A woman let out the loudest cry as she mourned the death of her child. She had torn her animal skin and lay on the red mud, cursing at the gods who had allowed her child to be killed just as she had given birth to him.
The rest of the people could only watch as the mother cried for her dead child. They sympathized with her, but were already used to seeing a mother mourn for her child. They knew that the next time, it would be them mourning or being mourned for after meeting a tragic and cruel end. The only thing they could console themselves with was that the dead would finally be with their ancestors, happy and free of the suffering of being born Amathu. Mourning had become part of their lives, and almost every day, tears flowed from them. Yet the pain always remained with them. It was the curse they had inherited from their ancestors and one they would pass to their children and descendants.
During the first war, the Amathu tribe had sided with Lua and the other evil gods, while the Kasuhi tribe had sided with the righteous gods. Each side bore a mark, the Amathu that of evil and the Kasuhi that of good. There were different tales of that war, but in every one of them, evil lost. And to prevent it from ever rising again, the evil gods were imprisoned, and the Amathu were enslaved to the Kasuhi so that they would never fight again. Yet with every passing generation, the Amathu had grown more and more restless. The chains that had once bound them were slowly breaking, and a cloud of war hung over Atlusa, growing bigger and darker with every passing day.
The night was dark as the moon was covered by the dark, heavy clouds carrying rain. The fire they had lit showed the pain and suffering in their eyes. Some sat on the wet ground, others on rocks, while some stood in silence. Some cried for their loved ones as that day, they were not only mourning the death of one, but the death of seven. Some sang dirges and even though they were aware the gods didn't listen, it felt good singing. Some were in their huts made of cow dung, mud and dry grass, wondering if their huts would hold against the wind and rain that would come that night.
Alone, Muma sat staring into the fire, his eyes watering with tears but never letting them fall. When he couldn't hold them back any longer, he wiped them off his eyes. The anger he felt at that moment energized him so that his folded fists shook. Death was already a huge part of his life, and he had gotten used to it. He had watched his brothers and sisters die, some killed, some died due to illness, while some, he had watched as they got taken away to the pit, which was worse than death. The Kasuhi believed that some of the Amathu people were born with a greater capacity for evil, and their marks were darker than normal. After birth, these children were thrown into a pit that had no end so that they wouldn't terrorize the lands with their evil. Muma was all grown up to realize none of that was true and it was just their way of controlling the Amathu population. His people had suffered enough and had paid for the sins of their ancestors.
He had thought that growing up with death all around him had finally made him immune to feeling the pain and loss of death, and for most of his life, he had been. But as he sat staring at the raging fire, he realized that death was painful when you loved the person. He had loved his brother with everything he could love him with, and his death had broken him completely. Tasu was not just a brother, as the death of the others hadn't hurt as much. Being Amathu meant that death was all over, surrounding you and waiting to take you away while still taking the people around you.
Death was part of being an Amathu, and one learned not to care about death at an early age. Not because the Amathu were monsters, but because it was easier to deal with death if one didn't care at all. A lot of Amathu had grown mad with pain. With death being constant in their lives, it hurt less and less the more it happened until it didn't hurt. Muma had thought he was done being hurt by death, only to be reminded, the death of a loved one was the greatest pain.
His frail, thin body stood still, his eyes engrossed in the fire. The world around him slowly dissolved into muffled whispers and blurry images that soon blended with darkness. Only the fire remained, as if teasing him of the pain and suffering inside him that spread and burned like a wildfire. For a moment, time felt as if it had stopped, as if it was waiting for him to recover and forget the death of Tasu.
Muma stared at the fire, his mind far away to a world in his mind where Tasu was still alive and his people never suffered. For a while, he was in that paradise, and he smiled when he saw Tasu running towards the trees, climbing them with such skill and agility that Muma could never possess. Tasu was as muscular as ever, his body sculptured with muscles and biceps. His dark skin seemed to glisten in the moonlight, his scars and cuts that were all over his body a part of the sculpture, part of the masterpiece. Even though Muma felt happy seeing Tasu, he knew it wasn't real, no matter how good it felt, and he shed a tear.
Muma struggled to stand up, his weak bones and joints aching as if protesting. Usually, Tasu would be there to lift him, and it made Muma finally accept that he was alone and his brother wouldn't be there to lift him ever again. The only person who ever understood Muma was gone, he realized as he stared at those around him. He was alone yet surrounded by hundreds of his people; there was no worse loneliness than that. He looked around and all he saw were the Amathu people, strong, dark skinned, with nothing but animal skins on their bodies. But Muma saw a lot more than that. He saw pain, suffering, hopelessness and despair because he knew about the pain the people went through. Any other person who hadn't lived among them wouldn't see it.
'Cry all you want, but he is with the ancestors now.' A deep voice interrupted him. He had been too distracted to realize that his father had been next to him. Muma, ashamed that his father had caught him crying, wiped the tear on his cheek that shone due to the fiery orange glow. A man never cried, let alone an Amathu man who was cursed by the gods.
'I thought I would be used to it by now.' Muma turned to look at his father. Just like he had predicted, his father was drunk yet still holding fafu, the alcoholic brew the Amathu had perfected over the many years of suffering. The brew helped dull the pain, and that's why the Amathu loved it. But it never made the pain go away.
'Why did his death hurt? The others never did,' Muma added as he wiped another tear. He looked at his father, then at the drink in his hand. The tempting thought of taking a sip appeared in his mind, but he pushed it away.
'Some deaths are too painful to ignore,' his father said and then took a long, bitter gulp of the brew. He handed Muma the brew, but he refused. Muma wanted to remember the pain of losing Tasu, for it strangely gave him strength. He understood why his father was always drunk; not everyone held onto pain like he did.
For as long as Muma could remember, his father loved fafu. He didn't like the taste of the brew, but how the world never made sense to him when he was drunk. He would say that when he was sober, he could see the world as what it truly was, not cruel. He had always told Muma that the world wasn't as cruel as men claimed, it was he who was cruel, and it was easier to blame the world for his own cruelty. He never claimed to be a good person, for he told Muma many times that he was a cruel man. What, at least, made him better than anyone else was that he knew he was cruel. Muma could see why he loved being drunk. He wasn't a cruel person when drunk, but a drunk who saw a hazy and blurry world he couldn't hate.
'You will one day find yourself drinking, you are just too young and naive to realize it.' He added and then took another sip. Muma glanced at his father and back to the fire. He was right; he was still young and never understood the world as much as his father did. But there were some things he understood better than his father, and one of them was that he was different.
Even in the night, Muma stood out among his people. He was thin, his skin loose on his frail bones that seemed like they could snap and break any moment. His skin was lighter, and his curly hair flowed like water on his head, as if his hair was just as weak as him and just let go in defeat. His eyes were larger, especially on his bony face, and so were his lips, while his cheeks seemed to sink into his face. Unlike him, the people around him were well built with thick, strong muscles, dark and smooth skin with kinky hair, hard and stubborn as their will. Yet it was his mark on his forehead that made him different from his people, the mark of the Kasuhi.
'Have you given thought to what I told you?' His father asked him as he scratched his hair and then the mark on his forehead, the mark of the Amathu. The spiral mark on his father's face differed from his, which was made up of many slanted squares that got larger and larger, the mark of the Kasuhi.
'I haven't had time to think. I… I don't know if I should…' He stopped when he remembered the image of his brother, who was now dead. He folded his fists in anger, now tempted to give in to his father's suggestion.
'Why? What is keeping you from going into the city and helping our people fight the Kasuhi?' His father challenged, his voice and tone less drunk. He was now serious, and Muma was at times fascinated by how his father was able to shift from being drunk to being so serious in just a moment. 'I am not going to wait for the promised any more. I can't keep hoping that someone among us will be born and free us. I have to do something, you have to do something.' His father then took a long gulp of his brew. Muma understood what he meant.
The Amathu believed in a chosen one called the promised, who would break the chains of slavery. Muma too hated the idea, for he saw what the prophecy of the promised did to his people. It gave them hope and made them wait for someone who would never come, making them never fight back.
Muma stopped and watched as the woman who had stripped and lain in the mud being picked up. She was done crying, her strength gone. She was still in pain after having given birth to a child just that afternoon. The child was taken away from her and thrown into the pit because the child's mark was darker than usual. It was her fourth child to be thrown in the pit to be one of the condemned, that is, if the child survived the fall into the pit.
'They will kill me if they find out I am Amathu,' Muma said, but it angered his father, just like every other time Muma claimed to be Amathu.
'You bear the mark of the Kasuhi, they never kill their own.' His father shot back in pain and anger. Once again, he had hurt his son with his words, a father's curse that he never seemed to care for with Muma. To him, Muma would be the son with the mark of the people who oppressed his people. He sighed, knowing that he had hurt his son, but he was about to tell him the truth that would hurt him even more.
'There is nothing for you in the village. You will most likely die within a few harvests. You are weak and can't work in the field like the rest of us, or withstand the sun like your mother and I. You are of no use in the village where all we do is be slaves. But you have something that can help you in the city,' his father paused as he placed his strong, rough hand on Muma's shoulder.
'My mind?' Muma asked. He was smart, and it was one of the first things he had learned about himself. Being a weak child among strong children made him realize that he was different. He felt bad for being weak, an outcast among outcasts. He had grown up resenting himself as he was the slowest, the weakest and the ugliest. It didn't take him long to realize that he was the smartest.
'No, your mark.' His father reminded him of reality as he pointed at his forehead. He would never be seen by the Amathu of how smart he was, no matter what he did to prove himself. He would always be the Amathu with the mark of the Kasuhi, and he feared that was the only thing that made him special. Muma always thought that the gods had made a mistake in making him ugly and weak. But the biggest mistake they ever made was giving him the mark of the Kasuhi when he was born by Amathu parents. It was a curse that ensured he would always be different, no matter what.
'The rebels are trying to attack the city, but it's hard for an Amathu to hide among the Kasuhi and spy on them. The ancestors gave you that mark so that you can live among them and help us bring them down from the inside.'
'I can't fight,' Muma argued and felt the grip his father had on his shoulder tighten, almost breaking his bones.
'But you can live among them and be a spy for us. With you in the city, we stand a greater chance of fighting back from our oppressors. When you were born and I realized you bore the mark of the Kasuhi, I wanted to kill you.'
Muma stood so still due to what he had heard. What kind of father would say such a thing to their son?
'I thought the gods were punishing me and the hate I had for the Kasuhi grew as I looked at you cry, wet and fragile. But your mother smiled and said to me, You are not a mistake. The gods gave you the mark of the Kasuhi for a reason. It is your purpose to go into the city, and bring it down from the inside.' His father stopped and released him.
'You can't live here any more. You are already sixteen harvests, and no Amathu woman will marry you.' The painful reminder came. He had no life among his people, who hated him just because he was different.
'That mark is a curse to you if you live among us, but a blessing if you live in the city. How many more of us will die before you realize that?' His father finished and walked away.
Muma could feel the anger and pain in his father's words. But his father was right. He couldn't remain in the village any more. He wasn't much help to them, only a bother. Also, with Tasu dead, what was the point of suffering with the Amathu?
Sometimes, Muma thought he was righteous, just like the Kasuhi. He hated how good it felt. He felt he was better than his family and the rest of the Amathu. But other times, he felt the suffering his people felt every day, the hatred they went through and he wanted nothing more than to kill every Kasuhi and free his people from the cycle of pain and suffering.
From a distance, he saw a crow in the trees. It felt different, yet familiar, as if he had always seen it. Its eyes were on him, watching him. He however turned away, fear in him. The crow represented death, an omen to his people that if seen meant that death was coming. Whose death? He wondered. Or was it Tasu's death? He sighed, and watched his cold breath disappear into the cold air. He felt a drop of rain fall on his hand and he began to walk to the family hut. It would be a long night without Tasu, he thought as he felt the mud sink in between his toes. He would do it, but for Tasu. He would kill every Kasuhi if it came to that, so long as his people were free and he had had his revenge.
'Muma,' his mother called him when he reached the hut. Her eyes were red from crying but she had a smile on her face. She always had a smile on her face. When Muma reached where his mother was, she hugged him. She knew he was hurting as he had lost a brother and a best friend, just as she had lost a son. The two remained in the embrace in silence.
'I am going to the city.' Muma told her and she let him go and looked at him, no longer smiling. She was going to lose yet another son.
'I will be careful…'
'You don't have to do what your father says. Stay here with me, with your sisters.' Her voice was drowned in pain and hopelessness.
'I have nothing here any more.' Muma told her.
'You have me.' She replied as she held his weak hand.
'And you might be killed if I don't do anything, mother. With this,' he pointed at his forehead. 'I can live among them. Isn't it why I was born with it?'
His mother looked at him, her eyes filled with conflict and pain. Tears began to appear in her eyes. She loved him even when he was hated for bearing the mark of the Kasuhi. But she had to admit to herself, Muma didn't belong in the village among the Amathu; he belonged in the city.
'It's not like I will forget you. I will visit when I can.' Muma told her as he leaned closer to his mother.
'You better, or I will come into the city and give you a thrashing. You are now my only son.' She told him, and he nodded. It was a burden he now had to carry.
'I will free you and everyone else. And we will be happy and free.' Muma promised his mother, who just nodded. She knew too well that such a promise was impossible, but she had hope that it would happen, like a dream she enjoyed in sleep but disappeared when she woke up.
'Our ancestors will be with you.' She told him as they heard Thukina approach. They let go of each other, and Muma headed to the floor where his sleeping mat was while her mother headed to the bed she shared with her husband. She always felt guilty that Thukina never loved Muma, maybe that's why she loved him so much as to pay the debt her husband had.
She looked at Muma one last time before she closed her eyes and waited for sleep. It had been a long time since she prayed, and that night, she prayed for her two sons, one of whom was among the dead and the other on a mission into the city that risked death.