by Lucia Ashta
She took off most of her clothes too, and then she sidled up to Paolo in her underwear. She rested her head on his bare chest; her hair sprawled across his shoulder. One bare breast pressed against his side, and one hand played with the hair on his chest.
Paolo wasn’t confused. He was deeply connected to Lena in a way he’d only dreamed was possible before meeting her. He knew how she felt and he held her close. They breathed together in unison for a long time until, even nude, the heat of the tent became unbearable, and they prepared to make their exit.
The day was brilliant. The sun shone with a strength and magnificence that Lena believed she’d marvel at as long as her body held breath. The sun lit up the mountains around them, playing a game of hide and seek with shade and shadows.
Paolo walked over to Lena. He draped his arm across her shoulders.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it, amore?”
Lena didn’t answer in words. She smiled instead. She couldn’t explain how the beauty of the landscape around them was affecting her in that moment. She’d never seen such an array of color in one region before. As they drove into Utah, mountains of slate gray curved up and down in rounded hills. Next, they passed through mountains peaked in greens. Now, they stood among orange and red mountains that jutted up into the sky at varying angles; some were sharp, some rounded.
Her eyes continued to scan her surroundings. Then Lena gasped, unable to conceal her surprise. Barely a faint silhouette atop the mountainous skyline, the same coyote she shared a connection with earlier that morning stood like a legend. Although he was too far away for Lena to make out his eyes, she was certain he was staring at her. She felt his gaze, and her skin pricked in raised bumps.
Lena looked back at him with a quiet mind. Her regrets from earlier that morning, wondering whether she should have tried to communicate with the coyote telepathically, were gone. She didn’t question herself or attempt to speak through her mind. There was no need. She held the coyote’s stare and allowed herself to feel what that was like. She recognized the magic in the experience, and she enjoyed this uncommon connection with the world of the wild.
She wasn’t removed in any way from the natural world around her. The same Creator breathed existence into everything. A drop of water carried consciousness of being just as the coyote who stared at Lena did, and this same force animated Lena.
And with this last thought, something Lena had never imagined happened. Her consciousness traveled within the coyote. Lena’s body lay on the ground, but she wasn’t there anymore, not truly. She shared the awareness of another of Creator’s beings.
The coyote had always maintained the connection to its infinite knowing. His thoughts and movements were based on eventual harmony with everything else that roamed the earth. And this one thing—this enormous thing—was the most incredible gift Lena received on this brilliant morning.
Sharing in the stillness of Coyote’s consciousness allowed Lena to feel what had been unattainable for her, something beyond even those profound realizations of infinite connectedness she sometimes reached. She was within the heart and mind of a being, who comfortably accepted what Lena strove to incorporate. The magic that governed the universe was a given conclusion for the coyote; it was his way of existence. He took in what happened, both the good and the seemingly tragic, with a peace that most human beings never experience.
This peace Coyote felt wasn’t impervious to sadness when tragedy struck. Rather, it came from knowing that a greater meaning governed the microcosm of his world. Animals possessed an innate trust in the Creator and the workings of the universe. Coyote didn’t question his place and purpose in the world.
Today, a story pervaded within Coyote’s consciousness, one that unfolded several settings of the sun before this day, and Lena understood why Coyote’s howl sounded lonely. Coyotes mate for life, and Coyote had partnered with a strong, vibrant female. She birthed five pups into the world. Everything was well. The pups were healthy, and the mother was recovering from the birth. Coyote scavenged for food to nourish himself and the mother, and she, in turn, gave the pups her milk.
Then at dawn, two young men dressed in the camouflage of hunters discovered the mother while Coyote was away. The men didn’t notice the pups concealed by rocks and sagebrush a few paces behind the mother. They didn’t consider that coyotes would likely have new families since it was springtime and that in killing one animal they might endanger a whole family. They didn’t notice her swollen teats.
The hunters were foolish and immature. They didn’t pause to think about anything; the killing was only for sport. They would later brag of their hunt.
Coyote was near enough to hear the two shots ring out, their echoes slicing through the air with the same finality as the life they ended. He spun toward the direction of his family and ran faster than he ever had. But he sensed the loss of his partner long before he reached her.
He checked on their pups and found them safe and well, sleeping groggily as new babies do. Now, his priority had to be their survival.
Coyote retrieved the five pups and encouraged them to nurse one last time. They drained the milk left in the mother’s body. Then, Coyote moved the pups to a safer spot, one far away from the sights and sounds of nature devouring the body of their dead mother.
Relocating his offspring took a good part of the day since Coyote had to move them in installments, able to carry only one in his mouth at a time. When he finally settled his family in their new location, Coyote was tired and hungry.
The pups would pass from this world anyway. Days old, they weren’t strong enough to survive without their mother’s milk, despite Coyote’s attempts to feed them regurgitated food. And so Coyote had set off to continue with his life, with a deep loneliness saddening his heart. He wandered aimlessly through the mountains until he encountered this woman.
She was different, and Coyote felt himself drawn toward her. She was open enough to connect to him. He turned toward her and searched inside her eyes under the rising sun.
Chapter 7
The ceremony was solemn. The community of the Temple of Laresu’u Kal was stunned by the violence that had invaded their quiet life. On this day, everyone from the temple was dressed in white. The pupils traded their violet-colored tunics for white ones like the masters wore. The white honored the peace of Master Tahn’s spirit, now free from the constraints of a body.
According to temple tradition, Master Tahn’s body was wrapped in a linen cloth that would decompose in the ground. His body was placed in a hole within the earth and then covered with flowers the pupils picked to honor the memory of the beloved master with the easy smile. Prayers went in each handful of strongly scented dirt until the hole was filled. They left the grave unmarked, as all graves were.
The body was given to Mother Earth; it was only borrowed to begin with. No one would visit this site in search of a connection to the man. Master Tahn was gone, living fully within the ethers, until it was his time to return to earth once more in another body.
The soul was free of the body, and everyone gathered there understood it as they turned and walked back toward the temple. Not one of the forty-nine students, the four masters, or Asara and Anak—who were neither pupils nor masters at this undefined juncture of their lives—spoke a single word until they passed through the temple gate. There was little to say and much to process. They all knew better than to fill the void with empty words.
Asara and Anak wondered what linked Master Tahn’s death, the attack on Master Sina, and Master Kaanra’s departure. The events were likely interrelated, but how? Neither Asara nor Anak was aware that Tahn had briefly been protector of one of the world’s greatest secrets. They didn’t know that his attacker succeeded in retrieving the parchment scrawled by Dann’s dying hand.
Tahn died in an attempt to conceal the secret of Dann’s final prophecy. Tahn never read the prophecy and, for a while, delayed the dark’s ability to locate it. But though his restrained action prove
d wise, it was insufficient to prevent the dark from honing in on the prophecy’s whereabouts.
The dark had waited for traces of Dann’s final prophecy for over two centuries. For hundreds of years, the dark scoured the corners of the earth for whisperings of its existence. It found none. But eventually, inevitability intervened, and the dark discovered a hint of its survival.
It was the gathering of the temple masters to discuss Kaanra’s search of the doman that unwittingly brought the secret to the dark side’s attention. Even though this fresh source of thought and energy was tenuous, it was enough to put the prophecy and all that it implied in danger. The temple masters didn’t realize how fiercely the dark side coveted this secret.
In the end, Master Tahn’s actions proved futile. By choosing not to read the final prophecy, Tahn tried to protect it. And, had his attacker not already found out that Tahn possessed this formidable secret, he very well may have succeeded. But Tahn’s attacker did know.
When Tahn discovered the parchment tucked underneath Sina’s garments, a raven as dark as the moonless night sky watched. Distraught, Tahn didn’t notice it. If he hadn’t been so absorbed with Sina’s condition and the responsibility she held for the planet, he would have noticed that something about this raven was disarmingly different.
Master Tahn was well acquainted with the raven and its medicine. It represented the magician in the animal world. It could act as a vehicle of white or dark magic; it didn’t usually discern between the two. Magic was magic, and either type could inhabit the raven.
Had Tahn detected the raven that spied on him and Sina that morning, he would have sensed the humanity within the animal. He would have known the raven perched in the tree above them wasn’t a raven at all, but a human being with the rare and elusive ability to shape shift. No matter how skilled the dark master of illusions was, a trace of humanity remained within the eyes of the animal. Tahn would have noticed it.
But he didn’t, to his demise. Still, there was a sort of good fortune that would result from the raven being there to witness it all. The raven watched Tahn dispatch the twins to recruit students to help move Sina before finding the parchment. Tahn chose to exclude the twins from its discovery, and this exclusion shielded them from the raven’s focus. In his dedication to locate and retrieve the final prophecy, the raven didn’t concern himself with the importance of the twin light warriors and how they might shape the destiny of everyone involved.
While shadowing Tahn, the dark illusionist learned that the master didn’t reveal the prophecy’s secret to anyone; he didn’t even read it himself. So when the dark conjuror took the form of a young, innocuous girl by the river the morning after he attacked Sina, he believed he could complete his mission by retrieving the parchment. To his knowledge, there was no further need to contain the secret. Sina would likely die, taking the secret with her to the other side. He didn’t realize then there was another who knew about the prophecy and was already searching for the doman.
The dark magician was excited with pride. He’d bring the final prophecy to the dark side, and the dark would finally triumph.
It was these thoughts that alerted Master Tahn. Something wasn’t right. Tahn could feel darkness roiling within the image of the innocent-looking girl. The picture didn’t match the energy. In an instant, Tahn formulated a plan.
Tahn approached the river. He kept a smile on his face, as if he were enjoying the beautiful sunshine and the flowing water, just as he always did. When he reached the bank, he hiked up his robe, acting as if he were only going to wade into the water. But he did not. Once in the water, Tahn dove in, and he stayed under as long as his breath held. He was trying to soak the parchment within the leather pouch at his waist.
It was his only hope, to soak the parchment enough to blur the lines of ink and distort Dann’s final message beyond all readability. But the water had to soak through mostly sealed leather to affect the parchment. When Tahn came up for air, he turned toward the girl, but she was no longer a girl.
The shapeshifter realized what Tahn was doing, and he ran toward the temple master. All thoughts of illusion left him in single-minded focus on his mission, so the girl reverted to the man’s true form. Master Tahn’s last sight was of a man, gnarled with darkness.
Tahn experienced the man at his worst. Rage at Tahn’s deceit and fear of failing contorted the man’s face. His eyes bulged in consuming fury as he wrapped his hands around Tahn’s neck, and pressed the life out of the gentle master.
Instead of saving his life, Tahn resisted his murderer’s attempts to drag him out of the water by his neck. Tahn knew the water was only just now entering the leather pouch, and he concentrated all of his strength on holding the pouch underwater.
Tahn’s eyes blurred as his brain yearned for the breath of life. But that only made him dig his feet further into the riverbed. The extra moments Tahn bought with the sacrifice of his life were enough to mitigate the catastrophic damage knowledge of the complete prophecy would have had. When Tahn let go of this world completely in a final desperate gasp for air that met with water instead, he left knowing he’d protected something more important than a single human life.
By the time the man dragged Tahn’s upper body out of the water and recovered the wet parchment, only a fraction of the words were legible. In disgust, the man hurled Tahn’s body back into the River Haakal, where the body turned with sightless eyes to stare at the riverbed bottom, murky from the silt the struggle kicked up.
Tahn should have told Asara and Anak of the doman the night before. When he was interrupted by Sina’s waking groan, he should have continued. Asara had intuited that waiting until morning to learn of the doman would be too late, and she was right.
Chapter 8
Coyote is the joker. There is mischief in coyote.”
Paolo swiveled his head around so quickly that he strained a muscle in his neck. Consumed as he was by Lena, who remained on the ground absent from her body, he hadn’t noticed the man’s approach. As Paolo surveyed the man now, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard him.
The man was big. He was at least as tall as Paolo, with broad shoulders and a strong presence. How could Paolo have missed him? The man stood a respectable distance away and watched Paolo hover over Lena.
Paolo forgot the stranger’s question—what coyote was he even talking about?—when Lena began to stir on the ground.
“Are you hurt, amore? Are you okay?” Paolo asked while he ran his hand over her hair and looked her up and down.
“She’s fine,” the man answered, and Paolo was again startled that the man had moved in closer without Paolo noticing. The stranger was still a body’s length away out of respect for Paolo’s protectiveness of Lena, but it was apparent the man thought he had good reason to be there uninvited.
Paolo would ordinarily be concerned by the presence of an unknown man in this isolated setting. But for some reason, he felt that he could trust this man, and it was a relief to hear him say that Lena was okay.
Lena tried to open her eyes. It was difficult for her to pull out of Coyote’s consciousness. It was comfortable there, in complete acceptance of the ebb and flow of existence. She didn’t know if she wanted to come back to her body or not. Coyote seemed so much wiser than she felt most of the time.
“May I touch her? She needs a little help right now.” The stranger addressed Paolo.
Worry surged within Paolo, who paused only for a moment before agreeing with a single nod.
The man moved close enough to reach Lena. He unclasped a brown leather pouch he wore at his waist; a beaded red and yellow bear adorned it. Leather tassels shook and swirled around the edge of the pouch as the man felt around for what he needed. Finally, he pulled out a pipe—it too was carved in the shape of a bear—and a small handful of tobacco. He lit the tobacco with a gaudy plastic lighter and puffed away.
When the smoke was plentiful enough, he said a barely audible prayer of gratitude and honor to his ancestors and re
lations. Then, he began in the north, facing each cardinal direction in turn, sending smoke out with each prayer. He thanked Father Sky and Mother Earth, Brother Sun and Sister Moon and, finally, he turned his prayers inward, to his heart center. Only after all of this did he return his attention to Lena’s prone body.
He pulled in a big breath of tobacco, placed the still-smoking pipe on a rock, and kneeled at Lena’s head. He placed both arms on her shoulders and crouched down. In three staccato bursts, he blew the tobacco smoke into the crown of her head. Then, he sat back on his haunches and waited. The smoke swirled up and encircled the stranger in a thick screen of mysticism.
Lena sensed someone calling her back into her body and reacted. She attempted to open her eyes again. This time, she was able to, although it was still with great effort.
Through hazy eyes, she saw Paolo, always there for her. She felt another person there too. She leaned her head back and saw a man with long black, peppered hair and heavy-looking turquoise earrings. He had a weathered face with tattoo markings on his chin. Then, without meaning to, she fell asleep.
When she woke up for the third time this morning, the man was gone. Without a word, he’d walked off into the mountains. A trail of tobacco marked his first few steps away, his token of thanks to Mother Earth.
Despite Master Tahn’s murder that morning, Asara and Anak’s plans remained unchanged. They would leave the Temple of Laresu’u Kal as soon as possible. It was more important now than before that they depart immediately.
The twins would have to go without learning who attacked Master Sina and murdered Master Tahn, without understanding what a doman was or why the dark pursued Dann’s final prophecy. But there was no one left at the temple to provide them with answers. Kaanra and Sina had purposely deprived the remaining four temple masters of details to protect them.
Besides, their friends urgently needed their help. A universal imbalance plagued the world. When the dark side reached across an extraterrestrial dimension to commit the unthinkable, the darkness went too far. Stealing souls humans held in the light was explicitly prohibited. The twins had wrongs to right.