Wolf Awert - The Reign of Magic

“All of you know this one last bubble. It is the sky above us. Sun, moon and stars are the last shimmer of the Light, and where there is none the darkness reigns. Light and dark made shapes and forms, and shapes and forms are the other side of the Nothing. So began the world.”

Grimala rose to her feet.

“And so, also, the magic of the Oas came into being. The sky above us, the earth below and all around us. And we are in the middle. We are the bridge between the world we live in and the sky we were made in. But only we Oas have kept this knowledge.”

At this, alarm became etched on the mothers’ faces, for this last sentence was not part of the legend, but a warning. But why had Grimala given it?

Tiriwi slept badly that night, but the rising sun of the new day dismissed all murky thoughts. Tiriwi hurried to the forest’s edge and made a rope out of climbers, knotting a loop at the bottom of it, just big enough for her foot. She tossed the other end of it over a branch, tied it as tightly as she could, and so she could swing back and forth with one foot in the loop. Tiriwi would swing all day if she was left alone. The calming, soothing back and forth was what she loved about it. She could also stand on the spot for hours on end, doing nothing but balancing back and forwards on her legs. “It makes me healthy,” she would say. “Don’t talk nonsense, you aren’t ill,” one of the mothers would usually interrupt. It was not that Tiriwi felt ill. She just felt that swinging kept her healthy when she was not ill.

Grimala would always say: “Leave her be. She will stop swinging when she grows up.” Perhaps Grimala was right, but on the day Tiriwi’s small world was threatened she had not grown up yet, and had no intention of doing so. And so she swung. With one ear she listened to the creaking branch, stretching and bending under her weight, with the other she listened to the sudden calls and shouts over by the huts. She looked over to the commotion and had an inkling of what had happened. “Tiriwi, quick, a man!”

Tiriwi merely thought: So what? She had seen a few men, and the appeal of novelty had since evaporated. One man was not worth the excitement. “This has got to be the third one already,” she sighed. Barely a moon cycle went by without some man coming here, who sat in their midst, then retreated to the common house and was served by all the women. Well, almost all women. The mothers with small children usually stayed at home. The first man Tiriwi had seen had moved in with her favorite mother after only a few short days. She had had no more time nor interest left for Tiriwi. She could have easily lived somewhere else, but she did not consider it at all. She had a right to decide where she wanted to sleep. The man had just laughed and said: “Well then it looks like I’ve got two women.” Tiriwi had not been amused at all.

Her mother would rather have had her sleep elsewhere, but no mother made a child leave home. Tiriwi was indignant, but she did not leave the house for it. Oh, what jealousy she had felt then.

The jealousy had calmed down. But still, in her mind men were an annoyance, muddling up the peace and harmony of her village. What did you even need a man for? They just stopped you from doing all the important things. Well... swinging perhaps was not one of them. Her curiosity had got the better of her and she went to see the newcomer.

Grimala had given him food and drink. The man sat in the shadow cast by the common house and told stories. A large amount of women had already gathered around him. The first stories were new ones, and new stories were a rarity. Maybe he would tell something about spirits. That would have interested Tiriwi, but men seldom spoke about spirits. He would be brought down to the river later and washed. That was always a lot of fun, and in the end everyone was completely wet. Tiriwi kept her distance. Bathing the man was a woman’s right, not a girl’s, but there were men who did not want to be bathed. They preferred to stay alone. The older they were, the less they craved company. She had found out that much already. But this man was young, he spoke loudly, laughed loudly and tried to converse with all the women at the same time. Tiriwi pulled a face. This one had no manners at all.

The long, reddish-brown hair hung halfway down his back in matted locks. His torso was lean, bare and tanned brown. He wore half-length leather breeches on his hips and gaiters around his shanks, the dense fur of which he had turned to the outside. She liked doing this with her own gaiters when she wandered around in the meadows beyond the forest. Many sticky seeds, barbed seeds, pollen from flowers and leaves from the Sosawort would get caught in the fur. After about three hours of marching there would be an entire meal stuck to them; one just had to comb it off and cook it with some water. Indeed, life was simple in summer.

The most remarkable thing about this man’s appearance was his eyes. They were very light and Tiriwi thought she could see right through them. The man looked at her and said with a smile: “Hello, lovely.”

No , she thought loudly, turned around and ran back to the forest’s edge. She did not see the man grasping his head with his hands and his face contorted with pain.

That evening Grimala called Tiriwi over to her.

“What you did today was very ill-mannered. Our guest was very shocked.”

Tiriwi was quite adept in making an innocent face, but this time she felt no guilt whatsoever. How rude could it be to run away from something one did not like? She wondered where he had gone.

“I sent him away,” Grimala said.

Tiriwi nodded, relieved.

“Well, that’s all. You may go.”

Tiriwi stood up, went a few steps and then stopped, hesitant. She turned around slowly and said: “You never said a word, and still I heard you, right?”

“I used the thought-language. You seem to know it too, although you are rather young for it.”

From then on Grimala taught Tiriwi about, and in, the thought-language. Just in passing she also learned all the important legends of the Oas which had so far been kept from her.

“Perhaps you can take my spot by the fire someday. Would you like to tell a story tonight?”

Tiriwi shook her head and thought a very clear No .

“Keep it down,” Grimala scolded her. “You must learn to think quietly. You have the strength, but you don’t have to run around all day screaming either. Come back to me tomorrow when the sun has passed its apex.”

When Tiriwi returned the next day she found Grimala in company. On the floor next to her sat a man. She recognized him immediately by his reddish-brown, matted hair. But from this proximity she also saw the many small nicks on his skin. He was not as young as she had thought. Tiriwi had never witnessed a man being allowed to enter Grimala’s house. It must have happened secretly. Tiriwi looked to the ground modestly, while at the same time spying out of the corner of her eyes as curiously and inconspicuously as only young girls can.

“This is Kelim-Ozz-Han. He is the son of Dakh-Ozz-Han and an old friend of mine.”

Tiriwi bowed politely. The name Dakh-Ozz-Han was well-known to the Oas. He was a druid like most of the men that came to visit, and he must have done the Oas a great favor once. But her hopes of finding out something about this mysterious man were dashed. Grimala merely said: “Kelim will teach you the basic magic of the five elements.”

Tiriwi flinched. The elemental magic was not of the Oas, but of the hated mages. As much as Tiriwi had enjoyed the thought-language, she was sure that she did not want the slightest to do with elemental magic.

But Kelim taught her more than the secrets of the elements. He let her explore her own body, opened her palms and soles and let her feel the pounding in her veins. Tiriwi learned to understand the calm beat of her body and then the rhythms of nature.