Page 29 of Awariye

IGOR

"Do you remember the names of the gods Kristoff prayed to?" Awariye asked after we enjoyed a quiet moment together.

I dug back in my memory, so easily summoning Kristoff's happy face when he talked about gods and the magic running through the world. I tried pronouncing one of the names, but I couldn't be sure it was exact.

Awariye cocked his head to the side and regarded me. Wren tried out a couple of variations of the name to see if they rang any bells, but I didn't know.

"He was from around here?" asked Awariye.

I nodded. "The same region as me." That just added to the confusion, because the people throughout our area were predominantly worshippers of the Christ of a Thousand Ages in the past, but in recent decades things had diversified.

"So it could be Germanic, or Celtic," surmised Wren. "Doesn't exactly sound like either linguistically, however."

"At least it isn't Greco-Roman, so we can rule that out," said Awariye.

"I thought they were local," I protested. "Kristoff said he first heard of them in fairy tales as a child, and when he spent long strings of days in the forest, the trees and animals told him about them."

Wren brightened. "And he was a warrior? He sounds like a mystic!"

I shrugged, feeling outnumbered. "There's nothing wrong with a boy going into the forest to learn how to become a man."

"All kinds of initiations into adulthood happen in a similar way, especially in cultures like ours that pride ourselves on a deep connection to the wild," said Awariye, backing me up with a smile. "Let's try our Gallo-Celtic gods we met at the monastery. They are local to this area, the Alpine Gauls from twenty-five hundred years ago, and for many centuries before that. If there's a local god walking through the forest with antlers on his head, I bet they'll know and can direct us."

With all this talk of Kristoff's story of finding divine people in the forests of our home, and Awariye's conviction that the lanterns might be pouring their power into the world in order to benefit Nature, I glanced to the fires on the table burning in their bowls, and wondered whether that name I could not quite remember from my former lover was one of theirs.

"I could sing our invocation and banishing ritual for them," offered Wren. "Or Awariye could sing it or offer a hymn. Then you could pray, Igor, just introduce yourself?"

Ulbrecht slipped into the chapel and sat off to the side while Wren and Awariye got into position. Awariye quickly tuned his Gallic harp that he held with one hand and plucked with the other. Wren needed to check some things with his oracle, then he was ready.

Wren lifted his hands to the heavens and began the invocation. Awariye hummed along with him, and plucked certain notes on the harp, what must be chords if I understood correctly, that helped Wren have a baseline over which to sing. Wren circled around Awariye, stopping at each of the cardinal directions; then returning to the east, he did three invocations of spirit, for a total of seven stations. Then holding his hands open, prior to closing the ritual, he ceded the space to Awariye, announcing the Universal Prayer, and my lover began to sing.

Grant us, O Holy Ones,

Thy protection.

And in protection, strength.

And in strength, understanding.

And in understanding, knowledge.

And in knowledge,

The knowledge of justice.

And in the knowledge of justice,

The love of it.

And in that love,

The love of all existences.

And in the love of all existences,

The love of Earth our Mother

And all goodness.

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