Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi

Author:Wole Talabi [Talabi, Wole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

White light dissolved the darkness and the nothingness that had consumed him. He opened his eyes and saw sky. So much sky. Blue and white clouds whizzed past him like memories being forgotten.

Mere inches away from his, were Nneoma’s smiling lips.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“I’m alive?” he asked, finally realizing that she was cradling him in her arms and that she was flying. The air streaming past his bare chest was cold and his heartbeat seemed erratic inside it, but he didn’t mind, he was grateful to be feeling anything at all.

Her smile dimmed and she sighed. “Yes. You are,” she said quietly.

“How did I . . . what hap . . . how did we survive that?”

She looked off into the clouds ahead and said, “I made a deal.”

Shigidi tried to take in as much as he could of her naked body, which was no longer covered in scales, and her broad wings in their slow and constant up-and-down motion. As far as he could see, she was unharmed, but he knew that she must have traded away something of significant value to purchase their lives. Shango would not have let them go quietly, or at all.

“What deal?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, the curve of her neck strained. And then she added, “You shouldn’t have done that. You really shouldn’t.”

Shigidi was confused, “I shouldn’t have done what? Saved your life?”

“No, not that. I mean, thank you,” she corrected hastily. “But I told you to let go of your old bonds. To forget your old life. I was trying to find us an escape, to open a channel to the domain of an older power as last resort, someone I know from The Fall, but you . . . you called out to Olorun, you reached for him in the darkness and it corrupted my call. Your appeal brought him to us, instead of my contact.”

Shigidi paused for a moment trying to remember. “Him? You mean Olorun came?”

She stiffened briefly and then relaxed. “Yes. He intervened.”

Shigidi’s mouth opened.

“Olorun is still chairman of your former spirit company, with veto powers and significant influence,” she continued. “When you called out to him, he answered. He . . . saved us. I don’t know why; he usually doesn’t get involved in these things. But he chose to come this time. He wanted something. I guess he remains a businessman above all else. So, I had to negotiate.”

Shigidi was still confused. Who was this friend, the higher power from The Fall? Could this friend have truly saved them? But most of all why did Olorun come for him? Olorun no longer got involved in spirit company affairs. But all he could muster out was: “Negotiate?”

“Yes. I had to offer him something that no one in your former spirit company could. It was the only way he would agree to make Shango and his cronies let us go.”

She stopped flapping her left wing and banked, turning down at an angle in the direction of the rising sun.

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