Nkosi had spent the better part of an entire month trying to explain to Dzidzor what happened to her but if anyone asked her, she would not be able to tell it. She was having a hard time believing it. She was so frightened that she begged Nkosi to put a tracking spell on her so that he would know where she was at any point in time. She gave the duplicate of her room key to him and spent most of her time with Nkosi, to the extent of asking to sleep in his office when the anxiety got too much.

She had stopped going to the library because the last time she went, Madam Hope asked her if she was okay, as she hadn’t seen her in the library for a while.

“So how do I know this?”

“Lisa put it in your brain” The first time Nkosi told her this, she was so confused she asked him to repeat himself, hoping she had not heard him well.

“Nkosi what is going on?”

“It is as I told you. You are in grave danger”

“What does he want from me?”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself”

If she had known that this was what Lisa needed her for then she wouldn’t have even accepted his proposal. Exactly one month after visiting Nkosi for the first time after avoiding him, as she was coming from her private lessons with Nkosi, she noticed that her door was opened and there was white smoke pouring from the room in ghastly torrents. She closed her eyes and shook her head and when she felt dizzy, she opened them and sighed in relief. Her door was locked and smoke free as usual. However, as she got less dizzy, the door opened and the smoke continued pouring. She turned to leave when a lion apparition from behind pushed her with its front limbs and into the open door.

She hit her head on the ground and was cursing very loudly. It echoed into nothingness, which made no sense because the spirit realm had no walls. Before she looked up, she knew who she would see, the all-powerful creator god, Lisa.

“Was there no agreement between us?”

“It does not mean that you should just get up and seize me whenever you wish”

“There was agreement between us, and you had to learn so I taught you”

“Next time alert me”

“There was no agreement to inform you of my actions”

Dzidzor scoffed, which warranted her a dirty look from Lisa “I’m am very angry!”

“Not more than me!” his voiced boomed, following the clap of a thousand thunders. Dzidzor had to put her hands over her ears as it was so loud it hurt. “I have been trapped here and have looked on as humanity put his hand into the soup he did not contribute into making. Man shat at the holy shrines and made bedding with whores in blessed forests!”

“So do something about it!”

“I have taught you too well for you to be saying such rubbish” Even though it stung, Lisa was right. He could not do anything about it because it had been a long time since anyone had heard of Ametor Lisa, much less worshiped him and given him access to Earth. He needed a radical following of more than one hundred who would pray to him continuously and invite them into their plane before he could change anything. Dzidzor remained in her sitting position. All the information she needed was in her head, she just had to stop being a coward and let the knowledge flow.

“The gods are being wiped out, the gods who have been here for millions of years” Lisa spoke softly now, looking into the distance and reminiscing about better days “We saw the foundation of the earth being formed from the fire and we were old when mankind crawled from the dust. Now we are nothing. Mankind say they don’t need us, but they do! When we die, all of mankind dies!”

“When who dies?”

“All the gods, me and my brothers and sisters and my parents” Dzidzor did not know that gods had parents “Nonsense, you do not reckon that we just appeared?”

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“Who are your parents?”

“They are known by many names all about the earth, but here, where life all began, they are Nana Buruku, my father and Asaase Yaa, my mother” Dzidzor had heard those names before but she had no idea that they were the parents of all gods, and grandparents of life. “You know! You refuse to throw your fear away” Lisa looked like he was getting impatient.

“Why does Nkosi think that you are bad news for me?”

“Because he wants to protect you from your destiny, and put himself in your place.” Lisa stooped and drew a circle in the sand and in the middle of it, an image appeared of Nkosi in a shrine heavily chanting and pouring the thick red blood of a goat over his head, darkening his graying locs and skin.

“Is it because this mission is dangerous?”

“Yes” he said curtly, looking straight at Dzidzor, willing her to understand the gravity of the situation.

“What do you mean when you said ‘when we die all mankind dies’?”

“I thought it was comprehensible enough”

“I mean why is our survival linked to the gods?” Lisa did not talk, instead he looked at her with a piercing gaze.

Taking his cue, Dzidzor closed her eyes and tried to concentrate but she ended up with a headache instead.

“It hurts because you are holding yourself back!”

“Maybe tell me how to not hold myself back and I won’t” Dzidzor snapped.

As soon as she said those words, the sky grew darker and the whites of Lisa’s eyes became a pitch black. He began to walk towards her. Dzidzor was frightened, her heart beating twice as fast than they usually did.

“You dare disrespect me!”

“You can kill me,” Dzidzor’s voice was trembling but she got the words out “I’ve lost everything I cared about. I don’t even want to do your stupid mission; I did not know what I was going to do but I agreed to do your mission because I trusted you! But you just speak and riddles and parables and give me nothing to work with. All you do is get angry and yell at me all the time. You are just like my father!” Lisa stopped in his tracks when he heard her words. The sky turned back to brown and the whites of his eyes came back. He just stood there and looked at her, unsure of what to say next.

“You want me to help you? I agree” Dzidzor continued when she was sure that Lisa would not kill her “But you have to help me, help you. I have to continue my classes, get help translating your riddles”

“Classes,” his mouth twisted as though it were a dirty word “you do not need classes. You need to commune with the spirit, the forces of nature, to truly learn. You asked for a reason and here it is: the things you need to know will not be found in any book, because knowledge is not read, it is experienced. You learn when you experience knowledge, and if you are to be my savior and that of my brothers and sisters, you need to learn and you need to do it in the way your ancestors did. You ask many questions but in a shallow incomplete way. How many of the gods have written books, how many initiates have written down what they have learned? That is because language is a barrier and scribbles are prone to interpretation. Even words fail, much more scribbles on a parchment. True learning is a feeling and you ‘read’ from nature, from the spirits, from the forces above, beneath, within and far from you. Find knowledge at the source, and humble yourself to receive them”

This made Dzidzor understand why Lisa was always so impatient with her; she was so impatient and proud to see that everything she needed to know, she could have access to it. Someone did not have to tell her or teach her, everything was her teacher and Lisa was just the guide.

Trying again, she closed her eyes and concentrated, not on herself, but the stillness of the spiritual realm. Her skin tingled with the brush of the breeze she never felt before. It was a tidal wave of hot air, like the heat of the sun was suddenly titillating about her. Then she pulled within, absorbing the warmth into her very cells, drawing power from her without, to her within. It came naturally, as she knew what she was looking for this time. When she opened her eyes, the breeze stopped immediately.

“The gods are not just guardians of the universe,” Dzidzor breathed the weight of her new understanding was strong at the back of her neck. “They are the universe and mankind are the gods, we are supposed to take care of you. When mankind shifted from believing in gods to just themselves, they stopped caring for the universe, for your bodies and now you are dying”

“When the last god dies, the last man dies”

“Your body is the sun, but now you are something else too” Dzidzor looked at the designs on his body more closely, they were symbols of the sun and something else too “when one god dies, someone has to stretch their body and make it into something else, to fill in the gap. Oh Lisa, how many are left?”

“Too few” he stood there, tears forming in his eyes. She got up and hugged him, he did not retaliate, but let her squeeze his body.

“Why? What happened to them?”

“There is someone you need to kill. Someone powerful, created by my mother but she cannot, for she brings life, not destroys it. That is your purpose”

“Only I can do so”

“Only the initiates of the godhead can do so”

Dzidzor wiped the tears that she did not know had wet her cheeks.

“You cannot go to Nkosi about this”

“Deal. Another person perhaps”

“Whatever you wish”

“Please be patient with me”

For the first time since she knew Lisa, he sighed and then gave her a smile “Agreed”