The Ancient Lands: Warrior Quest, Search for the Ifa Scepter (4 page)

“Small tasks? In two days I have to travel
to Grun village. Anyone can do that. I can do much more!”

“Bomani, I need you to assess the effects of
the drought there. That small village is still my responsibility.
You want to be king so badly, then, you should understand that what
is important to me, your King, should also be important to
you.”

“You’re right.”

A few more villagers could be heard in the
distance and Mongo’s name trailed them as they walked past. Bomani
looked away; he looked miserable. The king caught sight of this and
asked sympathetically, “And what would you do if you were
king?”

“Why, I would rule the land, and I would
keep my people happy.” Bomani answered.

He looked earnestly to his father for a
reply.

“Happy? And, how would you do that? How
would you make the crops fertile again to feed the people? How
would you make the rain come to end this terrible drought? How
would you feed the cattle so that they might be strong again?”

“I don’t know, Father, but, I would
try.”

“Yes,” the king said, “I’m sure you
would.”

IV A NEW
DIRECTION

Before the sun rose the next morning, the
king rose prematurely. The long drought that plagued his kingdom
troubled him deeply. He worried over the kingdom so much that it
was becoming more and more difficult for him to sleep at all. So
while most of Ufalme rested from the festivities from the night
before, the king and his advisor, Anu, walked through the queen’s
garden. There were many sections within the confines of the king’s
compound. It sat on the top of a hill in the center of the kingdom.
In the center of the compound there were the king’s quarters, the
main hall, the family’s quarters, and surrounding these stood the
royal temple and the houses of the king’s closest and most
important advisors. Among those advisors was Anu, the wisest
astrologer in the land. Anu was short and scrawny. He hobbled when
he walked, as a man does who is well beyond his years.

They walked beyond the compounds of the
kingdom and made their way to the farmland that provided for the
people. These days, it was barely sufficient. King Jumbe couldn’t
help but reflect upon the queen’s garden, and how it prospered
inside the walls of Ufalme. He spent an enormous amount of the
kingdom’s resources to keep it that way.

“Najila’s garden requires too much of our
water,” King Jumbe said to Anu, “To continue to maintain it is an
absurd vanity, while my people can barely put food in their bowls,”
he concluded. “Instruct Mjome to reduce the garden’s water ration
and give it to the people. Some of her arrangements must go. Of
course, someone will have to tell her. I give this responsibility
to you, Anu.”

At times, Anu’s job had its advantages, and
at others it seemed that he was given the most enduring tasks.
Telling the queen that she had to reduce her garden would be one of
them. “May I suggest that you keep the garden strong and
flourishing, sire? The garden represents the queen. The queen
represents the kingdom. And the kingdom represents the people. If
the garden wilts, so will the people’s spirits.”

Just as Anu had squirmed his way out of
giving Queen Najila bad news, the king’s chief cultivator, Mjome
approached. Mjome was a lean, wiry, little man who seemed not to
have an ounce of fat on him. From years and years of supervising
the planters in the fields, and working with the land, his skin was
darker than mahogany and as smooth as satin. He looked much younger
than the king, who had finished at least fifty years — although he
was ten years older. The king knelt and picked up a hand full of
lifeless, brown dirt. The light, arid soil poured between his
fingers like powder, and the dehydrated particles blew into the
already hot morning air.

“Dust!” The king barked. “My kingdom, my
land, all of it is turning to dust, before my eyes.”

“It is steadily getting worse, Sire,” the
lead farmer replied.

The king walked over to a nearby tree whose
scarce and withered fruit hung feebly from its bare twigs.

“How am I supposed to feed my kingdom with
this?” King Jumbe demanded. “I fear that soon, the entire kingdom
will be as barren as the Forbidden Expanse,” he said.

“It is not my fault, Sire,” Mjome
proclaimed. “My farmers are all saying the same thing; all of the
wells are drying up. We now have been sending water fetchers to the
south near the village of Animen. Salinization has occurred, Sire,
due to high evaporation resulting from the drought. The water
holding capacity of the soil has become so poor that the nutrients
in the soil are almost depleted!”

“You will not address the king in that
manner!” exclaimed Anu.

“Relax Anu,” said the king, “Mjome, I
do
hold you responsible for the crops.”

“But, sire…," blurted Mjome.

“Do not interrupt. I do hold you
responsible, but I do not blame you. No matter, I want the same
yield as last year.”

“But, sire…”

“I said the same yield!” The king insisted
as his voice echoed with strength. He dusted the rest of the soil
from his palms. “Yes, Sire,” Mjome responded in deference to the
authority of the king. The king glared at him, and without another
word, he walked away and Anu followed.

****

Bomani had been riding his rhino for about
an hour. These rhinos were larger than regular rhinoceroses and
they were domesticated enough to be controlled. Often, they were
used for battle because of their tough skin and the mighty horns on
their snouts, which in battle were used as weapons. Bomani had his
favorite, a bull he named Nassir. Nassir had both speed and
strength on his side. Bomani handpicked him from the other calves
when he was just a few weeks old. By this time, he and Nassir had a
somewhat symbiotic relationship. Nassir knew the meaning of every
twitch, turn, pull, kick, and noise that came from Bomani’s mouth,
sometimes even before he initiated a command.

They rode north across the dusty land as
fast as they could. He snapped the reins harder and harder to push
the beast to its limit. They ran their normal route, passed the
huge leaning boulder and up along the riverside. It was the same
route Bomani’s father had taken him on many times when he was
younger.

The King would point out the level of the
river and tell him how high it used to be back before he was born.
Over the years, Bomani witnessed the level getting lower and lower,
until now, it was lucky to be muddy at high tide.

He rode the rhino away from the river and up
the incline of the land to a cliff, back toward the direction of
Ufalme. It was here amongst the large rocks and boulders scattered
about that he practiced his skills as a warrior. He dismounted the
heaving bull and set it free. Nassir went off running, but made it
a point to stay within an ear’s range of his master’s call. With
one yell, “
oooooooo, ooooooooh”,
the bull would head back to
his master’s side.

Bomani grabbed his spear firmly and ran as
hard as he could. Then he plunged his spear into the ground,
vaulting himself atop a large rock. He performed a quick
summersault backwards landing in a readied battle stance. He bowed
humbly to an imaginary crowd, and then waved appreciatively to the
invisible subjects conjured by his imagination. This is what Bomani
did with most of his time. He escaped from the boundaries of his
father’s compound, and worked on sharpening his skills.

He imagined himself in battle with an
imaginary foe and swung his spear, blocked make-believe blows with
his shield, and jumped back and forth across the rocks adding as
many summersaults, backwards and forwards, that his endurance could
muster. He practiced for so long that he had exhausted himself,
soon he sat against a nearby tree to rest. He closed his eyes and
focused on the energy of his body, listening to his heavy breathing
and the strong thumping of his heart. He felt powerful after he
practiced, and felt himself getting better and stronger with the
conquering of each faux adversary. And then, just as he had focused
all of his attention on himself, something grabbed him from
behind!

“Who will save you now?” he heard an awfully
familiar voice say. It was Anan. Bomani acted quickly and threw his
weight forward. He grabbed Anan by the head and tossed him over
onto the ground. Just as Bomani started to stand, three other boys
attacked him from behind. They wrestled him to the ground, and now
there were three of them on top of him using their weight to keep
him from moving. He lay face down on the ground and then looked up
to see Anan walking over to him.

When they were younger, they all played
together daily, but as Bomani grew and developed a superiority
complex, he no longer wanted to play with the others. His arrogance
was apparent. He didn’t hesitate to make the others feel as if they
were inferior to him, because of this, they lashed back at him.
This began a vicious cycle of Bomani having to prove himself time
and time again. Bomani didn’t realize it, but he had only himself
to blame.

This concept holds true to many of us.
Often, we dismiss the effect that our actions have on others. You
would be surprised at how many of our problems are our own
fault.

“I told you that soon I would beat you,”
said Anan grimacing in the glare of the sunlight.

Bomani laughed. “Hah! You haven’t beaten me.
It has taken four of you to surprise me from behind to get this
far.”

“Hey, those are big words from the boy on
the ground,” Anan replied.

“I said the same yield!” They all heard the
voice of King Jumbe. Anan walked over to the edge of the cliff and
saw the king and Anu approaching from below. They stopped just
below the cliff where the four boys stood over Bomani.

“The king is coming! Let him up!” Anan said
to his minions.

“Once again Anan, it is you that is saved,”
said Bomani as the boys let him loose. He walked over to Anan and
stared him straight in the eyes with authority, and then turned
toward the sound of his father and Anu below.

“I can hear them,” said one of the boys.
“What are they talking about,” said another. All of them, Bomani
included, lay on their stomachs and leaned over the cliff to hear
the discussion. No one made a sound.

“He will not be able to produce the same
yield,” Anu continued.

“I know that, Anu, but I must provoke him to
do his best. Still, now that it is once again just you and I, I
would like to hear more of the scepter. We will keep it between us
for now. I don’t want to give my people false hopes until I am sure
of a plan.”

“It is man’s relationship with the gods that
has always helped us to prosper, Sire,” said Anu.

“Go on…”

“We as a people have fallen from their
grace. The people have lost touch with the gods, and they feel as
if they have been forgotten.”

“And you know what the gods think and
want?”

“It is my job, Sire.”

“Hmmm…”

“In the past, man strengthened his bonds
with the gods with the Ifa Scepter. It is through the Ifa Scepter
that we can embrace the Ifa divination.”

“Yes, my grandfather spoke to me of this
scepter — that through it, the people and the gods were one. My
father did not condone such mysteries. He was strictly a man of
evidence.”

“Yes, yes! Precisely, Sire, and if your
Excellence will forgive me for saying so, the lands have suffered
for his sacrilege and impudent ways. You have been wise to remember
the old ways, Sire. Man cannot prosper without the help of the
gods.”

The king’s annoyance at Anu’s candor was
eclipsed by the fact that he agreed whole-heartedly. He respected
his father’s love of nature, his quest for reason, and his use of
logic and mathematics, but there was something undeniable about
man’s relationship with the earth and the heavens, and the king
would not rule them out.

“Yes Anu, but it has been lost,” said King
Jumbe regretfully.

“Not lost Sire, stolen! And for almost
twenty years we have been slipping further and further away from
the gods; and further and further away from our prosperity.” Anu’s
tone became very solemn and intent. “But, I now know of where it
resides. I know where it can be found again,” Anu declared.

From a long, leather tube that hung at his
side, across his body—where he carried his blade, his writing
utensils and a few important scrolls, he pulled out a map. He
unrolled the map and laid it before the king. The king placed a
rock upon each of the four corners of the map and looked at it
intently, awaiting Anu’s summation.

“We have scouted the region. It seems that
Ufalme is the center of the drought. After seventy miles in any
direction there is no sign of a drought at all. But it has been
steadily growing larger, year after year. I fear that even if we
moved the people, it would only be a matter of time before the
drought followed. I am certain that without the Ifa Scepter the
land can never be restored.”

“That would prove to be a hard task to
overcome in itself, moving an entire kingdom,” said the king. He
continued to study the map and Anu looked on keenly.

“What does it mean,
one child of the
moon, and one born under it
?” the king asked.

“I’m not sure,” Anu replied.

“I thought it was your job to know,” the
king reminded Anu.

“Many words of the gods are subject to vast
interpretations. I can only guess that it describes two individuals
that are to fulfill a prophecy.”

Anan looked at Bomani and smiled, “Bomani, I
am willing to put an end to our quarreling. After all, we are of
the same people and in the same kingdom. With all that is happening
to the North, all the kingdoms and villages divided by war, we
should be as brothers.”