20

Softly glowing globes of different colours lit the way to the place Remi was leading the Amacites. Barbuak and Jaklyn were walking ahead of Lenshu with Luc and Alesandra. Intoxicated, Maine had chosen to stay behind after the banquet.

Feeling properly nourished, safe and fatigued, they wound their way single file along a series of elaborately embellished tunnels towards a sleeping place.

Luc and Alesandra were intrigued by the extensive carving of an oversized serpent weaving amongst multitudes of insects. In a larger tunnel with a stream of running water, the Amacites were fascinated by the coloured crystals budding from the walls, and the flawlessly carved spherical symmetrical flowers.

‘They’re water crystal formations,’ explained Remi when she noticed Alesandra drawn to the carvings and tracing them with her fingers. ‘We have an archive of formations from different lakes, rivers, springs and glaciers across the continent and beyond, kept in our Library.’

‘That’s water?’ frowned Luc as he visually compared the running stream and the carvings.

‘Seen very close with special eyes,’ motioned Remi as she pretended to squint at something very tiny in her hand.

‘Library?’ repeated Alesandra.

‘A place of books.’

‘Books?’

Remi bit her lip, subduing her eagerness to explain how they also kept meticulous records of the movements of their systems planets and other visiting astral bodies. She smiled affectionately, ‘maybe we could show you the Library tomorrow.’

Soon they reached an open wooden door and entered a rather large room, with unpainted, roughly hewn earthen walls, and a smooth swept stone floor. Several dozen empty clay pots of various sizes lay neatly stacked against three walls, and all six walls were decorated with multiple hanging tapestries.

Drifting over to a pile of blankets and cushions left for them, Jaklyn and Lenshu started helping Luc and Alesandra make themselves floor beds, while Barbuak gazed at the wall-hangings. There were different forest and rural scenes of people farming the land with hand tools, ‘what are they doing? And what is that?’ wondered Barbuak at the sight of a tractor.

‘That’s a steel plow,’ explained Remi in her similar language, as she noticed his reactions, ‘and that’s a track, or, something, tractor. Petrol powered.’

‘Petrol?’

‘It’s a fire liquid, an old type of fuel,’ explained Remi. ‘Wood is a fuel it makes fire, sun is fuel, water is fuel that can make fire,’ she said pointing to the glow globes.

She noticed Jaklyn begin saying something to Barbuak, as he was trying to get his head around how water made the lights glow.

‘Let’s talk more in the morning, after we’ve all rested,’ pleaded Jaklyn in the sign language Remi found fascinating.

‘Thank you so much,’ yawned Lenshu as he covered the twins, and rolled out his own bed on the farthermost side.

‘Our pleasure…rest now,’ insisted Remi, as she pushed her dark curls out of the way to look around for the light switch. ‘I’ll be back before you wake,’ she vowed before dimming the lights with the gentle tug of one of two pull cord switches hanging together by the door.

 

~

 

Remi was struggling to think where to place the refugees such as the Tekah Ahn, that would soon begin filing down through the western tunnels towards the southern avenue of great oaks, Oakenfield Avenue. She was making her way to Dorphin, through the crowds increasing outside the Banquet Hall that had come to admire the intricate network of colourful lines now glistening in the floors with water from the slowing flooding Watergate.

Entering the Banquet Hall and turning to the first flight of stairs pressed against the book embedded walls, Remi started climbing. She soon slipped on a stray white thread from the mop a gentleman was using to clear the stairs of excess water, and was clutching her ankle as Greibarians descended around her with arms full of books.

Seven flights of stairs later, she arrived limping and out of breath at Dorphin’s door, under a metal ornamentation of revolving planets and their moons –she let herself in.

Wearing his nightrobes, Dorphin was seated with an ancient looking fellow in fine evening garb. They were drinking and playing cards together. Scents of sage and dragon’s blood incense wafted from a candlelit shrine of sweets, laid by the doorway in honour of Haita.

‘Why didn’t you take the lift?’ asked Dorphin as he slapped his cards on the table and lifted his arms to greet her –accidentally knocking metallic scrolls from their table to the floor.

‘I’m claustrophobic,’ mewled Remi and Dorphin chuckled.

‘Sal told me to expect you,’ he beamed, motioning for her to take a departed players seat at the table, while he picked up the fallen scrolls and started looking for one in particular.

‘This is Quentin,’ explained Dorphin as the timeworn guest proffered a hand.

Remi stepped forward. ‘Lovely to meet you,’ she bowed, and touched her forehead to the back of his hand before seating herself. He smiled warmly.

‘He mightn’t be saying much now but once he gets going…’ teased Dorphin. ‘His memory is almost as long as an Ariod –but not long enough. Speaking of which, he’s trying to help us get to the bottom of why they’re appearing in such numbers lately.’

‘They weren’t invited?’ joked Remi. ‘So, where do you hail from originally?’

Quentin looked to Dorphin, who nodded agreeably as he handed Remi a scroll.

‘The North,’ Quentin declared quietly, as Dorphin chuckled and lifted his drink before speaking.

‘Meet the founding patron of Tasneem’s Treasure Tavern.’

‘Ana’s bookshop? The one that makes books from a secret network of personal libraries available to the commons?’

Dorphin nodded, and supped his drink before reading his cards.

‘…and Ed’s cousin?’ accused Remi with tentative astonishment.

‘When I realised how many people were dying to get into Raintree, I did,’ remarked Quentin, raising his glass so he could tribute Dorphin and drink deeply.

‘Cheapest one-way ticket I ever booked,’ added Dorphin, and together they laughed at the incredulity dawning on Remi’s face.

‘Will you drink with us?’ asked Quentin as he dealt the river card, a two of pentacles.

Remi tapped the scroll in her hands. ‘No,’ she replied, briefly whisking the scroll open and running her fingers over the maze of area mapped for Kath’s mob to pass through. ‘No rest for the wicked,’ she reminded them.

 

~

 

Sunni spent the morning with Aryamo and Lephia -cooking, washing, and sweeping. They measured the ingredients for buko pie; nourished a fatigued Rechk with soup, and Chrifty’s melancholy and misbehaving children with words; they straightened the goods for cooking, eating, hunting and games; cleansed the air with incense, the floors and fabrics with water, making everything orderly.

It was while washing a new weave in the river that Tephio came to rinse his hands beside them. Sunni and Aryamo chose to spend the afternoon with Tephio gardening -planting, pulling, and burying. They harvested, sorted, and set seeds to dry; sowed new seeds; moistened the seedlings; placed supports for the young plants; and harvested the old. They discussed their ideas and argued their preferences, confessed what they desired, and relished what they loved -deeming what would live and what would die.

In the evening Sunni and Aryamo played a game with stones before taking to rest quite early, for tomorrow they would hunt.

From the morning, Sunni was gone for many days.

 

‘Where’s Sunni?’ Aryamo had asked.

‘On a sojourn, to summon her soul,’ Perssu had replied.

Aryamo’s shoulders dropped, Perssu put down the bird she was holding and gave Aryamo her full attention. She said gently, ‘loving and caring for our own natural seasons protects us from being dragged into another’s rhythm, dance, or hunger. Comingling with soul makes us glow bright with spirit, and be willing to assert our talents whatever they may be.’

They looked at Jaklyn, painting by the river.

‘Intentional solitude is a vital breathing exercise,’ breathed Perssu, turning her face to the morning sunlight. ‘In the service of renewal, we must habitually return home. Inhumanity comes from disconnection, a consequence of denying spirit to rescind and return. If spirit is our bridge between the world of the everyday and the realm of the great soul, we must regularly use it to return to the great soul to feed, nourish, renew, and temper the egoic mind.’

They noticed Maine, strutting and bragging to Lenshu about his last hunting conquest. Aryamo and Perssu looked at one another and giggled quietly.

‘To psychically summon up the soul from its dwelling place,’ said Perssu, ‘we can sing, drum, run, paint and write, make music and visions of beauty, enact rituals, pray, or simply be still.’

They noticed Barbuak staring into the waters of the river alone.

‘In that place of renewal, we may see into all things,’ assured Perssu. ‘We may see into our self and situations, the state of our being, friendships, home, mate, and children. We may question what needs less and what needs more. We may question whether we are on proper course in spirit and soul. We can come to know what must be rid, moved, or changed. There in the great sea that is soul, when you are alone, you can be all one.’

 

~

 

Sunni rests on the rock, sitting near her soul; the one above all others, loving unremittingly, unguardedly, and with profound endurance. Without questions, just breathing together. Being. With soulful eyes. Wild, wise, and loving.

 

~

 

‘Grey,’ called Aly from where she lay on the couch reading a paperback. ‘What is numinosity?’

Grey looked up from his screen thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know…something glowing? Glowing numbers?’

‘Hmm. Can you look it up?’

Grey paused watching old people buy old things, and opened a new tab on another browser, ‘what’s it about?’

‘The context is…something about being able to learn and still stand with what we know -to stand and live.’

Grey waited for the dictionary to appear. ‘The server’s down.’

Aly sat up on the couch to look over at him. ‘Just now?’

‘Yeah…’ he frowned. ‘It was working a minute ago.’

Aly was calmly surprised. ‘It’s been happening a lot more lately. Why would they throttle us?’

‘I’ve been working offline a bit, I haven’t noticed.’

Aly turned on the couch with a wolfish look. ‘Never mind…’ she said, looking at the pages of her book without reading. She sipped her hot chocolate, ‘I hope it’s not down when Ant goes live.’

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