The Ancient Yahman Key

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“Amana! What do the gods say?” Heba gently helped Amana rest his back on the wall of the cave.

“They still speak of the answers, a thousand years from now.” Amana stuttered. As he blinked his eyelids, color returned to his eyes. He had just come out of a trance and was visibly shaken.

“What does that even mean Amana? We have been named the Treasureland by our ancestors for decades. Yet, we have nothing. We are the poorest of the clan. The people have abandoned their farms and flocks in search of this unknown treasure. I'm beginning to think that there is no treasure in this place. We are cursed, Amana! We are damned.” Heba hissed.

“Be quiet Heba. Do not say things to anger the gods. They hear and see us. They are all-knowing.” Amana picked up burning wood from the fireplace in front of them. He used the torch to flash the walls of the cave as he spoke. There were alphabets, inscriptions, and markings of ancient Yahma on the wall. They told the story of the Yahman people and their ways of life. There were images of their ancestors, built in their likeness.

“The key to the treasures which you seek for. That which you are oblivious to lies in the stone in a thousand years.” Amana stuttered some more. “That is what the gods keep saying.”

“So what are we going to tell the people?” Heba inquired.

“Exactly what the gods have said.”

“Amana! You are the eye of the gods. The people look up to you for guidance. How can you keep going back to them with words that do not hold any water? Empty parables.” Heba fumed. Her brows furrowed as she squinted. “How can the solution to our problems be in a thousand years from now?”

“That's enough Heba. I will not twist the words of the gods. They are all knowing and that is their message to us. The people must know.” Amana quenched the torch in his arm by blowing air over it.

“Well, the gods do speak of the stone. Could it be that the treasures of the land are contained in that stone? The Yahman people have always thought so. Do you think we should break it?” Heba drew closer to Amana and searched his eyes.

“Heba! Our ancestors have tried. No tool made by man can break that stone. Come to bed.” With those words, Amana stood up and walked to their bamboo bed. He laid down and drew a dry bull skin over his body and closed his eyes.

Amana could not stop thinking about the fate of his people. The Yahma were the biggest clan and the first of their kind. Yet their resources were dwindling every day. The waters were drying up, the wilderness was slowly moving away and their population was starting to decrease. The gods of the older generation had spoken about the Yahman stone and its treasure. The stone sat gracefully right in the middle of the land. However, in Amana’s time, the goods now speak of the key in parables. Amana stayed conscious for a long while before drifting into a deep sleep.

A loud thud that made the earth, rocks, and trees tremble woke the entire inhabitants of Yahma. “Amana! Eye of the gods. Come and see something strange on our land.”

Amana and Heba could hear the voices of the villagers outside their cave. As they emerged from the cave, warm rays of daylight began lighting the path. They shielded their eyes from the light. When they began to see again, they were greeted by the villagers and something magnificent that they had never seen before on the land. A massive strange round object unknown to them had landed on their soil.

They heard a swishing sound followed by the appearance of an opening on the object. From inside emerged two men. They looked like the Yahman people but strange at the same time. They had tanned skin, thick frames, and jet-black hair. However, they had unusual clothing on. A huge contrast to the skins and hides the Yahmans were clad in.

“We come in peace!” one of the men spoke, treading cautiously from the object. “We are from a thousand years into the future. Where we come from, the year is 3000. We desperately need your help. We've built this time machine for this purpose. The Yahman race is diminishing. We have lost a huge part of our genome. There are only a handful of us now and we have lost a huge part of our genome. The only way we can restore it is for the first of our kind to come with us and mate. That way, we can have a complete set of the Yahman genome. Once again, we would be able to repopulate our race. You are the beginning and unfortunately, we could be the end and last of the race if you do not help us.” The man took a deep breath after saying so much.

Silence ensued. Heba began to whisper in Amana's ears. Moments later, The two men were invited into the cave.

“I will come with you to the future,” Amana announced. “On the condition that you find the Yahman stone and help us break it. It should be somewhere in the future right?”

“What do you mean Amana? What if you never return? Besides, we do not know for sure that these strange men are who they say they are.” Heba stood with her eyes wide open.

“Heba! It is a sacrifice I have to make. I think this day was set in stone by the gods. They knew this day would come. They did speak of a thousand years. Perhaps the key to our treasure is in the future.

“Even if that were true and you go to the future with them, we will remain in the past. So how do we know the answers, Amana?” Heba fumed.

“I don't know Heba. What I know is the words of the gods.”

The next day, Amana hopped on the time machine with the two strange men. Heba remained in the cave while the villagers waved goodbye. She couldn't bear to see the love of her life leave for good. She wouldn't stop wailing.

The third night after Amana’s departure, Heba was mourning silently in her cave when she heard a loud cracking sound followed by tremors. The earth shook. Heba grabbed a torch and ran outside the cave. She followed the cracking sound until she reached where the Yahman stone was. Heba was flabbergasted. The stone had split into two places and inside of it was a paper. Heba had never seen one. She opened it. Inside of it were ancient Yahman letters and inscriptions.

“Heba! My love. They used something called technology to split the rock open. There is no hidden treasure but I have left you this message. I hope The gods let you find it. Heba, we are our treasure. Tell the people to return to their farms. Tell them to tend to their livestock and populate the land again. Let's answer the call of nature and watch our land and our race thrive. That is the treasure Heba. Now you have a responsibility to lead. Now, you have become the eye of the gods.”

Heba fell to her knees weeping. She kept chanting, “We are our treasure and the gods have indeed sent us the key.”