Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (72 page)

She grabbed a
ceramic cup off the shelf, decorated with symbols pressed into the clay with
her own hand, and dipped it into the bucket of water she refilled twice per day
from the communal well.   The tepid water slid down her throat, already warm
from sitting even though the temperature was fifteen degrees colder inside the
house.  She fished a strand of hair out of her mouth that had plastered itself
to her cheek and plopped down upon the bench, wishing fervently she had time to
take a nap. 

Papa hurried
in the door behind her, carrying an assortment of trinkets related to his
trade.  An eagle feather, although Ninsianna preferred to use one of Mikhail's,
a small bowl for water, and a tiny clay plate used for burning dried parrotia
leaves.

"Why not
select a symbol for the Earth from your basket?" Papa asked.  While he
spoke, he cleared a small space in the center of the room and unrolled a carpet
for them to sit upon.

"Which
one, do you think?"  She contemplated the bounty of their labors.  Small
white eggplants rested upon a bright green bed of broad beans, mustard greens
and leeks.

"What
does your intuition tell you, child?"

"All of
these vegetables please She-who-is," Ninsianna said.  "But I think
today I shall use a leek."

"And why
is that?"

"Because
the tastiest part of it grows in the earth," Ninsianna said.  "But
the stalk reaches towards the sky.  Where
I
wish to travel as soon as
our troubles here are done."

"Are you
so anxious to leave us, daughter?" Papa asked. 

By his injured
expression, Ninsianna knew she'd hit a nerve.  Jamin had manipulated that fear,
both with the Chief and also her own father, to get them to agree to attempt a
forced union.  As Mama's only full-fledged apprentice, she was too valuable an
asset to allow to leave, a fear made greater by the fact that Papa had lured
Mama away from another village.  That had been the Chief's motivation for acting
as he did.  As for Papa ... he just wanted to keep his little girl close to
home. 

Ninsianna
looked towards the door, the brilliant sunlight beckoning from beyond the mud
brick house.  How could she tell her Papa, who she loved more dearly than
anyone in the world, that as soon as Mikhail finished whatever great task the
goddess wished for him to perform, she would prevail upon him to fix his sky
canoe and carry her into the heavens like She-who-is had promised the night
they had made their bargain?

"Isn't
that what you're teaching me to do right now, Papa?" Ninsianna lied. 
"To reach towards the heavens and listen to the will of She-who-is?"

Papa gave a
satisfied grunt.  He lowered himself to the floor and began to arrange the
items around the carpet.  He didn't light the parrotia, there being no fire
burning in the oven right now and no time to light one from scratch.  The
elements he used in his rituals were more to aid his
own
focus than a
requirement of She-who-is.  He gestured for Ninsianna to join him on the mat. 
She grabbed the fattest leek and scrambled down to join him, placing it in the
north to complete the circle.

"Today
we'll learn how to find information about healing someone whose flesh has
become riddled with evil spirits," Papa said.

"Shouldn't
we be trying to spy on the Halifians, instead?" Ninsianna asked.  "I
heard Eshnunna was attacked again and three women taken.  Perhaps we can find
them for them?"

"That
would necissitate the use of kratom," Immanu said.  "And we don't
have time for that today.  Let Eshnunna's own shaman travel to find their
women.  I, for one, don't wish to spend the rest of the day nursing an upset
stomach and sleeping it off when the raid could have been prevented had they
sent two emissaries to learn archery when the other villages did."

“Is it always
necessary to use Kratom to travel with the mind?”

“I have always
found it helpful,” Papa said.  “But some shamans can travel without it when
their need is great.”

“Have
you
ever done it?”

“Yes,” Papa
said.  “But not often.  You have to do it often enough to train your mind to
travel without the drugs.  It
scares your
mother.  She doesn't like it when I travel, so I do it as little as possible.”

“You shouldn't let
Mama stunt your magic!”  Ninsianna felt the thread that connected her to the
goddess tug at the edge of her consciousness.  “We are conduits of She-who-is. 
The will of the goddess is more important than our individual needs.”

“Ninsianna?  Come
back, child.  I can't teach you if you don't stay here.”

“Papa?  Oh!” Ninsianna
realized she'd allowed herself to become distracted from what her father was
saying to listen to the much more interesting thoughts of She-who-is.   “I'm
sorry … I started to daydream.  What did you say we would be learning today?”

“I'll teach
you to look into spirit-light of another to discern illness,” Papa said.  “It's
the gift your mother possesses.”

“Mama sees the
spirit light?   She has never spoken of it to me.”

“Until now, it
was been forbidden to teach women the skills of a shaman.” Papa got a guilty
expression.  “I was not supposed to teach her.”

“I can see the
spirit light,” Ninsianna said.  “But I don't always understand what I'm looking
at.”

“How easily
can you see it since She-who-is enhanced your vision?”

“I see it all
the time,” Ninsianna said.  “But if I want to see where it's flowing, I have to
think about it.”

“My gift
doesn't come as naturally as yours does,” Papa said.  “I can see ... but I must
mediate and focus my mind.  Mama uses the gift much more naturally, but she
feels it rather than sees it.  She must concentrate to see what she feels.”

“The gift is
beautiful,” Ninsianna said.  “But it's rather distracting.  Sometimes I find
myself watching the light somebody casts off when they speak instead listening
to their actual words.”

“The light
always tells the truth,” Papa said.  “Whereas words can lie.  You must pay
attention to both.  If somebody is being dishonest, either to you or to
themselves, that's something you need to know.”

“How do I use
the light to see sickness?”

They were
distracted by a shadow which fell across their door.  Mama shuffled inside,
supporting an elderly neighbor, Mahtab, who puffed for breath as she walked. 
Even before she sat down, Ninsianna coud see blackness surrounding her heart. 
An angry red line spread down into her arm and up into her head. 

“Mahtab has
been experiencing dizziness and pains to her chest," Papa said. 
"You'll look at the light and Mama will explain what sickness she has.”

Mama helped
Mahtab over to the bench Ninsianna had vacated earlier.  The old woman sighed
with relief the moment she sat down and labored to catch her breath.  Mama
grabbed another cup from the shelf and offered their neighbor water.  Mahtab
drank the first one down and asked for another before her breathing finally
settled down.  As she did, the blackness lessened, but the red line didn't go
away.  Mama wore the unreadable expression she often wore when she knew the
news was not good, but didn't wish to let her patient know how bad things
really were.

 “Ninsianna,
what do you see?” Mama asked.

“I see her
artery is clogged with an ugly yellow substance that's blocking the blood,”
Ninsianna said.

“The what?”

“The thick
line that carries blood into the heart.”  Ninsianna used the word Mama knew
instead of the strange word which had jumped into her mind as she'd used her
gift.

“And what
treatment do you recommend for our neighbor?”

“I'm not
sure,” Ninsianna said.  “I can see what is there.  But I don't know how it got
there or how to remove it.”

“You're using
your thoughts to see,” Papa said.  “You must push your thoughts to the side and
allow She-who-is to show you the information.”

“Is this how
you see things, Mama?”  Ninsianna was surprised that her mother had possessed
this ability all along and had never spoken of it.

“Not in the
way that you do,” Mama said.  “I don't quite ... see.  I feel it in my own
body.  As though it were an echo.  She-who-is has given me the gift of
empathy.”

“Can you see
it, Papa?”

“I can,” he
said, “but only with great effort.  She-who-is has given you a magnificent
gift.”

“Ninsianna ...
focus,” Mama said.  “What treatment will help Mahtab feel better?”

Ninsianna
reached down into the thread that connected her to She-who-is.  It felt like
diving into a river of consciousness, all the thoughts that had ever existed
and someday would be.  Not finding the information she sought, she dove deeper,
sinking, riding the current and learning many wonderful things.  For a moment,
she forgot all about who she was and why she was there, swimming in the
thoughts of She-who-is.

“Ninsianna,
you must focus...”  Papa's voice sounded far away.  Some part of her recognized
that her own voice was speaking, verbalizing what she saw and saying it aloud,
but she was not in control of it.

“She has gone
too deep into the dreamtime,” Mama's voice said.  “Immanu!  You must pull  her
out!”

“Ninsianna... 
Ninsianna.... Nin.si.an.na......”

The current
carried her away to all sorts of pleasant dreams.  The stars sang to her,
welcoming her into their midst.  She didn't wish to return to the room with the
tired old woman with the bad heart.  Following the stream, it led her to a room
with two men playing chess, only one of them was a big red lizard instead of a
man.  '
It's a dragon
.'  Both creatures contained equal amounts of
darkness and light, but the dragon carried a bit more darkness than the human
man. 

Their names
jumped into her mind.  She understood the game they played and why they played
it.  As she watched, Emperor Shay’tan tried to take the white queen and Emperor
Hashem moved a white knight to prevent it.  On the far corner of the board, a
second white knight sat surrounded by black chess pieces, forgotten by both of
the players.  Mikhail.  She was certain of it.  The opponents were so engrossed
in their game of chess that neither of them noticed her floating there in the
same stream of consciousness as
they
inhabited. 

As she
watched, a white bishop moved of its own volition, not noticed by either
player.  Urgency clamored in the stream-of-consciousness which surrounded her,
making sure she noticed what the two old gods had missed.  The Evil One was on
the move!  The players nodded amicably and disappeared.  No longer interesting,
it was only an empty room.  Ninsianna remembered that she was here for a
reason.  She rode the stream of consciousness further until, at last, she came
to the information she'd originally sought ... how to help her neighbor reduce
the pain in her tired old heart. 

“Ninsianna!”

Mikhail?  She
could hear him call to her.  She searched, but she couldn't find him here
amongst the beautiful things the goddess allowed her to see.  Oh, no!  She
remembered her father's warning about not becoming so fascinated by the
dreamtime that she forgot about her body.  She needed to go back, lest she let
go of the thread which connected her body to her spirit and ended up getting
stuck here.

“Ninsianna! 
You have gone too far into the dreamtime.  You must come back.”

Ninsianna
followed his voice.  She was not frightened, but it took her a long time to
find her way back.  At last she felt Mikhail's hand touching her cheek.  She
was almost home.  Willing herself to follow his touch, she brought herself back
into her own body.

“Mikhail,” she
smiled breathlessly, eager to share what she'd just seen.  “I heard you.  When
did you get home?”

Mikhail
crushed her into his chest and held her so tight that it hurt.  The sigh which
escaped his lungs was almost a cry of grief.  Why was he trembling?

“You were gone
so long we were afraid you wouldn't find your way back again.” Papa said.

“Where is
Mahtab?”  It was now dark and the fire burned in the oven.

“She went home
hours ago,” Mama said.  “You went to that other place.  We thought it best to
send her home while I fetched Mikhail to call you back.”

Mikhail
released her from the embrace, but he continued to hold her hand as though he
feared she would dive back into that place and never return to him.

“What did you
see, Ninsianna?” Papa asked.

“I saw Hashem
and Shaytan,” she said.  “The two old gods who divide this galaxy between
them.  They were playing chess.  Shaytan tried to take the white queen and
Hashem blocked it with a second white knight.  And I saw you, my love, on their
chessboard.  Way off in the corner with us.  And I saw the white bishop.  The
white bishop is moving on his own.  The old gods didn't notice him, but
I
did! 
The Evil One is about to do something neither old god expects!”

“I think ... I
think I have heard this before,” Mikhail said.  “Something about two old gods
dividing the galaxy between them in a game of chess.”