The Shaman's Apprentice
Page 36
“I’ve come to hear you sing,” the figure said, stopping in the shadows.
Jovai didn’t recognize the person. She was an old woman, her silver hair glinting in the moonlight, with wise eyes twinkling like stars at Jovai. Jovai felt happy in the woman’s presence. She sang and told the stranger of her reasons to be happy, of her feelings for a man who felt the same way for her, of her acceptance by a wonderful people, of her thrill that she would someday hold a baby of her own. All the things that she had been so afraid to even dream of before were suddenly coming true for her. She raised her voice in a prayer and wished for everyone in all existence to share in the joy she felt.
The stranger smiled.
“Be happy Jovai, Latohva,” came the blessing in the spirit tongue, and then the stranger disappeared.
Jovai stared at the suddenly empty place, then slowly smiled.
“I will,” she promised the old woman of the Vohees. “Thank you.”
To be continued…
Author’s Note
Many people believe that our world has been destroyed and recreated multiple times. We have heard stories of humans first coming into existence in a beautiful garden world, but then leaving that to go to a more challenging world. Generations after human’s arrival, a flood destroyed their world. Only a man, his sons, their wives and children, and the pairs of animals they had gathered, survived to rebuild the next world. Destruction isn’t always so total, however, as in the case of a mighty nation, dominated by a tyrant named Nimrod, which was plunged into chaos. His tower was cast down and his people were divided and scattered to become the separate nations of the next world. Even in our modern, sophisticated time, many people believe that this world we now know will, one day, end in war, famine, and plague, with forces of good battling and, eventually, conquering forces of evil, so that the survivors can rebuild a world where peace, love and joy will be the usual, rather than the exceptional, condition of mankind.
These are our more common stories, but there are many different people with other stories as well. It may be that our world has been renewed more often than we know, and may have many more destructions to pass through before its ultimate end. We are still learning much about our distant past, marveling with each discovery at all we had not known we did not know. Our dreamers and prophets are still getting glimpses into a future where so much has changed that we can hardly believe or understand it.
This story I believe to be one such peek, but I have no way to know if it is a glimpse into a world that might already have happened and passed, or if it is one yet to come. More than one of the cultures in this story share vague memories of a prior world destroyed in a way that forced them to shelter under the earth. Even in this underworld there was strife and war. When the upper world was again ready for them, they reemerged, the different groups led by different spirits to different areas in which to rebuild in their different ways.
In some things, the people of this world seem primitive, but not so much in others. Some knowledge has obviously been lost, but other knowledge retained or learned. Are these our distant ancestors, long forgotten, whose world ended and was reformed to eventually become the world we now know? Or are they our descendants who will one day remember us only through dreams and myths?
All I know is that, the more I learned about them, the more I heard their stories and watched their struggles, the more I came to love them. I treasure every moment I have been allowed to spend with them. Now it is time to share them and their world with you, in the hope that you, too, may grow to love them as I do.
B. Muze
Why does anyone care about the personal details of the author of a fiction? A fair chunk of the world doesn’t even believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays, but does that make them less enjoyable? So why drag me away from writing stories, which I love, and shatter my privacy, which I value far more than praise, wealth, or fame, to make me write this? I did it only because my editor [1] insisted.
So, here is me: I’m an American. Proudly! I’m mixed race, as most in the United States are. I have the blood of slaves, the blood of slave-masters, the blood of those who sacrificed and died to free the slaves, and the blood of many others who had no part in that mess at all, flowing through my veins. I am of the people who stood near the shore watching strange, white clouds moving across the ocean, attached to wooden boats full of pale, seasick strangers, and of the people who felt driven to cross the globe to make a home out of an unknown wilderness, in the hope that, with this fresh start, they would build a better world.
My ancestors each had their own, different, stories, traditions, and mythologies, which they passed down and shared with me and my siblings. I loved it all. It was no surprise to anyone that I became a cultural anthropologist.
Some strive to keep all the people in the world divided from each other according to superficial qualities, but I am of a people who embraced all this variety and joined it together joyously, through love. There are some pockets of the world which may not yet be adequately represented in my personal lineage, but a few more generations and my descendants will likely have those too. Meanwhile, I claim the right to explore and enjoy even those cultures. I’m an American, and among all the God-given rights I treasure, is the right to love, honor, and celebrate anyone and everyone I choose!
1.If there are not five gloriously colorful expletives used as adjectives for “editor” it is only because my editor edited them out.
Coming soon!
The Jovai series continues with:
Demon’s Quarry
by
B. Muze
The shaman’s apprentice no longer seeks the spirits, but still they are irresistibly drawn to her…as is something far more horrifying. Jovai is faced with a heartbreaking choice. Will she stay and watch her family and friends destroyed by a being of such immense evil her world is gradually being annihilated by it, or should she try to lure it away by abandoning everyone she loves, never to return? The only other option is impossible. How can she, a failed shaman, dare to fight the insatiable demon-god who is hunting her? What chance could she have to conquer it, or even to survive?
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