by A A Lee
Goni had always thought that Nora was a strong woman, but he had never thought that she was capable of the strength he had seen from her. They had been running for hours, but she hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
“Yes, High Priestess.” Idja opened a small bottle containing a white powder and sprinkled it onto his palm. He murmured some incomprehensible words and blew the powder from his open hand. The powder stayed afloat in the air and moved down toward the river.
“It looks like she has continued in the same direction, High Priestess.”
“Good, but we’ll need to hurry if we are to find her before she reaches the Great Fall. I don’t want her to be in danger again.”
Goni quickened his pace, pretending to go faster to locate Kenda. He knew he had to stop them from catching Kenda, and he tried not to allow a big distance between them so that he could hear Nora’s plan. Although they made up the bulk of the group, it was clear that Jinja and his family were following Nora’s orders, almost as if there was an unwritten agreement between the parties to let Nora lead.
“Idja, do you have anything that can make us faster? We know where she’s going, but it doesn’t help if she keeps gaining distance.”
Idja touched his pockets without slowing down. “I don’t have anything that can make us faster, but I can slow her down. I can make her sleepy and cause her to lose energy.”
“Then do it!” Nora shouted.
“But I can’t do it at this distance, High Priestess. The spell will only work when she is in sight.”
“Then we have to go faster.”
The river flowed in a snake-like pattern, and they had to cross its meandering waters several times in pursuit of Kenda. Since Nora was shorter, she was slower than the men running in front of her, and some of the men had to help her to cross the river in order for their pursuit to keep pace.
* * *
A few hours later, they approached the Great Fall. It was dark, but there was no mistaking the deafening sound of the waterfall. Standing hundreds of meters tall, nobody had ever survived from falling from it; it was the most dangerous part of the path leading into town.
The waterfall isolated Daa and its neighboring two villages from town and the other villages beyond. Townspeople had tried several times to build a road, but all efforts had been in vain. They had tried using big bulldozers, but there were always impediments. The weather was unpredictable, and it had not gone unnoticed that each time they had started to dig near to the waterfall, a violent storm would break out. They had also tried positioning rock and soil to elevate the lower part of the river, but their efforts were always swept away by flooding.
Many people had died in the attempts.
The mountain from which the waterfall flowed was composed of toughened rock that made it hard for people to carve through. And it was not only the weather and the terrain that stopped the townspeople from circumventing the waterfall. Wild animals, including bees, were known to attack the workers, while many others had fallen ill in unusual circumstances.
With the stories spreading, construction workers had stopped attempting to build a road, and now nobody was even interested in hearing talks about an alternative to the Great Fall path.
Beyond the Great Fall was another world. There were cement roads, houses made of bricks, and cars. Daa and its surrounding two villages were a far cry from the villages below, but those villages themselves were ten times behind the progress of the people living in town. The town had tall buildings ten to twenty times higher than their houses in the village. There had been talk about moving stairways and boxes moving up and down in those buildings, but Goni and the other villagers had never seen them for themselves. Most villagers only went to town to buy goods from the market, and of them, only those who were used to the route went to town often. Normally, they were carriers transporting goods for village merchants.
The market traders would disingenuously try to be nice when facing the villagers in the hope of making a sale. But whenever the villagers left, they mocked them. Other townspeople were different. They openly insulted the villagers to their faces, commenting on their looks, their style of dress, or their language. For that reason, few villagers chose to stay in town.
Goni gathered some dry stalks and bundled them together to create a torch. This he lit using the dying torch that he had been using for the past hour, discarding the dying torch in the river to prevent setting the forest alight.
As he allowed the flames to catch, Goni thought about their progress. Since sunset, they had been slowing down, and Kenda was still nowhere in sight.
Once they arrived at the waterfall, Nora ordered the men to gather more stalks. Some of the fitter men set about searching for appropriate kindling while the others rested, subsequently returning with their arms laden with branches and stalks.
“Make a big bundle,” Nora motioned to Idja and the other men. They obeyed Nora without question.
“Light it.”
After it was lit, Nora grabbed one of the torches and threw it down the waterfall. It didn’t reach halfway before its light was extinguished.
“I need a bigger bundle!” Nora’s voice competed against the raging waterfall. The men obeyed, scrambling to fashion a much larger torch this time.
Goni hurried next to Nora to get a better view. After Nora threw the light, the waterfall lit up, and Goni saw Kenda climbing down the path beside the waterfall. She was halfway down, but there was still quite a way to go. The light plummeted quickly, but he clearly saw that Kenda was wet. She must be shivering with cold, he thought.
“High Priestess, it is time to make her slow down. I will use the spell now.” Idja inched closer to Nora.
“No.” She cut him off before he could say anything more. “It is dangerous. She will fall and surely die.”
“But if we do not act now, High Priestess, it is unlikely that we will catch up with her. If she succeeds in going down, she might ask the villagers for help.”
“We will catch her, I am sure of that,” Nora said, but her voice wasn’t as confident as her words.
Jinja’s nostrils flared. “Go ahead and use it,” he told Idja. “I can’t allow my bride to jilt me.”
Idja’s eye narrowed on Nora. “High Priestess, we have to do it now. The longer we hesitate, the further she goes.” As Idja spoke, he stepped closer to Jinja.
“No, I can’t allow my granddaughter to die. It is too dangerous.”
“Do it!” Jinja shouted.
“No! The risk is too great. Do you think I want her to escape?” Nora pointed to Jinja.
“Yes, you do, if you don’t do this!”
“How dare you!” Nora moved closer to Jinja until they were just inches apart. “I would rather kill you than watch my granddaughter die!” She grabbed the shirtfront of Jinja’s wedding attire and stared into his eyes.
“High Priestess, I don’t know if this helps, but I can make the spell work so that she will only lose energy and not fall asleep.”
Nora let go of Jinja and faced Idja, her expression softening. “It is still dangerous. She might fall if she does not have the energy to hold on.”
“Then we wait.” Jinja’s voice was lower this time. “We wait until she is nearer to the waterfall’s base. Once we are sure that she will not die if she falls, then we can use the spell.”
Nora did not answer, the others assuming that her silence suggested she agreed.
“Light.” Jinja gave the orders this time. He purposely blocked Nora’s view by stepping forward, pretending to get a good view of the fall. He threw the torch down, and in its descending illumination, Goni saw that Kenda was halfway down the fall.
His eyes fixed on the small figure traversing the rock, Jinja bellowed, “Now! You have to release the spell now!”
Idja’s hands immediately disappeared into his pocket.
“No!” Nora screamed. “Just wait a little longer.”
“High Priestess, there is no time.” Jinja grabbed Nor
a’s hand and moved her away from the fall.
Nora’s eyes widened in disbelief. No one dared to touch the high priestess, and the people of Daa followed the tradition fervently. Nora raised her staff and knocked on the ground two times. It was the sign to summon help from the underworld. Jinja snatched the staff, leaving Nora without a weapon and unable to complete her call for help. She raised her hand to slap Jinja, but he caught her hand in mid-air and, gently but firmly, pushed her aside.
“You have failed to lead us in this chase, High Priestess. Let me handle this.” Jinja’s voice no longer showed Nora any respect. Goni wanted to punch him, but he decided to focus on Idja instead.
As Idja started murmuring, Goni reached into his pocket and retrieved his vial of obstruction powder. He released it before Idja could complete his spell. As he had been quiet for much of the pursuit, nobody was paying him much attention, and he hoped that none of them had seen him release the powder.
As Idja blew his powders to activate his spell, he was thrown back as though he had been hit by a flying object. He scrambled to get up, but he was unable to plant his feet on the ground, let alone push his hand down to support his weight. He looked to have run out of energy.
Goni suppressed a smile. He had not used the obstruction powder before, but he had studied its application and learned from his father in preparation of helping the Bringer of Equality. The obstruction spell was designed to disrupt magic, but Goni had been worried that the magic would backfire if Idja was strong enough to counter it.
“You bastard!” Idja pointed to Goni, his face crimson with anger. “You are a traitor to your village!”.
Goni stepped closer to the path at the edge of the fall.
“Catch him!” Jinja shouted to his other men. “Don’t let him escape!”
One man blocked Goni’s escape. His head was bald and shiny, and the light from the red flames of the torches made his head appear red. His body was bulging with muscles, and his sleeveless shirt was doing a poor job of hiding them.
The time had come for Goni to use violence. Instinctively, his right foot connected with the man’s neck, but , surprisingly, the man did not go down. The kick only seemed to make his head grow redder with anger.
The man lunged for Goni, using the full weight of his muscle-toned body to attack him, but there was no technique to his fighting style. He used sheer force alone in fighting Goni. The man’s body connected with Goni’s and they fell hard together, splashing water on the other men and extinguishing some of the torches.
A few men moved closer but did not position themselves close enough to stop the fight. The man Goni was fighting was the biggest of them all, and by the look on their faces, they were confident that Goni would not be able to escape.
Goni quickly regained his footing before the man could have a chance of hitting him again.
“You think you’re that good, little magic man?” The bald man grinned like a maniac, proud to show his fighting skills.
“Better than a brainless muscle.” Goni wanted him to be angry. Angry enough for him to get closer.
“Let’s see what magic you’ve got there, little man. Come on, show me some magic. Your magic doesn’t work on me.” The bald man beat his chest.
When the bald man was close enough, Goni summoned all his energy and punched him on the chin, hoping that the force behind it would be enough to knock him out. The man froze. Goni threw another punch for good measure, and the bald man fell down.
Goni sprung toward the path going down the waterfall but was caught by two men.
“Quick! Grab him! You’re all dead if he escapes!” Jinja barked, unmoving.
“Idja, release the magic! That bitch might be able to reach the bottom otherwise. And deal with this pest who’s wasting our time.”
Idja tried to stand, but to no avail. The obstruction spell had not worn off, and he could barely move.
Goni’s left elbow connected with the taller man’s ribs. Once their grip had loosened, his right fist sent the other man a few inches backward. Goni hurried closer to the waterfall as the two men regained their footing, but just as he reached the path, his head was hit with a blunt object. Goni knelt down, disoriented. He shook his head and felt warm blood trickling down. He barely escaped the next swing by moving an inch to the left at the last second. The man holding the branch, Dasig, looked disappointed that he had missed.
As his vision cleared, Goni stood and saw more men coming toward him. He knew that he could not fight all of them, even if not all of them were trained fighters. He grabbed the end of the branch as Dasig took another swing. Dasig looked surprised, but he kept ahold of the other end. Goni pushed him back using the branch, but the remaining men joined Dasig on the other end. Now, five men were on the other end of the wood.
“Push!” Dasig shouted to his allies.
It was too late for Goni to let go. He went rolling down the path he had planned to take earlier.
He gladly accepted death as his body rolled, and his vision blurred.
Chapter 8
According To Your Command
Kenda’s hands were numb, and her body shivered uncontrollably. The night was cruelly cold, and she had not made a lot of progress due to the darkness. As much as she wanted to speed up her escape, she needed to be careful to prevent herself from falling. She used her feet to feel the stones beneath them, hoping they would lead her on the correct path, gasping each time a torch was thrown from above.
Her heart pounded more when she saw men fighting near the waterfall. She knew that Goni would be among them.
Horror-stricken, she watched as the men encircled him and forced him backward onto the path. As Goni came rolling down the steep path, Kenda moved quickly to her right to catch him. The impact knocked the wind out of her. The vine she was holding onto was ripped from the rocks, and both Kenda and Goni plunged from the rock face.
There was no chance of survival from a fall at their current height. They were still high up, and the bottom of the path was rocky. Kenda just hoped that they would fall into the water instead of striking the rocks below.
As she fell, Kenda suddenly remembered Goni saying that water obeyed her commands. With her life now in imminent danger, she commanded the water. “Rise up and catch us!”
They continued tumbling down, and Kenda wondered if she had gone crazy by talking to the water. She tried to hold on to anything her hand could reach, but they were falling at an uncontrollable speed. Nothing she grasped would be enough to break their fall.
Something cold touched her body, and they stopped rolling. She wondered if she had hit her head and was hallucinating, but then the coldness enveloped her softly. She raised her head to clear her mind but became confused upon seeing the water supporting Goni’s bloodied body. Instead of falling into the water at the bottom of the fall, they were suspended in mid-air, cradled by a body of water that was shaped like a boat.
The water was going neither up nor down. It just stayed where it was, stopping her and Goni from falling.
Disbelief flowed through Kenda, but there could be no other logical explanation; perhaps she could command the water. Hesitantly, she decided to put the theory to the test. “Thank you, water,” she said. “Now, I want you to bring us down slowly to the riverbank.”
The water began to move slowly, as if it had understood Kenda’s words.
Goni smiled weakly. “I told you that you are the Bringer of Equality.”
Kenda turned to him in surprise. She had thought that he was unconscious. “I want to believe you, Uncle, but I don’t know what to do to break this curse. I just told the water to catch us, that’s all. And it caught us.”
They came to rest gently on the sand that was as black as the night, the water suddenly losing its form and being absorbed by the ground beneath them.
Goni looked at her with sadness in his eyes. “I just wish that I could teach you what I know, but we don’t have enough time. For now, the most important thing is that you escap
e from here. Legend speaks of the Bringer of Equality awakening the one who is cursed. The Bringer of Equality is said to be young and unmarried, so we must do all we can to keep it that way. You must escape this marriage, and I will try to find you later to enhance your magic.”
“Uncle, I don’t know what to do,” Kenda pleaded. “I really don’t. Maybe I can ask the water to help us both escape from here and then you can train me more.”
“No, I am weak. I have used up all my energy.” Goni pushed himself to sit down. “I will just become one more person for you to worry about. Besides, I think the obstruction spell that I used against Idja has worn out by now. I will use my remaining tricks to slow them down. Go and discover your gift on your own.”
“No, I won’t leave you,” Kenda protested, her hands curled at her sides. “You are wounded. I am afraid you are too weak to stay in this cold. You will not survive.”
“Trust me, child. I have been through worse. I am strong.”
“But… what about me?” Kenda’s tears welled up. She couldn’t help but cry in front of the man she thought of as a mentor. “You were the only one who helped me. My grandmother…” Her voice cracked. “Grandma sold me to those pigs.”
“Kenda, it was not your grandmother’s intention. She was trying to protect you in her own way, in the way she sees the world. She loves you so much, but the world is not giving her a choice. That’s why you should make your own destiny. If you’re given no other option, you must make another one for yourself, and I believe that you can do the same for the rest of the girls back in our village. You are very brave. I have never seen such passion to break free, despite the odds. Others just succumb to fate, but not you. Others surrender to death, but not you. You refuse to accept what the world has to offer, just as you refuse the offerings of the afterlife. You fight. You have it in you to pave a new way in this world. Don’t be afraid to do so alone.”
