Shrine of the Red Hornet Queen

For over forty years, I have wanted to tell this story but have lacked both the courage and skill. Youth is strange, I only realized years later (to my horror) that my old iSangoma guide and friend, had actually been blind all along. Shrine of the Red Hornet Queen In the dappled half shade of a Bhumbula tree at the foot of a great granite hill, lived a Wizard in rags who enchanted me in his voice that was cracked and shrill. Eyes agleam in the dusk as spirits grew bold scurried soft while the smoke swirled around; from his dry withered lips spilled stories of old and the tales of lost battle ground. On the sand by the camp fire glow he would kneel with a body all broken and frail, till a throw of the bones in the dust would reveal to the crone what the ancients bewail. "If you cross the five hills going east from the graves to the land maLindzimu ignored; follow me to the south where the bones of slaves fed the flames when the smelt furnace roared. Where the great bellows huffed amid smoke sweat and blast till the eye of the forge shimmered green, where the spearheads birthed and the bronze shackles cast for the guard of the Red Hornet Queen. Sweep your eyes to the ridge as you search for a slit, for a cleft in that grey granite wall; through a thorn chaparral where the rock has split, cross a bridge with its stern sentry tall. Do you see where these boulders were rolled to the side, hide a path to the nest of the Queen? Now we edge past the ledge where the wasp-men would hide; it is clear their defense was supreme." Then as clouds swirled grey in the old man's eye to the visions rushing out from the past and a thousand summers or more flashed by when the bones once again were cast. "Over here are the pits where the slaves were restrained, it was done so that none may oppose that Cannibal Queen who was thus entertained, and imbibed of the blood of her foes. From the caravans rich there was loot for the bold on the road to King Solomon's mine. They would raid for the ivory, slaves and the gold for their Queen and the Red Hornet Shrine. As a pack on the scent chased troops of the King while the Wasps would look down from on high. The assault would begin and the war-cries ring 'till the death-stones rained from the sky. Each attack was repulsed and Solomon's men would retire to the mines for a rest. The lieutenant chastised and threatened again should he fail to annihilate the nest. Well the Hornets grew rich, with their arrogant Queen every year in their fortress of stone, and the crew of the mines and the tribes grew lean for the wrath of their King to atone". iSangoma of old, with a mystical smile stroked softly the gray granite wall, the Ancestral spirits to coax and beguile then he rose with his staff proud and tall. "I can see, that at last 'twas a weakness revealed in a cipher received by the Chief. Betrayal for the price of a curse was concealed by a plan that was bold and brief. Like a beast of the night, came Solomon's curse, past the guards as a humming of bees. Sheer face of the rock but a simple traverse, as it entered the sanctum with ease. No-one said what befell, not a soul would re-tell what became of the Red Hornet clan, It was rumored by some they eventually fell; the result of this treasonous plan. They were all disemboweled, every man, woman, child and their cruel Queen impaled on a spear, just a Forge-Master's boy escaped to the wild where he lived out a lifetime in fear. If you scratch at your feet among shards in the dust you may find a small clue or a sign but the Ghosts of this tomb keep a secret in trust; it's the gold in a Grey Granite Shrine". Then a great wind rushed and the trees bowed down while the Sun turned away in his shame, for my blind Wizard's eyes stared up white in his death and I fled like a buck from the flame. The ancestral blood runs no-more in his veins. yet his story's still told at the feasts, it is oft' whispered down from the hills to the plains; finds a voice in the howling of beasts. - The graves of Cecil John Rhodes (maLindzimu) and other founders of Rhodesia lie on a famous sacred hill in