A Different Kind of Despair (5 page)

I couldn't wrap my head around such a concept.
It's like being a fantastic swimmer for someone terrified of
water.

Marvin wasn't very popular among Hikari men,
at least not at first. More than a couple refused treatment from
him outright because he was too much of a stranger. It wasn't until
an old rider was returning from a hunt that Marvin finally had a
chance to show his skills.

He lost control of his horse, flew off its
back, and the impact broke two ribs and a hip in the process. At
his age, some eighty odd years, most of us were of the mind that he
was beyond saving. Marvin stopped us from delivering the mercy
kill, had his tools on hand, and performed the necessary surgery to
save the rider's life.

Before then, the only reason to cut open a man
or woman was either to remove the shaft of an arrow or ease the
delivery of a gruesome birth. My mother stayed the hands of her
horrified kin, and ordered all adults fourteen and older to watch
Marvin work.

He lit a bundle of herbs and waved it before
the rider's nostrils, and his eyes grew glassy before weighing low.
Those observing squirmed as he made his incisions, plying through
layers of bloody flesh with more skill than our veteran hunters as
they skinned and divided their quarry.

It lasted a little over an hour. The patient
awoke shortly thereafter, appalled yet amused by what had happened
in his artificial sleep. It took two weeks for the skin to mend,
three months for the hairline scars to fade, and half a year for
the bones to be as strong as they were before the
accident.

Marvin had rescued a man we were convinced was
beyond saving. While he never quite fit in, he earned our deepest
respect on that day.

Once again, I was so proud of him that my
heart was on the verge of bursting as my stubborn kin offered their
reluctant praise in light of his efforts.

I tousled his dyed hair, earning a perplexed
frown for my affections.

"What was that for?"

"Nothing, really."

Marvin sighed, but did not press any further
than that.

"Hold up," Leo called back to us. "The
entrance is around here somewhere."

Marvin set me back on the ground,
but took me by the hand to make sure I still had a guide in the
darkness.

While the glowworms above us were too few and
high up to illuminate the world, they did remind me of starlight. I
remained staring at the ceiling for that reason, perfectly content
in the knowledge I was in good hands, marveling in the unexpected
beauty of the unknown.

"Found it!" Leo exclaimed, waving us forward.
"It's pretty damn tight, so mind your head."

Marvin put me in front of him,
right behind Will. The crevasse we entered was indeed rather small.
I couldn't stretch my arms without hitting both sides of the
passage, and damp vegetation on the ceiling passed over my head,
sending violent chills down my spine at their touch.

"We're almost there," Marvin
whispered.

Light flooded the end of the path as soon as
the words left his mouth. We quickened our pace, entering a great
cavern beset with glittering gemstones.

There was water here, a great pool of it so
impossibly clear that I could see the tunnels and rock patterns
underneath. Light reflected off its surface, bouncing off the
shining facets of the cave.

"Oooookay, here we are! Purilo's place," Leo
announced.

"Great," said Marvin. "Where do we
go from here?"

I stopped paying attention at that point,
transfixed by the water bubbling up into a pillar behind us. It
solidified in the shape of a bluish woman. Will was the first to
notice her after me.

"I think I just found our guide."

Everyone looked at her.

"JIKI!" Leo yelled, grinning from ear to ear.
"How've you been?"

But this woman... this rusalka did not return
his enthusiasm. Instead her eyes did not leave mine, and I felt
naked, as though she was peering into the deepest depths of my
being.

"S-s-shaman," she stuttered, dropping to one
knee. "Why have you c-come to the Moor of Souls?"

6: Koronos

No one spoke after that. This
rusalka lifted her head when I didn't respond to her
question.

"You are a Child of Ayasha, are you
not?"

"Yes," I said. "I am Miraj of Hikari, eldest
daughter of late Shaman Mother Suna."

There was nothing normal about the
circumstances which I found myself at present. Hikari were people
of the light and air, and I, daughter and perhaps the sole survivor
of my people, find myself deep beneath the surface in the company
of necromancers and conversing with spirits who seemed to know more
about myself than I did.

"Late S-shaman?" Jiki glided across the cavern
floor, setting her clammy hands upon my face. I flinched at first,
but was started by their warmth as the water ebbed across my skin.
"C-child," she murmured, and in her milky, bloodshot eyes I saw
great pity. "Truly, you've s-suffered these past few
days."

"Jiki," Marvin spoke this time, pulling me
back by the shoulders. "Can you show us the way to
Purilo?"

"Yes," she said. "But Miraj comes with
me."

His grip tightened. "No. Miraj stays with
me."

Something cold and dangerous
flared in her eyes. I couldn't see Marvin's face, but I felt a
tremor of something equally terrifying running through the tips of
his fingers. It made a stranger of this man for the brief instant I
sensed it. All at once, I my nostrils were filled with the scent of
something rotten and smoky. By comparison, the rusalka, with her
warm watery touch, was preferable.

I grabbed her hand without
thinking.

"Marvin," I said. "It's alright. She won't
hurt me."

I spoke with a conviction I did not
understand, but I knew that what I said was true. Jiki would not
hurt me. I did not know her character enough to trust her as an
individual, but I trusted her ability to keep me safe.

Jiki did not ask for further permission. She
flicked her wrist towards a deeper inlet in the cavern. Puddles
took on lives of their own, bobbing up and down as a
guide.

She wrapped her arms around me. "Miraj and I
have much to discuss."

I can't explain what happened after that; I
can't even comprehend it.

I glanced down for a fraction of a second to
see that my skin had become clear -that I, for all intents and
purposes, had become transparent. I could only spy Jiki's outline
as she sprang back into the cavern pools. In her hands, we were
beings comprised of energy and water, and she showed me the tunnels
leading through the aquatic underground.

The travel was practically instantaneous. She
shot up into the air and reverted to her human form so quickly that
I was left jarred by the experience. Jiki gracefully landed upon
the wet surface.

I flopped with a mighty splash.

"Apologies, S-shaman," said Jiki, extending a
hand. I took it and watched in amazement as this contact allowed me
to rise until I was standing right beside her, the pool as solid as
stone beneath my feet. The extra water, which soaked my hair and
clothes, bubbled to the surface before rolling off, leaving me
perfectly dry in the process.

"Who
are
you?" I asked, awed. "How do you
know so much about my people?"

"I, too, was Hikari," said Jiki with a tiny
smile. She led me back to solid earth, in a space that seemed more
a fortress of stone than a natural formation. "S-some five hundred
years ago, I was Jiki, daughter of Kavala, Sister Sage of Shaman
Mother Iona."

Sister Sage.

This was a title given to the wisest of
advisers to the Shaman Mother. The Sister Sage was the right hand,
the sounding board, and the only one allowed to question or counter
a decision made by the tribe head.

I seldom saw my mother's Sister Sage, Galrin,
but the few times I did I recall marveling at her ancientness. She
was so wrinkled that I don't even think she could see on account of
her drooping eyelids. Her skin was like old leather crinkled in a
thousand different places. She often just sat there, staring into
space with a long pipe hanging off her bottom lip, making musing
sounds every so often to the empty air.

"Sister," I smiled at the spirit, for dead or
not, she was Hikari, and Hikari were kin regardless of their fate.
"What business do you have with me?"

"A c-c-concern," said the rusalka. I followed
her to a sitting area carved within an alcove. She bid me sit
somewhere on the cushions. I complied without a second thought.
"You do not know what you are."

Ire flashed across my senses.

"I am Miraj, daughter of S-"

Jiki raised a hand. "You
know
who
you are,
but not what you are. C-can you tell me what a S-shaman
is?"

"A leader."

"If it were so s-simple," she began. "Then you
would be 'leader' not 'Shaman'. Shaman is the reason I c-could
travel with you as I did through the water. Shaman is the reason
you knew I would not harm you. S-shaman is what you are, now that
your mother is no longer."

I felt something snap inside of me.

It was not a great sound, like a mighty tree,
but something much smaller, like a twig, or a dried piece of grass.
It was the tiny hope I'd nurtured in my breast that somehow my
mother had survived the culling of our kin. A hope that Jiki, and
her frustrating words, had murdered through honesty.

"Then no," I heard myself saying, the
wretchedness I was supposed to feel finally catching up to me. "I
don't know what it is to be Shaman."

Jiki swept her arm before me, and I watched as
water sputtered up from a newly formed hole in the ground. In the
pressurized column I saw the face of a woman, her features
indistinguishable apart from the soft lines of a female
expression."

"In the beginning, there was Ayasha," Jiki
explained. "And from her womb s-sprang daughters four."

I watched as four other faces appeared in the
water totem, repeating the tale in sync with the
rusalka.

"
Kurai of the Shadow Font. Hikari, Child of Light. Akatsuki of
the Morning Sun, and Shinya of the Night.
"

"Ayasha, Womb of the World, is keeper of life
in all its incarnations," the rusalka concluded. "Her Daughters had
the power to interact with the s-s-sentient forms of life, or the
s-spirits of the land around them. They," said Jiki, "were the
first Shamans. S-since then, their power transferred to their
eldest s-surviving daughters upon death."

I blinked.

"Do you mean to say... I'm-?"

"A direct descendant of Hikari, of
Ayasha."

I thought of my mother, but I couldn't see her
reason for not telling me this. This betrayal by omission stung.
She didn't tell me about my lineage. She didn't tell me about my
father being a necromancer. How could a parent love their child and
yet lie to them about matters so deeply connected to their
lives?

Jiki allowed me a minute with these thoughts.
I knew she was gauging my reactions. I even knew that she didn't
actually believe I could be so ignorant until now. It frustrated me
to no end how I knew these things. They weren't even ideas, but
fact!

"Miraj," said the spirit. "Did your mother
have any tattoos?"

"Tattoos?" I wondered. "No-"

-wait.

Yes. She did.

"On her back," I replied. "Like a tree. Its
branches heavy with fruit."

It was a symbol of peace and abundance. Jiki
knew it, therefore I did as well, even though seconds ago I could
barely recall its existence.