Celestial

Iludun forest,

Esie Town,

Kwara State.

1775.

Dark and massive, thunderstones the sizes of horses rained from the sky and transformed into feral war dogs, demons of strife, as soon as they struck the ground.

Their arrival did not signal the start of the conflict but heralded its climax. The battle had already gone a long way, its deadly confrontations borne of the manifest belligerence of gods and orishas at odds with one of their kind - one intent on proving superiority over his peers.

Baragbon the hunter, who had stumbled on a fallen moon ridden by gods in the forest, had forewarned all of what was coming. Despite being dumbstruck with terror in those moments, he had been able to ponder the irony of supreme beings who reacted like the least honourable of men, requiring the blood of mortals to irrigate the arid wastes of their whims and fancies.

War had descended like searing wrath from the heavens. It is often said that ''They that worship them are like unto them'', but to accurately describe the creatures that soared across the sky trailing appendages of light and eldritch flame, much less ascribe them human attributes, was beyond any.

In the preceding days, auguries had bloomed: a two headed antelope was spied roaming the fringes of Iludun; aged baobab trees in the town square were found lying like carcasses of fallen giants one atop the other after being forcefully uprooted during the night; blood and fluids were completely drained from domestic animals found stiffly dead inside locked pens; newly born twin babies spoke, describing portents of doom. Various other presages.

Urged on by a desperate Oba, the town's Ifa priests toiled at their oracles to interpret the intent of the gods and perhaps learn how to avert the hunter's prophecy, but all failed woefully. So the people turned to the one who had been told of what was to come. Singly or in groups they pleaded to the lowly hunter for words of consolation and instruction from him even as they displayed side effects of the approaching annihilation - strange sores and abrasions on their bodies, eyes turned glazed from inexplicable blindness and unexpected deformities of limb and form.

But he had none to give them. In spite of his foreknowledge, he was still a simple, visceral man with a narrow vision and mundane ideals.

One night, as the screeches, roars, and wails emanating from deep within the surrounding forest drew ever closer and families huddled petrified inside their homes, Baragbon was summoned to the Oba's palace. Gathered there were the elders, titled men, and priests, all who by then regarded him with an unequal mix of fear and suspicion. Also in attendance were a score of the bravest warriors to be found in the kingdom, dressed for battle in leather-lined tunics laced with cowrie shells, wielding long, keen-edged blades and bearing bull horns stuffed with a combination of items for invoking protective or debilitating incantations.

The parley was brief and concise: he would, on behalf of his Oba and for the glory of the land, lead the men to offer their sword arms in battle on behalf of the gods massed against the fury of Shango the Firebreather.

Afterward, after a few moments of silence, Baragbon firmly declined the request. As the elders and priests collectively cried out in disdain and outrage, he reminded all present that he was but a poor hunter, one out of many in the Oba€™s stable, and then not even a master hunter at that. who was he to lead an army of the land€™s bravest men to engage in battle against gods?

When he and the other warriors trooped at last from the palace later that day, he held the title of Bashorun €“ first war general of the kingdom under commission of the Oba himself. Together they marched across potsherd roads and out unto the plains before entering the forest.

Once there, soon even the hardiest of the warriors quivered in mortal fear as they passed unmarked zones where unbidden images of torturous death and dismemberment began to enter their minds and weaken their limbs. They pressed on still, headed for the sickly glow that lit up the forest€™s deep innards, where the fighting was thickest. By the time they arrived and revealed themselves to the anomalous beings they found battling Shango€™s demons, more than half their number had turned tail and fled.

Like a dream, like a nightmare from which he had never entirely awakened, Baragbon felt a nausea-inducing mental and physical probing from the minds of the creatures they called gods as he and the other men were explored, recognised, and their proffered aid grudgingly accepted.

What followed next could not be better described than as deadly illusion, a prolonged trance, a scouring of their collective will as men and the subsequent pouring in of emotions, convictions, and abilities that defied understanding, let alone explanation. It was battle made gloriously ethereal and frightening and, amidst its din and clash, rendered all the more intoxicating by the knowledge that as men they had been stripped of all their pretences to training and conditioning. They had become babes taken by firm, inhuman hands and wielded like living weapons against an unfathomable enemy that split the earth and caused sheer rock to melt, bubble, and flow like warm ewedu soup.

When Shango€™s hailstones pummelled the earth, it was a final gambit, a bid to overwhelm the thunder deity€™s many adversaries with the force of sheer numbers. As they struck with a noise of great shattering, they split open to reveal red-eyed, vulpine creatures, more beast than otherwise, that surged forward to tear and slash, rend, and gnaw.

In a funk he could not hope to comprehend, Baragbon seemed to watch himself flail with blade and axe against this new and terrible onslaught. Before long, another half of their number was decimated, but in the end the alliance of Eledumare the mighty prevailed. Even as sparks and shards of the war machines of Ogun Ore-smith €“ who fought at Shango€™s side €“ still clamoured in the air, it was apparent the tide had turned in their favour.

In this aftermath, Baragbon felt himself inside himself once more and whatever feeling of relief attained tinged with loss and mild regret. The errant demi-gods soon fled into ether, leaving their malevolent creations behind: lumbering golems and winged halflings that tottered and blinked in post-war exposure. It was inside this settling dust that he observed clearly for the first time the raw, elemental power of the celestials as they laid aside arms and went to work on the hailstones themselves. He watched as the gods kneaded them into more benign aspects, shrinking their awesome size until they were miniaturized (a particular one €“ Eshu, he dared suspect, going by the crowded jagged formations in its grinning maw which served it as teeth €“ giggling as it pummelled them into diminutive shape).

And then they turned their attention to he and his men.  

Eventually marching out from the forest, Baragbon and his mortal men found the land altered, rife with signs of earthly upheavals that had been thankfully truncated €“ but so also were they, indelibly, and to an extent that within days of their return home sent them retreating into the woods from which they€™d earlier emerged.

They had to. Other people had begun to labour under the effect of unseen auras radiating from their bodies €“ inexplicable energies which emanated from their very skins and eyes to permeate the recesses of other minds unlike theirs, and drawing out the rawest, most primal emotions within. Proximity beyond an arm€™s length was akin to a fiery inquisition into the intents and motives of others, with every deceit, every falsehood made instantly accessible to them that had fought alongside the gods.

Initially marvelling, the ordinary populace quickly grew uneasy and fearful in the face of such powers before ultimately turning resentful €“ who could long withstand such agonies? They complained to the Oba, who at first tried to placate, citing the great thing the warriors had done to preserve the kingdom. However, it was not enough and within several moons Baragbon and his men were driven from the town they€™d selflessly sacrificed part of their humanity for.

What is known afterward came from the accounts of wives and relatives who dared brave the intensity of the psyche probes to visit the Bashorun and others deep inside the forest. They came out describing a large swath of blasted land on the edge of the field of celestial battle that had been transformed to reflect the heavens from whence the combatants had come. Others went in, willingly suffering the stresses in order to seek help with various problems and ailments, and most returned speaking of cures to sicknesses and infirmities achieved by the laying of hands and application of herbal ointments by Baragbon and his band of ex-warriors. There was talk of strange fires that burned ceaselessly within the walls of a €˜city of light€™, gourds observed holding pools of pale liquid in whose depth images of people from faraway distances were revealed as if within touching distance. They ate quick satiating grains and drank of beverages that were cooler, more energising than the water from Oya€™s purest streams.      

As more people ventured into the forest to see and pay homage to the god-creatures that lurked within, they found Baragbon and the others unresentful of their past rejection. Instead, the old warriors often acted as go-betweens, frequently attempting to explain in their limited way the wonders witnessed as well as interpret the intent of the gods close to whom they now dwelled.

In time, he and his men were regarded as the first Ifa €“ priests €“ and among them he the first Aworo €“ chief priest €“ to tend to the arcane powers residing in that place.