Daygo's Fury (26 page)

“Run!” he shouted, and this time she did. Ultan seemed to come alive, looking up from Erinin, his face turning murderous. He charged at Liam, knife slashing outwards. Liam jumped backwards, releasing Deaglan’s wrist just in time. Dodging the blow, he danced backwards a few more steps, readying himself.

“You fucking bastard! You’re going to pay now!”

Erinin was white-faced on his knees, on the floor, blood soaking down his right side and mixing with the water and dirt around his knee, diluted and thin. He was dead; it was just seconds in the telling.

“I should’ve stuck you yesterday! Only for Cid!” Deaglan took a step forward as he talked. Ultan glanced down, staring at Erinin. “You’ll be joining him now!”

I’m the only one to kill a brother.
Liam’s hand shook with the realisation, empty space within his half-closed fist. He took a step to steady himself and cleared his mind.

The ground beneath their feet was wet and muddy, the walls to either side loomed in overhead. The alleyway was just wide enough for them to surround him. They knew instinctively what to do. They spaced out to either side. Any misgivings that Ultan had were now gone with the death of his friend and ally.

Deaglan came first, darting in from Liam’s left, the deadly blade discreet in the gloom. Liam jumped forward, avoiding the blow. He knew Ultan was coming from behind, he knew by instinct, he knew what he and Calum would do, how they would work the odds and their advantage. He knew his opponents.

Ultan’s blow was coming in low, for his hamstring, where he would struggle to dodge. He lifted his right leg, throwing it into the air and pivoted on his left, leaning into a half fall. Ultan tried to pull back, his knife arm extended having missed Liam’s right leg. Liam caught his wrist with his right hand, then his left, falling on it and pulling at it with all his strength as he turned to roll, dragging Ultan to the ground below him. He left go and rolled back to his feet as Deaglan came at him, his knife slashing out wildly. Liam ducked and drove his fist into Deaglan’s midriff just below the ribcage, driving the air from him. He pushed forward and away quickly, wary of the deadly blade, and kicked Ultan in the head as he was rising. Ultan let out a groan but his knife came swinging through the air in defence and caught Liam in the calf as he jumped away.

Ultan seemed groggy on the floor, struggling on his hands and knees. Liam leaped back over him towards the winded Deaglan, wincing in pain, trying to press his advantage. Deaglan backed off, struggling to breathe and lashed out wildly, missing Liam.

Liam jumped forward and slammed his fist into Deaglan’s throat, but his backward movement saved him from the worst of it. He slashed out again, slicing across Liam’s side. Liam ignored the pain and, grabbing the knife arm with his left hand, he drove the fingers of his right hand into Deaglan’s eye. Deaglan screamed, his left hand grabbing at Liam’s right, pulling at it desperately, his head flying backwards and banging fiercely into the wall behind him. Liam used his momentum, pushing forward relentlessly, his fingers viciously grasping and digging deep, scraping, trying to root in behind the eye and get a firm grip, while his left hand struggled with Deaglan’s knife arm but held firm.

He didn’t know how he knew. He didn’t know what hidden voice inside him screamed the warning. Perhaps his ears had heard the approach but he had been consumed with his battle with Deaglan. At the very last moment he moved, pushing himself to the left with all the speed he could muster. The knife sliced through his side, and he gasped in shock and pain, but it slid past. Deep, but a flesh wound, no internal organs cut.

A grunt of surprise and shock came from Ultan as his momentum drove him into Liam. Liam used it, grasping on, he rooted Deaglan’s eye from the socket, pulling and flicking it outwards, his fingers slipped clear, failing to tear it off. Ultan stabbed in viciously from his right, and again a last-second movement from Liam saved him from a fatal wound. The blade sliced along his midriff across his previous wound. Deaglan screamed hysterically. Liam heard his knife fall. He let go of his hand and backed away, grabbing at Ultan’s knife. He brought his knee flying into Ultan’s crotch. Ultan’s head ricocheted forward, a groan of pain escaping his lips. Liam grabbed onto the back of it with his right hand and clamped his teeth around his nose. He ripped the top off, falling backwards from the force of his movement. He let go of Ultan as he did so, scampering back a few steps, his sides and calf bleeding, his strength and energy ebbing.

Ultan charged at him like a raging bull. Deaglan raved like a maniac behind him, his hands up in front of his left eye, hovering before it but making no move. The eye hung out lopsided by its string. Liam stepped to the side and forward, his hands reaching for Ultan’s wrists as his head fired into Ultan’s nose, ruining it further.

His knife came loose from his hands, falling to the floor as Ultan reeled backwards, stunned. Liam dived after it, grabbed it and rolled back onto his feet. His back found the side wall and he leaned against it, panting, the taste of blood strong in his mouth. He held the knife in front of him with a double grip.

“Had enough?” he croaked, knowing he had won. Blood was smeared over Ultan’s mouth, his nose a twisted, mangled ruin. Deaglan had pushed his eye back into its socket. But it seemed swollen and too large, almost popping out, angled wrong and an angry red. A sort of pus seemed to be smeared on the skin around it, his eyes weeping, as were Ultan’s. Liam had his knife now. “Want some more?”

Deaglan shook visibly, his nerve shattered. He was the first to go, stumbling for the exit. Ultan glanced at Deaglan’s knife on the ground and moved towards it, but Liam stood up suddenly and he thought better of it, turning for the exit. He stumbled out after Deaglan, hand over his nose.

Liam allowed himself to fall against the wall behind him. Blood seeped from his stomach and side. He barked a laugh painfully, sliding down the wall.
What had he won?

After a moment, he forced himself back up onto his feet and struggled out of the alleyway, heading for the street beyond. He noticed the bum’s eyes once more as he passed and bared his bloody teeth at him. An animalistic growl escaped through his lips, half challenge and half roar of defiance.

He staggered from the alleyway, limping on his bad calf, stooped over, his arm pressed into his side. He walked down the street, away from the flat.
Forever
, he thought with dull feeling. He wanted to put distance between himself and where Deaglan and Ultan might find him, even though he doubted they would be looking for him now. He made it to the end of another street then turned into a side alleyway, looking for a private place to rest. He sat down heavily against the wall, his feet falling out in front of him.

He could feel his face set in a grimace, his teeth bared angrily.
Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them all!

******

Racquel’s eyes were red. The rain continued its relentless downpour around her. The shelter above her head offered little protection. She sat uncomfortably at the outward edge of it. The air was damp and dark. Twilight was soon approaching. It would be her second night sleeping rough on the street. She only had what she wore, a dress that had been sewn with such loving and tender care by her aunt, now ripped, dirtied, old-looking. It barely covered her, barely offered her some discretion.
Why do I look this way!
She wished she was more boyish, less alluring and tempting to men. She felt like prey walking the streets, surrounded by predators, sizing her up, judging their opportunity. She had never before realised. How had she missed the looks, the leers? The lust and temptation was clear to her now in their stares. They were like animals, but there was Liam. Was it just that he was younger than the rest? Would he too become one of them? She didn’t dare believe it.

A flash of light lit up the street, for a moment illuminating everything, replaced by a fearful dark, dropping down. The image seemed burned into her mind, and its absence made her empty vision all the more sinister. There was a street around her that she couldn’t see. A heap of a man, just down from where she sat, whom she couldn’t hear. Wet splashes of water, the relentless tapping of the rain. Shadows reached out to her, the urge to fall back into her hole was overpowering. If there was not a battered, helpless form within that space, she would have succumbed to it long ago.

The ensuing thunder rolled out from overhead, encasing the street in the deep, dark rumble; the slow, ominous vibrations, a long sound for such a short flash of light. Daygo’s fury. Racquel shivered as dark thoughts overcame her mind.

Who was lurking in the shadows? What was hidden by the rain’s patter? She used to wake, when she was younger, with terrified screams, dreams and images of the terrible beasts coming from the dark to take her. Her aunt would rush to her side, whispering soft comfort, lying with her until she fell back asleep, safe, enfolded in her arms.

It was no longer beasts that terrified her, haunting her dreams, lurking in the shadows, threatening, but men. Cruel, uncaring, vicious, seeing nothing but meat to be devoured. All the things that terrified her about the beasts had become true, reincarnate and vibrant within the men living out there in the dark.

She wished Liam were awake and by her side. She thought back over the past few days. How he had shown such anger towards Deaglan the day before the fight. His face had been manic. It had seemed so unnecessary and unprovoked at the time; she had thought Deaglan was being kind. It had scared her. She had all of a sudden found herself in a hostile environment that she didn’t understand and the boy she knew the most seemed to be acting the most erratically. But she realised now it was knowledge that had led Liam to act as he did, that he was trying to protect her as he always seemed to be doing. She thought back to when he had knocked over the tray in the bakery, what seemed a lifetime ago, and then again when he had dragged her away from the funeral, and finally … she closed her eyes, wishing away the terrors. She felt ashamed by her doubts in him. Always, since she had known him, he had been there for her. He had shown a loyalty to her. What had she done for him? Look at everything he had been through as a result. She rested her hand gently on his shoulder, her touch as light as a feather, fearful of causing him any more hurt.

She would never abandon him, she promised herself, as she sat in the rain. Never. No matter what happened, she would always stay at his side. She would always do what she could to protect him, to help him as he had protected and saved her. Her aunt had died for her. She was determined that Liam would not do the same.

Would he be better off without me?
Her doubt whispered in her mind. Not now, at least. Now he needed her, after what he had done. She was to blame, she was at fault. She had to nurse him back to health. Perhaps then she should leave him; she was a dead weight for him to carry. She was useless, naive, out of her depth. She knew nothing. He understood what to do, and she only held him back. But she was scared, terrified. What would she do without him? Where would she go? What would happen to her? She didn’t want … without him, she would be defenceless. Her eyebrows came together tightly as she squeezed her face shut, tears dropped, lonely, from her eyelashes, lost in the rain as she cried at her own selfishness. She wished that her aunt was there.

I have to learn. I have to help!
I won’t be a dead weight. I will help him. I will do whatever it takes!
She reached out, tentatively, behind her. Her soft hand lay down on his chest. She waited, her breath held, her eyes still closed and prayed for movement. It came. Slow, almost relaxed, his chest rose and fell, ever so slightly still alive. She brought her hand back in front of her and crouched low, continuing her silent vigil, shivering in the rain.

She had found him the night before. The vision of him, lying there, she felt would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. His legs stretched out before him, his torso had slid down the side of the wall and forward, hanging above the ground, awkwardly suspended somehow, as though an unseen force still held him from the dirt. His mouth, his teeth, painted red with blood. There was a chunk of … flesh on his chin, sitting, half-stuck to the dried blood there. His tunic was soaked red, his legs, his side. She had cried when she had seen his wounds. She didn’t understand how he could still live. There had been so much blood. A knife was gripped fiercely in his hand. She had to pry his fingers away one by one.

She had dragged him into this shelter, away from the rain and prying eyes, only yards from where he had sat. She had thought it must have been his destination. With rising panic in her heart, she had cleaned and tended his wounds as best she could, cutting pieces from his tunic and her dress to use as swaddling and bandages. She had brought him water and food, trying to make him drink. Her guilt had risen when she had taken some coin from his pocket to feed her hunger, and she swore to take no more for her own needs. He would need the money once he woke. He would wake.

He lay behind her now, sheltered from the rain, covered in a blanket that she had found earlier that day. As night came she lay down beside him, outside him, sheltering him further from the elements outside as she tried to shield her mind from the lurking shadows. She laid a shaking hand gently over his chest, praying once more that the movement there would not fade.

Daygo was creation. Daygo was life. Daygo bound the Earth and all things together. One interlocking, interflowing mass of magic. One knowledge base beyond intelligence, far beyond consciousness. Daygo was inherent knowledge, inherent energy, inherent movement. To know Daygo, one had to become one with one’s smallest parts. One had to bring the mind to true stillness, to true blankness, where there was nothing left. One had to understand deeply the filaments of life. Then … sense arrived, as though it were always there, it became present. And one wondered how it was ever missed, how it was never seen, how it was never touched, because the joy was overpowering.

“How do two drops of water know to touch?” asked Raba. To illustrate his point, he poured two drops onto a flat stone, with small pebbles set out to separate them. “This is water. One drop, and another drop. Are they the same?”

“Yes,” said Namuso.

Raba reached his hand into the soil and rolled the dirt between his thumb and forefinger, he dropped some into one small pool. The water soaked up the mud and became slightly brown. “Now are they the same? One is brown and one is clear. One consists of much different properties than the other. If one is drank it will make you sick. If the other, it will quench your thirst and nourish. Both live separately, individually, both inhabit their own space.”

“They are different,” said Namuso.

Raba pushed the pebbles out of the way with his finger. The two pools joined together, forming a colour between what each had been. “Now they are the same,” he said. He moved the pebbles again, this time managing to isolate the small grouping of water into three separate pieces. “Now we have three. Each one slightly altered, each in its own way individual, each with some small lifespan in its own state.” He moved the pebbles a final time. “And now they are the same,” he said with finality.

“So, too, it is with us, with all life, with each human, with each monkey, with each fish, each worm, each blade of grass, each drop of water,” he waved his hand lavishly, closing his fist as though to catch the very air, “each … body of air.

“Only in the form that we take are we individual, are we separate. Some forms are more tangible than others.” He waved his hand again. “The air we cannot even see, or grasp, but we can taste it, we can smell it, we can inhale it. Some air smells different than others, yet it is of the same. People, animals, are very much tangible, touchable, clearly separate, clearly apart. Different to look at, to touch,” he tapped his nose, “to smell, yet we are of the same.

“We all, for a while, are separate. We all, for a while, are our own selves. Yet we, too, lose our form.” He patted the ground. “We, too, like the water, become part of a larger whole. And, like the water, we too change again, where there was one, there might become part of three, parts of three new individual forms. Now imagine all the drops in the world, imagine all the dirt in the world, imagine all the humans and animals and air in the world.” He mashed his hands together and rolled them around. “Imagine them all mashed together, joined, totally, as one. Only
then
do we know Daygo’s true form. Only
then
is it whole, and is it all clear, and is it all unified and complete. Until then,” he waved his hands and smiled, “we are here. What is you is me. What am I is you. We are all things, we are here together. Love all things. Love the movement. Love the Daygo flow.”

******

When they found Niisa, knelt over his sister, her insides torn apart, the bloody knife discarded at the edge of the hut, Niisa was covered in her blood, red from knee to chin, his eyes bloodshot, his face white, and he was in tears. The beauty of the world, the beauty of Daygo. How could they accuse him of her murder? They had never seen him show such emotion before. He was overwhelmed.

******

The sun shone down on the twelve small huts that lay scattered in a loose circle around a central fire pit. The ground was rocky and well-worn by the feet of generations of priests. Tufts of grass and moss found purchase between the stones. The natural clearing was surrounded by trees that seemed to loom over them, as though leering into the cave mouth that offered no insight into its depths, shielded within overlapping folds of blackness. The rainwater flowed around the curls of the hill that framed the strangely falling incline into the cave mouth; he heard its passage echo and grow within the cavern, becoming a monster, a gulping maw, a falling river. Niisa searched for the red eyes of the panther within, but all was hidden, all was darkness.

A cultivated vegetable patch grew along the side and outside of the hill. The rest was wild, contained only by the tread of the priests. The forest talked in a way that was only ever fully heard from the brief respite of the clearing. Hidden within the open air, they could hear clearly. Hands and feet, palms and soles softly slapped on the wet stone and vegetation growing upon the earth. The mist of rain still coated the air, fogging noise, restricting sight, weighing on breath, creeping into lungs. Arms, heads, legs moved through the air smoothly, pausing, perfectly planned, filled with defined course, inhabited by knowledge, destiny, peace.

The Walolang de Kgotia were nine priests, and each breathed steadily through mouths closed, the air making a hollow sound at the back of their throat as it passed evenly through both nostrils. Niisa was one amongst them; Namuso another, the former friend of Emeka, the scout that forged a path for Niisa’s present, that brought the light of a life of knowledge and wisdom to Niisa through the ignorant vessel of an adolescent girl. Among them were three women. They were a tribe without children or family. Their hunt was the daily commune that took place within the cave, that lived in the blackness and sparkled like luminescent water, visible yet transparent.

When their morning exercise ended, they sat in silent meditation. The mist passed slowly into the earth and the air cleared but remained heavy and humid, the clouds passed overhead and opened in places to reveal glimpses of blue sky, where stars hid for the dark to show; the moons moved somewhere up above, too, hidden behind light and cloud. A small breeze slowly fell upon them from the surrounding mountains, passing and playing upon the rooftop of changing shades, pushing waves of movement that shifted across the hours of rolling forest for what seemed like infinity in all directions. The sun traced shifting yellow circles over the greens. Some lone birds circled above it all in the sea of air between forest and cloud.

Niisa opened his eyes and sat still for some time as he re-adjusted enough to stand and prepare to descend into the caves below. His fellow priests followed suit. In order of youngest they walked down the pathway into the cave and travelled from light into darkness. There were three caverns, but one was more sacred than the others. He walked with confidence, despite being rendered blind, and passed the cavern that opened to left and right. He placed a hand on the rough, wet stone before his face as he ducked and crawled through into the third room. He took a seat on the cool floor within the cavern, and the following priests took their places around him to form a circle. They sat in the dark and found themselves still.

In the quiet, Niisa slowly found the place of pure detachment with his self. He opened himself up to his surroundings. He achieved understanding that extended to every part of his body, an understanding that extended beyond his body, that encapsulated everything in the universe, that all was one. More than learned words, but complete belief, and complete acceptance that it was so. A profound peace settled over him as Daygo suddenly became apparent, as a sixth sense activated within his consciousness, a consciousness no longer limited to the confines of his body.

Like a mesh sponge of countless fibres too thin and small to be separated in mind, it was tied together by an unaccountable number of connections. His commune, his sense, was limited to the air surrounding him, but he felt it, and felt the connection, the sameness; it was him and it was all things.

For a time, he floated in this simple, blissful knowledge and sense. Slowly, within the commune, the man that was Niisa started to re-awaken, the man that posed individual thoughts, and conceived individual considerations. It was as though the self opened his eyes to a new world, and he watched and studied in awe and amazement what he was a part of.

******

Most of each day was spent cultivating a stillness of mind and a calming and levelling off of emotions. To do this, they worked all aches and stiffness from their body. They ate and drank well. They sat for long periods of time in silent meditation. They controlled their breathing, made it long and smooth. They had already achieved a sense of peace and connection with the world before they entered the caves and attained the commune.

They held open discussion on their thoughts at the end of each day. When Niisa joined the Walolang de Kgotia, he was assigned a guru to learn from, as they all had been. Raba would remain his guru until he died and would be entrusted with, and be responsible for, his teaching. Over the first months, he explained with growing depth how the commune worked.

“Opening up to Daygo requires a loss of self. This does not necessarily mean a loss of emotion, though one often coincides with the other. Understanding is key. One can know the truth without understanding it, without adopting it to heart, without feeling it in every fibre. Samadhi is this moment of epiphany, where your whole being adopts this
knowing
, this realisation, that you are a part of the universe, with no further attachment to who you are, to what you are, to your dreams, ambitions, emotions, thoughts, memories, past or future. You are a present being attuned completely with the universe, in complete realisation of the ties of the universe.

“It is through this moment of epiphany that the commune with Daygo is achieved, that the sixth sense becomes aware, that the gap between the self and the universe is bridged. Once it is bridged, it is then possible to maintain its connection, the commune, even with a small returning to the self thereafter. It is the moment of bliss, of Samadhi, that is the gateway to Daygo. Once the gateway is passed through, it is possible to maintain the commune for a time. It is very hard to retain Samadhi for any prolonged time, but the commune can be maintained even after its loss, though there is danger in this place, as the self tries to re-establish control. For this is not the place of the self but of the whole.

“Imagine your self, contained within your body, contained within the unit of you, as it has always been. Understanding the power that emotion can have over your self within this confined space, the difficulties in trying to control this flow of emotion, in managing it.

“Consider how an emotion can start small within you and can grow upon consideration and justification in one’s own mind and how this growth can add conviction to the before shaky foundation of justification, in a growing circle of reaction that perpetuates itself. In short time it has accelerated and reached a peak of emotion that, upon later consideration and sensible and logical thought, outweighed, perhaps by far, the justifiable emotional reaction to the instigator of that original feeling. We look at ourselves afterwards abashedly and think how silly it was of us to have lost such control, to have let the reaction escalate to a level that makes little sense to us in hindsight.

“Over time, as we get older, we learn to better recognise the signs of such reactions. As children and adolescents, we are lost to them, but as adults, to various degrees and depending upon personal practice, we learn to see the signs and contain them and to react through calm, logical consideration.

“Consider every surge of almost uncontainable emotion that you have had. There has always been a limit placed upon it. A peak where it could reach or inflate no further. Think of how much real control was relinquished upon reaching this peak, how much your thoughts and actions became a slave to this emotion as opposed to sensible thought. Perhaps over time through past memory of yourself and familiarity with the experience, you can exercise some more control even within this peak experience.

“Now imagine your self is not contained but opened up, in a mass ten times the size, the volume of your self, connected to a life energy ten times that which you normally struggle to contain and manage.

“So now consider the peak at ten times the volume, ten times the energy, ten times the influence of what it normally is contained within. Imagine the speed of its growth as it feeds upon itself through thought and consideration. In this you can now understand the speed with which control can be lost.

“This is the risk we associate with the returning of self during the commune. There are two ways in which to negate this risk. One is to practice daily the calming of emotion and the calming of reaction. The other is to practice daily stillness of the mind, retention of Samadhi, and even upon its loss, which is inevitable, to lessen the level of its loss, the level to which we fall back to the self.

“These are the keys to communion, the keys to safe connection with the universe. And with these keys, we can live in blissful knowledge.”

Niisa considered this for a time. All his life he had witnessed others be slaves to their emotions, become overwhelmed by them, have them dictate their behaviours and reactions. But this had never happened to him. His emotions always seemed more easily contained than everyone else’s, to exist in a far milder form. And so he wondered if these same rules, if these same precautions and risks, applied to him. And if they did not, what could he achieve and learn that they were incapable of doing?