Oontab [Episode 26]

Dakumet

Trouble was all she brought herself and Fonjam. Her son fumbled in her grip as she ran through the village in the dark, struggling to find his house. The cold air was biting at her soul and she could touch the fear she felt. She took a few corners, passed a few gardens after the market place and ran down the last path to a small close where a huge hut stood. She was panting and sweating profusely by now and the beads of sweat on her face and her arms made her feel colder. As she stood at front of the house, her own heart mocked her. ‘Who are you?’ it asked; a stranger, she answered herself. With very little strength in her body, she called out to Fonjam. When he had opened and began panicking as to what might possibly be the problem at such a time of night, she asked him to keep as quiet as possible, then she told him everything, and asked him to run away before the King confirmed it. He listened. Then she disappeared in another direction, only to be cornered by her own servants, the guards.

Greda

“So who told who and where did it start?” King Greda probed.

They all looked at themselves like the truth was in one of their eyes. When they had not found it, someone mounted the hot seat and said, “Emm, Your Highness… I know the person that claimed she knew who saw it but I did not find out who.”

So it was even true. King Greda blinked. Just when he wanted to swallow his nauseating feelings, she continued, “She is a servant in the palace.” She spoke confidently, not seeming to care what it implied.

King Greda sent a guard to the quarters and in a short moment, a servant girl, one of those assigned to the Queen on her evening walks, Puepaso, The Second, came into the room. Looking around, she was startled and she knew that the meeting was no good.

“Tell her what you know.” King Greda pointed out to one of the girls. Tokisi froze in one corner of the room filled with ladies. The one standing next to Puepaso turned to her and spoke so low, it could have been mistaken for a whisper.

When the introductions were done, the King took his place, “So, Puepaso, who told you this?”

She gasped loud. No! No! No! What have I done? Puepaso thought. She choked, then she decided not to talk just yet. Ooo noo! This is bad! She promised never to say a word about it, but she slipped, and her friends adored her for being so informed. She warned them not to say a word and explained it would be a problem for all of them, especially for Aneborlu. Oh noo! Aneborlu! It hit her that it was better not to even mentioned things as delicate yet explosive as that. What is wrong with those girls?!
“Answer meee!” King Greda raised his voice and she started shaking.

“A…A…Ane…Aneborlu, w…w…one of your s…servants, Your Highness.” She sobbed terrified herself that it came out so fast and unexpected. Her mouth gave up on her.

King Greda sighed. “I do hope you are not taking me round in circles.” At that point, Queen Dakumet entered, holding her crying child, followed by the guards that went to fetch her. He did not say a word to her or even turn her way. She stopped, standing at another corner of the room and throwing hateful glances at Tokisi. She had become a monster in one night, and could not tell the difference between herself and the ruffian. This very dark night, they were a reflection of themselves.

King Greda sent the guards to the quarters to call for Aneborlu. Queen Dakumet began to shed tears when she heard her name. The girl had seen her with Fonjam; that was why she had been uncomfortable that day! She wanted to start pleading again, but the King shut her up.

When Aneborlu came, the King asked Puepaso to explain herself. She whispered into Aneborlu’s ear as though it had become normal to do that. Aneborlu started weeping, sweating profusely and begging as the other ladies stood pointing fingers and whispering.

“Why-are-you-begging-me? I don’t understand.” The King did not smile. “Tell me what I want to hear.” There was tension in the room. Aneborlu looked at Puepaso, tear-eyed and found that she was also crying. She turned and looked at Queen Dakumet, who was now sitting on the ground and shaking her head. It’s not my fault, My Queen! Please forgive me! I did not mean to! “Talk now!” King Greda roared.

She nodded, dabbing her eyes with her sweaty palms, but the tears flowed endlessly. She was rubbing her hands on her laps as she sobbed, swallowed and not knowing exactly how to put it, said, “Yes, Your Highness,” when she opened her mouth, there was mucus and saliva all over the insides and her nose was dripping, she dabbed, “I saw it. It happened!” The women clapped silently and dropped their hands on their heads as though they had doubted the rumor in the first place.

“What did you see?!” The King roared again.

“I saw Elder Fonjam…sl…sleeping with Queen Dakumet.” She burst into a pool of tears and fell to the ground like her head was heavier. Puepaso bent low to pick her up, but she resisted, burying her face in the ground.

“That is all I need to know… So, Dakumet, you lied to me, thinking I would not find out quickly?”

The Queen crawled to the throne holding her son ahead of her, as the women fought to look away, some shaking their heads in regret; they felt the shame the Queen felt, as if it was their own.

“Please, My King, please, have mercy on me…”

“Is that child even mine? Is any of them mine?!”

She looked away slightly, shutting her eyes and letting another pool of tears out, shocked by the question.

“Answer me!” He shouted.

“The one I…I’m expecting is yours.” She said through tears.

“And?!”

The women in the room began to look and listen, mouths agape.

“Emm…B…Ba’adakan is…nnn…Ba’adakan is Fonjam’s.” She stammered, pressing the boy tight against her chest as she trembled head to feet.

This time, it was the King that shut his eyes. Even though he was not crying, his eyes were colored. Three or four women were in the King’s palace weeping in the midst of a dozen others, putting fingers in their mouths and putting their hands on their heads in shock and the disgrace they felt for their Queen.

Suddenly, the King bolted out of his seat, and taking his guards with him, he disappeared into the night, with the three women crying and pleading for the fourth who had been thrown out of balance by the King’s rush, and the rest of the women followed behind, walking out of the palace one by one. The guards at the gate stopped them from proceeding any farther. The servants’ quarter was awake and the other servants, who were expected to be asleep, were awake, stretching their necks to find out what was happening.

Anger

They had walked halfway through the village, through the reflecting dying torches of the houses around, passing two streams and a line of trees scantily leaved at the end of the major pathway of the village, and when they passed the end of the pathway, the guard on the left had to ask, “Your Highness, where are we going?”

King Greda did not answer, but kept shooting forward, propelling himself with his head and almost leaving the ground completely out of the anger that could be seen on his face and his clenched fists. After they had crossed the pathless road, they took a corner around a huge rock and came to the hole from which water flowed into the village. It was as if King Greda had been trying to figure out the answer to the guard’s question, because when he stopped, he puffed hard and said, “The hills.”

Fonjam

A dried stick tore through Fonjam’s skin as he sped away. The stick passed through his right foot from bottom to top, close to his small toe. It stopped him. He fell and held his foot to cushion the pain, as fresh blood began to spread slowly around the hole that the stick bored. He blew air from his mouth on the foot because the pain was like warm water gradually boiling and getting hotter. Then he held the stick and gently snapped it in two, letting out a muffled moan, because he missed the mark he had wanted to break and it broke inside his foot; the better still. He pulled the two pieces out from top and bottom at the same time. Then he continued his journey, limping on his injury and hopping on one foot at the same time. He had to get as far as he could to safety. 

He was running from what he had failed to run away from a year ago. He should have run for his dear life, no matter what caught up with him on the way, he should have run without stopping for a breath. He should have run and stop where he would be safe, but that cold night, he was running to hide and seek temporary safety, because his scar was wearing him out. It began to throb and hurt so much that he thought it could bend and break completely at any moment. He suddenly began to feel numb on that leg, so he knew it was time to stop. As much as he felt it was the wrong thing to do at that point, he had no choice. The very last step he took sent him rolling to the ground, but he went lower than the ground, rolling to the beckon of gravity into a large pit he had not seen. He stopped at the dead end of the pit, into a shallow pool of water and when he arranged himself to sit up, he actually wished he was dead, but he wasn’t.

Greda

King Greda and his guards descended into the valley, walking a little and sliding a little, panting and gasping for air. The king did not relent, but his guards, because they had no cause for what they were doing, driven by nothing more than obedience to the King’s command, were exhausted and stopped once in a while for a few seconds. When they had travelled silently for about more than half of a shadow shift, someone spoke,
“Your Highness?”

The guard was pointing down, so just as King Greda had been distracted by advancing their walk-run, he was distracted from his distraction. The King took slow step towards the guard and saw what he was pointing at; grass.

The King looked at the guard, who was still pointing at the grass, which was barely visible in the darkness, the dim moon not helping the sight. He turned his gaze once more at the object of the guard’s focus and saw thick black spots on the tips of a few blades of grass, and a patch of grass just ahead had been flattened by something. They bent at the same time to look at the spots. King Greda fetched it off the blade of grass, almost cutting it off, and he rubbed it between two of his fingers and looked again, sniffing his hands from time to time. The other guard came and bended his knees to see what they were seeing. “Blood.” He said.

Samthanasmuths

Samnas heard the voice he had heard in one of his visions repeat itself in his ears. He spun his head around to see who had entered the shrine. It was the dog, and he knew very well that the dog expressed itself in barks. He got up, dropping the leaves he was reading and stretched to the door, checking outside for signs of a person. There was no one. “…hold on to it and you will have a cause to stand when disaster breaks out...” 

“Who?” He shivered, goose bumps coming out of his skin already.

“…just when they were on the brink of finding who they were…” it played with his ears like the mist played with the eyes. It was a breathy voice, very unlike any he had heard, but it spoke familiar words. He felt like he would be talking to air like a mad man, but if it – whatever it was – could talk, it certainly could reply, he reasoned.

“Hold on to what?!” He screamed into the darkness in front of him. He looked left and right, and when he looked up, then, down, he saw something glowing in the dried heap of hay he had stacked and put there by himself. He bent and scattered the hay to uncover the object. It was the rod he saw in his dream! He checked around again, leaving it lying around the hay and walking around the hut. He rounded the hut and came back to the front and looked in the hay again and the stick was still lying there, glowing against the moon light. He was shocked to the marrow with fear as he stretched his arm into the hay and pulled out the stick. Just as he took it, the glow died. He was still trying to contain himself when his dog started barking at him. It came running towards him, barking and growling, like another dog had stepped into its territory. But where the thing was looking was where Samnas was standing, and when the dog got closer, he knew it was the staff the dog did not like, but he did not know why. He raised his arm so that the dog could not reach it, but the dog did not give up. It barked and hopped and growled, brushing Samnas very slightly on the thighs with his fore limbs every time as it landed on its hind, wagging its tail.

Samnas wanted to find out what it was about the staff that provoked the dog, so he stabbed the ground with it and when the dog came rushing at it after a few growls and barks, at the very light touch of the rod, the dog was flung on its back. It struggled to stand and it picked itself up, jogging away; threatened, moaning and squealing.

“…when disaster breaks out…” came the misty words again, slipping out of sense with every word.

To be continued...

- Telsum Bini