Spirit Walker

by David Farland

  And perhaps, Tull wondered, Huron is saying that all relationships are mere perceptions, never fully understood by the participants? That our view of a relationship creates the relationship? If I were to run this same course in twenty years, would I see the same patterns?

  Tull’s throat was dry, but he licked his lips and kept running. His legs ached and he became dizzy, and he found that he was moving in a dance—take two steps, turn to the right, take two steps, turn to the right, take two steps, turn to the right. His own steps, along with the steps of the others, set up a complex pattern of harmonics. The glass hummed with a low-pitched tone, and he could almost imagine that he heard a song forming in his head.

  And then they came to a landing, and Phylomon bid them to halt and drink some water.

  “Huron,” he said between panting breaths, “was an odd man. When he lived, the Pwi saw life as a stair, a straight path between nonexistence to all-existence, where we expanded and grew until we filled the universe. They called this path Laschi Chamepar, the Path of the Crushed Heart.”

  Tull gasped, for that was the name that Chaa had bestowed upon him.

  Phylomon continued, “The Starfarers, for the most part, saw life as only a circle—a journey from life to the grave, and the mystics among them asserted that once they reached the grave, they circled back to life—a maddening, meaningless journey.

  “But Huron was enraged by both prospects. He saw life as a journey along an endless winding stair. With each step up, he believed, we view a greater expanse on the horizon, and with each completion of a circuit, we enlarge our knowledge and see the world in a new way, gain a greater awareness of the diversity and complexity of life. When he built this, Huron said to me, that if we but had the eyes to see, with each turning we make upon these stairs, we would be granted a different vision of the world below.

  “He was a madman, of course, obsessed by the need to present his views. He used to say that we were all spoiled, that we Starfarers were born believing that happiness was deserved, the birthright of mankind by virtue of the fact of our mere existence. He scorned such foolishness, and taught that happiness is the reward for those who learn how to live.”

  Phylomon watched Tull for a long moment, and Tull wondered what thoughts the blue man was trying to drill into him. “Happiness is the reward for those who learn how to live.” Phylomon repeated, yet his face was sad. Tull wondered if the Starfarer was happy. Had he, after a thousand years, still not learned how to live?

  Phylomon fell silent, then raced ahead and upward. Tull followed behind, but he was wet with sweat and feared slipping. He kept up, but there were no more pictures to be seen below. Instead, he listened to the music in his own head. He was weary of gazing below, and looked to the hills: and was astounded, for the lower hills—hills that he thought no man could have carved even if he dug for an entire lifetime, took on the image of dancing beasts.

  As the group climbed, the animals changed slowly to a great circle of humans snake-dancing across the hills, and within an hour he recognized that the images shifted and showed an enlarged view of a man and woman expanding in size, filling the world, filling the universe.

  When they reached a second landing, Phylomon explained. “We can rest, but don’t relax! Don’t stop. Your muscles will cramp.”

  They drank a bit more water, and Phylomon stood and stretched, watching the sun. “We must reach the top at midday,” he said, and when he judged the time to be right, he sprung up the ladder. Looking down, Tull could see that the sun was high enough so that there were no more shadows upon the ground except an odd dot here and there. The illusion had been burned away.

  The run to the top was more demanding than the first two runs. It was longer, and required them to run faster. Tull passed beyond the need to count steps. Instead, the journey became a matter of habit: two steps up, turn right, two steps up, turn right. Dizziness came upon him, and to combat it, he leaned his head back and gazed straight ahead at the feet of the others moving before him.

  Round and round the winding stair, climbing, tripping, struggling up the smooth glass steps, the world below growing distant so that the shadows of trees squatted like flies upon a table. Sweat streamed down Tull’s brow, down his armpits, into his moccasins. And with each step, his grip slid so that he no longer trusted his footing. His head swayed backward and sideways, his legs felt loose, and he no longer cared.

  Beside him, clouds loomed. They were high enough now so that the clouds no longer held the illusion of being flat on the bottom, as they often seem below. Instead they were tall and magnificent, like long quartz crystals floating through the sky, and for a while the group ran up through a wonderland of clouds, where water condensed upon the stairs.

  They climbed among the billows of a cloud, then they were above white, running silently except for the blood pounding in Tull’s ears, and Tull wished that he could have stopped among the clouds and let the mist coalesce on his tongue, even if it were only a small drink. The air became cold, and ice formed a thin sheet on the stairs.

  He did not look for patterns anymore. There was nothing to see. Beneath him, the mountains in their fall colors spread like a Pwi blanket of dyed mammoth hair, painted in reds and yellows upon the ground. The opal mist of the clouds floated along beneath him, and the wind blew vapors by so fast that he felt as if he watched foam floating in a stream.

  Their climb took them above the coastal mountains, and Tull could see the blue haze above the sea out on the horizon, clouds sweeping off it like gauze, and somewhere over there was Smilodon Bay. After days of journeying, they had not really come so far. Only a hundred and twenty miles. Beneath them, among the pale tans of autumn grass, dark herds of giant sloths and wild ox moved across the Mammoth Run Plateau. Each poor beast watching for predators, leading its insignificant life.

  There are no more illusions, Tull thought, only the world beneath me, curving off into a shining bow on the horizon. I am separating myself from it. Drawing away. This stair is only a thin line connecting me to the world, just as the silk flowing from an inch worm connects it to a limb. All the beasts beneath me, they are trapped in the illusion. Yet all of life is refined to a single act: the upward climb.

  With a suddenness that made him gasp, Tull saw the ultimate meaning of the Journey of the Worm: All the shadows upon the ground, the different views of family, and man, of life and beauty—did not lead to greater and greater complexities to be eternally wondered at by the sages. They were mere shadows, illusions, to be grasped.

  His feet seemed to be slipping out from beneath him, wet with sweat, slick with ice; the world spun more than it should. He was worn and tired, and suddenly he staggered into a crystal bar that was spread out to block his way. They had reached the top of the tower, and upon the bar a single word was written—Death.

  Tull staggered back. He looked at the bar, and his head spun. He held to the bar for a moment, and because he had been running for hours, climbing for hours, he felt as if he were still climbing. Everything within him longed to climb. The stair beneath him, bent by the winds, shimmered in the sunlight like an icicle hanging down from a roof. Yet Tull felt that he was still traveling upward. He gazed up at his final destination, if he were to keep climbing, and above him was the sun.

  I am but an inchworm, joined to this world by a silken thread. I can set myself free!

  Something within him snapped, and Tull felt the silken cord drop away. For the first time in his life, Tull looked at the sun full, and saw it directly, like a great beautiful silver and violet flower, each of its flames whipping out.

  Yet the light did not hurt his eyes or blind him. He was freed from his body, with its weaknesses and limitations. It was like watching waves play upon the sea from the cliffs above Moon Dance Inn, and the beauty of that great silver and violet flower was mesmerizing, and he longed to be there. And with the longing, came motion, and Tull began spiraling toward the sun, flying away.

  “No!” Ayuvah shouted, and the f
orce of the words shook Tull as if he were a sheet upon a line, blown in a fierce wind. Tull could see the sound, flashing golden waves, whipping past him, and he glanced down.

  Phylomon and Ayuvah were far away, at the top of the crystal stairs, holding Tull’s body. They both glowed with a deep blue aura of concern. Tull lay with arms and legs askew, muscles twitching in his neck.

  Phylomon was examining his body. “He’s dead,” Phylomon said, his words echoing through the heavens, and Tull felt curiously unconcerned by his own death.

  Ayuvah shouted at the lifeless body, “Tull, do not leave! Think of the things you have left undone! Think of the kwea of your love for Wisteria! You cannot leave her!”

  And when Tull thought of Wisteria, the kwea of his love slapped him. It was as if he were home, in bed with her again, with the goddess Zhofwa blowing her kisses through the open window.

  The sun was a beautiful flower, beckoning to be touched, but it would always be there.

  He looked down. The earth itself was a fascinating tapestry: the souls of men and animals and trees glowed like fireworms across its face, a thousand shades of purple, gold and black. Dragons floated below him, and he knew that they saw him for what he was.

  At the foot of the stairs, Wisteria lay asleep on the wagon. Tull could see her as clearly as if she were at arm’s length. Her soul was pink and black—love and darkness—like the inside of a shell, and he wanted to touch that soul, heal it, put his arms around her and cover the darkness.

  Tull hurtled down toward his dying body like a hermit crab lunging toward an empty shell.

  For a moment, he felt disconnected, and his heart thumped in his chest. He struggled to swallow, felt his breakfast sitting sluggishly in his belly, and he tried to move a finger.

  There were so many connections to make, so many muscles to move. To breathe was a major chore, and his chest felt as if it were wrapped in bands of iron. Opening his eyes took as much effort as if he were opening a cavernous door.

  Phylomon bent over him, frowning, then jerked back in surprise as Tull’s eyes snapped open.

  Ayuvah grabbed Tull’s face, turned it toward him, and shouted in surprise: “You are a Spirit Walker!”

  And then, with breath-stealing suddenness, Tull grasped the full import of Ayuvah's words, and the weight of destiny fell hard upon him.

  This is why Chaa sent me on this journey, Tull realized.

  About Spirit Walker

  When I finished my first novel, On My Way to Paradise, my publisher asked me to extend it by a few thousand words. I felt that the novel was just the right length, so I asked my editor, “What more would you want me to say?”

  She answered, “Lou Aronica, the president of the company wants you to write an essay. He wants to know how in the hell you were able to write such a book.”

  The novel went on to become a bestseller in the science fiction genre and win a major award, which kept my publishers happy.

  But afterward, my editor asked, “What would you like to write next?”

  I told her, “I’d like to write a big fantasy, something akin to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.”

  She said gravely, “Dave, you’re a bestselling science fiction writer. Most people take twenty years to get where you got on your first novel. We don’t ever want to see a fantasy novel from you.”

  So I had to reconsider. I love science fiction, but I felt that my heart really wanted to move in the direction of fantasy. Thus, I began thinking about how to mingle the two.

  The further one moves into the future, I reasoned, the more wondrous and unknowable the world becomes. In essence, it moves more toward fantasy. Is it possible to create a story where science and fantasy seem to become blurred?

  In 1989, I had gone to a convention and listened to a talk by a paleobiologist who had recently taken some genetic material from the samples of a supersaurus. It seemed to me that a lifelong dream was on its way to being filled.

  You see, as a child, I often wondered what I would become when I grew up. I remember one time when an old woman asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.

  I was only eight, and I didn’t exactly know how to describe the answer. I knew that dinosaurs had lived a long time ago, and that all life was formed from genes and chromosomes. I knew that I’d have to figure out how to put those genes together, so I answered, “I want to be a genetic.…paleo.…engineer.”

  She stepped back in surprise, perhaps because I hadn’t said that I wanted to be a policeman or a fireman, and said, “What a smart little boy you are. Whatever do … these people do?”

  “We build dinosaurs,” I said with great satisfaction. “I mean, not now, not yet, of course. But someday we'll build dinosaurs.…”

  When I went to college in 1978, I tried to figure out how to get on that career path, but the colleges in my area didn’t even offer courses in genetic engineering yet. So I majored in pre-medical microbiology, and decided that I would just have to figure it out myself.

  Eventually, though, my urge to write took over.

  So for my second novel, I decided to create some dinosaurs.

  My first thought actually was to write a novel about a family trapped on a small island, where genetically engineered dinosaurs were being created. But then I thought, “No that’s too easy, too Island of Doctor Moreau.”

  I abandoned that idea and decided to create an entire world, a terrestrial zoo in the far future.

  Coincidentally, Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park came out the same month that the first book in this series did.

  But writing an adventure that was set in the far future wasn’t enough for me. That was too simple. I wanted to tackle some complex themes. I suppose that like Huron in my tale, the artist in me feels as if I must try to speak the ineffable.

  As a child, I never felt connected to others. My father was abusive at times. He was Jenks. So I wrote about him.

  I often felt that I rejected my father as a child, so I went flailing about searching for a new father—much as Tull seeks for a father figure with Chaa and Phylomon and others.

  So I wrote about that.

  More importantly, I wanted to write about the emotional component of memory. At the time, I suspected that memories only develop and acquire significance when they are accompanied by powerful emotions. Thus, in order to learn something, we need to feel an emotion while learning a lesson—fear, or love, or wonder. (There is a component of fear to both love and wonder.)

  In fact, I suspected that things like post-traumatic stress disorder occur when emotions are so overwhelming that lessons can’t be unlearned.

  For children who suffer abuse, “unlearning” hate, and anger, and fear becomes a major obstacle. We must struggle to change. It’s as if we're sculpted of hardening clay, and we must struggle to remake ourselves, before we become forever hardened.

  Since I wrote this novel, a number of studies have confirmed my suspicions.

  So at the time I was looking at powerful emotions—love, and lust, and fear—and wondering how they combined in order to create a bond between people. Not just a bond between men and women, but between parents and children, between brothers and sisters.

  In other words, how do our emotions affect the creation of societies? Do negative emotions create bonds powerful enough to perpetuate undesirable social ties?

  Can we break the old bonds and form better ones? In other words, despite our powerful emotional chains, can we figure out ways to build a better world?

  This story, for me, became a meditation.

  The answer to my questions, I think, lies at the end of the series.

  Glossary

  Anee—A mineral-poor moon 11,000 miles in diameter that circles a gas giant named Thor near a type I star 1950 lightyears from Earth. In the year 2681, the Alliance of Nations began terraforming Anee in order to create a terrestrial zoo—a place where genetic paleontologists could store specimens of animals recreated from the Jurassic, Miocene, and Pliocene Eras. Ea
ch of three continents stores representatives from one of the Eras.

  Creators—A race of highly intelligent beings, part machine and part biological organism, designed by genetic paleontologists to maintain the ecosystems of Anee. The Creators are living DNA synthesizers. To control animal populations, they frequently design and give birth to predators and parasites. The Creators are strictly programmed to perform their specific jobs. After the death of the Creator named Forester 1, the Creators designed Dryads to protect the forests.

  Dire Wolves—Canis Dirus—A heavy-bodied dark gray wolf common during the Pleistocene, short on cunning but long on tenacity and viciousness.

  Dragons—Warm-blooded flying carnivores that were created by the Starfarers to be an eco-barrier. Each continent has several varieties of dragon in various sizes—from the giant great-horned dragons to the tiny hawk dragon. Each dragon is born with a genetically transmitted memory that encourages it to destroy species that it recognizes as foreign to the environment.

  Dryads—A being made by the Creators to maintain forests in Pliocene areas after the Creator Forester 1 was killed in an earthquake. Dryads are humanoid females with long life spans and strange abilities. The abilities, size, and coloration of the Dryad depends upon the type of forest it was created to maintain.

  Eco-barriers—Certain animals have the ability to migrate across oceans. For example, many types of semi-aquatic carnivorous dinosaur could easily make such journeys, and the introduction of such animals into an area populated by Pleistocene sabertooths could be disastrous, since the sabertooths could not compete with the larger predators. The paleontologists who terraformed Anee recognized the danger such transoceanic migrations could cause. Therefore, they erected a series of “eco-barriers” to prevent migrations. These barriers consist of artificially engineered predators: primarily, the deep-ocean “sea serpent” to patrol the waterways; and various species of “dragon” to patrol the sky. Both the sea serpent and the dragon are ruthless predators without equal in nature.