The Ancient Lands: Warrior Quest, Search for the Ifa Scepter (16 page)

“We’ll ride my shield down.” Bomani said. He
raised his shield as he presented the idea, and then set it in the
snow as he gestured to Farra to get on.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Farra nodded after she and Pupa sat on the
shield, and she held on tightly. Bomani pushed them to get a
running
start, and then he h
opped on. The
shield picked up speed like a sled, quickly sliding across the snow
down the mountain. He steered the shield instinctively and expertly
— miraculously dodging rocks and debris. Soon it sped fast enough
to outrun the swift overspill of hot lava, and Bomani fought the
urge with every turn and every victory of this race, to let out a
sigh of momentary relief.
As
a warrior, he
knew that in the midst of danger he could not. He braced himself
for worse, and smartly so, for just ahead, a large boulder lay in
their path. Farra gasped! She and Pupa looked on with terror as the
velocity of their makeshift sled picked up speed.

“Stay close to me, Pupa,” Farra said, and
the frightened pup climbed into her pouch. Bomani, however, focused
on the challenge, and leaned into the turn as hard as he could.
Farra braced herself, not wanting to interfere with the balance of
the sled, and held on with all of her strength. They tipped over so
far to one side that her shoulder skimmed the snow, and she let out
a short cry. She didn’t want to distract Bomani. She shut her eyes
and held her breath. Every bone in her body anticipated the crash
ahead. She feared that it was just a matter of seconds before they
smashed into the large boulder, but, at the last second, Bomani
placed his blade into the snow to anchor them. He allowed the blade
to drag through the snow just long enough to slow them down, as
they cleared the huge rock. As they sailed by it, this time,
neither one of them could help their sigh of relief as they raced
down the slope.

They picked up speed again, and this time
they sped down the slope even faster than before.

“I think we’re going to be okay if we...”
Bomani began, but before he could finish, Farra screamed a sharp,
horrific, piercing cry and without knowing why, Bomani was
screaming right along with her. When he looked up, they were
airborne. Now they both screamed with alarm and fear as the shield
carried them over the edge. It seemed that they were sailing
through the air for several minutes, but only a few seconds later,
they landed, and splashed into the water. It all happened so fast
that the shield regained buoyancy before they could catch or hold
their breath. When they resurfaced, they came up coughing and
panting as they tried to hold on to the shield and clear the water
from their eyes. The shield crashed into a riverbank, tossing them
on land, and they rolled onto the ground. They were exhausted and
Farra let out a painful moan. “You know, in different
circumstances, that might have been fun,” she said, rubbing her
shoulder.

“I’m not sure about that, but I’d choose
sliding down a volcano over being inside of one any day.” He got up
and frowned as he touched his head, “I’m not sure if this headache
is from our crash, or from you hitting me,” he reminded Farra.

“I said that I was sorry. I had no choice,”
Farra defended.

Bomani opened his pouch to remove the
troublesome bloom flowers that had gotten them into such a
predicament.

“What’s wrong?” Farra asked. He looked
baffled and looked up at her puzzled; a colorful liquid was oozing
out of his pouch. He reached his hand inside and pulled it out,
watching as it dripped from his fingers. He held the pouch upside
down, and the last of the bloom flowers spilled out and soon
dissipated into black film right before their eyes.

“Looks like someone angered the
mountain!”

It was a familiar voice, and when they
turned around to see to whom it belonged, the face was also
familiar.

“Hagga!” Farra called out in amazement. “How
did you get here?”

“Not Hagga my dear, Shagga. I am Hagga’s
sister.”

“Great,” Bomani sighed with contempt as he
rolled his eyes, “There are two of them.

XVIII SISTER
SISTER

This new place, Shagga’s Hut, gave the
children an eerie familiar feeling. As with Hagga’s hut, the bones
that created the framework of the structure almost seemed to
whisper to them. Bomani was sure it was just the wind making its
way through the layers of the outer shell. Just like in Hagga’s
hut, there stood a cauldron in the middle of the room. Farra
searched the walls for an old man that would soon leap out and
scare them. Bomani followed her lead with the point of his
spear.

“We do have some differences, yes, yes, we
do,” Shagga said. She was wise like Hagga and knew what they were
doing.

“Huh?” replied Bomani.

“You’ll find no griot hiding in my walls.
You marry a man, he is sure to change into a husband, and I
wouldn’t want that. Yes, Yes, I’m quite accustomed to living
alone.”

She started searching through some of her
shelves and pulled out another rune.

“This is a compass rune,” she said, “It will
help you find what you are looking for.”

“The Ifa Scepter?” Farra asked.

“Yes.” Shagga replied and handed it to
Bomani. He flipped it over in his hands inspecting the stone.

“So, I suppose that it works like the
others,” said Bomani. “You can’t tell us anything, we’ll just have
to know when to use it. Well, Farra and I almost died trying to
figure out how to use the other ones.”

“Humph, I would think that to a
great
warrior like yourself, almost dying would be something easily
passable, and expected. Don’t you live to take such chances?”

“Uh, yes I do, but it’s her that gets
frightened. She’s not used to it.”

“This rune is more complicated, boy.”

“Great, more complicated,” Farra said with a
sigh.

“Ah, but this time, you get instructions. To
find the Ifa scepter, you must find something that contains
Hatari’s power. The Ifa Scepter amplifies his power and so do the
diamonds around him. Find something that contains his power, and
then you will know which way to go to find his diamond cave.”

“Diamonds?” Bomani asked, “When we were on
the boat, and the ogre had me down, I saw a diamond around his
neck. If Hatari is controlling them, giving them orders, maybe he
is the one who gave them the diamonds.”

“Now you’re thinking boy. See, you’re not
all spear and shield, are you?”

Farra was concerned. “We spent a great deal
of effort getting
away
from the ogres. We went through an
underground river—almost died in a volcano, not to mention making
an angry mountain very, very angry. Now we are supposed to go back
and find them?”

“That is precisely what you must do,”
Replied Shagga. “Hatari uses those diamonds to stay in contact with
the ogres. He speaks to them, and can use them as a seeing-eye. He
was probably watching while you were on the boat.”

“But if that’s true, then if we do manage to
get one of the diamonds, won’t he be watching us?” asked Farra.

“Ah, the young sorceress is thinking too.
You are quite right. You must remember to shatter the diamond as
soon as you get it or Hatari will use it to spy on you.”

“Okay. So, find the ogres, steal the
diamond, smash the diamond, put the pieces with the compass rune,
and then, we’ll know our way. Is that right? Sounds easy enough.”
Bomani said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Shagga ignored his
attitude and finished her instructions.

“The ogres will not be too hard to find.
Hatari has them spread out over the Forbidden Expanse. There is a
camp less than a half of a day’s walk from here. If you hurry, you
can catch them before they move on.”

An ogres’ camp is nothing formal. It’s
unorganized and sloppy. There is no structure to where or how they
sleep, eat, or anything else. You wouldn’t necessarily expect to
find a tent pitched in an ogre camp either, but it has been known
to happen from time to time during the rain. Perhaps the ogres were
evolving after all.

As for the cold nights and the wind, simple
weather like this did not generally bother them. Their thick skin
and coarse hair were good for that.

They weren’t much for comfort either. Not
that they didn’t enjoy comfort. More so, they found comfort in just
about anything. They didn’t make pillows for themselves, or lie on
blankets, or search for anything soft to ease them into their
sleep. In fact, they had no formal way of sleeping whatsoever. When
they became tired, they usually just fell asleep where they were.
Yes, for an ogre, comfort came easy.

With Shagga’s instructions, it didn’t take
Bomani and Farra long to find them. An ogre’s scent was easy to
follow, for it carried a strong stench. Once on the trail, Pupa
followed it with no problem. They had sweat glands like humans, but
they rarely found it necessary to clean themselves, so the sweat
and stink would often build up, sticking to their fur, and
accumulating day after day after day. It’s a wonder how with their
keen sense of smell; their own stench didn’t bother them.

Bomani and Farra approached the camp in the
middle of the night. The fire they had used to cook that night
still smoldered, leaving the smell of burned wood in the air, which
was much more agreeable than the smell of the ogres. They
approached the encampment cautiously, and hid behind a small dry
bush. Where the ogre’s camped, the ground was bare of vegetation
altogether.

“At least they had enough sense to build
their fire in a clearing,” Farra whispered to Bomani. He looked at
her incredulously as if it never failed to amaze him what she
noticed at any given moment, and why.

About twenty ogres lay asleep on the ground.
They were spread about randomly as if they had been tossed over the
encampment like a basket of rags. Bomani crept up slowly staying as
low to the ground as he could. “They look like they are sleeping,”
he whispered to Farra.

“What if one of them wakes?” she asked.

“We’ll just have to be careful.”

“I’ll stay here, you go.”

Bomani nodded. It was not difficult for them
to go unnoticed. The air was thick with the sound of ogres snoring,
accompanied by the sound of ogres snarling. Ogres tended to do both
when they slept. Bomani moved toward the ogre closest to them and
looked at his neck. Just as Bomani remembered, a diamond hung from
a string tied around his neck. Bomani pulled out his blade and
lifted the string to cut it. Farra was scared, as she looked on
intently. She hoped that none of the ogres woke as he worked, and
every muscle in her body tensed anxiously. The ogre moved, and
suddenly all of the tension in Farra burst in a small, quick yelp.
She instantly covered her mouth, slapping her hand over it. She was
suddenly stricken with even more fear at the thought of waking the
others. Bomani moved back cautiously. He stood motionless for a
second and glared at Farra scornfully. He put his finger over his
mouth to shush her. She nodded, wide-eyed and apologetic.

Bomani went back to the business of getting
the crystal, using his blade with stealth. Fortunately, Farra’s
mishap hadn’t awakened any of the slumbering half-beasts that lay
around them. Within moments, he was able to cut the rope and slip
the diamond necklace off of the sleeping ogre. As he quietly
handled the useful stone, he smiled with self-satisfaction. He
looked back at Farra and signaled
mission accomplished
and
she smiled at him with approval. Bomani tiptoed back to where she
waited, and that is when Farra noticed that Pupa was missing.

“Where is Pupa?” she whispered with
concern.

Pupa’s keen sense of smell did not stop at
finding the ogres. He had also picked up the smell of cooked meat.
One of the ogres that lay sleeping with his dinner, a half eaten
hog leg. He had fallen asleep holding the slab like it was a teddy
bear or doll, and even though he was asleep, every once in a while
he bit into it, chewed, and swallowed without awaking. Pupa
followed the scent to where the ogre lay. He was aware of the
danger, but he could not resist. His mouth watered for the savory
meat that lay in the ogre’s arms, and he approached it as quietly
as he could. He sunk his teeth into the meat. With his nose so
close, and the taste of the meat now in his mouth there was nothing
that could tear him away from this feast. He sunk his teeth deep
into the meat and pulled it gently out of the ogre’s arms.

Fortunately, the ogre didn’t wake — at least
not until little Pupa was on his way. Then, the ogre noticed the
comfort of his
doll
was missing. He looked up to see it
being carried off, and he grunted at the pup angrily.