The Reign of Magic - Wolf Awert Pentamuria

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Nill had barely stood up and the ram was ready to attack again. Nill dodged the attack with ease and kicked again, but the ram was not ready to give up and Nill began to find the whole matter tiring.

      His herding staff was no great help in a fight against a ram who seemed to be determined to fight it out until the victor was irrevocably decided. Nill knew that blows from the stick would be even less effective than his kicks. He was reluctant to use it as a lance or to use his dagger instead, for the ram was not after his life. He merely saw Nill as a rival to the new herd he had found.

      “I must find a way to fight that this ram understands,” Nill muttered to himself. “I must defeat him without killing him. This isn’t war, it’s just a duel.”

      That was all very well, but the only victor a ram will acknowledge is one with a stronger skull and a mightier charge than himself.

      His next few dodges brought Nill to the top of the hill where the grass was sparse, the ground meager and the thin earthy crust could no longer hide the white, broken stones. Nill had to search for a few moments, but then he found a rock between the cracked white stones which was large enough to serve as a weapon. He lifted it and threw it at the ram’s brow with all his might. The ram stopped, lowered his head and wanted to retreat to start a new charge, but Nill gave him no pause. He picked the stone back up and dealt another blow to the ram’s brow. Nill drove him back with every shot. The ram had no manner of opposing this tactic, but he understood it. After a series of assaults that lasted for what Nill felt to be an eternity the ram finally turned away, shaking. Nill had won, though he could barely lift his arms any more.

      When Nill guided his herd back to the valley that evening the old ram followed, behind all the others, as though he had not yet given up hope. As Nill looked back at the fringe of the village the ram had disappeared into the early night. He was avoiding the village and its people. But next morning he was there. He watched the village from a hilltop calmly, waiting. From that day forth the herd had two guards, until the inevitable happened. The herd had reached a goodly size and a buyer had come who agreed with the Reeve on a price for which the herd was sold. The ram stayed and joined Nill quite naturally.

      Nill was wandering again. He wandered across the meadows with his ram, practiced combat with his dagger as well as he could, collected all sorts of food he brought home to Esara. He was wandering and suddenly stopped, astonished. He sat down, leaning against the old ram who stood guard.

      “I’m trapped here,” he said to himself. “I’m trapped here for my whole life. I’m the son of a truth-teller, that’s my only belonging and my only obligation. Esara can handle things without me, she doesn’t need me. I have nothing to multiply or protect, I have nothing that’s keeping me here. I have not learned much, and what I have learned is of little use. I don’t know my skills, and if I can do something that others can’t or if I’m different than others, Esara is afraid of it. What is it with me, where do I belong?”

      He had no answer to any of his questions. All he knew was that the small village down there was not where he belonged.

      Chapter 2

      “I don’t want to go.” Everything in her contracted. She bent her back, fastened her long, still rather bony arms around her knees and stared at the floor. As everything contracted in her, the world around her shrank too until it was no more than a dot, a spot of clay stuck in a small gap between two woven twigs. The clay was crumbling at the outsides and was darker in the middle, as though it were still moist.

      “Tiriwi!”

      Whenever Grimala said her name it sounded as though a bird was calling for her.

      “Tiriwi, you aren’t listening.”

      Tiriwi freed her gaze from the clay-smeared weaving and looked up into Grimala’s good-natured, smiling face, Chiwita’s mischievous face and Kamana’s serious but friendly face.

      Tiriwi had heard enough. More words would change nothing.

      “I’m an Oa like you,” she said quietly. “I know every tree-trunk and every leaf. The sun caresses me by day and the moon guards me in the night. You must know that my place isn’t anywhere in the world, but right here. Did you not teach me to be content with what I can find where I live? That in humility we have wealth? And that it is the Oa’s task to preserve the world, not change it?”

      Though Tiriwi could no longer remember every single Tree-blossoming she had ever celebrated, she knew that it was far more than she had fingers. Only the last Tree-blossoming did she keep in her memory like a sacred treasure, for shortly after it her entire life fell into disarray.

      One evening, when everything was still as it should be, she had ended the day with the other girls by the large fire. It must have been a special evening as Grimala, Keeper of the Village, had stood by her and laid a hand on her shoulder. When Grimala stepped into the circle she always stood until someone invited her. She never had to wait for long.

      “Grimala, can you tell us a story?”

      “Yes, tell us the story of Osir and Atak and how they made the land and the sky.”

      But wise women like Grimala never simply told stories. They were the keepers of myth and legend. They preserved the eternal truths of their people which they told over and over again, until they had become a part of the memories in every Oa’s minds and hearts.

      Grimala never let them wait for long. She sat down, crossed her legs, stretched her back, and looked around the circle. The small ones sat right by the fire, the older ones behind them, and the mothers were barely visible in the semi-darkness behind them. Girls rarely sat beside their mothers. They preferred to sit close to their best friends or play under the watch of their older sisters.

      Grimala always waited until everyone was still, and all had fallen silent save for the crackling of the fire. Into this silence she would speak her first words. And so it was on this eve: “Today I will not be telling the story of Osir and Atak, for their tale was made for children. Today I will tell you the truth about the beginning of the world, the birth of the sun, moon and all stars.”

      The children looked crestfallen, the mothers looked around anxiously, and little furry creatures with cold paws ran down Tiriwi’s back. Osir and Atak, no more than a children’s tale? Grimala waited until all whispering voices had become silent once more and the mothers had taken their children to bed. She seemed not to notice the fire in the middle losing its warmth, the stars blinking threateningly and the moon retreating behind a cloud.

      “In the beginning, there was a great empty bubble where the pulse of life pounded. The Void heard the pounding, surrounded it, took it as a part of itself and followed its rhythm. It expanded, contracted and expanded again, until it went too far and tore into an uncountable number of bubbles, meandering in the void. So had it been foretold, so had it happened, for the mother of all being is the Nothing.”

      Grimala took such a deep breath that it sounded like a sigh.

      “Some of the bubbles stayed silent, in others the pulse of life continued aimlessly for a while before it stopped. But one bubble did not allow the pulse to become silent. It kept pulsing, so full of joy and strength that its outsides connected when it contracted and became stuck there. So it came that there were now two instead of one.

      “The Void now saw its counterpart, recognized itself, startled and fled from itself. What it left was its magic.

      “Thus the wise ones say, in the beginning there was magic. There was and still is only this one magic. It has no form and no shape, no past and no future, no place and no destination. It is the mother of all things, of the beginning and the end. It is enough for itself, and whosoever controls it is a God, for who else could understand such magic? It is the magic of the Nothing. If summoned, it takes shape and stops being in the same instant.”

      The mothers nodded thoughtfully. They had learned of this tale when they had grown from girls into women. Tiriwi felt the mothers’

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