“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “Please step over to the side.”
Sheyir moved closer to her father.
Sariel stepped in front of the next woman and repeated the test with different notes. This woman was able to mimic up to two notes, but couldn’t follow the melody. After three tries, Sariel asked her to step to the other side of the elder and wait.
~
By mid-afternoon, he’d made his way through the remaining females of the tribe. There were a total of one hundred and thirty who could sing, or at least discern the differences between sounds. From there, he spent more time with each one as they sang through a multitude of sounds and combinations of tones. As the last rays of sunlight disappeared over Ehrevhar, Sariel had the women separated into groups of similar abilities, based on the range of their vocal chords. When the sun was finally set, the elder pronounced their work complete for the day. Since the women had been occupied with other tasks, the evening meal would be much smaller than usual.
~
Sitting across the clearing from the elders, it appeared that everyone was tired from the day’s activities and in no mood to talk. Sheyir was the only one of the tribe who seemed more energized than exhausted. But Sariel pretended not to notice. It was critical that he keep his feelings for Sheyir a secret from the rest of the tribe until he’d established himself as a person worthy of their respect. And in order to keep his body from betraying his feelings, he tried to concentrate instead on his overall plan and how to make the best use of the men, given the limitations imposed by the elder.
It’s going to be a busy few months, he thought, feeling sleep pulling at his exhausted body. As he contemplated the frailty of this new existence, he felt something at the back of his mind. Beneath the surface of thought, a nagging fear clung to him, whispering that he wouldn’t be able to save the man. And if he couldn’t do it, then all his hopes would be lost. He would never be accepted among the Chatsiyram.
He would never be Sheyir’s, and Sheyir would never be his.
CHAPTER 12
BAHYITH
Sheyir’s eyes darted from one feature to another. First his lips. He pronounced each word carefully, as if he tasted it the moment before it left his tongue. Then his eyes. The deepest, clearest blue she’d ever seen. There was kindness and gentleness there. But also a fierce sadness that spoke of hidden tragedy. His skin was smooth, like a child’s; with the warm tones of pale sand along the banks of a stream.
She watched Sariel as if he were a dream come to life. The fear that paralyzed her at their first meeting was but a distant memory. Though it lingered at the back of her thoughts, whispering to her that she would soon wake from the dream, it was restrained by what her other senses told her. Others may have reason to fear this man, this creature. But there was no danger for her.
“Long ago, our worlds were one with each other. But there began a great war among my kind and creation was stretched. It pulled all of us apart, such that we could only live in the place where we remained. Those whom we fought were forbidden from your realm. But one found a way to cross the void and he brought death with him. That’s when this realm began to drift away,” he said, looking up at the trees overhead.
Sheyir followed his gaze. And when she looked at the leaves dancing in the breeze, it was as if she were looking through different eyes. Her world, though beautiful at times, had always seemed somehow broken. Sariel’s words lifted the mist that blocked her sight, revealing what she had always known to be true.
“Thus, the Temporal Realm was born as it separated from the Eternal.”
“Why are you called Myndarym?” Sheyir asked.
Sariel smiled and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. “It means Shapers. We have always had the ability to change our form. It enables us to carry out our purpose—to sustain all that was created. But when your world was separated from mine, our purpose was changed. We were entrusted with Baerlagid—the Songs of Creation. We used this knowledge to shape your world so that it could survive on its own. So, it is really a double-meaning. We have both the ability to change our form and the ability to change the form of others.”
“And this is what you did before you came here?” she probed, fascinated by his explanations.
“At one time,” he clarified. “Though we were all involved in the Shaping, many were reassigned to other tasks as your world became self-sufficient. That’s when I became a soldier.”
Sheyir looked from his lips to his eyes. “What is a soldier?”
He squinted, then glanced down at the rock on which they sat. After a long pause, his eyes met hers again. “Has your tribe ever fought with another?”
Sheyir nodded. “I have never seen it, but it happened in my father’s time, when he was young.”
“In my world, there is a very powerful tribe that seeks to destroy all others. And just as it is the women’s task among the Chatsiyram to gather food, it is the task among some of my kind to fight against this tribe.”
Sheyir’s gaze now drifted down to Sariel’s forearm. The cuts and scrapes that had been there were healing well. Most were only light scars now, the skin slightly pinker that its surroundings. But a few scabs were still present where the injuries had been more severe. “This is why your arms were wounded when you first appeared to me,” she stated, reaching to touch his skin.
She wasn’t sure what compelled her to do this. She almost expected him to flinch or at least pull his arm back, but he kept still. Maybe she was challenging him. Or was she challenging her own fears, confronting the voice at the back of her thoughts that promised her this man was dangerous?
Whatever the reason, his eyes never even blinked.
“If you can change your form, can you not shape your arms?”
Sariel looked down and clenched his fist, but the rest of his body remained still. “I will keep the scars so that I don’t forget.”
“But you can heal yourself?”
“Yes,” he replied with a smile.
“Then you cannot die.”
Sariel lifted his head and closed his eyes for a brief moment. “I wish that were the case. Sometimes, we are wounded faster than we can heal. Sometimes we die.”
Sheyir reached out again. But this time, instead of just touching his forearm, she laid her hand there and felt the warmth exchanged between their touch. “Sometimes we die also.”
A swishing of grass behind them startled Sheyir.
Sariel pulled his arm away and sat upright. “So you must follow my lead,” he said loudly. “I will have to react quickly to whatever I encounter and I will need you to sing—”
Sheyir turned to see a boy who was standing in the dense vines on the edge of the forest.
“Yes, what is it?” Sariel asked.
The boy stepped shyly toward them and extended the bundle in his hands.
Sariel reached up and took the cloth from the child. Unrolling it, he held it up to the light reflecting from the river. With a few sharp tugs, he pulled the fine weaving taut and seemed pleased at its strength. Then he handed it back to the boy. “Tell them it will do fine.”
The boy smiled and ran off into the trees.
* * * *
NORTH OF HARAGDEH
Enoch ran as fast as his legs would carry him. The sound of his feet hitting the soggy earth seemed incredibly loud. He was trying desperately to keep quiet, but each labored stride brought a great sucking noise as he struggled to maintain his speed and keep his feet from being pulled under. Plowing through a field of waist-high blades of bright-green vegetation, he was thankful for the dense root system which felt more solid beneath his feet, even as the sharp edges sliced through his skin.
He glanced quickly over his shoulder and scanned the blue sky above the trees, but it wasn’t there. His breath was coming in rapid spasms now. His lungs burned in his chest, but he ran anyway.
Suddenly, a dark shape appeared just over the trees to his left. It had changed direction and was now attacking from the
side.
Enoch pushed himself harder, expending the last of his energy to escape. With each step across the sodden earth, he pulled hard against the sticky substance which slowed him down. And then, there was nothing beneath him.
He was falling forward.
A rippled surface rose quickly to meet him. Before he could react, he hit the water with a violent splash and slipped under. The current was strong and immediately pulled him to the right as he struggled to turn his body over. Water slipped in through his nose and he fought the urge to cough, knowing it would only force the remaining air from his lungs.
Clawing through the turbulent environment, he reached the surface and immediately gasped for air. The current had already dragged him a good distance to the east and across to the northern bank where a tangle of wide-leafed vines grew thick into an overhang. Enoch reached up and grabbed hold of the exposed roots and pulled himself under the shadows.
With nothing but the sound of water in his ears, Enoch waited, feeling his heart still pounding in his chest.
A moment later, a shadow slid across the water. Through the leaves above, he watched a massive creature pass overhead. Its long and narrow head turned to the side as it scanned the river for its prey.
Enoch remained still and silent.
With wings as large as an Iryllur, the brightly-colored reptile glided beyond the far bank of the river and out of sight past the tall grasses.
Enoch waited for several minutes before coughing to expel the liquid in his lungs. Then he turned toward the bank and reached up to pull himself out of the water. Before his hands were hundreds of large, purple blossoms sprouting from the dark green vines. Their intricate, spiraling petals were veined with a brilliant, pink color that brought a smile to Enoch’s face. Then, he noticed thin, pale leaves of another plant sticking out below it, near the waterline. This vegetation was plainer in appearance and nearly dead as it was being smothered by the flowering plant. Even its roots seemed choked by the other.
Enoch paused for moment, then breathed deeply.
Holy One. I see what You have meant for me to see. You let me fall into the river so that I would be hidden from the hunter of the air. What I mistook for peril, was your provision. And now you remind me through flowers that your angels should not be here. Though they are beautiful and powerful, they are not meant to live with us. Their cities will grow taller and overshadow ours. Their accomplishments will appear brighter and more beautiful than ours. And we will strive to adopt their ways until our foundation rests upon them. And they will choke the life from us.
Enoch wearily pulled himself out of the water and stood, dripping, while he scanned the terrain for any sign of predators. Once again, he was by himself. Though each day had brought some proof that he was not alone.
Stepping away from the water, Enoch continued north in search of the Myndarym.
CHAPTER 13
BAHYITH
After months of investigation, trials, training, and practice, Sariel and the entire Chatsiyr tribe were ready. In the pale yellow of the sunrise, they stood in a circle around the pit where the sick man was caged. Everyone seemed quite nervous despite the excessive preparations. Sariel had spent the last hour giving final instructions to the various groups of men and women, pointing to the symbols that he’d scratched into the dirt in front of them, all the while trying to be heard over the screams and moans of the man beneath their feet. Finally, he stepped toward the cage, just out of the tortured man’s reach. With a deep breath, he shifted his consciousness toward the Eternal Realm.
“I see that you did not heed my warning,” he said to the demons, now digging their claws into the man’s flesh as if they were prepared to tear it from his body.
“Leave us alone!” they screamed.
“I promise to leave you alone when you leave this man alone.”
“No. No,” they replied. “He wants us.”
“At one time he may have. But how can you know this now? You’ve subverted his will so that it is no longer distinguishable from your own.”
“It makes no difference,” one countered. “You don’t have the authority to make us leave, Child of Light. You are dim now. And you have no weapons.”
Sariel lifted his chin and straightened his stance.
He opened his mouth and sang a single, clear note and held it for many seconds. When he stopped and restarted the note, Sheyir accompanied him with a slightly lower sound. The simple harmony caused the demons’ eyes to flare wide.
Sariel shifted his consciousness back to the Temporal and kept singing. Each time he stopped and restarted, another voice joined in until, after several minutes, all one hundred and thirty women were singing. In the Temporal Realm, the earth vibrated under their feet and the blades of grass seemed to bow down, resonating with the powerful sound.
Inside the Eternal existence, the sounds passed through the air in brightly colored waves, filling the spaces between the tribe and the demons. The visible currents radiated from each human mouth and collided with the evil spirits who clung to the frail spirit of the human. With every impact, the waves of sound scattered; reflections and refractions that gave Sariel an understanding of their true names. He could see what they were made of. He could see their true nature. He adjusted his pitch downward and was pleased when the Chatsiyram followed his lead, the lower notes giving clarity to his knowledge of the enemy. By the time he explored the range of sounds available to him, he was confident that he could name the demons. He was confident that the sum of voices gathered this day would be sufficient to sing Navlagid, a Song of Naming.
Focusing on the core of the demons’ existence, he began a melody which the tribe could mimic. Then, moving his own pitch to cover the lowest, unrepresented tones, he began to sing a counter melody which forced that portion of the demon’s existence to resonate with it.
The demons understood immediately what was happening. They began to scream out with shrill cries, attempting to disrupt the harmony among the Chatsiyram. But Sariel’s rigorous training prevailed and the people repeated the melody, hitting their notes without wavering.
In his physical body, Sariel pointed to one of the groups of men. After a few seconds, he lifted his hand and let it drop. The loud boom of a drum coordinated perfectly with the movement of his hand. He repeated the motion a few more times, then let the men continue beating out the timing he’d established. This signaled to the tribe that the Song of Naming had begun.
Each group of women now sang a variant of the melody that Sariel had established, repeating it in time with the beating of the drum. Now he was free to adjust his voice across the spectrum of sounds and fill in the gaps, to sing the unrepresented notes. He felt a power welling up inside him that had been absent for as long as he could remember. It was the feeling that he got when he had first started shaping creation.
Within ten cycles of the melody and numerous harmonies, the demons were becoming compliant, powerless against the music that now defined their beings.
With the tribe continuing to sing, Sariel pointed to another group of men, each bearing a different length of reed cut at an angle on one end. The men lifted the crude flutes to their lips and waited for Sariel’s direction.
He pointed at one man in particular, then at the woman whose note he was supposed to replace. Sariel lifted his hand and let it drop, signaling the timing of that man’s note within the melody. One by one, he transferred responsibility for representing the melody from the singing women to the men with their instruments. The transition was smooth.
Having now freed up the singers while maintaining control over the demons, Sariel began to sing Tanklagid, a Song of Idea. Remembering the way the human’s body reacted to the initial notes, Sariel breathed a soft melody, injecting it into the rhythm of the Song of Naming. It floated toward the demons and was partially absorbed by the body of the human. The part that was not absorbed reflected from the man and appeared to originate from within him.
Pointing at Sheyir
, Sariel transferred this responsibility to her and moved his attention to another target. With a low, throated moan, he sent another melody into the earth below the man’s feet. It too reflected the Song and Sariel immediately enlisted another woman to support this part of the Idea. When the man, ground, air, and grass in the immediate area were all singing with reflected ideas, Sariel carefully spoke a fragment of a harmonious language that he could reproduce with his human vocal chords. With this ancient language, he inserted the Idea that this existence wasn’t worth the effort it required to hold on to it.
Within seconds, the demons began to see that the earth was dry and desolate, the air suffocating. The blades of grass threatened to reach out and strangle them. And the human beneath their taloned grasp seemed pathetic and weak.
Is this existence really better than our last?
Wouldn’t it be better to go back and regain our former status?
This man is dying. His fragile body cannot sustain us. His weakness is limiting.
We are meant for greater things.
He cannot even move us from one end of this prison to the other without losing his breath.
Aren’t we better than this?
Shouldn’t we just let go?
Won’t we just slip into the Eternal?
It would better—
Suddenly, one of the demons lost its grip and was immediately sucked through the Void—the chasm that separated the Temporal Realm from the territory of the Evil One. It was a place of nothingness, where no being or object could exist. And having done so, the demon forfeited its hold on the inadequate physical existence it had been clinging to for so long. In an instant, it was transported to the far end of the spectrum, where nothing that has been made can be unmade.
Sariel kept singing, but inwardly he smiled at the thought that one more demon had just been put into the Place of Holding. And he trusted what he had been told—one day, that existence would become a punishment that could not be escaped.
After several more iterations of the Song of Idea, it was clear that the other two demons were either stronger, or had learned from the mistake of the first. It was time to change tactics.
With half the men still playing their instruments, maintaining the Song of Naming, Sariel now enlisted the remainder of the men. Pointing at them individually, he signaled which drums to beat as well as their timing. Some used large, hollowed tree stumps with cloth stretched over the opening, while others beat rocks against smaller reeds that hung from thread around their wrists. Gradually, they constructed a percussive wall of sound that stretched from the lowest, earth-rumbling boom to the highest, ear-piercing report.