Chapter Five

Abaramcheë

What was it she meant when she said I would be in more shock than I was when I found out? I didn't understand.

"Are you going to stand there lost in your thoughts or you're going to follow me and satisfy that tsunami curiosity for which the voice truly is?" Vire broke into my thoughts.

"How'd-"

"How'd I know?"

"Keep yourself out of my head".

"I wasn't in your head then, I'm not in it now."

"What?" I was more confused than before.

"Walk faster old man".

I swear I was beginning to dislike the way she used the word old man to address me, I didn't approve at first, to begin with.

---

We found ourselves inside a cave, a cave blocked by illusions of fallen rocks and shattered bones behind the water.

Though it was an illusion, I could feel the terror and the fear like an atmospheric presence. This was a full-time alchemy and not some petty tricks I pulled off.

"Cave of Imponu"

"I'm sorry what?"

"The cave no man sees unless made ready, imponu," Vire said again "imponu is the god of chaos magic of Sazphini origin."

"Where's that?"

"You will find out."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Because" she started, "it's not mine to tell".

"Yours to tell?"

"Imayan ikuro imani ifunzono" She continued ignoring me.

These strange words poured out of the mouth of Vire easily and it also caused a great earth-quaking sound as the floor we stood on began rotating downward, into the darkness.

---

After the rumbles cleared and the dust subsided, I saw a large table ahead of us.

Wide enough to feed the entire earth if there ever was a feast and they needed a table for it.

Two men stood by it, one who held a cane an inch taller than him and another who had symbols inscriptions like hieroglyphics all over his body.

Vire moved confidently to them while I walked unsure and uncertainly over to them.

"Isbor," the one with the cane said as I got closer.

"Wipe every doubt from your heart Isbor, we are friends" the map man added but there was something odd in his pronunciation of words and this made me distrustful.

"This is Noriimanbaschi, the Blind Oracle"

Blind???

"And this is Ïsale the man giver and the man god or most people would call him, Samaritâ evma chiapun which means the Samaritan who became a god."

Their names were strange indeed but, it was their names.

"Noriimanbaschi was blind from birth, he's the seeking man. From Avino Marla ll and Ïsale, the man god is from Sazphini"

Man god? Wait, wait, wait, she just said Sazphini, the same one she mentioned earlier.

"What is Sazphini?"

"You do not know?" Ïsale returned more confused than I was, making me even more confused and also making him completely confused and by looking at his face I saw lost confusion which made me drown in deeper confusion --- ah whatever, I'm sure you understand what I mean.

"Cut the staring contest and tell him "The blind man intervened.

"Sazphini is located in the deep bowels of unowe in Ogune, too small for man's eyes to behold and thus its location moves around with no specifics attached."

"I'm trying to understand how I see you."

"Once you step out of Sazphini the molecules restructure in your body,

Making you either able to grow in size or shrink depending on where you are" Ïsale explained. "It is a beautiful country and just a few have witnessed it who are from the outside world".

"And you... Norymandu... What again?"

"Noriimanbaschi" he corrected.

"Nory-"

"It is Noriimanbaschi"

"I wish to call you Nory, Norii, take it or leave it, the other one is too long. If you don't like it hang yourself. What's your own story?"

"I like this guy" Ïsale complemented laughing.

"As you can see, I'm blind."

"No, not that story I'm not interested, in your story like Ïsale over here, a man who becomes a god that is his, what is yours?"

"Why are you bothering yourself with this Isbor?" Vire chipped in

"Know your friends and also know your enemies better. Haven't you heard?"

"Who said that?"

"I don't know, some guy."

"Then he must be a very dumb one" she dropped.

"He said it after all."

"I'm rumoured to be the pattern predictor, wielder of coerce magic, the bearer of the power of the spirit, situation corrector.

It is also said that the songs of the singing souls give me strength, I am also told people say I can move through the current of time, and transcend realms. Doer of clairvoyance and geomancy"

"That is absurd if you ask me, people spread terrible rumours these days. Ugh spreading words like that on a blind man's head" I sympathized. " So, what did you do about such things?"

"Do?"

"Yes, do. You know the rumours you just told me that people spread..."

"They're not just rumours' my friend, they are true."

I laughed hard but stopped abruptly at the sharp gaze coming from all three of them, Norii included even though he was blind, I felt the pang of dagger glare pierce my skin.

"You are serious?"

No answer more glares

"That is why you are called the blind oracle?"

"The very same"

What have I gotten myself into coming here with that one they call Vire and her tele..., tele... I hope she's not in my head. I hope you are not in my head I warned in hope she was lurking somewhere listening, but nothing came and somehow, that seemed... disturbingly unsatisfying.

Strangely I haven't been visited by the lightning tendrils, I wonder what the matter might have been.

Hold on hold on the tsunami curiosity. "Ahem... Abaramcheë... Vire said I would find it here".

"Abaramcheë?" Ïsale asked.

"Yes Abaramcheë"

They busted out laughing, I was so surprised, and I began having doubts again than when I came here and regretfully, I wished I had not come. Why did Vire bring me here if she was just bluffing, why?

"There is no Abaramcheë" Norii

"No no, no Abaramcheë" Ïsale added trying to contain his laugh.

"Then I am in the wrong place, take me out of here Vire I want to find the Abaramcheë. That is my course" I semi pleaded semi demanded.

"No" she responded.

"No? No? You bring me here and when I demand to leave you say no? You decline?"

"That is because you are in the right place," Ïsale said.

"And I'm beginning to doubt it."

"Don't anymore, because I am he whom you've searched for?" Norii said. "I am your Abaramcheë"

"You are a lie!! Isn't it enough, that you bring me here, you make jest of me, you tell me tales of things and places unreal and now you lie about my quest"?

"I do not Isbor, forgive me if we make you feel this way" Norii said calmly and surprisingly reliving.

"What do you know about how I feel!?"

"I do because I can feel it," he told again calmly. "I have been blind all my life and I have been misled the most of it. I do not wish to see you in the same position and worse as it may I who caused it".

"I want to find my course, my Abaramcheë"

"I am your Abaramcheë, I am the course for you being here."

"Prove it"

The moment the words came out of my mouth, Norii retracted his face twitching.

He had been hurt.

If he was, I was sorry and truthfully didn't mean to hurt anyone, but I have to return to what matters most to me and that is-

I was suddenly swept off my feet. The burning sensation that came with it was the death of me and also the maker of me. The great and the weak.

Abaramcheë.