A Better Understanding — The Blood Priest: Prologue

The medicine man of Naaqtok woke from a fevered sleep, coughing up phlegm. He spat the mucus out and lay back on his pallet, staring at the frosted breath that escaped his raw throat. His blankets were pushed aside and the fire pit was cold, but he did not feel winter’s bite. A furnace consumed him from within. His aching body was drenched in sweat.

Fear motivated him to get up. He stumbled across the clay floor of his hut, making his way over discarded glass bottles. For two days, he had methodically taken every elixir in his apothecary, but none of it had worked. His infirmity persisted.

More worrying were his hands that flaked, the skin peeling off in sheets, and his hardening nails that continued to blacken. The symptoms were apparent, the diagnosis evident. He was a Newborn, condemned to endure the birth pain of his infant spirit.

He knew this to be true, but still he refused to accept it. There had to be a cure!

Regrettably, his medicine was depleted. What remained were nostrums—potions that cured nothing but financial troubles. Nevertheless, he opened his satchel of tinctures and grabbed one of the vials of alcohol mixed with…something. Without reading the label, he pulled the stopper, drank the solution, and reached for another vial. Before long, he consumed them all.

Head swimming, he staggered to his bed, lay on his back, and closed his eyes to darkness.

But the darkness was tainted.

A ring of colour invaded his peripheral perception, shimmering like the viscous tendrils of air over fire, and in the black centre of his vision, a flock of stars drifted. From each pinpoint, there flowed dual streams of steaming light, white entwined with blue. Instinctively, he knew that the white light was a part of him, and that the blue was not.

He opened his eyes.

His thatched roof was there, and the sprigs of rosemary that he had hung from it the week before. But so too was the arrow of light points, migrating, far above his hut.

Puzzled, he sat up.

Colour instantly saturated his view. A thousand suns surrounded him—each a different size, tone, and clarity—and like the roaming specks above, he was tethered to them with rivers of light. The streams ran directly into him, as if he was a celestial ocean.

He turned and the radiance shifted.

The bright suns were in the direction of the city. To the jungle, there were more of them, but they were smaller, dimmer, and more distant.

Is this a fever dream?

No. He rejected the thought. A vision could not feel so natural and familiar. He believed, instead, that he had snatched a truth from the world—a better understanding of life that had always been just out of reach.

Despite his diseased and intoxicated body, he felt exhilarated. His curiosity compelled him to explore. He surveyed the luminous delta that flowed in and out of him. Then, he dipped into a stream…

He tingled with sensations: images, smells, tastes, sounds, impressions, hungers, movements, temperatures, and thoughts. At first, he comprehended the buzz of shared senses, but as he descended, his coherence failed under the pressure of coalescing streams. The vibrations quickened and multiplied until it swarmed his awareness.

Realising the danger, he tried to retreat, but the surface escaped him. His light had evaporated, leaving nothing to follow in the swirl of colour. He was helpless, suspended in the experiences of others.

There. A stray impression of pain touched him. From who or what, he didn’t know, but it provoked a memory which gave him an idea.

He desperately recalled his misery, searching for the symptoms of his affliction. To his relief, he found them, one by one—wet nose, stiff joints, itching hands. He clung to these, and in time, his light condensed enough to pursue.

Following the white trail, he ascended, and slowly, the trilling calmed. When he pierced the surface, the foreign senses dissipated altogether. In the void, overlooking the glow of life, he was simply himself again.

I felt everyone in the city! he thought.

His first impulse was to dive straight back into the torrent, his panic forgotten in the face of wonder, but prudence was necessary. His intention had been to explore a single stream, but once inside, many had flowed together to form a violent river tide. He needed to isolate one.

He inspected a nearby sun, which he now knew to be a human’s spirit. Cautiously, he dammed the person’s stream, dimming their light while keeping his own bright and free-flowing. The ability to control the light came naturally to him. Feeling confident, he darkened all the suns at once, leaving only his own spirit illuminated.

For a moment, he considered the slow-changing angles of his spirit-flows as the fettered citizens of Naaqtok moved about. Choosing at random, he brightened a person’s spirit and plunged inside.

It was a woman. He didn’t know her, but her sensations betrayed her.

She loved to cook…the house was warm…the stew smelled tangy…it reminded her of her mother…the children’s laughter was shrill…the noise annoyed her…the potatoes felt rough and grainy…her husband was bare-chested…his brown body piqued her desire…she was hungry…the carrot tasted sweet…

He could not resist snooping and proceeded to spy on other people, experiencing their lives until they bored him. As he progressed, he became increasingly certain that he could not only interpret spirit, but interact with it also.

When he came upon a Revered Elder cheating on his wife, he knew that he had found a perfect subject for an experiment.

YOUR WIFE KNOWS.

He cast the words at the elder and immediately recognised his mistake. Failing to stem his own spirit-flows, he projected his thought to every living thing in the vicinity. The mass interaction of the thought-cast overwhelmed him, his body convulsing from the effort it required.

The medicine man of Naaqtok felt the shards of a shattered vial cut into his clenching fist. When his shaking finally ceased, he surrendered to fatigue.

His spirit faded.

The Furies of Ukunkulu

The roar was deafening.

Drenched in spray, Umoya studied the waterfalls crashing before her, an amphitheater of violence, the twelve Furies of Ukunkulu.

I’m going to die here, she concluded. But what choice do I have?

The current threatened to sweep her legs from under her. She stood knee-deep in waves, a hundred yards or so from the falls where the turbulent lake narrowed to form a funnel. To lose footing here would mean a miserable death by rocks and water, her corpse dragged down the long ravine to end up dumped on the river bank or caught in a whirlpool.

Taking one step forward, Umoya screamed at the furies. It was a pale, drowned-out challenge, a tadpole taunting a pike, and yet the defiance stood, however feeble.

I will silence you, if only for a moment.

She touched the bone pendant around her neck. How many people had died for her to wear it? Best not to think about that. She had to concentrate like never before. Her tribe depended on her. Everyone who had survived depended on her, even if they didn’t know there was hope.

Umoya crushed the pendant on her chest. Blood flowed from the cracked shell, slowly trailing down between her breasts. It burned like a strip of flayed skin as her body absorbed the ichor. Inside her, her skill responded to the blood and pain. Awakened. Enraged. Umoya feared her body may rip apart and yet the thrill of it was intoxicating.

Quickly, she clapped her hands together and raised them.

The sky darkened, clouds forming rapidly. The very air shifted, stirring. A breeze brushed Umoya from behind, and steadily it grew, until her beaded skirt flapped wildly. Before long, the gale cleared the mist and spray from the mountain. Still, the wind gained strength, blowing the waves back. The lake had lost its rage, appearing strangely calm and smooth.

But this was not enough.

Umoya anchored her feet to the stone, then lowered her arms toward the waterfalls. The shrieking wind grew to a terrible zenith, ripping even the clothes from her body. The thunderous growl of the furies fell silent. The storm blew the water of the lake out of its stone basin. Even the muck and the rocks of the lakebed could not withstand the force. Soon, all that remained was dry bedrock.

A single tree stood by the lakeside, an ancient sentinel, and this too, the wind uprooted. The spruce hurtled to the cliffside, spinning in the air. Wood collided with stone. The impact shattered the tree and the splinters hurled up toward the sky. The shrapnel disappeared into the waterfalls now falling upward.

Umoya almost succumbed to exhaustion, but she kept her footing. She could not allow her concentration to falter. To survive she had to maintain the storm, and do more still.

Now, to keep you quiet.

Umoya summoned her remaining skill.

The storm kept the surreal lakebed dry, but now the blizzard carried the sudden bite of an impossible winter. Crackling ice formed on the surrounding grass, earth, and stone, snaking towards the base of the cliff. The remaining moisture in the air surrendered to the brutal cold, frosting up the stony cliff face, and when it reached the top, water instantly turned to blue-white ice.

Finally, Umoya collapsed. Her world turned black as the blizzard relented.

When she awoke she was covered in ice, numb and near death. Using a trickle of skill, she warmed herself. Everything hurt, but she was alive. She looked up at the frozen Furies of Ukunkulu, a jagged crown of ice, and cried.

I did it. I actually did it!

Umoya surveyed the cliff face and smiled with relief. There. The cave was exactly where the book said it would be. She raised herself to her feet and approached the mountain, walking by crushed blocks of ice, jewels of the crown that had broken off and fallen. At the base of the cliff, she paused, breathing in deeply and expelling crystalline clouds. And then she climbed.

The ascent was short but treacherous. She placed her hands and feet carefully, gripping tight, standing fast, moving slowly. Halfway to the cave, she slipped and fell. Only her skill saved her, anchoring her hand to the ice-coated rock. Still, her body slammed into the mountain and she nearly blacked out from the pain. But she didn’t. She was alive. She still had strength.

Umoya navigated the rest of the way without incident, and within a few minutes, she stood in the mouth of the cave. 

Uhlanga! she thought and wept. It’s so beautiful.

The cave shone, a sea of colours that Umoya could not begin to describe. Embedded in the walls, countless gemstones pulsated and swirled with light. Her hand could barely cover one of the gems. This wealth was not just worthy of kings, but of gods.

A crash of ice outside broke her reverie. Time was short and she had not come here for magical stones.

Well, maybe just one.

Umoya latched her hand to a blue gem, pulled it from the rock, then sprinted down the tunnel. After a hundred paces, the adorning light stones in the wall ceased, and she would have been left in darkness if not for the light she held. The same distance again, and the passageway opened into an immense chamber. The bright light from the gem dissipated into the void.

I’m here.

She steadied herself against the wall. Her body shook. Exhaustion. Relief. Fear.

Then, Umoya stepped forward unsteady yet determined. She raised the gem high, mustered all her courage, and screamed into the darkness, “Dragon! Arise!”