Return of the Burning Man

Chapter Fifteen

Sothoo stared hard at the birds in the tree and tried to find a fifth but no matter how hard she tried there were still only four magpies. She waved her arms hoping to make one or two fly away but they steadfastly sat, staring at her and chattering to each other.

'You are not very welcome, birds. I wish I hadn't seen you.'

Sothoo recited the rhyme of omens about magpies to herself. A rhyme every child knew, had been taught from the time they toddled at their mother's feet. Sothoo remembered the time her grandmother had seen four in a tree when she was only six summers old and they had been working in the fields together. She recited the rhyme then made the evil sign with her two outer fingers at the birds.

'One makes you sigh,

two makes you cry,

three they'll be sickness,

four they will die...'

'What does it mean, Nana?' she had asked.

'It means that someone we know will die.' she replied.

Sothoo had cried thinking of her little brother or her Mama or her beloved Papa but her Nana said that only the gods decided who would be taken to the otherworld and that when they got back to the village she would ask a priest to cast the crow bones to scryer the future to try to find out more. But she did not need to because when she returned to the village her husband, Sothoo's Gramp's, had been gored by a bull that he and Sothoo's father had been moving from one field to another. He lay, covered in blood, outside their hut surrounded by a crowd of village folk come to see what had happened. Sothoo's Grandma had thrown herself onto her husband and with her sister wife had wailed to the gods for their husband's departing Numa.

She looked over at Lolo and wondered if the omen was about her or one of them. She could not tell because they were still walking and she was unable to cast the crow bones to scry the future and to try to determine what this sign meant. She took a deep breath and sighed, how much more difficulty could the god's heap upon them she wondered. But she knew that with Lolo at least she was winning the battle to save her. Slowly she was defeating the arrow poison that had almost killed her familiar and brought to an early end her magikal life. One more herb and she would win through, one more and she would bring her little friend back to her and regain her magikal skills hopefully in time to defend her friends from the dark magik of Dolreen who was rapidly catching up to them. Sothoo feared every day that the dark mage would appear with his war bands and capture them all without her being able to protect them with her light magik which she knew she could do if only Lolo was cured of the arrow poison.

Sothoo looked over to a large elm and her heart sank. There on a large branch was a long-eared owl which stopped preening its breast feathers and stared directly at Sothoo. An Owl in the daytime was a definite omen of death. It would not be necessary to try to scryer a meaning of this portent; the message from the gods was clear – death.

Sothoo looked at her companions and she hated herself inside for not being able to cure Lolo and being able to protect her friends. She blamed herself for what she felt was their impending doom at the hand of the dark mage, Dolreen. She thought back to their time a Coreet and it broke her heart to think of the pain her friends will come to before their eventual death and tears came when she realised she could not prevent it. She knew that Dolreen would probably keep her alive for a while but that she too would probably die though she was less concerned about that.

The owl lifted itself slightly and gave its wings a hesitant flap or two then went back to preening its breast feathers. Sothoo was glad that she could no longer see the bird and tried hard to forget it but it was difficult An owl in the daytime was a rare sight so there was no mistaking the sign.