TLADI

Chapter 15

His place was here, in the village in the mist between the desert and the sea. Her place was somewhere else. In the desert, she could feel it in the way it called out to her, and in the way Stima's land pushed her away. Something in the land did not want her there. Many would call this paranoia, but she knew it was merely alertness. She, like all those who resided in the village, was as sensitive to the language and moods of the land as the desert sand was to the blowing of the slightest wind.

The desert wind spoke to her in many tongues and lyrics. It said 'We are lonely, come and save us' yet she knew in her heart that it was she who was lonely and that it was the desert that would come and save her. She was lonely because she had decided to let go of Stima, but his love still prevailed. 

It clung tightly like a man's flesh clung to his bones, but a man could forget that he had flesh at all. A man could allow the flesh to wither away so that nothing but the bone remained. A man could die, and the flesh could rot. Thus, Tladi saw a solution to the problem, if only she knew that it would only cause the beginning of a series of future problems. It went in circles, vicious circles, the way The Drummers' Circle could sometimes be.

The night that Stima briefly surfaced from his unconsciousness was the night the village saw the last of Tladi's lone, mysterious figure, her white cloak flailing and waving in the wind, walking steadily into the desert darkness, sealing her fate.

What they did not know was that her fate was their destiny. How could they know? How could the prey know that it belonged to someone else's hunger? The day Tladi left the village put the final nail in the coffin of the village. Her departure would turn what was left of the red soil in The Drummers' Circle to black ash.

The end was more sudden than they had expected. It came in a flash of light several weeks after Tladi's departure. It came in the form of a freak storm on a dark starlit night.

"Yes, just like the storm on the night that she, Tladi was born..." Umthunz'omnyama, Tladi's adoptive mother gravely said to Stima. A bolt of lightning, after which Tladi had been named, struck the core of The Drummers' Circle, the remaining area of red soil. It was burned to black ash in an instant and their lives would never be the same again. The bit of pure undiluted happiness found in the mist between the desert and the sea would be obliterated in an instant, just like the last crimson soil left in the center of The Drummers' Circle.

The lightning bolt struck with a huge thunderous boom, shaking the peace out of the night. There was a collective jump of fear in every hut of the village. It was as though the electricity had flowed into the ground, spread in all directions, into the village and shot through every living soul simultaneously. The storm suddenly dwindled to a drizzle. Almost as though it had used up all its energy in that one, burst of lightning and was now weak and gasping for air. 

Many dark forms of all shapes and sizes emerged from their homes. A congregation of torches gathered at The Drummers' Circle. Shock was mirrored in every torch and thunder lit face. Unaletastima put down his torch on the wet sand. It sizzled into darkness. He did not take a second glance at it. Instead, he strode purposefully towards the recently blackened earth in the core of The Drummers' Circle, where no one else dared to go. The silence deepened, like the deaf re-deafened.

Not even the thunder rumbled, the rain did not patter. The crickets did not creak, the song of nature at night diminished into an expectant hush. Unaletastima knelt down heavily at the center. He reached his hand towards the scorched earth. His fingers touched the still sizzling earth. There was... nothing... except the harsh searing pain of heat burning through living skin.

Unaletastima did not even wince at the excruciating pain of this encounter. His whole body tensed. The storm seemed to hold its breath. The moment was pregnant with anticipation and anxiety... Unaletastima's head was bowed. He whispered:

"Tladi." Looking into the sky, he saw his pain mirrored in its eyes. A single drop of its greatest sorrow drizzled onto his bowed, dreadlocked head.

"TLADI!" He screamed in agony, driving all his fingers into the burning ashes of the earth. His scream of her name filled with the agony of the pain driving in through his fingertips and bleeding from his heart. The thunder and lightning roared, as though echoing his scream into the emptiness of the darkness...

The village had been born with a purpose. They all knew that. They, the villagers, were deep thinkers, conscious people. They felt that coincidence did not and could not exist. That night, the purpose of the village blossomed into adulthood:

Eyes white she stands, pupils not visible, seeing into another time. Trance-like the Sangoma moves into the center of The Drummers' Circle. She is receiving a vision. This is something over which she has no control. It is her blessing and her curse. Her breathing is laboured, the circle of people is dead still and a graveyard silence reigns. Suddenly she stops... breathing. Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth;

"There will come a time," she half-sings, in the deepest voice they have ever heard, "when you must leave this village. When this soil the colour of blood will turn the colour of black ash, when the secret texts you have been translating all these years must be sent out to the people of the world, when the knowledge must be shared, but it will not happen in a day. The blood-red soil will change gradually like the bark of a growing tree that is then suddenly struck by lightning and blackened in one day. Then you will have to move like the lightning that will betray you. You should dedicate your lives to this task. For should you fail, the whole world will be plunged into the darkness of ignorance. The immoral will become moral, lies will become truth and death... will become life. Should you fail, you shall be giving evil the power to bring about chaotic times. You must not fail... you must not fail...!" The Sangoma's voice trails off into silence. 

Then her small frail-looking body jerked violently, her eyes snapped shut and she fell to the ground like a felled tree. She was gently carried to her sleeping mat in her hut. Her prophecy was laid down beside her; burned into the prepared leather from a dead ox. She would be able to read it upon her awakening in the next sunrise. Two other copies were stored in the secret places where the village stores of secret writings were kept.