by Jen Valena
“I’ve been hiding from myself. And now, I’m not the same person.” Ithia sat down on the bench next to Tyrsten. “I understand why you ran from me.”
He lost his appetite and slowly pushed his meal aside. He rested his hand upon hers, and his eyes communicated penance.
Ithia shrugged and took a bite off of his plate. “It’s all right that you took off, because if you hadn’t run, I might not have seen my pattern so clearly today.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten and Ithia wandered outside in the garden to take in a bit of fresh air. The sun was high in the sky.
Ithia had become accustomed to the bright, peachy glow of mid-day and the shimmering leaves. She was no longer surprised by the unusual colors.
Tyrsten pointed out a flock of geese flying south.
Ithia perceived an invisible lacework linking the birds together as a unit. “May I ask about your mother and father? You never mentioned them.”
“My father was a Plant Keeper and my mother was a Language Scholar. That is where I picked up my talent for energies of the Land and Air—and why I have the Wolf and the Raven with me.”
“Was?”
He took a deep breath. “One night almost two solar-turns ago, Garrick’s men came to hunt me down, due to reports of my becoming a Magian Sidari—a wanted man. Garrick’s soldiers broke into my parents’ home, determined to find me. They were tortured to uncover where I was hidden. My parents kept our secrets, and the men did not discover that Huldo was also with me.” His face faltered. “During the interrogation, the soldiers brutally—”
Tyrsten winced, staring at the sky to keep the tears inside.
Ithia felt his emotion inside of her as if it were her own. “You don’t have to say anymore.”
Tyrsten slumped down onto a nearby bench. “They did not survive.”
Ithia sat next to him and said nothing, allowing him the freedom to stop or continue.
“I am responsible for their deaths.”
“I’m sorry that they are gone.” She put her arm around him. “But it isn’t your fault, they wanted to protect you and Huldo. And they did.”
Tyrsten nodded. “I should remember them more often. They saved my life and our cause that night. I only want to make them proud.”
✹ ✹ ✹
That evening, Tyrsten decided to shift the mood since it had been an intense day. He found Ithia in the great room painstakingly interpreting the ancient books.
“Want to do something fun?”
“No.” She dripped with sarcasm.
“I offer amusement only to vex you.” He grinned wide and plunked himself down next to her.
He put his hands out in front of him, palms facing each other about a foot apart. “Hold your hands out like this.”
Ithia sat up straight and held her hands out as if she was about to applaud.
“I can clap.” She plopped her hands into her lap in mock boredom.
“Patience. There is more.” He guided her hands to position again. “Remember the feeling you had when you healed me?”
“Yeah?” Her brow wrinkled nervously.
“Do not worry. Feel that energy flowing into you, from the space around you. Allow the energy—the Pramna—to fill you up, coming in through the crown, through the portal above the head.”
Ithia remembered the sensation she had in the woods that day and the buzzing that followed. With that memory, the electric current triggered and poured into her.
“Now picture that energy coming out of your palms, filling up the area between your hands.”
“I feel it!” A tingling ball of energy pressed against her palms. She moved her hands inward ever so slightly and felt resistance as if holding a sponge.
“Now, mentally tell it something. And send it to me.”
Her eyes popped open. “Like a message?”
“Yes. For now, imagine placing an image or word inside.”
Ithia thought of an image and released the ball to him. The energy bubble hovered the few feet over to Tyrsten.
He caught it and psychically peered in. “A lotus.”
“Yes.” Ithia bounced with childlike delight. “What else can it do?”
Tyrsten now took the ball and changed its color from white to blue and handed it to her. “Now, you.”
She took the ball in her hands.
“Do not force it. Rather, persuade it to change color.”
She laughed at the idea of talking an energy ball into changing color. Hi Mr. Energy-ball, perhaps you could change into purple for me, it would make me very happy, since it is my favorite color and all. She did a double take as it did change into a beautiful shade of violet instantly. “I did it!”
“Okay, now make it turn white again,” Tyrsten instructed. “Channel more energy into it, growing so it completely surrounds you. Visualize it has a clear boundary like your skin.”
Ithia concentrated on pulling more energy from the ether and adding it to her ball. She focused so intently she created one that expanded out to include Tyrsten.
“Now this shield can protect you.” He chuckled at how it encompassed him as well. “And apparently me, too. This is a protection bubble.”
“How can it protect me?”
“It blocks psychic attacks. Even physical ones if you muster adequate focus. You can also divert an attack—not by pulling, pushing or hitting—but by simply guiding your attacker to where you wish him to go. Mentally shape the situation by expanding your energy. In a way, you yield to the frontal attack and redirect the kinetic momentum away from you.”
Ithia focused on the intrinsic beauty of the energy. Playfully, they checked the bubble with their hands for weaknesses in its formation. Ithia imagined the orb picking her up and taking her for a ride into the heavens. Her ecstatic smiles electrified Tyrsten.
“Can others see this? Anise told me she can’t see the sparkling of the trees and plants like I can.”
“It is possible to train others to at least sense the energies, just as Hu has done much in developing his connection to his Spirit Animal. However, you and I see the world differently, more intensely, than others do.” Tyrsten sprung to his feet and offered his hand. “You should sleep soon. I have an early morning planned.”
✹ ✹ ✹
Tyrsten knocked on her door before first light. He chose a meditation spot in the garden with the best view of the sunrise over the treetops. The subtle show of pink morning clouds sprawled in wide ribbons and awakened Ithia’s senses. The halo of the trees radiated out a few feet from their tips, glowing by the waking dawn.
Afterward, they returned to the kitchen. She rubbed her arms to combat the chill. Tyrsten placed his hands over hers, cupping the warmth of his exhalation. Life returned to her numbed fingertips.
Why had the universe come so close to giving me something as beautiful as him—something I can’t truly have? She pushed the dangerous thought from her mind.
On the table, he had laid out several objects: a quill, books, pendants, a silver ring.
“We will test your psychic touch. Hold an object and tell me what impressions you get: images, emotions, sensations, sounds, gut reactions, or even colors and tastes.”
“Taste? I hope you don’t expect me to lick these? Because that’s where I draw the line.”
“Oh, I see, everything else that has happened is fine, but that is just too strange for you?”
She crossed her arms. “I’m glad you finally understand me.”
“Even if I spend all the rest of my days with you, I am sure I will never completely understand you. And I would not have it any other way.” He stiffened his shoulders. What had started out as banter suggested a deeper want.
To break the awkwardness, she asked, “How does it work?”
“We are going to discover how you work. Allow any impressions you may receive. Again, no interpretations, just let the information come. You can talk throughout the process.”
Ithia scanned the objects and pi
cked up a spiral shaped bone pendant. The energy of this piece was happy—a gift. A hazy image of Huldo came to her. He wore it as a child. Then he was sad, and he gave it away to someone leaving him. “This is yours! This was special to Huldo and then he gave it to you—when you were younger.”
“Hu wanted me to have something of him when I left to study at the Vihar. He was afraid I would forget him.”
“This is amazing! I have had impressions before when I touched things. I always believed it was my imagination.”
She picked up a plume feather pen and held it in her hands. Its lightness tickled her palms.
“Being Jaguar, you may be sensitive to touch, like psychic whiskers.”
She grazed the feather across her face. In her mind’s eye, the pen was writing a letter. That was too obvious, so she didn’t say anything. An aged, masculine hand became clear. She tried to follow his arm up to see his face, but her view stopped short. The focus was his correspondence. The old man wrote a letter filled with sadness and urgency. He had to leave.
Tyrsten couldn’t wait for her to speak any longer. “You saw something.”
“An old man writing a letter. He wanted to prevent something from happening.”
“This was my teacher’s pen. He may have written to someone right before he left the Vihar. I wish I had that letter. He only told me preceding his departure that events were set in motion. He was unaware of all that Sauvant Quanen had confided in me.” Tyrsten rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes distant, longing for answers. “And when my teacher left, all connections to him disappeared. I visioned for him, but that was when I found you instead.”
“You found me when you searched for him?”
“I was surprised. However, I waited for a clue to what had happened to him. If you might have been connected to his disappearance in some way.”
“Wait a second…” Ithia remembered what had nagged her since the first meditation with Tyrsten. “A raven followed me that day I was taken from Earth. Was that you?”
“You saw me?”
“Well, a raven sat above me in the tree on the hill for hours. I thought he must believe I had something for him.”
“You did.” His face flushed, and he turned back to the table. “Let us try another.”
Ithia admired the objects again. A silver ring with a pine-green gem called to her. She had wanted to pick up the ring first, but had resisted. Embellishments wispily wrapped around the stone. When it was in her hand, energy surged through her.
She narrated her vision, “I see a woman with intense ebony eyes. She is studying a book. She sees me. She shows me this ring on her hand. She is giving it to me.”
Ithia opened her eyes to question Tyrsten. “Who is she?”
“I believe a woman Magian Innocenti. She wanted me to gift this to you.”
“You said there were no living female Magians.”
“Yesterday, I was going through my teacher’s study for clues to how to proceed, when I came across this ring. My teacher had told me it belonged to the last female Innocenti. A strong feeling came over me that she would want you to have it. Her ring holds a positive energy.”
“I can’t accept it. This should stay here.”
“No. The ring should be with another female Magian.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was gone long before I came here. Long before the Magians disappeared.”
“Could there be a connection between her and the missing Magians?” Ithia asked.
“I do not comprehend how.”
Ithia placed the ring on her right hand. Again, a wave of energy surged, much stronger this time. The ring was trying to convey a secret, as though the female Magian called out, urging her to understand a larger truth. However, Ithia could not grasp the message.
“Did your teacher know her?” Ithia asked.
“He mentioned her existence in passing and once showed me the ring. He never said if he actually knew her.”
✹ ✹ ✹
“We’re a sorry lot,” Ithia said as they headed to the vegetable garden to gather yams, carrots, beets and some herbs for a meal. “We are a pair of orphans with no guidance. We have no idea what we are actually going to do. The blind leading the blind.”
“Oh,” Tyrsten said with an air of casualness. “I thought you were going to talk about something important.”
“Fine, make fun. I just don’t get how someone with almost no knowledge of this world is going to accomplish anything helpful.”
“We are not without guidance.”
“But the Magian Sauvants are missing. Who is there to ask for help?”
“There is always help for those who ask.” He smiled at her frown. “Charism, some label it Grace, Fate, Synchronicity, Kismet. It is a force that comes from the Great Unknown Source to bless us with a guiding light. It answers our call, even when we do not realize we have asked, showing us the way on our path.”
“And judging my every move?” She cringed, never liking the idea of Guardian Angels. “It’s not comforting.”
“Not judging you. Helping us make decisions that will benefit our calling.”
“Unlikely. I haven’t always made the best decisions.”
“I did not say you listen very well.” He nudged her playfully and flashed a charming smile she was growing too fond of. “Also, just because you have judged an outcome as negative, it does not mean that it will be so in the end. Bad things have a way of opening up positive opportunities.”
“I’m to believe that what happened to me will turn out for the best, if I have the right attitude and Charism?”
“You will believe what you will. Time will tell what it is you believe in your heart.”
“There you go with that heart business! I’m starting to believe hearts have their own agendas.” She threw her hands into the air and marched back inside the Vihar.
“I am beginning to believe that they do too,” he whispered to himself.
✹ ✹ ✹
That night, Tyrsten found a thick blanket and took Ithia by the hand as they hurried outside to observe a meteor shower.
As they lay side by side, the blanket’s edges tossed over them, they witnessed the green and white streaks blaze across the sky. Tyrsten glanced at Ithia’s incandescence. To him, her glow was a better show than nature’s fireworks above. “Do you miss Earth?”
“I do. I know how to live there, the rules and the way of doing things. And I wasn’t a target.”
“You would still be a target if you returned now.” He shifted to better see her face. “What do you miss most?”
“Cars. No offense, but horses aren’t my thing.”
He chuckled. “They tolerate you as well.”
She gazed back into the heavens. “After I help you, I need to find a way back. Perhaps, we can locate that portal.”
“Oh.” His voice was hollow.
“Wouldn’t you be glad to get rid of me?”
With a bit of defensiveness, he asked, “Why would you think that?”
“How did you put it before?” She bit her lip, thinking of how it disturbed him that they had past lives together. “I’m a bit distracting.”
“I can handle that.” A hint of desperation colored his words.
Ithia didn’t respond and continued to anticipate the meteors slicing through the night.
“Would you like to hear the story of how our people, the Magians, came to be?”
Ithia nodded.
Tyrsten’s voice dropped deeper for storytelling effect: “Long ago, one man sensed that this one world was part of a whole entity, now fractured. Life was once The All, then was broken, splintered into separate worlds, and those worlds overlaid in other universes. Every night, this man gazed at the moon and the stars. He ached from the separation, not only the sense of disconnection from the clay beneath his feet, but the stars shining over him. He was hungry for understanding. He desired to connect with all that was lost in being separated. He studied the w
isdom of the land. He became so immersed in knowledge, he merged with the very clay of the ground. But he became so hungry to know more that he reached out and ate the Stars. After that, he hungered for even more, so he ate the Darkness. When he was done, he knew the Universe and its dimensions and understood all the souls within. He found the Stillness, the Center of The All. It was then that the clouds parted in his Sight. The midnight sky now filled his entire soul. He had become the first Magian. The stars and the void of space—the Darkness and the Light—echoed in his eyes. From then on, he was called Marius, sea of stars. When he held the gaze of others, they fell into his eyes and began the path to awaken their potential.”
Ithia sighed. “Like how I fell into space when I first looked into your eyes.”
“Celestial’keel. I also experienced it when I was Actuated. Although not all experiences are quite as dramatic as a Magian’s Actuation.”
“I was always drawn to the stars. I just didn’t think they would leave their mark on me.”
“Would you like to hear the Ma’thean star-names?” Tyrsten proceeded to point out several constellations.
Ithia was happy to recognize one. It was always the first one that caught her eye when it was in the sky. “On Earth, that is Orion. That is his belt. There are his shoulders.”
“That cluster is significant here too.”
“When I was a child, I felt connected to it. I even studied the stars’ names that make up the pattern. It’s silly, but I once believed I came from there.”
“Perhaps.”
“Sometimes I thought I didn’t really belong on Earth.”
He stopped himself from reminding her that was because she didn’t. “What is Orion’s story?”
“There are many versions. Orion was a skilled hunter, and a demigod with a huge ego. One story says he boasted that he could kill all of the animals on Earth. The Earth goddess Gaea then sent a small scorpion that stung his heel—there, at the star Rigel. It killed him.”