Dreams and Shadows (The Aylosian Chronicles Book 1) (17 page)

“I should have spoken of it sooner. I am sorry.” Her eyes briefly dropped to the ground before returning to his. “I must tell you of my dream.”

CHAPTER NINE:
 

Soul Weaving

A man will believe that to be strong he must be independent of all around him; that he must rise above all who would challenge his freedom. In believing thus, he surely will fail in his life’s purpose. For mortality’s walk is not to rise above, but to rise with. It is not to be sovereign of our soul, but to willingly give our hearts to another, to be chained in love. It is the paradox of life that a man’s strength only truly comes when his soul is freely bound to another. He must come to desire to abase himself for her glory, and she likewise to willingly diminish herself for his grandeur. Then both souls will be exalted together in eternal splendour.

From the Wisdom of Ashael

***

He lay awake that night thinking about the things Aneh had told him. It was exhilarating. It was disconcerting. It was frightening. It made Lohka’s statement that his was more than a dream more… tangible. Aneh must have told her mother about her own dream. When enough hints had then been displayed, she needed to know of Michael’s. And at that point she then knew the two visions were related.

Aneh’s dream hadn’t been entirely like his own, but there were similarities that went well beyond coincidence. For starters, she had seen the Woodland Star. It wasn’t in a gate at first as his own vision had been, but instead the pattern had been made by two trees, a set of branches from each making the unusual triangle shape, only for the wind to blow the two sets together so that they overlapped perfectly. She had also seen the sword, the Woodland Star again appearing towards the top of the shining blade.

What had been most intriguing, however, was the pommel of the sword. He had noticed the faces that adorned it; seen that on one side there were the profiles of two female faces – one young and one old – and on the other the same again but with male faces. But he hadn’t examined them closely.

Aneh, however, had spent time in her dream inspecting the faces, and the revelation she had made to him that morning had been startling. For the young man’s face she had seen distinctly within the pommel was Michael’s.

It had stunned him when she had said it. He had felt foolish as he had opened his mouth several times to say something, and then closed it again, no words willing to exit his throat. Eventually all he had managed to say was, “What does it mean?”

She had no answer for him, of course. She was as puzzled by it as he. Aneh had experienced her own dream months ago, or as she had put it, “Many moons past.” But the images had stayed in her mind as if she had only just awoken from it.

Her recognition of him had been almost instant. Aneh was certain as she stared at him while he dressed behind the large bushes on that first day they met that his had been the face in her dream. But what it meant, neither she nor her mother knew. At first, they had worried that he was a threat to them – after all his face had been on a sword. But after the first meeting with the Lora, when Lohka had determined that he had spoken the truth, the two women were certain that he posed no threat, and that his image on the sword had meant something else.

“But I could still be a threat without knowing it,” he had said to her.

That’s when she had told him the final part of the dream that she shared; the part that had excited him the most. “The face of the young woman,” she had said, “was mine.”

Aneh’s face had been on one side of the sword, and his had been on the other. He couldn’t be certain that it had been the same in his own dream, or course, but every other detail of the sword that Aneh had described was a perfect match of the one in his own dream. The faces also
had
to be the same.

And that had to mean that he and Aneh were linked in some way, didn’t it?

That’s what Aneh and her mother had thought, and it is why Lohka had ensured that enough of her daughter’s duties in the Stay had been eased so that she could spend as much time as possible with him. They wanted to work out what the connection was – why they both appeared on the same sword in Aneh’s vision.

They had no clue that Michael had seen the same things in his own dream until he had told it to Aneh as they rode their Shosa side-by-side for the first time. And while Aneh insisted that she had not told her mother about his revelations, something about Aneh’s behaviour had alerted her mother, and Lohka had guessed. She had asked. And being a Sooth Weaver, Aneh was unable to hide the truth from her; though she hadn’t given her any details Aneh reassured him.

Michael had suggested that they tell the Lora, that if any doubt lingered about him surely this would give a final reassurance, but Aneh’s mother had advised against it. Despite it all, Michael’s face
was
on the sword. And regardless of whether Aneh’s also appeared, that fact alone would give some members of the Lora new reason to oppose him. For now, she said, it needed to remain secret.

They had spent the rest of the day lying on their backs on the hill, trying to identify what the connection might be, but they hadn’t come up with anything useful. Their Shosa seemed to know when they needed to get back to the Stay, turning up just as they arose, and carrying them back through the forest.

While pondering, he eventually fell asleep again, his final waking thoughts on the beautiful shape of the Woodland Star.

***

When he awoke the next morning it was to the sound of bustle outside. He quickly pulled on his clothes and went to see what the noise was all about, still bleary-eyed. The sun was bright and he had to cover his eyes initially until the final tendrils of sleep had been cut.

In the time he had spent with the Elahish, he had never seen a day like it. People were busy rushing everywhere. Banners and flags, and a host of other decorative items had been placed on virtually every tent, and at every intersection. Even without the new adornments, the tents were colourful, but they were nothing compared with the kaleidoscope of bright reds and yellows, greens and blues and everything in between that was now displayed.

He made his way to the tent of Aneh’s family as was now his custom, finding just Aneh and her mother there. Kasha and their father were preparing, they told him.

“For what?” he asked.

Aneh’s look was excited as she said, “For the Entwining. It is today!”

They quickly showed him where the food was and allowed him to feed himself, both then saying they were off to prepare themselves. Before they did though, Aneh gave him a long strip of bright blue cloth, departing without a word as to what he was supposed to do with it. He tried to call after her to ask about it, but she was talking excitedly to her mother and didn’t hear.

So after that, he ate and then did his best to clear up after himself before wandering out. There was a steady stream of people going to and from the river – men and women to their different areas – and he remembered that he hadn’t bathed in a while, so he went and collected his soap, then wandered over to the river with the other men headed in that direction. Seeing the people generally trying to look their best today, he was pleased that he had gone to Bilah for his shirt to be repaired following the incident with the Chet’tu.

As he returned, he looked for evidence of what the other men were wearing to look for clues as to what he was supposed to do with the piece of cloth Aneh had given him. Others had similar small items of blue, but there didn’t seem to be any pattern he could discern as to how they were worn. Some had tied their strips of cloth around their heads, like a bandana; others had them tied loosely around their necks; while others still had longer strips tied like a sash around their waist or draped over their shoulder. The only similarity was that all of the coloured cloth was blue.

The women also had coloured strips of cloth, but theirs were green. Again there was no uniformity, although most had them tied in intricate patterns through their hair.

Michael didn’t like the idea of wearing a bandana, or having it tied around his neck. And it wasn’t long enough to use as a sash, so he ended up tying it around his right upper arm. It took an age to do, because he was doing it one-handed, of course, but he was happy enough that the result didn’t make him look
too
different from the others.

By then he heard music ringing out from various parts of the Stay and decided to take a stroll to see what was going on. Before he arrived at the source of the music he came across open tents offering food, and others with games, which some of the children had already commenced playing.

Having only recently eaten, he bypassed the food, but as he got closer to the music the atmosphere seemed to change. The partying died away, and while the faces he saw were still joyous, they seemed to be focussed inward, as if the music was touching their souls. Indeed, it wasn’t long before Michael felt the same way: the sounds emanating from nearby could only be described as heavenly. The harmonies were exquisite, every note seeming to strike a different part of his being with the most perfect timbre. He couldn’t place the musical instruments that were relatively quiet in the background, but their notes altered just enough to create the perfect underlying mood of beauty in the piece.

As he rounded another tent, he realised he had finally come to the music’s source, and was astonished to see through the small crowd only Kasha. He couldn’t quite believe it at first, but as he concentrated he was sure that the harmonies were all coming from her single mouth: her voice simultaneously both sweet and rich. He couldn’t tell where the background sounds were coming from, but he stood transfixed with the others who had preceded him there.

When she finished the song, there was a brief silence before the small crowd cheered, and other musicians started playing their strange-looking instruments: sounding more like the folk tunes he might have expected from the scene. They were talented, for certain, but there was surely nothing that could match Kasha’s performance:
In any world
.

As soon as he caught her eye, she came running over to him. “So, what do you think of my Weaving?” she asked.

Michael looked at her, mouth agape for a moment before answering, “That’s your Weaving? Singing?”

She nodded with a huge smile, and Michael continued, “It was… well, I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. It was just amazing, Kasha.”

She looked delighted at his response and then grabbed him by the arm, pulling him after her to show him the various things on display, and occasionally stopping to introduce him to some of her friends. Many of the musicians were just that – talented musicians. But there were a handful who, like Kasha, had a Weaving that was musical in some way, and Michael could find no words to describe the sounds they were able to create: like entire choirs, or orchestras all on their own; able to find the perfect tones, rhythms, and harmonies to match the mood of the crowd before them.

Kasha made him sample some small items from the Food Weavers. He thought his stomach would never be the same again; that his taste buds wouldn’t ever find another morsel to fancy after the flavours that they created in his mouth.

There were artists: Weavers who had moulded wood, or stone, or other materials to create craftsmanship of unparalleled beauty. Any one of the items displayed Michael knew he could spend a full day or more examining. He only had time to briefly look at one item before Kasha pulled him on yet again. This was an object maybe a foot tall made of small branches, and interspersed with bright crystals. It looked like a hawk of some description if examined from one angle, but like a man’s face from another, and from still another perspective like a tall mountain. But it was not just the images that drew Michael into the piece.
 

When he gazed at the bird, it was as if he could sense the air beneath his body. When staring at the man, he knew instinctively he was a falconer and could understand the connection he held with his beautiful feathered friend. And when he studied the mountain, he could feel a joy at being home to majestic creatures great and small, and could see the hawk circle its top. The piece of artwork wasn’t just something to look at, enjoy, and ponder; it was something that somehow transmitted feelings and senses, and he was mesmerised by it. He was annoyed at Kasha when she finally tore him away. But her enthusiasm was irrepressible, and he found it impossible to stay cross with her for long.

Every so often, Kasha would stop and sing another piece, and each time he would be transported to another place: flying through the clouds; standing atop tall mountains; sailing the sea’s waves; exploring the darkest caverns of the earth. Each song was completely different, yet each had a strangely magical effect.

“Where do the background sounds come from?” he asked after one performance. “They don’t seem to be coming from your throat, but they’re there when you sing.”

“It is from all around me,” she replied with her wide smile. “I use the wind, or the birds, or the rustle of leaves, or whatever nature is offering, and tune them to my song.”

That seemed to be all the explanation he could get from her, and eventually he gave up.

After some time, they ran into Aneh. His pulse quickened when he saw her. He had never seen her in a dress before, and the one she wore now, although sharing the same off-white colour of the shirt she usually wore, was self-patterned and carried delicate images of forest animals and flowers. Though not tight fitting, it was beautifully shaped, reminding Michael that this was a woman he had befriended – not a girl. Her hair was tied in French plaits above each of her ears, the plaits joining at the back of her head, with green ribbon carefully woven through it.

“You look… well, you look great,” he complimented. “Your hair is…”

“The same as mine!” interrupted Kasha.

It was only when Michael suddenly looked at Kasha’s angry face that he realised that her hair was done in the same style as Aneh’s, and that she too was wearing a dress with similar patterns on it. In fact, when he looked around, he noticed that unusually almost all of the women were wearing dresses today, and had taken care with their hair. Odd, he thought, that he hadn’t noticed.