For over a century, many had tried and failed to rob the Atewo Orisha in Oshake. But the failure of others has never stopped Dabede from trying things for himself.

That cold night, Dabede hid in the shadow of a carved pillar, watching the last of the evening devotees walk down the temple stairs. Priests and Priestesses dressed in white walked around in groups, chanting the praises of Obatala with their sonorous voices. From elsewhere, the night breeze carried the scent of palm wine and kola nuts around.

Dabede allowed his mind to wander for a bit. He thought about the trove of treasures he could get his hands on in the temple. The gold ritual beads, bronze staffs, and the beaded crowns. They could all feed him for a year. But that was not what he was there for. Sir Eugene, the pale-skinned man from Europe, had approached him, telling him about a crown and assuring him he would be paid handsomely for it if Dabede could get it for him.

“I’m a thief. I can get anything for you for the right price,” Dabede had assured.

This was supposed to be an easy job for him. Sir Eugene had all the information. The map of the High Temple and where the sacred artefact he was there to steal was housed. It was a forgotten treasure, and nobody guarded the shrine apart from the ase-charged barriers that hummed with high electrical current. He patiently waited until the last of the worshippers left before making his move.

Unlike every other person who had tried to rob the Atewo Orisha, Dabede took his time to learn and understand the defences that keep the temple safe. The complex ase-charged barriers could stop a man’s heart. The temple also has carefully laid traps set by Babalawos versed in ancient knowledge that scared those who dared to enter the temple without an invitation. Instead, Dabede looked forward to the thrill it would give him. He did this for the thrill, and sometimes the money.

Bypassing the outer wall was as easy as taking candy from a child. He had mapped the flows of the barriers for months, observing how they pulsed in rhythm with the drumbeats that came from inside the temple. At the third beat, there was always a brief pause. Half a breath where the spiritual power held back like a breath held underwater. At that moment, Dabede slipped through like air, his calloused fingers pressing on clay walls marked with ancient patterns.

Inside, the temple opened into a massive courtyard of smaller shrines. Moonlight escaped through the open roof, illuminating the packed shrines. The shrine of Ogun appeared first, with iron tools beautifully arranged at the entrance. Oshun’s shrine dazzled with brass mirrors. Sango’s shrine was decorated with thunder stones. Dabede knew and was prepared to navigate the complex compound. He had memorised the layout from the map Sir Eugene showed him. He didn’t bother to ask where he got the map. He hated asking questions he didn’t want an answer to.

The artefact he was there for lay in a clay house at the western wing of the temple. It required a complex ritual to open the door, but that was not an issue for Dabede. He once stole a ritual book from a Babalawo. It has the opening ritual for all the sacred houses in Oshake. The shrine the artefact was in was classed among those that violated the balance between Aiye and Orun.

Dabede moved through the shadows like a ghost, avoiding geometric patterns drawn in white chalk and fortified by protective ase. From a young age, he had the talent to read space and see where the spiritual and physical worlds intersected. He made it to the door of the shrine unnoticed, leaping here and bending there. The door of the shrine was made from an ancient Iroko tree with a warning carved on it.

Aja to ba wo ile Ekun, a fi eje we
The dog that enters the cave of a Tiger will bathe in blood.

Dabede traced his fingers on the door, feeling the restless hum of power from beneath it. He read the words on the door again and felt a chill crawl under his skin. As it started to turn into fear, he shrugged it off and began preparing the things for the opening ritual. The skull of a dead vulture, the blood of a python, palm oil, and one last object that was not clearly visible in the darkness were arranged on a red scarf he pulled out from his pouch. He poured the blood and the palm oil into the skull and pierced it violently with the other object, then placed it directly on the door, chanting under his breath.

When the door heaved open, it sounded like a beast breathed a sigh. The shrine was smaller than Dabede thought, but it was a sight to behold. Shelves lined the walls, holding objects that made his hands restless. A knife with a blade that seemed to swallow light lay on a stand, pointing toward the sky. Next to it, a mirror beautifully reflected his Ori instead of his own image. It was twisted and strange. He quickly moved away from it out of fear of perverting his inner head.

Some feet away, the crown lay on a stone, unguarded. It was not the type of crown he knew. It didn’t have the beaded decoration of modern kings or the fringed veils that covered their sacred faces. It was made of blackened bronze and wood from an old Iroko tree. It was studded with cowrie shells placed in patterns that horrified him. Nine human skull fragments formed its base. It was placed in a circle of sacrificial blood that had gone black with age. Warning symbols were carved on the stone beneath the crown.

This is death. The beginning and the end of Aiye and Orun.
An abomination only the Orishas can contain.

Dabede’s instincts told him to leave it and run, but he had seen the crowns of kings in palaces, and none felt this valuable. He quickly thought of how to renegotiate with Sir Eugene when he got out. He would argue that the danger of stealing this crown was more than the ten thousand pounds he was promised.

The moment his fingers touched the crown, the boundary between worlds shifted. Dabede was no longer in the shrine. He stood in a place of destruction. The sky was the colour of dried blood, and the ground was ash and bone. Far away, he saw a man wearing the crown. Something pulled him close, and what he saw in the man’s eyes was an emptiness that swallowed his soul deep into a darkness he struggled to escape. The man walked through a city, and all that was left after him was death and agony.

Dabede gasped for air. Sharp pains pricked his throat, and he was forced to watch the man drain the life force of people into the crown. He saw him command an army of the dead, watching them do as they were told. Then he saw him stand before the Orisha, attempting to steal the divine ase that rightfully flowed from Olodumare himself.

What followed was a century-long war. The Orishas threw everything at the man, but his crown consumed it, his power growing with each Orisha he touched. Before the vision released him, he saw how Esu, the trickster Orisha, tricked him to place the crown on his son’s head, a move that drained his son’s life force completely and pulled the man into a split moment of grief that allowed the Orishas seal him away in the Forbidden Realm.

“Iku ni mo ri – It is death I saw,” Dabede said, his heart racing.

A voice came from the doorway, startling Dabede. An old woman in white clothes and beaded necklaces stood there, looking at him in dismay. It was the High Priestess. Her face was marked with ritual scarification that suggested she held the knowledge of the Orishas in her mind.

“What have you done, my child. Put it back now that your Ori still remembers who you are,” the High Priestess said. Her eyes held no judgment but a deep, bone-weary fear.
“I can’t.” Dabede’s hand would not move. The crown was fusing to his palm, pulsing in rhythm to his heartbeat.
“Then death will walk among us once again,” she said, a new resolve apparent in her tone.

In a swift movement, unnatural for someone her age, she dashed close to Dabede, swinging a massive blade out of nowhere and cleaving Dabede’s hand that holds the crown clean off his body. The crown dropped to the floor, but it was too late. The sky was filled with dark smoke that ascended towards the temple in a rapid movement.

“Those who seek it are here,” the High Priestess whispered. “Adiye to ba da Ifa nu la fin ko – It is the hen that scatters the Ifa divination tray that is used for packing it.” The old woman continued.

Dabede knew what that meant. He had met his end where he was never supposed to step, and he was not sure what to do. He dodged another swift attack that would have taken his head, picking up his limp hand from the floor with the crown.

A loud noise echoed through the whole temple from the main gate, shattering the defence. Dabede heard the sound of screaming, and his mind started to calculate exit points the way it always does when a job went wrong. He felt the pulsing of the crown running through his severed hand. He couldn’t feel the pain anymore because fear had now suppressed it.

The temple was a maze, but Dabede had mastered its layout. Before the Priestess could make another move at him, he dodged into a servant passage, then descended through a narrow shaft that spiralled down three levels of increasingly ancient architecture. Behind him, he heard shouting and the clash of iron. The screaming stopped abruptly, and from the corner of his eyes, he saw shadow forms advancing rapidly toward him like a mist.

He was in another room after running for a while. It was a chamber with a partially collapsed ceiling. The chamber has an altar, its surface stained black with centuries of blood sacrifice. It had a crack in the wall that opened onto the old city’s underground water channels. Dabede was almost at the crack when they surrounded him. There were seven of them. Dark, menacing figures with robes that seemed like rags dyed in blood. Their faces were hidden behind wooden masks carved to resemble skulls. Each mask had nine cowrie shells arranged to represent a closed eye.

“Give us the crown, child!” the leader said. His voice echoed strangely as if many people spoke from one throat. “Our Father has waited in Igbo Aiwo for centuries for it, neither dead nor able to return. The crown calls to him, and he is hungry to return.”
“Your father is evil,” Dabede responded, backing towards the wall. “He is an abomination upon this realm.”
“What do you know about evil, you insolent child!” the leader echoed back, waving to the rest. They spread out, cutting off all exit from the chamber. “We offer you a choice. Give us the crown, and we will grant you a quick death. Refuse, and we will snatch it from your cold body and bind your soul to it to serve our Father for all eternity.”

For a moment, Dabede felt temptation surge through him. He had lost a hand, but if he placed the crown on his head, he would be the most powerful person in Oshake. But he remembered the vision he had and how the crown drained life force to feed itself. He immediately reminded himself that the cost of wearing the crown was sacrificing his own Ori. Then Dabede made a choice.

He smashed the crown on the bloodstained altar, shattering and scattering into pieces, pure essence rushed out from the broken fragments – the accumulated spirits of thousands of souls released at once – in a rupture that broke the boundary between Aiye and Orun. The wave of power immediately recognised the dark magic around, capturing the men there for the crown as they tried to escape from the chamber. Dabede saw their forms dissolve, unable to find the path to Orun or remain in Aiye. As the wave moved for him, he moved for the crack in the wall, hearing the chamber collapse behind him.

When Dabede surfaced downstream, coughing and gasping for air, he looked down.  Dawn was breaking over the city, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. The Atewo Orisha still stood, but its deepest chamber had collapsed. The balance between Aiye and Orun has been maintained, but Dabede paid a price he would never forget. As he crawled out of the city, avoiding the search parties looking for the intruder, he thought of what will become of him now. After all, what good was a thief like him with just one hand?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by János Venczák on Unsplash