Cloak of the Two Winds (13 page)

The klarnmates stared solemnly at Lonn, but he had little sense of their opinions. It was solely his decision, and his heart told him there could be only one.

"I will undertake this training," he told the witch. "You will teach me."

"I will think about it," Amlina said.

"It might be better to start at once," Kizier suggested, "while the dream is still fresh in his mind."

Amlina frowned, pondering. Abruptly, she rose to her feet and went to open one of her trunks. She picked out a small gilt-covered book and thumbed through the pages, still frowning. She read for a few moments, looked over at Lonn, then finally walked back to where the Iruks were sitting.

"Very well," she said to Lonn. "Since you and Kizier both insist on this, we will try it. You must take off your boots and belt and sit cross-legged on the floor. The rest of you must leave."

"I don't like this," Karrol muttered in Iruk.

"Go," Lonn said.

The mates glanced at one another and grimly nodded their assent. They bid Lonn good luck, touched his shoulder, then filed from the cabin.

Amlina moved about the chamber blowing out the lamps, except for one which she placed on the floor in front of Lonn. She instructed him to breathe slowly and deeply, and to focus his eyes on the small flame inside the glass.

Lonn obeyed, but when the witch had kept him in that position for a very long time without further instruction, his thoughts grew restless and his eyes left the lamplight. He spotted Amlina sitting on her bunk, reading the small book in the blue light of the stained glass window.

"Keep watching the flame," Amlina said.

"For how long?"

"Until I tell you otherwise. Initiation is normally preceded by weeks of such exercises. Do you want to undertake this training or don't you?"

Scowling, Lonn gazed down at the lamp. He estimated that the morning had turned to afternoon by the time he heard the witch move from her spot. He steadfastly refused to look at her until she had sat down on her cushion and told him to do so.

Amlina wore the same silk gown as before but had removed her jewelry and slippers. She looked pale and girlishly pretty to Lonn, but her voice was stern and forceful.

"You seek to look into the One Mind, the Allmind. To do this you must surrender your body, surrender your thoughts, surrender all hopes and desires and fears, that you may look upon the Ogo with complete openness and detachment. Are you willing to surrender yourself completely?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"I am willing to surrender myself completely."

"Relax."

The word had a surprising effect on Lonn who had thought himself fully relaxed already. But now he sensed release, tension flowing out from all his parts.

"I will touch you in the places where your nerves gather," Amlina said. "With each touch the feeling in that place will disappear."

She placed her fingertips on the soles of his feet and murmured a short invocation. There was a burst of warmth in his feet, and when that faded all sensation was gone. Amlina repeated the touch at his knees, his groin, his lower back, his heart, the back of his neck. When it was done, Lonn no longer felt his body, only his face floating in the shadowy cabin.

"Close your eyes," Amlina said.

Eyes shut, Lonn felt her fingertips on his forehead and heard her whisper.

"Know that you are thought. This world called Glimnodd is but thought, one thought of an infinity. Infinite worlds and suns and seas, infinite bodies and minds, all are only thoughts of the One Mind, which comes to know itself by thinking. Know further this: that the One Mind is within you, with all its worlds and suns and creatures. Now let your inner eye be opened that you may see what the Ogo gives you to see."

Amlina chanted briskly, magic words Lonn did not know. A jolt of energy entered his forehead, bursting at the center of his skull. Instantly this energy radiated outward, surging through the cabin and echoing back to Lonn. Eyes still closed, it was as if he could suddenly see in all directions at once. His mind vibrated with perceptions of scintillating lights and spinning forms. The witch's hanging trinkets whirled and reflected his mind's energy, heightening, intensifying his consciousness.

Then, as Amlina's chant ended in a series of high notes, Lonn's awareness exploded from the cabin. In a glittering rush his mind soared upward, past the sky, beyond the spheres of the moons and sun, out to an unending chaos bright with the fires of innumerable stars.

For an unknown time his mind floated in that outer chaos. He saw stars born from dust, collecting, spinning, flaring into brilliance, then bursting asunder, fading into darkness and dust again. He saw worlds, spherical worlds as the bostull had said, uncountable numbers of them swimming among the stars. The worlds were filled with life, creatures beyond number, spawning, devouring, being devoured ... Knowledge came to him, born of these visions yet known for truths:
These cycles were eternal
. Dust and light, creation and destruction, life and death—all were only thought, the will of the One to know itself:
Ogo
.

To Lonn, the visions were stupendous, stunning. And, upon reflection, appalling. All living things were only thoughts, flickering then dark forever. Terrible.
Unendurable
.

"Open your eyes."

He stared wildly: shadows and shapes he could not recognize. He was breathing hard, choking.

"Relax," Amlina said. "Be at peace."

Streams of sparks glittered before his eyes. The ideas of infinity and eternity loomed gigantic in his mind.

"Relax."

Amlina touched him and her touch made him obey. He breathed easier, and the flashes of light diminished. The flow of vision began to take on recognizable forms. He saw the gleam of three eyes watching him with intent concern. Around the eyes, half lit, half lost in darkness, the shapes of Amlina and Kizier.

Amlina and Kizier. Then he remembered that he was Lonn. Lonn the son of Orla, the leader of his klarn. He had undertaken this witch's rite in order to search for Glyssa.

Lonn rocked forward, grimacing. The thought of Glyssa pierced him with anguish. He recalled his dream, felt again the awful moment when he realized that Glyssa was fading. He was breathing heavily again, trembling.

"Relax," Amlina said.

Lonn shook his head. "Glyssa…"

"Where is Glyssa?" Kizier asked.

"She is lost. She is vanishing!"

The shadows seemed solid, closing him in. He looked at the windows, and suddenly he had to get outside. He jumped up and bolted for the door.

"Stop!" Amlina cried.

Some quality in her voice made him freeze. He stood shaking, staring at the door, longing to escape, his panic as fierce as it was senseless.

Amlina moved to him. When she put a hand on his shoulder he crumpled to the floor and curled up, whimpering.

"Don't be afraid," Amlina said. "Your fear arises from lack of detachment."

Her words meant nothing to Lonn. He stared into the darkness that drifted and quivered about him. Glyssa was fading to nothingness, and he and his mates were helpless to save her. How could they go on without her? And it was his fault. Glyssa was lost because Lonn had dreamed of this ship and had greedily clung to the dream despite omens and warnings that were plain to others. Glyssa herself had tried to warn him.

"I wouldn't listen," Lonn whispered in abject despair. "I wouldn't listen."

Amlina's voice murmured wearily above him. "This was not well-decided, Kizier."

The witch let Lonn lie there for a long time, but finally she must have helped him up. Lonn remembered sitting on the floor before the lamp again, and Amlina and Kizier asking him about Glyssa. But their questions made him withdraw into silence. Thinking of her was too painful. After a while the witch gave up trying. She took out the mirrored spinner she had used when she first spoke with the Iruks in this chamber, and set it going for Lonn to watch. The entrancing motion calmed him and eventually he slept.

Lonn awoke alone, lying beneath a fur in the Iruks' cabin. The stove was warm to his touch and daylight shone behind the small windows.

The same day or the next? Lonn had no idea.

He pulled on his sea boots and found his way groggily to the steps. He was going to knock on Amlina's door but changed his mind and went out on deck instead.

A cold wind blew from the south, and the sky was overcast. The sea was leaden, glossed with a pearly aura. Lonn spotted his mates on the foredeck, practice-fencing with their swords and knives. They hailed him as he walked forward.

"Lonn," Draven said. "We thought you might sleep all day. Are you all right?"

"Is this the same day I started it, or the next?"

"The next day," Draven laughed. "Amlina brought you downstairs in the middle of the night. Your eyes were shut and she was guiding you. She said you were sleeping though you walked, and that we should let you sleep it off. We were worried. Karrol almost got into a fight with the witch, trying to make her explain what she'd done with you."

"I didn't like the way you looked," Karrol said. "And I still don't. What happened, Lonn?"

He leaned his back against the railing. "It's hard to explain. She used power from her hands to make me relax. Then I began to see visions. It was like dreaming, but I was awake."

"Did you see Glyssa?" Eben asked.

"No, I don't think so."

"Amlina said it was only an initiation," Brinda remarked. "And that she warned you it could be painful."

"She did warn me," Lonn grumbled, then changed the subject. "Somebody lend me their blades so I can practice."

He borrowed Draven's sword and dagger and fenced a while, matching feints and thrusts first with Karrol, then Eben. It was vital for fighters to keep in practice, and the slippery deck was excellent for honing agility and balance. But Lonn's thoughts were elsewhere, and he didn't provide his mates much of a challenge.

The Iruks stopped fencing when food was brought, their midday rations of hot soup, water and a half-cup of brandy for each. The brandy had lately been added to the daily fare due to the turn of cold weather and a shortage of tea. The diligent cabin boy served them, as he did the Larthangans on duty, from a covered pot and two full water skins. He also carried a sack with wooden cups and bowls inside.

Karrol tasted the soup and spat it out, cursing the cook's ineptness in the preparation of volroom meat and herbs. The soup was indeed a greasy mess, but Lonn had no appetite anyway. He gulped down his water, then savored the brandy, making it last four swallows.

After that he stood at the rail and stared out to sea, thinking again of his dream, of the horrible vision of Glyssa fading to nothing. With the best of winds, the
Plover
was still many days from Kadavel. Could they reach it in time and then find Glyssa in that massive, swarming city?

Or was it already too late?

As Lonn peered into the distance ahead of the ship, a
frizzier
approached, a mild variation of the freezewind. The air shimmered with streaks of white, and a crystal-thin ice layer formed on the water. The delicate ice ripped and rattled with the heaving of the waves beneath, and the coaster's running hull made a constant crackling sound.

Amlina came out from her cabin and joined the captain on the rear deck. Lonn made his way aft to speak with her, and the other Iruks tagged along. As they topped the stairs, Lonn heard the chorus of windbringers, which included Kizier, humming in light trance.

The Larthangans were bending on more sails for speed and maneuverability. A true freezewind was almost sure to follow the frizzier, it was only a question of when. The coaster would need all its speed and responsiveness to climb from the freezing sea onto the ice.

"I think we should turn now and start tacking, lady," Troneck said. "The Icemaker can blow up your back mighty quick sometimes."

"You have my vision to guide you," Amlina replied. "The Deepmind will tell me when it is best to turn and I will tell you."

Troneck shut his mouth tight and glared behind them at the dim horizon. Lonn could sympathize with the Larthangan's displeasure. He would not appreciate the witch telling him how to sail his dojuk.

"How do you feel today?" Amlina asked him.

"Terrible," Lonn answered, more frankly than he'd meant to. "Do you think any good came of it?"

"What do you think?"

Lonn remembered his panic, and the insurmountable feeling of despair. "I didn't see Glyssa. Not that I recall."

Amlina gave a rare smile. "If the Deepmind had presented you with that vision on your first unpracticed attempt, I would have been very surprised. Glyssa is hidden by a strong design."

"But you think he may succeed in time?" Draven said.

Amlina shrugged. "In the Deepmind anything is possible, as Kizier is so fond of reminding us. Lonn may have a gift for deepseeing, but it takes time to develop such a gift. There's no telling if there's enough time for it to be of use in looking for Glyssa and the Cloak."