya located them. Oladiya had taken one of Tsote’s eyes to be able to locate the M’Jeda. Nevertheless, one eye would make it slower locating the rest of the twenty Keepers. If Naruba reached the others in time before the Oladiya Ghost Kurota did, they would defeat the Kurota by keeping it from reaching its eyes. 

As Naruba walks away, leaving the hill’s peak for the first time in fifteen years, Olkai the wise owl who was able to look after him all these year watched and emotionally moved, a crystal tear collected around the inner part of his right eye.

The tear plummeted to fall in Tsote’s hollow wounded eye, which was not consumed by the wax. Tsote did not move but something if not faster healing was obviously happening within him!

However, it was visible he worried about Naruba. It seemed he thought Naruba would not return from where he was headed. Nevertheless, Makita had no relationship with the woman to utter a word amidst this. She knew and cared about one person who  was none other than Tsote.