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The Fall Of Orisun: A God’S Mortal Coil By Benn Ik
The Fall of Orisun: A God’s Mortal Coil, is a fictional story by Benn Ik an award winning poet and novelist. Author of the award winning novel THE TRUTH and many other short stories and poems like the anthology of poems "Poems from the cloud of reality published on Amazon. He has also been published and featured in many magazines and blogazines both local and internationally. He was the secetary of the Nigerian Young Writers Association.
Enjoy your read!
Prologue: The Birth Beneath the Baobab
In the heart of the savannah, where the sun bled gold into the horizon and the baobab trees stood as ancient sentinels, a child was born to a mortal woman named Adaeze. The village elders whispered that the birth was no ordinary event. Thunder had cracked the sky without rain, and a flock of sacred ibises circled above Adaeze’s hut, their wings painting shadows on the earth like omens. When the child emerged, his skin shimmered faintly, like sunlight on river water, and his eyes held the depth of the night sky. The midwives named him Orisun—"Source" in the old tongue—for he was no mere human. He was the incarnation of Olodumare’s youngest son, the god destined to bridge the realms of the divine and mortal, to heal the rift between mankind and the spirits of the wild.
But Adaeze did not survive the birth. As her last breath faded, the elders swore they heard her whisper, “Forgive him, for the world will not.”
CHAPTER 1
The Boy Who Walked with Lions
Orisun grew under the care of the village’s ancient seer, Babatunde, a man whose wrinkles mapped centuries of wisdom. By age five, Orisun could summon rain with a laugh and coax withered crops back to life with a touch. Yet he was forbidden from using his powers openly. “The world is not ready,” Babatunde warned. “Your destiny awaits its hour.”
But the boy’s heart yearned for companionship beyond the spirits. His closest friend was Nala, the chief’s fierce-eyed daughter. She ran with him through the tall grasses, her laughter echoing his own. When they were twelve, Nala led him to a hidden grove where a wounded lioness lay dying. Orisun knelt, placed his hands on her matted fur, and channeled his divinity. The beast stirred, licked his face, and vanished into the bush. Nala stared at him, awestruck. “You’re not like us,” she murmured.
“I am,” he insisted, but even then, he felt the chasm between them—the god who loved a mortal.
CHAPTER 2
The Whisper of Shadows
As Orisun neared manhood, whispers slithered through the village. Crops failed, rivers dried, and children fell ill. The elders blamed restless ancestors, but Babatunde knew the truth: the world’s balance was fraying, and Orisun’s ascension was overdue. At the next full moon, the old seer revealed his destiny. “You must climb Mount Zuma, where the veil between worlds is thin. There, you’ll perform the Ududo ritual, merging your spirit with the earth. Only then will harmony return.”
But Orisun hesitated. Nala had blossomed into a woman of sharp wit and sharper beauty, her heart a labyrinth he longed to unravel. On the eve of his journey, he confessed his love beneath the baobab where he was born. “Come with me,” he begged. “Together, we’ll remake the world.”
Nala kissed him—a promise sealed in fire—but her eyes flickered with something unreadable. “I will follow,” she said.
CHAPTER 3
The Betrayal at Dawn
The climb to Mount Zuma was treacherous. Spirits taunted Orisun, assuming forms of hyenas and skeletal birds. Yet he pressed on, driven by duty and the memory of Nala’s kiss. At the summit, he prepared the ritual: a circle of crushed herbs, a chalice of his blood, and incantations older than time. As he chanted, the sky pulsed with green light, and the ground hummed like a living thing.
But then Nala appeared, her face streaked with tears. “Forgive me,” she whispered. Before he could speak, she plunged a dagger of obsidian into his chest.
The blade was no ordinary metal—it was Egungun’s Tooth, forged by the trickster god to sever divinity from flesh. Orisun crumpled, his golden blood pooling as the ritual’s energy spiraled into chaos. Nala fell to her knees, her voice breaking. “They took my brother. The priests said… they said he’d die if I didn’t stop you.”
Orisun’s vision dimmed. He saw the truth then: the village elders, fearful of a god they couldn’t control, had manipulated Nala. His love had been a pawn. As his powers drained, the mountain shook, and the portal between worlds slammed shut.
CHAPTER 4
The Weight of Mortality
Orisun awoke days later in Babatunde’s hut, his body frail, his skin dulled. The seer wept. “The ritual is lost. You are… human now.”
The godling wandered the village, a ghost of himself. Nala had vanished, her home abandoned. The villagers averted their eyes, guilt heavy in the air. Seasons turned. Orisun aged—his back bent, his hands gnarled. He married a kind weaver named Amina, fathered children, and taught them to heal with herbs instead of magic. Yet his dreams were haunted by what might have been: visions of lush forests, rivers singing his name, and the lioness he’d saved prowling at his side.
When drought returned, worse than before, the villagers begged him to intervene. “I cannot,” he rasped. “I am no god.”
Epilogue: The God Who Died
Orisun died at seventy-three, his last breath carried away by the Harmattan wind. At his funeral, Amina placed a single ibis feather on his chest. The villagers murmured that the earth itself sighed as he was buried.
But in the shadows, Nala watched, her hair white, her face carved with regret. She knelt at his grave and poured libations. “I loved you,” she said. “Even when the gods played us as fools.”
That night, a sapling sprouted where Orisun’s blood had soaked Mount Zuma—a baobab with bark like molten gold. Its roots drank deep from the earth, and rains returned to the savannah. The lioness, now ancient, curled beneath its branches, guarding the tree as generations passed.
And though Orisun’s name faded from memory, the people found harmony again, not through a god’s might, but through the resilience he’d unknowingly taught them. For in his mortal life, he’d shown that even broken divinity could seed hope.
The End.
