“Thank you, Liam. I have never thought of my lack of restraint, so to speak, as a virtue before. It has only served to get me into trouble in the past.”
The Chosen laughed out loud, an honest and sincere laugh, and Tamara could not help but join him. For a brief moment, the cares of the world slipped away as the two fast friends walked away from Oleander’s haven.
“Your character will serve you well in the days to come,” he said. “I wish you Firstspeed, Tamara of Parth. May the Gem of Eternity light your path as you journey on, and guide you safely to your destination. You may rest here without risk for the evening,” he pointed ahead. “With the morning sun, you will see the path more clearly that you must follow in the days to come.”
Tamara caught the double meaning in the Chosen’s words, and she felt a warm and comfortable feeling well up within her. With his arm around her shoulder, he walked her through the trees and toward the lea where Hector, his ample belly now swollen to its limit from eating without restraint, stood contentedly, though he was still munching upon the sweet, green grass of the Lalas’ domain.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Robyn fought the temptation to rush to the boy’s room. He had come so far and they had all suffered so much already on this journey, that having to delay the awakening any longer was truly torturous. He took a deep breath, settling his anxiety, and allowed the circle of breath to calm him and to help ease his concerns.
Something else nagged at him as well, and he could not easily put his finger upon its source. It was only one evening ago that he spoke with Promanthea and exchanged with his tree all that he felt and all that he thought. The opportunities to commune with his beloved Lalas were rare during these arduous days, and he cherished the few times that they were possible more than ever.
Words could never fully describe the knowledge that he gained and the understandings that infused his spirit after he conversed with his friend and mentor. His soul always felt richer and lighter, stronger and yet more aware afterwards. There had been only one moment when he felt that Promanthea had not revealed to him all that he knew about a subject that they discussed, and it concerned the boy. Just after the ‘calling’, before Robyn departed for Pardatha, Promanthea hurt him deeply by keeping some bit of information from him. It had never occurred before, and he remembered it as vividly as if it was yesterday. The feeling was so strong and so awful. He felt abandoned and alienated, as if the Gem’s light itself was being withheld from him. For a slight moment that momentous afternoon, he ached like an orphan, feeling abandoned and forlorn.
As the thickening and ominous clouds gathered in the southern skies, stretching their cadaverous fingers northwards toward Seramour, he sat beneath an ancient Noban and spoke with Promanthea. His contact was embraced fully and he reveled in the sensations. He was energized and refreshed, and his spirits were buoyant and light. But only moments after they greeted one another, Robyn experienced an instance of estrangement; a thought remained incomplete, an image was unfinished, a wall of silence replaced words of comfort. For only the second time in his long relationship with Promanthea, he felt as if he had been slapped in the face, and he fought to keep from crying out. When he questioned Promanthea, he was rebuffed as before, and the Lalas made it clear to him that no entreaty on his part would succeed in opening the door that the tree had closed so tightly. The great tree comforted him in other ways, and Robyn forgave him his silence, but he ached nonetheless from the rupture he felt.
He rose from his chair and pushed his hair off of his broad forehead with a flick of his graceful fingers. He felt the anticipation of the morrow course through his body. The ceremony would begin with the dawn, and Robyn poignantly felt himself standing upon the cusp of a new age. He was eager to awaken Davmiran, the heir of Gwendolen, the boy whose still fragile shoulders would soon have to bear so much. But his eagerness was mollified by caution and tempered by reason. Robyn had so much to teach him. He knew that he did not have the luxury of time, and that need refused to relinquish its ferocious hold upon the circumstances.
He walked to the arched window and gazed out across the multicolored roofs of Seramour, far into the distance, beyond even the treetop fields and farmlands. He sensed the southern storm rising at his back, and a deadly shiver surged fleetingly through his body.
Would that all of this were unnecessary
, he said to himself wearily.
Why should the boy be required to awaken to such turmoil?
he thought.
If he is truly the one, will we be able to instruct him and train him and prepare him for what lies ahead? Fate cannot have such a cruel heart as to deny us all this possibility
, the Chosen of Promanthea deliberated, knowing that the threat of dissolution was ever more deadly and growing precariously closer day by day.
Robyn grimaced. “May the First grant us the strength and vigilance we will require,” he said, and then he turned his eyes away from the troubled night sky.
Cairn sat cross-legged upon the floor beside his bed. What remained of the moonlight streamed through his open window in broken streaks, striping the floor with its attempt at illumination. He lit a small candle, let some wax drip onto the plate, and secured it firmly upon it before setting it down next to him. He then opened the box that lay beside the mat, unfolded and placed the beautiful board upon the surface before him, and emptied the velvet pouch of the amorphous pieces it contained. He then dropped them carefully on top of the open board.
To Cairn of Thermaye, good and evil were tangible things. He could feel them and almost touch them, yet he was forever frustrated by his effort to accurately portray them. Concepts not built upon words were so difficult to translate into a communicable language. Words were so specific, so limiting, yet feelings were so very imprecise and fleeting. He suffered the philosopher’s dilemma and it nagged at him endlessly. Pure reason exercised in a vacuum led to different conclusions than the ones arrived at by recognizing the realities of the world and the vagaries of human nature, and reasoning from thence. As a teacher, he was required to instruct. But if what he wished to teach was something that one must feel rather than hear about, how could he know that his feelings and his student’s were the self-same?
When Davmiran is ready, he need understand this problem. I must be certain that his sensibilities are attuned to the earth. I shall be his guide, but he must discover the truth himself,
he pondered.
I will be as honest as I can be, and the First willing, he will be in harmony with my method. Together, we will walk the path to understanding.
Ever since he had been ‘called’, Cairn struggled to determine the best method to ‘awaken’ the heir to the ethical implications of his actions. He knew there would come a moment when Dav would have to act without the luxury of time in which to contemplate the consequences. And, he knew that those actions would be determined by his innate sense of right and wrong. Cairn had to instruct him as to how to weed out those selfish and inconsistent feelings that compelled people to act improperly, and thereby led so many astray. He had to teach him to think clearly, to open his heart and mind to the truth, to cherish life and life’s energy. He needed to become an instinctually ethical human being, in whose eyes the choices become focused and the path becomes clear.
It was not obvious, and it was not simple. The boy harbored so much hope for them all, yet he was young and untrained.
“Dip your brush into tomorrow’s moonlight, Davmiran, my young Lord,” he said aloud. “Paint us the picture we all so yearn to see.”
Cairn focused his attention upon the pieces that had begun to assemble on the chess-like board in front of him. They moved of their own will, and he watched them all closely. They shifted in color and shape, growing and shrinking, multiplying and decreasing, settling themselves into a pattern that he would eventually be able to observe and study with care.
The surface of the board changed too, from green to brown, from white to crimson, and the initially flat surface rose and fell, as the terrain it depicted shifted and mutated. As the pieces assumed more stable shapes and positions, Cairn knew that it was almost time to gather his sharp wits and to begin his examination.
He stared at three distinct figures, moving slowly from the right side of the board to left side. They were of three different heights, and though no faces were ever visible, he believed them to be his friends, Tomas, Elion and Preston. Westward they traveled, toward the sea. From a bright white spot in the middle of the board, two other forms began their own westward movement, seemingly in the same direction.
A clash erupted between a group of green forms and another assemblage that surrounded a city-like enclosure, the outcome of which was indeterminate, as the colors blended in and out of one another, as if they were and were not of the same origin. Northward, flows of sea-green waves thrashed and churned, turning ice-like momentarily, and then melting into swells of blues and whites. The frozen north glowed red after a short time, and then abruptly transmuted into a calming blue-white once more, but this time, speckled with browns and greens. Great holes appeared in the surface sporadically all over the board, and they quickly became black and empty, causing Cairn to gasp in response. But brilliant spots of greens and whites burst upon the top as well, though they were smaller and contained. Vein-like lines of pulsing energy crisscrossed the surface and then erupted in various places, leaving behind at times great pits of emptiness, and at others, verdant areas of earthy colors.
From the south, a darkness emanated outward, slowly enveloping all that it covered. As it swelled, sparks flew from its borders wherever it encountered the colors of life. Cairn felt like a great sickness was overtaking him, though he gazed into it deeply, even knowing what it represented. Disgusted, he fought against his growing urge to return the board to its case, and to terminate this vile image at least, but he endured it. He stared at this evil affliction, but he could see nothing therein, and he felt only revulsion and an inner fatigue and awful sickness when he finally tore his eyes away.
A light in the far west caught his attention, swiftly lifting the darkness from his soul. A distinctive white hole emerged just before the land fell into the sea, and it compelled him to look more closely at it, though it burned his eyes with its brightness. The structure from which it issued was perfectly round, and as he looked down into it, it appeared to be limitless, to have no end. The pit was not consumed with darkness, but bright and buoyant, a symbol of life and health, not dissolution and death, and he was invigorated simply by staring into its depths. He knew now that the figures he saw earlier heading toward the sea were going there, and that knowledge gave him hope and courage, though he knew not why.
Cairn was growing tired, as the effort to observe required more energy than he ever realized. The board also drew power from him directly, though he did not consciously lend it, and he fatigued quickly from the exertion. He knew that he would need to cease this session very soon, or he would pass out, but he hoped to gain as much insight as he could before that.
His eyes flashed across the entire surface, searching now for changes that might catch his attention, but the figures were fading and growing dormant once more. He breathed deeply and relaxed, closing his tired eyes briefly. When he reopened them, the surface was still, flat and colorless. He placed the pieces in the velvet pouch, folded the board and returned it to its case.
Sitting cross-legged upon the woven mat, he began the process of relaxation that would help him focus during this tense and exciting time. He began to breathe deeply, filling his abdomen first, and then allowing his lungs and chest to inflate. He released his breath in the opposite way, deflating first his chest, and then finally pushing the remaining air out of his abdominal region. He then lay down on his back, with his hands at his sides. Directing his attention to each part of his body, one at a time, he tensed the muscles as tightly as he could, and then released them slowly, beginning with his left foot, and continuing from left to right until he reached his head. He opened his eyes and mouth wide and stretched them, then he squeezed his features together as tightly as he could, relaxing totally.
Cairn lay upon the mat, barely breathing, totally centered, and he swept his mind clear of all the debris that had accumulated during the day. He then focused upon the images he had just seen, not trying to interpret them or understand them in any analytical way, but simply desiring to remember them, to make them a part of his consciousness.
As he settled even deeper into this meditative state, the image of encroaching blackness presented itself to his mind’s eye and he could not will it away. It darkened his soul and penetrated his very essence, as if it was seeping into the room and enveloping him in its shadow and filth. He could see the light in the background trying to pierce the shroud, but it was not strong enough or bright enough to do so. Intense and sporadic bursts of energy shot up around the perimeter of his internal vision, and loud crashes resulted from the confrontations, but he could not eliminate the images from his mind.
He felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into the obscurity of the void, and the light was fading and losing its intensity. The blackness began to overwhelm him, to numb his senses, but he could not protect himself.
I should have been more careful
, the thought rose from somewhere deep in the back of his mind.
I was unprepared for this.
Something within him revolted against what was happening, and his body itself was fighting to remain intact, to not get lost completely in the darkness. On the very edge of consciousness, Cairn was aware that he was in grave peril, but he could do nothing to stop the blackness from encroaching, from covering him completely and stealing away his very identity. He watched as if in another’s body, as his own grew more and more distant.
He thought for a moment that he heard banging of some sort and then voices shouting his name, but he could not distinguish from whence they originated. The blackness was taking control, seeping into his pores, destroying his substance and scorching his soul.
He made one final effort to break free of this foulness, and he knew that it would be his last chance. As if urging himself on from a distance, he focused what little was left of his energy upon the tiny speck of white light he saw glowing ever so slightly in the depths of this darkness, and as soon as he did, he was sure that the dimness faded if only just a tiny bit. Cairn continued to gaze at the image of the circle of light he now clearly saw far in the distance of his tired mind. It was growing in intensity, pure and clean, he was sure, and it gave him hope and the strength to fight on. He tried desperately to reach it, knowing it would be his salvation, but it seemed too far away. He concentrated as hard as he could, exhausted now and barely aware that he was losing the ability to distinguish his own self from the putrid environment within which he floundered.