Think about training to survive in complex conditions or situations like trying to stay alive underwater when you have not had air for over thirty minutes or still having a functioning brain when you are lost in the Arctic for over three weeks. At least, surviving the desert would be easy for us, you know, it comes with possessing Black skin. Here's the oddest thing, even though we trained to a point beyond exhaustion, I pondered on the conversation I overheard at the garden; is David Kufu real, why would someone so famous avoid the spotlight.
It was a quarter to midnight when Jacob announced that the day's training was over, I was completely worn out, and as usual, Ta-hawa did not break a sweat. Like this chick isn't human. We were talking about the near future after becoming Apostles while enjoying midnight dinner. Eating food always makes you forget the pain. Wait… Isn't that alcohol? Anyway, I was enjoying my food and the company, too much to care that I was worn out, and then again that night at the garden that conversation came back like a riptide. I had to know.
Jk: Makela?
Makela: yes?
Jk: have you ever seen David Kufu?
Makela: no… Why do you ask?
Jk: it's the things I heard about him… They sound legendary and-
Makela: legends become gods and then myths, yeah, I see where you going. The First World only knew of one surviving Kufu, the firstborn of the Kufu family, apart from that no one really knows what happened but his majesty took the eldest child and went left while her majesty took their last born, a three-month-old baby, and went right. Their objective was to meet in Panguila, a legislative capital that sort of unites the Kongo territories that is the Kufu, Ntoma, Nzadi, and Nzinga kingdoms and Empires.
Jk: and?
Makela: don't interrupt me!
Jk: ok!
Makela: from what we know his majesty died while his four-year-old son and his governess escaped. His Majesty was one of the most powerful sorcerers and warrior kings of his time but a man cannot fight for so long and not succumb to exhaustion. [she sighed]
Jk: what about her majesty?
Makela: she was poisoned by who? Or what? Which we do not know, those who are in the know of this chose to conceal this information although what we do know is that there was no cure, Deceptive Sorcery…
Jk: and David Kufu?
Makela: how he survived is still a mystery I mean how does a three-month-old baby survive? Jk: and the Legends?
Makela: Legend has it that before her majesty joined her ancestors, she had left baby David in the hands of an eight-year-old orphan child. A child single handily raised and mothered baby David who came to be one of the most powerful sorcerers of the First World of this age.
David Kufu was a brilliant pupil starting from preparation school, the things he could do with a sceptre even to the eminence of philosophical sorcerers was unheard of. Unlike the Gentile world, students here are equal to football players of your world.
The bests are bought from one institution to another. Having the best of the best evokes higher prestige to the school, especially in academic and sports tournaments but I wonder how so many had not known he was the lost child of royalty.
Jk: what do you mean?
Makela: well. it's not like he had a different name before being David Kufu. People around him, close friends call him DK but you would not expect two letters to be written on your school report.
Jk: you have a point… How come no one knew?
Makela: it's a mystery. Certain names are exclusive to royal families, often these names are repeated over generations or centuries, in fact, millenniums. The last David Kufu was the great-great-great-grandfather of his majesty.
Jk: wait you mean to tell me I'm royalty? [I pretended]
Makela: you are kind of slow if you only picking it up now.
Jk: so, I can shift into second nature? [I hoped even though I already knew the answer to that question]
Makela: you are not an Odum.
Jk: how can you tell? [disappointed, again]
Makela: The Odum have three sets of eye colours; a golden iris and black pupil, a golden iris and pupil, and a large black pupil with a golden iris inclosing the large pupil which is hard not to notice. Plus, their eyes reflect the Sun's light so they usually wear shades while outdoors especially on sunny days.
Jk: man! That would have been so cool. I'm not an Odum, I still don't understand why. [I lied] Makela: I do not know, there is so much mystery within the Kufu and the Nzinga linage. You are not an Odum, though, you are an Apostle by blood ̶
Jk: and so is David Kufu!
Makela: true but that's from his maternal side of the family, I think. Besides One may become an Apostle due to sheer-will such as Heru Kwa Nzinga and ̶
Jk: you.
Makela: yes... [she blushed]. Though from what I understand being an Odum is probably a question of being in a royal Kongo inner power circle.
Jk: tell me when you finished blushing.
Makela: abeg, forget dat one!
Jk: and then there is due to Blood… Which I take is a mystery too.
Makela: yes. Think about it, David Kufu is an Apostle by blood from his maternal side and General Nzinga became an Apostle due to sheer will and her majesty is Heru's older sister.
Meaning…
Jk: her majesty was an Apostle by sheer will!
Makela: then again, his majesty and his ancestors have been Apostles since the foundation of the Creed. To be honest her majesty might not have been an Apostle or she might have.
Jk: how so?
Makela: The Kufu and Nzinga were once a single-family during the foundation of the Creed.
Jk: this is so confusing, is everything this confusing here?
Makela: no though I will admit it is a paradox.
Jk: once this is over before we leave. If I get the chance, I'll head to the Manetho Library for answers concern my lack of Odumship. [lied again. But not to her, rather, to myself. I had already been there. I knew the answer.]
The fact was, only a few became Apostles out of sheer will and might, being scouted by the Apostles must have been something big but everything felt like a mystery, something was not right. David Kufu was a mystery too.
Check this out. An aircraft transporting a special package had mysteriously crashed in Moorssaw the land of the Fallen kings, it is also known as the land of the dead and forgotten, so they say.
The government would not risk the lives of any person to retrieve the special package for those who dared to venture there had never returned to tell the tale. It was David Kufu and his pack who defiantly made their way to Moorssaw, the Kammatu president at the time became furious when he discovered that a bunch of teenagers were going to Moorssaw.
Therefore, he had sent military personnel to prevent them from making it to Moorssaw but as much as the odds were against David Kufu and his pack they made it to the Land of the Fallen Kings.
A few months later they had returned to Kemet with the special package and you would think that they were awarded medals of bravery, no, the government tagged them as delinquents but that had not mattered for they were admired in the eyes of the Kammatu and out of shame the government was forced to recognize them with medals of honour which David Kufu had turned down. But something in Moorssaw, something David and his pack had seen in there, changed them. As for the package, it is not clear if it was returned to the government.
Makela said it was odd that they went after the special package in the first place. There was more to Moorssaw than retrieving a special package which, whatever was inside is still unknown.
After dinner without speaking to each other, we slept in the pavilion on a Swahili hammock under a transparent roof. I had not known whether I was falling asleep or hallucinating though it appeared as if the stars were not only switching colours but also constellations.
I turned my head to face Makela who was partially asleep, "why are the constellations moving?", I asked Makela, "it's the transparent roof, it's enchanted", she murmured. "How?", I asked again, "goodnight...", was the last word she said to me.
I kept staring at the moving constellation without realizing that the moving stars were telling a story about a girl who had to prove herself equal in a society that treated her unequally due to what she was and before I knew it, my eyelids closed and I travelled to oblivion.
What is neither here nor there? I felt inept in transit, I was unable to move, forward to where? I was unable to return, return from where? How had I gotten here? I was at a train station that resembled the Cape Town Central Metro station, I was standing on platform 95 though my feet felt afloat.
This place was nothing like the hustle movement of Cape Town Metro station. It was simple, people exclusively moved in two directions; to go and come. I could not understand where I was. Whenever I tried to move right, I moved left and whenever I tried to walk forward, I moved backwards. I looked at my feet to see if they were on the surface though I could not feel my feet on the ground. There was everything and yet nothing here, it was and yet was not. A paradigm of a paradox.
I instantly woke up, "how did you know?", asked a surprised Makela. "I didn't", I replied. My head was throbbing; I could hardly see well. "get ready as fast as you can, Jacob wants us at the training ground in four minutes.", said Makela. It took me a while to stand straight and it even took me a while to accurately move a foot forward. I felt as if my spirit had left my body but that was crazy, I mean was there such a feeling. Little had I known that there was more of it to come.
Four minutes later, I was standing next to Makela on the training ground trying to make out the words that were coming out of Jacob's mouth. I could hardly comprehend anything.
I closed my eyes and inhaled, for a moment I felt everything coming into synch, I felt whole like when body temperature returns to normal. I exhaled and opened my eyes. Jacob noticed me as if he knew what the problem was but then he shook his head to indicate that whatever he thought had nothing to do with me.
"Jacob. Sir, before we begin. I have a question that has been bothering me for a while", I managed. "ask away", he said. "Azlo had no intelligence of the Apostles because New Kemet has no intelligence of the Apostles, well, not at least in the past five hundred years", "yes", "how come the Apostles did not stop the Azlo reign?", I asked. "Our elders in disguise had warned the government to demote Artificial Intelligence. They acted upon the Maditau's prophesy to warn the government", he replied.
"I see… where was the Maditau?", "still in the Astral Plane, it was there that she was able to see into the future, to this moment and into the inevitable war. Upon her enlightenment, she saw machines made by us, overpowering us. Unable to leave her quest half-finished, she sent a message to the Elders", he said. "I can assume that your government did not heed to the prophetic warning", I said. Honestly, why is every government somehow useless?
"Yes. The Maditau warned, should they refuse, we could not interfere with their consequences and that the fate of Kemet would rest upon the banks of the borderlines. Precisely where I found Heru Kwa Nzinga.".