The Shamans at the End of Time, page 13
“The way you touch Malva and Selma with your lips,” Edna says, reluctantly, after a while. “Would you accept at least that type of Communion with me?”
I feel the urge and plea in her voice, and while I don’t understand why, I understand that they consider it important, and I am only a guest, trying to acclimatize into their society. Their eyes are fixed on me. “Yes.”When in Rome do as the Romans do. But I will never make a High Communion with any of them.
“Tomorrow evening,” Edna says, relieved, and I nod. “Thank you.”
An hour before the Communion, Moira gives me a cup of some herbal tisane to drink. I taste it, and it’s bitter. She tells me the names of the plants but, in their language, they all are unknown to me, and I assume that they are not used frequently. There are already some dozens of known plant names in my dictionary. I drink the potion in one shot, to get it over with, and she smiles at me. A little later, she makes me drink a second cup. It tastes different.
“Mushrooms?” I ask, and she nods, but this time doesn’t give me the names. They must be ‘sacred’ and known only to the shamanes. They may be dangerous too. I remember from my uncle’s lessons that most of the mushrooms used by the shamans for their spiritual journeys are poisonous, and I recall the strong headache I had after testing a Siberian Shaman’s potion. What if she makes a mistake with the dosage.
“I know what you think, but there is not enough powder in the potion to be poisonous,” Edna says and gives me her cup to taste it. After I sip a little, she drinks the cup, and points to mine. Her potion has the same taste, but it’s much more bitter, and I can’t escape drinking mine now.
“Undress,” Moira says.
I was afraid that we would come to that, but somehow after two months with them, I was starting to be less embarrassed about being naked, even in front of their women. Before I even start, Edna pulls off her dress and stands, naked. It takes me longer to escape my shirt, trousers, shorts.
“You need to feel the ground,” Moira says, pointing at my socks, and I conform, pulling them off.
While my mind is occupied with physical tasks, I don’t really acknowledge Edna’s beautiful body. Once I am done with the undressing, things change, and I crouch swiftly to hide my arousal.
“That’s normal,” Moira says, like she is speaking to a child. “Why are you shamed by your body? Stand in front of her. Any woman is pleased to see that she can stir a man.”
Grudgingly, I obey, and she ties a band around my head, covering my eyes. The last thing I see is Malva and Selma entering the room. I have seen them naked too. The thought calms me. My hearing is amplified and, from the slight noise, I guess that the Shamane is doing the same to Edna, who takes my hands in hers, and places them on her shoulders. It seems that she can ‘see’ or feel me even when her eyes are covered. One of her hands presses against my chest, the other is on the back of around my waist. Moira’s palm moves up along my spine, the same way Edna did when I sang El Condor Pasa, and the same cupping glass sensation passes through my skin. Edna’s hand slides up my chest and settles around my neck. The second drink seems to work better on me than the first one, and I feel slightly dizzy, as if I am floating pleasantly, like in the past, after a few glasses of good wine. Moira guides my left arm around Edna’s waist. My right is caught by two hands. They are slightly smaller, and I recognize that they belong to Malva and Selma. I try to imagine how we look, and I almost laugh. I am surrounded by four graces, and I am naked. A gentle pressure from Moira’s hand on my neck stops my reaction. It’s like she has taken control over my body, for a brief time.
“Be silent,” Moira orders, and she starts to hum a low tune. Malva and Selma join her, and we stand still for a few minutes. The drink settles deeper into my brain, and I feel like I’m floating. Edna’s body is leaning against me, her breasts touching my chest but, curiously, I don’t sense it as a sexual experience. It’s a pleasant closeness, though, and I start to be caught up in their Communion game. I am feeling now more curios than afraid.
Edna presses her lips on mine, and I realized that she has probably rehearsed this with the girls. She knows what to do and, involuntarily, I answer to her pressure, parting her lips. I am trapped, and my lips are more and more demanding. My arms pull her closer, and she is not shy to answer me with the same passion. Suddenly, Edna’s lips part from me and her hand moves around my head, forcing me to bow until our brows touch.
“Stay with me,” she whispers, and I feel her mind filling mine again, like during the River Dance. The drink slows my reactions and, before I can panic, her control over my mind becomes complete, and she erases my nascent fear. “We are now in the Second River of Thought. Open your mind,” she says, inside my mind.
I see no river, and I have no idea what to do, so I just wait. An image forms in my mind, and I recognize Selma: a younger version of her.
“Why is she younger?” I ask inside my mind too, strangely driven by curiosity, not by fear.
“This is not a memory of yours, it’s coming from me. I want you to be sure about that.” Another image comes, and I guess that it’s Selma again, soon after she was born. A frisson of fear passes through me, but Edna calms me, though I don’t understand how. Moira is tying Selma’s umbilical cord, and I see everything from Edna’s perspective, even her spread legs painted with blood. “I have made you part of the most important event of my life.”
“Thank you.” I don’t know what else to say.
“It’s your turn now.”
“What should I do?”
“Find an image inside your memory. Just think it, and I will see it.”
I feel the need to show her something important, to match her gift. “My mother,” I say, and the image fills my mind. She is in front of our house. Unbidden, tears run down my face. I realize it only when delicate fingers collect them. “I will never see her again.”
“Thank you. She is a beautiful woman, and I feel strength in her.” Edna’s voice flows inside my head, calming me. “What’s that behind her?”
“Our house.”
“It’s large and ... different.”There is a hint of surprise in her voice. My parents’ house has two floors and just the living room is larger than Moira’s hut.
“It’s made of stones.” Edna doesn’t react at my words; maybe she has seen huts made of stones somewhere, and I change my perspective. I am now on a hill south of my city, aloft on a television tower, and everything lies at my feet, even the river Jiu. The city has more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, and it covers the vista up to the horizon. If this is not an alternative Earth, I am only a hundred miles from my hometown. From the site of my town. I am thinking in my language, and Edna can’t understand me but, patiently, she doesn’t react, even when I feel her slight emotion, but she controls herself better than me. In that moment, I sense another presence in my mind. “Moira?”
“I see everything.”
“What you see is my ... village.” I have to use the word, as they don’t have the concept of city. A helicopter is flying above me, and this time both women gasp, and the link between us is almost severed.
“What animal is that?” Edna asks, and I sense her struggling to control her anxiety.
“It’s not an animal. We can build things that fly.” None of them answer me, and I realize that the concept is too strange for them. “Think of arrows.” There is no point in trying to provide more explanations.
“Yes, arrows can fly.” Edna’s voice feels calm, but something is telling me that she can’t really acknowledge what she sees in my mind. It’s a mirror situation, as I don’t understand the Mother’s Web or a River of Thought.“Can you show us how you arrived here?” she asks after a while.
“No.”
“Is it difficult for you?”
“My friend died, when I came here.”
“Did you arrive here alone?”
“No.”
“How many...”
“One.”
“Vlad,” she says gently, “it’s very important for us to see that man.”
How does she know that it was another man? I feel my breath coming fast and irregular, even as both Edna and Moira seem to reach deeper inside me, trying to calm my mind. Catalin’s image surfaces, at the exact moment I saw the arrow piercing his neck. My mind slips away, and the image blurs.
“Vlad!” Edna shouts.
An explosion shatters my brain, and I feel a cold night falling over me. It’s soothing.
Chapter 12
“Hurry,” Edna said, her hand still on Vlad’s chest – his body lay unconscious in Moira’s arms. Malva and Selma grabbed his legs, and they moved in tandem to arrange his body in his bed. “I am still inside his mind, but I feel nothing.”
“It’s the shock.” Moira took Vlad’s pulse, and her hand touched his temple. “He is gone somewhere far from here.”
“Mother!” Malva cried.
“Stay calm, Malva. We will do what we can.”
“Take his hands, and try to connect with him,” Edna urged the girls.
“His hands are cold,” Selma said after reaching his palm, and then her left hand touched Vlad’s shoulder. “He is losing his body’s warmth. Why?”
“It’s the shock. His heart is slowing down. Let’s dress him.” Moira went to the pile of Vlad’s clothes and picked them up one by one. “This goes on first,” she said, looking at his shorts. “Help me,” she said to Malva, and it took them a few minutes to dress his lower body. Edna’s hand was still on his chest, keeping the Communion alive - whatever was left of it with an unresponsive mind. Moira arranged the shirt over Vlad’s shoulders and laid a piece of fur on his belly. “I am going to make a new potion.”
For the tenth time, Edna probed Vlad’s mind, but she found no spark of consciousness in him. At the same time, she felt something changing inside her. The subtle chain of changes resembled things that had happened during her initiation, and for a moment she was overwhelmed and almost lost the link. It was the part of the initiation that happened with the man, she remembered. It’s not possible to have a second initiation. Yet changes were occurring inside her, stirred by some kind of catalyst that she could not understand. She stretched her mind, and for the first time, she caught a glimpse of Vlad’s Shaman Vein. No, that’s not possible! She cried inside.
Closed to the world outside, Vlad’s mind was in a state of effervescent dreaming, at a level that Edna could not access. A part of a man’s mind would always be out of the reach of the shamanes. The opposite was also true. Images were coming to him and leaving him fast, most of them unfamiliar. There were people he had never met. Savages, he thought. They came in a strange way, as if they were Benjamin Buttons; born old, and growing younger with the passing of time, until they returned into their mothers’ wombs. That inverse flow of blood and newborns made him nauseous, and he shook his inner head. For the first time, he realized that Moira and Edna were no longer with him. Fear mounted in him, and he lost even his inner consciousness, his mind floating inert inside the second River of Thought. He was not trained to swim in the Mother’s Rivers. He was lost, afloat,a turbulent stream of water carrying him away, in a cold place of total silence.
“Bring Moira here.” Edna’s voice was sharp and urgent.
Malva sprang up, and left the room, running as fast as she could. Before she could speak, Moira sensed that something of importance had happened.
“Stir the potion,” she ordered Malva, and walked quickly inside the other room.
“Feel him,” Edna said, her voice tired.
Moira paced her hand on Vlad’s forehead, and her mind stretched toward him. “It can’t be,” she whispered. “He is too old for this, and we are women. This may kill him.”
“We can’t lose him,” Edna said, calmly. “Selma, lie beside Vlad, and take him in your arms. Lean your head against his. Try to reach him. Speak to him.”
“I need to leave.” Moira swept out of the room and ran to the place where she kept her herbs. She went from one pouch and jar to another. “This is not good,” she whispered, her fingers touching some leaves. “Not good,” she went to another jar. “Not good. Not good.” Her voice grew more desperate with each rejected choice. “Maybe this.” She picked up an old root and sniffed it, and then chewed it. “I wish it was fresher.” She walked around the room several times, but only added a few leaves to the root. “Not enough,” she muttered, but went out anyway and threw the leaves into the boiling potion that Malva was still stirring. “Bring me Vlad’s knife.” When Malva returned with the bayonet, Moira started to scrape small chunks from the hardened root in her hand and threw them into the boiling water.
“Will this be enough?” Malva asked, her voice querulous.
“I hope so.” She saw the fear in her daughter’s eyes, and embraced her. “Two shamanes and two apprentices should be able to save one man.” I wish I had witnessed another shaman’s initiation, she thought. “Stir the potion.” Malva needed to work on something to calm her mind, and Moira needed to think. The Shamane went inside the main room again and placed her hand alongside Edna’s, on Vlad’s chest. Selma was still speaking to him, in a low voice. “I hate unexpected things.” Moira shook her head.
“I hate only the bad ones. What happened today may change everything. Mother sent him to us for this purpose.”
“Bring half of the potion!” Moira shouted, and Malva came, a minute later, a small bowl in her hands. The Shamane moistened her finger in the dark liquid, and tasted it. “It’s strong,” she said with a grimace.
Edna did the same, just to learn what plants her sister had used. “Maybe we should add a pinch of Long Night Mushroom powder.”
“I should have thought of that.” Moira left briefly and returned with her most precious jar, storing the powder which helped a shamane navigate through the Rivers of Thought. She pinched some powder between two fingers, and dropped it into the bowl, and then she frowned, undecided. Her fingers moved fast and added some more powder. I hope it will not harm him. Her finger stirred the liquid until the powder dissolved. “Malva, raise his head.”I need to be careful. She picked up a spoon that was a copy of the one Vlad had on his army-knife, only hers was made of wood, and she carefully parted his lips. The bitter liquid filled Vlad’s mouth, and she kept his head high until he swallowed every drop. “Now we have to wait,” Moira said, staring at the empty bowl. “Take the other bowl from the fire,” she said to her daughter.
Vlad stayed unconscious for three days, and at every moment, day and night, either Moira or Edna watched him, each helped by her daughter.
It happened that Selma caught Vlad’s first sign of awareness; she sat with his head resting on her lap. It was midday. “Mother!” she cried.
“Easy, Vlad,” Edna said, and placed her hand on his brow. “You have had a long journey and you may still be traveling.”
“What happened?” Vlad whispered, opening his eyes for the first time.
“Well,” Edna said with a smile. “After more than fifty years, we have a shaman again.” He must have four Amber Stones.
“What shaman? What does this have to do with me?”
“You are the new shaman.” Edna bent and kissed his forehead. “You are quite precious to us right now,” she laughed. “Selma, go and tell Moira.” She waited until her daughter left the room and sighed almost imperceptibly. You have shaman powers, but you are not yet a shaman, and I am not sure how well we can train you. At least you survived the unexpected initiation. We should have been more careful. But your Shaman Vein is so different. She shook her head. How could we know? Unconsciously, she embraced him.
Surprised, Vlad did not protest. After a series of long nightmares that he could remember with unwanted clarity, he felt really well. His arms went around Edna’s waist, and his head leaned on her shoulder.
Edna smiled, and her hand caressed his brow. I feel like he is my son. She tried to speak, but Vlad was now sleeping. She sensed that everything was different from the nothingness she had felt before in his mind. Definitely four Amber Stones; she measured his power with more accuracy - the Amber Stones were the same for both shamanes and shamans. Possibly four stones. It will depend on how well he is stabilizing his new power. He needs training. We will know in a few months.
Late in the evening, she sat with Moira in front of the Shamane’s hut. They were tired, but finally at peace. For three days, they had blamed themselves for their carelessness, though they knew nothing about a shaman’s initiation. They knew that a late initiation could kill a woman or a man, and Vlad was twenty-two years old, two years older than was normal for a man’s initiation.
“Feel my mind,” Edna said, and with all her tiredness, Moira complied, stretching her mind.
Her eyes expanded. “You’ve gained half an Amber Stone,” Moira breathed. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before. Your initiation was eighteen years ago. How could this happen? Is this because of Vlad’s initiation?”
“We will know after you make Communion with him.” Edna smiled.
“And who will convince him to do that, after everything that has happened? He did not want to make one with me, even before this. His traditions are so different from ours.”
“He is one of us, now. I don’t say that it will be easy, but give him some time, and he will understand that power comes with responsibilities. He will accept a Communion with you. I wish we could convince him to have a High Communion, but that will not be possible, now. But in a few years...”
“You need to make your Amber Heart,” Moira said, her voice low and mysterious. It was his third day fully awake, and Vlad felt better than at any time before in his new life. “That will be the mark of your power. Five years ago, I brought these from the shore of the Northern Sea, for Malva and Selma’s initiation as shamanes.” She spread five amber stones on the table, in a row, a palm’s width distant from each other. They were different from anything Vlad had seen before - translucent and colorless. Without the tiny pieces of plants or insects, they would have look like ordinary glass. All the stones were shaped into an arrow point, one inch long, and carefully polished.
