‘And what is that exactly?’
‘I can’t give him what he wants.’
Ysobi’s gaze was unflinching. ‘Can you give me what I want?’
My heart stilled for a moment. ‘I don’t know. Can I? What is it you want?’
Ysobi sighed deeply and was silent for some moments, then said, ‘What we had. I miss it. Perhaps it was just a dream, after all.’
‘No, you’re wrong. Chesna isn’t a dream. It’s gritty and real. It has to be nurtured, maintained and monitored. We didn’t do that. It was a mistake we both made.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘I can’t yet,’ I said, and I found that that was true. I wanted him more than anything, and yet I could not answer him.
‘You know where I am,’ Ysobi said. ‘It’s your call, Jass.’
That night, I could not sleep. Again, the sky was clear and the moon had thinned, although it still provided enough light for me to walk through the fields to think. I wandered out to the cliffs and took the narrow path that followed the line of the coast. I thought about how Orphie and Gesaril had both experienced terrible things when they’d been so young, and how there was so much work Wraeththu still had to do to stop such things from happening. Cursing hara should not be part of the agenda. I was ashamed of how I’d felt before.
I began to retrace my steps, thinking that I might have something to eat before I went to bed. I was beginning to feel slightly drowsy. As I walked, I hummed beneath my breath, but became aware, very slowly, that the atmosphere around me was changing. The night had become still and watchful. I felt unnerved, as I’d felt in the waking dreams that Gesaril had sent to me.
I stopped walking and took an inward reading of the surroundings. I couldn’t pick up anything in particular, but had the sense I was no longer alone and that whatever observed me wasn’t harish. At once, I started walking again, this time at a quicker pace.
When a white figure ran out of the trees on the hill to my left, I thought at first it was a ghost. It was hurtling towards the cliff edge like a creature possessed. I knew at once it intended to throw itself off, and I didn’t care whether it was a ghost or a real har; I had to act. I pelted forwards and hurled myself against the figure, catching hold of its legs so it slammed to the ground. I knelt upright on the body beneath me, aware of various aches in my body from the fall. I knew it would be Gesaril under my knees, and it was.
‘What in Ag’s name are you doing?’ I cried. ‘Gesaril?’
He barely seemed aware I was there. His head tossed slowly from side to side, and he uttered groans. He wore only a long nightshirt of thin fabric. His body writhed against the grass, his thighs flexing feebly. It was almost sexual. I became uncomfortably aware of this and climbed off him, tried to lift his upper body in my arms. He lolled heavily, like a sack of stones.
‘Gesaril…’ I glanced about me. Would I have to carry him back to Jesith?
‘I have to…’ Gesaril muttered.
‘What? Have to kill yourself? Don’t be ridiculous.’ I wasn’t sure what I should say to a suicidal har. I was out of my depth.
‘No…’ He pressed his cheek against my chest. ‘I have to get away from them, and this is the only way.’
‘Get away from what?’
Without raising his head, he lifted an arm and pointed behind us. The flesh on my back contracted and I turned swiftly.
‘You can’t see them, can you?’ Gesaril moaned. ‘But they’re there. They’re there!’
Oh, but I could see them. Several tall shadowy shapes that were the essence of menace. They hovered at the edge of a copse of beeches. They watched. ‘I see them,’ I said. ‘I see them, Gesaril.’
Gesaril uttered a sound that was half sob, half laugh. ‘You can? But nohar can. They think I’m mad.’
‘There are at least five of them,’ I said.
Gesaril clutched at my coat. ‘I made them,’ he gasped. ‘I made them from my dreams. I didn’t want to, but they won’t go away.’
They must have been seven feet tall, mostly without feature, but even so they were hideous. As I stared at them, their grey faces swam in and out of focus; sneering, snarling mouths, dead eyes. They were the rank thoughtforms from a terrified harling’s mind; a terrified harling who had been denied his fear, who had been told he was har and therefore would be all right. I was filled with a righteous kind of anger and put Gesaril from me, even though he clawed at me weakly.
‘They won’t go away?’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘We’ll see about that.’
I took hold of one of Gesaril’s hands, pulled upon it. ‘Get up, Gesaril. Come with me.’
‘No!’ He tried to put his arms over his head, but I was stronger than him.
‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘Trust your enemy, for I’m worse than they are!’
I don’t know whether it was the steel in my voice that convinced him or whether he was just too tired and frightened to fight me, but he let me drag him over the grass towards his greatest fear.
The apparitions were mindless, entities that had not been properly programmed by Gesaril’s feverish imagination other than to loom and torment. They stuck to him because he was their creator. As we approached them, I received no further sense of threat. They were merely watchers, not active beings. Still, it took some courage to actually stand before them, because they were not a part of everyday reality and they were representations of a vile and unforgivable act. I wasn’t totally without fear myself, but I was able to focus my intention.
Holding onto Gesaril’s hand fiercely, I stared at these creatures and said, ‘In the name of Aruhani, I unmake you. In the name of Aruhani, I dismiss you from this realm. Aruhani, Devourer and Creator, take this essence into yourself and consume it. Do it now!’
I then began a chant of Aruhani’s name, building it in intensity.
After a few moments, Gesaril’s voice joined mine, hesitantly.
I visualised our combined intention as a whirling vortex of cleansing light, and I knew Gesaril saw the same thing. As the energy swirled around us, I connected with Gesaril entirely, fed him with my strength and resolve. I felt him become stronger, and heard his voice become louder. Presently, we were both standing up straight, our voices spiralling as a plait of sound on the night. The shadows before us wavered, became less cohesive. They could not act to defend themselves, because they were just a part of Gesaril, a part he needed to lose. When the power reached a peak, very much like the peak of aruna, we threw up our arms and released it with a wild and furious shout. White light shot out in all directions, which we could almost see with our physical eyes. For a few moments, both my inner and physical sight was blinded, and then I blinked.
Beside me, Gesaril released a ragged laugh. He didn’t need to say aloud that his demons had gone.
I took him in my arms and let him weep in relief against me. After a few minutes, he raised his head. ‘That was your curse come to life,’ he said. ‘The power of it. You gave it to me to use.’
‘I know,’ I replied. I rubbed his bare arms. ‘You must be freezing. Come back to my cottage. I’ll make you a drink.’
He studied me for a moment, blankly, then nodded once. ‘OK.’
Once we were home, I bathed his feet because they were cut and bleeding. He started to shiver as he sat wrapped in a blanket before my stove, me kneeling before him. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked me.
‘It’s part of the majhahn,’ I answered. ‘Just that.’
‘You’re supposed to hate me,’ he said dully. ‘In my world, you have to hate me.’
‘Who says I don’t?’ I stood up and tidied away the cloths and water I’d used on his feet. ‘I’ve banished ghosts with you, Gesaril. That doesn’t constitute a chesna bond. Lighten up.’ I chose those words deliberately, remembering vaguely I’d used them before.
He shook his head and grinned at the floor. ‘Can I stay here tonight?’
‘Well, the night’s nearly gone, but OK.’
I glanced at him. ‘What?’
‘I really don’t want to have to say this, but…’
I straightened up from my task and stared at him. ‘Go on.’
He stared at me for a moment from beneath those dark brows, his full lips slightly open, his hair hanging forward in lush swathes. He was indeed, despite everything, still lovely. ‘Ysobi loves you,’ he said. ‘He’s always loved you. Some of the things I said to you…’ He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I wanted them to be true, but really they weren’t. I know he was torn when I begged him to come to me at Sinnar’s. I played on his sense of duty. It was wrong. When you left Jesith…’ He shook his head. ‘He didn’t come to me again. I haven’t seen him since. Please don’t punish him anymore.’
I was silent for some time as I digested these astonishing disclosures, then ducked my head. ‘Thank you.’
‘Jassenah…’
‘Do you want tea?’
He frowned. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Be quiet. Do you want tea?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
We did not speak again as I made the drinks. When I handed him a hot mug, he held it in both hands. ‘They’ve really gone, those things,’ he said. ‘I think only you could have done that, and only because of what I did to you. It’s strange. I think I was meant to come here. I think everything was meant.’ He frowned and sipped his drink.
‘Work on yourself,’ I said. ‘Get better. You’re young, Gesaril. Your training here has been traumatic, but I agree with you in one respect; what happened might have been the right thing.’
He nodded again and we drank our tea in silence, until the mugs were empty and it was time to go to bed.
I did not, as you might think, initiate some healing and truly altruistic aruna with this damaged har, but I did let him sleep beside me for the rest of the night, and I know his dreams were untroubled.
We’ll never be friends, Gesaril and I, but neither will we be enemies. Neither one of us ever mentioned to another har in Jesith what we went through together that night. Sometimes, from Kyme, where he still is, he sends me small gifts; never with a letter or any kind of note, just parcels of herbs or a small carving or a piece of cheap jewellery. In return, I send him, a couple of times a year, a long letter telling him all the news of our small community. I don’t know how long this communication will continue.
In the early morning following our impromptu exorcism, and once Gesaril had left my cottage to return to Sinnar’s, I went to Orphie’s dwelling and posted a note through the door, addressed to Ysobi. All it said was, ‘Bring Zeph to me this evening.’
I go back to that evening now; it’s as if it were only yesterday, although long years have passed since that time.
I am here in the twilight. Owls swoop across the spreading fields, and the landscape is endless. I am drinking wine that is touched by the chill of evening. I gaze at the bright stars, so many of them. Wondrous pinpricks of light. They are so far from us, incomprehensible and yet, even so, they are ours, because they are eternal. Ever shining.
I want to find the true magic that I know is inside me. I don’t want to be a small senseless creature, governed by meaningless fears. I want to rise above it all, to fulfil a potential I have only just begun to imagine. Is it love that hara who are chesnari feel for one another, or something else? What is aruna? Do we misunderstand it so badly, anchoring it to the earth, when it should be part of the sky?
As the dark steals in, I see him standing at the gate. He is tall, like an angel, my son at his side. I wonder how long he has been watching me.
We have a chance, if we can transcend all that we were. We have a chance, if we can understand that the pure born will not be perfect and that Wraeththu is not as far above humanity as it likes to think. We have a chance, if we can become part of the sky.
‘Ysobi.’ His name.
He opens the gate and they come towards me. Zeph reaches me first. He touches my knee and stares at me with wide pony eyes. ‘Jass,’ he whispers, ‘do.’
I touch his face and smile. There is such wisdom in his gaze. I stand up.
Ysobi stands before me, almost smiling. ‘Here I am,’ he says, ‘flawed, but decided. My blood is yours, Jassenah, if you’ll take it.’
A blood bond: beyond chesna. I bow my head. ‘My blood is yours also.’
Ysobi folds his hands about my own. He bends his head to kiss me and his breath tastes of summer. My hienama, my brother, my star.
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