Music
I awake and remember the dangerous shadows that clouded the full moon.
The crystal, the blood, and the light.
My eyes are slow to open, and I wonder what world I’ll see.
In a moment I adjust to the light, and find myself still surrounded with the new world and its dream.
Slowly, I sit up.
I’m in a red, egg-shaped room, with windows that rise from floor to ceiling.
A beautiful dark wood surrounds the windows on four sides, forming a frame a few inches wide.
Curved windows face the deck, and the small shadows tell me the sun is nearly overhead.
The room is filled with light, warm and gentle.
The bed echoes the tower, with its own pillar and platform.
I sit on a thick pad that rests on the dark silver platform.
My hand reaches over the pad to touch the bright metal.
The metal greets me with both cold and warmth, and my hand tingles with the touch.
I look away from the windows toward the oval inner doorway.
It’s seven feet tall, and five feet across at its widest point.
A sparkling energy field takes the place of a door.
It blocks the way, and leaves me hidden within.
A three foot wide path of stone splits the floor and the room in two.
The stone is dark red, and perfectly smooth.
The path begins at the oval, and continues to the windows at the far end of the egg.
The rest of the floor is stone, with veins of silver metal that pass through the stone in intricate patterns.
The ceiling is red crystal, and full of light.
Soft instrumental music passes through the crystal.
I hear and feel the music, with its strong Celtic flavor.
The whole house and everyone in it is filled with the sound.
I float on the music until the sweet smell of flowers takes hold of me.
I follow the smell to flowering vines that cling tightly to the smooth ceramic walls.
The vines are dark red, and cover the top third of the walls, but leave the windows and ceiling untouched.
I take a few deep breaths, and let the light and music and sweet smells circle through me.
Then I continue to scan the room.
Some of Yagrin’s memories come to me, flashing through me at odd moments like bolts of lightning.
I look around at a set of small square tables, each one paired with a single chair.
I see myself sitting there and focusing on a spinning blue cube that hovers in the air above the table, but I can’t remember why.
Across the room, there’s a circular rug, and large cushions.
Another flash, and I’m there with others in the midst of a meditation.
I am connected with the others.
I feel all our bodies sitting on the cushions, and bright energy passing through us all.
I remember opening a trap door in the floor, and seeing a storehouse of herbs and crystals.
The storehouse protects its contents from the strong energy and light that fills the room.
This room is for healing.
A year ago, I was here.
A group of men and women appeared suddenly, carrying a badly hurt child.
My eyes find the spot.
A ten-foot wide circle of silver metal with a red stone triangle at its center.
We call it the transport platform.
It moves healers, and those with an urgent need for healing, to this place.
Travelers and Old Friends
My head turns to follow the sound of footsteps.
“How do you feel?” asks Shazira, as she passes through the opening, and into the room.
The opening is clear for a few seconds, until she touches something on the wall, and the sparkling cover returns.
I look at my chest beneath the robe and see no wound, no scab, no scar.
“I’m a little weak still,” I tell her, “but I feel good”.”
“Eat this,” she says as she hands me something dry and stiff.
“Fish,” she adds.
I chew the dried fish slowly. It’s surprisingly good.
“What happened?” I ask.
She sighs.
“This place is a Watchtower,” she tells me.
“It absorbs light from the sun during the day.”
“At night it fills the sky above the islands and the city with light. ”
“The killers are strange creatures called Krale, and they flee from this light.”
“Most of the month the tower keeps us safe, but every six weeks, the full moon’s light weakens the tower.”
“Then the Krale come to attack the city.”
“You are Felerin, a master energy weaver.”
“I am a flow master.”
“Together, we dissolve an ancient crystal, and fill the sky with a heavy light that lingers the whole night.”
She gives me a strange look, a mix of affection and fear.
“You came here as a traveler, at the full moon.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know what to do,” I tell her.
“I couldn’t make the light.”
“In the end, the light came,” she answers quietly.
“What happened to Yagrin when I came?”
“Travelers come here from other worlds and slip into a body.”
“They push out the spirit of the body they take, and stay a moment, a year, or forever.”
“Will he return?”
“He will never return.”
“You are here forever.”
“No,” I protest, horrified.
“I wanted to touch another world and learn from it.”
“I never wanted to stay.”
“I never wanted to kill anyone.”
“When I first realized you were a traveler,” she says, “I wanted to kill you.”
“If I could have killed your spirit, and brought back my Yagrin, I would have done it, but I didn’t know how.”
“I thought that as long as his body still lived there was a chance of getting him back.”
“Then something moved within me, and I recognized you.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell her.
She holds a mirror to me.
My heart beats hard and fast when I see that this body carries my own face.
“Your Yagrin looks just like me,” I tell her.
“How did you know?”
“I can’t explain it, but I knew.”
“You have a different personality, and who knows what sort of a strange world you come from.”
“It seems impossible, but you’re still him.”
“It can’t be true,” I tell her.
“You’re here.”
“How do you explain that?”
“I came here in a dream, and I keep hoping I’ll wake up.”
“I won’t, will I?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How do other travelers get here?”
“The cubes say they come in dreams.”
“Most stay for a few days.”
“Others send the original spirit toward death, and take the body like thieves.”
“Then I can still find my way home!”
“Tell me how you came here.”
“I’ve been in love with stories since before I could read, and I’ve been hunting for other worlds my whole life.”
“Life itself, was little more than a dream to me, and I learned to see other worlds during waking dreams.”
“Is that how you first found us?”
“No.”
“My waking dreams are full of fog and shadows, with brief moments of clear light.”
“No one can travel through those dreams.”
“I also sought other worlds in the dreams of the night.”
“Sometimes, I would wake within those dreams and explore distant places.”
“One night, I found a dream within a dream.”
“I woke within the first dream, and spoke the words I use to create a daylight dream.”
The perfect place for me, in time and space and possibility, to learn what I need to learn, to be the person I must be, and to listen and speak to the deep parts of myself, is right here.
“A wind carried me away, and left me inside a great cube, miles wide in every direction.”
“Walls, floor, and ceilings were a dark blue.”
“The surface was soft like water, but I could stand on it.”
“It was cracked everywhere like glass, and each fragment was full of faces.”
“They were all me, and yet they were different.”
“Some had different color skin or hair, or variations in the shape of the teeth or other parts of the face.”
“Some creatures looked nothing like us, and yet I still knew they were me.”
“When I touched the fragments, I would see a different world for a few seconds.”
“It would fade on its own, and I’d move to touch another world.”
“Then, I saw a face before me, and my heart raced.”
“It was your Yagrin, and he seemed to look right at me.”
“I touched that fragment, and I was crushed.”
“I felt everything break within me, and I blacked out.”
“When I awoke, I was lying on the beach at the base of the Watchtower.”
Shazira looks white.
“Are you all right?”
“Ordinary travelers come here from other planets within this universe.”
“The cubes say that some travelers belong here.”
“They come from another universe, and pass through a sea of faces.”
“They are twins with the one whose body they take, and their spirits melt together.”
“I have to go now,” I tell her, feeling too weak still to stand up.
“I’ll let your Yagrin return.”
“This isn’t my world.”
“I came here to learn and to leave.”
“It’s still just a dream, a story, a game!”
She stands tall above me, her face filled with certainty.
She raises a fist, as if to strike me.
“A game?” she shouts.
“Your life here is real.”
“Some travelers can go back, but not you.”
“You will never leave this place,” she says, turning away, “and the old Yagrin will never return.”
She wipes away the tears, and faces me.
“You are Yagrin, now.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We are bonded for life.”
“A bond is more than a ceremony or a promise.”
“Your energy and mine are tied together.”
“Let your mind go quiet.”
“You’ll feel what I feel, sometimes see what I see, and know the subtle energies that are me, hidden behind the body, feelings, and thoughts.”
“I taste your spirit, Yagrin, as easily as I feel my own heart.”
“Your spirit is unchanged.”
“You don’t remember your life here, but you and Yagrin are one spirit.”
“There are rare spirits such as you, with many homes, and many lives in many worlds.”
I listen to the silence, and I feel her emotions, and I feel the energy moving through her.
“Are there other spirits here like me?” I ask at last.
“No one has ever met such a spirit before, but the ancient writings speak of it.”
“Tell me about these spirits, Shazira.”
“The writings say you are wild and beautiful and dangerous.”
“That you have forgotten your power, and spend your days pretending to be like the rest of us.”
“That you can destroy the world or save it.”
“Do you believe it?”
“Sometimes I still want to kill you for sending my Yagrin away, and disrupting my life.”
“Then I remember he is still here.”
“You feel different, and yet the same.”
“We call our planet Siksa.”
“Whether you remember it or not, this is your home.”
Cinnamon
“What happened the other night?” I ask her softly.
“The crystal almost killed you,” she adds, growing upset.
“When I activate the crystal, you are supposed to use the crystal to gather energy from the web, and build the light.”
“On that night, I activated it, but you didn’t know what to do.”
“You fed your own energy to the crystal to build the light and protect the city.”
“You tore holes in your pattern body (energy body).”
“The healers never saw an injury like this.”
“It took two days to heal you.”
“Then, you slept for two more days.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I thought I’d killed you,” she says at last lowering her head.
I feel her warm tears running freely on my skin as she sits on with me, and comes into my arms.
I taste the tears.
Salt and cinnamon.
I hold her hands until the tears stop.
I am at home when I speak with her, and our feelings dance together when we sit in silence.
After a few minutes, she gets up.
“You need to eat a real meal,” she says, and leaves the room.
Soon she returns, and serves me spicy fish and fruit juice.
She smiles when she sees me eating and enjoying the food.
“I can only reach a few of Yagrin’s memories,” I tell her.
“How will I take his place and guard the Watchtower?”
“When you are fully recovered, we will find teachers for you.”
“Yagrin had a great talent for energy weaving.”
“The talent still lives in you.”
“You flew by instinct the first night you came here.”
“I’ll disappoint you, Shazira.”
“Yagrin is the person I’ve always wanted to be.”
“A guardian, a warrior in a world of light.”
“I’m not him, and I can’t take his place.”
“In my own world, I’m no hero.”
“I’m afraid of my strength, and afraid to do what I know I must do.”
“I’ve been waiting my whole life to find another me, and another world.”
“Here’s the world, but I’m still the same.”
“You think this life is perfect, and Yagrin is a hero?”
“He’s arrogant, and acts without thinking, brilliant, but he wants everyone to know it.”
“He’s always trying to fix everything and everyone.”
“He can’t handle his own feelings.”
“When he’s happy, his love for me is so strong that it scares him.”
“When we argue, he wants me to disappear.”
I frown, feeling the burden of my own weakness, and Yagrin’s.
Shazira smiles and touches my chest.
“Don’t worry,” she says.
“Your heart is clear and strong.”
“Free that strength, and you’ll find your way.”
She pauses.
“I believe you’ve come here because we need you, but I don’t know what the need is, or who you’ll become.”
“We all have a deep intelligence.”
“Let it speak to you.”
“Listen to the deep self, older than the sky.”
“Listen to the world as it dances around you, and challenges you.”
“Face the best and the worst in the old Yagrin, and the best and the worst in your old self.”
“Go hunting for that wild powerful self that’s been hiding.”
“Let yourself play and heal and be surprised.”
Blessing
“Let’s bind the blessings,” she says, as we finish eating.
“It will break you out of your dark mood.”
It should feel strange when she calls me by his name, but it resonates with something deep within me, and I find it comforting.
“What does it mean to bind the blessings?” I ask her.
“It’s the way that we give thanks for the wonders of life that sustain us and help us grow.”
She takes both my hands.
Close your eyes.
Hear my words and follow along.
Feel the motion of the seas where the fish swim and live.
The water is cold and pure, and the waves crash tall and strong above, while deep beneath nothing has changed.See the trees where the fruit grows, and the wide fields where the herbs grow.
Listen to the wind. See the night, and feel the stillness.
See the plants thirst for the light rains and bend under the heavy rains that feed the world.
Hear the rain as it dances on the plants.
“Remember you flew along the energy web, on the night you first came here?”
“Yes.”
“What did the web look like to you?”
“I saw and felt it vibrating everywhere around me, a matrix of points filling all of space, bright and full of a soft music.”
“When you think of the rain,” she asks, “do you see the points of energy in the midst of the rain?”
“No.”
“I have to move my focus away from the rain to see the points of energy.”
“I can’t see both at once.””
“Try this,” she suggests.
See and feel the web, and let the world float upon it like a clear crystal.
The oceans and their life appear and disappear before you like waves.
The land, its forests, mountains, deserts, and life appear and disappear the same way.See the rains come and go.
Let the web be the background, but let all the multiplicity of life appear in its beauty.
Don’t hold onto the image of life. Let it gently come and go.This is the binding of blessing.
For some, it is only words.
For others, the words are bound to the web of energy that supports all life.
The words are life./
