A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe

by Jon Chaisson

CHAPTER SEVEN

  Nehalé

  The last time Nehalé Usarai sensed this much excited energy in the air, he’d been a young Mendaihu in training, running through the training fields and the emptied outpost towns deep in the Wilderlands. He must have been no older than maybe twelve years, and it had been his first training session away from his family. He and a dozen other kids had been brought by their sehndayen-ne to an abandoned town far west of Bridgetown for two weeks of real life experience. After three straight years of theory and heavily monitored practice, they were now to live the real thing, monitored only from a distance. Nehalé had been a natural at leadership, and had managed to get the rest of the kids involved in creating a miniature society of their own. He’d assigned each kid according to their own ability and strength, and within three days they were functioning as a living town of pure, positive cho-nyhndah energy of both Mendaihu and Shenaihu. They had passed the test with high marks, the highest for an Earth-based test in decades. He would continue his training for years more, but he would never forget the thrill he felt when they’d got that town up and running, and that purity. It felt right somehow...he’d never felt that lovely balance before or since. It had become his life’s aim to recreate that.

  Nehalé had been listening carefully to the spirits of Bridgetown for the past day and a half, focusing on the changes in the air and the music that was the song of the soul. He was desperate to witness the outcome of his Awakening ritual, desperately hoping that he had done the right thing. He’d played an extremely dangerous game with Fate that night…a Declaration of Awakening of that magnitude had certainly upset the natural harmonies of that music, creating dissonance and confusion. That spiritual balance had nearly lost its way, nearly falling into chaos. Only now, after it was all over and his head had cleared, did he realize just how close he’d come to destroying that balance and turning it into something worse than anything the Shenaihu could have created. Only his strength, patience, and commitment to finishing the ritual properly had kept that from happening. If it were any other time, any other situation…any other place than Bridgetown, a mass awakening ritual would not have been disastrous…it was only now, in this time and place, that such chaos would be present. He wanted to think of it as an evolution, the end of one cycle and the start of another, when the energies at play were at their most sensitive, easily influenced by whatever wind came by.

  The spirits had found their voice again, minutes after he’d completed his ritual. The silence that would have followed, if the declaration had not worked, would have been more painful, more torturous than if it hadn't been performed at all. For if they had not sung…all would be lost. There would have been no guardians to watch over this beloved planet. No balance of Mendaihu and Shenaihu, only chaos.

  Yet beyond all expectations, the Song continued on. The overwhelming silence of sleeping spirits had ended. It was all music now, filling every corner of the city, every atom in the air. Spiritual energy once dissonant became harmonic, the souls of the city reacting and interacting with each other fluidly, and they were aware of it now. Every one of them out there, they finally understood.

  He had done the right thing after all, despite his fears.

  Nehalé pushed himself up and walked to the edge of the apartment roof to get a better view of the city, and of Branden Hill Park below him. At this time of day, he could find many of the students from nearby Spender College enjoying a break in their studies, and older neighbors sitting on the concrete benches and enjoying the warm weather with a book or a picnic. A few younger kids played ball in the field off to his left, where the park made its slow arc down to Ormand Street. A young couple lounged halfway up the hill on a blanket, leaning in close and laughing quietly, gently touching each other like lovers would. A few students gathered in a circle closer to the subway station near the far south corner, having quite the animated discussion. Nehalé laughed to himself, amused by the show of such positive energy from everyone. He could feel it from here, warming him and beckoning him to join in.

  His lifted his head to face the Mirades Tower. By sight, the dark monolith stood rock still and lifeless, perhaps a reaction to what he’d put it through. The tower had a magnificent barrier borne out of a network of intertwining energy shields, created twenty years previous to protect those within from any outside harm, physical or otherwise. This had been one of the deciding factors on where to perform his ritual. While those within may or may not have been affected, the barrier had definitely shielded them from any further damage.

  What he hadn’t expected, however, was the change in the spirit song just outside the barrier.

  Earlier today he’d heard the mesmerizing refrains of that song of the spirits, clear as a lifted veil. Otherworldly voices had swirled into his range of hearing, praising the light and the life they had been given. The souls fed off the light of that sun, just as the physical state craved nourishment; the energy of that light replenished the soul, empowered it. The potential for the soul to reach out and become more than itself grew with this power.

  They are the Gharné — the true ascendants of Trisanda.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the thousands of spirit voices of this otherwise quiet neighborhood of Branden Hill. They were all there, young and old, strong and invalid, each one of them affected by his ritual. They were as yet unaware of its true strength, only that they had woken up the next morning feeling somehow refreshed. Many had simply written it off as having had an especially restful night’s sleep. This positive vibe had continued well into the next day, and it was of course welcomed without question. All that time, Nehalé listened as the energy of compassion and understanding ebbed and flowed through each person, lifting them ever closer to an enlightenment they did not know they deserved.

  A whisper of air moved past him, sending a shiver through his body. Someone was awake! Nehalé latched onto that one breeze, that one thread of energy, brighter and keener than any other energy surrounding him, following it as it surged, spiraling in towards the Tower, and then up — the Tower acting as a transmitter to the universes — and exploding into the air above it. Regardless of the evil that might be hidden within those walls, regardless of its unreflective black polycrete and glass, the Tower served its intended Mendaihu purpose, filtering the souls' energies with its surface, swirling together in a confluence above the city.

  The Rain of Light.

  He dared not look with unveiled eyes…its brilliance would blind him permanently. Instead he closed them and faced skyward, and let the sensations speak for themselves. He felt the Rain falling back down onto him and everyone around him like a refreshing spring shower, washing away tension and frustration. He reveled and embraced this Rain, the energy given up then given back. Anything sent up into the stream came back revitalized and multiplied by the light and energy of the sun and the universe. Nehalé smiled, knowing now that his ritual had truly worked. The Rain of Light washed through him, exciting every fiber, every nerve within him. This is what he had awakened that night, more than any other spirit in this city…he had awakened the Rain of Light, given it motion and life.

  And yet...he still felt the cold, and he knew from whom it came.

  The silencers remain, he thought. He breathed slowly, the affirmation calming his growing unease. The cold…the imperfection in the Rain, the poison in the Soul, had always been there, and always would be. The imbalance remained, even past his cleansing, casting its own dark clouds.

  It is time to congregate, he thought, letting out a sigh. He stood on the edge of the tenement building, looking out over the Branden Hill neighborhood.

  Listening, all was peaceful.

  All is Light…

  He stepped off the edge, into midair. Stepped off midair into nothingness —