The Legend of Hombarume (Legends Series, #1)

22.

As Anesu watched Ushe leave for the palace, he could only think of one thing, the horrendous dream he'd had and how he'd gravely lied about it. The last thing he wanted was a stranger thinking that he was possessed by spirits or highly superstitious, such stories did not go well with the nature of his work.

What Anesu had witnessed was something he had never seen before, a congregation of strange beings, floating on air and playing enticing drums through the night. They were above some sort of pool enjoying themselves and occasionally bobbing their horned heads up and down to their own melodious music. His curiosity trumped his fear and he moved closer to see what was really happening, how could people fly like the birds of the sky?

As soon as he got closer, the drummers disappeared and suddenly, a deafening silence prevailed. The fear that had been abated by his desire for answers was now seeping back into his bones. He was now aware of his surroundings, aware of the eerie darkness that was so dense and intense that it almost choked his life away.
He felt the coolness of the water in front of him now, previously every other feeling had prevented him from noticing the pool that was right there, the darkness also played a major role in that. Was this some sort of joke? Where was he and what was happening? Before he could ponder more about his surroundings, he saw a light start to shine in the water, initially a dull glow, then gradually it became brighter and brighter. The light seemed to slowly approach the surface of the water. Anesu inaudibly said his last prayers before he finally met with the gods in the afterlife. He waited for death to come but it never did. He opened his eyes that he'd been shielding from the glow that was now terribly intense.

Before long the glow had revealed itself as the missing artefact, the lion head made of golden feathers, crafted with finesse and utmost precision and care. It slowly rose up out of the water until it was at eye level, until Anesu was staring right at it and watching it glow. He reached out to grab the artefact that had been missing since the previous night but the lion eyes flew open and its mouth roared so viciously and violently that it almost scared him to death before he woke up in bed and Ushe was right there.

As soon as the farmer left, he also did, wandering out of the compound in search of the pool in his dream so that he could retrieve the beautiful head. Was his dream a sign from the gods? Was he to do exactly what he saw in the dream? How would he even find the pool when he didn't know the nearest exit from the village? He decided to make his way down the road and ask whoever he saw about the pool, hopefully it existed and he wouldn't look like he had lost his mind.

As he walked and thought more bout what his dream meant, he came across someone who he asked about the pool and upon figuring out that such pool probably did not exist in real life, he decided to move on to the village stream, maybe it was a part of the stream he had seen in the dark. The road to the stream was heavily populated this early in the morning and surely he would look like a fool searching for an expensive trinket in the water.

As expected, he found nothing there besides water and bathing women who most certainly did not appreciate his unexpected presence there. He backtracked out of shame and when he started back, he suddenly felt like he remembered the way from the dream and after going through some bushes, he was face to face with the pool. It was so clear now during the day, while the sun was shining on it and the still water was as blue as it could be.

He moved closer but this time he tried to tread carefully, he didn't want anything unexpected to happen. The pool was now really close and nothing strange had happened so far, all was just as normal as it could be on a beautiful morning. He got to the water, there was no glow, no head at all. There was nothing remotely different about this water, nothing eerie about this pool, it was just a still mass of water in the middle of the forest concealed by nature so that no one could easily discover it. As far as he was concerned, it was actually quite refreshing and peaceful and a swim would definitely do him no harm. The water wasn't too deep and he could see the bottom, he needed to relax and dip himself in the water and forget about the head for a while.

Anesu took off his clothes and soon enough he'd connected with the water and he was swimming seamlessly across it and enjoying its unusual coolness, this was surely one of the few good things about this small strange village so far. When he decided to dive in again to the bottom and leap back up, Anesu found that his feet could now no longer touch the bottom, caught unawares by the sudden turn of events, he struggled with all his might to swim back up to the surface but it took him what seemed to be ages to reach it. His arms were tired and he was about to give up when he finally broke free from the confines of the deep and reached the surface. The sun had gone down and the moon was shining relentlessly in the sky accompanied by various stars. Day had disappeared and it was night.

At the edge of the water, someone was staring at him, watching him struggle to get to the edge of the pool. He sat there rippling the water slowly as if he did not care about the man who was about to drown. The wind was blowing heavily and Anesu could still not understand how day had turned to night so quick and how he was suddenly fully clothed in the water. What was happening?

'Don't make yourself a slave to the darkness, Anesu. Run before they come,' he said.

'Help me out of here, why don't you help me?' Anesu said as he struggled some more.

The man just looked at him as if he couldn't hear what he was saying. Anesu felt something knocking onto his foot continuously and he reached in to clear his way. It was the head, just there in the water and as soon as he took it in his hand, he floated seamlessly out of the water. The man was gone but he could hear other voices coming towards him. His heart was drumming away rapidly, carefully waiting for whatever evil was coming his way.