Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series (12 page)

Chapter 22: Song of the Pwi

Two days later, Tull was able to sit up for short periods of time. With a bit of food, his energy began to return. Chaa had been gradually filling the apartment with refugees—Phylomon, Zhopila and her children, Darrissea.

“Tull will be able to travel soon,” Chaa said to them all, “and he must get out of the city. I want him to go with Phylomon, to fight the Creators, but though I have tried to walk the future, even I do not know what chance he has. Phylomon will need others to help handle the boat. And so we will send Fava and Darrissea. Wertha and I must stay here, for we have work to do.”

“I won’t be well enough to travel yet,” Tull said. “I can’t handle the rigging.”

“The slavers have small iron boats,” Phylomon suggested, “with huge engines that they use to pull barges from Craal. They are powered with ancient energy cubes made by the Starfarers. Such a boat requires only two people even for long journeys.”

Tull considered, and decided that it would be a good means of travel. Chaa added, “You must leave soon, Tull, for you are a Spirit Walker. As your power grows, Atherkula will become more and more aware of you. Even now I am shielding you from his eyes, but I cannot do so for much longer. If he finds you, he will kill you.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Tull asked.

Chaa sat beside Tull, cross-legged. “Wertha and I have much work to do here in Bashevgo. I saw little on my last spirit walk, and I know nothing of the future. But I know some slaves who will die without my help, people who must be freed—somehow.”

Chaa looked up at Phylomon and added, “You say that you do not think Tantos can kill the Creators? What will you need in the way of weapons?”

Phylomon answered, “I’m not sure. My ancestors provided the great worms with symbiotes like mine, but theirs are twenty times thicker than anything a small human could wear. Conventional guns could not harm them. Even a laser cannon would not do the job.”

Tull creased his brow, and asked thoughtfully, “That eel creature that I saw back in Smilodon Bay, its symbiote struck me with lightning. Will a larger symbiote be able to attack more fiercely?”

“Yes,” Phylomon answered. “Yet that is not the worst of it. My symbiote has a small, crude brain. But I suspect that the Creators will have an enhanced design. Their symbiotes will be far more resourceful, more intelligent, than my ally.

“If their symbiotes are even four inches thick,” he continued, “then for a worm sixty feet long and twelve feet in diameter, the symbiote itself will weigh over fifteen tons. My own symbiote is about one-eighth neural material. If this holds true for the Creators, then each of them will be defended by a brain that weighs more than a ton. Our intellect, even boosted by culture and enhanced through drugs, is dwarfed in comparison. I believe that the Creators themselves pose little threat, but their symbiotes, I’m sure, will have devised numerous ways to protect themselves.”

“Then,” Tull asked, “you are telling me that the symbiotes are a completely different threat from the Creators?”

“The Creators are simply biological machines,” Phylomon answered, “operating according to instructions given by our ancestors. But their symbiotes are living, learning beings, capable of forming new ideas.

“I’ve been considering, and I believe the symbiotes themselves may be the cause of some of our worries, for we never programmed the Creators to form blood eaters or experiment with worms. It may be that the symbiotes are controlling their masters, experimenting, teaching.”

“But, the symbiotes couldn’t take complete control of the Creators, could they?” Darrissea asked.

“Yes,” Phylomon said quickly. “It happens to me sometimes. When I’m forced to protect myself, the symbiote takes control, coordinates muscle groups, causing me to crush an enemy’s esophagus with a palm before I have time to think. Sometimes I become a mere spectator in my own battles.

“In the same way, the Creators’ symbiotes will defend themselves—by formulating battle plans, devising tactics, preparing escape routes. For the symbiotes, this is all they think about.”

“You don’t have any weapons that can kill them, do you?” Darrissea asked Phylomon.

“I have weapons that I can try.” He nodded toward two cloth bags in the corner, where white rods spilled onto the floor, and he crossed his arms, resting his left hand on a small bump that protruded from his right arm. “All I need now is a sharp knife.”

“A knife, we can provide,” Chaa said.

The others went their way and talked for a bit, but Fava came to Tull and asked. “How do you feel?”

“I feel pretty well. Weak.”

“Your scar looks terrible,” Fava said, lightly touching the dressing on his wound. The scar was covered now, but obviously the memory of it, the kwea, still troubled Fava.

“My scar?”

“Wertha healed you. He is a great healer. The wound is fully closed, though there is a blue scar there still, a wide blue scar.”

He wondered at that. “I should count myself lucky.”

Fava put Tull’s hand on her stomach and asked, “What do you feel here?”

“Your belly?”

“No,” Fava said. “Our child.” She grinned down at him, a broad smile spreading across her face. Tull felt a wild joy leap up in him, total surprise. “Wertha says it will be a son.”

Tull held his hand there for a long time, wishing he did not hurt so bad, wishing he could do more than merely touch her.

Later that night while the others slept, Chaa came to Tull and woke him with a touch to the cheek. Tull peered up from beneath his mammoth-hide blanket. The fire in the hearth was burning low, filling the room with a flickering light. Chaa sat over him, his expression anxious. He said, “You are happy now. I see it in your eyes.”

“Yes,” Tull agreed.

“That is because you have found your center, and discovered your true name.
Laschi Chamepar
, Path of the Crushed Heart.” Chaa lightly touched Tull on the chest.

“You told me my true name long ago,” Tull answered.

Chaa smiled. “Still, you did not understand it. Hearing your true name and knowing it are separate matters. Few men would willingly walk the path of the crushed heart, even if they knew of the peace that they would find on the other side.”

“I know.”

Chaa put his heels up to his buttocks, curled his arms around his legs, and sat with his chin on his knees. “Now that you know your true name, the trick is to remember it, to stay in touch with the center of yourself.”

“How do I do that?” Tull asked.

“Each morning, when you awaken, you must sing yourself into existence.” Tull looked at him, puzzled, and Chaa continued. “When you rise, you sing your true name, Laschi Chamepar, and focus on the peace at your center. Then, throughout that day, you will always remember who you are.”

“I have never heard of this. Do you sing your true name?”

Chaa laughed. “You would be surprised at how many Pwi sing their true names in the morning. We sing softly, in our hearts, to ourselves. We do not tell children of these things that we do—it would only frustrate them. If they have not found their center, then it does them no good to sing their true name.”

Chaa hesitated, as if thinking, and said, “Long ago, the Pwi sang more. Each day at dawn, they would rise and sing the world into being, create the world. You see, the world exists as a shadow even without it, but in part, our own attitudes toward it help bring it into being. We shape it, as if it were clay.

“So this singing was invented long, long ago. We do not do it so much now, but I keep thinking we should start again. When I was young, I tried to get some Pwi to do it with me, but they thought it was stupid.

“They said ‘Look! The sun rises whether we sing of it or not! The trees and hills and grass are here when we waken! Why do you waste our time?’ and I could not explain to them very well why this one thing is so much more important than they could imagine.”

Tull grinned self-consciously.

Chaa continued, “You see, the world is indeed created new every day, whether we desire it or not. It is shaped by the minds of men, to some small degree, everyday. A house is built, a ditch is dug, a war is fought. Change does not just happen. If we leave a pile of dirt, we do not come back and find it fashioned into brick and changed overnight. We take part in creation. So, we change the world, we shape it, often without thinking.

“That is why we must sing the world into being. We must waken each morning, envision the trees and the wild daisies, and sing the trees and daisies as they should be. We must remember the beauty of the lake, the cry of the loon, and sing these things into being. We must remember the warmth and the majesty of the sun and our campfires, and sing them into being. We must see the strength and beauty of ourselves and our friends, and sing of them as they should be. We must sing from our centers. Otherwise, all these things will become forgotten, and eventually they will be lost.”

“You sound so sure of yourself,” Tull said.

“Oh, I am sure,” Chaa said. “You have seen the Neanderthals of the Blade Kin. You have seen the arenas of the Slave Lords in Bashevgo. These people have forgotten the world as it should be. They have not sung the world into being for far too long.

“I’m talking to you now as if I were a human,” Chaa said, and he closed his eyes. “I think I should explain this more like a Pwi. There is more to this magic than I have said. You have seen Anee, you have seen how the Starfarers formed it. They speak of their technology—of geneticists and DNA—and they think they formed this world. I am happy to let them think so. But that is
not
how this planet was formed.”

“If you don’t think the Starfarers created Anee,” Tull asked, “then how did it get here?”

“Oh, the Starfarers made it with their hands, but I will tell you a secret my father revealed me,” Chaa said. “A hundred thousand years ago, on Earth, a shaman of the Pwi met a human. The Pwi woke every day and sang the world into being, and he had few tools, but this human with his clever hands had fashioned many tools—knives, spear points, hide scrapers, bowls, needles. The human did not sing the world into shape with his heart and tongue, he molded it with his hands.

“The Pwi looked down on this human, and saw that the human, in his own way, was ‘dancing’ a new world into being, and that his dance would conflict with the song of the Pwi.

“Since the human was weaker, the Pwi could have killed him and ended the conflict, but the Pwi took pity. So, many Pwi gathered, and together they sang of two worlds—a world where the humans could dance with their hands, and a world where the Pwi would sing with their hearts.

“Earth became the home for the humans, and all the Pwi traveled to the Land of Shapes to wait.

“Now, the humans have returned the gift, using their hands to make this world. Anee will be the new home for the Pwi, forever. So we must begin again to sing the world into being each morning.” Chaa hesitated. “Can you even imagine that this would become a peaceful world?”

“No,” Tull said. “I walked the future in the Land of Shapes. I don’t see much hope for peace.”

“Then you must dream it into being,” Chaa answered. “You must dream it into being, and you must become a man of peace yourself. Sing your true name each morning, remember your center, do no harm to others, then sing of the world of peace, as I do each day. If enough people do that, peace will wash through this land like a flood.”

Tull reflected on the words, and felt guilty for having strayed so far. He recalled walking home in the dark in Smilodon Bay, trying to avoid stepping on a blade of grass or an earthworm. Reverence for life, reverence for the world. That was all Chaa really wanted from him.

“I will try,” Tull said. “I will sing the world into being each day.”

“Good,” Chaa clapped him on the shoulder. “You have come far in a year. Someday, perhaps, you will make a good shaman to the Pwi. Now we must speak of other things: Tantos will have Atherkula hunt for Phylomon,” Chaa said, “and I do not have the power to fight Atherkula.”

“I know,” Tull said.

“Yet, your spirit eyes are opening. You have seen how the Sorcerers of the Blade Kin capture their quarry. They bind us with the shadows of their souls.”

“Yes,” Tull said.

“That is not how a Spirit Walker connects,” Chaa warned. “We walk in a more peaceful way. To walk the paths of the future for a person, I must first learn them and learn the souls of all those who might connect to that person later. I entwine one strand of lightning from my soul with each of theirs, then let the tips of those strands dance over the shadows of their souls. Then I step back in time to the moment of that person’s birth, and relive what they have lived, and I learn them—their thoughts, their loves, their secret fears and ambitions.

“Only then, when I have lived their lives with them, can I move ahead into the future. Yet, to do so perfectly, I would have to walk the future of all men, bind myself to all of their loves, all of their fears.

“No one can do all of this—to even try, drives one to madness.

“Yet,” Chaa continued, “to glimpse even part of the future, you must connect with many people—touch thousands at a time.”

“How can this happen?” Tull asked.

“You have counted the fronds of lightning in your soul. They number twenty-two. But this is true only when spirits are at rest.

“A countless number of those lightnings reside within you, hidden beneath the shadow of your soul. When you wake more, you will be able to open yourself, reach out with many tongues of lightning at once, and taste the lives of countless men. This art of connecting, of learning the hearts of men, you are ready to practice.”

“I … am not well enough,” Tull said.

He thought of what it would mean to merge his consciousness with others, to lose himself, his identity. It was frightening, and he focused on that peaceful place in himself where there was no fear. He sang his true name—Path of the Crushed Heart—until peace returned, then reconsidered Chaa’s request.

I lost myself once,
Tull thought,
when Mahkawn tried to steal my life away. Now, Chaa asks me to give it freely.