The world did not return to normal after the burial. How could it? The sky remained stained, the air thick with the aftermath of a cosmic transaction. The unnatural crimson hue lingered for hours, not as a dawn, but as a perpetual, bloody twilight that stained the faces of the people and painted the river in shades of fire and wine. The air itself tasted different—charged, metallic, like the moment before a lightning strike, humming with a power that was both exhilarating and terrifying.
For Ata Ayegba, the world had shrunk to a single, freshly turned mound of earth on the river's edge.
He did not return to his palace that first day. He could not bear the weight of those empty corridors, the ghost of his daughter's laughter in the courtyards, the accusing silence of her chambers. He dismissed his guards and his council, issuing only one, hoarse command: "Leave me."
He stood, a solitary, broken figure, before the earthen mound that was his daughter's tomb. The priests and mourners had retreated, their ritual complete, their faces etched with a mixture of awe and horror. The slave attendants who had wielded the shovels had fled as if from a plague ground, unable to meet the king's eye.
Now, there was only the sighing river, the coppery sky, and the crushing silence from the earth.
He fell to his knees. The damp soil soaked through his simple mourning cloth, but he did not feel the cold. His hands, those strong hands that had wielded a spear and guided a kingdom, dug into the loose soil at the edge of the mound, his fingers curling like claws.
"Inikpi?" he whispered. The name was a ragged tear in the fabric of the morning. He pressed his ear to the soil, listening with every fiber of his being, desperate for a sound, a tremor, a sign of the life he had consigned to this darkness.
At first, there was nothing. Only the dense, impenetrable silence of the grave. A sob wrenched itself from his throat. Had it been for nothing? Had her courage, her final, breathtaking act of love, been swallowed by an indifferent earth?
Then, he heard it.
Faint, so faint it was more a vibration in the soil than a sound in the air. A single, muffled word.
"Father…"
It was her voice. Thick with earth, strained beyond imagining, but it was her. A wave of such violent, contradictory emotion washed over him—relief so profound it made him dizzy, and a guilt so sharp it felt like a physical wound.
He scrambled closer, his mouth almost touching the soil. "Inikpi! I am here! My child, I am here!"
There was a long pause, filled only with the sound of his own frantic breathing. Then, her voice again, a little stronger, woven through with an unearthly calm that was more disturbing than any scream.
"The earth… it sings, Father. It is not… what I feared. It is… full of voices. The ancestors… they are here. They are waiting for me."
Ayegba wept. He wept for her courage, for the terrifying serenity in her tone. He wept because she was comforting him from the other side of the veil of life.
"Hold on, my heart," he begged, his tears falling onto the dark soil, tiny dark spots that were instantly absorbed. "Do not go with them yet. Stay with me."
"I am… bridging the worlds," her voice came, fading in and out like a distant radio signal. "I can feel it… the connection. It is… cold. But it is… right."
He stayed there for hours, until the unnatural crimson slowly bled from the sky and a sickly, ordinary sun climbed to its zenith. He spoke to her of mundane things, desperate to anchor her to the world of the living. He reminded her of the time she had tamed a wild foal in the royal stables, of the songs her mother used to sing to her, of the way the first rains smelled on the hot, dry earth. He poured his memories into the soil, a lifeline of love into the darkness.
When he finally, stiffly, rose to his feet, his body was a map of cramps and cold, but a tiny, desperate hope had kindled in the ashes of his soul. She was alive. Her spirit was doing its work. The Oracle had not lied.
The pattern of the Fourteen Days was set.
---
Day Two
He arrived at dawn, bearing a single, perfect white lily from the palace gardens, its petals beaded with dew. He laid it gently on the mound.
"I have brought you a flower, my little eagle. It remembers the sun."
Her voice was weaker today, thinner, as if she were speaking from the bottom of a deep, deep well.
"I remember… the sun. Its warmth… is a story now. A good story. The stories here… are older. The river's story… is a long, dark song."
"The Benin… they did not attack yesterday," he told her, a note of desperate hope in his voice. "Their drums are silent. Your sacrifice… it has given us time."
"Time…" she echoed, the word hanging in the air, empty of its mortal meaning. "It flows differently… here. Like the river's deep current. Not forward… but… through."
He pressed his forehead against the soil, trying to impart his warmth, his life, to her. "I am here, Inikpi. Your father is here."
"I know…" her whisper was like the rustle of dry leaves. "I feel your love… it is a warm stone… in this cool, dark stream."
---
Day Three
The air over Idah was still heavy with power. A permanent, low-lying mist, smelling of ozone and wet stone, clung to the city, a shroud born of the spiritual upheaval. The people moved through it like ghosts, their voices hushed, their eyes constantly darting towards the river and the king's solitary, daily pilgrimage.
Ayegba brought a small, carved wooden bird, a toy from her childhood.
"Do you remember this?" he asked, his voice rough with lack of sleep. "You called it your 'sky-dancer'."
A long, long silence. He thought he had lost her. Then, a faint, distant sound, like a sigh.
"I remember… the feel of wood… the scent of the carver's hands. Mortal things… they are becoming… dreams. The dreams here… are more real."
"Fight it, Inikpi!" he begged, his composure breaking. "Hold on to the mortal things! Hold on to me!"
Her response, when it came, was not that of a daughter, but of something… else. "I am not… fighting, Father. I am… weaving. I am the thread… and the loom. The tapestry… is almost complete."
---
Day Four
He brought water from her favorite drinking gourd, pouring it slowly onto the mound, where it darkened the earth and vanished.
"Drink, my child."
"I drink… from a different source now…" her voice was a mere thread of sound. "The river of spirit… it flows through me. I am… its banks… and its bed."
He told her of the kingdom, of the rationing, of the fear that was slowly, tentatively, being replaced by a grim, watchful hope. He spoke of the priests, who watched the skies and the river for signs.
"The signs… are not in the sky…" she whispered. "They are in the… connection. Can you not feel it? The land… is waking up."
And he could. As he knelt there, he felt a faint, rhythmic thrumming in the earth, a slow, powerful heartbeat that was not his own.
---
Day Five
Her voice was so faint he had to lie prone, his ear sealed against the soil, to hear it. The individual words were becoming difficult to distinguish; they were more like impressions, emotions, transmitted through the earth.
He brought nothing but his presence.
"I am here."
A wave of profound, peaceful sadness washed over him, a feeling so clear and foreign he knew it was from her. It was accompanied by a single, clear word.
"…Love…"
Then, a cascade of images, flashing in his mind's eye: the flickering light of a cooking fire, the taste of a ripe mango, the sound of rain on a broad leaf. A gift. She was sending him back his own memories, refined and purified, as a final offering.
---
Day Six to Twelve
The days blurred into a painful ritual of attenuation. Her voice ceased to be audible altogether. Communication became entirely empathic, a silent, heartbreaking exchange of feeling through the cold, intervening soil.
On Day Six, he felt a sharp, phantom pain in his own chest, a sensation of immense, sustained pressure, and he knew she was speaking of the weight of the earth.
On Day Seven, a wave of cool, flowing peace enveloped him, and he saw a vision of the Niger, not as a surface of water, but as a vast, underground network of light and energy, and he knew she was becoming one with its spirit.
On Day Eight, he felt a jolt of fear, not her own, but that of the Benin scouts who were now seen nervously watching Idah from across the river, their faces pale with superstitious dread. Inikpi's consciousness was expanding, touching the minds of the enemy.
On Day Nine, a profound, grounding strength seeped into him, the strength of deep roots and ancient stone. She was bonding with the earth itself.
On Day Ten, he felt the ghost of a touch on his cheek, a cool, dry sensation like a passing breeze, and he wept.
On Day Eleven, there was only a deep, resonant silence, a listening quality to the mound, as if the very earth was holding its breath.
On Day Twelve, he felt nothing but a vast, immeasurable distance. The bridge was nearly complete. The weaver was becoming the weave.
---
Day Thirteen – The Vigil of Egwele
The fourteenth day, the sacred Egwele period, was dawning. In Igala tradition, it was the time of transition, when the veil between worlds was thinnest, when the spirit of the newly departed made its final journey to the ancestors. Ayegba knew, with a certainty that froze the blood in his veins, that this was his last day with his daughter.
He came before the first light, dressed in his full regalia for the first time since the burial. The leopard pelt, the coral beads, the feathered headdress—he wore them not as symbols of power, but as a father's final, respectful tribute to a daughter who had surpassed him in every way.
The mound was no longer just a mound of earth. A strange, subtle light seemed to emanate from it, not a glow that illuminated, but a luminescence that was absorbed by the air around it, making the space above it seem darker, deeper. Tiny, hardy flowers had sprung up overnight around its edges, their petals a stark, blood-red, a color not found in any other plant in the region. The air hummed with a silent, potent energy.
He did not kneel. He stood before it, a king before his queen.
"Inikpi," he said, his voice steady, filled with a sorrow that had been honed by the past thirteen days into something clean and sharp. "The Egwele is here. Your time of crossing has come."
There was no voice. No empathic wave. But the air grew colder, and the humming intensified, vibrating in his teeth.
"I release you, my daughter," he said, the words costing him everything. "I release you from your duty to me, your mortal father. You have done all that was asked, and more. Go now to the ancestors. Take your place among the stars. Your name will be sung for as long as the river flows."
He placed his hand on the center of the mound. The soil was warm, pulsing with a slow, deep rhythm.
"Do not be afraid," he whispered.
And then, he felt it. A final, concentrated surge of love, so pure, so vast, it was beyond human comprehension. It was not the love of a child for a father, but the love of a spirit for its people, the love of the land for its children. It filled him, overwhelmed him, and for a breathtaking moment, he saw through her eyes—not a dark, confined space, but a vast, interconnected web of life, the entire kingdom of Igala spread out below him, every heart, every breath, every hope, a shimmering point of light, all held safe within a shield of radiant, selfless love.
The vision lasted only a second. Then it was gone.
The humming stopped. The strange luminescence from the mound faded. The air grew still and ordinary. The red flowers at its base seemed to wilt slightly.
The connection was severed. The bridge was complete. The sacrifice was absolute.
Ata Ayegba stood alone in the growing dawn, more alone than he had ever been in his life. The earth beneath his hand was just earth again. Cold, silent, and still.
---
Simultaneously – The Benin Camp
Across the wide, swirling expanse of the Niger, Queen Idia stood before her royal pavilion. She was a striking figure, her hair intricately braided with red coral, her body adorned with ivory and bronze. Her face, usually a mask of implacable calm, was tight with frustration and a growing, nagging unease.
For fourteen days, her planned invasion had been stalled. First by the unnatural sky, then by the persistent, eerie mist that made the far bank seem like a phantom land. Her Portuguese captains grumbled about "savage superstitions," but even they had been unnerved by the profound silence from the Igala city, a silence that felt more threatening than any battle cry.
Her scouts reported strange things: the earth itself near the city seemed to vibrate, and at night, faint, ghostly lights were seen moving along the walls. The war chiefs spoke of a great sacrifice, a princess buried to awaken the old gods.
Idia scoffed at such nonsense. Power came from muskets and strategy, not from primitive rituals. But the delay was costing her. Morale was dipping. Sickness was beginning to spread through her camp.
"Enough," she declared to her war council, her voice sharp as a blade. "We attack at dawn tomorrow. Their magic, if it exists, has failed. Their walls will fall to our cannon."
As she spoke, a young warrior, his eyes wide with terror, stumbled into the council circle, pointing a trembling finger towards Idah. "My Queen! The city! Look!"
Idia turned. The sun was just cresting the horizon, its light weak and watery.
What she saw would be etched into her memory forever.
The city of Idah, shrouded in its perpetual mist, seemed to… ignite. But it was not the fire of burning thatch and timber. It was a spiritual conflagration. A wave of pure, white-hot energy erupted from the riverbank, from the very spot where the scouts had reported the ritual burial. It did not consume; it illuminated. It was a fire of spirit, not matter.
It raced along the city walls, not as a flame, but as a shimmering, incandescent wave, making the entire city appear to be crafted of living, pulsating light. Towers of brilliant, blood-red energy shot into the sky, piercing the mist, forming the spectral shapes of immense, wrathful eagles whose wingspan seemed to cover the heavens. The very air between her army and the city warped and shimmered, as if a colossal, invisible shield of heat had been raised.
To Idia and her thousands of warriors, it was unambiguous. The city was not just defended; it was possessed. It was aflame with a divine power they could not possibly combat. The stories were true. The Igala had paid the ultimate price and their gods had answered with a fury that made Portuguese gunpowder seem like a child's toy.
A roar of pure, unadulterated terror erupted from the Benin ranks. Drums fell silent. Men dropped their spears and muskets. The disciplined battle lines dissolved into a chaotic, screaming stampede for the rear. The Portuguese mercenaries, their faces pale with a fear that transcended language, were the first to turn and run, shouting about witches and demons.
Queen Idia stood her ground for a moment longer, her strategic mind utterly defeated by the supernatural display. She saw not a city, but a blazing, holy avatar of a land that would not be conquered. She saw the cost of victory, and it was too high.
"Retreat," she whispered, the word tasting of ash. Then, louder, a command that was also a admission of defeat. "Sound the retreat! Fall back! Fall back!"
The Benin army broke. They fled not from warriors, but from a miracle. They fled from the ghost of a princess whose love for her people had been so immense it had set the very sky on fire.
---
Back on the riverbank, Ata Ayegba heard the distant, panicked clamor from across the water. He saw the confusion, the retreat. He did not see the spiritual flames his daughter's finalized sacrifice had projected, but he felt their effect—a great, releasing sigh from the land itself, a final, triumphant surge of power from the mound at his feet before it settled into permanent, sacred silence.
He looked down at the quiet earth. He looked up at the retreating enemy.
Victory.
The word was ashes in his mouth.
He had saved his kingdom. He had lost his daughter.
The Fourteen Days were over. The legend of Inikpi had begun. And Ata Ayegba Oma Idoko, the king who had won the war, knelt before a mound of earth and learned how a heart could continue to beat when it had been shattered into a thousand pieces. The world was saved, but his was forever broken. The silence was no longer just in the earth; it was inside him.