Latest / KofiTable - Mystery Box stories / What the Mountain Ate

Transcript

What the Mountain Ate · KofiTable - Mystery Box stories

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Nomusa's knees hit the wet rock before she could stop them,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the Hlocophela stone digging into her hip through the satchel.'
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Say that again,' she said, her voice scraping out of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a throat gone dry.' Say it slower.' Mukululi's amber eyes
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: didn't blink. He crouched on the boulder above the mountain pool,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: small and still, his cloak of shadows and starlight rippling
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: in a wind that touched nothing else.' Your mother promised
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you to the mountain,'' before you took your first breath.'
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: The binding she made with the shadow' was a bargain
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: built on top of that older promise.' One debt stacked
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on another.' Now the mountain has woken up hungry,' and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: it remembers what it was owed.'' He tilted his head.'
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You are the owed thing, Nomusa.' You always were.'' Thabo
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: stepped between them,' boots skidding on the wet stone.' That' s
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: not how it works,' he said.' His voice was steady,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: but Nomusa saw his hands.' the small tremor in the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: fingers that had been wrung raw in the sea cave.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: A mother can't just hand over her kid to a rock.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: That's not a deal. That's a curse. In the old language,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: they are the same word, Mukululi said. Nomusa pushed herself upright.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The cold of the Drakensberg cut through her wet clothes,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: through the thin cotton of her shirt, straight into the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: mark on her chest. It had gone quiet, since they
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: climbed out of the pool, but she could feel it listening.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: She looked past Mukululi, up the narrow path that wound
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: into the jagged peaks. Somewhere up there, the mountain waited.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Somewhere up there, her mother had made a promise she
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: never told her about. My mother is dead, Nomusa said.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: She died in Molechi. I buried her myself. If she
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: owed something, she owed it to me to say so.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Mukululi's smile was small and sad. She tried. Why do
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: you think she taught you the herbs, the songs, the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: names of the ancestors? Why do you think she sent
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you to the sea cave with the stone? She was
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: paying the debt in pieces, daughter. Every lesson was a coin.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Every ritual was a drop of blood. She hoped to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: buy you free before the mountain noticed. But it noticed,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Nomusa said. The shadow you freed was a lock on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a door, Mukululi said. The mountain is the room behind
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the door. Your mother locked it because she could not pay.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Now the lock is broken and the room is awake
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and it is very, very patient. Thabo turned to Nomusa.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We can walk away. We came this far. We can
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: find another way, another guardian, another... There is no other way,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Mukululi said. The mountain does not negotiate with strangers. It
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: negotiates with blood, Nomusa's blood, or the blood of someone
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: who stands in her place. He looked at Thabo then,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and something in his amber gaze sharpened. You already gave
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the sea a piece of your fear. The mountain will
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: want more than fear. It will want years. It will
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: want a name. It will want the shape of a life.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Nomusa felt the Hlocophella's stone pulse once against her hip,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: warm as a heartbeat. She thought of her mother's hands,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: grinding herbs in the old kraal. The smell of Impefo smoke.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the way she used to hum while she worked. The
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: memory was already fraying at the edges, the exact sound
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: of that hum was gone, lost somewhere in the current
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: beneath the world. She had given it up without knowing
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: she was paying.' What does the mountain look like?' she asked,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: when it comes to collect. McCulloughly stood. He was so
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: small that the boulder made him look like a child,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: playing at prophecy, but his shadow stretched long and wrong
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: across the rock.' reaching toward the peaks. It does not
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: look like anything, he said. It looks like a hunger.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It looks like the silence between two heartbeats. It looks
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: like your mother's face when she realized she could not
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: save you. Thabo grabbed Nomusa's arm. We need to think.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: We need Mazulu. She knows the mountain. She's been quiet
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: since we got here, but she's still with us. We
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: can't just... Mazulu is gathering what she needs, Mukululi said.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: She knows this path better than you think. She has
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: walked it before. Ask her about the year she lost
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: her sister to the same hunger. Ask her why she
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: never speaks of it. Nomusa stared at him. You're saying
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Mazulu knew? All this time? She suspected, Makululi said. She
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: hoped she was wrong. She is often wrong about hope.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: He turned and began to climb the path, his small
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: feet finding holes in the rock that should not have existed. Come!
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: The mountain will not wait forever, and the night is cold.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: We have until dawn to decide who pays. Nomusa did
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: not move. The wind came down off the peaks, sharp
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and clean, carrying the smell of snow and old stone.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: She looked at Thabo, at the exhaustion carved into his face,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: at the way he still stood between her and danger,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: even when there was nothing to fight. She thought of
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: her mother, who had paid in pieces, who had died
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: still owing. She thought of the mark on her chest,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: which had been a gift and a warning, and now
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: felt like a brand. Nomusa, Thabo said quietly, whatever you're thinking,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: don't do it alone. She met his eyes. I wasn't
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: going to. She pulled the Hlocophylla stone from her satchel
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and held it up. It glowed faintly in the dusk, blue-white,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the colour of deep water. But I need to know
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: what my mother was trying to buy, and I need
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to know if it's still for sale.' Mukululi paused on
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the path above them, his cloak flaring. It is not
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: for sale, he called down. It is only for trade,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and the mountain always sets the price. Nomusa closed her
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: fist around the stone. Then we'd better find out what
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it wants before it takes it. She started up the path,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Thabo a half-step behind her, the mountain looming above them
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: like a held breath. Somewhere in the dark, something very
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: old shifted in its sleep and smiled.