Heyna's Tale - Chapter Six (cont.)

The Joining

The rain came down harder and harder until it became a gale. Heyna huddled in the dark, three leagues from the finish line. She was in the lee of an ancient oak, but the rain was so cold and the wind whipped the water so hard that it stung when it hit. She was afraid. What was this weather doing to her little friend?

She waited for Sronban to come into view, but all the torches had gone out. The crowd at the finish line had evaporated once the storm hit. The supply tables had blown over. Even Heyna had trouble standing up to the wind. She could barely see through the water droplets on her glasses. Parts of the paved path were a shallow stream.

She heard shouting from down the trail. Tooly was shouting her name. She shot up and ran towards his voice.

“Tooly, keep shouting! I can’t see you.”

“Heyna! Heyna! Over here.”

She saw Tooly first. He was drenched and hunched over. When she saw Sronban, she gasped. The little fox looked drowned. She staggered up the track. Tooly and a couple of others walked beside her.

“The wind! Heyna! Help us block the wind. Here. Walk here.” Tooly placed her upwind of Sronban.

“Don’t touch her,” Sansir appeared out of the darkness. “Touch her and she fails.”

“We know. We know!” Tooly shouted. “Here. Good. Keep the wind off her,” he said to Heyna. She did her best to act as a wind break, and did a better job than the smaller Fennec.

The little team struggled up the track. Tooly gave orders, coordinating the support. He urged Sronban on.

“Come on, Vonnie! Keep going. Chew those leaves. Keep chewing those leaves. One foot in front of the other. Heyna, spread your arms. Come on. Almost there.”

Sronban seemed to be losing the fight. She staggered. She spit the chewed leaves out. The others moved out of the way to avoid accidentally touching her. Sronban stuffed some fresh leaves into her mouth. They were chanting now. Come on. Come on. Then Heyna tried the chant from her vision.

“Tha mi sgìth, 's mi leam fhìn,

Buain na ràinich, buain na ràinich,

Tha mi sgìth, 's mi leam fhìn,

Buain na ràinich daonnan.”

Tooly improvised a tune to go with the strange chant. And in her mind she heard the meaning of the words for the first time.

“I am tired and I am alone,

Cutting the bracken, cutting the bracken,

I am tired and I am alone,

Forever cutting the bracken”

Heyna didn’t know what bracken was, or why you’d have to cut it, but the singing seemed to help Sronban. Her pace became steadier and she was making better headway against the gale. The moving windbreak was helping as well. The sun was just lightening the clouds on her right and the rain was slacking.

“Keep on!” Tooly shouted and started the chant over again. “Tha mi sgìth, 's mi leam fhìn.” The finish line came into view. They all chanted louder. Step by step, word by word, line by line, they moved like a giant centipede along the ancient flagstones. They were only meters away when Sronban collapsed. Her breast heaved in the light of the breaking dawn.

Sansir started counting loudly.

“She’s got to the count of one hundred to get back on her feet, or she’s lost,” Tooly said to the team. He turned to Sronban. “Vonnie, breath. Chew some more leaves. Drink.”

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight,” Sansir counted. Smug bastard, Heyna thought. She wanted to smash his face. It took all her self control, but she kept her mouth shut.

“Okay,” Tooly was saying. “On fifty, get up and walk the last few meters.” Sronban nodded as she gasped on the ground.

“Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one.”

“Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one,” Tooly counted. “Breathe, get ready, get up!” The entire team took up the chant. On fifty, Sronban got up and staggered to the finish line. Heyna and Tooly hugged her together. The rest of the team closed in for a group hug. Heyna saw that Keeva was there.

“Well, that was fun,” Sronban said, and passed out.

*

The Ritual of Enlightenment had to wait for warm weather until the plants were in bloom. This ritual was like an open book test. Sronban was permitted to consult a manual for this task. The trick was that the illustrations of some of the plants matched several different species, so one had to rely on the written descriptions.

“My parents prepared me for years for this task,” Tooly said. Frankly, I don’t remember much from before my Joining. I couldn’t tell parsley from parsnip. Heyna laughed.

“I could tell them apart from a hundred paces.” She tapped her nose.

“Well, then. How do we rely on Heyna’s nose without Sansir getting a whiff? Pun intended!” No one laughed.

“Ugh! Remember what the Fíréantacht told me,” Sronban warned. “You are too humor challenged to pun.”

“The elders create a display,” Tooly said, “of the correct plants in the town hall. Ascenders have an hour to examine them and make notes before they have to go out into the field and collect them. The tricky part is, sometimes the picked plants look different than the living plants. Also, no one can be seen to help you.”

“Can anyone view the display?” Heyna asked.

“Yes.”

“Then, I have an idea. I will examine the display, and catalog the scents. Even if plants look identical, they will smell different. When Sronban is out collecting, we will follow at a discrete distance downwind. When you pick a plant that you are not sure of, hold it up to the sun as though you were trying to examine it more closely. I’ll smell it and cough if it is the wrong one.”

“Something less noticeable than a cough, I think.”

“No other option. You can’t look at us. That would be obvious too.”

“It’ll have to do, I suppose,” said Sronban.

The day of the Ritual of Enlightenment dawned bright and clear. Heyna told everyone loudly that she’d come down with a cold and feigned a cough. The team accompanied Sronban to the town hall. Sronban looked at the display and took notes. Heyna memorized and analyzed the scents. Then she started coughing.

“You’ve got to get moving,” Tooly said. “You have until dusk and there’s a lot that you need to gather.”

Sronban headed out into the fields with Heyna and Tooly following a dozen meters downwind. Sronban went for the easy ones first. Foxglove, aconite, willow, and chamomile were in bloom. Sronban quickly picked those and others, then moved on to the last three. Tanna root was easy to identify, but hard to gather. It required digging into the root bound soil beneath old stands of white cedar.

The last two were ground cover plants that grew in among a dozen other species. These were the tricky ones. Lokinet looked a lot like florika and chromapeel. Sedriva looked almost identical to crabgrass, vistabula, and common peel.

Sronban held up a fist full of florika and examined it closely. Heyna coughed loudly. Sronban checked her notebook, wrote something, and then dropped the herb. She cast about her on the hillside and gathered another handful, this time of lokinet. She held it up and examined it in the sunlight for a long time. Heyna was silent. Sronban put the herbs in her satchel and gathered more.

Sronban searched for the final herb, sedriva, in vain. After an hour of looking she knelt down with her nose in the dirt. She pulled up some roots and examined them. Heyna did not cough. But Heyna could see that these were not the leaves that Sronban needed.

“Someone must have been out harvesting the plants ahead of her,” she said.

“Three guesses who that was,” said Tooly.

Sronban checked her notebook, and charged off to the East at a run. Heyna had a tough time keeping up. Tooly kept both Sronban and Heyna in sight. In this way he made sure that the Erda wasn’t outpaced. Heyna was huffing and puffing when she caught up to the Fennec. Sronban was dancing around a hillside in a field of some type of fern beneath a stand of ancient oaks.

“That’s bracken,” Tooly said, laughing and pointing at the ferns

“Oh! Now I see why you’d want to cut it.”

Sronban was gathering fistfuls of an herb. She examined it in the sunlight. Heyna didn’t cough. Sronban stuffed the herbs in her satchel and trotted over.

“That’s it. Someone tried to skunk me.”

“We saw,” said Heyna.

“Luckily, the stuff grows under the bracken all over the island. Cutting the bracken, cutting the bracken.”

The trio walked off chanting the ancient ditty.

*

The next day was spent waiting. Sronban was sequestered in the apothecary shop preparing the salves, potions and ointments that would keep her alive during the Joining.

The jewel had to be prepared as well and Tooly was helping the elders with that, more to keep an eye out for more sabotage than anything else.

Heyna had the anxious day to herself. She wandered the town. People spoke kindly to her. She hoped it was because she had won them over to her cause. But she knew that wasn’t it. They loved the art that she and Tooly did together. The Fennec were like the Quetz in that way. They both loved art almost more than anything.

Jakintu believed in the power of art to change society, and here on the Fennec isle, she had been proved right. The people had gone from wanting her to die, to wanting her to paint there houses. By the Trees, this was a strange world.

“Almost done,” Keeva appeared at her side as she walked down the street.

“Almost,” said Heyna. “But she’s got to get the chemistry right, and survive the Joining.”

“Don’t worry. Almost nobody dies.”

“Almost? Okay, you are not making me feel any better.” Keeva laughed.

“Don’t worry! I’m just yanking your tail. Sronban will be fine. I never met any pup as strong and determined as she is… Except maybe you.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Hey, you have a few hours. You want to help me paint my house?” Heyna laughed.

“Sure. Anything to make the waiting go faster.”

They walked over to the next street and down a few houses. A small crowd had gathered around a cottage. Heyna saw buckets and brushes on the stoop.

“Your adoring fans want to watch you work,” Keeva said with a laugh.

“You are so strange!” said Heyna. “But I like you, so yeah, let’s get to work.”

“You sketch the patterns, and we’ll follow you and fill them out.”

“Deal!”

They worked all afternoon, and as the sun set, they stood back to examine their work. Someone shouted, and the street was full of cheering Fennec. Keeva and Heyna took their bows.

*

The Joining was a solemn public event held in the amphitheater. An altar was set up with tools and materials for the procedure.

“This is a bloody business,” Tooly said. “See that chair, that’s for…”

“I get the picture,” Heyna cut in. “Do I have to watch?”

“No, but… You would be the first person who is not Fennec to be a witness. It’s not an easy thing to see, especially for loved ones, but we have done it for thousands of years.”

“I wonder who thought of it first?”

“No one knows. We have legends, of course, but the truth is that we’ve forgotten.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes. Mine hurt like falling into a firethorn patch. Worse. But they say that your loved ones can absorb some of the pain to make it bearable. Sronban has no family though, so I’m worried.”

“Me too.”

“Yes, but I’ve never known anyone tougher than Sronban.”

“That’s what Keeva said. She likes you, you know.”

“I know,” Tooly said flatly, and turned toward the chair. It had straps to hold the ascender down with her arms back, breast pushed out. It looked like a painful position for a Fennec.

The people gathered. All were decked out in garlands of flowers and herbs. The amphitheater smelled and looked like the finest flower garden. Rainbows of blossoms hung from beams and poured from huge baskets.

Someone started a song as the crowd shuffled in. The melody rose and rose as the people took their places. The singers layered harmonies over and under the melody. Finally, the song crescendoed in a strident electric chord that made Heyna’s fur stand out. Jewels glowed out from all the Fennec who had arranged themselves by color to form a rainbow that mirrored the blossom display.

Power rolled off the assembly in waves. Heyna felt faint. Then the chord died and Sansir stepped forward and raised his arms to the starry night.

“We will now cast the circle, the sacred circle to protect us in our work and focus our power for the task.” Sansir clasped his hands together, then drew them apart. A blue globe of pure energy grew and he held it like a ball. He drew his hands further and Heyna saw streams of energy radiating from all the jewels towards the sphere. Sansir threw his arms wide and the sphere grew until it encompassed the amphitheater all around and above and below. The stars shimmered through.

“The circle is cast. Let no one break it. Let no one disturb our work.”

“The circle is cast,” everyone repeated.

“It has been more than ten years,” Sansir said, “since anyone has ascended. Breathe and focus. The elders perform the Joining, but each of you is charged with holding the focus.” He looked searchingly at the congregants, then he raised his hands to the sky and closed his eyes.

“We call upon the Powers of Air to guide our blades.”

“Powers of Air, be here now,” the congregation responded

“We call upon the Powers of Fire to forge our intention.”

“Powers of Fire, be here now.”

“We call upon the Powers of Water to purify our love.”

“Powers of Water, be here now.”

“We call upon the Powers of Earth to support our work.”

“Powers of Earth, be here now.”

“Ancestors, guide our work.”

“Ancestors, guide our work.”

“Bring forward the one who would be joined.” Three elders walked forward in a triangle with Sronban at the center.

“Who is it that would be joined?”

“I, Sronban.”

“Do you come freely and without reservation? Do you come in service? Do you come with love?”

“I come freely and without reservation. I come in service. I come with love.”

One elder held each of Sronban arms and led her to the chair at the center of the circle. She sat, and her limbs were bound. Heyna could see that her breathing was quicker now, and could smell the fear. In her mind, Heyna said, breathe Sronban, breathe. Heyna took some deep breaths herself and realized that she too was afraid. Deep breathing calmed her, centered her. Sronban also closed her eyes and breathed deeply and seemed to calm.

The three elders each displayed wicked looking blades and held them at arms length before their faces. The blades were short and curved like an ursae claw. One elder crouched before Sronban. The others stood on either side of her. Sronban’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the blades.

“We call upon the Lady of the Blades,” Sansir said, “to guide our work. Let us strike true.”

“Lady of the Blades, guide us,” the Fennec echoed.

As one, the elders placed the points of their blades in the center of Sronban’s breast and sliced outward in three straight lines towards her shoulders and groin. Heyna felt the pain in her own breast. She gasped and looked at herself, but there was no mark. Tooly gasped as well, but stayed focused on Sronban.

Sronban grimaced but made no sound. Blood streamed down between her legs. Heyna saw her making an effort to take deep breaths, but the incisions expanded alarmingly when she did so.

Two other elders approached. One carried three vials. The second took each vial in turn and poured it into the wound. He nodded to Sansir, who produced the ruby. He held it at arms length to the congregation.

“One of us,” he said. A beam of light came from his blue gem and turned the ruby purple.

“One of us,” the congregation chanted, and beams shot out from all the breasts of all the other Fennec and turned the jewel black.

“One of us,” Sansir started a chant.

“One of us,” the crowd chanted.

The beams seemed to grow more powerful as the crowd chanted. “One of us, one of us, one of us.” As the chant grew the gem changed from black to white in Sansir’s hand. Finally, it looked bright as the sun.

Sansir, in one smoothed motion, shoved the jewel into the center of the incisions, and Sronban screamed. Heyna felt waves of pain hit her like a punch to the gut. Tooly staggered. Sronban kept on screaming as the jewel seemed to dig into her chest, still glowing. Then the ruby turned its natural color and red rays shot out in all directions and then faded.

Sronban was still screaming in pain. Another of the elders came forward with a cup, and held it to Sronban’s lips. At first she shook her head, but then controlled herself so that she could drink. Heyna felt her own pain subside as soon as Sronban finished the drink. The jewel glowed brighter, and then the brave little fox passed out. Tooly sat down, breathing hard, and so did Heyna.

Sansir stepped forward. He motioned the elders to gather around Sronban’s unconscious form. They examined her. One lightly touched the jewel which was still glowing red. There were nods all around. Finally, Sansir turned to the people.

“There has been a Joining!”

The people cheered.

Sansir thanked the powers Earth, Water, Fire and Air, and his ancestors. He opened the circle. Sronban was carried to hospital.

Heyna turned to Tooly, who was still on the ground. “She’s going to be okay.” With a laugh he added, “Tomorrow, we party!”