JINSAIH FELT HERSELF within the circle again, the spinning ended, the chanting and drumming of one accord surrounding her. Once more she raised her arms to the east and the others joined her and in that second the sun rose, a brilliant gold-red covering them and the stones in first light. They watched in silence and awe, as they felt every time, until the full sun was above the horizon.
Then everyone dispersed, moving back along the avenue in small groups, talking and planning the rest of the day.
She went toward Rimal’s cave, where she knew a good meal would be waiting. As she walked up the path, past the hill where she had stood only hours before, Jinsaih saw Rimal’s sister Malife heading toward the woodland. She was fearless as she carried her bag to gather herbs, with not much more than a small spear for protection, despite the dangerous creatures that lived in the forests. It made Jinsaih smile. She watched as Malife stayed close to the edge of the trees, but still entered them if she saw something she coveted for her medicine table.
Rimal had the food ready, and five men were there with her, most of them known to the shaman. Jinsaih greeted them.
“Malife is late again,” Rimal said.
“I saw her on my way here. She’s very intent on her work.”
“She is. Sometimes I think she is too involved with it. She forgets everything else. If it weren’t for her son, Daniel, I don’t think she would remember to eat or sleep,” Rimal said.
“You would tell her,” Jinsaih said, and then she gestured out into the land, “or someone else. She wouldn’t be left alone.”
“Yes, it’s true.” Rimal continued setting out the meal. “Daniel and Iela are the best of friends,” she added.
“Ah,” the shaman said, “that could be a good thing.”
The men were strangely silent. Jinsaih wondered why they were there without their families. She knew Rimal wondered as well, for she had prepared enough food to receive many more.
Then one of them, Rimal’s brother Hamige stood up and apologized for his bluntness. “We have to know. You’re the shaman. Why are you here?”
“To lead us in the unification,” Rimal said. “What else have you just seen her do?”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, why are you here now with us? You haven’t been here in a long time. Are you staying here? Or do you intend to continue in this work, this search of yours?”
“What do you know about that?” Jinsaih asked, surprised.
Rimal stared at Hamige. “What are you saying?”
“Do you only go forward, Jinsaih?” another man said, someone she had never met before.
“And you are?” she said in a soft voice.
“He’s Torige, Hernot’s nephew,” Rimal said, her eyes studying both men. “He has just come to our valley.”
“Well, I can answer your first question. I return to the old ones, especially when I am unsure of what to do. They know more than I do, somehow.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Torige muttered.
“Ah, but it does. You see, they are not confused about anything—their world is not changing the way ours is—they know what it means to be One together. That’s what we are losing, and I don’t understand why. So I go and ask them. They are the ones who told me to go forward.”
“You think that helps us,” Hamige said, “but it doesn’t. What you do isn’t important.”
“Stop it!” Rimal said.
“No, no, it’s all right, it’s fine, it’s better to explain. That’s the whole point,” Jinsaih told her. She turned to the men gathered there.
“I must leave for the north country a short while today to see my daughter again, but I’ll return. Why not? This is my home. I’ve come here often to be with you at the rising of the sun.”
“We have others who can do that,” Hamige said. The men with him nodded in agreement.
“That’s nonsense,” Rimal said. “No, we don’t.”
“So what about this search, what’s it really for?” Torige persisted.
Jinsaih looked away, out the cave entrance to the grasses beyond that bent in the wind, a green sea that stretched across to the mountains. The sky was a brilliant blue, and cloudless. With a soft sigh she brought her attention back to the men.
“I’ll return as I said and we can all meet together, everyone, and discuss this. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, of course.”
All five men looked at each other and bowed slightly to the shaman and left, their food untouched.
“What on earth was that about?” Rimal said, shocked.
Jinsaih turned her attention to the walls of the cave, which were filled with Iela’s drawings.
“When I return, I want to talk to you about Iela,” she said.
Rimal ignored her words. “I don’t understand their behavior. Or how they even know about what you’re doing. I have only told Hernot, and in greatest confidence. He wouldn’t . . . ” Rimal bent her head and fingered the cloth she was wearing. “This is Hernot’s doing, isn’t it?”
Jinsaih thought of telling Rimal what Amris had told her, of Hernot’s arrival in the north country. He had spoken to Amris and Gamal and knew Sojasin was there, and hadn’t cared. But she needed to ask Hernot about it first.
“It’s all right,” Jinsaih said, “I’ll tell them what they want—and for that matter deserve—to know. This can only help me do what I have to. Now, my food is cold. Put it on the fire again, and we’ll share this meal, just you and I, and I’ll tell you more about my treasure, my Sojasin.”
Rimal stood the vessels of food on the stones that were still hot from the banked fire.
“Why isn’t this more worrying to you?” she asked.
Jinsaih held back a sigh. There was no way to explain, not even to Rimal.
“I trust the way will show itself,” she said lightly, smiling at her friend. As I trust the energy of the very air we breathe, she wanted to say, and the elements that compose us, things so infinitely small we cannot comprehend their existence, and these elements come from the stars, and I know that we need to know what to do with them, how to make them last forever, to keep it all just as we are.
To say all of that would be unfair to Rimal, would burden her, for none of it would make sense to her. How could it?
As Jinsaih began to eat she glanced again at the drawings on the walls. Each image was familiar, had come to her in the dance and in visions. Iela already understood.
“All right,” Rimal conceded, her hand lifting a small blade and piercing one of the green roots she had cooked with the meat. “Tell me, how is Sojasin? What is she learning now with Amris?”
“Everything possible, and easily, as far as I can tell, for one so young.”
“Why not bring her here, just for a little while. I’ve missed her. As I remember, she has a laugh like the sound of the shells I’ve hung in the wind over there, such a high, joyous sound.”
“Exactly like that.” Jinsaih smiled. “She amazes me. She seems sometimes to know what I’m thinking before I say it.”
“An inherited ability, perhaps.”
“No, I don’t mean she reads my mind so much as that she knows why I’m saying things, my reasons behind the words. Nothing surprises her.”
“Well, it’s natural enough. You’re her hero,” Rimal said.
“She wants to go with me, through the portal. She can’t now, of course, and to tell the truth, I never want her to go that path.”
Rimal laughed. “I remember your own mother and father saying the same thing about you. It didn’t stop you.”
“No, no, it didn’t,” Jinsaih said. “I know.”
“I mean it, do bring her back with you. When you have to talk to the others, I’ll keep her with me. Hernot and Iela will be back from their hunting by then. Hernot will go to see you, but Iela will be so happy to have her here.”
“Hernot has changed.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. I don’t know what to say to him anymore. He isn’t listening. It’s almost as if he’s tied to something, and it’s eating at him. That’s the best I can say.”
Yes, thought Jinsaih. Rimal was already torn. She loved her husband, and loved the old ways, and she knew something was at risk. Jinsaih could not ask her to take sides, or to help her. Not in the way she, as the shaman, needed that help. Yet how much she wanted to explain more, to warn of the outcome, why she felt this need to hurry. It was Hernot who could change everything, Hernot and others like him. She sensed it. It was what she had to stop, this need he had inside him. Do you know what it is? she wanted to ask Rimal. That was what she had to find out. To give it a name. Before it affected many more. Before it ended their world and so lay the foundation for a world that would destroy itself again and again, which was what she saw growing in Hernot. She needed a different kind of power to act upon it, one that would seek to heal. The answers, or part of them, would come from changing the vibrations that were active now.
Everything is vibration, she wanted to tell Rimal. There is no end or beginning, only a change in vibration. But it was Iela who needed to hear the thought, who would understand it.