Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  “You use plants to make sick people well again?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She was old even then, her voice sounding like two rocks being rubbed together and chips of each falling off.

  “That is amazing!” he told her and she smiled, showing half a set of teeth scattered in her mouth. Her wrinkled face became even more so, but the light in her eyes somehow made the entire picture comforting. Young Urun smiled back.

  He stopped to visit Magda nearly every day that he wasn’t doing chores on the small farm his family owned. He had an endless supply of questions for her, and when she began to let him watch her at her work in healing people, he sat there transfixed.

  “Would you like to help an old woman?” she asked him one day.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Come with me to gather herbs in the forest. My back and legs have been aching, and I could use a younger back to carry the things I find.”

  He knew it was an excuse. Though she was ancient—he never did ask exactly how old she was—she was spry and perfectly capable of gathering her herbs alone. She was giving him an excuse to learn more about her craft, and he appreciated it.

  He was soon learning the healing trade from her. She taught him where to find the herbs, what they did, how to prepare them, and many other things. Somehow, without ever speaking about it, he had become her apprentice, and he began to spend more and more time with her. His parents saw what was happening, and they went along with it because it was an opportunity for their son to gain a profession, even if it was one that was typically taken by women.

  When Urun was sixteen, he began to range farther and farther from the border forests and actually started entering the edge of the Grundenwald. He did so carefully, knowing full well that the natural world could be dangerous to the unwary. Within that ancient forest, he found other herbs that Magda had told him about but that he had never seen. He recognized them from the drawings he saw in an old tome the healer had, one that had been started by her grandmother and in which she continued to add entries. She was overjoyed when he brought the plants back to her.

  Excited by his discoveries, Urun Chinowa planned an expedition of several days to go deeper into the Grundenwald to explore.

  “You must be careful,” the old woman’s raspy voice admonished him. “There are many dangers in that place, especially as you delve deeper into the trees. Insects, animals, even plants can kill you there, without warning and without cause. You may be eaten, or your carcass may simply rot on the forest floor.”

  “I will be careful,” he told her, trying to hide his excitement and show a measure of fear. “I will bring you back wondrous plants you have never seen.”

  She nodded, smiled at him, and patted his cheek. “I would as soon have my apprentice back safe and whole.”

  Two days into his journey, much further than he had ever gone into the forest, he found the altar.

  It was overgrown with creepers, bushes, and grasses, but he saw the glint of some kind of metal through the foliage and went to investigate. It took him more than an hour to cut away the vegetation to see what he had stumbled upon.

  The stone altar—or was it wood so aged it resembled stone?—was simple but elegant. It consisted of a base with a curved, shallow bowl on top with a carving of a woman standing over the bowl. It was ancient if the erosion was any indication, the details of the woman softened and indistinct. The inside of the bowl and around the edges were gilded, shining dull gold in the diffuse light of the forest. He wondered who the woman was.

  The trip to that point had been relatively uneventful. He had encountered new types of plants and seen trees that must have been hundreds of years old. They radiated age and power, making him giddy with the expectation of grand discoveries ahead.

  Urun had collected roots, some berries and fruit from plants he recognized, and wild vegetables. He rarely ate meat, though he had no strict prohibition about doing so. After all, the grand chain of life included some animals and insects eating others, so it was not unnatural to do so. On this trip, however, he had not wanted to kill anything to eat.

  He was compelled to do something, to make an offering, even if only to get a measure of luck on his travels. But what would he offer, what would he say? He had never been a religious person, so he did not know how to pray.

  Urun settled on the choicest of the vegetables he had collected for an offering. The remaining food would not quite fill his belly, and evening was rapidly approaching so he could not forage for more, but that was all right. He could find more things to eat in the morning. He set about arranging the food in a way that seemed pleasing to the eye.

  At a loss for what to do next, he stood there, staring at the bowl of the altar, now filled with food. Should he say something, sing something? He didn’t know. Thinking about it, he added his most prized finding from his expedition, a rare herb he recognized from the description and drawing Magda’s grandmother had put in the book, white fennel. Even Magda had never seen the plant, and he had found one whole, with its bulbous roots in perfect condition. As he placed it on the altar with the other things, he hoped he would find more later.

  His offering complete, he bowed his head and said, “I offer these, the greatest of the fruits of my searching. I am a trespasser but mean no harm, and by my offering, I pray that you will find me worthy of passing through your domain.” It seemed like the thing to say.

  There was no sound, no lightning or rumbling of the ground, nothing but the decreasing light of evening and the buzz of insects. Still, Urun Chinowa was filled with a sense of peace and contentment. He was satisfied with his offering, and that was good enough for him. He ate what little he had left in the way of fruit and vegetables, and rolled himself up in his cloak to sleep by the altar.

  Later, light shattered the darkness, like the sun at noon in a cloudless sky. Urun Chinowa woke immediately, putting his hands over his eyes to shield them. His heart raced. Whatever it was would surely end his life.

  He tried to see, but even with his hand blocking the light, it was too bright. He opened his lids slowly, his orbs aching from the intensity of the glare. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of trying to blink the tears from his eyes, he was able to lower his hand and see what lit the world brighter than it had been since he had entered the shadowed forest.

  In front of him, just beside the altar, stood a woman, glowing like the sun.

  She was tall and beautiful, her long blond hair tinged with green, and her eyes! Oh, those eyes. They were soft swirls of moss peeking through perfect patches of snow, the deep green drawing Urun in, making him feel that if he was truly going to die, he would have no objection to doing so like this. The woman smiled, and warmth suffused Urun’s body as if he was a rock in the sunlight.

  She walked two steps toward him, her perfectly formed body cradled by the diaphanous robe she wore. He couldn’t help but stare at her form, him being a young man and her so perfect an example of a woman. Parts of him other than his heart began to warm as well. When she smiled, he felt as if he would break from seeing such perfect beauty.

  “Urun Chinowa,” she said, her voice smooth stones sliding across wet velvet, “I have seen your offering and I look upon it with favor. You have sacrificed some of your own food, the finest you had, to me upon my altar. You are pleasing to me.”

  Finally able to move, Urun got to his knees, though he rued not being able to continue looking at her as he did so. “It felt as if it was the right thing to do, My Lady.”

  She laughed, her voice tinkling like tiny bells. Urun’s heart ached to hear it, and then wished it would continue when it stopped. “Do not call me ‘My Lady.’ You may call me by my name, Osulin.”

  “Osulin,” he repeated.

  “Do you not recognize me? Do you not know my name?”

  “I am sorry my…Osulin. I do not.” Urun felt embarrassed to his toes for not knowing her.

  “Have you not heard of my mother, Mellaine?” the woman aske
d.

  “Mellaine? The goddess Mellaine?” He was breathless.

  “That is she, though she has left these lands and among the Voordim, only I remain. You have not heard of me, then? Odd. I understood that my tale was told in the villages and cities of humankind.”

  “Forgive me,” Urun said, putting his forehead on the ground. “I did not associate much with other children as I grew, always doing other things. I have not heard many stories.”

  “Ah, yes,” Osulin said. “You were always busy exploring, learning of my realm, of the natural world. Raise your eyes to me, Urun Chinowa. Of all mankind, you share my passions and interests, you most of all.”

  He raised his eyes to hers, gray meeting green, and he almost swooned. Such power in those eyes. She stepped up to him and took one of his hands in hers.

  “Stand,” she said. “I would have you serve me, if you find it desirable. The world is changing, magic leaving the land and darkness on the horizon. I have need of one who would be a receptacle of my power, one who would help to keep the destruction of nature at bay. What say you?”

  He stood there, hand-in-hand with this most beautiful of creatures he had ever seen. She was a goddess, and she was treating him with respect. He felt the power burning in her, coming through her hand into his. His head swam and his thoughts proved difficult to seize.

  She lifted an eyebrow. Her eyes twinkled as if she found the exchange humorous. She waited for his response.

  “I…” he started. He took a deep breath and tried again. “It would be an honor and privilege to do your work. I am but a humble servant. What would you have me do?”

  Her smile was like the sun breaking through clouds after a month of rain. It lightened his heart, made him feel as if he could fly.

  “It is not burdensome,” she said softly. “Not to you. I would have you continue to learn of nature, of healing, and increase your skills in the care of plants and creatures. I would have you do good works in my name and await the time when I will call you to action. That time is coming, soon or late, and I would have you ready for the task. Does this sound agreeable to you, Urun Chinowa?”

  “It does.”

  She leaned toward him and her lips met his, soft as a breeze and hot as the sun. It took his breath away and left him gasping. She ended the kiss, leaning back and looking into his eyes.

  “With this kiss, you are consecrated and we are connected, you as my high priest and I as your goddess. Through this bond, I have given you a measure of power. If it does not suffice for a certain task, you have but to call upon me and I will lend you more, if I am able. You will find that your healing is much more potent now, miraculously so. Use it to care for and nurture all you desire.”

  He did feel a power within him, an energy glowing and pulsing in his core. He looked around and saw the forest in a new way. He could see the life within it, could feel a kinship with it.

  “Yes, you see now how everything fits together,” Osulin said. “You can see better than ever the necessity for all life to work together. Good. I knew it would be so. You have always been destined to come to me, I think. You will do great things in my name, but none greater than the grand task which will come in the future. Prepare yourself, my beloved, for you will need all your power and mine to survive in the end times.”

  Still holding his hand, she drew him to a moss-covered fallen tree and sat with him, telling him of the wonders of her natural realm and how he was now even more of that world. When she left him, she bade him go back to sleep. As she walked off through the foliage, each branch and leaf moving out of her way as she passed, his eyes grew heavy and he settled down into peaceful slumber.

  When he woke, Osulin was gone and there was no sign she had ever been there, except that his offering was no longer on the altar. He could feel the power within him, though, so he did not doubt his calling to be her priest.

  38

  “So, there is my story,” Urun Chinowa said. “That is how I came to be the first priest for Osulin in over a thousand years. I returned to Magda with the herbs I had found. I seemed to have a sense for where to find the plants, and on the way back to her, I located many other rare medicines that I had seen referenced and pictured in her book.

  “She was ecstatic at my finds and, when I told her of my experience, she smiled that beatific smile of hers and told me how blessed I was to have the opportunity.

  “‘A priest of Osulin,’ she rasped. ‘It is a privilege beyond compare. You will do well, Urun. You have always been meant for greater things than being a village healer.’

  “I found that I could supplement the healing I had learned with the power Osulin had granted me. I used my new powers to help all those who needed it, but I knew I needed to move on, to go where I could commune with nature more fully. I needed to go to the Grundenwald and refine my knowledge and skills, waiting for the calling Osulin had promised me. And that is where I am now, in my comfortable home in the finest example of the natural world left in Dizhelim.”

  “That’s an amazing tale,” Fahtin said. “How privileged you are to have actually seen and touched a goddess like that.”

  “Oh, my lady Fahtin,” Urun said, taking her hand and kissing it, “that makes two times in this life I have touched a goddess.”

  Aeden rolled his eyes and Tere Chizzit snorted. Fahtin just blushed and gently took her hand away from the priest.

  Raki awoke within the hour, seeming tired but not any worse for wear. When they told him what had happened, he stared at them wide-eyed. He hadn’t remembered any of it.

  “Thank you, Urun,” the boy said. “By all accounts, I would be dead without your help.”

  “It was my duty, Raki, and a pleasure to be able to aid you. I am glad your friends got you here when they did. Too much longer and even I would not have been able to help you.”

  They stayed with the priest for another two days. Aeden was anxious about the time spent, but he wanted Raki to recuperate before they moved on. During the time, Aeden slept as if he could store up rest for later and spent his waking hours in pleasant company.

  It was time to leave and the party gathered up their gear and prepared to depart.

  “Aeden,” Urun said, “I would go with you, if I may.”

  The statement came out of nowhere. The priest had never mentioned his desire to join them.

  “Why?” was all Aeden could think to say.

  “I left out a small detail when I told you my story the other day.” He had repeated the story for Raki just the day before, and Aeden had heard it again. In fact, he and Fahtin both listened intently to the second telling. Tere Chizzit went out hunting; he had heard it before.

  “I did not tell you,” Urun said, “that just before you came, Osulin came to me once again, for the first time in several years. She told me that there is a great darkness in the world and that it is intent on destroying nature and all life. She told me that I would get visitors soon and that when I did, it would become clear to me that I must join them, not only because they would need my help but also because it was through them that the darkness could be defeated.

  “She was referring to you, that is clear, and to these animaru. I do not know why or how they are a danger to all life, but I must go with you, if you will allow me. It is not only the command of my goddess, but it…feels like that is what I should do. So I ask you formally, will you allow me to accompany you?”

  Aeden looked at the others, all of them wide-eyed and staring as he was. One after another, they nodded when he looked at them. He put his hand out to the priest. “Welcome to the party, Urun.” The man smiled and shook Aeden’s hand enthusiastically.

  Making it through the forest with the priest of Osulin was an easy matter. Even when they reached the heart of the forest, the wild, primordial section that had given off the feeling of doom earlier, it felt comfortable. True, there was an edge of danger in the thickest part, but Urun’s presence seemed to calm it, pushing the sense of alarm away slightly.
<
br />   The priest sometimes didn’t even seem to pay attention to where he was going. He mumbled quietly at times, almost as if he was arguing with himself, sang snatches of silly songs Aeden had never heard, or hummed. The only time he really spoke to others was when Fahtin was near him. Then he could not be made to be quiet.

  It astounded Aeden to see Urun walk ahead of them and somehow pick out the easiest path without looking. At times, Aeden could have sworn that the plants moved out of their way. They made good time, better even than some of the travel they had done earlier on the roads, and they were out of the center, then out of the edges, and even out of the bordering civilized forests into open fields and sparse stands of trees.

  As they left the final thicket of trees and underbrush, Aeden sighed. He heard the same from the others, all except Urun, who was humming a song that he had sung and hummed in parts since they started.

  With everyone’s mood lightened, conversation became more joyful and plentiful. The sun could be seen without filtering through tree boughs, and the brightness seemed to energize the little party.

  “There is a town off to the south maybe ten or fifteen miles,” Tere Chizzit said. “Drugancairn. We can resupply there. The lands we will be crossing through ahead vary from small copses of trees to plains and rolling hills. We can find game there, but it would be good to have some food with us. I suggest we stop there and get the things we need.”

  They all agreed. Traveling on roads again, even ones that were barely wide enough for two of them to walk side-by-side, was something they had all missed.

  “Will it be dangerous,” Raki asked, “walking on roads again? We went into the forest in the first place because of the animaru patrolling the roads looking for Aeden.”

  “We’re on the other side of the forest from where those creatures were looking,” Tere said. “They found us in the Grundenwald, but even that was far away from where we came out. I think we’re safe to use roads for a little while. We can go off again when we leave Drugancairn. Travel should be fairly easy on the plains, though there will not be a lot of cover to hide us.”