Jaruna helps me to my feet. We leave Kiddu behind and carefully make our way outside. In the dim yellow light from Ayan’s stone I can make out Kripa and Hatvan flanking the tent entrance.
“Lord Jaruna,” says Kripa. “Where—”
“Just taking the prisoner for a walk,” the mystic says. “Do not worry. Unless you think this one can trouble a mujashatriya? Or that he would try to run off into the desert by himself?”
Krips silently steps back to his post.
Ahead, the desert stretches out endless, a sea of undulating black only a few shades darker than the star-sprinkled sky.
In Libri, there are always lit-lamps or torchlights somewhere glowing in the night. But out here, the night is total, all-enveloping, a tangible solid presence.
Cold wind washes over me and for a moment it’s like swimming in a black abyss. But Ayan’s glowing stone brings me back to the solid earth. It carves out an oval-shaped swath of light on the sloped ground, the sole color in the world.
We trudge up a sand dune and behind us I can faintly see a tent city spread out in a valley. Dozens of tents, gray in dim starlight, a few lit from within by the same weird yellow light in Ayan’s hands.
“Whoa.”
Not sure why, but all the sudden I feel happy. Wondrously happy.
Jaruna is right. The stars are beautiful. I’ve never seen them so clearly before. Lines and patterns etched in the sky. Vague forms of light beckoning to me with spindly glowing hands and tentacles. The Vanished Gods, all collected up there by Yanu after the primordial war. I understand now where that legend comes from. It’s probably true!
I stop walking and just stare up at it all.
“Ah ha ha! Gil, you like the soma, yes?”
“Wh-what?”
“One sip!” Jaruna says. “Perhaps we had better sit down here.”
Ayan seems frustrated at the suggestion but she acquiesces. The three of us sit against the slope of a cool dune.
I’m glad to lie on my back. Easier to gaze at the stars this way.
The pain is gone now. But my mind seems to swim in my head, sloshing against the sides of my skull. Time flows differently. Each moment bobs back and forth like something floating on a wave.
This makes it hard to concentrate on what Jaruna is telling me about the soma.
“So as I was saying,” he says, taking another swig from his flask—his third. “It is said that when the Gods finished creating the sky and the earth, they planted a garden in Dilmun, where Asham rose each day from the Underworld. Eyenki’s essence watered the garden, and Asham caused the holy trees to grow there. But the Gods had no one to tend the garden. And so Asham took clay from the ground, wet it in Eyenki’s waters, molded it into the forms and shapes of humankind, and baked the clay in his holy light.”
“So it is said that humans have an innate knowledge of Asham’s will,” Ayan says. “Asham’s essence is burnt into our very bodies.”
“What does this have to do with soma?” I ask.
“I am getting there!” Jaruna says. “And so, it is said that Asham commanded his creations to tend to the garden of Dilmun, and to gather the fruit that grew on the holy trees. And the Gods took this holy fruit and they mashed it, and fermented it, and made a holy drink from it—the True Soma. This, the Gods drank, but to humankind the True Soma was forbidden, and even the holy fruit from which it was made was forbidden to eat.
”Now, it is said that around the base of the holy trees grew a certain fragrant mushroom. And while the fruit of the trees was forbidden, the mushrooms were not forbidden. And so, some among the humans took the mushrooms and fermented them, making a strong drink—the very soma which I have given you this night!”
“No way!” I say.
“It is true. So it is said that even after humans were expelled from the garden of Dilmun, some of the people from the garden brought with them the mushrooms of the holy trees, and maintained the art of fermenting soma from them—a soma that, while incomparable to the True Soma, nevertheless gives one the power to perceive the divine patterns that run like currents through reality.”
I nod enthusiastically. I’ve never seen so many divine patterns in my life. I should have taken up Kiddu on her offer when she got her hands on some back at the Temple.
The mystic takes another swig from the flask and sighs. He lays his head down against the sloped dune, taking in the stars.
“Only the mujashatriya are supposed to use the soma today,” he says. “But sometimes I like to think about those first humans in the garden of Dilmun. Can you imagine it? Drinking the soma together, before there was war, or death, or suffering, or duty—only laying together in the garden, watching the splendor of the Gods who walked among them. And now, we can only see the Gods through the veil of the sky. In the garden, we were as one people. And now, so much separates us … it makes me sad.”
Now I feel sad too. I’d been so calm and contented. Now I look up at the stars and they look cold and distant. The shapes of dead Gods.
“I remember, brother, when you were a child,” Ayan says. “You would always pray to Asham to make the world go back to the way it was in the garden.”
“It is true,” Jaruna says. “But I was a child.”
“But wait,” I say. “Aren’t things actually getting better now? Me and Kiddu are coming to Harrappa with you guys. That has to count for something, right?”
I’m not positive but I think Ayan laughs.
Even more surprising, Jaruna sits up and tousles my short hair. A brotherly expression, I guess, but I nevertheless flinch away. The only other person to ever do that to me was Kiddu.
“Truly, Gil,” he says. “We should drink the soma together more often.”
“Brother, I am not sure that is a good idea.”
She says this in a weird tone. Probably she doesn’t want me to embarrass myself anymore.
“Can Kiddu do it with us next time?” I ask.
“Her?” Jaruna says. “No.”
“Why not!” I say. “You let me drink it!”
Jaruna opens his mouth to speak but Ayan beats him to it.
“Gil, please understand. There is much you have to learn about the True Path. There is also, I believe, much you have to learn about yourself.”
“Huh?”
She sits crosslegged, glowing faintly in the light of her stone. Her eyes are shaded but she is staring right at me.
“There is something important I need to tell you,” she finally says.
“What?”
“I told my brother about your dreams.”
“WHAT?”
I stand up and then almost fall down the dune from ensuing dizziness.
“I told you that in CONFIDENCE!”
“Upon my honor,” Jaruna says, “your secret is safe with me! Ayan only told me because—because I needed to understand why she wanted to bring you along with us.”
“And why is that?” I say. “Well? You still haven’t told me why!”
The mystic and his sister look at each other for a moment.
“Gil,” Ayan says, “what exactly do you know of the True Path?”
A high wind whistles down the dune. Sand blows across my face. I shiver and pull my robe tight.
“That’s like the natives’ religion, right? So … I guess it’s your religion too?”
“The True Path is much more than a mere religion,” Ayan says. “You Akkadians see religion as something separate from your daily lives. But the True Path is a way of life in its entirety. It is all or nothing. Keep it, and you will gain the grace of Asham. Stray from it, and you will call down his wrath.”
“So what does that have to do with my dreams?”
“You are not the only one to have visions of the Underworld,” Jaruna says. “The mujashatriya also dream of Apsuka Mayaka.”
“The mystics?” I say. “Wait. What? You have the same dreams as me?”
Jaruna laughs. “Not me personally. There are only legends.”
“It is said that Ramuhad, the greatest of the mujashatriya and the founder of Harrappa, dreamed vividly of Apsuka Mayaka. Others, too, have reported seeing glimpses of the world below during their meditations. But only the mujashatriya—only the ones chosen by Asham—have such visions. Do you realize what this means, Gil?”
I just stare at her.
Maybe it’s the soma but I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Gil,” Ayan says. “I believe that Asham has chosen you. I believe he is trying to commune with you in your dreams, just as he has communed with the mujashatriya throughout history. I believe you, Gil, are one of the mujashatriya.”