The Magic Hour

Chapter 23: Sojasin

 “RIMAL, I’M GLAD to see you again.” Jinsaih walked through the thin blanket at the entrance into the cave.

    A woman was bent over some task and looked up at the sound of her voice.

    “You’ve been away a long time, Jinsaih.” There was contained gladness in her voice.

    “I know. There are so many places to enter and record. Now it seems something has been altered.”

    The cave was smaller than the one where the shaman had found Iela. It was lighted with small fires held in depressions carved into the stone. The usual cloth was hung on the walls, its silver threads embedded in cobalt. Jinsaih made a quick gesture with her hand and the cloth moved as if in the wind, undulating in slow waves that comforted her, that softened the memories of where she had just been.

    “Where are you headed now?” Rimal sat on the other side of the hearth.

    “Not far. I want to be in the upper regions—there are islands I must visit. I’ll go there soon, but not yet. First, I go to see my daughter.”

    “You know they care for her well when you’re away.”

    “What I’m afraid of is that she will forget her own language. She’ll become too accustomed to ways that are not mine.”

    “You mean you’re afraid she’ll forget you. Not any chance of that. None at all. Sojasin is her mother’s child. She understands,” Rimal said. She studied Jinsaih. “What do you mean, something has changed?”

    “You’ve taken the training from me. You know how the levels, the vibrations can work upon us, show us other worlds. They are what we always want to understand.”

    Rimal scraped at a hide that was already as soft as the down of a bird. It could make at least seven pairs of shoes, but that wasn’t its purpose.

    Jinsaih began to pace slowly. “There is someone I sense who is new. Watching us. This is someone from a world without control over its outcomes, one that has none of the harmony we know, but instead has chosen to create their existence in a darkness that could consume them. It’s so different it would drive you mad.”

    “We can’t be responsible for how other worlds behave or what happens to them, whoever they are. You taught me that. So how are they watching us? Why?”

    “I’ve only just become aware of this. It may be they are trying to reach me. I don’t know yet.”

    “What I sense is that anything that disturbs us must be sent away. If we do that, then our ways can and will continue. Forever.”

    “We don’t close our eyes to what is before us. That isn’t in your training.”

    Rimal studied the cloth in her hands. “Maybe I am not the best one for this training. I’ve been thinking about that.”

    “I thought you might be,” Jinsaih said. “Because of Hernot.”

    Rimal looked up at her. “How did you know?” Then she laughed. “As if I can have secrets from you. He doesn’t like it when I leave to spend the time with you. Since you are so seldom here, he doesn’t know you the way I do.”

    “He knows me well enough. He needs something I can’t give him.”

    “What?”

    “I think—I know—Hernot wants to be the shaman.”

    “That’s impossible!” Rimal said, astonished. “He knows that! He’s a man, for one thing, and he’s never been inclined to the rituals, anyway. He has none of your powers and never could. Even I don’t, after all your training. No, that can’t be in his mind at all. He’s protective of me, that’s all.”