TLADI

Chapter 25

"Go, my all-powerful daughter, fulfill your destiny." The deep, masculine voice said. 

A tall, lone figure separated itself from the front line of this army of the sands and began to approach the party of five. The survivors felt an overpowering urge to take a few steps back but with every essence of their beings; they resisted. The lone figure kept advancing; there was something familiar about that walk. There was something about the way the figure left imprints, though faint, in the sand.

Something came to Tladi, slowly, an awakening of the last forgotten part of herself. Its name was...conscience. She was no longer an external observer in the drama of her life. She was finally within herself. She didn't feel as trapped as she thought she would feel. She looked at the horde of traveling souls and thought...

Responsibility is mine. 

Something suddenly strengthened within her. Tladi moved down the dune side with the seething purpose of a volcanic eruption. The sand now barely moved beneath her feet, her movement was a gliding of sorts. There was what appeared to be an army behind her. They were like still desert sand grains in their number and stance. 

She walked... no, glided, away from them, towards the small group of traveling souls. Not a single soul moved besides that of the seemingly soulless Tladi. The horde of traveling souls stood at the epicenter of this coming earthquake of attack from the white-robed strangers with pale eyes almost as terrifying as that of Tladi. 

The horde of traveling souls was surrounded. Before the battle even began, their defeat felt utterly complete. Tladi's progress towards them seemed endless; pain-filled torture spanning an eternity's worth of moments. The wind whispered in her wake. Stima heard its words; they called his name. He had time to notice how high the blazing sun was, in the center of his sky; how the heat seemed to shimmer with life on every single surface and conjured mirages of water on all horizons.

Tladi finally reached the horde of traveling souls. She paused to look into the eyes of each individual. This was surely the last thing that each would ever see. One by one, they closed their eyes slowly after each eye contact was made. It was only after her eyes locked on his that he understood that she was communicating a message. Stima too closed his eyes and waited.

"Tell me," she mentally broadcast to the army of white covering the dune sides. 

"Tell me, should I kill quick or slow..." 

There was venom in her eye. Real anger burned there and the white-clad army was glad that she was on their side.

"Slow" was the united silent response. 

Thunder rumbled loudly in the fast-approaching clouds.

"As you wish." She whispered.

She took off her cloak and laid it at the feet of the horde of five traveling souls. With a motion of her head, they all simultaneously moved onto it. She removed her headcloth and her pale gold hair fell about her shoulders in the light of day for the first time. 

The clouds were boiling angrily as sparks of horizontal lightning lashed through them. She removed her eye patch and snatched Shami's black and white beaded necklace from his chest; The All-seeing One Eye. She touched Umthunz'omnyama high on her left breast; A Mother's Love. With one sharp fingernail, she split the skin on Stima's chest and immersed the hand that had touched Umthunz'omnyama's breast in Stima's flowing blood; A Lover's Blood. In this, she had the holy trinity of body, mind, and soul; Stima's blood, the All-seeing One Eye, and Umthunz'omnyama's Love respectively.

She raised her arms and indigo eye skyward and even as her bloody hand neared the one with the necklace, the earth began to shake. Umthunz'omnyama could not comprehend it, Oyena could not explain it, Ntombi could not believe it, Shami could never have conceived it and Stima had known it all along. 

The horde of traveling souls had never seen so many dead bodies in all their lives. Yet mostly it was just the husks of what used to be live bodies. They were small, broken, burnt pieces littered across the dune sides. Vultures and other small desert creatures will have devoured them by sunset.

The group of traveling souls searched among the debris of life for the supplies that would last them the remaining distance out of the desert. This gave Stima and Tladi, the necessary space to talk. Yet it seemed that words were not necessary.

Something in Stima slowly became clear. It was like the rays of sunshine were filtering into his world for the first time. They were weak and translucent with the effort of penetration. But now that penetration had occurred it could not be undone. He lifted, he flew and soared, into the sky. Where the image of Tladi's eye was mirrored in the heavens. 

He woke to a new morning. He held himself together to hear her breath and breathe her scent. The moment was filled with the magic of new life. Something was moving, growing, changing. It was as though they were alone. They became new. A stillness reigned as though the world had held its breath to witness their reunion.

Then it exhaled an icy breath that froze thoughts and killed inner fires. Something changed, something died. Stima was not sure exactly what it was. Tladi felt it in her chest. It was hope. Hope died in her. She was certain as she looked around at the charred smoking bodies, that Stima was the catalyst for her great powers of destruction. It was this man and this man only who made her lose her hold. He cracked the ice surrounding her heart and leaked her intensity into the earth. It was more than the earth could handle. 

She clasped his hands then embraced him tightly. Stima felt her body begin to heat and burn against him. The intensity rose and rose until it became unnatural and Stima began to wonder what was going on. She whispered to him, in his spirit. His soul understood. He wept as he drove the sharp point of the spear into her. It penetrated through her upper abdomen and was driven into the cavity of her chest, beneath her ribs and finally penetrated her heart. 

She imploded then. The blinding light was of an intensity greater than the desert sun at midday. The explosion of light seemed likely to blind Stima into unconsciousness, but he held on. Then the bringer of the light absorbed all of Tladi's blinding light through the sharp point of his spear. The energy coursed through the shaft and into him. It caused him to scream in a painful-pleasure-filled agony. 

He felt as though he were dying and being born all at once. It seemed to him that he was screaming for eternity. When he stopped, the light was gone, and so was Tladi. Not a trace of her was left to be seen. Stima felt changed. He felt no grief, instead, he felt a strange sort of ... power. He still heard Tladi's voice whisper to him when he moved his hair, he felt the texture of her skin in the air that caressed his body. He suddenly knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt; that he would never be the same again.