The last song of the ancestors

Despite being received respectfully in the rebel camp, Fadala didn't feel at home. He stood out from the crowd in every way. People instinctively turned away from him in the cramped, dusty corridors of the hideout. He didn't care, he was a killer.

What he found strange was his relationship with mediums. People he had hitherto been unaware of, but had come to protect and care about. He wished things had turned out differently. Deep down in his heart, he wished he hadn't disappointed his Babu and had turned away from the assassins' creed.

He felt weak in his mission. Forging bonds of friendship was forbidden. His devotion had to be to serving Ilê Apanyan. There was no time for anything else. His existential clock was predetermined to follow the hours of an institution that received money to perform spiritual hygiene in the name of God.

He rejected the common notion of God, that omniscient and omnipresent being who observes everything without being seen. God was a mystery, a secret poorly told by human history. Something that could only be grasped through belief. An irrationalist way of thinking, a dogmatic certainty, an absurd axiom that denied doubt. There was the presence of an absence, a place where transcendence and metaphysics ceased to exist.

Fadala, drowning in his stream of thought, was inside an old building under construction. The evening light streamed in through the windows without finding any barriers. The sun's rays couldn't reach him, he was in the shadows. He placed the two pistols in front of him on a piece of fallen concrete in front of him.

He removed his suit, rolled up the sleeves of his white silk shirt and plunged his face into both hands. His life was absurd, but it still existed. He stayed like that for a few seconds until his smartphone emitted a light signal and a holoprojection appeared.

"My son, don't be discouraged on your journey. The path is made of stones and thorns, and they lead to a narrow door that only the faithful to God can enter."

Fadala got out of his position and put one knee on the ground. Ashamed of his frailty, he bowed his head. In front of him were a pair of pistols. Staying away from their weapons was a serious offense for funeral directors. The murderers were constantly reminded that they were not firearms, but weapons of faith. It was through them that evil was exorcised from this world by fire and gunpowder.

“Excuse me, my Babu.”

Babu's eyes held the serenity of the elders. His hologram represented him sitting cross-legged with his hands intertwined on his knees. The representation emitted a slight downgrade, which indicated that the transmission was made in a dangerous place or in motion.

The leader of the assassins didn't need to make an effort to understand the state of crisis his subordinate was facing. He knew his moral fiber. Fadala's selflessness was immense. He had never bowed to the restlessness of the mind. He considered him his legitimate successor. He knew of the suspicions that his appointment would face within Ilê Apanyan.

"There is nothing to be forgiven. Put those thoughts away. They will lead you to ruin."

"From the beginning, I thought about declining this mission. Perhaps out of pride, or fear of disappointing you, I accepted it. But I can't deny how it's been messing with my head. The early days were always right: love and friendship weaken the heart."

"A wise king said: 'Elevate your heart above all else, for from it comes life. It is the only patrimony we possess. The only material inheritance that God has bequeathed to us. But faith is an incalculable treasure. Sad for the people who lose it."

"Don't torture me with my anguish, Babu. I'm not a king, let alone a wise one."

“My son, you are the trigger for a new era.”

“Sometimes… I feel like an instrument.”

Fadala whispered that to himself. The words cut him like razors.

When Babu heard that, he closed his eyes. He felt a bitter taste in his mouth. His most outstanding disciple was questioning the creed. But in the lines written by God's fingers, this was also recorded. He read in silence with a solitary tear running down his eye.

"You are not a puppet, you have never had strings attached to you. You have always moved freely in the world. You've acquired a purpose."

The assassin considered speaking. He let the silence communicate for him. Silence, although it had no sound, had form. Everything that has form is language, it communicates. Silence wasn't written, but it could be read in its entirety. It was an eternal generation of expectations, until the first syllable sounded and made the whole empty wall collapse.

Emptiness, yes, that's what doubt generated when it eroded the meaning of a life. Why kill people in the name of God? Why didn't he do it himself? Who was he to rise to that position? The Ilê Apanyan gunmen had once been called the Hands of God. But they were nothing more than human hands soiled with blood.

“Fadala, to many, perhaps even to many of your brothers, I'm just a decrepit old man giving orders from atop a throne…”

The assassin raised his head for the first time. He stood and made the sign of the cross.

“I've never thought or said such a thing, even in a whisper.”

"Oh, my son, I am the Pupil of God. I have the blessing and the burden of seeing the future. My anguish is to see it as a tapestry of fleeting images, and never be able to tell anyone what I have seen at the risk of my own damnation. Impermanence is an affliction for those who live in the present knowing everything that will happen."

“The pain of all the prophets.”

"The misery of all prophets. You have to move a lot of pieces on the chessboard of destiny to make the tides of time ripple… indirectly, and with a lot of patience."

“I don't see the future as you do, but I realize that whatever my future is, there will be no salvation.”

"Salvation is a choice, and you've already renounced it. But God knows all things."

The mortician sat back down. The sun's rays reached him. The reflection of the light filled his surroundings with a whitish aura. For Babu, his noblest son had never looked so shiny.

"I had a meeting with Acting President Ojwang. He's like an ouroboros, he's in and out of time."

His interlocutor's eyes lit up. That was very revealing. An even more complex scenario had been built up in that war.

“Tell me, my son, do you still consider yourself fit for this mission?”

“Yes, more than ever.”

“Then God bless you on your way.”

The holoprojection ended. Babu was sitting near the window of the helicopter. The aircraft was flying over Taraba state, east-central Nigeria, which borders Cameroon. Near Chappal Waddi Mountain, more than two thousand four hundred meters above sea level, wedged between mountains, was the headquarters of Ilê Apanyan.

The ancient building had been abandoned many centuries ago by an ancient civilization when the order of assassins seized it and turned it into their fortress. The building, which was a hybrid of Islamic fortifications and medieval European castles, remained exclusive and at the same time anachronistic with all the modern equipment and facilities.

The aircraft landed at the heliport. A small guard received Babu. They welcomed him with some trepidation. Unlike the leader, they didn't have clairvoyance, they just received orders and carried them out with devotion. One of them, with a face marked by various scars and a rough voice, said on behalf of the others:

"We greet our Babu, and may God keep him safe. We wish you a pleasant trip. How was your meeting with the Acting President of Ilu Nla?"

“He spoke little, but threatened a lot, and said nothing.”

“My Babu, I've never seen you so worried about a man…”

The assassin stopped talking. Babu's eyes shone intimidatingly, as if they were on fire.

“He's not just a man anymore, my son, not anymore, that's why he's so dangerous.”