Alade (Irunmole Saga) Read online

  I myself was born into a powerful family within the many distinct clans that made up my people, born into a time when the Earth itself trembled, bucked and bubbled regularly with great cascades of water, lava and mud in a futile attempt to warn humanity that it was dangerously tipping the delicate balance of the world into the arms of catastrophe. But as usual humanity was oblivious to their environment and even if they could hear the Earth’s screams they would close their ears to them, for such was the extent of their self-centeredness. Yet this in itself was nothing new, for my race had watched many other human cultures wax and wane in strength before falling spectacularly. We watched the Romans ravage the world and remake it in their own image only to die the same death that all empires eventually die. We took note as Atlantis sank screaming into the Atlantic, the just deserts for their naked and overreaching ambition. And even the wars of the early Twentieth Century did not concern us too much, because in the end, all their weapons of war and all the deaths that they caused only served to depopulate an already overpopulated world which had turned their greedy hands to Africa and had begun to exploit the resources of the continent for their own aggrandizement. It was the supremacy in the world of the young Homo Sapiens race and its terrible curiosity which changed everything. No longer were they content to simply conquer territories and expand their reach, this species had begun to scour previously unknown territories, seeking out forbidden knowledge, which was rightly the domain of the Gods and now threatened the very fabric of this world. The detonation of the first atomic bomb was an example of a monumental event in the world of men, which sent a tremor of fear through the supernatural world, the likes of which had never before experienced, and for first time in thousands of years we knew that humanity had finally overreached itself in unleashing a weapon that could kill not only all of humanity, but more importantly to us it could wipe out Africa and its guardians, thus ensuring the final death of this planet.

  I had felt the call of my Goddess even before my birth, while I floated in the womb, feeling safe in her power and luxuriating in the attentions of one of the most powerful deities of our pantheon. While I lay curled in my mother’s womb awaiting my birth, the world outside was taking a dangerous turn, and I could never have known that the call which I had heard signaled a life not of privilege and service to my Goddess, but instead a life of pain and exile that would require a great sacrifice on my behalf. How could I have known that from the moment of my birth, my destiny would no longer be tied to that of my family and clan, but to the will and dictates of one Goddess wielding powers not entirely her own? The creeping doubts that began to assail me as I grew older did not develop by accident, nor did my growing disillusionment with our world and my fascination with humanity happen by chance. Somewhere on a distant plane far from me in time and my cryptic thoughts there had stood two of our Gods, plotting and scheming between themselves to take back control of the world from another God, a much younger and dangerous God, who they called the Interloper and it was because of this meeting that my fate became sealed.

  Yemoja, the mighty Goddess and Esu, God of Chaos and ruler of the ajogun, watched the disturbing changes in the planetary patterns from their Refuge, a strange dimension consisting of nothing but a void, taking careful note of the waning pools of energy that rightly belonged to her and her siblings and with growing alarm took note of the rising power of the ruthless young God of the humans who their pantheon had named the Interloper. “He grows more rapacious with every second,” Esu said without looking up, “This Interloper will not be content until all worship comes to him and him alone and all of the Orishas lie drained and broken at his feet.” Yemoja sighed deeply and turned to face him, her eyes glowing with a strange green, gold and red energy and when she spoke it was with a fury that belied the delicate form that she chose to inhabit. “I called you here Esu, in order to ask for your help. My siblings have grown lazy, blind and indolent, weakened by their tunnel vision in maintaining the balance and only the balance. They have forgotten that the world is a much more complicated place than it once was and its inhabitants are no longer unsophisticated infants that a few magical tricks will suffice to keep in line. Our enemy however, has not overlooked this, and has used it to his advantage, growing in strength, just as we have grown weaker from his privations. How else could this Interloper have usurped so much power from us and even now as he threatens the balance there is still no response from my siblings? We have reached a critical point but now they lack the power to retaliate and destroy this menace to everything we hold dear.” But Esu was not moved by her speech and shook his head, his malleable form mutating from one strange design to another, as if his chaotic nature was manipulating the very fabric of his being in counterpoint to the raging vortex he felt coursing through him now. Turning to face Yemoja, he looked at her ebony face and said, “I am Chaos incarnate but even I know that there must be a balance and equilibrium in place or else the universe itself will cease to be. This Interloper, despite his youth and his remarkable rapid rise to power is still a God and should behave as such. He should know the rules and obey them, for even Gods are bound by a code, but in his hunger for power he chooses to ignore them. Indeed, as he grows stronger in power, he chooses to flaunt these rules and codes which have kept the balance through the eons. But I am still the God of Chaos and the strife that the Interloper has sown through his disregard of the rules pleases me well. I feel the world teetering on a precipice and soon it will fall. I am sorry Yemoja, but it is in my nature and within my purview to relish the world’s anticipated fall and for that reason I will not intervene.” Yemoja looked up at him sharply and for a moment it seemed that she would attack him for what he had just said until he quickly held up one hand, asking for her forbearance. “Do not do something you will later regret Yemoja, for I mean what I have said and even as powerful as you are, you are no match for my powers, none of you are. I am curious to see the outcome of this drama, and I also want to see how you and the others will handle the situation. Unfortunately, with the exception of yourself, the others are too weak to fight back and if you go at the Interloper alone you will be most likely be destroyed, and that I cannot allow. Therefore, for my own reasons and my own amusement, I will give you a gift of some of my own power, for as you know mine does not depend on the worship of the various beings which inhabit the Earth. I will give you enough power for you to move against him but whether you succeed or not shall remain to be seen. Choose your path wisely, Yemoja for I will be watching.” Esu bowed to Yemoja regally and as he did, a spike of power shot out from his forehead and struck her between her breasts, causing her to fall to her knees and clutch her chest in an effort to contain whatever power Esu had bestowed upon her. She felt it coursing through her like liquid fire and for the first time in many thousands of years she felt confident of her role in the upcoming conflict. She was ready to put in motion the plans she had developed since the threat of the Interloper had become a reality. And now with Esu’s power in her she could begin and the soon the battle for the Earth would be joined. She had correctly anticipated the chaotic being’s mischievous side, and the power now flowing through her was a testament to her clever planning, she believed. When she finally looked up, saturated by chaotic power and brimming with newfound strength, the God of Chaos was gone, having returned to whatever reality which he inhabited normally, and as soon as she was sure that his presence was truly gone she closed her eyes and sent out a mental call to her loyal chief babalawo and then willed herself to his presence where she knew she would find him kneeling patiently, waiting for her arrival.

  Inioluwa stood with a quiet dignity to face his Goddess, knowing already why she had come, knowing this day to be inevitable. He faced his Goddess bravely, staring steadily into her multi-hued eyes, and read what he already suspected were her reasons for calling him, in those strange eyes. “Inioluwa Akeju,” she whispered to him softly, “my beloved and faithful servant, much has happened since we last spoke, and I do not have t
he time to explain things to you as I normally would, and as is your right to know as my priest. I have called you now because a crisis is coming now to our world, one that I must prevent at all costs. Long ago when you entered my service, you promised me a sacrifice and it is for this that I have now come, for I must now claim it. You better than any know the terms of our compact, so bring to me now your newborn son that I may accept your sacrifice and bind him to me and his destiny forever. You must be quick, my beloved babalawo, for time runs short and he must be bound to me tightly before he makes his journey and before he begins to grow. Through him I will gain the power to oppose the Interloper. Through his sacrifice we will once again correct the balance.” Inioluwa was nothing if not a faithful servant, and he when he quickly returned with his son crying in his arms he did not hesitate to hand him to the Goddess. The child stopped crying from the moment it looked into her eyes, and when she placed her lips upon it and spoke an arcane word, the air around them vibrated and heated with a strange energy that she seemed to channel into its tiny body and from that moment that child belonged to her, body and soul. She had used the power Esu had given her to seed a dark and chaotic magic within him, one that had corrupted his ase and would only grow more chaotic in due time as this child called Alade Akeju, grew more disillusioned and full of despair. It was this power which she believed would save her world and it was so that this power could grow, that I, Alade Akeju, had to fall.

  When I ran from Ile-Ife, I had fled a world controlled by faith and belief in Gods who defined our every action and all of the choices which we made in our lives and in fleeing my responsibilities and obligations to them I had made the choice to walk a path where there would be no story book ending waiting for me at the end of my tale. My world, by now, was unfortunately colored by the red wickedness of my rejection of the grand summons which had never ceased to haunt me in my journey into the world of sin and amorality to which I had fled, where it had caught me and taken hold of me from the moment I left the disciplined world of privilege bound to duty to the Gods from whence I had come. In Ile-Ife the Gods were very real, not abstractions or illusions designed to illicit hope. They were vortices of power that walked the Earth at will, doing things for reasons that only they themselves could know and for millennia my family and my clan had been bound to them as tightly as strong electromagnetic bonds. We had served them faithfully and they in turn had blessed our clan, granting us success, prestige and the authority to do our will upon the land in accordance with their wishes. And I was bound tightly to them too, and in my early years I had reveled in the knowledge that someday I would be called to my duty, to my destiny to be bound body and soul to one of the great powers which ruled our world. For mine was to be a different role than that of the others in my clan because I was not to serve all the Gods as the rest of my family did so faithfully, equally and without preference. No, I had been chosen long before my birth for something more and my ego perhaps is what opened the door to my corruption for I began to hold myself above from the others, believing myself to be special in the knowledge that I would be bound to one power only, that of a Goddess to whom I had been dedicated to at birth. All that remained was for the certain celestial events to happen and she would send out her summons to me, that I might come to her of my own free will and be bound soul to spirit in her service for forever. But as time passed and when I began to feel the pull of her summons, suddenly I grew afraid, and indeed grew insolent, daring to question my place and my destiny, daring to doubt the necessity of this imminent binding to my Goddess. I found that I no longer wanted it, and my dreams began to be haunted by my own face crying out to me to be free from bondage. I knew then that I could not go through with it, despite all my upbringing and despite all the preparations which had been made since before my birth. And I believed that if did not go through with it that I would not long survive in this world. The Gods’ retribution can be swift and terrible and I was not about to stick around and find out for myself, so when at last I grew to manhood and had learned everything I that I thought could help me on my journey away from there, I quickly packed anything that could help me on the journey that I knew I had to take and fled my ancestral home like a thief in the night. But I was wrong, so wrong about the summons that I had heard. The call was not to a transcendence but to a bondage and a fulfillment of a necessity that had been put into play so long ago at that fateful meeting between Esu and Yemoja and in my fear, I had fled the most ancient of Goddesses in our pantheon, a Goddess who had very real plans for me and the power that was stealthily growing inside of me. I had run away from my celestial mistress and now the time had come to retrieve her merchandise.

  2 I had become a cold and soulless creature in my long years away from my true home and these thoughts of nostalgia and melancholia had no place in my faithless new world. I greeted the morning as I usually did with a filthy curse and slapped the sleeping woman in my bed on her ass to wake her up, and telling her that it was time to leave. She was pissed, as was usually the case with one- night stands, now that the illusion of romance had been lifted and all that remained now was the naked truth; there would be no relationship, no candlelight dinners, and no roses, only the long silent journey back to an empty home with quickly fading memories of a night of sensual exploration that only had mutual pleasure (and sometimes not even that) as the end result. I listened to her try to cajole me into another date for a while before finally losing patience and rudely telling her to get the hell out of my house, which I am sure you can imagine she did not take too well. She got dressed and she left, while I was left to wipe her angry spittle off my face, I made a cup of strong Kenyan coffee and sat down to contemplate what I had needed to accomplish today. I was looking forward to it, the deceptions I had put in place to outfox the person who would be looking at me from opposite the table, who in turn would be fully aware of the game and indeed would try to play it just as hard and skillfully as me. But he would not succeed in squirming his way out of this, so today would be a fun day, which was just as well for I needed the conflict and I hungered for the strife to come because it made me whole for those few short moments when the world dropped away from me and I was the eye of the storm. Today I would crush the silly fool who had chosen to come against me and take everything from him while I ravaged and rampaged through his petty world of shallow vision and overweening greed. I got dressed very carefully; a light grey shirt with a light grey three-piece suit and a light grey tie, all tied together by a light grey handkerchief to complete my transformation into the Grey Man, the most implacable of foes. I am an eccentric and have always been partial to the dramatic and that is why I chose grey because despite what people believe, grey is not a neutral color, it is bold and ambitious, sly and shifty because it is in reality the color of deception. It contains both the light and dark elements of the opposing forces of this world, yet is easily able to partake of both, while never being bound to either. And on this day, I needed to be ready, I needed to be at my most deceptive, and at the top of my game for my opponent would be expecting something. After a quick look into the mirror and a deep breath to steel myself for the tasks ahead, I grabbed my briefcase and left my condo to face the world. Today would be a memorable day indeed, but as I would come to learn, not all in the way in which I envisioned it.

  It is funny to look back on that day with the clarity of vision that can only come with hindsight, because I was completely oblivious to the many series of events which were rapidly coming to a head around me. The fact is I just don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks about me, I never have nor ever will and this is at once the source of my greatest strength and simultaneously my greatest weakness. The overweening arrogance that has shielded me from the common concerns of my fellow inhabitants of the Earth blinded me to the deep cracks in the façade that I so carefully cultivated for the world to see. But for a person skilled in the art of manipulation that is all the opening that they would need to crack open my self-delusions about my own
greatness. I have always lived in a world of my own creation, immune from the concerns of the real world by grace of my carefully crafted illusions, a world which, by virtue of the many layers of self-deception that it lies cloaked in, makes it especially vulnerable to the kind of attack which brought me low.

  I left my condo as the Grey Man, brimming with cockiness and confidence and proceeded to hop on a subway train to downtown Washington D.C. where my office was located, in the heart of trendy Adams Morgan, an area where I had spent many an evening engaged in levels of depravity that I probably should not mention here. I found it soothing to bind my professional life so closely with my private life, often looking out of the window of my office onto the streets below and reminiscing about the previous night’s debaucheries while conversing with some business associate who was in the room on serious business oblivious to where my thoughts were roaming at that moment. For those not familiar with Washington D.C., Adams Morgan is a fashionable area filled with restaurants, shops, and nightclubs encompassing every flavor on this earth that a person could desire and considering how I make a living locating my office here was if nothing, ironic. You can sit down and smoke a hookah while drinking mint tea, then five minutes later and less than a block away treat yourself to a meal of Ethiopian delicacies while watching the various groups of people lining up outside the multitude of shops, outdoor markets, dance clubs, lounges, afterhours clubs and live music venues that dot Eighteenth street and Columbia road, the two main streets running through this smorgasbord of possibilities. My office was located on the top of a quaint old brownstone on the corner of Eighteenth and Belmont streets, overlooking one of the busiest parts of Adams Morgan. I rarely drove in the city, most probably because I am a nervous driver, though mainly because the subway system is so extensive and efficient that there really was no need. There was a station stop near my condo and one a few blocks from my office so there was really no point in driving, so my brand-new Audi A4 could remain pristine. It was really very convenient. Though there was more to my reasons for taking subway than just convenience and vanity, and in reality, the real reason for my taking the subway so often was that I was searching for something which was missing from me, something I had left behind in Ile-Ife and looking into the eyes of a thousand strangers every day somehow gave me hope that maybe, just maybe I might someday get a glimpse of it hidden in their vacant irises. But today I did not have the time to look. I was focusing all my energy on the confrontation that was coming and had turned all of my energy inward, quietly sitting with my eyes closed and meditating upon how the meeting would go down and as a result I missed the motions of a strange looking woman who had been surreptitiously studying me throughout the train ride and even now was quietly inching closer to me. There is a trick to comfortably resting on the subway that those of us who ride it regularly use to not miss our stops. You must train yourself to be aware of the familiar sounds associated with your journey. There are certain things that remain the same on your journey because it is the same route that you take over and over again and with time you become accustomed to these sounds and these rhythms, to the point that you can nap or simply shut out the outside world (as I had done) and your brain will alert you to your approaching stop because you have trained yourself to recognize certain cues. This same awareness also makes you aware of the people close to you and how they are shifting and moving with each stop, each addition and subtraction of new passengers and their proximity in reference to you. When my eyes popped open suddenly, reacting to a sudden strangeness in this world, I found myself staring into the most unusually pair of eyes that I had ever seen in my life, watching me from the face of the most gorgeous ebony skinned woman I had ever seen who was staring at me from across the aisle in the seat opposite me.