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Umzukulwana bellows the name of power - and his cry shatters the heavens. The air, wet with the scent of hot blood, begins to hum and shake with sacred energy – with <span class="mu-i">amandla</span>. Phantom fires of indigo, viridian and emerald alight upon the temple-top. Standing at the precipice of the altar-top, and looking down at the sacrificial pit below, Umzukulwana grips the spear-haft, and with merciless resolve, embeds it deeply into his own beating heart.
Toppling forward into his destiny, he tumbles through the air, but already, his mind is expanding beyond his dying flesh – he <span class="mu-i">feels</span> everything – the gore sluicing into the sacrificial pit, the ancient bones stirring from deep slumber, the racing thoughts of a million dying <span class="mu-i">Ngwenya</span>, their foolish hopes and dreams fueling his apotheosis. These minds join his own – a chorus of the screaming dead, and just as in life, he is their master. For all time, he will be their master.
Umzukulwana’s final coherent thought as the mortal creature who once scrounged for meat in the underbrush of the jungle, so long ago:
<span class="mu-i">I will be the first...but WE will be the last...</span>
