by Matt Laney
“It’s okay, Stick,” I say as soothingly as I can. “Have a seat. Please.”
Stick still isn’t sure about this, but he lowers himself to the log, laying the blade protectively over his knees.
“Why don’t you let me hold that for you?” Anjali says, sliding the weapon away.
Shanti clears his throat. I’m so jittery with anticipation, I might pop right out of my fur. I’ve never met another Spinner, let alone received a story from one. Anjali’s eyes are round with expectation, and even Zoya sports an expression of interest.
“In the days when the world was still freshly made,” Shanti begins, “long, long before anyone heard of Singas and Maguar, there were people: two-legged creatures, but much different from us. They were called humanas.
“For thousands of years the humanas walked the earth. They built great cities and created many wonderful inventions. But the humanas were a selfish breed. They had little regard for others or for the earth that was their home.”
The smoke from the fire swirls into moving images of his words: the strange, hairless, two-legged beings, the cities and inventions, the suffering earth. We listen and watch, spellbound. Stick swats, flabbergasted, at the vision with extended claws. His hands glide through the smoky images, which immediately reassemble themselves.
Shanti continues. “And they were violent. Greed, bloodshed, and war were common. In time, all the spilled blood flowed like rivers and formed one big pool. Drawn to the scent of salty blood, the great and horrible sea demon, Hasatamara, rose up with a mighty wave and flooded the land to claim it for himself.”
The smoky image of Hasatamara is almost too horrible to behold. Even the disbelieving Stick shudders and cowers.
“The waters grew higher and higher,” Shanti continues, “until everything was submerged except the highest mountain on earth, what we know as the Great Mountain. The humanas tried to climb the mountain to save themselves, but it was of no use. The water swept easily around the base of the mount. Everyone died.
“But Alayah, blessed be the name, punished the sea demon Hasatamara and sealed him into the heart of the mountain. Imprisoned in solid rock and layers of metal, Hasatamara was trapped, close enough to the ocean to hear its waves, but unable to join his spirit with the water.”
We’re all relieved when the demon is bound up in the Great Mountain.
“The Great Mountain is a prison for a demon?” Zoya queries.
“It is,” Shanti says. “To this day, Hasatamara is still at the heart of the Great Mountain, waiting to return.”
“Can he get out?” Anjali asks.
“Demons have a way of returning when there is enough anger and violence in the hearts of creatures. Violence gives them strength. Hasatamara nearly had the chance to escape twenty-five years ago.”
“The earthquake,” I exclaim. “During the Great War. The crack in the castle floor!”
“When evil and violence were all over the land and blood soaked the earth,” Shanti says gravely, “Hasatamara almost returned. And because much of the metal from the mountain that imprisons him has been removed for weaponry and the Border Zone Fence, it will be much easier for him to escape if a new war is kindled.”
I recall my dream that took me along the crack in the castle and deep into the Great Mountain. There I found Tamir, at a wall of metal-like skin. The wall appeared to be a piece of an incomprehensibly massive creature. Was that terrible creature—
Stick jumps in. “You said all the original beings, the humanas, died. If that’s true, how did we get here?”
“Almost all died. Two humanas survived. One young female and one young male.”
The hazy visions return as Shanti resumes his story.
“When the water swept around the mountain as the humanas fled in vain for safety, Alayah sent his messenger, the Great Firewing, to rescue these younglings. The Great Firewing let them grab hold of his feet and flew to his nest at the top of a tall tree standing alone on the mountain’s peak. This was the only spot on earth not covered by water.
“The Great Firewing protected the young humanas, brought them fish to eat, and made them clothing from his own feathers.
“When the waters subsided, the Great Firewing put the younglings on the dry earth. When their feet touched the ground, they found they had been changed into a new species: stronger and keener than the humanas before them. He told them to become a great Pride. And we did.
“So we owe our existence to the Great Firewing,” Shanti concludes. “That is something to be proud of, because the Great Firewing is the messenger of Alayah. In those early days, there were no Singas or Maguar, just one species, one Pride, one nation of leos who are sometimes referred to as the Ancients.”
Shanti closes his eyes and hums another tune. The lazy lilt of his voice sends his images into the night sky in a long, curling gray plume.
This serene moment doesn’t last long.
“That is ridiculous!” Stick exclaims without warning. “Our ancestors were great four-legged cats who evolved over millions of years into upright, two-legged, intelligent creatures like us. Everyone knows that. The Maguar are just an older, dumber version who have yet to become extinct!”
“If Tamir has his way and his war,” I say, “they just might.”
“If that happens,” Shanti cautions, “the demon, Hasatamara, is sure to break free and destroy everything. The only way to vanquish Hasatamara, the true enemy, is not with war but by bringing the Singa and Maguar back together, as one Pride of leos, as we were meant to be. The time is coming for one or the other.”
“Please tell me you guys don’t believe this,” Stick pleads. “Demons, gods, floods, a giant firewing? Why are we allowing ourselves to be infected by this garbage?”
“Shut it, Stick!” Anjali snarls.
Stick does, covering his ears, looking like he might explode.
We enjoy another silent moment before I repeat the question that has been burning a hole in my heart since we met Shanti on the grassy plain.
“Shanti, how did you come by this note from my mother?”
Shanti leans closer. Orange firelight spreads across his wrinkled face. “She was here a few moons ago.”
My heart might have just stopped. My mother was here? Right here? Feet touching this very ground. Breathing the same air. So recently?
“How?” I whisper.
“She was the one who punched a hole through the Great Wall!” Stick pipes up.
Shanti dismisses the idea with a wave of his hand. “No. She would never do that. Why go to so much trouble when she can come right through this cave?” he says, gesturing with his tail to the gaping entrance behind him.
Chapter 23
The one who keeps secrets is not as wise as the one with no secrets to keep.
—Sayings of the Ancients
njali is fuming. “This cave goes under the Great Wall to the realm of the Maguar?”
The old shepherd nods.
“With respect, sir,” Anjali continues, and I can tell the next thing she says won’t have a lot of respect in it. “Did it occur to you to report this to the military?”
“There is no reason to worry,” Shanti replies. “The Maguar want nothing to do with us or our lands. They look upon the Great Mountain and see only a prison for a terrible demon, a place to avoid at all costs.”
“Then the Great Wall is unnecessary,” I say.
“Not entirely. The wall defines our realm and keeps a certain peace. Your grandfather was right about that.”
“But there is no need for war?”
“That is a fact.”
“How many Singas and Maguar know about this cave?” Anjali demands.
“As far as Singas are concerned, very few. Just some lowly shepherds and now you. As for the Maguar, I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Anjali does not find that encouraging. “What’s to stop us from taking this information back to Singara?”
“We both know you will not be goin
g back to the city for a while. Your story continues through there,” he says, pointing to the cave.
“How will I find my mother on the other side?”
“I don’t know,” Shanti confesses.
Stick is exasperated. “So we just go through this cave, end up in the Maguar realm, and start asking around for Mira? Is that our plan?”
“The fact that she did not leave directions suggests she will not be hard to find. I imagine most, if not all, Maguar will know of a Singa named Mira who has made a home among them for the last thirteen years.”
It makes sense, but the idea of wandering through the land of our enemies makes my blood run cold.
Shanti stands and stretches. “The sun will be up in a few hours. I suggest getting some sleep and leaving at first light. I have enough bedding for you all.” He strolls off to one of the caves.
Stick rubs his head. “I think we should go back to Singara and try to work things out with Tamir.”
Anjali nearly gags. “Not on your life.”
“Look, Leo,” Stick protests. “I know you want to meet your mother, but going through that cave is lunacy.”
“My mother survived,” I say. “Maybe we can too.”
“It’s dangerous. I’ll grant you that, Stick,” Anjali agrees. “Still, the Maguar’s realm is the one place Tamir won’t dream of looking for Leo.”
Shanti returns with an armload of goat and deer hides and tosses several to each of us. My companions quickly drift away. Even Anjali sleeps. Finally, Shanti joins them.
Falling asleep has always come easily to me. Not now. Tonight, I am wide awake.
Everything Shanti said about the demon and the flood, the Great Firewing saving the last female humana on earth, a time when there were no Singa or Maguar, just one Pride—it all bustles about in my brain and leaves no room for sleep. Most of all, I’m dizzy with hope about meeting my mother.
If the Maguar don’t cut us to ribbons first.
Zoya’s nose whistles as she sleeps, just like in our bunkhouse. Eventually, the fire dwindles to a few persistent embers, while the horizon glows with the approaching dawn. Trilling birds, including one squawking raven, announce the birth of a new day.
Shanti is the first to awaken. He sits up and takes in the sights and smells of the morning. Then he speaks in a voice too soft to hear, as though he’s talking to the birds. The old shepherd is odd enough to do something like that.
“Who were you talking to?”
“It was the prayer of thanks to Alayah for the return of the sun,” he says. “Did you sleep, Lord?”
I shake my head.
“Your mind is a jumble of thoughts. Hopes and fears.”
A layer of golden sunlight outlines his mane and shoulders. He appears completely at peace with himself and the world.
I envy him.
“When did you discover that you are a Spinner?” I ask, shocked to hear myself speak freely about the disease we share.
Shanti looks away. “I was a cub, five years old, when the first fiction arrived. I was helping my mother in the kitchen, and the story poured out of me before I knew what was happening. It was a simple tale about a golden fish who saves his family, even though they despised him. I had no idea where it came from.”
I recall the first time the fiction affliction struck me. Like Shanti, I was only a cub and it terrified me. It was a story about a cub who traps and kills a giant serpent threatening to eat all the cubs in her village. When it was over, the little warrior she-cub appeared like a ghost before me, the first of many. I screamed and she fled.
“I didn’t get very far,” Shanti goes on, snapping me back to the present. “As my mother realized what I was doing and saw the images rising up from the dust on the ground, she became frightened and slapped me, knocking me down, warning me that I’d bring the family to ruin.” Shanti draws in a sorrowful breath. “Of course, I couldn’t prevent the stories from coming, much as I wanted to. Whenever one would drop into my mouth, I would run away to some private place. I thought I was being careful, but one day my mother heard me for the second time and saw the wispy images. I will never forget the way she looked at me: ashamed, disgusted, fearful.
“The next day my older brother died in a clash with the Maguar while guarding our borders.” The old shepherd dips his head. “My mother blamed my disease and never spoke to me again.
“So I trained to become the best soldier I could be,” Shanti continues, “to earn back my mother’s love and to avenge my brother’s death. No matter how much I tried to be like everyone else, I could not change what I was, what I am. The stories kept coming and coming. A stream that would not stop. I grew to despise them. And myself.”
Shanti’s stare becomes as piercing as an arrowhead. “Know this, Leo. It is hard to be a Spinner. It is much worse to hate yourself for it. We have been raised to view ourselves as afflicted instead of gifted, but that is just another lie we Singas tell.”
My stomach tips over as the terrible truth is laid bare between us.
I do hate myself.
Or at least the part of myself I’ve tried to keep hidden all my life.
If I can’t stop the sickness, and the strange creatures that come with it, if I can’t close the door on them forever, how can I become like this old shepherd, so wise and at peace?
I don’t really expect an answer, but one arrives anyway, in an unwanted package. The familiar feeling begins: the nausea, a rushing wind in my head, my heart beating like a drum.
Not now.
Please not now.
Just leave me alone!
A little lump of fiction tumbles onto my tongue in a mad rush to escape. I shut my mouth, grinding my teeth as a barricade. The fiction rattles around like an angry caged slaycon, growing larger by the second.
My eyes bulge; my face twists and contorts.
At that moment the bag of stories, the one belonging to the prince who would not share his collection of fictions, appears on the ground between the old shepherd and me. The contents of the bag shift under the membrane of leather in nightmarish fashion. Voices from inside cry out:
“Free us!”
“Let us out!”
“We don’t belong here!”
Shanti doesn’t see the bag, but he knows what’s happening.
“Let it out,” he says.
I look at my sleeping companions and shake my head. Anjali knows, but Stick and Zoya are ignorant of my disease. The story vision is jarring enough, but who can predict what strange things will appear afterward? I can’t afford to lose my companions right before our journey to the Maguar’s realm. I scan the area, looking for a place to run and hide.
Shanti reads my mind and skittish movements. “You don’t need to run from others or from yourself anymore, Leo.”
The voices in the bag grow louder and more demanding. Meanwhile, the fiction balloons up in my mouth and threatens to split my skull. I fall to my knees, cradling my aching head.
“Let. It. Out!” Shanti repeats, his voice stinging my ears and rousing my friends.
The fiction has grown so large, my tongue and gums are burning under the pressure.
Long ago in a distant land . . .
The words squeeze through my lips. I slam my teeth together and wrap my hands tight around my muzzle. The pain is unbearable.
The bag of voices is screaming now: “Free us!”
No wonder they were locked in a box.
“Say it!” Shanti roars. He might as well have slapped me on the back, because my head lurches forward. My jaws part. And there is nothing I can do but surrender to what comes next. I close my eyes and give in to the outpouring of sickness.
Long ago in a distant land there was a youngling who hated himself. He thought poorly not only of himself, but of everyone, making him perfectly miserable to be around. Tired of his self-loathing and lonely life, he decided to seek the help of a wise man who lived just outside the village.
The words produce a vision over the sp
ace where the fire once burned, expanding with every word, until we are all immersed in the scene. Unlike Shanti’s dull, smoky images, mine are vivid and detailed, bursting with color, light, and life. In my afflicted story stupor, I see Stick stagger back in fear and wonder. His eyes jump from elements of the vision to me and back to the vision.
Much as I want to, I can’t stop.
“Give me a potion,” the youngling demanded, “that will make me love myself.”
“It is possible to make such a potion,” the sage replied. “But the ingredients are not easily found. You must bring me a whisker from the chin of Nagarjuna, the draycon who lives in the cave at the top of the mountain.”
The youngling went away in despair. “I am too small, too stupid, and too cowardly to pluck a whisker from the chin of that draycon,” he lamented. “I will be killed before I get within ten meters of the monster.”
And yet he was determined. “I have so little to lose, I might as well try,” he told himself. The next morning the youngling climbed the mountain carrying a large bowl filled with meat.
As he approached the top, he could see the head of the draycon Nagarjuna lying just outside the cave, watching him. The youngling stopped some distance away, put the bowl of meat on the ground, and ran home. The draycon slithered out of his lair and gobbled up the meat, grateful for a free meal without having the trouble of killing it himself.
Every day the youngling repeated this offering, getting closer and closer to the draycon. Every time, the youngling fled while Nagarjuna devoured the meat with delight. One day, after many weeks of this ritual, the youngling put down the bowl of meat but did not run. He watched in fearful fascination as the great beast crept forward. While Nagarjuna slurped down the meat, the youngling snipped a small whisker from the chin of the beast, who hardly seemed to notice. As the draycon continued to eat, he slunk away and then ran to the home of the sage.