Part 1:
The waters of Amreng flew against the wind, parading the stream of silver moonlight, in between the silent mountains, into the angry river. The only sound is that of this huge spring-fall piercing the deathly silence of the entire valley. A distance away stalls the repository of the Yoru-karbis (Yourus), a self sustained warrior class of the Karbi tribe. The fire burns with a crackling sound to save them again from the beastly attacks and the curse of Muaria, the Goddess of life and affluence. It has not even been a year, since Zuna and Byton were sacrificed to Muaria, an act that spelled doom for an otherwise gregarious tribe of the entire valley of Karbi Angklong. Not a single child in the valley has been born alive since then and the men have started to age before time, pronouncing a threat to the entire race. The burning fire of energy and wisdom of the race is today a pyre of the fallen. But it was never meant to be this way...
It was a paradise breathing green in their hearts and smile in their faces. They celebrated the joy of living together, through singing, drinking “laaopyeni” and dancing; embracing death and disease as a holy plan, collecting weed to laugh together in times of need, and jumping all night, at the call of the unborn. They liked to live in a world they created for their own, not mingling with the external society even for any basic need. They were a triumphant race against nature, against the common mankind.
Singing and dancing came as naturally as eating and drinking, to them. Every young boy grew up to be a minstrel and the nymphs as a danseuse. Music ran in the waters of Amreng. Zuna, was the daughter of Horan, the head priest of the Yourus, a noble man who knew to read the Gieta and sing for Muaria, to protect the valley. According to the villagers, Zuna was the re-incarnation of Swerpa, the dead wife of Horan, boring the same eyes, hair texture, smile and the madness for Nimaan, the dance of cult where she was consumed to the forbidden, for good. She grew up to be as beautiful as her mother, a body that every virile male aspires to honour and consume, but the law of the valley only allowed the strongest males to consummate with the beautiful , as the child would be strong, bold and beautiful.
Zuna threw up blood when she was 14 years. She could now split her both legs into a straight line to perform the great johan dance, the graceful dance of the 4 seasons, spread around the village's mighty Borhgos tree, celebrating womanhood, and the zeitgeist of the fertile Karbi-valley. Zuna slowly learnt all the 36 dances to become the youngest perfect trina of the race, an accomplishment to master all the forms of art in dancing. She was married to Emon, the snake-charmer, who saved Horan, from the deathly fangs of Kiron, the queen viper who had lived a hundred years to kill the primogenitive men of the valley, those who killed and scaled off her husband, the snake-king, for their good. But Emon, never returned from the valley of the Baraks, along with his friends, in search of the green herb that cures vision, so that one can shoot a bow looking exactly from its tip to the target. He was known to be a martyr who died for them and Zuna a proud widow, at an age of 22 years.
It was the 13th halved moon of the third season of the sun. A cult night for the Yourus, venerating Maukshyasa, the Goddess’ half man, half women form, to resolve conflict of the mind and take decisions for the period of the new moon coming up in about a week’s time. Horan believes that his daughter will give birth to a son, who would be rejoiced as the “martyr’s soul”. Zuna conceived a green-eyed boy, as beautiful as his father, much to the joy of Horan, but to the fear, as she knew that with time her father would come to know about the fact of her giving birth to a life which could neither hear nor talk.
Horan decides to come and see his bloodline...
End of Part 1:
