Nirvana Effect (8 page)

Edward turned his head to vomit beside the bed.  His body spasmed in pain as he retched.  This didn’t
faze
Mahanta at all
;
rather, it was as though he’d expected it.

“Of course, your God will still live and be your God.  I am no god at all, merely a…scientist.”  He said this last word measuredly, in English.  There was no Onge word for it.  “
This is all just a matter of survival.  I know this is happening fast, but we have no other options at this point. 
I’m glad you finally woke up when you did
. 
Are you ready?”

Edward knew he had no choice but to be ready.
  Whether Mahanta’s logic was correct or not was inconsequential.  Whether or not his intentions were pure did not matter.  If Mahanta told him to eat manure
Edward would have
to comply.  Edward was too weak physically to defy his only protector.  He did not want to die.  He didn’t feel that God wanted him to die, either.

Edward
heard one
man’s
voice ring out clearly over the
wild
hubbub
outside
.  “Give us the white man!” 
He
was followed by an approving roar.

God, please forgive me
. 
Edward had prayed more in one week than he had in a year. 
“Yes, I’m ready.”

Mahanta nodded.  “It is important, Edward, that during your brief demonstration to the tribe, that you look completely healthy. 
Is that understood?”  Edward nodded.  “
I can
’
t give you
any more of the nectar.  You’
ve h
ad three injections in less than
two moons.  I’
ve never had to experience the degree of pain that I know you now feel.”  There was a touch of compassion in his tone that Edward somehow f
ound
reassuring.  “Let us stand.”

Edward couldn’t help but scream
again, though this time he was well aware of it
.  Once moving, he found it helped to stay moving.  He wobbled back and forth, his vision almost seared
out by the pain.

“Breathe more quickly.  Increase your heart rate.  Release your adrenal glands...
get angry…Don’t look it, though.
” advised Mahanta.

Oddly, Edward found that he could follow the commands, no
t nearly as thoroughly as he would have been
able to while in
that
trance, but he started to feel his heart rate go up and the pain ease a bit.  It was still unbearable.

“Are you okay?” asked Mahanta.

Edward did not speak, but almost swooned.  Mahanta propped him up.

“You will need to speak loud and clear out there,” said the Onge.  “You will need to
look
healed.  And you will need to stand tall, and then bow to me.”

Edward breathed in deep and wiped the tears out of his eyes.  He let out a long, frustrated groan.  “Let’s go,” he muttered.

He leaned against Mahanta, shuffling all the way to the entrance of the hut.  Bamboo reeds hung from the arch of the door by strings to make a rigid sort of drape.  Mahanta deposited
Edward to lean against the wall just inside and walked out to the crowd.

The tribe stopped their shouting.  They
had
long awaited this hour
to hear the wisdom of their Manassa.  They knelt before him
, the white man momentarily forgotten
.

Already, th
eir god had conjured the clouds;
the rains had come for two days just as he
had
foretold
.  He had, of course, slain the panther.  He had defeated the medicine man, even though the medicine man
had
cheated and attacked
Manassa
unarmed
upon his triumphant return
. 
Manassa had even
healed a child, Tomy, of demons. 

Every day, for a short time,
Manassa
talked to his people.

The tribesman Tien
, on his knees,
pushed his way closer to Manassa.  He had a mission that would fail if he did
get near
. 

Even if
Tien’s deed
meant
hi
s
death it would be for the greater good of the tribe and his god
.  He was to slay the white man on sight.  If the white man didn’t come out, Tien
was to wait in the night and assassinate
him
as he slept. 

Others were agitating the crowd to draw out the white man. 
Tien
was to wait at the front of the crowd, his dagger in hand.  But the crowd was thick, thicker than any other day.  Tien could not get up to the front; the people there were jealous and kept pushing him back.  They refused to be far from Manassa.  They had waited all day to be near Him.

“MY
PEOPLE!” shouted Manassa in the
traditional Onge
tongue he favored
. 
My great god,
thought Tien.  He had been one to see Manassa fight the panther, and again fight the medicine man.  Earlier, he’d seen
Manassa
shatter the medicine man’s spear.  He had no doubt in his mind that this boy was the
immortal
of their legends.

“Manassa!” shouted the crowd in unison, Tien along with them.  He was several rows back.  Now that everyone was kneeling
it was difficult edging
closer.

“YOU ARE THE CHOSEN!” shouted Manassa.

“As are you, our god!” said the tribe.

“Hear me today, my people.  A mighty miracle is at hand.  Here today is the first shudder of a powerful earthquake.  H
ere is the first branch bent by an unstoppable
typhoon.  Here is our first advance to the high throne to which the Onge are destined.”  Tien had never learned traditional Onge.  He did not understand what Manassa was saying.  He would hear the story later, from Dook or another.  He could not help but be excited, though, by the tone of his god’s words, by the rustling enthusiasm of the tribe all around him. 

Dook had explained it all to him.  All was as had been prophesied for generation upon generation.  T
heir living god would lead the
tribe to become the chieftains over all chieftains…

Manassa continued.  “I told you
that
past the horizon, where the sun sets,
lies
a land ruled by the white man, a land of untold riches and plenty.  Though we know of them, they know not of us.  We are but a speck to them, a termite, an ant.  They know not
that
their living god walks the earth today.  They fear not the Chosen Tribe.

“But today, Manassa has made the white man his slave, has made the white man to recognize the living god.  For today, the white man, the Jesus-man-no-more, Edward Styles, is healed!”  He dramatically pulled aside the bamboo reeds.  The white man exited the temple. 

The priest
stood resolutely, every muscle in his body tense.  There was no sign of his head injury.  Tien had seen Edward’s body in the clearing after the panther fight.  There was no way he could be standing so soon; no human could recover so quickly. 
White demon.  He is here
to work his witchcraft on our g
od. 
He wished he knew what Manassa was saying.  It would help him kill this demon.

Tien felt a fluttering in his stomach, the same that he got while on the hunt.  A part of him wished the white man had never shown himself.  He did not want to have to perform. 
I must not fail. 
Dook had promised to kill him if he failed.   Tien gripped his knife’s reassuring handle.  To succeed was glory.

“I am healed!” shouted Edward, also in traditional Onge.  “I am grateful eternal
ly
.  I renounce my God and my ways.”  Edward took the cross hanging from his neck and broke it off its necklace.  He threw it to the ground.  “Manassa, you are my god, the only living god on earth, with the power to change nations.”

Tien
slid the dagger from its sheath
.  Odd the priest was throwing down his necklace.  Perhaps he was working some kind of spell.  He was always wearing that strange cross. 
Why is Manassa permitting him to do his magic?

Tien
launched
through the rows of onlookers.  They resisted his surge instinctively but he pushed through.  Finally, he was in the open, stumbling forward, the white man within his reach.
He leapt to plunge his knife into the kneeling priest’s back.

In a flash, Manassa interposed himself in front of the white man
.  Tien couldn’t stop his momentum.  Manassa chopped the knife out of Tien’s hand before it reached him. 
Oh, gods,
thought Tien. 
I attacked our god!

“TIEN!!!” shouted Manassa.

Tien collapsed on the ground, trembling.  He sensed the eyes of the Onge upon him. 

Manassa loomed over him. 
Tien
felt his shadow.  It would be nothing for Manassa to shove the dropped dagger into his head.  He’d seen what Manassa had done to the panther.

“My child!” shouted Manassa.  “Think you a dagger can stop a god?”  It was in that old Onge tongue, again.  Tien risked looking up at him.  Manassa narrowed his eyes.

“I…”  Tien mumbled.  He looked back down at the ground.  “I don’t know what you’re saying, my lord,” he mumbled in vulgar Onge.

“My child,” Manassa said, matching his dialect. 
The god sized up Tien and the silent crowd. 
“You didn’t hear my words, unmindful of the tongue of our ancestors. 
Others have heard my words, however, and still they disobey.  For them there will be no
mercy.” 
Manassa’s
eyes locked with Dook’s, but only for a second.  “
I thank you for your service and your heart, but this white man recognizes me now as his god.” 

Manassa glanced over at the white man.  He was shaking heavily.  Perhaps he
’d gone into terror over the assassination attempt.

“The white man is now my chosen servant,” continued Manassa.  “Let it be known that he is higher than all mortals, for he is the first of foreign lands to recognize the true living god, and he shall be the only mortal to ever sleep in my temple.  So it is said, so it is.  The words of Manassa.”  He said the last in traditional Onge.  Every word was memorized by the old women to be added to the oral history.

Manassa forcefully grabbed the white man and practically threw him into the hut. 
Edward
was trembling all over.  Apparently, the incident had given him quite a fright. 
Our god does not permit weakness.
 

“LONG LIVE OUR TRIBE!” shouted Manassa, retreating back into the hut.

“ETERNAL IS OUR LIVING GOD!” chanted the tribe.  They stood.  Tien plunged into the crowd.  He had to get away.

Tien made it
only
ten yards before Dook seized him by the shoulders and threw him to the ground once more.

Tien cried out, holding his hands before him begging for mercy.  “It was the will of the god.”

Dook spit on him and growled.  “Perhaps.  But that foreigner will be dead along with the other, despite your cowardice.  I will be chieftain of the living god, and your idiocy won’t stop me.”  Dook kicked him and walked away. 

Tien noticed the boy Tomy walking past. 
Had he been listening?  Tien dismissed it.  He was just a boy.
 

Tien
pulled himself up.  It was not yet noon, and it had already been far too long a day.

James ordered wine.  Callista asked for water. 
Well, at least I’ve got her here, finally. 

This had been his life’s work for close to a year.  At least it had kept his mind occup
ied.  He had developed much more unsavory hobbies in his earlier years. 
“Callista-courting” was the most therapeutic of
the vices he’d indulged in so far
.

Not only was she completely out of his league; she knew it, without even an inkling of his shady past.

They were seated at a table for two in a restaurant that James had chosen months earlier.  The lighting was low, and the noise level sufficient to allow for intimacy without having to speak too loudly.  The sea-drenched breeze wafting in
from
the outside dining area reminded him of the Mediterranean.  She reminded him of the Mediterranean.  He missed it.

“I can’t believe you brought them all the way to their farm!  You bottomed out your car five times!” she laughed.  “The roads were terrible.”