Dial - Season 2 - Episode 10

4 years ago

Dial - Season 2 - Episode 10

Okomfo Basabasa stared at me balefully, ignoring the pitiful cries of Maame Ntiriwaa.
“You committed a taboo, stranger,” he said in a vicious tone. “By touching the King’s woman, you’ve broken one of the most enshrined customs of this land, and because of that, the gods have judged you, and have passed death on you!”
“Do your worst, evil man!” I hissed at him with a venom of my own.

“Guards!” Okomofo Basabasa cried angrily. “Cut him free from the pole!”
The burly people moved around me, and a moment later they cut the cords binding me to the pole. I realized then that there were cords around my body too, and so although I was free from the pole, my legs were all tied up, and so were my wrists.

The guards held me tightly, and then Okomfo Basabasa lifted the lid once more off the basket of venomous snakes! I could see their black shiny bodies, and the blood-curdling sounds they made as they moved within the basket in frenzy, their evil eyes flickering like diamonds, their forked tongues beating furiously.

The Okomfo took a heavy metal bar and rapped it sharply against the side of the basket, causing the snakes to leap with maddened frenzy.

“Put his head inside the basket!” Okomfo Basabasa said, and the King and other old men made grunts of agreement.
My blood froze!

What sort of macabre death was this?

They were going to actually push my head into that basket filled with snakes! Those vile reptiles were in a frenzy, and they would strike me to a slow agonizing death!
“Oh, Yao, Yao, oh Yao!” Maame Ntiriwaa wept bitterly. “I’m sorry, Yao! I’m so sorry! God will punish you for this, you evil men!”

“Shut up, you demon!” Okomfo Basabasa screamed, pointing the metallic bar at her.
“Please, don’t do this, my Lord!” Adobea cried and fell to her knees, holding the king’s leg desperately as tears streamed down her face. “This doesn’t deserve death! I beg you, please let him just leave the village, please!”

“It is too late, my Princess!” Okomfo Basabasa said. “He ate the palm soup reserved for the king. He pays with his life, because the gods say so!”

So, finally, was this the way I was leaving the earth? This horrible and painful death? Where was Nana b0s0mba? In the face of my bravado I had been waiting for him to appear, to deliver me again as he had! Hadn’t he warned them not to touch my body? Why then, was this happening? Was he still angry because of the Dial List I hadn’t mentioned in my apology?

So here I was, a twenty-six years old multimillionaire, the youngest richest man on the continent, now trapped in the body of an old man, about to die a heinous death!
Surprisingly, apart from the fury I felt against this vile Okomfo Basabasa and that King Obiba, I wasn’t afraid. I found it tragic – in a way – that I had the Dial List on my computer in my mansion, and I couldn’t even get to it, to revel in it for the last time, or delete it outright.

It was of no importance now. The most regrettable feeling I had was of Maame Ntiriwaa, and how she was going to suffer after my demise. I knew they might also kill her, and my helplessness in helping a great woman like her really filled me we gall!
About four men held me tightly, even though I was tied, and forced my head toward that basket of death. I clenched my teeth as my head got to the edge of the basket, and I could see the deadly mambas striking out angrily and fiercely, waiting for my head!
And then, finally, I heard his voice.

It was calm, and it was soft, but there was no denying the fury behind it.
“What’s going on here now?” Nana b0s0mba asked quietly.