Page 46 of All That Has Flown Beyond
“I guess they were right to call you.”
“I’d say.”
They spoke with the Aki pack. The Kephale’s face was like the land itself, showing the strain of the prolonged drought. There was no spring in her eyes, only desperation for the rain to fall.
The pack collected. The children peeked from behind their parents’ legs, eyes exhausted and weary. The sides of their mouths were flecked white with dehydration.
“We’re trying to do all we can. We have a duty to the village, but we can’t give much more,” the Kephale said, pride and shame strong forces across her face. Kaiyo bowed to her.
“I will work hard for you and your pack,” he promised.
“Thank you,” she replied, bowing back deeply.
Kaiyo got to work. He already had a sense of what the problem was. The ritual it would take to bring a drought to that amount of land for so long would take multiple casters and a high cost. Kaiyo would have been able to feel it on his tongue, but this had a different taste.
Anger. Punishment. The feeling was alive, vibrating with the heat.
In his travels and research, Kaiyo had learnt that elementals were difficult to see by those who did not have a receptive spirit and that their kind were much more varied than originally thought. The almost sentient feel to the mocking blue skies crawled under Kaiyo’s skin, which could lead him to only one conclusion.
He took out the necessary materials. The liquid spill of a blue silk cloth on the low table. The rich, intoxicating smoke of the ambergris, its essence a long way from the sperm whale it was sourced from. The water-finding stick, although the object could have been anything. As a correspondence, however, it was appropriate.
Kaiyo knelt by the table, closing his eyes. He reached out with his Ousía. He had learnt, with time and practice, to do so gently. He did not want to become overwhelmed by the pack and aching land around him. It was like reaching out a gentle hand and placing it over the water stick, tracing its surface, the smooth texture that gave way to small dips and rough patches in the wood. He simply saw it for what it was, felt its Ousía without judgment.
Kaiyo opened a link. From him, flowing like water to the stick. He could feel what made the object passive, its blind upper layer, the way its core was dormant and disconnected. He sparked his way through, awakening the Ousía, making it receptive to the world around it. Giving it purpose. Enchanting it.
Kaiyo opened his eyes. The stick rested on the silk, giving no outward indication of its change, but Kaiyo could feel its promise as a newborn divination tool.
At Kaiyo’s request, the Kephale had drawn a map of her land on a large, thick piece of paper. Kaiyo looked down at it in appreciation. It was surprisingly detailed, the smooth brush of black ink depicting the small streets, the thumbprint of buildings, the neat rectangles of the fields.
“I know my land well,” she said. Kaiyo believed her.
He put the enchanted stick on the map and his hands over both.
“Let’s get down to business,” he muttered, closing his eyes.
Sensing the Ousía of a whole piece of land was much different than sensing the Ousía of a stick. The ecosystem of the land was like a living organism, all its parts working together to make a whole. It was a balance between what depended on it and what it depended on to stay alive.
The amount of information that could be gathered was vast. The Ousía of every pebble, of every seed and plant, of every creature burrowed in the earth, walking across its back, flying in its air. In every given moment there were a million things going on at once. The hardworking trail of ants that ignored the baking sun. The reaching roots of trees which had anchored there for decades, looking for moisture and nutrients, its cells communicating, sparking with sunlight and releasing oxygen. The constant dance of predator and prey was always afoot in one way or another.
It was a vast world, and Kaiyo was only part of it. The thought was comforting.
Kaiyo let his receptive Ousía open in a blank, clean way, like listening to a good song and letting it take you. With the aid of the divination tool, he followed the ebb and flow of the earth, listening, accepting, letting it inform his next step.
The story it told was sad.
The dam that had been built across the river. The water taken to feed plants that were only used for humans. The ransacking of the forest, the severed fingers of cut-down trees taken away like a threat, leaving only stumps behind.
Anger. Vengeance. Fear.
A drought elemental seeking retribution for the wrong done to the earth.
Kaiyo opened his eyes. He looked at the Kephale.
“Is there a solution?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes. I’m afraid you have debts to pay.”
The truth was a hard pill to swallow, but the Kephale took it with grace and understanding.
