Dark Storm ('Dark' Carpathian Series)

by Christine Feehan

  Be certain, Dax cautioned, shocked at the generosity of the old dragon. His time had passed, yet he had given his soul to Dax to aid in destroying evil. Now he was including Riley in that decision, offering his soul to her as well to get her through her journey into the Carpathian world.

  I am certain. She is worthy of you. She can call me forth when she needs me. The fire dragon was fierce about it. Dax and Riley were his. He would defend them with everything he was.

  Binding Riley’s soul to his, the Old One wrapped himself in her, trying to do what Dax couldn’t—help to heal her faster. The soft whispers in the earth grew in volume. Dax noted Riley became calmer, the lines etched into her face easing as the voices soothed and the Old One pushed her organs to greater speed.

  With one horrible wheezing gasp, one death rattle in her throat, one last wave of excruciating pain, the convulsions subsided. Riley was very still for a moment, and then she turned to him, her eyes wide, haunted. Exhaustion was on her face, a fine sheen of sweat dampening her body. Tiny droplets of blood beaded on her forehead and trickled down her body.

  “Childbirth better not be this hard,” she whispered. “Or you’re doing it.”

  He forced a smile. His mouth felt stiff. Even his jaw hurt. He kissed her hand, afraid of touching anything else. “That’s a deal. I’m sending you to sleep now. It’s safe. I’ll be with you every moment.”

  As will I, the Old One assured.

  I’m holding you in my arms, Annabel whispered.

  You are safe, the female voices added.

  “I love you, Dax,” she whispered. “Thank you, Old One. You’ve given me a great gift.” She managed a small smile. Incredibly, her eyes were lit up with love when she looked at him. “I’m tired.”

  For a moment, his throat was so clogged he could barely speak. He swallowed the lump. “When you wake, you’ll be fully in my world.”

  Dax curled his body around Riley’s as he sent her into a deep sleep, his arms wrapped tight around her as the rich, healing soil poured over them. The safeguards were in place, and the Old One was on the watch. Mitro was dead and Arabejila could be at peace. He buried his face in the wealth of blue-black silk and inhaled her scent one last time before he succumbed to the sleep of his people. Life was good.

  APPENDIX 1

  Carpathian Healing Chants

  To rightly understand Carpathian healing chants, background is required in several areas:

  1. The Carpathian view on healing

  2. The Lesser Healing Chant of the Carpathians

  3. The Great Healing Chant of the Carpathians

  4. Carpathian musical aesthetics

  5. Lullaby

  6. Song to Heal the Earth

  7. Carpathian chanting technique

  1. THE CARPATHIAN VIEW ON HEALING

  The Carpathians are a nomadic people whose geographic origins can be traced back to at least as far as the Southern Ural Mountains (near the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan), on the border between Europe and Asia. (For this reason, modern-day linguists call their language “proto-Uralic,” without knowing that this is the language of the Carpathians.) Unlike most nomadic peoples, the wandering of the Carpathians was not due to the need to find new grazing lands as the seasons and climate shifted, or the search for better trade. Instead, the Carpathians’ movements were driven by a great purpose: to find a land that would have the right earth, a soil with the kind of richness that would greatly enhance their rejuvenative powers.

  Over the centuries, they migrated westward (some six thousand years ago), until they at last found their perfect homeland—their susu—in the Carpathian Mountains, whose long arc cradled the lush plains of the kingdom of Hungary. (The kingdom of Hungary flourished for over a millennium—making Hungarian the dominant language of the Carpathian Basin—until the kingdom’s lands were split among several countries after World War I: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and modern Hungary.)

  Other peoples from the Southern Urals (who shared the Carpathian language, but were not Carpathians) migrated in different directions. Some ended up in Finland, which accounts for why the modern Hungarian and Finnish languages are among the contemporary descendents of the ancient Carpathian language. Even though they are tied forever to their chosen Carpathian homeland, the wandering of the Carpathians continues as they search the world for the answers that will enable them to bear and raise their offspring without difficulty.

  Because of their geographic origins, the Carpathian views on healing share much with the larger Eurasian shamanistic tradition. Probably the closest modern representative of that tradition is based in Tuva (and is referred to as “Tuvinian Shamanism”)—see the map on the previous page.

  The Eurasian shamanistic tradition—from the Carpathians to the Siberian shamans—held that illness originated in the human soul, and only later manifested as various physical conditions. Therefore, shamanistic healing, while not neglecting the body, focused on the soul and its healing. The most profound illnesses were understood to be caused by “soul departure,” where all or some part of the sick person’s soul has wandered away from the body (into the nether realms), or has been captured or possessed by an evil spirit, or both.

  The Carpathians belong to this greater Eurasian shamanistic tradition and share its viewpoints. While the Carpathians themselves did not succumb to illness, Carpathian healers understood that the most profound wounds were also accompanied by a similar “soul departure.”

  Upon reaching the diagnosis of “soul departure,” the healer-shaman is then required to make a spiritual journey into the netherworlds to recover the soul. The shaman may have to overcome tremendous challenges along the way, particularly fighting the demon or vampire who has possessed his friend’s soul.

  “Soul departure” doesn’t require a person to be unconscious (although that certainly can be the case as well). It was understood that a person could still appear to be conscious, even talk and interact with others, and yet be missing a part of their soul. The experienced healer or shaman would instantly see the problem nonetheless, in subtle signs that others might miss: the person’s attention wandering every now and then, a lessening in their enthusiasm about life, chronic depression, a diminishment in the brightness of their “aura,” and the like.

  2. THE LESSER HEALING CHANT OF THE CARPATHIANS

  Kepä Sarna Pus (The Lesser Healing Chant) is used for wounds that are merely physical in nature. The Carpathian healer leaves his body and enters the wounded Carpathian’s body to heal great mortal wounds from the inside out using pure energy. He proclaims, “I offer freely my life for your life,” as he gives his blood to the injured Carpathian. Because the Carpathians are of the earth and bound to the soil, they are healed by the soil of their homeland. Their saliva is also often used for its rejuvenative powers.

  It is also very common for the Carpathian chants (both the Lesser and the Great) to be accompanied by the use of healing herbs, aromas from Carpathian candles and crystals. The crystals (when combined with the Carpathians’ empathic, psychic connection to the entire universe) are used to gather positive energy from their surroundings, which then is used to accelerate the healing. Caves are sometimes used as the setting for the healing.

  The Lesser Healing Chant was used by Vikirnoff Von Shrieder and Colby Jansen to heal Rafael De La Cruz, whose heart had been ripped out by a vampire as described in Dark Secret.

  Kepä Sarna Pus (The Lesser Healing Chant)

  The same chant is used for all physical wounds. “Sívadaba” [“into your heart”] would be changed to refer to whatever part of the body is wounded.

  Ku´nasz, nélkül sivdobbanás, nélkül fesztelen löyly.

  You lie as if asleep, without beat of heart, without airy breath.

  Ot élidamet andam szabadon élidadért.

  I offer freely my life for your life.

  O jelä sielam jrem ot ainamet és soηe ot élidadet.

  My spirit of light forgets my body and enters your b
ody.

  O jelä sielam pukta kinn minden szelemeket bels.

  My spirit of light sends all the dark spirits within fleeing without.

  Pajak o susu hanyet és o nyelv nyálamet sívadaba.

  I press the earth of our homeland and the spit of my tongue into your heart.

  Vii, o verim soe o verid andam.

  At last, I give you my blood for your blood.

  To hear this chant, visit: http://www.christinefeehan.com/members/.

  3. THE GREAT HEALING CHANT OF THE CARPATHIANS

  The most well-known—and most dramatic—of the Carpathian healing chants was En Sarna Pus (The Great Healing Chant). This chant was reserved for recovering the wounded or unconscious Carpathian’s soul.

  Typically a group of men would form a circle around the sick Carpathian (to “encircle him with our care and compassion”) and begin the chant. The shaman or healer or leader is the prime actor in this healing ceremony. It is he who will actually make the spiritual journey into the netherworld, aided by his clanspeople. Their purpose is to ecstatically dance, sing, drum and chant, all the while visualizing (through the words of the chant) the journey itself—every step of it, over and over again—to the point where the shaman, in trance, leaves his body, and makes that very journey. (Indeed, the word “ecstasy” is from the Latin ex statis, which literally means “out of the body.”)

  One advantage that the Carpathian healer has over many other shamans is his telepathic link to his lost brother. Most shamans must wander in the dark of the nether realms in search of their lost brother. But the Carpathian healer directly “hears” in his mind the voice of his lost brother calling to him, and can thus “zero in” on his soul like a homing beacon. For this reason, Carpathian healing tends to have a higher success rate than most other traditions of this sort.

  Something of the geography of the “other world” is useful for us to examine, in order to fully understand the words of the Great Carpathian Healing Chant. A reference is made to the “Great Tree” (in Carpathian: En Puwe). Many ancient traditions, including the Carpathian tradition, understood the worlds—the heaven worlds, our world and the nether realms—to be “hung” upon a great pole, or axis, or tree. Here on earth, we are positioned halfway up this tree, on one of its branches. Hence many ancient texts often referred to the material world as “middle earth”: midway between heaven and hell. Climbing the tree would lead one to the heaven worlds. Descending the tree to its roots would lead to the nether realms. The shaman was necessarily a master of movement up and down the Great Tree, sometimes moving unaided, and sometimes assisted by (or even mounted upon the back of ) an animal spirit guide. In various traditions, this Great Tree was known variously as the axis mundi (the “axis of the worlds”), Ygddrasil (in Norse mythology), Mount Meru (the sacred world mountain of Tibetan tradition), etc. The Christian cosmos, with its heaven, purgatory/earth and hell, is also worth comparing. It is even given a similar topography in Dante’s Divine Comedy: Dante is led on a journey first to hell, at the center of the earth; then upward to Mount Purgatory, which sits on the earth’s surface directly opposite Jerusalem; then farther upward first to Eden, the earthly paradise, at the summit of Mount Purgatory; and then upward at last to heaven.

  In the shamanistic tradition, it was understood that the small always reflects the large; the personal always reflects the cosmic. A movement in the greater dimensions of the cosmos also coincides with an internal movement. For example, the axis mundi of the cosmos also corresponds to the spinal column of the individual. Journeys up and down the axis mundi often coincided with the movement of natural and spiritual energies (sometimes called kundalini or shakti) in the spinal column of the shaman or mystic.

  En Sarna Pus (The Great Healing Chant)

  In this chant, ekä (“brother”) would be replaced by “sister,” “father,” “mother,” depending on the person to be healed.

  Ot ekäm ainajanak hany, jama.

  My brother’s body is a lump of earth, close to death.

  Me, ot ekäm kuntajanak, pirädak ekäm, gond és irgalom türe.

  We, the clan of my brother, encircle him with our care and compassion.

  O pus wäkenkek, ot oma arnank, és ot pus fünk, álnak ekäm ainajanak, pitänak ekäm ainajanak elävä.

  Our healing energies, ancient words of magic and healing herbs bless my brother’s body, keep it alive.

  Ot ekäm sielanak pälä. Ot omboe päläja juta alatt o jüti, kinta, és szelemek lamtijaknak.

  But my brother’s soul is only half. His other half wanders in the nether-world.

  Ot en mekem ama: kulkedak otti ot ekäm ombo´ce päläjanak.

  My great deed is this: I travel to find my brother’s other half.

  Rekatüre, saradak, tappadak, odam, kaa o numa waram, és avaa owe o lewl mahoz.

  We dance, we chant, we dream ecstatically, to call my spirit bird, and to open the door to the other world.

  Ntak o numa waram, és mozdulak, jomadak.

  I mount my spirit bird and we begin to move, we are under way.

  Piwtädak ot En Puwe tyvinak, eidak alatt o jüti, kinta, és szelemek lamtijaknak.

  Following the trunk of the Great Tree, we fall into the netherworld.

  Fázak, fázak nó o ´saro.

  It is cold, very cold.

  Juttadak ot ekäm o akarataban, o sívaban és o sielaban.

  My brother and I are linked in mind, heart and soul.

  Ot ekäm sielanak kaηa engem.

  My brother’s soul calls to me.

  Kuledak és piwtädak ot ekäm.

  I hear and follow his track.

  Saγedak és tuledak ot ekäm kulyanak.

  Encounter I the demon who is devouring my brother’s soul.

  Nenäm oro, o kuly torodak.

  In anger, I fight the demon.

  O kuly pél engem.

  He is afraid of me.

  Lejkkadak o kaka salamaval.

  I strike his throat with a lightning bolt.

  Molodak ot ainaja komakamal.

  I break his body with my bare hands.

  Toja és molanâ.

  He is bent over, and falls apart.

  Hän aδa.

  He runs away.

  Manedak ot ekäm sielanak.

  I rescue my brother’s soul.

  Al∂dak ot ekam sielanak o komamban.

  I lift my brother’s soul in the hollow of my hand.

  Al∂dam ot ekam numa waramra.

  I lift him onto my spirit bird.

  Piwtädak ot En Puwe tyvijanak és saγedak jälleen ot elävä ainak majaknak.

  Following up the Great Tree, we return to the land of the living.

  Ot ekäm elä jälleen.

  My brother lives again.

  Ot ekäm we´na jälleen.

  He is complete again.

  To hear this chant, visit: http://www.christinefeehan.com/members/.

  4. CARPATHIAN MUSICAL AESTHETICS

  In the sung Carpathian pieces (such as the “Lullaby” and the “Song to Heal the Earth”), you’ll hear elements that are shared by many of the musical traditions in the Uralic geographical region, some of which still exist—from Eastern European (Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, Croatian, etc.) to Romany (“gypsy”). Some of these elements include:

  the rapid alternation between major and minor modalities, including a sudden switch (called a “Picardy third”) from minor to major to end a piece or section (as at the end of the “Lullaby”)

  the use of close (tight) harmonies

  the use of ritardi (slowing down the piece) and crescendi (swelling in volume) for brief periods

  the use of glissandi (slides) in the singing tradition

  the use of trills in the singing tradition (as in the final invocation of the “Song to Heal the Earth”)—similar to Celtic, a singing tradition more familiar to many of us

  the use of parallel fifths (as in the final invocation of the “Song to Heal the Earth”)

  controlled u
se of dissonance

  “call and response” chanting (typical of many of the world’s chanting traditions)

  extending the length of a musical line (by adding a couple of bars) to heighten dramatic effect

  and many more

  “Lullaby” and “Song to Heal the Earth” illustrate two rather different forms of Carpathian music (a quiet, intimate piece and an energetic ensemble piece)—but whatever the form, Carpathian music is full of feeling.

  5. LULLABY

  This song is sung by women while the child is still in the womb or when the threat of a miscarriage is apparent. The baby can hear the song while inside the mother, and the mother can connect with the child telepathically as well. The lullaby is meant to reassure the child, to encourage the baby to hold on, to stay—to reassure the child that he or she will be protected by love even from inside until birth. The last line literally means that the mother’s love will protect her child until the child is born (“rise”).

  Musically, the Carpathian “Lullaby” is in three-quarter time (“waltz time”), as are a significant portion of the world’s various traditional lullabies (perhaps the most famous of which is “Brahms’ Lullaby”). The arrangement for solo voice is the original context: a mother singing to her child, unaccompanied. The arrangement for chorus and violin ensemble illustrates how musical even the simplest Carpathian pieces often are, and how easily they lend themselves to contemporary instrumental or orchestral arrangements. (A wide range of contemporary composers, including Dvořák and Smetana, have taken advantage of a similar discovery, working other traditional Eastern European music into their symphonic poems.)

  Odam-Sarna Kondak (Lullaby)

  Tumtesz o wäke ku pitasz bels.

  Feel the strength you hold inside.

  Hiszasz sívadet. Én olenam gæidnod.