To Quench The Fire – Lele Muthali

Chapter XI | The Dance of Fire

Days later, the city erupted.

The Rememberers had grown restless. Peaceful marches turned into occupations, then confrontations. Banners bearing the lion sigil of Judáh flew over buildings. Police lines formed. Tear gas mingled with incense.

Noluntu tried to intervene, but events had outpaced intention. The movement was alive — and wild.

As she stood on the rooftop of the Newtown depot, lightning split the horizon. Rain poured in sheets. She raised her arms, remembering The Mirrorwoman’s words: Power without order becomes ruin.

Asher appeared behind her, soaked and solemn. “You’re standing where kings once fell,” he said.

“Then let them rise again,” she replied.

He touched her shoulder. “You can end this now. Speak the command.”

She closed her eyes and felt the hum of the continent beneath her feet — the pulse of generations, the memory of water, the cry of buried kingdoms.

Then she danced.

It was the dance of the priestess and the warrior, the ballerina and the witch. Each step invoked an element — earth, air, fire, water, spirit — until the storm itself seemed to answer.

Lightning struck the old train lines, fusing them into a shape: a lion roaring upward. The rain hissed against the fire but could not quench it.

When she stopped, the city was silent. The violence had ceased. The crowd below knelt as if before an altar.

Noluntu spoke softly, almost to herself. “We don’t fight for power. We become it.”

Chapter X | The Serpent’s Teeth

The backlash came swiftly.

News anchors called her a cult leader. Politicians accused her of inciting rebellion. Even old comrades from the liberation struggle condemned her as “a dangerous mystic manipulating youth through witchcraft.”

At first, Noluntu ignored it. But when her closest ally — a journalist named Lindiwe — disappeared after exposing corruption in the energy ministry, silence became complicity.

That night, Noluntu walked alone through Yeoville, her hood pulled low. Every alley whispered with eyes. She could feel them — watchers, agents, spirits, all converging.

At the corner of Rockey Street, she found a black car idling. Inside sat a man she recognized: the lawyer who had handled her uncle’s estate.

He gestured for her to enter. “They know who you are,” he said, voice low. “They’ve been watching you since the funeral.”

“Who?”

“The same people your uncle worked for. The Ring. They control half the economy, and now they want your movement silenced.”

He handed her a folder. Inside were photos — her meetings, her speeches, even her dreams rendered in strange symbols.

“They fear you because your mother’s prophecy is true,” the man said. “You are the last descendant of the priest-king Zedekiah. And The Ring was built to keep your bloodline hidden.”

Noluntu felt the air constrict. The serpent symbol. The seven doors. The fire. It all circled back.

“What happens if I refuse to hide?”

The lawyer smiled grimly. “Then you’ll have to finish what your uncle began — but this time, cleanse it.”

As she left, she whispered a prayer that was both invocation and vow:
“Let no chain be unbroken that truth cannot burn.”

Chapter IX | The Lion’s Breath

Morning broke like prophecy. A thin mist veiled Johannesburg, softening its edges until the city seemed less concrete, more dream. In that dawn, Noluntu understood that her life had crossed a threshold — not the end of the world, but the beginning of remembrance.

Her book was now a living thing. Its words rearranged themselves with each reading, as if responding to her heartbeat. Passages that once spoke of despair now shimmered with revelation.

She read: “When the lion breathes upon the mountain, every false god will tremble.”

That day, she gathered The Rememberers again — now grown to hundreds, a tide of artists, coders, healers, and visionaries. They met at the disused rail depot in Newtown, now covered in murals and banners. The air pulsed with drums and song.

“We are not starting a revolution,” Noluntu said, standing before them. “We are remembering one that began before nations were born.”

She spoke not as a politician, but as something older — a voice of rhythm, of justice, of fierce tenderness. She spoke of the African future as a spiritual inheritance, of a continent once priestly, now reclaiming its forgotten anointing.

A hush fell when she raised her hands. “This is not about vengeance,” she said. “It’s about balance. About healing what was fractured — in land, in lineage, in soul.”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Amandla!”
Noluntu smiled. “Amandla ngentobeko — power with humility.”

That night, under the new moon, the movement was born — The Covenant of Judáh.

It spread faster than fire, carried through encrypted networks and whispered prayers. Artists turned songs into sermons, hackers defied surveillance, healers opened sanctuaries. Noluntu’s name became code for hope.

But hope, as history knew, never rose unchallenged.

Chapter IIX | The Veil Burns

The transformation was no longer metaphor. The line between waking and vision dissolved.

Noluntu’s eyes saw through time—through empire and dust, through exile and promise. She saw the first temples rise along the Nile, saw priests chanting psalms that would one day echo in Cape Town cathedrals. She saw slaves carried to ships under a red moon, their blood singing the same lament her mother once hummed.

She saw Africa’s glory buried under centuries of forgetting. And she saw it rising—not through politics or power, but through revelation.

When she came to, her book was open again. The page read:
“The veil burns only for those who remember their origin.”

In the following days, strange reports filled the news. Rivers ran backward in Limpopo. Lightning struck Parliament without rain. A mural of a lion appeared overnight on Constitution Hill—signed only with the word Judáh.

People began whispering about a movement led by a mysterious woman who spoke of fire and memory, who preached unity beyond race and creed. They said she could see through lies, heal wounds, read the air itself.

Government officials called her a threat. Churches called her a heretic. The youth called her Mother of the New Dawn.

Asher returned one last time. They met in the ruins of the café where it had all begun.

“Do you love me?” he asked quietly.

She smiled. “You are the mirror I was meant to find. But love is only holy when it serves its purpose. Ours is to remember.”

As he walked away, the wind carried the scent of cedar and flame.

Noluntu stood in the ashes, lifted the book to the sky, and whispered, “Let Judáh rise.”

Chapter VII | The Memory of Water

Weeks passed. Rain returned, flooding the streets until the city became a mirror. Noluntu walked through it barefoot, her reflection rippling like a ghost trying to break free. She’d begun writing again—long, fevered passages about justice, order, divine law.

By now, she had gathered a small circle around her: musicians, writers, young activists disillusioned with politics but hungry for meaning. They met in her loft, where candlelight replaced screens. They called themselves The Rememberers.

They read Scripture, the works of Biko and Fanon, the poetry of Mazisi Kunene, and the proverbs of the desert. They debated democracy and divine kingship, love and liberation, witchcraft and worship.

In these gatherings, Noluntu’s leadership became natural, effortless. Her words carried a quiet authority that both soothed and unsettled. She taught that the true revolution was inward, that Africa’s first colonisation was spiritual.

“God gave us dominion,” she told them one night. “But dominion begins with mastery of self. What good is political freedom if our minds are still enslaved?”

They listened, entranced. Some whispered that she was a prophet. Others feared she was becoming something else entirely.

Asher reappeared, silent as ever. He watched her speak, his eyes full of an unspoken ache. When the others left, he lingered.

“You’re changing,” he said softly.

“So are you.”

He smiled. “You’ve remembered enough to be dangerous.”

She met his gaze. “Then teach me the rest.”

He hesitated. “There are things you can’t unsee. Powers that don’t serve the light you think they do.”

“Light can blind,” she said. “Darkness can reveal.”

For the first time, he looked almost afraid. “Then you’ve already begun the trial.”

Outside, thunder cracked like a drumbeat. Somewhere in the city, a statue of a colonial general collapsed under mysterious fire.

Chapter VI | The Witch’s Mirror

Noluntu’s awakening was not gentle. The dreams grew more vivid, her senses sharper. She began to hear whispers in the hum of electricity, see symbols flicker across billboards.

It was on one such night that she met The Mirrorwoman.

The woman appeared in the park near Maboneng, where Noluntu went to clear her thoughts. She was ancient but ageless, wrapped in a cloak of indigo cloth that shimmered like the night sky. Around her neck hung a pendant shaped like a serpent eating its tail.

“You have fire in your blood,” the woman said. “But you have forgotten how to wield it.”

Noluntu stepped back. “Who are you?”

“I am what your mother called isangoma, and what your ancestors called seer. Some would call me witch, but that word was twisted by men who feared women who could see.”

The Mirrorwoman led her to an abandoned fountain, its basin filled with rainwater and fallen petals. “Look,” she commanded.

In the water, Noluntu saw herself dancing—not in the present, but in another time. Her body moved with the grace of a ballerina and the power of a warrior. Around her, figures in white sang an ancient hymn in isiXhosa and Hebrew intertwined. She held a staff carved with names. When she looked closer, she saw Asher standing beside her, wearing robes of gold and linen.

The Mirrorwoman smiled. “You and he are bound. Two flames from one covenant. But flame destroys as easily as it warms.”

“Is he—” Noluntu began.

The old woman nodded. “He is of the watchers, child. The ones who guide the chosen back to memory. But beware: not all who watch wish you well.”

When Noluntu looked again, the reflection had changed. The figures were gone. Only fire remained—fire that burned without consuming.

“Witchcraft is not evil,” the woman said. “It is creation unaligned. Power without order. The question is—whose order will you serve?”

That night, Noluntu dreamed of seven doors, each carved with the same serpent-star sigil of The Ring. And behind the last door, a man’s voice whispered: “Africa must burn before it can rise.”

Chapter V | The Shadow of the Ring

The city moved differently after the café fire. News reports called it “another accident,” but people whispered of omens. Even the pigeons seemed to circle slower, their wings uneasy with the heat of some invisible flame.

Noluntu walked through the streets as though wading through the residue of her own past. Each corner hummed with faint memory—the laughter of comrades, the sermons of street preachers, the soft murmur of her mother’s voice calling her Nkanyezi, my little star. But the name meant something different now. She could feel her light returning, though dim and uncertain.

Asher had vanished after the fire. No calls, no messages, only the faint smell of sandalwood that lingered in her apartment for days after. She wanted to dismiss him as fantasy, but the note he’d written still glowed faintly in the dark: You’re remembering.

In her sleep, fragments of her uncle’s funeral replayed in reverse—the men with gold rings, their eyes sharp as blades, chanting in a language older than isiZulu. One word echoed in her mind: Zedekiah. She found it the next morning in her book’s margins, written in ink that shimmered like oil.

Zedekiah—the priest-king, last of the holy line before captivity. Was it a name? A title? Or a warning?

That afternoon, she visited her parents’ old comrade, MaLebo, a retired revolutionary who lived in an RDP house on the outskirts of Soweto. The walls were lined with portraits of the struggle: fists raised, faces defiant. But the spirit had faded from them, like colour washed from old cloth.

“Your mother was a prophetess,” MaLebo told her between sips of rooibos. “She said your blood was older than the ANC, older than the Party, older than even the tribes. She said your line was the line of Levi—the priesthood of Israel. But we didn’t listen. We thought she was speaking in riddles.”

Noluntu frowned. “Levi? But how could that be—”

MaLebo raised a hand. “Child, there are stories buried under every revolution. Yours is not to explain. Yours is to remember.”

As Noluntu left, the sky split with thunder. A storm rolled over the city like a rebuke, washing the pavements clean of their false holiness.

Chapter IV | The Covenant of the Forgotten

The newspapers called it another electrical fault. But Noluntu knew better. She recognized the scent in the ashes—the same blend of frankincense and cedar that had marked the first fire. The book had survived again. Only this time, it opened to a page she had never seen before. The ink glowed faintly, as if wet:

“The witch and the warrior are one flesh.
The priestess and the planner are one mind.
When the daughters of Zion remember,
the nations shall tremble.”

That night, she sat by her window, watching the city breathe. Helicopters blinked like angels trapped in their patrols. A group of teenagers filmed a ritual dance under the bridge, fusing old Xhosa chants with synthesized beats. Across the street, a billboard flickered with the words: “Africa Rising—Invest in the Future.”

She laughed bitterly. Rising? The continent had been rising for decades, yet its children were still crawling.

But something stirred in her. A knowing. Her parents had once said, “Revolution begins in remembering.” Perhaps this book was not madness, but a map.

As she turned the pages, she found an unfamiliar symbol—a seven-pointed star woven with serpents. The symbol of The Ring. Beneath it, a line written in her own handwriting:
“Blood remembers blood.”

And in that moment, the city lights dimmed. The air thickened with the presence of unseen witnesses. Noluntu felt her pulse align with something older, something divine. The veil between worlds trembled.

In the reflection of the window, she saw herself—but not herself. Another version, wearing white robes, her eyes alight with knowing. The other her spoke without moving her lips:
“The time has come. Africa will not rise by economics or war, but by revelation.”

Then the reflection faded.
And Noluntu, shaking, began to write.

Chapter III | The Stranger

He returned a week later, though she had replayed their first meeting in her mind every day since. His name, he said, was Asher.

He spoke like a man accustomed to holding secrets gently. His accent was unplaceable—somewhere between Cape Town and Cairo, with a hint of the desert in his vowels. He told her he worked in “strategic intelligence for development” —a phrase that meant nothing and everything.

Their conversations were elliptical. He asked about her book. She lied and said it was fiction. He smiled like he knew the truth.

“Stories are the only real history we have,” he said. “Everything else is propaganda.”

He listened more than he spoke, and when he did, his words felt like scripture smuggled through conversation. He asked about her dreams. She told him of the fire, of the symbols, of Judáh. He nodded gravely, as if recognising a prophecy he had long expected to meet.

Later that week, she dreamed of him. In the dream, they stood in a vast desert where time had no direction.

He handed her a chalice carved from bone, filled with light. “Drink,” he said, “and remember who you are.” When she woke, her lips tasted of salt and honey.

The next day, the café burned down.

Chapter II | Ashes and Water

The fire had begun three months before the story began—at least, that was what the police reports said. But Noluntu remembered no smoke, no screams, only light. Blinding light. When she woke, her hair smelled of frankincense and burnt cedar. Her hands bore no burns. She was told she was lucky. She didn’t feel lucky; she felt chosen.

Fragments of her past came back in flashes: her mother’s laughter during marches; the red berets of the Azanian Socialist People’s Movement; the chants of “Amandla!” echoing against government buildings. Her parents had been revolutionaries once—before the revolution was commodified, before slogans became hashtags. Her father had written pamphlets; her mother had written prayers. Together, they had believed in a South Africa that could be holy again.

And yet, their movement had disappeared like smoke after the flame. Corruption swallowed it whole. Some comrades became ministers, others moguls. Her uncle—beloved, feared, and enigmatic—had become a legend in exile. When he died, men in black coats and gold rings carried his coffin through the township, their tattoos glowing faintly in the sun. It was only then she learned he had been part of The Ring, one of the continent’s most notorious underworld networks.

It was said The Ring had financed revolutions and bought politicians. It was said they trafficked both weapons and dreams. It was said they’d been blessed by witches of the old lineages—those who walked the thin veil between matter and spirit. And Noluntu, with her amnesia and strange visions, began to wonder if the blood of that covenant ran through her veins.

By day, she worked in a café on Commissioner Street, serving imported lattes to disillusioned poets. By night, she wrote. Or perhaps was written. Her journal filled with strange diagrams: interlocking circles that resembled constellations, symbols of ancient priesthoods she did not recall studying. And always, in the margins, one word repeated in another hand: Judáh.

One evening, as rain bruised the horizon, a man entered the café. He carried the kind of stillness that made the air hold its breath. His eyes—grey, but warm—met hers briefly, and the world rearranged itself. There was something unbearably familiar in him, something from before the fire.

He ordered tea, left a generous tip, and a note on the saucer: “You’re not losing your mind. You’re remembering.”