184) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 19 -- The Embodiment of Power

The next morning, Kohra and Gorb religiously avoided each other, not even making eye contact. Dominic tried, after breakfast, to ask, but she waved him off.  “Not now. Maybe later, Dom.” She smiled, but it was thin and she didn’t hold his gaze for long, looking at the ground. “Just…I just need some headspace.”

         The day passed, another day of dust. As the light faded, the fields warming to the pink glows of the skyflows, Gorb startled, looking up as he held an oat bucket for Beacon. Kohra had appeared in front of him, hands on her hips.

         “Don’t ever do that again.”

         “I’m sorrrry, Kohrrra. I am so sorrrrry. Ye know, in my Orderrr, we arrre s’posed t’—”

         “No. Stop.”

         She took a deep breath, holding his gaze, her eyes like stone.

         “You say nothing more to me about that. Nothing. You hear?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m not part of your damned Order.” He could see her jaw muscles clenching like she was trying to break her own teeth. 

         Silence.

         Gorb nodded, head bowed.

         “Now you explain to me what the Hells that was,” Kohra commanded. “Explain it so I can understand it. No tricks, Gorb.”

         “T’ank ye.” He kept his eyes down, hiding his tears. “Forrr…forrr forrrgiv’n me.”

         “I do not forgive you.” She paused, waiting until he looked back up. “I understand that you felt you had to do that. And I understand that you are trying to help me, and I know you did save me the other night. So, I accept all that. But you are still wrong for doing what you did. If that’s the way of your Order, then it’s the wrong way. And I will not talk about that with you anymore.”

         She pointed out to the field, analogously to where they had sat the night before. “Let’s go.”

* * * * *

         Sitting in the pink-lit field, cross-legged in the grasses, Gorb was shaking his head.

“I kinna do dis. I dinna un’erstan’ what yerrr needin’ t’know.”

         “Just explain. Last night….” She paused, taking a deep breath, then looked directly into his eyes. “Tell me why I needed to be angry like that.”

         He shook his head. “I’m no Wizard. I dinna ken yer Shapin’!”

         “Look,” she sighed. “Maybe we can kind of…translate.” She paused. “The way the Flux works for you, it’s like Light, right? You kind of pray to it, and it…does stuff?”

         He nodded. “Aye. I prrray, but d’rrreal prrrayerrr is singin’.”

         “Ok, so it’s like you speak a certain language when you talk to you the Flux, let’s say.” He looked confused, but she continued. “You speak the language of song. Right?”

         “Aye.” He looked solemn.

         “Well, I speak the language of…understanding. Like, the mind! The books Dev and I read….” She paused, frowning. “This is too much to explain. But Dev and I used to read a lot about the Old Elvish mages and how they described using ‘magic.’ And it’s not that different from what you were teaching me at the beginning. It was about focusing your concentration first. And then, they needed the exact phrases and hand gestures and rituals, and they could call forth magical powers.”

         She paused. Gorb looked confused. 

         “You like pie, Gorb?”

         Surprised, he laughed, nodding.

         “My grandma always said that to make a good pie, you need a good recipe. If you get the ingredients and temperature and everything right, you get a good pie.”

         He frowned. “Shapin’ is followin’ a rrrecipe den? No, lass. Cheap trrricks. Instead o’ singin’ d’songs o’Rrreality, ye’ll be forrrrever learnin’ d’alphabet!”

         “So what do I DO then?” She was getting frustrated.

         “Y’ave t’FEEL it.” He placed a hand over his heart.“’Tis like pain. Like stubbin’ yerrr toe, y’know?”

         “Feel WHAT? What am I supposed to feel?” Mostly, what she felt in that moment was how much she’d enjoy it if Gorb stubbed his damn toe.

         “All rrrright. Trrry dis. Go t’rrrough de feelin’ exercise we prrracticed earlier. Make yerself RRRREALLY angrrrry!” He thumped his chest for effect. It clinked metallically, Kohra noticed.

         “Okay, make myself really angry. Right?”

         “Rrrrright!”

         “Then what? Is that it? Just…feel angry?”

         “No! No! Patience, lass. After dat, SHIFT and t’ink about a diff’rrent scenarrrio. One where ye’re angrrry, but t’ward YOU!” He stabbed his finger in the air for emphasis.

         “And then what? Is that it? Now I’m just angry at myself?” she asked. “This is stupid.”

         “Aye. FEEL dat.” He closed his eyes, taking long, slow breaths.

         Kohra didn’t want to do this. Why am I even here? I don’t even want to be around him.

         She remembered the spit on her face and felt her body recoiling, tensing, screaming at her to get up and get away from him.

         But then images of her arm, burning, flashed in her mind. Gorb’s waterfall appearing in mid-air.

         C’mon Kohra, focus.

         “Okay,” she whispered. “I felt them both. Anger toward someone else, and anger toward myself.”

         “Did ye feel de diff’rrrence, de Switching, between d’anger out an’ d’anger in?”

         “I don’t understand what you mean.”

         “De diff’rrence! De turn-arrround moment, like dat moment in between when ye’re brrreathin’ out an’ brrreathin’ in. Y’see?”

         She thought about it, feeling her breath moving out, then…turning around and moving in. She nodded.

         “Go an’ do dat again. SLOW. Angerrr out. Den in. Udder. Den self. Den rrrepeat. Out, in. Udder, self. Say ‘Okay’ afterrr each cycle.”

         “Gorb, I’m exhausted.”

         “’Tis de best time. Ye can do it.”

         “How many times do I have to do this?”

         “Each time is only one time.”

         “Gorb….”  

         “Get on wit’ it!”

         She concentrated, bringing her anger-memory to her mind, focusing on it, making the detail rich and vivid. And there it was, anger; she could feel it. Hot. Surging. She could feel a deep urge in her body to lash out and BREAK something.

         Then she switched, trying to call the self-anger memory to her mind. It was difficult at first, as her mind hung onto its original state of anger. It was like she was trying to pull an emotional lever, but it was stuck somehow. She felt chaotic internally, like you feel just before you throw up, like everything is destabilized and about to turn upside-down.

         For a minute or so, she bounced around through feeling states, sometimes settling on anger-out, sometimes on anger-in, often on the chaos of swirling around with her emotions in rebellion. 

         And then…”anger in” – the image stabilized in her mind. The back-and-forth stopped….

         She was clear.

         Immediately, she felt ashamed and small and horrible.

         I am fernal pathetic.

         “I’m done.”

         “Did ye do it?”

         “I said I’m done.”

         “Anger, pointed inwards, makes ye wan t’ quit everrryt’in’. Makes ye wan t’ give up. So if ye feel dat, den ye did it rrright. Dat’s one cycle.”

         She stared at the ground. “Okay, whatever.”

         “Do it again.”

         She closed her eyes. She hated this. Hated him. Hated everything right now.

         Fine.

         She did it again, calling the memories back to her mind, focusing on the details, feeling the emotions inside. The switching seemed a little easier, although the scenarios didn’t affect her as much either. She was getting used to them.

         “Okay.”

         “Again.”

         She did it again. The switching was easy now.

         “Okay.”     

         “D’ye feel de diff’rrrence between not-switchin’, an’ switchin’?”

         “You mean, like…uh, I don’t know what you mean.”

         “Can ye FEEL de signaturrre, de…pattern in yerrr body? When ye’rrre sittin’ derrre, goin’ along wit’ de feeling yerrr ‘avin?  Dat’s one t’ing. Okay?”

         She nodded. “One thing is me sitting here, feeling whatever I’m feeling?”

         He nodded. “Aye. DIFF’RRRENT frrrom when ye’rrre changin’ yerrr mind. ’Tis like initiatin’ an act o’ will. Like, decidin’ t’ stand up instead ‘a sittin’ down. Orrr decidin’ not t’ yell at some wee scunnerrr, bu’ instead be nice t’ d’brrrat. Orrr just decidin’ t’ bloody git up in de mornin’ instead a’ just lyin’ in bed.”

         He paused. “It’s de DIFF’RRRENCE, de SHIFT when ye go frrrom one t’ing t’ d’other. Can ye feel dat?”

         She closed her eyes again. She needed to imagine herself in some battle of the will, where she wanted to do one thing, but then overrode that and forced herself to do something else.

         What is a battle of the will that I struggle with?

         She smirked interally.  Procrastinating! Obviously.

         This was perfect. If Kohra had mastered anything in life, it was procrastinating. No matter how strongly she knew, at any given moment, what she “should” do, she always, somehow, in that final moment of deciding, managed to convince herself to do something else.

         Well, to be fair, almost always.  Every now and then, she would in fact manage to get to work on something.  She would “Initiate an act of will,” as Gorb put it.

         When that happened, what did it feel like? What happened in her body? What feeling “triggered” her into action?

         Then she felt it.

         It was subtle, like an inner tightening, right in her core. It was like when you’re sitting in a chair, and you make the very, very first movement toward standing up. It was like a feeling of conviction, a “yes,” but in her body, in some subtle place behind, or underneath, her stomach. It felt mostly numb in there, frozen, like it was an empty space. But she knew, something happened in that “space” when she “initiated an act of will.”

         She felt it again. That first inner movement, her embodied YES.

         Tears came, spurred by the unfamiliarity of FEELING her center of power. She let them fill her eyes and drip down of their own accord, but she didn’t give into them. She hung onto that deep-inside feeling of YES. This was the seat of her Will.

         No wonder it feels numb.

         “I feel it.”

         “Dat, Kohrrra, dat is ‘ow ye dirrrect yer Shapin’. Dat feelin’ ye ‘ave inside can contrrrol if ye’rrre pointin’ in orrr out. Dat feelin’s mighty pow’rful, Kohrrra. When ye Shaped beforrre, we forrrced ye t’ firrre yerrr energy out, because we trrriggered it t’rrrough strrrrong feelin’s — angerrr an’ shame. But ye can do it morrre subtly, wit’ grrreater contrrrol. We call dis de Swingin’ Doorrr. ’Tis a Foundational Skill.”

         “Wow. I never…you’re full of surprises you know, Gorb.”

         He nodded. “As arrre ye.”

         Kohra was done. She wanted to put a healing salve right on her eyeballs, and keep them closed for like, three days. But there was one more thing she had to know.

         “Gorb, if I ever…overload, or whatever that was, when I burned myself? Or if I’m Shaping but I decide not to follow through with it — like I’m mad at somebody or in a fight or something, but I don’t want to literally light them on fire — then what do I do?”

         “Good question. De T’irrrd ‘urdle.”
         “What?”
         “De T’irrrd ‘urdle! T’ becomin’ Klliik. Ye’rrre acceptin’ de Rrrresponsibility o’ Pow’r. I’m imprrrressed wit’ ye.”

         She frowned. Compliments made her uncomfortable. But he continued, his voice rising a little as though he wanted to make sure she paid special attention. “De trrruth is, an’ ’tis a deep trrruth – if ye can be a channel for pow’r, ye can also contain it. Derrre’s no separrration between YOU, an’ all de worlds.”

         Kohra squinted, like she was trying to look through his forehead and see what was happening in his mind to make him make so little sense. “How, Gorb? How can I contain all that? Like, when I knocked you backwards, I don’t even know how I did that! And the time before, I almost cooked myself, remember? I can’t contain that kind of power!”

         “Ye just say No t’ it.” He looked to see if she understood; she didn’t seem to.

         “Oh Hells,” Kohra retorted. “Don’t give me that. Seriously Gorb.”

         He just smiled, faith shining in his eyes as his held steady.

         Kohra felt frustrated. This was important! Surely it couldn’t be as simple as “just say no to it.” She closed her eyes, counting to three. Slowly.

         “So you are telling me there’s some…connection, between saying no to something and…uh, and being able to contain your power?”

         “Aye.”

         Silence.

         “That’s it?” Kohra laughed. “Aye?”

         “Rrrremember dat innerrr space? De place o’ initiatin’ de Will?”

         Kohra reluctantly nodded; she was very tired. She sighed. “Yes, I remember. What is that space called anyway?”

         He grinned. “What would ye like t’ call it?”

         She tilted her head back, resting it on her hands behind her back, gazing up at the swirling skyflows.

         They must have power, to glow like that. All swirling around. Like the Flux.

         She watched a while longer, then had an idea.  To Shape, you need a channel, a structure, or it’s just Chaos. I guess…that’s what the body-feeling is? Is my “Embodied Yes” the structure in me that creates Order out of Chaos?

         She smiled up at the skyflows. “I’m going to call it my Embodied Yes.”

         He nodded. “Good. Now find yerrr Embodied No.”

         “What? I don’t understand.”

         “When ye arrre open t’ de Flux, ye dinna ‘ave t’ point it anywherrre, out orrr in. Ye can just say ‘No’ t’ it. ’Tis like, if someone gives ye a prrresent ye dinna like? What d’ye do?”

         Kohra laughed, “Say ‘Thank you very much,’ then stick it in a closet somewhere, until I find it again someday and give it away.”

         He nodded. “So ye give it away.”

         “Sure, eventually.”

         “When ye ‘ave de Flux in ye, and ye kinna use it, ye do de same t’ing. But wit’out de closet.” He sighed. This explanation wasn’t as good as he’d imagined it would be.

         “I think I understand!” Kohra cried.

         “Ye do?” He failed to not sound skeptical.

         “Yes! Your example was great! Uh, sort of…. It made me think. Like, when someone gives me a present I don’t like, I act polite. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. I definitely don’t want to say ‘No, I don’t like this!”

         He nodded. “An’ if ye did anyway?”

         She paused. “If I did? Well, yeah, that’d be hard to do. That would definitely be ‘initiating an act of will.’”

         She slapped her forehead as if she’d had an epiphany. “The Embodied No is exactly the same as the Embodied Yes!” She laughed. “That’s so crazy!”

         Gorb didn’t understand what she meant, but he let her run with it. Wherever she was going, it seemed to be the right direction.

         She continued. “So what you’re saying, is that when I’m Connecting to the Flux, I can choose whether to Shape or not, without breaking the Connection?”

         “Yes!” He laughed. “’Tis always in ye. Ye just say no’ t’ it.” He sighed. “An’ Kohrrrrra, ye ‘ave t’ know, ye can still lose contrrrol. Strrrong feelin’ll do it t’ ye. So always, always know, when ye slip outta contrrrol, when yourrr Embodied No brrreaks down, ye use yerrr last moment o’ willpow’rrr to let de door swing in one morrre time. Just one time beforrre ye act. In dat moment, ye point yerself away frrrom people, an’ let dat swingin’ doorrr open.”

         Kohra nodded. “I think I understand! Sort of. When I’m about to lose control, just pause for one moment, like letting the door swing in. Then aim so I don’t hurt anyone, and…. Yeah, I don’t understand what to do then.”

         Gorb thrust his arms outwards, hands outstretched. “Let errrr rrrrip!”

* * * * *

         “I don’t want this.” They had been sitting in silence under the skyflows, Kohra pondering the meaning of what she had learned. And now, the more she pondered it, the more she realized, she didn’t actually want this power after all!

         “I really don’t want this.” It seemed like a ridiculous thing to say; she’d been hoping to learn the secrets of Shaping all her life, and now, finally, she was! But, it was so…awful. There had to be a better way. But Gorb DID seem powerful, and he obviously did know more than she did.

         But still. She thought Shaping would be more like learning to throw a ball or ride a horse, like a skill she could practice. And, it’d be fun! But, it was more like unpacking your whole relationship with yourself.

         “’Tis an ‘eavy burden.” He nodded empathetically. “Don’ worrrry. We’ll find ye a rrreal grrreat Teacher.”

         “Can’t you keep teaching me?”

         He shook his bald head, his shiny pate glowing a pale pink. “I can only ‘elp ye at de beginnin’. LightSingin’ isn’t de same as Shapin.’”

         Kohra wavered on the edge of sleep. “What am I?”

         “Huh?” he grunted.
         “You say you’re a LightSinger. You have no doubt about that; you just know. So, what am I?”

         He paused, nodding at the gravity of her question. “A crrreation, an’ a crrreator, Kohrra. Ye change as de worlds Shape ye an’ ye Shape dem in rrreturn.”

         She was asleep, still sitting cross-legged. He brushed her hair back from her face and she turned partly away, smacking her lips together absently. Tucking his cloak around her, he whispered, “Ye alrrready know.” Then he picked her up and carried her back to the wagon.

* * * * *

         Devona lay in the dark field, wide awake. Gorb’s lesson to Kohra had been fascinating. She “got it.” She was sure she got it in an even deeper way than Kohra.

         She felt a bit guilty about “overhearing them” so intentionally, but it wasn’t like there was anything WRONGwith it! She was also studying the Flux! Although she already knew that Shaping was an inferior approach. Summoning was far more powerful. Anyway, eavesdropping on a lesson about Shaping was no big deal, she decided. It was all for The Good. Right?