The Spirit Within

‘Naia, it’s time’.

The words broke the stillness of the twilight and tore Naia from her reverie, her gaze snapping from the crackles and flashes of the mist-wreathed mountain in the distance and turning to rest on the silhouette crouched on the cliff’s overhang above her.

‘Thank you Alis, I’ll be there shortly’, she replied. Her eyes scanned the contours of Alis’ face with the same intensity with which she had been studying the Sacred Mount. The sun’s last rays glistened on olive-tinted skin, lit fires in eyes of palest blue and formed shadows around lips that had so recently touched hers…

‘Stop it,’ Alis whispered, straightening up and drawing her flint-tipped spear closer to her chest, as though for protection, ‘stop looking at me like that.’

Naia blinked and the world took on a darker, yet clearer hue, the momentary image of a scared young girl wavered, replaced in an instant by a tall, proud-looking woman dressed in the lacquered wood armour of an Eagle Spirit warrior.

‘I’m sorry, go without me, I’ll only be a moment.’ Naia cast her eyes down, as though lowering a weapon. Alis stood for a second, shuffling almost nervously, mouth opening as though to form a question before setting her jaw clenched and nodding.

‘Good. The Dedication waits for no one. Too late and you’ll… well, just be there.’ She turned and clambered up the rock face much faster than she had descended, her shadow quickly melting into the gathering dark.

Naia stood, brushing red dust off her tunic and turned once more to the horizon. The Sacred Mount was just an outline by now, in the basin formed by cliffs on all sides it stood alone, a dead lump of rock in the gloaming lit only by the occasional flash of wild spirits in its surrounding vapours. The magnetic pull that she had earlier felt seemed to have been severed, and whatever niggling mirage it was that had drawn her attention in the first place was now lost to the night.

She sighed and started up the scree, making her way towards the campfires that marked the boundaries of the village, the red earth transitioning to grass under her bare feet as she walked, and the sounds of chanting grew louder as she pressed on. The ritual would be held in the forest, the totems, though small, standing defiant in a clearing ringed by giant sequoias. Only on this night would the Spirit Birds come to choose their young.

To choose her.

Naia shivered, though the night had not yet grown cold. The only thing that scared her more than dedicating her life and her fate to one of the four spirits was the idea of not being chosen at all. The lore held that every year since the Death of the Grasses the tribes of the Crater Nation had come together, bringing with them their young to be dedicated to the spirits, the avatars of the Aspects of life itself – Strength, Cunning, Compassion and Creativity, represented by the totems of the Eagle, the Crow, the Dove and the Hummingbird. The was a fifth Spirit Bird, the Owl, the Spirit of Wisdom, though none had been chosen in her name since the Owl Mother herself, in a time none could remember and the totem was said to now be lost, unneeded in any case under her long reign of spiritual guidance.

At the end of each harvest the tribes would come and by the time the first snows of winter touched the land, every youth on the cusp of adulthood would have had answered their calling, and be promised to an Aspect at the ritual of The Dedication. Thereafter they would not return to their own clan until they had apprenticed under whichever tribe had mastered their chosen Aspect - some would not return at all, deciding to stay to train the next crop of acolytes. Thus it had ever been. Occasionally one would try to resist their fate, or feel only the faintest draw of an Aspect, yet all were pledged true to their nature in the end.

In all the histories the Elders told around the campfires however, there had never been a child of seventeen summers that was too lost, too broken to be chosen. Until now.

Naia had never heard so much as a chirp of any Spirit Bird’s call. The calling itself was a subject discussed endlessly and with much excitement amongst the children of the tribes, it was most often described as like hearing your name whispered on a dark night, a soft echo that grew louder and clearer as you approached closer to adulthood. In some the gifts the spirits promised were apparent early in life – children noted to excel at feats of strength or speed would inevitably grow to be chosen by the Eagle Spirit, whilst those displaying compassion and fortitude would later be dedicated to the Dove. Others felt the call of their Spirit Bird closer to the time of The Dedication, during the sixty moons of adolescence where they would be rotated amongst the five tribes and trained under the masters of each Aspect in order to tease out their nascent skills.

Naia envied them their surety, she had been with the Eagle Tribe since the last harvest and had shown as much aptitude during her training with the staff and the bow as she had with the clever tongues of the Crow Tribe and the deft hands of the Hummingbirds.

It wasn’t that she was stupid. Far from it, during her apprenticeship in the Owl Tribe - her own clan - she had learned which of the forest’s berries and fungi were edible, the name of every star in the sky and recall the histories of her people back twenty generations. She was just distracted. It had always been this way, ever since her parents had left on their one-way journey to the Sacred Mount she had started having visions. Not of the future, nor of the past, but of the present, of reality stripped of all illusion, of things and of people that wore the garb of camouflage and deceit. Her eyes would lose focus, yet her world would become clearer. A quiet buzz would ring in her head when something was amiss; a smile that hid a frown, an insect blending in on tree bark – it could sometimes be helpful whilst foraging and she had even learned to ignore the buzz that accompanied the white lies and painted expressions that dominated normal social interactions - but the greater the illusion the louder the buzz would become, rising and rising to a crescendo, a silent roar that could bring her to her knees and make her head feel like it was breaking apart.

The medicine men and women of the Dove Tribe had tried to cure her, they had given her herbs, potions, chanted over her with their incense and prayers, though nothing worked. She soon became known as cursed. It had been at its worst during her period of tutelage under the Crow Tribe. The tribespeople excelled at diplomacy, trade and making rulings on the laws of the five tribes. They were trained to use their cunning and to hide their emotions on blank faces.

It had nearly broken Naia.

They were a people of illusion in all its forms. Every smile held a buried sneer, every well-wrought sentence an intricate lie, taught from birth to present a second self in order to trip and to trap. Nothing was as it seemed with those chosen by The Crow.

The headaches had worsened and she had withdrawn more than before, unable to leave her bed most days. Worse, as word of her condition spread, the more she was shunned. Traders refused to take her as an apprentice, knowing she would react visibly when they exaggerated the quality of their wares. Elders selected to act as intermediaries in disputes were keen to use her at first, hoping to use her curse to divine the guilty from the innocent, until they realised that they too were being judged under her unnerving gaze.

Everywhere she went, she was avoided, ostracized. None dared get too close to her, lest they had their secrets bared to the world. Her curse made her feared – it made her hated.

Alis though, Alis had been different… heat rushed to Naia’s umber-dark cheeks, dispelling the creeping chill. She hurried faster towards the flickering torches peeping between the trees, as though to outrun her thoughts.

It didn’t work. Alis – a year older but already well-set on the path to becoming an Eagle Spirit master. Naia’s mentor during the last few months of her time with the Eagle Tribe and the only person to have made it bearable, the only person that hadn’t run. A warrior through and through, but with a heart as kind as a Dove’s. Her tough exterior didn’t stop Naia’s cursed sight from occasionally glimpsing the fears and the self-doubt that wracked her, yet neither did it make Naia’s head ring. She still hadn’t worked that one out.

At first Alis’ attention had seemed like pity, like Naia was an oddity to be studied, but she had accepted the company all the same, and over time genuine respect and friendship had grown, and now, maybe something more? A smile crept on to her face unbidden as she cast her mind back to the previous night, fumbled words of encouragement under a full moon and then a fleeting kiss, cut short far too soon by shock and by shame.

Her mind was so lost in the memory that she almost walked in to the man that seemed to materialise from the trunk of a sequoia just yards away.

‘Naia, we thought you weren’t coming.’

Her breath caught at his voice and she came to a stop. The words, though spoken in such a pleasant tone, couldn’t conceal the faint air of mockery accompanying them. She reflexively dipped her head down and turned towards him.

‘Of course I’m coming Yona, I’m to be chosen this year.’ The words hung like a lie even as they left her mouth.

‘Ah, so you’ve heard the call at last?’ The young man had a wide smile fixed upon his face, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He swept his crow feather-lined cloak to one side and leaned against the giant tree with exaggerated nonchalance.

‘I…I might have done, we will see what the spirits command.’

‘So glad to hear it, who knows, maybe the Crow will choose you as an initiate and you’ll come back to join us for good.’ The smile grew even wider, revealing white teeth on an already too-pale complexion.

Naia winced. The ringing in her head that had started only moments before was now a torrent of sound, waves of pain crashing through her mind as she raised her eyes in defiance to look at him.

They had met during her ill-fated apprenticeship under the Crow tribe. Yona was the Chief’s son and had all the malicious talent of those born to power. When they had first met his presence had almost made her faint, when she had looked upon him there wasn’t the usual picture of a true self dominated by fear, sadness or rage, only a swirling vortex of further illusions, chaotic and unbound. He had soon learned the effect his mere closeness had upon her and delighted in following her around, always with the pretence of politely making conversation so that others would not suspect his intentions. She had tried to steer clear of him but he had revelled in the chase, sometimes even turning up at critical moments when she was being tested by the Elders, under the guise of showing support.

He bent slightly so that she was forced to look him full in the face. She stared in horror at the swirling mists that enveloped him, human-like shapes flickered around his person, formless and bleak. She wondered what was broken in his mind or what sins he had committed in his past that had made him this way, and tried to resist the urge to vomit.

‘Well, whatever call you answer, just know that I’ll be there at The Dedication to cheer you on.’ They both knew it was a threat, a promise of torment to come.

The deep blast of a horn made them both turn and Naia took her opportunity while she still had the ability to stay upright.

‘They’re starting, I have to go.’ Without waiting for a response she drunkenly staggered towards the clearing just steps away, fast filling up with assembled tribespeople.

‘Be seeing you,’ came the response, thankfully half-swallowed by the noise of the crowd.

Naia stumbled into the backs of the ever-growing mass that had descended upon the clearing. She pushed past a mixed group of gaudily-clad Hummingbird tribesmen and white-robed Dove medicine women. A path was made rapidly, she was known to all the clans and none wanted to be too close.

She reached the front where the other unchosen acolytes had gathered, ignoring the nervous glances that were shot her way by the closest of her cohort. She caught her breath and looked around. The clearing was no stranger to her, she had been brought up amongst the Owl tribe, and after her parents had been selected for the annual tribute to the Sacred Mount she had often come to this place to be alone, especially when the first tendrils of her curse had stirred.

The clearing was hundreds of paces in diameter, ringed by scores of rust-red sequoias. They had brought her comfort as a child, she had always felt protected amongst the silent sentinels of the forest and loved to sit under them in silence, waiting for the ringing in her mind to ease. Now though they seemed eerie, the lights of a thousand burning torches danced and played across their bark, appearing all too similar to the swirling shadows cast by Yona. The largest of them, named Gaya by the Owl tribe, stood imposingly behind the four totems at the front of the assembly, a significant distance separating it from its brethren. It was here that the Owl Mother always sat, cross-legged at the base, dispensing her wisdom to all who asked for it.

The Owl Mother wasn’t there at the moment though, and Naia could feel the voices of the crowd swell behind her as they waited for her appearance. The horn had been blown so there was doubtlessly only moments to go until the ritual began. Only moments left to hear a call. Any call.

Naia breathed slowly in a futile attempt to steady her nerves and looked for something to focus on. She daren’t glance behind her, she was usually safe from her visions in large crowds, but if she stared too long the individual spectres of illusion started to appear and would threaten to overwhelm her if she didn’t tear her eyes away. She looked up instead, the canopies of the trees formed a rough circle and the waning moon was rising above the trees, as though the heavens were looking back at her, with one giant, blind eye.

Naia let out one long breath and felt her body calming. She used the moment of tranquillity to run through the familiar steps of the upcoming ritual in her head. Even if she hadn’t been brought up amongst the people of the Owl, she would have known the steps by heart by dint of spending twelve moons here as part of the one of the five rotations. Lessons teaching of the spiritual creed of the tribes were some of the most important a young acolyte could learn.

She played out the steps as she had done so many times before. One, wait for your name to be called. Two, take the twelve steps to the fire. Three, sprinkle the herbs on the fire and pray. Four, once ready, circle the fire five times and then approach the totems. Five, call on the spirits to choose you. Six, and lastly, let whichever Spirit that answers guide you to their totem and touch the wood.

A movement at the front caught her attention. The Owl Mother, the spiritual leader of the Crater Nation was serenely making her way to a patch of well-trod earth halfway between the acolytes and the totems.

The Owl Mother didn’t need to plead for silence, the mutter of voices came to a stop as she spread her hands, as though embracing all the tribes at once.

‘My people, welcome.’ She paused, and only the whine of crickets interrupted the silence. She continued, and her voice, though reedy, carried to every ear in the clearing.

‘For twenty generations have we gathered here, the five tribes of the Crater Nation.

Eagle tribe, in the summer months you protected our lands from the hunger of the tribes of the north and the east, envious of the bounty the spirits bring us. We welcome thee.’

There was a bellowed shout from the wood-armoured men and women to the right of the clearing in affirmation.

‘Crow tribe, in the trading months of autumn your skills in bargaining brought us many goods from our neighbours in the west and you judged those who broke our laws fairly and with honour. We welcome thee.’

A shrill cry, this time from the feather-cloaked tribespeople on the left of the clearing.

‘Dove tribe, when winter came and the people sickened, you were there to tend to them tirelessly with humility and kindness. We welcome thee.’

A demure bow from the white-robed healers to the left of Naia.

‘Hummingbird tribe, in spring when the flowers bloomed, you too blossomed with music, paints and dance, bringing us a joyful end to winter and the start of new life. We welcome thee.’

A raucous cheer to Naia’s right.

‘And lastly, Owl tribe, though few in number, you have kept the histories and names of our ancestors alive in our memories and have kept our traditions pure.’

Silence from the scanty group of hooded men and women standing apart from the rest, hovering near the tree line. Initiates of any Aspect were free to choose any tribe to settle in after their training was completed, and most tribes kept a healthy minority of those from other Aspects to maintain a good balance, though with none chosen by the Owl in several generations more and more of the Owl tribe did not return from their adopted clans once they had mastered their arts.

Owl Mother spoke again, though her posture had changed.

‘But we must remember our sacrifice, too.’ At this the Owl Mother hung her head and suddenly she looked like every one of her nearly five score years. ‘The spirits that provide us with such bounty demand a tribute in return, so we must thank the men and women that offered themselves so willingly to the Sacred Mount to allow us to prosper.’

A man and a woman, from every tribe. Every year. This was the payment the Spirit Birds expected for their provision of food and clothing to the tribes of the Crater Nation. They went so voluntarily, for the good of all, never to return. As the Owl Mother listed off the names of this year’s grim harvest Naia held back the tears that threatened to fall. It had been her parents, all those years ago. Brave. Honourable. Selfish. Perhaps if they had stayed she wouldn’t have been cursed.

The Owl Mother stood silent for a moment, before continuing in a near-whisper.

‘There were fields of wheat once, before the Death of the Grasses, oceans of golden corn and barley, as far as the eye could see…’

Naia stared. She had only once before heard the Owl Mother speak of these legends, of the times when food burst plentifully from the ground, when no one had to scour the forest floor for nuts and berries. She had told of animals bigger than men, docile and easily hunted, of flightless birds that weren’t sacred and could be eaten by the thousand. In the time of cities. Before the blight came. Before the Death of the Grasses ravaged the land and took the animals with it, leaving nothing bigger than a rabbit as game. And the birds, always the birds, somehow untouched by the blight, flying high above it all.

Flying highest of all the birds was the Thunderbird, the provider. It flew on thermals so high it did not seem to need to ever flap its wings, drifting on invisible currents many thousands of paces in the sky, issuing loud booms of thunder on occasion. If the Spirit Birds were appeased and the tribute was sent, then the harvest would come - dozens of massive wooden baskets floating, suspended in the air by fabrics, down from the heavens to the earth. Baskets filled with food and cloth, to be divided up and shared amongst the clans. Filmy sacks of wheat, corn and barley, though none of them ever took to the earth when planted. They would sicken and die in the blighted soil, unlike the inedible plants that still thrived. It sustained them though, the Thunderbird had never failed to deliver its bounty. Always enough to keep them from hunger throughout the year, but only just enough.

The Owl Mother smiled, and the tension in the watching crowd broke.

‘But now, The Dedication. The spirits of The Eagle, the Crow, the Dove and the Hummingbird have called, it is time to answer, for only by our devotion to them will they send our prayers to the Thunderbird.’

Naia joined the other acolytes in standing. This was it. Too late. She had felt no call. None of the totems beckoned, she was too broken to be chosen. She wanted to run and hide, but tradition and fear made her stay. The first of the names was spoken.

‘Kiona, you have been called. Will you answer?’

A girl a few paces to her right looked startled, but visibly steeled herself before striding forwards. There was no doubt that Kiona had felt her calling, Naia had known her since birth, she had always displayed courage and leadership, she would go to the totem of The Eagle.

The girl strode the twelve steps to the fire purposefully and threw her bag of herbs into the flames. The fire flashed a brilliant blue and emanated a heady smoke. Kiona walked clockwise around the brazier five times, before presenting herself to the totems and shouting.

‘Spirits, I have heard your song. Guide me to you and give me purpose!’

She closed her eyes and swayed on the spot for several seconds, before lurching almost drunkenly to the totem of The Eagle. She stopped a pace from the decorated length of wood and opened her eyes, craning her neck to see the magnificent shape of The Eagle carved into the top, almost life-like in its ferocity. A cheer from her adopted tribe echoed amongst the trees and she turned to them with a fist lifted to the air, a smile almost splitting her cheeks. She strutted off to join the throng as the next name was uttered.

‘Ameer, you have been called. Will you answer?’

A tall boy with ruddy blonde hair and dark eyes leapt from Naia’s side and made his way to the brazier to offer his obeisance. Ameer was another that had felt the pull early in life, he was destined to be a Hummingbird.

The list went on. More names, more cheers.

Naia turned away, she couldn’t look. With every acolyte that was summoned the sinking pit of fear in her stomach grew. She cast about the crowd and found Alis staring at her, a worried look on her face. Not steps away, Yona was also watching her, with that same damned smile – mad and gleeful. Naia winced, she had hoped to find comfort in seeing Alis, but she knew she would not be able to concentrate knowing that Yona was so close by.

The numbers were dwindling now, only three acolytes yet to be chosen. Her bladder felt close to bursting and she had started shaking uncontrollably. Only seconds to go before she was exposed. In mere moments the whole Nation would know her as a useless, broken thing, unloved by the spirits. They would force her out, or make her walk the long pilgrimage to the Sacred Mount like her parents, they would not be able to stomach one whom the spirits had rejected.

She had to calm her nerves. Find something to focus on that wasn’t one of the hundreds of people surrounding her.

Gaya, the Owl Mother’s tree. She locked her gaze on to it, afraid that if she stopped for a second she would fall apart.

A faint whine began in her head, growing in intensity by the second.

No! Not here, not now!

‘…will you answer?’

The question penetrated her consciousness and Naia realised that the Owl Mother had been speaking to her directly. The other two acolytes were gone, already striding off to their chosen tribes. She jolted but made no move towards the fire.

‘Naia, you have been called. Will you answer?’ the Owl Mother repeated gently.

A rumbling emanated from the mass of people around her. An impatient growl. A familiar snicker.

Before the Owl Mother could repeat herself once more Naia stepped forward. She was focused so intensely on resisting the ringing in her ears she almost forgot to count her paces. She realised just in time and when she reached twelve she drew the bag of herbs from her tunic with trembling fingers and cast it into the flames.

As though in a trance she started her slow procession around the brazier. The smoke rushed in to her lungs and mercifully the roar in her head started to fade, replaced by a slow, irregular throbbing. She paused after her fifth rounding of the fire and stared straight ahead. The words leapt from her mouth without her command.

‘Spirits, I have heard your song. Guide me to you and give me purpose!’

It was said without feeling, in a hurried, quiet voice. All she could do know was wait, wait for the anger and the outrage to begin.

She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

Please, she thought numbly, let this be over quickly.

As the sounds of angry crowd grew, she noticed that the chaotic throbbing sensation in her head had changed to a gentle, ever-increasing pulsing. She turned her head to both sides and realised that the pulse did not originate in her own head, but was coming from directly in front of her. From Gaya.

She took a step forward, her gaze fixed unmoving on the tree.

The sudden hush of the assembly was lost in the roar of Naia’s rushing thoughts.

Gaya was changing shape, flickering in the firelight, the crevices and swirls of the bark shifting, forming patterns and figures, telling stories and truths with their movements.

She took another pace, then another and another…

A chorus of anger and laughter rent the night air and Naia realised that the watching crowd could not see what she could, they only saw her missing the totems altogether.

Naia stopped only when she felt the wood under her hand and in the instant after that first touch, Gaya shone. A brilliant red glow burst from a myriad crevices in the bark, like embers in a fire.

The people gasped. Now they could see what she had. A soft rustling caught her attention and she looked up. Mere hand lengths from where she was touching the tree, nestled in a hollow, a pair of yellow eyes open. A barn owl.

And in that moment Naia knew - the tree itself was but an illusion.

Gaya was the fifth totem.

***

Alis found Naia at the same spot where she had left her the night before. The girl was standing at the precipice of the cliff overlooking the crater basin, wrapped in a blanket and unmoving, despite the dawn chill. The warrior sat down on a rock a few paces behind. She would not speak first. It had been a long night for her friend, the first Owl-chosen in a century. The next Owl Mother. Let her have the moment’s peace.

When the words came at last, they were like the crack of thunder.

‘I’ve seen it, Alis.’ The words were spat with ferocity.

Alis startled. ‘You’ve seen what?’ she whispered nervously.

‘The city. In the Sacred Mount. The Thunderbird. The spirits. Everything.’ She turned to face her friend, and for the first time in her life, the Eagle-chosen was struck by true fear as yellow eyes bore through her.

‘Everything, Alis, everything. It’s all a lie.’