192 - Surya's hand holding my soul

Why am I more afraid of this than I am of death? The distant part of me pondered that while my gorge came up. “I have to throw up,” I gasped. Kaninjer and Skorsas let go and I sprang up. At least it was the School of the Sword, so I knew exactly how to get to the garderobe without having to think about it. I’d practiced enough as a child, being pushed until the pukes came, and hearing Azaila’s command, “Throw up and feel good about it!” in my ears as I ran.

Why does this seem more dangerous than death? As much good to ask logic of fear as to teach a horse economics. I threw up, and felt good about it, as always, but not so good about going back. All-Spirit… put one foot in front of the other… don’t make them come and get me. Chevenga, hiding in a garderobe; how would that look to the Yeoli voter? I chose this. I need this. It’s only fear. By putting all my soul into the act of walking, I got back into the gathering room.

As if it was nothing, as if the fate of the world didn’t depend on it, Kaninjer and Skorsas each took one of my arms again, pinning it firmly against his side. I don’t know if I can do this… I don’t know if I can do this… I’m Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, I never say I don’t know if I can do this. I remembered Surya’s words. You have to let it go. I can’t pull it out unless you let it go.

He held my head between his hands, front and back. That helped. I closed my eyes, wanting to give myself to the tenderness of all three of them and fall into oblivion, like a baby. “Don’t,” Surya said. “Stay in the present. Deep breath. Make the white line. I’m going to pull the sword out of you; you have to let it go.” Somehow these words helped, by drawing the line of truth around my fate, reining-in the limitlessness of fear. I looked at myself in the mirror, quivering and dripping sweat.

They gave me time. I willed calm, with deep breaths; I made the white line. I had so much practice. Perhaps much of it was for this, I thought. “You already have some idea what it will feel like,” Surya whispered to me, “from my moving it in you. You are afraid you will not be able to stand it and it will somehow destroy you; don’t be. You can stand it, and it will not destroy you, nor anything or anyone else.” Deep breath. Make the white line. Make the white line stronger. “Bring in the singing wind, too,” he said. His hand was on my neck again.

All-Spirit… God-in-Me. You who are more than another member of my command council. I thought of the animal in the woods. I heard it, faint and flowing. “When I do it,” Surya whispered, “see it. Use the mirror; look in my hand.” With the gentlest touch, he bent my head forward, but not so far that I could not see the mirror. “Tell me when you are ready.”

Never… never… I can never be ready for this… I brought in the singing wind stronger, made the white line brighter. I felt the love in Skorsas’s and Kan’s grip, paid more attention to it; don’t worry, we will bring you through this, that touch said. I counted out my breaths, as I had in Assembly while Linasika spoke. “I’m ready.” My voice was a croaking whisper, that I seemed to hear from outside myself, as if I were outside and it came from outside, both at once.

He laid his shield-hand on my shoulder. Like you hold the top of the scabbard for a waist-draw, the distant part of me thought. He touched his sword-hand fingers to the back of my neck again. “Keep the white line. Keep the singing wind. Relax; let Skorsas and Kaninjer carry you, let your life flow freely along all its pathways.” I felt his finger reach in, brushing the cord of my life, and touch the hilt.

All-Spirit… it was not death-cold, but death-hot now, a blade of pure white fire, made up of what was deepest in me. It was sacred, as agony is sacred. It was Chevenga, as much as my bones and my blood. Shininao was suddenly in my eyes, exquisite and purple. Lightning and the certainty of death flashed through all my veins, and I was panting, blinded, the world turning end over end. All-Spirit… it’s done…?

Seize your breath, start counting it again, make the white line. Surya’s voice, so huge, as if I were on truth-drug, like a giant bell tolling. I saw myself in the mirror, so ashen pale I was ghostly even in candle-light.

“I moved it barely a hair’s width,” he said. Aigh! Surya I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this… “You’ve got to ready yourself deeper. You’ve lost the singing wind, bring it in again. Much stronger. Much clearer. Choose this, Virani-e. Claim your power.”

I looked beyond him in the reflection to the people, listened to their voices. Yeolis had their arms raised in prayer; Arkans had their hands cupped at their temples. “All-Spirit infuse him… Muunas, Soul of the Sun Itself, give him strength, give him courage… Ama Kalandris, carry him on your breast…” “We are with you, love,” my mother was saying. “We love you. Let that carry you.”

I seized my breath, counted forcefully. Deeper… how do I ready myself deeper? I did what I knew. Make the white line. Call the singing wind. All-Spirit… God in me… stronger, he said… clearer… let it go. Let it go.

I drew in my confidence, my courage, the love around me. I can do this. I chose this. I need this. “Relax,” Surya whispered again. “Letting go is a giving, a trust. It’s an understanding, that life is not so hard. Relax, and let the life flow through you freely. Let yourself be light, and not stone, within.” I made the white line very strong, heard the two-note song of All-Spirit gust loud.

His finger reached into me again. I held it all, like a tight-rope walker on the rope. I’m doing it… I feel no agony, no death-flash…

“No,” he said. “I can’t even touch it now. Virani-e, you chose this. Don’t unchoose it.”

What? All-Spirit… I wanted to scream, “I’m failing? I’m not used to failing!” The world began going light and dark, and up and down lost some of their distinctness. “No, Virani-e… stay here.” Surya’s voice surged and ebbed. “Stay with us. Breathe.” My eyes cleared enough to see my face in the mirror, a hundred years old with horror and despair.

Surya, I don’t know how! I screamed in my mind. If I knew which way to push, I would push with all my might! If I knew what move to make, I would make it whole-hearted. I don’t! I don’t! I had no feel for how to struggle for this, and no one was telling me. I began to despair more deeply; I felt tears of anger on my cheeks; then lightheadedness again. I have to tell him. “S-s-surya...” My voice was broken with sobbing, pathetic, as I’d despise myself for anywhere else. “I don’t know how… I don’t know what to do.” I looked at his reflection, hoping to see mercy in his face.

He was not looking at me. He and Azaila were glancing at each other, and clear as day they exchanged the thought, “Perhaps we were wrong, and he is not ready.”

All-Spirit… what does that mean? I have to schedule the whole thing again… for when I am, whenever that is… after the vote, of course it will be after the vote, so they’ll vote knowing I failed… Still, the massive relief in the idea was viciously tempting. Life… not so hard?

“Kyashin kevyalin,” spat a deep voice behind me. I heard booted running steps. A pair of hard hands, one of them thumbless, seized my face between them. Esora-e put his tear-streaked face nose-to-nose with mine.

“This is my shit,” he hissed. “My mother’s, my grandfather’s. I put it in you. Let it go, my son, my love, my beautiful child, throw it out of you. I give you permission.” More tears broke from his eyes, runnelling his cheeks, but he kept his voice steady. Everything froze utterly still and silent, as if the world were suddenly in amber. I heard nothing but his words, and black-chasm silences between them.

“You don’t deserve this. I wronged you. I wished too much shit on you. I call it all back. You deserve much better, you deserve every good thing in life, every mercy, every pleasure. All the love I ever turned to anger, all the love I twisted in envy, all the love I ever kept locked inside and so denied you, I give you now, Chevenga. Let it go, love. Let go what you never should have had to take in. Let it go, Virani-e, as we all love you. Let it go and be free.” He pressed his lips to my forehead.

There was a soundless tension in the air all around me, as around a tree just before lightning strikes it. Surya… seeing my aura… I felt the reach and the grab and then the world went death-black and sun-white at once.

Virani-e, look! I am thrown off the earth, end over end. I am dying, I am living, I don’t know, it is light, it is dark, I am inside out and everywhere and nowhere Chevenga look! See it! Open your eyes! See it! Surya yelling… Where are my eyes? Torchlight, a mirror, Esora-e’s hands, screaming, it’s my screaming, a momentary scream but time’s slowed down Go by weapon-sense, but then look! A sword, I felt the hissing zhring as it was drawn, above me…

I opened my eyes. My head was thrown back so the ceiling was before me, and Surya’s hand, holding—me. My soul. That’s me. I have a curve like Chirel’s, dark gleaming steel but showing the ceiling through like a ghost’s body, dripping blood, but the blood is blood-red light, faint against the darkness… “Virani-e, see!”

He opens his hand. It smokes away into nothing with a faint fading hiss. It cannot be me. I’m down here. Sharp stink of fear-shit, like at the beginning of a battle, but too close. The world falls away into darkness, the smell the last thing to vanish.

†

This is your reality. Breathe in acceptance. I lay like liquid. Pleasure between my legs drew me out of the dark. I recognized Surya’s touch, impersonal but intense. My hips were moving. “He needs to be tied back to life again,” he was saying. “Right now.” His other hand was on my forehead. I wasn’t sure where any of the rest of me was. “Breathe in acceptance,” he said. “Give yourself to it.”

I was still on the dais of the gathering room of the School of the Sword, and everyone was still there, watching. It didn’t matter. I had let go, of everything. In utter giving, I rose, like a moyawa on the thermal breath of All-Spirit. He tied me back to life. I flew on the wings of it. The come was like the Earthsphere shattering. With my seed went the last of my strength. I closed my eyes and all my muscles went loose. “Rest, Virani-e,” Surya said, only his hand on my forehead keeping the voice tied to him in my mind. It was drifting. I vaguely felt myself being shifted onto a litter, and nothing more.

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