I stopped speaking and stood still, waiting for my mother’s response and while she sat there eating her bowl of stew I began to get irritated, and fought to keep it hidden. She looked up at me and said quietly, “If your enemy suffers from a volatile temperament, you must agitate him.” I looked at her carefully, finally hearing the truth of her words and when she offered me the chair opposite her, I sat down heavily. She had known that I would dodge the knives and she knew that I could have avoided her last attack had my mind been clear and focused. Instead, I had ignored critical and basic principles, even as now my rising anger had almost made me impatient and irrational. Had she chosen to attack me in earnest my heated passions would have undone me. She had manipulated me in the slyest manner, so I bowed to her with respect as my understanding of what had happened grew. “Alade, my son” she began, “you are creature ruled by your senses and the sensual and one day it will cause you great pain and suffering. What I teach you applies not just to battle but to the path of self-control necessary for you to be cold and precise. For a day will come when you will have to look at yourself in the mirror and choose which one of yourselves you will allow to remain and which ones you will slay, for mark my words, the man you are rapidly becoming will not last.”
“That sounds ominous, what do you mean by that?”
“I mean a storm is coming, and you are not yet prepared to weather it.”
“Mother, this is unlike you, you are speaking in riddles.” “I am, aren’t I? Just remember this; as much as you belong to your father and Yemoja, you also belong to me and my God. Things are not always what they seem to be.” She stood up and walked away from me without a backward glance, leaving me to ponder her words. Both my parents had been cryptic that day, pushing me harder than usual but in my self-absorption, I still could not see it, this dark destiny that the Orishas had thrust into my infant soul and were now pushing to its fulfillment. I got up from the chair, lamenting my overturned bowl of Egusi stew and walked back to the main house to see if I could scrounge up another bowl.
Service to the Gods is hardwired into the Omo Orisa, and though it was my destiny to move outside these mandates, for now I was just like all the other youths from the other clans and I was obligated to study for a time in each of the different Gods various temples. It was not unheard of in Ile-Ife for the Gods themselves to make an appearance and although for most of my brethren this was something to look forward, for myself it was something I looked upon with dread. I was still young for one of my race, but even then, in my second millennia of life I could sense a difference in myself and I was harassed by a feeling that something about me was not quite right. Thankfully my time of study in each temple passed uneventfully, in fact there were no manifestations of any of the Gods mercifully. As I travelled to the final temple in which I would serve for a time, the temple of Nana Buukun, the Orisha of Thought and Magic, for some reason I began to have serious misgivings. I felt anxious and there was a slowly rising confusion in me as the priest escorted me into the temple for the ritual bath I had to undergo before taking my place as an acolyte for the time that I would have to remain in the temple learning about this relatively unknown entity, an entity that it turns out had been wrongly identified as an Orisha. For a power had begun to call to me and deep inside my being something resonated in response to that call and for the first time in my carefree life I felt fear. This was an energy unknown to me and it wanted something from me and in its quest, it had awakened the dormant power within me and set in motion the events which would lead to my flight. When Nana Buukun called to me, for it was her questing energy which I had felt, Yemoja and Esu’s gift within me had awakened and it had responded to her probe. I used all the discipline my mother had drilled into me to still my shivering and unquiet mind as the priests bathed and clothed me before leading me into the inner sanctum where my energies would be joined to that of this being for the duration of my service, as had been done in all the other temples in which I had already served. But something was not right here, something felt very wrong and inside I began to panic. I turned to the lead priest to speak my uneasiness but found myself unable, and as I watched the smiling priest retire from the sanctum and close the doors behind him I felt myself drawn to the dark stone in the middle of the floor, drawn there against my volition and stood there helplessly and immobile as I felt a powerful presence begin to manifest itself in front of me. Its energy overpowered me and I fell to my knees covering my eyes and after what seemed to be forever this energy seemed to dissipate somewhat and I opened my eyes. In front of me, naked and in all her potent glory stood the blue/black skinned Goddess of Magic and Thought, called Nana Buukun and she was magnificent.
“You know,” she began casually, “in some versions of creation I am the cocreator, did you know that?”
“No, I was unaware that, Goddess,” I said, baffled by her statement.
“Humph! What are they teaching you children these days? That is a rhetorical question, by the way, so don’t answer it.”
“Ah, well…”
“Something is on your mind, spit it out.”
“Well it is just that you are not what I expected and in fact this is not at all what I expected to happen when I came to serve in your temple.”
“By that you mean I should be a wrinkled up old hag, not a beautiful young woman and that you did not expect to experience my manifestation?” “Actually, yes Goddess. I have always been taught that you were old in appearance, that it was something to do with the forces you command. And as for your manifestation it is surprising, for none of the other Gods made an appearance, so I had assumed neither would you.”
“Well what sort of Goddess would I be if I couldn’t even change my form to whatever suits the occasion? And why would I not appear to you considering you are to be an acolyte in my temple?” “Forgive me for my impertinence, Goddess, but it is not only those things which make me uneasy. It is also that you seem to be a little more, um, frivolous than I expected for the Orisha of Thought and Magic.”
She laughed at that, a wonderfully musical laugh and released me from stasis. “Come Alade,” she beckoned, “walk with me a little.” As I approached her she took my hand in hers and led me to a dark pool at the back of the sanctum and bade me consider it. “There is much that you need to know, because a great deal is riding on you, though you cannot know this yet. You are right I am frivolous because I am closer in my nature to Chaos than to Order, yet in me complete balance has been achieved because I am neither. You should consider me to be more akin to neutrality than either of those forces truly, though it is much more complicated than that as you will soon see. I do not care what you use Magic or Thought for so long as you use them, do you understand? I am something very different than the Orishas. Look into pool and see for yourself.”
I looked into pool and felt my eyes drawn deeper into its quicksilver motions as it mesmerized me with the promise of a vision which I could see beginning to form in its depths.
“This pool is called Ashe’s Menarche,” she began, “for when the One God was undisturbed it was known as Ashe, and contained in this pool are the remnants of what it was before it became fertile and creation began. This is what it shed when the cycle of creation was complete. It is a very powerful artifact through which one may learn a great many things. Watch now, the approaching vision and remember it well for you are running out of time.” I could barely hear her now as the vision took hold of me and my eyes saw nothing but darkness, heard no sound, and felt no sensation, yet deep within my soul I heard a voice which spoke to me with images that seared my mind to the core:
“Now realize before the beginning of everything there was only Ashe, the creative force itself. There was nothing but Ashe. But one day Ashe began to think. And when this thinking began Ashe became Oludumare. When Oludumare began to think, it thought about matter, and so matter, which was called Olorun, came to be. The Adobe at the center of everything is this very same matter and the name of the th
inking, creating matter in Olorun is Nana Buukun, the Grandmother of all the divinities.
Nana Buukun is thought and she gives birth to Mawa and Lissa who are the Cosmic Egg and the Seed which fertilizes it respectively. It is this egg that gives rise to everything else:
Before there was day,
Before there was night,
And before there was a Universe,
All things lived in harmony in Olorun, The Cosmic Heavens,
Located in the realm of Ikode Orun.
The Giant Egg that sat in the center of Nothingness.” When I awoke I was no longer in the sanctum and the Goddess was gone. I was lying on a comfortable bed in the acolyte’s quarters of the temple, pondering the incredible vision that Ashe’s Menarche had given me. It seems that there is another version of events that the Orishas have not told anyone, but why would they keep something as important as this from us, their immortal servants? I was convinced now that there was something very wrong in Ile-Ife and perhaps in the whole cosmos itself but I was still too immature to understand it despite the combined efforts of the many forces converging upon me. But I was sure of one thing; my vision had been a true one, I knew this to my very depths and I knew that I could no longer blindly serve the Orishas who had founded their dynasty on deception. Why had they marginalized Nana Buukun? I was certain now that I had to see the truth of the world with my own eyes, unvarnished and unsheltered by the walls of Ile-Ife. But even more disturbing to me than all these thoughts, was my final thought as I left the temple, having thankfully been exempted from service by the Goddess herself; If Nana Buukun is Thought and if Ashe became Oludumare because Thought entered Ashe and it began to think, then where exactly is Nana Buukun on the cosmic hierarchy, and why had she spoken to me?
Nothing was the same for me once I had returned from the temple of Nana Buukun, and in my new-found knowledge I found myself alienated from the only world I had ever known. What was the point in all the lessons and all the training if it was based upon a faulty premise that it was for the good of the cosmos and that the Orishas truly served the balance? They had deceived us and through this deception had shirked their own responsibilities and left my race in a bondage so profound that we felt joy in the confinement of our invisible chains. Food no longer tasted as good as it once did and the natural beauty of my home now seemed to fade away in my heart as I began to envision other places and other realms. I began to research them, these other realms, and even though I sorely felt the need to flee this place, none of them called to me and I soon found myself frustrated. I took to wandering our lands foraging closer and closer to the boundary between Ile-Ife and the world of humanity, and each time I approached I began to feel the turmoil in my soul begin to calm. There was something on the other side, something which called to me and calmed me and after a century or so of this aimless wandering I finally decided to act. I would flee my home and cross into the human realm to pursue this alien desire which was now pulling me more and more strongly. I had to act quickly and decisively for I knew there would be no second chance at this, and I could no longer pretend to feel joy in my bondage to these Gods. In the middle of the night more than two hundred years after Nana Buukun had spoken to me I called as much energy to me as I could and quietly crossed the border into the earthly realm, leaving my family and everything I had ever known behind.
In my first few years on earth I was a very lonely soul, for my father had been right; I had no interpersonal skills and my innate sense of superiority made me repulsive to must humans who tried to approach me. I yearned for the multicolored sky of my homeland and its beautiful inhabitants, and at times if I had been capable, I would have shed tears for what I had given up in coming here and try to return to my home. I had chosen to not manifest myself in Africa because that blessed continent remained too close to both my homeland and more critically to the Orishas. Africans are a pious race and the Gods tended to favor them with their physical presence in their lands which is exactly what I was trying to avoid, so instead I went to Western Europe. It was a trying time in Europe when I arrived, one of superstition and ignorance and a dark-skinned foreigner appearing out of nowhere in 945 A.D. did not help my cause. I was ostracized wherever I went, and in some instances the natives actively tried to kill me. Looking back in hindsight I cannot blame them for their actions, for I killed many a human in my short time there because to me they were animals, insects that were beneath my attention. Many thought I was a demon of some sort (even though demons look nothing like Omo Orisa, I know this because my mother gave me one as a pet when I was small) and to them my brutal actions only confirmed my infernal origins. My arrival in the many towns to which I travelled to was summarily met with dark looks and muttering in some and murderous intent in others. Crossing the border from Ile-Ife into The Dark Ages had been a very stupid mistake. But how was I to know? I had believed that humans had no power to affect anything and it was my arrogance that I was first forced to quickly shed in my long journey through the centuries. Over the many years of my wandering, I was beaten, hung by the neck, crucified, broken on the wheel, flayed, castrated, drowned and burnt but each time I survived my torment with a newfound strength, resolve and fully healed, which would come to serve me well in the distant future, when the Abyss came calling for me. Those of my race are immortal; we cannot be killed, at least not by any Earthly means, for only our makers can unmake us, because we are mandated to serve the balance. This gives us tenacity beyond our near indestructibleness and it gives us the mental perspective to absorb pain, and sublimate it into an understanding that enhances our ability to manipulate certain energies. Unfortunately, my ase was atrophying because I no longer existed in the blessed reciprocity between myself and the Gods which results in an increase in ase and my actions now were not exactly moral in my efforts to survive this hostile environment. The mysterious call which had pulled me here was gone now, leaving me feeling tricked and abandoned, so in my new state of indifference I changed my tactics; I would learn as much about these humans as I could. I would no longer disdain them or provoke them, but instead I would embrace them and learn from them so that in this way one day I would be able to live as one of them and live out my long life away from duty, morality, and the responsibility to the Gods who had deceived and held me in bondage. I would carefully hide among them for a time, shielding myself from sight and with the dwindling reserves of energy I had brought with me from my home I created a glamour which would allow me to pass as one, seeming to age just like a human until I learned their ways, and when the time was right I would emerge as a different being.
I travelled through Europe for several centuries, learning more about humanity than any of my race could dream of and I was witness to some of the most incredible acts in history as well some the most shameful. In 962 A.D., hooded and cloaked I watched the coronation of Otto the Great as the first Holy Roman Emperor with curiosity and I was visibly moved by the Great Schism which occurred in 1054 A.D. over petty ecclesiastical and theological disputes, provoked in part by the use of leavened or unleavened bread in mass, horrified that something that had such beautiful beginnings had resorted to such secular nonsense in protecting a power that only the Gods truly owned. I crossed the English Channel soon after this and was witness to William the Conqueror’s success and the brutal conditions imposed by the feudal system and his Doomsday book. That first century I would be constantly on the move for even though I cloaked myself in glamour, the humans of this time were a superstitious people and they could sense that I was not I pretended to be. It was dangerous for me to remain under scrutiny for too long, at least until I mastered the trick of mimicking humanity.
In 1188 A.D. when Richard Coeur de Lion called for volunteers for the Third Crusade, I was quick to volunteer. I presented myself as a Moor who had converted to Christianity, and though many commanders had their misgivings as to my where my true loyalties lay, because I was so ferocious a fighter, they allowed me to speak the oath and take the cross. I was exci
ted and exhilarated, for in battle I would have the opportunity to use my skills and training to help the humans and thus build relationships if not friendships with them. What of the King himself, you may ask? Well he was a magnificent sight, but the fact is that although he was a great warrior, he was a very bad king. His great exploits, his military skill, his splendor and extravagance, his poetical tastes, his adventurous spirit, all caused him to deny England the love or care which he gave his French territories. But his ambition was to be a great and holy warrior: he would fight for his religious convictions, but in doing it he would ultimately end up ruining everything that was worth fighting for and causing untold misery to his subjects. The irony of it sent ripples of pleasure through me, for the glory that he sought was that of temporal victory rather than spiritual conquest. In my newfound disdain of the Gods I found that this crusade could keep me amused for many years.
“Alade, Cover the left flank!” someone shouted. Without so much as a glance at the commander who gave me the order, I obeyed immediately, pivoting and unsheathing my second sword from my back while rushing to the hole that the Saracens had torn in our line. The centuries of training that my mother had given me served me well in those moments and the swords in each of my hands were soon drenched in gore while the ground around me became dangerously littered in corpses. I had to move from this position soon or I would trip, and they would be upon me. That would be very bad for how would I be able to explain how I survived a beheading? The enemy was approaching more warily, and I could sense others circling back to attack my right side, so in one swift movement I sheathed my swords and picked up a corpse, spinning around and throwing it at the stealthy attackers who were trying to sneak up on me while ducking two rapid scimitar strikes by those who were in front of me. I kicked out with a rigid foot and snapped the wrist of one the attackers in front of me and spun under the guard of the other, using my superior speed to get behind him and snap his neck. The ones who I had thrown the corpse at had fled before the display of my martial skills back to their own lines and as I stood there breathing heavily, I did a quick survey of the left flank; it had held, I had done my job and as I watched the rest of the Saracens retreat to their lines I felt a sense of pride and relief, for staring at me from his horse was the commander who had ordered me to left flank and he had a big grin on his face as he raised his sword and saluted me. And I, in true form knelt and acknowledged King Richard, Coeur de Lion.
Alade (Irunmole Saga) Page 18