Root (Energy Anthology) (5 page)

“Why do you never say my name?”

The Shen-Ma paused her preparations and turned to him, unsmiling. She looked directly in his eyes as if she were reading something there. Lam broke the gaze to glance at Ch’kara. She was still smiling broadly.

He turned back to the old woman as she whispered, “I will answer both your questions. The fire burns so that we may live. This village, these people depend on it.” She fed the flames a twig with three leaves on it, as if to demonstrate for him, or perhaps in offering to it for revealing its purpose. “At this moment you are neither Pael nor Lam.” She returned her focus to the bowl. Lam was speechless. Ch’kara silently reached over and took his hand in hers, sending tingles throughout his body. The Shen-Ma chuckled as if she saw what had just happened, though her back was turned to them.

“You were talking to
Them
, weren’t you, boy?”

“Them?”

“You know,” the Shen-Ma prodded, “The Clouds.”

“The Stars,” he murmured.

“Exactly.” She held the bowl directly over the fire for a moment, whispering something under her breath before dumping its contents into the blaze and leaping back, all at once. Without looking, she plopped to the end of the log beside Lam. He barely had time to scoot over and make room for her before she landed. He scooted directly against Ch’kara.

Pretending to be oblivious to what she had just caused, the Shen-Ma heaved a long sigh and gazed at the stars.

“The stars,” she mused. “Long have we looked to the stars for our hope. It seems it should be an odd thing to place one’s hope in things so very far away, something so remote, something so
separate
from us. Ah, but that is the key, isn’t it? There
appears
to be a separation between us and the stars, but we do not
feel
as if there is any separation. We feel close to them. We feel we
know
them.

“The Ancients acknowledged this, you know. They taught that in the beginning, when only animals walked this ground,
They
arrived. The ones from the stars. There are many, many stories of those who came. Some tell they were actual gods with magical and mystical powers, creating the people from invisible nothingness. And there are still other stories that say the people grew on their own, over vast amounts of time— grew from the tiniest specks of life energies left behind by those from the stars. But throughout all the various interpretations, the one detail that remains constant is
we came from the stars.

“There are many who cling to the thought
‘This is not our home’
with desperate abandon. For whatever hardships and difficulties they find here, they choose to believe there is something
better
apart from this place. Many of these people are simply attempting to avoid responsibility for their own lives, and in doing so, waste away what life they
do
have here, all the while pining for something
else
that may or may not exist.

“Yet there are those of us,” she continued, “Who believe these things for a very different reason. There are those of us who
know
the truth in these stories that have been passed from generation to generation. We feel it in our bones.

“Our line, our ancestors— in whatever form— began in the stars.” The Shen-Ma shifted sideways, granting Lam and Ch’kara an opportunity to move apart, which they did not take.

“Each and every one of us is not directly from the stars, you understand, but we are each from the stars in the way of our beginnings.” She grew silent, and dropped her eyes from the sky to the fire. Lam and Ch’kara waited patiently, perfectly content being close to each other, as if they had always been this way.

“Do you understand who you are, son of Ric’ua?”

Lam knew the answer she was searching for, though he did not feel it completely in his body. “The cloud said the same as you, Shen-Ma,” he said. “I am the Seed.”

“The Seed,” she repeated, nodding.

“He needs to be told,” Ch’kara spoke next to him. He was very aware she was still holding his hand as he turned back to the old woman for her response.

The Shen-Ma sighed and lifted her eyes to the stars once again. “Long ago, a wise Ancient named L’karta performed a very special ceremony. This ceremony had never been carried through before. He must have received it directly from the stars, for it released his spirit from his body, and he rose high above this land. No other had ever done this before. From this perspective, he saw the land was actually curved and not flat at all. He saw there were other rocks— countless rocks— all seemingly suspended in between the endless stars. He looked down and saw the souls of the people below, shining as many different colors, a living tapestry, each connected to the next. There were no gaps in this Quilt of Life.

“He was met by three spirits who claimed to be of the stars. They encircled L’karta’s soul, and lifted him higher and higher, taking him to their own curved land under a sun that was not our own. Here, they imparted to him all manner of knowledge and wisdom in a matter of mere hours. It was as if they simply opened his mind and poured their words inside! He remembered no speech or audible sounds at all.

“He was returned, and was placed beside his bonfire, as if he’d never left. Naturally, many believed he had only dreamed the experience and it had not truly happened.” The Shen-Ma chuckled. “It is said he responded, ‘Of course I dreamed it— how else has any of my work been accomplished?’” She cackled fully out loud now, and Lam knew her own experience made the Ancient’s reply so hilarious to her. He cracked a smile himself, and imagined Ch’kara was doing the same, though he did not want to risk a glance to find out.

“From that journey, he brought back a message. He foretold that one directly from the stars would come into our midst. This one would once again unite all the people into the Quilt of Life he beheld from above, arriving when the need was greatest, when the violence was its most pointless and most heartless. It was said this one would come out of this heartless land, and plant the seed that would change the nations. A Seed would be planted, and this seed would never be crushed for ages to come.” She smiled a secretive smile to herself as she adjusted the logs of her bonfire with the tip of her walking stick.

“L’karta was my direct ancestor. He was a grandfather who is with me, even this day, though he has refused to impart to me any further insight from the other worlds,” she sighed.

“The spirits love games, you know,” she said, “Especially games with words. I thought I understood exactly what the prophecy said, what it meant. Of all the wisdom passed to me, I closed my mind to the most important.” The old woman laughed again. “I decided I had learned all I could on that prophecy, and had bound any new power from entering it!

“But now I see.” She turned and smiled directly at Lam, before meeting Ch’kara’s eyes. It was apparent the two women had already had conversation on what the old one was about to say.

“I had thought the one from the stars would be born to the violent tribes, such as the Gildoks, or the Furds further north. I believed they would change the violent ones from within, then emerge to unite us all. I see now I was only partly right in this. You came from our own people, went
to
the Gildoks, and emerged, changed yourself.

“In a way, you
were
born in the Gildok land. As Pael, Ric’ua’s only son, and her only family, after your father’s encounter with the same Gildoks so many seasons ago, you ventured too far into the forest yourself. You slipped from their grasp only long enough to climb a tree. Yet this did not stop them, for that fierce tribe is not known to stop for anything once their minds are set to a thing. They began to tear you down from below, plucking the roots right from you.

“They tore your soul right from your body.

“So overtaken by the energy of the Gildok people’s fear and anger, Pael chose to release this body of his own accord, rather than let the cruel ones take it. This opened the path for Lam to enter, taking the body as its own, for purposes of its own— the purpose of Planting!

“Lam was born from the violence and harmful desires of others.”

Lam was speechless. The Shen-Ma sat silently.

“How,” he finally began, “How is this possible?”

“How is it possible for the clouds to talk?” the old one replied.

He thought on this, feeling at once a sinking feeling and a thrill of excitement. “From the stars…” he whispered. “I am from the stars.”

“Do you remember?”

He closed his eyes, searching within himself. He found no specific memories, but suddenly touched the sense of something
before
once again. Slowly, he began to nod his head. “I feel it is true…”

“Then perhaps you should look above you.”

Lam opened his eyes and looked up to find the cloud had come over them, and had descended so close he could reach up and touch it. He gasped and looked quickly to Ch’kara. Her head had slumped to her chest, yet rose and fell slightly with her breathing, fast asleep. He turned to the Shen-Ma and saw she merely sat firmly and silently, watching his reactions, revealing no hint of her own reactions.

The wind began to swirl around them, stirring the dust and leaves. The fire writhed as if in agony. A soft rumble rapidly grew into a loud roar as a continuous thunder broke all around them. Lam felt the vibration of it to his very bones. He felt no fear, yet sat unmoving, looking into the cloud.

Sparks of light began to flash randomly throughout the cloud as the wind whipped more and more fiercely. The sparks grew bigger and lit longer, until they were full streaks of lightning shooting from one end of the cloud to the other, side to side, top to bottom. The cloud rolled and boiled, turned inward on itself, and rushed back out.

Suddenly a single bolt of lightning shot from the direct center of the cloud and struck Lam in the direct center of his forehead.

• TEN •

He was not alone.

He could not see the others around him. He had no eyes with which to see them, but he knew they were there. He didn’t know from a memory— he
felt
them.

They were in a circle, yet they were not standing. They had no bodies with which to stand. Each of the others were merely spaces of presence around him. He quickly realized he, too, was simply an energetic presence, and a part of the circle.

This place was a room, but not a room. He could sense no walls or boundaries to it, as if it continued infinitely in every direction. At the same time, it felt like a confined space, a certain
place.
He felt another aspect present here as well, a sort of tingling electric charge filling the space, as if anything that was said or done in this place would instantly spark into life.

He had drifted off. Had he been sleeping? He thought he had. He’d been dreaming, too. It had been a very nice dream, something about a forest and a village. A warm feeling swept through him at the memory. He felt like smiling, but he had no face here. That had only been in the dream, hadn’t it?

Do you remember now?
one of the others asked silently.
Have you found it?

I fell asleep.

We do not sleep here.

But I did. I even had a dream. I had a body, and a mother, and—

He does not remember.

He must be conscious of both sides in order to intentionally activate the cycle!

He should not have gone.

It was his choice. No other took his free will.

Go? I was… not here?

Your presence was removed, Lam.

You were no longer among us.

I…
Images of tree and cloud and fire flashed through his awareness.
Do you mean…
Faces shifted into his mind, then quickly faded into other faces— angry faces, smiling faces, worried faces, old faces.
That truly happened?

You chose to descend.

You lowered the vibration of your being.

You merged with the body, just as those long before.

You made the transition.

Clarity shot through Lam as full connection returned. Memories that were embedded within the substance of his energy sprang to life as he in mere nanoseconds relived the long history of a crumbling society and its eventual destruction. The wars, the struggles, the pure energetic pain so many others caused tore through his awareness. The efforts of the few had made no difference as those who bewilderingly chose isolation outweighed the balance, and ultimately set the final dissolution into motion.

Waiting until the last possible moment, the few who sought to cherish their kind had finally separated their existence from the collective, and set out to begin a new society. Their awareness was twelve in number, and if they had not been willing to leave before the dissolution had completed, bearing the memories and knowledge of their society, there would no longer be any trace of their kind. They were now The Remnant.

As ages passed, they began to sense a new imbalance.