“Now don’t be afraid,” he said. “Tell me what else you see.”
A shadow caught the corner of my eye, and I turned and saw a large wolf. It was a little behind me, near the far end of the window. It began pacing, its claws clicking on the polished floor. I had seen wolves before, but never this close. Its eyes were amber, translucent, edged with black. Its lips too were black, and its tongue hung out a little, from the heat. Its fur was gray and brown, and dust rose from its coat as it paced. I saw the muscles ripple under its fur, the strong tendons of its legs, its powerful throat and jaws. Suddenly it turned toward me. I froze, hardly breathed. The wolf came over to me, sniffed my hand. I felt its whiskers prick my skin. It licked my wrist; its tongue was warm, rasping. I could see its teeth, yellowed and sharp. I heard it panting. It sat down by me, its tongue lolling, as if it grinned. Then, in the blink of an eye, it vanished.
I stared at the Master, astounded.
“A wolf!” I cried. “You created a wolf.”
“If you did not know me,” he said, “and if you came in here and saw me with that wolf, you would have thought it was real. And if the wolf had snarled at you, you would have been afraid. If it had attacked you, you would have turned to run. But if it had caught you, you would have felt its claws, its teeth, and you would have suffered all the trauma of being killed by a wild animal. In the end your heart would have failed from sheer terror, and from your absolute belief in certain death.”
“But you would never create such an illusion,” I said.
“No, I wouldn’t. But there is one who would, and you have expressed a desire to speak with him.”
“Jaganath?” I said.
“Yes, Jaganath. And his illusions are not just wolves, but things far worse. He uses illusions to control people, to strike such fear into them that they will obey his every wish. Even the strongest men in the Empire he controls in this way. He also has the power to walk in memories, to re-create images of loved ones now on the Other Side. He knows all secrets, all fears, all hurts, all dreams. He also has allied himself with demons, with powers from beyond the veil. That is why, when he took power as Emperor, he closed the Citadel and would have killed us all: we are the only ones in the world who can withstand him. I am the only one who equals him in power.”
“Are you saying I should never face him?” I asked.
“On the contrary, I think you must face him. You are the daughter of his great enemy, the person Jaganath hated above all others. Gabriel publicly exposed Jaganath for the evil man he was. If anyone ever again faces Jaganath and accuses him of his wrongs, that person should be you. As Gabriel’s daughter, as a member of the Shinali nation, and as a free woman in the Time of the Eagle, you must confront Jaganath. And I shall teach you all the power you need. But you must always bear this in mind: that in his presence, nothing is as it seems.”
“I almost want to change my mind,” I said.
He smiled then, and touched my cheek with his palm. “No need for fear,” he said. “We will begin one step at a time. You have your father’s gifts, and great power is already in you. You were born for this, Avala. This is your battle. Not for you the sword, the warrior-hordes meeting Jaganath’s army. Not for you the arrows and the spears. Your weapons will be entirely different, your battle another kind of fight altogether.”
And so he taught me the deeper wisdoms, the unbound abilities of the human mind. I cannot speak in detail of what I learned, for before we began I made solemn vows that I would never disclose the secrets of his power; but I can say that with Sheel Chandra I learned how to discern between what is illusion and what is real, how to create illusions, to interpret dreams, and to shield myself with light so mighty that nothing could pierce it.
But it was not all solemn learning, with Sheel Chandra. He taught me to walk in memories, and allowed me, for practice, to walk in his. And so I came to see his country, Shanduria, and witnessed some of the astounding things I had heard about, months before, from the poet Delano. I saw the strange high temples, totally carved with the figures of holy people; I saw a wide flight of steps going down into a yellow river where people bathed, saffron robes wrapped about themselves, and where there floated flower-covered barges, slowly burning, that were funeral pyres. There were domed palaces where white tigers roamed, and people with jewels and robes more colorful than any I had seen before. But best of all was the procession of the huge beasts called elephants, with their long painted trunks, golden drapes, and on their broad backs the little jeweled chairs in which people rode. One of the elephants carried a man so completely wrapped in gold and jewels, even about his head, that I could hardly see his face. As I watched that procession I heard people cheering and felt the crowd pressing against my back. I was conscious of a woman standing close to me, holding my hand tight. Though I did not see her clearly, she was much taller than I, and I realized I was seeing the memories of a small child. And I did not only see the memories; I smelled the dust, and a heavy scent like spices, and felt the heat beating up from the shining dust. A grinning boy danced in front of me, one hand held out palm up, the other offering a basket in which were several pieces of cut fruit. The hand of the woman I was with put a coin in the boy’s palm, and I took a piece of the fruit. It was pale green and very juicy, delicious. I looked up, trying to see the woman’s face, and the scene faded.
I took several deep breaths, and opened my eyes. “Why did you not let me see your mother?” I asked.
Sheel Chandra smiled that beautiful smile of his, and humor rose in his great dark eyes. “Leave me some things that are private,” he said. “As it is, I have a hard time going ahead of you in my memories, limiting your walk. The Shandurian procession you were meant to see, and the ceremonial elephant bearing the Great Khan on its back—but the face of my mother was meant to remain hidden.”
“Your country is wonderful,” I said. “I’m honored to see your childhood memories. Thank you.”
“It’s always a pleasure to share them with you,” he replied. “But I do not let you run totally amok through the mansions of my mind. You see only what I want you to see. I put up many walls. With other minds, other memories, there are no boundaries. When walking in memories, we see also people’s deepest agonies, their most terrible secrets, their worst nightmares. What is seen in other people’s minds could drive us mad. So we set our own boundaries, and walk in memories only with the person’s consent, and for a very limited time. Always, it is done only to heal, perhaps to find the core of disease, or to wipe out a terrible fear. No matter how tempted, we must never walk in memories for our own purposes.”
Slowly he stood up, and I stood with him, and he leaned on me as we went downstairs for the evening meal. On the way he said, “You had talked of going back to the Igaal in the autumn. Is that still your wish?”
“Why speak of autumn?” I said. “It’s months away yet.”
“No it is not, dear one. Summer is almost over. You and I have spent whole days—many days—deep in meditation, communing in our minds, exchanging words by thought alone. Time has not existed for us. In another few weeks it will be autumn.”
Astonished, I thought on his words. “I wish to go back only when I’ve learned everything you want to teach me,” I said.
“There is one other skill,” he said. “It is the ability to travel in your mind the way we did the first time we were together, when we visited your mother. In the time left to us I cannot teach you to communicate directly with people, but I can teach you to discern where they are, perhaps even to see them. It is a skill that will be necessary for you, I think, though to learn it may take until winter’s end.”
“How terrible,” I said, trying not to smile, “to have to spend a few more months in Ravinath.”
He laughed softly. “Then we shall begin tomorrow,” he said.
Suddenly another thought struck me. “I missed my seventeenth borning-day!” I said. “It was in summer’s middle.”
“Was it, now?” he said. ??
?Then we shall arrange a belated celebration.”
So it was that the seventeenth celebration of my borning-day was in Ravinath, and I was a high lot honored. The cooks made a splendid feast, everyone had the afternoon free of studies and work, and we feasted from day’s middle almost until dusk. I sat in the place of honor, in the center of the long table under the many-pillared open window, with the summer-browned mountains and the sun at my back. At the feast’s end the table was cleared in front of me, and everyone brought me gifts. I was given tiny bags of seeds from Amael, all carefully labeled, and Zuleman gave me a book of star maps, a different map for each month, showing where the stars were, and their names, and which planets were visible. One of the scientists gave me a small telescope made of brass, which slid away into a cylinder not much longer than my hand. “You won’t be able to see the moons of your beloved Erdelan through it,” he said, “but you will be able to see many things in this world, that otherwise would not be seen.”
From Taliesin I received a beautiful Navoran ring, made by one of the silversmiths especially for me. It was a perfect circle made up of seven silver stars, symbol of the Citadel and the seven Wisdoms taught there. Where each star joined the next were two tiny jewels, one green, the color of healing, the other blue, the Navoran color for freedom.
From Salverion I received a folding leather pouch containing Navoran surgical instruments. There was a little knife, razor sharp and pointed, made of the finest Navoran steel, for the cleaning of wounds and for surgery. With it was a stone for sharpening the blade, and Salverion showed me how to use it. In the pouch also was an instrument to hold wounds open while I cleaned them, and a delicate tool for removing tiny fragments of dirt or bone. There was an ingenious instrument called a pair of scissors, for cutting, and a set of very fine curved metal needles such as Navoran surgeons used, as well as a roll of silk thread for sewing up wounds. One of the Ravinath artists had painted my name on the pouch, along with a picture of an eagle flying over the slender towers and domed roofs of the beautiful Citadel.
All the gifts were exceedingly precious to me, but the most treasured was from Sheel Chandra. It was a golden talisman identical to one he wore himself: a pair of eagle’s wings outstretched in flight, and above them, fitted perfectly within their upward curve, was a single eye, its pupil formed of the blue stone the Navorans call sapphire. The symbol was fixed to a golden chain, and as Sheel Chandra placed it over my head he said, “When you hold this sacred sign against your brow and call to me in your mind, I will hear you. And, no matter how many mountains or walls or rivers or seas lie between us, we will commune together in our thoughts.”
As if all this were not enough, the musicians played for me, and the poets read, and Salverion made a speech that I will hold in my knowing for the rest of my life.
“Sovereign God brought you to us,” he said, in ending. “He gave us the joy and the great privilege of sharing with you the wisdom and blessings that we have. Yet, in the Time of the Eagle, you and your people, with the Hena and the Igaal, shall give us far more than anything we have given you in this place—for you will give us our liberty, and the right to return home.”
Sheel Chandra spread the large, fine parchment out on the table in front of me, and nodded toward the map he had pinned up on the wall. “Now, I want you to copy that map,” he said, “everything in the Shinali, Igaal, and Hena lands—every mountain, every valley, and every river and forest. Also, all the coast.”
We were in the great library, and the light from above poured down on the blank parchment and the pen held in my hand.
“What has this to do with communicating?” I asked.
“You will find out,” he said. “First, the map. Make it as accurate as you can, and add anything you know that is not shown on our Navoran chart.”
So, for the next seven days, I made my map. A work of art it was, with the mountain ranges detailed and fine, and all the valleys and gorges distinct. I made the map my own, naming the rivers and peaks with the Shinali names for them, and I even marked the hunting grounds my people had found in the Wandering that were rich with deer and wild goats. While I drew, Sheel Chandra came often to watch, but he did not talk to me. Sometimes I did not even realize he was there. While I made my map other disciples were not allowed to use the library, for Sheel Chandra had said I must not be disturbed.
At last it was done, and I rolled up my map and took it to Sheel Chandra in his glass-roofed room high in the tower.
“Ah—a beautiful work!” he said, when I spread the map at his feet. “Excellent detail. Look across those lands depicted here, Avala, and know that somewhere, in all this vast territory, are your people. And somewhere is your Igaal tribe. Look on your map, draw its landmarks on the parchments of your heart, know it well. And in the days and months to come, I will show you how to fly in your mind, swift as the eagle flies, down those valleys and across those plains and over those mountains, until you find the ones you seek.”
It seemed an easy skill, the way he spoke of it then; but autumn swept her gusty winds about our tower, then winter’s whiteness fell on the glass roof, and still I sat there before my map, searching, questing, finding nothing.
“Don’t despair, Avala,” Sheel Chandra said, one bitterly cold day when I was near tears, thinking myself a failure. “This is the hardest skill of all, one even Jaganath does not possess. It is the kind of vision that comes usually when it is unexpected, a flash of insight, a special gift for a moment only. To train your mind to open up the portals of this Sight, to train your spirit to deliberately fly beyond your body and to commune with other minds, is a very great discipline. Be calm, have peace. It will come. One day your mind will fly and you will see your map no longer, but the lands below. You will fly across the place where your people dwell, and you will know.”
I thought of the glorious flight with him, that first night we had met, when he took me to see my mother. So effortless, so swift and wonderful, it had been.
“I feel as if I’m flapping around in the mud,” I said, “and I want to soar.”
But one day, when the snowdrifts were piled on the glass dome, and the windows shook with the force of the gales buffeting them, I did. I was looking at my map, weary, half asleep and half blind from staring, when my focus shifted, and the map seemed to slide sideways. Instantly, I was wide awake. I thought I was falling down and tried to sit upright, but was already straight. With pounding heart and mounting joy, I glanced along the slanting map, saw it become wide and broad, stretching out beyond the walls. Wind streamed over me. Far below, the mountains stretched like crumpled paper, and rivers snaked, blue-black, between the snowy lands. I saw flat plains dusted with snow and ice, and windswept gorges, and slashes of green forest. Swift I flew through the silent lands, down the valleys, felt the icy air rush over me, and in the deep dark gorges heard the winds howl. Over a plain a herd of wild horses grazed on tussock grass, and I thought of Ishtok. Then I was in a valley with steep mountains all around and an ice-dark lake ahead. Beside the lake, snow-powdered tents. Igaal tents. Then, between one breath and the next, I was in one of them. It was Mudiwar’s. With every sense, I was there: I smelled the fire burning in the metal braziers, and the lamp oil, and leather clothes and sweat. Mudiwar sat there, coughing, blue-lipped. I saw Ramakoda with a woman beside him who was a stranger to me. She said something to him, and he smiled at her in a way I had not seen him smile before. I had the feeling she was his new wife.
I heard rough laughter, and voices with an unfamiliar accent. There were strangers there, sitting among the people of Mudiwar’s tribe. They wore painted garments, and their long hair was thickened with red mud and formed into ringlets or topknots, even the men’s. They were Hena. One of them was a man with a striking face, with high cheekbones and a strong mouth, and no hair at all on his head, but with strange signs painted along his brow. I knew he was their priest, Sakalendu; I knew it from the deep, otherworldly look about him, and from his soul-colors, amber and vio
let and white. Then I saw Ishtok.
With a Hena youth he was, and they were leaning with their heads close, laughing together. Ishtok lifted his head, and I saw his face joyful in the lamplight. He looked so happy, glad to see his Hena family again. I wanted to laugh with him, to share his pleasure. The youth he was with gave him something on a leather thong. It was a stone carving of a fox, and Ishtok put it about his neck, and embraced his friend.
The scene seemed to diminish, to fade. I was looking at the tent again, from above, then it was only a dot among other dots, beside the dark lake. It was evening, and the setting sun blushed pink on the snow. There was a feeling of wind again, of being drawn back, pulled fast along frigid valleys and past lofty peaks. Then I was in Ravinath, in the high room with my map in front of me. A lamp was burning on the floor nearby. I leaned forward and with my fingertip traced the way I had gone, past the ranges that edged the Ekiya Gorge, along the black river, northeastward to the mountains deep in Igaal land. There. There was Mudiwar’s camp, beside a lake hidden within a circle of mountains.
I looked up and saw Sheel Chandra watching me. He was smiling, nodding.
“Well done, dear one!” he said. “But it was not your people you found.”
“No,” I said. “I found my Igaal tribe. They had visitors. Ishtok’s Hena family, they had come to visit him. He was talking with his Hena brother, Atitheya.”
“You heard him speak Atitheya’s name?”
For a few heartbeats I hesitated, unsure. Then, bewildered, I shook my head. “I just know it,” I said. “At least, I think I know it. Do you think I’m right?”
“What I think,” he replied, “is that your time with us here at Ravinath is finished. You are ready to go out and begin your real work.”
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