Riyoon's Reflection, Part I - Sik Nati

I’ll always remember the first time I stepped through the gate.

            The stars receded. A veil of clouds stormed in suddenly, though the sky held complete clarity moments before. Without the light of the doublemoon, it became difficult to navigate, and I slowed in my pace, but continued.  A fog descended upon the savanna. Now I had no choice but to halt. A wind rose and stirred the grass, but the fog did not lift.
            Everything seemed to shudder. The air trembled so tightly that I could hear a buzz like numerous flies all around me. My hair stood on end, and my skin prickled. I felt hot, and yet the heat brought a chill to my skin as I searched for explanations. Ahead of me, the fog had taken on a peculiar shape, swirls within swirls, clouds dancing in slow motion upon one another. Light poured out from the billowing folds, throwing hues of violet and skye over the otherwise darkened savannah. The vivacity stalled the concern rising in me - but then the wind picked up. Everything moved toward that brilliant, beautiful void. I tried to run, but could not gain proper footing. I dug my spear into the ground, but even the soil gave way. I passed through, and everything around me shattered like brittle steel. Then I was that brittle steel, breaking away piece by painful piece, as everything went dark.

            I find that my thoughts often return to that first night. I’d like to say that it was chance that put me before that odd chasm that split the calm, that took me from the savannahs I called home. I know now however, that both chance and home are relative.

 
            I remember feeling cold, and that was enough. Somehow, the night sky and empty plain did not seem nearly as lonely as the village, a place where as a woman, my desires went unfulfilled, my talents went wasted- a place where my voice did not quite matter. Exile —my exile— had brought contentment to my circumstances.  I had my freedom, and so that first night, I wandered. I took each step for myself, on my own terms. I resolved that I would travel as far away from Ngarobah as necessary in order to make my life my own.

            And I have, though not at all in the way I expected, in the place I expected. Truth be told, my place was no place at all, and quite frankly, I am happy with that. My feet have always sought to move- the curse of a dancer. Even had that first gate not swallowed me, I’d have kept walking, and I would have made my camp somewhere, danced in the moonlight and found myself. But the portal did swallow me.

 
            I felt the smooth firmness of stone beneath me. The darkness receded, and I noticed not at first, because my vision had been stifled by the passage. Around me, everything spun. That, combined with the piercing light from the sun, did nothing to help my confusion.
            “Are you hurt?”
            I bolted upright, and immediately regretted it. Through swimming, spiraling vision, I found a stranger on a rock nearby- short, and likely thin, but unknowable at this distance, obscured by a worn, and yet cared for robe, and a hat woven of now tattered stalks.
            “It seems you are unharmed. This is good.” The voice, somewhat deep, and yet soft, reverberated on the inside of my skull and carried an odd quality to it that I could not discern. Regardless, I found it comforting. My observer rose and approached with a slow, shuffling, uneven gait.
            At first I thought my eyes played tricks on me; the person who now stood over me had rather peculiar features. The wide and bright eyes and plump lips contrasted with a full and solid jaw, and now the voice made sense.
            “Who are you?” I asked.
            The shaman pursed lips together, ignoring my question and appraising me instead. “You’ll want to drink this, child.”
            A withered hand, empty seconds ago, now offered me a small earthen vial.
            “What is it?”
            “Medicine.”
            I stared at the vial and thought of my swirling stomach, the relentless throbbing in my head. “I don’t need it.”
            “You have head pains. Your stomach is unsettled. If you were to stand, you would lose your balance almost immediately.”
            “I’m fine.” To prove my point, I hopped to my feet, but found myself kneeling and clutching my gut. The ground spun faster than ever now.
            “You have nothing to prove to me, child.”
            I stared at the shaman, and received a toothy grin. “Alright.” I took the offered vial and uncorked it. It smelled foul; somehow I knew it would. I reeled, partly by reflex, but realized that already my stomach had begun to settle, and nearly all of the blurriness in my vision had receded.
            “See? You can tell it’s good.”
            I stared at the figure a moment longer, and realized I didn’t have anything to lose between my apparent exile, and the fact that my rescuer could have slain me on a whim while I lay unconscious. I threw back my head and took the medicine in one gulp.  The bitter draught burned my throat, but did not taste nearly as awful as it smelled. The swirling died down in my stomach, and I took a deep, cautious breath.
            “See? See?”
            “Thank you, stranger.”
            “You are the stranger. We are from this side.”
            “This side?” This time, I took care in climbing to my feet. A few more deep breaths and I felt like myself again. I turned in a slow circle, looked around. Savanah grass. Open, nearly flat plains. I could see animals in the distance- a pride of lions lounging in the shade of the sparse trees. Further away, a thick cloud of dust that suggested a herd on the move. It seemed no different than home.
            The sharp clap of wood on stone drew my attention to my feet; as expected, I had been lying on neither grass, nor packed earth. I knew at a glance that the stone could not be natural; from my vantage near the center, it appeared to be an almost perfect circle, the surface of which had been carved with ringlike patterns at the edges. Along such rings lay other carvings in runes I did not recognize. They traced one of the various glyphs with the end of Their staff.
            “As We said, you are the stranger.”
            “And who are you?” I asked again.
            They quirked Their head at me, confused. “Apologies, child. We are Renkou.”

Renkou. The portal led me to Them. Meeting Renkou, Their people, and seeing Their village reaffirmed what I knew all along. 

I followed Renkou across the savanna, still shocked at how similar it looked; were it not for the stone and the last of my sickness, I would not have thought myself somewhere new.
            “How did you get here?” They asked.
            “I think you know more than I do,” I replied. “You found me.”
            “But We do not know what happened before We arrived.”
            “Can you tell me about this place?” I asked. “The territory seems familiar, and yet it is not home.”
            “We are sorry that you came to be here,” They dipped their head. “However, it may become home enough in time. We travel westward to Sik Nati. It is Our home, and one of three great villages upon the plain.”
            We arrived in Sik Nati. Being unfamiliar with the land, and having known only my own people, I was not sure what to expect. My reservations were misplaced- I found welcoming smiles on every face that looked in my direction.  Someone fetched me a basket, and others began piling it high with gifts of fruit, dolls, sweets and potions.
            Renkou watched my surprise at the hospitality of Their people, a warm and knowing grin upon Their face. “As we said, you may find home here.”
            We journeyed to the very heart of the village, where I discovered a vast ring of tall stones, each of which stood half buried in the earth. In the center of the great formation lay a circular building, broad and low and open. The foundation came in the form of thick segments of rammed earth, which lifted the structure some small distance above the flattened earth beneath it. As far as I could tell, packed clay walls extended around the entirety of the building, save for gaps that served as doorways. The walls themselves did not obscure much, for they did not reach to the mud and thatch roofing of the great structure. As a result, our approach allowed me to see additional doorways, apparently equidistant, on the far side of the circle. Within the vast chamber, we found the company of other men and women, and people in between, all seated upon mats woven of reeds.
            “What is this place?” I asked.
                “We chajman meet here to discuss,” Renkou said simply. “As you are not one with the land, We must ask you to wait at the edge.” They gestured with one wrinkled finger toward a ring of mats on the outermost edge of the room. Do not stray, for we may have need of you.” Saying this, Renkou proceeded to a place near the center, and I did as I was told and selected a mat upon the border of the chamber. The hospitality remained, ever present in the warm smiles of the chajman, but it had become reserved in a reverence for what lay ahead.
            The elders took to the centrally placed mats. Many of them were older even than Renkou, though they had aged well; the few wrinkles between them appeared more decoration than delineation of years upon the earth. Their skins ranged from charcoal to cocoa, all of which matched well with the azures, golds, reds, violets, and greens that they wore.
           

 They are all so different from one another, Renkou especially so, and yet each of them honors the others, and is honored in turn. I discovered in Sik Nati a community diversified, yet overflowing with generosity and respect, even for an outsider such as myself… everything I was missing.

 

The elders called me forward after a time, and sat patiently, silently, as I told them of my village, Ngarobah. I told them of the great differences between my home and theirs; I told them of my banishment, and prior to that, my disinclusion from the hunt, martial arts, and several trades. I gave account of my regulation to cooking, cleaning, and weaving. In doing these things, I clarified aloud the absurdity of such artificial limitations.
            Whenever I thought I had finished, they would ask questions, one after another, and consider every answer. In explaining myself further, I reaffirmed who I was. If I’d held any sliver of doubt upon my exile, my departure, it vanished in the comparison of my once beloved Ngarobah to their Sik Nati —where each and every one among them served as they best could, according to their own decisions.
            At home, I could never have held such a conversation; were I somehow given a voice, men, and perhaps women too, would think I desired to be a man— but that has never been the case. It was true that I missed the occasions of my childhood where I had helped with the hunt, startling prey into our traps or ambushes. These things I had done before everyone suddenly declared me woman. But it was also true that I enjoyed the Kwaito, the dance, as well. While some believed that we women performed such for the pleasure of the men, I had never run, nor leapt, nor danced for anyone other than myself.

            In the end, being able to speak with the chajman— to be heard— is the experience that has taught me, perhaps more than any other, that it is not enough to be satisfied with merely my freedom.

Because of that,when I learned from the chajman of Sik Nati that the portal I’d come through had in fact been ‘created’- and that there were others like it, I knew I had to make a journey not only to Ustaarabu, the source of such wonders, but anywhere and everywhere such portals might be found…