The Ancient Lands: Warrior Quest, Search for the Ifa Scepter (23 page)

“I knew it,” Bomani said, standing and
curling up his lip. “You’re in league with him.”

“You don’t give much promise to someone who
just saved your life, gave you clean water and is willing to feed
you, do you boy? Now sit tight, and don’t interrupt me. I may be
smart, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a temper.”

Farra reached out to Bomani and pulled at
his arm. Gesturing for him to come back and sit on the bed. “Let’s
just listen to him.” Bomani nodded, returning to his seat dropping
his guard. His experience with ogres thus far had made him bitter.
As far as he was concerned, the jury on this Torik was still
out.

“Yes, I was part of Hatari’s army. It seems
that I became too smart for my own good. I began asking questions,
giving opinions, questioning orders, things that he didn’t want any
of us to do. I started to question the validity of our race bowing
down to him and following his every order as if he were a god. The
others began to think that
I
was the stupid one, because I
had my doubts. You see, they just followed orders. It didn’t matter
what the orders were, it didn’t matter who got killed, or how many.
All that mattered to them was following the orders of their leader;
in this case Hatari.”

“So you became an outcast?” Farra asked.

“Yes, way before I even left the clan.
Things had already been tense, but Hatari kept me around, still as
their leader. Deep down, he valued my opinions, and didn’t want to
get rid of me as long as I was serving a good purpose. After all,
he had no council to run his ideas by. Seeking the power of the
Man-a-morphs
, that changed everything.”

He peered deep into Farra’s eyes as if to
warn her. “Many have come to command the power of the man-a-morphs,
and if you are a sorcerer of any kind, you are even more
susceptible to the allure. I’ve seen them, with their staves and
their hunger for power unaware of the hold that the temple had on
them; unable to resist its call. It is that desire to become more
than what you are meant that will destroy you.”

“What do you mean destroy? All I want is to
learn more about the temple and to understand its history.”

“As did all those in the bone yard. Some of
them didn’t even make it that far. I’ve had to dump the bodies from
the temple myself —clearing my home. A small few, like myself, and
Hatari’s brother, Onoc, did not receive death, but a curse.”

Bomani’s eyes lit up, returning his mind to
the soulless glade. He took a sip of the hot soup and shifted
uncomfortably in his seat. “We have dealt with Onoc; killed many of
his clan and left him wounded.”

“Then you were fortunate to survive. His
clan cannot die. They would have risen again by the next sun.
Cursed by the… the.” Torik’s discomfort was apparent in his face
and body. His eyes squinted shut, his hands became tense and shaky,
his mouth cringed as if he was struggling to fight something, and
then he grunted and yelled in agony.

Bomani stood up, grabbing his blade, and
Pupa began to bark madly at the ogre. They were both confused and
scared as they watched the top of Torik’s body shift and
bubble.

Torik dropped his bowl of soup and fell to
his knees in obvious pain until soon; the top half of him resembled
that of a Gorilla.

Farra and Bomani had heard that scream
before. It was the scream they heard in the bone yard. This solemn
ogre was a monster.

When his screams stopped, he was bent over,
still on his knees –the top of his body, a gorilla, the bottom,
still ogre. He was breathing heavily, his body almost doubling in
size with every huge breath. “This is my curse, an uncontrollable
shifting halfway from animal to animal.” He paused and observed the
fear he had just put into the children. “There is no warning before
it comes. Huh huh huh.” –Gorilla sounds.

“But…what...what about the bottom of you?”
Farra asked, trying her best not to stutter, but the words just
would not come out smoothly.

“I told you, I don’t control when or how it
happens. Nor do I choose shape. It is painful for me to hold any
shape that the curse hasn’t promoted, and so, I simply give in to
what it wants. Even then, I can only shift half of my body. Hoo huh
ho
o.”
He grunted, sounding like a
gorilla.

“That’s terrible,” cried Farra.

“And this is what happens to those who seek
the power of the man-a-morphs without the gods’ approval. You’re
either dead, or you are cursed! Huh haa”

“But there is a way,” Bomani added. “There
is always a way that a curse can be broken.”

The boy’s arrogance struck a nerve with
Torik, but he rose to his feet and answered anyway. His face
dropped into a sigh of disappointment. “Only the
one
can
free me from this curse, only he that has been approved by the
gods.

“How do you know that I’m not the one?”
Farra asked.

Torik snapped toward her and crinkled his
eyebrows in anger. “The
one
is a true Man-a-morph. Not some
distant descended cousin. If that’s what you are.”

“With or without you, we are going to get
into the temple. My people have long searched for its secrets. I
would rather you help us. We have no way of fighting the
shadowlight.”

Bomani was moved by Farra’s aggression.
Rarely had he seen her that way, if at all. This was obviously
something that she wanted. He mounted his shield on his arm and
gripped his spear, pointing it at Torik. “If Farra says she needs
to get to the temple, then that is what we are going to do. YOU
will take us there.”

“Torik was more amused than frightened by
the tip of Bomani’s spear. He had tried his best to persuade them,
but if that is what they wanted, then so be it. At the very worst,
he would have something tasty to eat for a couple days.

Preview of

“
The Adventures of Farra and
Bomani.”

Coming SOON
2010

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XXV THE TEMPLE OF

WANYAMA

With Torik leading the way, it only took
minutes for them to enter the temple’s main chamber without seeing
so much of a glimpse of the shadowlight along the way. “Wait here,”
again Torik commanded them, and they did –in darkness.

When the light began to turn up, he had been
shaking a globe of some milky substance that became brighter and
brighter. The room was huge, a complete circle, at least forty feet
across. Its ceiling extended higher than the room was wide and the
walls converged together as they extended upward forming a cone
that topped off at sixty feet. The top flattened out to a disc
fifteen feet in diameter.

The entire room was symmetrical. Around the
edges stood five statues of men carved out of the volcanic
orange-red colored rock that the temple was made of. They were just
slightly taller than life size with their hands extended together
as if to receive something. The spaces between statues bared
carvings of script and pictures etched into the wall.

Directly across, at the center, each statue
of man faced a statue of an animal. These animals, also carved out
of rock, were joined at a centerpiece by their hind parts. They
mimicked the design of the temple from outside. Each of the animals
seemed to share the job of holding up a tray of rock on their
heads.

On top of the tray were five spheres about a
half a foot in diameter. One of them was lit; the one Torik had
been busy shaking. The others were black. Behind each sphere was a
hole in the tray, just the right size for a staff, if you had one,
and in the middle of all of those was another hole, to form a
sixth.

Torik had gone ahead and shook up another
one of the spheres, and it too began to glow. “Wow,” Farra stood in
amazement. She took in all of the visual elements of the place, and
wanted to know more. She wasn’t aware of it, but the temple was
calling to the sorcery in her blood, and it was stronger than ever
now.

“Whoa,” Bomani said.

“I know. It’s fabulous!” Farra replied as
her eyes widened, absorbing all that she could. “I have so much to
tell my people.”

Torik observed; watching her, just as he had
watched so many before her attempt the ritual. He suddenly felt
guilty from what he had done to this poor child. Even guiltier for
he knew what would soon happen to her, her pup, and the warrior she
traveled with.

She pulled off her hood, and then Torik
could now see clearly that piece of jewelry she wore around her
head. “Where did you get that?” he asked forcefully as he
approached her.

“My father,” she replied. He turned in
despair, but said nothing more about it.

“What about the shadowlight?” Bomani asked.
Won’t it come? Won’t it follow the light?”

“Not in this chamber,” Torik replied. “But
if the ritual is started, there will be no stopping it.”

“I want to learn more,” Farra shouted. She
rushed to the walls and looked at the markings, reading the words
and studying the pictures. “I can figure it out. I know how to do
it!”

She rushed to the glowing sphere and grabbed
it. Then she turned and stood on the bench in front of the statue
across from it. She was too small to reach the hands. “Bomani help
me.”

“She’s giving into the temple’s calling,”
shouted Torik trying his best to persuade Bomani not to help her.
“If you do, it will be the death of both of you! The ceiling is too
high in here. When the shadowlight comes, he will rise above us and
swiftly make his way to you, I won’t be able to stop it.

Bomani was unsure what to do. Maybe this
ogre was right. Maybe he knew what he was talking about. After all,
he had seen so many dead bodies in the bone yard. “Farra, are you
sure?”

“Before I left my village, the Elders were
speaking about me. I distinctly heard them say one word, ‘TEMPLE.’
I think this is what they were talking about. They wanted me to
come here.”

“Uh, maybe they were hoping you would stay
away from here, how can you tell?” Bomani asked.

“Bomani, please believe me. I know what I am
doing!”

Bomani went to her and helped her up to the
statue. She placed the globe in its hands. “Now, the others,” she
said. “Quickly!”

They went around, shaking the unlit spheres
until they were as bright as the others. They placed them on each
of the hands of the statues. The eyes of the statues began to glow.
At the top of the room, the centerpiece opened to the sky,
revealing the full moon and they began to hear a mystical hum, all
around them.

Farra grabbed her staff, and went toward the
center of the room. “Many sorcerers have tried,” Torik said. “Many
who weren’t sorcerers have tried as well, digging up sorcerer
graves and stealing their staves to perform the ritual. All have
died.”