Raz

The 'Rear' Mountains, The Vast

I lived for the dark. For those cold, secluded places where nobody went. The night, that everybody was so afraid of —it became my kingdom.

The darkness was where I felt safe. It was where I could be alone.

Over the years, the others sometimes tried to coax me out with their secret meetings, their rationed 'feasts', the occasional game by the firelight. But I never joined in, and they soon stopped trying.

I was an island.

It made me feel vulnerable, living in a group. Having to depend on other, weaker people than myself. Having to trust others with my life. With my Ima's life. No one was that trustworthy.

If it hadn't been for Ima, I would have been long gone. They wouldn't have seen me for dust. But because of Ima, I was forced to stay.

We lived, if you could even call it living, a nomadic lifestyle, and had been traipsing up the coastline of the Origin through the Vast Desert for the past few years, finally crossing towards the Rear Mountains.

I saw a robustan shoot a zebra, once, for the sheer hell of it. What kind of arsehole shoots a zebra and doesn't even eat it afterwards?

Our nomadic lifestyle was risky, but so much safer than staying in one place. When we did temporarily stop moving, we tried our best to stay hidden. The Rear Mountains were a gift from nature; over the last few thousand years, the volcanic rocks had eroded to form a network of caves and tunnels. We had been hiding inside these tunnels for the past few months, and I had grown to know them like the back of my hand.

I say 'we'. I should say, the Mahtillim, and I. Ima considered herself to be of the Mahtillim, she said so herself, even though they were of what used to be called "Middle-Eastern" decent and she was born all the way down at the southern tip of the Origin, which used to be called "Africa". She believed it so strongly that she'd only respond to me if I called her by the Mahtillim's word for mother: Ima. Sometimes, when I did, she'd tell me of a time when life was beautiful and she had everything she could ever want. And yet, she never actually wanted anything. But of course, this was before she was captured.

She was a funny woman, my Ima, my mother. It had been twenty-five years since the surviving Mahtillim escaped the robustans and she was captured, and she remembered it like it was yesterday. I think, in her head, it was still yesterday, she was so far away most of the time. I'm not sure she remembered me being born.

I soon decided I liked the caves of the Rear Mountains. I took to walking through them at night, the darkness never a problem for me, listening to the skuttling of sand-critters across the rocky floors. The other Mahtillim used to watch me when I left to go on my explorations, but none of them ever offered to join me.

They were plotting something, and had been for the last few weeks. I didn't much care until I realised that every time I got back from the tunnels, the conversations would abruptly stop.

'Whatever,' I muttered to myself. I am an island. They can do their worst.

I went to find Ima, who was huddled in her usual spot. There were several sleeping caves that had been assigned, and most people shared with at least ten other people, but Ima and I were lucky enough to have our own tiny cave to sleep in. Ima spent most of her days there, hunched over, swathed in blankets, staring at the ground and mumbling to herself. One of the women was with her when I arrived, trying to gently coax her into eating something.

'Come on now, Berta, you know you need to keep your strength up.' The woman waved a spoonful of crushed root vegetables tentatively in front of Ima's mouth, but Ima ignored her. I folded my arms, and watched.

'Just one spoonful, that's right . . .'

'No!' Ima's hand flew up from under the blankets and knocked the spoon away from the woman, spilling the vegetables all over herself. I sighed.

'Enough now. Leave her to me.'

The woman flinched at the sound of my voice. 'It's okay, Raz, I wasn't doing any harm.' She backed away from Ima, raising her hands up in a pacifying gesture. I shook my head.

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'Get out of here.'

The woman scurried out of the cave, and I dropped down to the ground beside Ima. Slowly, I took a spoonful of the vegetables out of the bowl, and chewed it up myself. Then, I spat it back out onto the spoon.

'See, Ima? It's not poison.'

Ima whispered something at me, and flapped her hands over her face.

'No, I'm not eating your food. Nice try. Eat, or you'll die, and then all of this will be a waste.'

Ima moaned, but I brought the chewed-up roots to her mouth anyway, and reluctantly she opened her mouth and let me spoon them in. She glared at me as though I was the worst person in the entire world, which I suppose might be true, and spat a chunk out at me. It hit me in the face. Wiping it off, I resigned myself to a long evening.

*

It was another hour before I was sure Ima had eaten a proper meal, and I left her rocking and muttering to herself. The others were huddled around the fire in the largest cave, which they called the chamber, and were deep in conversation when I entered. I wouldn't have bothered, but by now I was hungry too, and the only way to get any food around here was to get it from the cooks in the chamber.

Of course, they stopped talking when I came in, and so I ignored them all back, taking a bowl of roots for myself and sitting down in a corner of the chamber, eating in silence.

Idiots. As if they can beat me at my own game.

My spoon was tiny in my hand. I turned the wooden instrument over and over, and wondered if I could crush it just by clenching my fist. I concentrated hard, and watched it crumple a little in my grip. A tiny cough broke my concentration, and I turned to glare over my shoulder.

It was Anthon, the leader of the Mahtillim, hovering like a gnat behind me.

'What do you want?' I glowered at him. For a well-built, middle-aged man, he looked like a little kid as he scuffed his feet on the ground.

'It's about time we had a talk, don't you think?' he said, taking a deep breath.

'No.'

'Look, Raz,' Anthon tried again. I could hear him losing patience as his voice wavered. 'Everyone's treading on eggshells. It's got to stop. We need to talk about this.'

I stood up, and Anthon backed away. I sneered down at him, the pathetic little man. 'You gonna make me?'

'No, Raz. But I am asking you. Please, have a bit of common-sense. We've all been trying to come up with the best solution for weeks now, and you haven't exactly been very approachable—'

'You know my thoughts on the matter.'

'I know, I know.'

'So this is what you've all been trying to hide from me? You're trying to find another way to push Ima out.' I wasn't asking them. I already knew the answer. I think I'd known it all along.

'No, Raz. Obviously, that isn't what any of us want at all, you know how much we all . . . uh . . . care about Berta, but you must see how trying to keep her with us is affecting the tribe. None of us can think of another solution!' Anthon must have noticed the look on my face as he suddenly backed even further away, and Leah and Caleb came over to join him. Safety in numbers, you know.

I took two, heavy, deliberate steps towards him. I could feel the tension in my muscles as I flexed them, and a burning hatred flooded through my body as I seized the front of Anthon's shirt.

'Raz, no!'

'I don't care what you want, or what is best for the tribe. She'll die without you. You know she will.'

'But you can care for her better than any of us can—'

'It's not about that and you know it. Last time you tried to ditch us, she curled up into a ball and cried for days without stopping. She refused to eat, she refused to sleep—she gave up on living, you worthless piece of dog-shit. And you claim to care about your own, to care about your tribe.' I flung Anthon away from me in disgust, and spat at the ground by his feet. Leah was by his side in a second, checking if he was okay and helping him back to his feet.

'We put up with you for her sake,' Caleb yelled at me, as Leo ran over to restrain him. 'As if any of us want you around us, but we do it for her sake.'

'For her sake? For her sake? Don't kid yourself you've done anything for her sake, we all know whose sake it's been for—'

'How many lives are we supposed to sacrifice for one person, Raz? How many people, how many children, are we going to put at risk just to keep her alive?'

'As many as it takes.'

'Enough!' Anthon had recovered from the shock of his fall, and he rushed to stand between me and Caleb, arms stretched out to keep us apart. 'Raz, you've got to understand—Berta is a danger to herself, to all of us. I've lost count of the number of times she's nearly given us away; without your uncles, who knows what could have happened. But they've all sacrificed themselves for her, for you, and they were good, strong men with families, Raz. All we are trying to do is keep the people we love alive.'

'And that's exactly what I'm doing too.' I took a deep, steadying breath. 'You listen to me, and you listen good. For as long as Ima wants to be with you all, then that's exactly what is going to happen. If you leave in the night, I will hear, and we will follow. If you try to kill us, I will kill you first. If you try and lure us into a trap, I will outsmart you. And every person who tries to hurt Ima? I will destroy them. Have I made myself clear?'

The others paused. Leah and Caleb glanced at each other, their expressions heavy with despair, and Leo covered his face with his hands. Anthon just looked at me, and I met his gaze unfalteringly until his eyes dropped to the ground.

'Fine. There's not much I can say to any of that, is there.' He turned away from me and walked back to the rest of the Mahtillim, who were waiting back by the fire. 'There's no point lingering here any longer, in that case. Pack your things tonight and make sure you get a good sleep, because tomorrow, we move again.'

I walked away as a commotion broke out amongst the others in my tribe, and I headed towards the tunnels that I didn't want to leave, away from the people I could never escape. For me, there was never any escape. But as long as there was breath in my body, I would make sure that nobody, nobody, ever got to hurt Ima again.