Uncle Bibi and the young maiden Suzie trekked to the hotel. Upon their arrival, they were enchanted by the eye-catching outside. The garden was magnificently organized and it spoke volumes about the personality of the owner. All flowers were perfectly aligned. Roses were flourishing in the far left corner while Eucalyptus were blossoming in the far right one.

On the opposite side were growing marvelously green Aloe Vera plants. They occupied a space of about twenty meters long. In the middle of the land was sown an olive tree that was as fresh as the water from the fountain of Ebuka, the god of purity.

Uncle Bibi and his niece then went inside and were welcomed by a harmonious melody. A pretty woman in her prime age was sitting behind a wooden counter. She had plenty of Fulani mascara on her face. Her long black hair was falling on her shoulders and her neck was laced with elegant pearls. On her ears was hanging a pair of blue-violet gems. She wore an immaculate white silk gown.

At the sight of the visitors, she gleamed and then spoke to them: "Peace be upon you, dear guests! Be welcome to the Kingdom of Iyô, the god of deep sleep!"

"Thank you, Ma'am!" Uncle Bibi responded vigorously.

The young Miss Suzie participated in the conversation too, however, her voice was not intelligible. She was displaying signs of extreme fatigue from their long journey.

"How can I help you?" The host interrogated the guests.

"A two-bed suite, please! One bed for me and one for the beautiful young woman right here." Uncle Bibi ordered as he pointed to his niece Suzie.

"Four Batangi each bed. Eight Batangi for both." The receptionist answered back.

Suzie's uncle slid his right hand into the pocket of his right boubou and extracted a ten Batangi coin. He passed it on to their host and uttered to her: "Please, keep the change!"

The lady took the money and expressed her gratitude to the generous visitor. She then grabbed two keys from the mural cupboard overhead, which Uncle Bibi found odd but chose to keep his mouth shut and wait to see what was going to happen. The check-in formalities were completed, and the receptionist asked the two clients to follow her and they complied.

The three arrived in a very luminous corridor and halted at its commencement. The host remitted a key to each of the visitors and told them to walk up to the end of the aisle and take the room either on the left or on the right side.

However, she underscored that one of these accommodations provided a peaceful sleep while the other one procured horrible nightmares.

Before leaving the two travelers face-to-face with their fate, she mentioned that the good room granted the tenants' wish.

"And the doomed room?" The young maiden Suzie inquired but it was too late, the pretty receptionist mysteriously turned into a swarm of stars and melted.

The young Miss Suzie panicked and held her uncle tight by the left hand. He tried to comfort her but she couldn't stop trembling. Frightened, she began a series of questions to convince her relative to give up on their project and head back to Ekule.

"Uncle Bibi, let's halt our plan here and go back home! What if we step inside the wrong room instead of the holy one? What if we sleep and never wake up? What if we are hit by a spell? What if…" She interrogated Uncle Bibi but he interrupted her.

"Darling, let me remind you that we are here because you wanted it. Remember! A great danger hovers over the empire, and one of the men who can defend us is unfairly in prison right now. Babida the lumberjack needs our help and we need his unmatched combat power," Uncle Bibi reasoned her.

"And also, don't focus only on misfortune! What if we choose the lucky room? Have you thought about it, hein?" He added.

The young maiden Suzie tickled and glanced at her uncle intensely, like to acknowledge he might be right.

"You see! That's what I was talking about. Now you are coming back to your senses, bright spark!" He said to her delightedly.

"Now the future of the Batang empire is in your hands. You are responsible for picking the room we sleep in tonight." Uncle Bibi uttered.

"Go in front, darling! I am behind you," he assured her.

The young Miss Suzie began to walk at a slow pace to the other edge of the corridor. Her uncle shadowed her. She reached the two last doors, sighed, and decided to open the left one.

She inserted her key in the lock and turned but it was not the correct one. She understood she had the right door's key in her hand.

Uncle Bibi glared at her and asked her: "So what do you want to do darling? Do I give you the key in my hand or do you want to open the right door instead?"

Out of frustration, the young maiden Suzie yelled out: "This is so much stress.". Then she breathed out and with a mild tone of voice, she appealed to the ancestors: "Help me Dibiyê, god of wisdom and I promise to name my first son after you."

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A bright light thereafter descended from the ceiling and moved around her body before evaporating.

"Give me your key, Uncle Bibi," she said with a commanding voice.

"Are you really sure, darling?" Uncle Bibi asked her but she did not reply. She simply stared at him, then extended her right arm and showed the palm of her hand.

Uncle Bibi understood she meant what she had expressed. So he put his key in the palm of her hand. She turned, looked at the left door one more time, sighed, and unlocked it.

To her amazement, the room was vast and glowing. It diffused incredible scents. It had two beds placed against the wall. One was on the left side and the other one was on the right side.

The young maiden Suzie went to the bed on the left position. She removed her scarf and threw it on the blanket. Then she turned and looked at the bed in the right position and saw her uncle already lying on it.

She extended her two arms horizontally and let herself fall onto the mattress. A profound siesta seized her and she was transported to the Kingdom of Iyô, the god of deep sleep.

She met Uncle Bibi there who was bowing before the divinity. A strong and intense light was floating above his head. Like her uncle, the young Miss Suzie immediately prostrated. Then a voice emerged from the light and began to speak to them.

"What can I do for you?" It said.

"Almighty Iyô, please take us where Babida the lumberjack has been imprisoned," Uncle Bibi answered.

The divinity's light became bigger and bigger to the extent that the place was entirely invisible for a few seconds before it evaporated.

"Oh my goodness, who are you? How did you get inside here?" Babida the lumberjack spoke to a strange and big shadow in the right corner outside of his cell.

However, no one answered him. So he neared the cell's door and attempted to look through the bars but it was too dark and the shadow had ceased to move.

"Who is there? Speak or I shout and the guards will come down," he threatened.

He waited for a while to see if anyone would appear, but still, nothing occurred. Finally, he convinced himself that he was having hallucinations probably because he had spent quite a long time already in the penumbra of the underground. He thus calmed down, returned to his bed, and took a nap.

"Hey brave warrior, wake up!" The young maiden Suzie whispered.

Babida the lumberjack blenched. He got off his bed and for the second time he neared the cell's door. He opened his eyes and saw the young maiden of his dreams. Although it was dark, her face was sparkling.

"I can not believe what I behold. I must be dreaming awake. How did you penetrate here?" The woodsman queried the young lady.

"Well, it's a mystery but the most important thing now is that we are here to free you. We have grasped echoes about your unjust arrest and given the great hazard which presently weighs on the empire, we could not stay aside and witness a valuable defender as you perish without being able to fight," She explained.

"We???" the logger asked in astonishment.

"Shut! Yes. My uncle Bibi who is also here, my big Momma at home, and I."

"Where is your uncle? I see no one else but just you," Babida the lumberjack reacted to the young maiden's statement.

"He is over there, at the right corner. He is still asleep. We smelled the scents of Iyô, the god of deep sleep. That's how in fact we landed here. I mean, the divinity granted our prayer to appear here. Hopefully, soon my dear uncle will wake up," the young woman told the woodsman.

Trrr, trrr, turrrrrrrrrrrrr

A guard unexpectedly opened the door of the underground. A huge light from the hall of the headquarters thus pierced the penumbra of the cell and blinded Babida the Lumberjack. The latter reflexively blocked the might of the glow with the palm of his right hand.

As for the young maiden Suzie, she walked back on her toes to the right corner where Uncle Bibi was still dozing. She tried her best to go unnoticed.

"Who are you talking to, disgraced warrior?" The guard reprimanded from the doorstep.

"Pardon me, comrade, I can sometimes be loud during my meditations. I will lower my voice next time," Babida the lumberjack pleaded with the imperial sentinel.

"You better do," he responded with disdain to the logger and then closed the door.

The latter waited for a few seconds to elapse to make sure the imperial guard had really gone away. Then he resumed the dialog with the woman of his dream coming for his salvation.

"Young maiden, are you alright?" The logger asked his rescuer.

"Yes I am fine but as for my uncle, I can't tell. He is still slumbering and the thing is worrying me a lot. I hope nothing is wrong with him," she declared with anxiety to the woodsman.

"Yes, I hope too. Nevertheless, what's your plan?" He quizzed the young maiden.

"To be honest, without my uncle, we are lost. I am the mastermind and he is the commander of the field operations. He is now a retired warrior but he still got it," The young woman confessed powerlessly.

Babida the lumberjack remained quiet, the young Miss too. A long silence took hold of the spirits of the two lovebirds. Each of the two had the impression of being just by himself in the underground. The other one didn't exist for a while.

Then...

"Are you there, young maiden?" Babida the lumberjack asked the young woman, putting hence an end to their trip through the universe

"Yes, I am," she replied.

And then...

"Wait a minute! My uncle is moving," she exclaimed happily.

Haaaaaaaa

"Where am I?" Uncle Bibi queried while yawning.

"Thank our ancestors! You are doing well," the niece Suzie expressed her excitement.

"The gods are with us. My Commander, you are waking up from a long journey in the Kingdom of Iyô, the god of deep sleep." Babida the lumberjack revealed to the middle-aged man.

"Yes, I remember now. It's because of the strong fragrances in the room of our hotel," he asserted while gradually recovering consciousness.

"We left our hometown Ekule to save Babida the lumberjack and...wait a minute! You are the lumberjack," Uncle Bibi remarked, stunned.

"How did I...did we land here?" He interrogated while staring dazzled, at his niece.

"It's a mystery we will solve later, Uncle Bibi. Now we have a divine mission. To free the imperial hero right here and escape from this obscure place," the young Miss Suzie put her uncle back on track.

Uncle Bibi stood up with a bit of strain. He then walked up to the cell's door and shook it in an attempt to open it but it was sturdy. A special force was necessary to topple it. However, the operation was risky, for it would have certainly drawn the attention of the imperial sentinels.

So he discarded that option. He paused for a moment, looked at the woodsman and his niece, then declared: "If one needs omelets, one will have to break the ducks' shells."

The young Miss Suzie and the logger were confused by Uncle Bibi's statement. They glared at the latter in a way that showed they were waiting for clarification and finally, it came.

"Someone will have to spend some days with the native doctor for the sake of the Batang empire," Suzie's uncle added but still, his language was incomprehensible to his interlocutors.

"What…," the young maiden Suzie was about to say something. Yet, she could not finish her sentence.

Trrr, trrr, turrrrrrrr

An imperial guard unlocked the door of the underground. The powerful light emanating from the hall of Governor Kola II's headquarters slapped the face of the woodsman once again. And like previously, the logger reflexively barred the might of the glow with the palm of his right hand. Then the imperial sentinel began to go down the stairs.

As he was doing so, the door of the cave shut itself. He was holding in his hands a bowl of cooked rice, tomato stew, and fried chicken along with an orange and a bottle of fresh water.

And when he reached the woodsman's cell, he uttered to him: "Comrade, here is your lunch!"

However, for he had his hands full, he therefore could not open the door. So he first placed the food and the drink on the concrete ground.

He thereafter removed the cell's key from the rope tied around his silk trousers and unlocked the door. The ideal moment that Uncle Bibi who was hiding in the left corner had been expecting.

BAM!

Uncle Bibi came from behind and with his right hand, he whacked the back of the head of the imperial sentinel. The latter fell and hit his forehead against the floor. He sustained a severe commotion.

"Oh my goodness! What have you done, My Commander?" Babida the lumberjack exclaimed in total shock.

"Uncle Bibi, why?" His niece Suzie shouted.

"That's what it takes to make omelets." The middle-aged man responded with no remorse.

BOUM!

An imperial guard kicked the door of the underground with impressive force and it broke. He thereupon went down the stairs while running and was followed by a squad of about twenty imperial sentinels heavily armed. They carried with them sharp stainless steel swords, curved knives, poisoned arrows, ebony sticks, slingshots, and ropes.

Uncle Bibi, the young maiden Suzie, and the logger were thus caught red-handed. Their escape plan collapsed like a castle of cards. A new chapter of their lives was hence about to begin.

TO BE CONTINUED…