Ashes of Amaedukwu

It began with a cough.

A small one, as light as the wing of a cricket brushing against the wind.

But when a mighty tree begins to shiver, the wise do not wait for the storm to arrive before securing their roofs.

Odogwu had returned from CAR radiant, his words still echoing in the minds of Central African Republic youth. The reception for Oru Africa in Mali had exceeded expectations. But while his lieutenants sang praises and toasted success, he sat alone beneath a mango tree, his heart heavy and his body strangely cold.

That night, the wind changed. It carried no message—only silence and shadows.

A Dream Turned Nightmare

He was not in Amaedukwu. He was not in Obodo Ike. He stood in a vast open place, surrounded by whispers with no mouths. Grey fog covered the ground, and in the distance, he heard drums—but not the drums of celebration. These ones called the dead.

Before him stood three figures, faces veiled in ash, voices like cracked gourds.

"Odogwu n'ama," they croaked in unison, "your steps are too loud. You awaken things better left sleeping."

He tried to speak, but no sound came.

Then, one of them stretched a long arm, and a single dart—made of bone and fire—pierced his chest.

He screamed.

But no one heard.

Not in the dream.

Not in the waking world.

The Collapse

He woke up drenched in sweat. His hands trembled. He tried to rise, but his legs gave way. By morning, he was found collapsed in his quarters.

Doctors were summoned from Obodo Ike. Herbalists from Amaedukwu. Even a renowned seer from Calabar came. None could explain the sudden affliction. His body burned with fever, yet his spirit seemed far away—like a man stuck between two shores.

They gave him medicines. They sang prayers. They invoked ancestors. But for three nights, Odogwu remained unconscious.

In Another World

In that slumber, he found himself elsewhere—

A place with no name, no sun, and no joy.

He was Odogwu—but not the Odogwu.

Here, he was just a man.

Each door he knocked on closed in his face.

Every business he tried failed. Every friend betrayed him. Every love turned to mockery.

He carried a file—one tattered proposal after another—moving from office to office like a desperate shadow. His name held no power. His words bore no fruit. And even when he knelt to pray, the heavens were silent.

In that place, time dragged like a wounded python.

And his spirit slowly decayed.

He forgot what it meant to be believed.

He forgot the power of Amaedukwu.

He forgot the fire of Oru Africa.

The Power that Stole the Night

Then on the fourth night, in the middle of a pitch-black sky, something stirred.

At first, it was a whisper.

Then a chant.

Then a thunder.

A thousand voices calling from beyond the clouds, and one name echoing louder than the rest: IHIE!

Light burst forth like a spear through darkness. From the edge of that broken world, an old woman appeared—eyes blazing like coals.

She was naked but clothed in fire.

Bowed by age but tall in spirit.

She carried a calabash, smoke rising from its mouth.

"Odogwu, son of Orie," she said, "They shot you down because you shook the world. But your time has not finished."

She opened the calabash.

A wind roared out of it—a whirlwind of ancestral tongues, flames, memories, and sacred truths.

It struck Odogwu's chest.

And in a flash, the world of failure began to crumble. One by one, the offices collapsed. The streets folded. The betrayers vanished. And he began to remember…

Amaedukwu.

Edemili.

Onuiyi.

Oru Africa.

On the fifth morning, his eyes opened.

The seer from Calabar screamed and dropped her staff.

The herbalist fell to his knees.

Odogwu sat up, his skin glowing with heat—not of fever, but of fire.

"Water," he said in a voice that rumbled like the clouds before a storm.

They brought him a calabash of rainwater. He drank it in silence. Then he whispered:

"They fired arrows in my sleep. But the spirits brought me back."

His lieutenants were called.

Chinaza wept when she saw him.

Jelani stood still as stone.

Nandi knelt and kissed the ground before him.

They had thought the end had come.

But Odogwu was not the same man they had known.

He spoke slowly.

Moved deliberately.

And when he looked at people, it felt like his gaze reached into their souls.

Something had changed.

The attack had not come from men alone.

Whispers spread that a powerful syndicate—connected to his old rivals in Omeuzu and certain threatened multinationals—had paid a spiritual assassin. Not an ordinary one, but an ancient dream-hunter known for sowing confusion and erasing destinies from the other side.

But whoever had sent the arrow had failed to reckon with the sacred fire of Edemili.

In Amaedukwu, the moon that week turned crimson. Elders declared it a sign that the ancestors had gone to war and returned victorious.

Proverb and Prophecy

The old woman returned in a dream one last time.

Her message was brief.

"You must walk slowly now, Odogwu.

The fire in your chest is not yours—it is a borrowed flame.

Use it to finish the work.

But when the last door opens, do not refuse the journey home."

He awoke with tears in his eyes.

For he knew:

He had survived death.

But he would never be ordinary again.

The world was watching.

The media would soon learn that Odogwu had been close to death.

Some would see it as weakness. Others as mystery.

But in the spirit world, drums had started again—drums of war and of warning.

For those who had tried to silence the Ashen One…

They had only awakened a deeper storm.

And in the next countries Oru Africa would enter, Odogwu would no longer be received as just a visionary…

He would be feared.