The Legend of Hombarume (Legends Series, #1)

75.

Tapfuma was still reflecting upon Ushe's last words to him and he knew that he was right. When he was younger, he felt as if he was always bound to be strange, always bound to be alone, completely isolated from everyone else for the rest of his life as his father had made possible. He never fully understood what was happening to him, thus he kept it to himself, lest his father keep him even more confined.

Now that he was older and he was beginning to understand these stories that he was being told by some mystery master storyteller, he felt even stranger. Now he was all alone again as Ushe was gone and no one else knew about what was happening to him. There was no one else he could have trusted with this besides the one person who was no longer there, but he felt that for his journey of solving the mystery of Rujeko village to continue, he had to connect all the pieces of information that he could find together to create his own story.

What he knew so far was that there was another place, another realm that was unlike this one and in that place, there were things that existed that had not been explained to him, that he could not fully understand, weaponry of some sort that he did not know how to use. In that pace that seemed to be deserted, he somehow did not feel like a stranger, it had a familiar feeling to it.

Tapfuma told Ushe about the other story, a grim tale that had also been told to him. He now knew that he could somehow conjure this state, this power in which words became reality right in front of him, in which golden spun breaths that were uttered to him materialized and became living, breathing champions and failures right there and then, in which he could take a step forward, tracing the words that he heard as they became a bridge, a path, an opening, an eye.

Tapfuma likened these experiences to the only one instance in which anyone had ever bothered to tell folktales to him as a much younger boy. When he was younger, Hombarume's father was a famed hunter and he had only known him because of his terrible injury that occurred from his encounter with a lion on one of his hunting expeditions. He had suffered a great injury to the leg, but he had the last laugh, seeing as he was still alive and the lion wasn't.

During his recovery and his treatment at the eagle homestead, Tapfuma had become more curious about him as he never really had prolonged contact with any other people. Most of the people his father treated were either quick recoveries or he made sure that he treated them at their homes or kept them isolated for two days at most in the healing hut.

Hombaurme's father stayed for many days as the damage to his leg was too severe and him being able to fully recover was a complete miracle.

On one particular night, he decided to tell Tapfuma ngano, something that his father never did. The man usually talked about the present or gave off a few shallow details about a past memory, but never went out of his way to tell him tales of old. The feeling was different and new, it was unlike anything else he had ever experienced, to travel to a world that was only created by the words of this man who was in front of him was a surreal experience. It was something that he wanted to treasure, to feel every time, something that he was being deprived of all this while.

Now he felt like the story telling had taken a step further, opened a door that had only existed in his head that first time he was told a story, now he could live the story, feel it and breathe it, he could feel the intrigue in a way that he couldn't then, he could understand the emotions that Hombarume's father was trying to evoke in him through a mere story about a baboon and a hare, how he tried to shape these two characters in his head so that they could see them in a clearer light.

The second story he heard from the mysterious voice was one full of terror. This story was not told in a different place with golden knives and mysterious objects. It took place in Rujeko village. There was a fight much worse than a sparring contest, much more tragic than that and it was between many figures that he could not recognize. Some of them were three legged, almost human, others had deformed heads and other morphed body parts and giant feet, then there was one with a body that shifted and changed more times than Tapfuma could keep up with.

Suddenly, it was as if all the strange characters were never there, but the sky was furious with heavy rain clouds and winds that threatened to uproot even the trees in the distance. In the place of all the mysterious beings were people, clashing in a wild fit of rage. Ushe was there in a strange headdress made out of porcupine quills for some reason again, this all felt familiar to him, as if these were events that he already knew about.

There was one person who he could not see clearly because his face was concealed by some sort of dark soot. This was the person who killed Ushe. Tapfuma obviously had his assumption about who it was, but he had not told Ushe about it, that would have scared him even worse because in this tale, he was destined to fall at the hands of this person no matter how hard he tried to fight. He was not entirely sure about who this person was, thus he did not tell Ushe what he thought and the major reason for it was that everything else felt familiar, the air, the sky, the movement of the blades of grass beside the path, the people all except for the one with his face covered.

He was a complete stranger, his energy did not seem to be recognizable like everything else around and his motives were surely a mystery because amid all the fighting, he seemed to be the only one who had managed to take a life. He had spilled Ushe's blood in the most gory way and now, the quill headdress lay drenched beside his cold body.

The details were still fresh in Tapfuma's mind, everything about the story was etched into his memory for eternity, he was never to forget it. Somehow, deep down, he knew that these events would become a reality that was much more alive than what he had seen and all he could do was wait.

Glossary

Ngano - Folktales