Thunder Voice

 
Stone
The world feels broken today, as I wake.
But what does it mean?

Usually, I love greeting the sun, but today I have to push my way through it.
And I eat almost nothing for breakfast.

“Are you sick, Yagrin?” asks Shazira.
“You barely eat, and your smile is gone.”

I scan my body with the listener, searching for sickness or injury.
But my life energy burns strong.

The answer is somewhere outside of me.
“I’m not sick,” I tell her.
“But I have to find out what’s wrong.”

I sit in the healing room, and spread my listener on the web, searching for the imbalance that pulls at me.

The calm of the web settles over me, and my energy bodies brighten.
But the listener can’t touch the whole web, only an area of a few miles.
And it finds no answers.

Still, there’s a whisper within me, that someone bound to me is dying.

Shazira and the children are safe in the tower.
Who else could it be?

I let go of the web, and search for another way to touch the health of my friends.
I look at my fire body with energy eyes, and my heart well brightens as I focus on it.

The seven wells within us are filled with strength, and the heart well is the strongest of all, and the source of balance.

I pour the image of Chiwan’s energy body into the well,and let the listener spin around that energy image.

I can’t see Chiwan, but the listener helps me sense where he is, and feel his balance.
He’s fine.

I fill the well with energy images of the Tshuan royal family, Keela and her father.
They are safe and whole.

My heart speeds up as I think of Balshown.
I imagine his energy body, and spin the listener again.

Nauseau assaults me.
Balshown is in trouble, on Dusal, an island seventy miles away.

My attention returns to the room, and I see Shazira waiting for me.
“I have to go to Dusal,” I tell her.
“Balshown is seriously hurt.”

“Yagrin, I just heard that several healers were called to Dusal yesterday to treat a strange injury.”

“What happened, Shazira?”

“They said that a master was in a battle with Krale.”

I run out of the dream room onto the deck, leap over the railing, arms wide, and rise quickly along the energy web.

Bursts of energy pass through me like flashes of lightning.
And my hands glow as I fly.

The sky is clear of lightning storms today.
The ocean far below is unusually calm, and the skies strangely empty of birds.

Soon Dusal appears, a large island with a single town.
A dozen weavers guard the airspace around the island.
On the ground, another twenty masters guard the town.

The town square is guarded, and I see the occasional flash of a travel platform.

Three of the weavers approach, and block my way.
They look at the three bands on my robe, and the mark of the watchtower.
And then scan me with energy eyes.

“Welcome brother Yagrin,” says the eldest.
“This is a guarded area, by order of the council.”
“What’s your business here?”

“Is it true that Master Balshown was hurt in a battle with Krale?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve come to help.”

“If you’ve come as a healer, there are already too many healers here.”
“But weavers and flow masters are needed to help guard the island.”

I pretend to agree, but I won’t stand around as Balshown dies.

“I’d like to guard the building he’s in.”

“The large building to the north of the town square.”

I find the building easily.
Then I land and walk up the stairs to the entrance.

My footsteps echo through the square.
The town is unusually quiet.
Many have fled, or hide indoors.

Another weaver guards the building entrance.
And the masters have erected energy barriers around the building.
I can’t force my way in.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “but no one else is permitted to enter.”
“It’s dangerous to be near the master.”

“Dangerous?”
“Why?”

“I’m not allowed to speak of it.”

“Is master Balshown conscious?”

“Yes, but he’s in great pain.”

“Tell him that Yagrin is here.”

The weaver sends an apprentice to tell Balshown.

The apprentice returns and whispers to the master.

“There’s a message for you,” says the master.
“The healers have been trying to help him all night, and they’ve done nothing.”

“He’s sent everyone out of the room, and wants to die alone.”
“There’s a package at the guild office for you, to be given to you after his death.”

“He’s as stubborn as ever,” I say aloud.

Then I dissolve my two outer bodies, leaving only my fire body.
The energy barriers cannot keep me out in this form.

I find the room he’s in.
Several healers are outside the door, still searching for a way to help.
And there’s a weaver guarding the door.

He sees my fire body, but I pass quickly through the door, and face Balshown.

I never thought of Balshown as old, until now.
He’s covered in blankets, except for his head, and looks like he can barely lift his head from the pillow.

I reshape my Jiku body, and clear my throat.

“I told you that I must be alone,” he says.
“I have nothing left to say.”

The weaver who was guarding the door enters.
“Forgive me, master Balshown,” he says.
“I couldn’t stop him.”

“What happened?” I ask Balshown.

“Yesterday I was visiting this island to see some recently discovered ancient ruins.”
He gives me a knowing look, and a little nod, to tell me that he has was looking for knowledge that would help us reach the heart fountain.

“There were a dozen children playing, not far from the ruins.”
“The ruins are little more than large metal steps that descend into the ground, and into a great cave.”

“When the cave was first found, it it was completely filled with large stones.”

“When a master uses energy to transform one object into another, the transformation is rarely perfect.”
“Often, there are fragments of the original energy pattern which tells us what the original substance was.”

“I examined the stones, and saw that they were not natural, but transformed from air.”

“I moved the stones away, gliding them along the energy web to an empty field, for later study.”
“An inner tunnel was exposed.”

“I felt something rising from deep in the earth long before I saw it.”
“Like a moving hole in the energy web.”
“Death.”

“I couldn’t tell what it was, but I knew I had to destroy it.”
“Just before it reached the surface, I tried to transform it into air.”
“It was protected against transformation, but I had some effect.”

“I saw the Krale as it came out of the cave.”
“Its form was weak with the black stone body fading in and out of existence.”

“I tried again to flow it into air.”
“And I finally succeeded.”
“But before it vanished, it gave one blast of dark lightning and struck me in the leg.”

A few of the healers have re-entered the room, and one of them lifts up the blankets that cover Balshown, to show me his leg.
It’s horrible, a combination of stone and greyish flesh.

Balshown asked the healers to cut it off.
No blade can scratch it.
Even the hair on his head cannot be cut.

“My leg is turning into black stone, Yagrin,” says Balshown.
“I get weaker and weaker as it spreads.”
“Two or three days and my whole body will change.”

“But I’ll die sooner, when it reaches my organs.”
“still, that’s not the worst of it.”

“Will my dead body give birth to a Krale when the transformation is complete?”
“And bring more death to the island?”

 
Living Thunder
My throat feels tight and heavy, and I’m short of breath.
I often carry tension there, and this may be nothing more than frozen energy from an old emotional or physical wound.
I focus on the area to relax it, and let the stuck energy move again, but I suddenly stop.

There’s something more here.
A gift and a message.

I look at my body with energy eyes.
The energy well in my throat is glowing, brighter than ever, and I see a spinning torus of energy around the well.

A distant voice within me is speaking.
There are no words, but I feel that there’s someone I need to become, something I must do, a connection that I must build with the world outside of me..
My hand rises to my neck, and lingers on the adam’s apple.

I need to embrace the power and potential of my voice, and let it free.

My listener awakens, touches the torus of energy that surrounds the well, and finds another world.

An enclosed stone sphere, covered with a blue and violet crystal.
Not a cavern or cave on an asteroid or planet.
A place unto itself, surrounded, not by a universe of stars, but by endless light.

I see myself there, a fire body, an egg of energy.
I radiate light, and extend my energy to the edges of the sphere.
I have no mouth, but my voice sounds: “Let all forces be gathered to heal Balshown.”

The sphere fills with a deep red energy, thicker and thicker, stronger and stronger.
My fire body fills with the energy, and then I’m back with Balshown.

There’s no longer a tightness in my throat, but a great pressure, a wave that must find release.

I throw my head back, and an immense, deep sound like thunder bursts from my throat.
As the sound fills the room, the energy rises from my throat like a fountain and washes over Balshown.

I’m barely aware of my surroundings.
But I feel the room shake, as the healers bend over in pain and cover their ears.

Ten seconds later I black out.

Someone shakes me awake.
“Are you alright?” asks one of the healers, a tall apprentice with no beard.

I stand up easily.
“Fine,” I answer.
“Was anyone else hurt?

“It was incredibly loud, but no one was hurt.”
“Even our hearing was undamaged.”
“What did you do?” he asks.

I hear myself say, “throat thunder.”

The rest of the healers are clustered around Balshown.

“Come,” says Balshown loudly.

His eyes are glowing with energy, and his hair has turned from white to black.
“I feel strong,” says Balshown as he swings his healthy legs over the side of the bed and stands up.

He catches sight of himself in a small mirror and notices the black hair.
He laughs.

“Not bad for two hundred fify years old, eh Yagrin?”

I nod, hesitant to speak for a moment, afraid that every word will be thunder.

Then I decide.
Test it. Make it work.
Thunder will not be timid.

“You look strong, Balshown, but then you always did.”

My words are powerful, full of a different energy, but not thunder.
I’m fully connected with my voice, letting my strength and dreams move through my voice and light the world.

The healers surround me.

“What did you do?” asks one of the masters.

“The thunder,” I say, “is just another way to deliver energy.”
“I used voice and sound to move energy, instead of the dance of hands.”
“If used properly, the voice has more power than the hands to move energy.”

“Do the words you say in the thunder matter?” asks a tall apprentice.

“What words?” I ask.

They all look at each other.
“When you released the thunder,” says the apprentice, “there were words.”
“I am thunder, and I will heal today.”

I feel a shiver go through me.
The throat well opens, and a fullness builds again in my throat.
I close my mouth, and quickly fly out of the building and into the sky.

I go far from land, and high in the sky.
I thank the creator for life and mystery, and welcome the thunder into my whole body.
Then I release the thunder again, and hope that I don’t black out this time.

This time I feel strong, and hear the words clearly: “I am thunder.”
And the sky answers with bolts of lightning that rise from the ocean and strike in a circle around me.

Three Kishla approach from the north.
When they reach me, they fly in a wide circle around me, tracing the place where the lightning came.
And as they circle, they sing.

I take their form so I can understand their song.

When the birds finish, they look at me, waiting for an answer.
And so I sing of pain, and love, and power, and healing.

When the sky is silent again, the birds rise almost straight up, until they’re out of sight.
And I return to Dusal, to the healers, teach them to release their own thunder.