The children did not survive. Neither did the camels, donkeys and remaining elderly. Only those with the stamina and strength to drag themselves out of the sand-fall lived to see the sunset that day. The horde of travelling souls was greatly diminished both physically and in spirits.
There was something complete and total about the sadness they felt. It was soon replaced by a fierce burning rage that burnt itself out into the ashes of a sense of fierce and terrible purpose. They forged on; each of the survivors still had their own copy of The Most Secret Truth, etched into several leather scrolls that they constantly kept with them.
A census of the remaining survivors was taken. All the initiates of the Sangoma Umthunz'omnyama, including Umthunz'omnyama herself, had survived. This was odd. Shami made a mental note of this. The man who moved like lava down the mountain grew serious and wary. It was not noticed, it was merely given that any change in behaviour would be credited to the excruciating journey they were undertaking.
Stima grew slightly more alert. Some wind was sighing something to him in the world to which he had escaped. He could not quite make it out, yet it filled him with a strange sense of dread. He was about to meet with something that he was better off staying away from. Yet it was clear that this meeting would occur nevertheless. Was it a meeting with Death? Stima shook his head of such morbid thoughts, aware that only time would tell.
They all fell into the walking rhythm of the sifting and sighing of the desert sands. Such a monotonous movement inspired thought. Umthunz'omnyama was trying to calculate when exactly she had stopped fighting her inner battle. Something dark had come to her in her dreams a long time ago. It was around the time of Tladi's birth. She had mistaken it for the ancestors at first. Yet as time went by the slow realization that it was something else came to her, and it was accompanied by a strong denial.
She was only reaching the point where her denial was not enough to stop the slow realization from dawning on her. Soon she would have to make a decision. It was going to be a difficult decision. The most difficult one she would ever make, because for the first time in her life, she would not be following the direction of what she perceived to be the ancestors... This would be the first time she would make a decision based on her own truth. This would be the first time she consulted her own inner goddess on anything. It was a terrifying thought!
"What ails your mind?" A deep rumbling voice made her jump. She thought she'd heard it in her mind!
She quickly recovered herself and sombrely replied: "I contemplate the road ahead." The worried tone of her deep, rough, solemn voice seemed to reassure Oyena.
Oyena nodded solemnly, dramatically. "Umthunz'omnyama," He paused dramatically, "do not let the events of the future worry you too much. I know the correct choices will be made." And with that he was off, seemingly hurrying ahead to initiate a conversation with the tall dark Shami.
Umthunz'omnyama wondered what he meant by his words. What choices was he referring to? What did he know? Nothing, Umthunz'omnyama decided, Oyena knew nothing. He was just being dramatic as always. Umthunz'omnyama contented herself with that thought.
"What ails your mind, Shami?" A deep rumbling voice intruded on Shami's paranoid thoughts. Wary of Oyena and everyone else for that matter, with the exception of Stima, Shami feigned distress.
"I'm not sure," He slowly said, "I'm not sure." Oyena silently cursed. It irritated him that everyone was being so elusive. How was he supposed to find out if there were traitors in the camp if no one was being honest?! He had since come to the conclusion that someone was helping The Voice find them. He knew witchcraft. It was powerful, but there is no way it could find anyone in the desert without one of two things: A personal item belonging to one of the travellers like hair, skin, unwashed clothes that still held traces of that person or a mind-to-mind link with one of the travellers.
Since one of the village rules, specifically to prevent the current occurrences, was the instant report of any of the former items going missing, such could not be the case. He had counted Tladi as a possibility, but Tladi was dead. Even if she was alive, nothing from the village had gone missing and she did not know witchcraft. Thus, she was ruled out as a possibility. That left one possibility; someone was linking mind-to-mind with the source of the voice. He had to find out who it was.
He had asked Umthunz'omnyama's three initiates, all of whom had quite perfectly survived their encounters with the forces of The Voice. Oyena shelved that thought away for future inspection. He had asked Umthunz'omnyama herself, who had also survived the encounters quite perfectly, another thought shelved away. He had asked the only remaining man from the tribes of central Africa. He had asked Shami; the epitome of innocence. He had even asked Stima who was really a lost cause since he was no longer truly in touch with the world anyway.
Yet he was no closer than he was before he had asked.
YOU ARE READING
TLADI
Fantasy'Tladi' is a narrative mostly based in an unusual African village nestled between the desert and the sea where a variety of cultural groups have mysteriously gathered to cohabit in the fulfillment of a secret purpose. In this setting, the outsider...
