| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
.
| Written by Berrien C. Henderson / Artwork by Lee Kurugani |
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| Autumn Caravans |
Tasha Kovnika had been searching for a place to die.
She was a geomancer, divining and manipulating the powers of the earth and bound to the land. Tasha acutely felt the need
to take her final rest where the land would welcome her life-force. She and her kind had been duty-bound to maintain the
integrity of the earth’s ley lines. They were the ones who coaxed the rains to end droughts; she knew a man, once, who
had rescued seven rivers from a dragon in the East, near faraway Cathay. Of course, there was a time and a place to use
her geomancy, but Tasha had been known to reduce the blight on farmers’ crops or stay a flood or two. Floods were the
worst, taking a lot out of her.
Walking down an old trade road, she remembered the words of her master. Thoughts swirled lazily like flotsam in the
eddies of her thoughts. We must tend the garden of this world, no matter the cost to ourselves, even, Tasha, unto the death
of ourselves, Joppa ben Joswani had said. This is the guiding, foremost tenet of the Art and the Way.
Joppa ben Joswani had always maintained that geomancers must harvest residual power (and sometimes more than that)
from a generous land in order to distribute that energy where it might be needed most. Consequently, the death of a
geomancer became a delicate matter. In the moment of transition from life to death, all the energy a geomancer had plied
during the course of a lifetime would bleed from ethereal wounds back into the earth.
That was the Law of geomancy.
Tasha was among the last of the practicing earth-mages. Other so-called geomancers were dabblers who pursed maging
more as an affectation than a lifestyle. Trying to keep tradition alive, Tasha had sought apprentices. This task had not been
easy. Indeed, Tasha had brought dozens of pupils under her tutelage, but here at the end of the days of maging, the
number of willing, devoted students dwindled. She had even seduced some she thought would be worthy students of the
Art and the Way, and although those young men had almost all been apt lovers, too many were much, much less worthy
to possess arcane earth lore.
When the new gods came—-wearing the guise of logic, not magic—the study of science and the rise of more reasoning
minds had undercut the discipleship of the guild of mages. Experimentation held more sway than incantation.
So came the quietus of the speakers of spells.
Tasha wandered and wove spells in a world where people had forsaken the beauty of the old ways. Poetry dwelled in an
incantation, which proved as intricate as the mathematics she had studied and found enlightening, but not useful to her
chosen lifestyle. Tasha too keenly knew all things have their place, and all things have their end. The new poetry of the
world lay in the sciences, which had so cruelly proven that magic existed but was no longer necessary.
She shook her head as she considered how much the world had changed in the three centuries she had been alive. She
didn’t know how much more it would change—she had guesses the world would forget magic eventually. She had
devoted her life to curbing such a fate, but the crusade would come to an end tonight.
Cresting a hill, Tasha approached her dying ground.
Below her lay the pastureland of Dor el Arad, where the land once breathed. Beasts had wandered from the bordering
forest and grazed and slept in these fields. There had been birdsong, but no more.
Springtime had brought the nobles, who had struck pavilions for feast and revelry. Bodies danced naked in the sun and at
night danced different dances. The nobles had come with their free-flowing wine and freer ways and hungry courtesans.
In the spring, it was said, the old gods sometimes woke from their slumbers and enjoyed walking these fields. Some had
lain with mortals in the twilight.
The merchant caravans of the East had come every autumn, the merchant princes sowing their bazaars in Dor el Arad.
Gypsy wenches whirled moth-like around musical flames fed by mandolins, zithers, and drums. Tiny cymbals on the
thumbs and forefingers of the dancers had sounded brazen notes for their steps. Tasha well remembered the onlookers’
hoots and the dancers’ gyrations, which presaged the secret pleasures of those autumn nights.
At Dor el Arad, Joppa ben Joswani had found her and fallen in love with her, then over the years taught her the Art and the
Way of geomancy. He had persuaded her to leave the caravans and shown her the secrets of the earth and more.
Tasha hurried down the hill and recalled how the hinterland folk had trickled out to see strange magics, to taste foods
whose names halted near the tips of their tongues. Occasionally, el-spendhas dared to partake of the trading and the
festivities. Such an oddity had been a welcome sight to everyone because in the autumn the fellowship with the First Ones
had become as anticipated an event as the arrival of the eastern merchants. In those days the golden age of the el-spendhas
had long since passed. Now Tasha could sympathize with the few First Ones left, mere vestiges of a nation haunted by
memories of empire. They had challenged the old gods and found favor to rule alongside them. They had disdained the
new gods of enlightenment and science and been found wanting.
Yearlong the fields of Dor el Arad were brown and sere. Not even the spring rains could coax tender green shoots from
the ground. Trees still stood, forlorn and bereft of leaf and bark as if the last winter they had seen had blighted them
forever. No one came here for pleasure anymore. Even travelers skirted these dead fields.
It had been generations since Tasha had passed this way, walked the fields of Dor el Arad, and it had been news of the
pastureland’s death that called her back to the place where she had danced so long ago and which had drawn so many folk
into its bosom. That had been why so many came—not because of the emerald green sweep of land with its mild air and
constantly blowing wind, but rather because all who had come to Dor el Arad intuitively heeded the summons of powers
fluxing within the soil. Now that power was cut off, stanched prematurely as sometimes happens when the ley lines
become unattuned to the rhythm of the earth’s heart.
Tasha knelt for a moment and touched her palms to the ground. Her lips tightened against themselves. Disappointment that
this could occur? Surety that the earth had rotted within itself? Joppa ben Joswani had taught her that even dying earth
whispered for the cycle of the seasons.
Tasha heard nothing.
The westering sun touched the clouds’ underbellies with magenta and fringed the edges with flame-hungry orange. My
seasons have come around, Tasha thought as she watched the sunset. Time for the circle of my life to clasp itself here.
She sat and watched the sun drift down like vermilion gold to the horizon. Twilight began creeping like a leopard after
prey. The light lingered a moment longer than it should have, and Tasha saw movement along the forest’s distant treeline.
An el-spendhas hunter ventured out of the woods. Seeing Tasha with his owl eyes—pausing even to sniff the air—he
waved his bow at her. Lifting her hand in reply, she watched him drift into the great shadows waiting for him in the
forest. A refugee from old, forgotten causes. She would miss these moments.
With sundown came moonrise, and something within Tasha spoke to her—a whisper she welcomed more than obeyed.
She had prepared for this moment for more than three hundred years. She slipped out of her cloak and began taking off
her blouse and leggings. The moon traced a silver finger of light down her bare back and legs as she bent to fold her
clothing.
Tasha had waylaid the siege of time against her body.
She was a vision of youth, still with coltish legs. The rest of her honed sharp and tempered firm by travel and hard work
and not a little manipulation of the Art and the Way. She had always prided herself on the dancer’s body that had so
charmed Joppa ben Joswani. In Dor el Arad, where she had danced while traveling with the merchant caravans of the
East, in the place where she had come to die, Tasha Kovnika danced again.
Each step was measured out like elixir given to a dying man. Her arms were snakes that twined about each other and
swayed in sinuous rhythm to a music only Tasha heard. The toss of her head and the roll of her belly and hips completed
the wave that was her body, undulating across the great fields of Dor el Arad. Only her paced breathing and the occasional
clap of her hands interrupted the still concentration of the night. The moon, silent and patient, watched in earnest as a
familiar child danced on gypsy feet with gypsy heart and thoughts.
The shift was subtle but palpable. By degrees Tasha slowed her dance. An owl landed in one of the dead trees and
screeched twice before taking flight across the face of the moon. In the dreaming of the night, the hours slowed,
straggling behind the rest of time. Tasha’s body gleamed silver-blue in the moonlight as a sheen of sweat coated her. The
wind made her shiver. She reached within herself while spinning around a fallen tree and bridged the gulf between thought,
deed, and existence. Wordlessly, her mouth began to move, and she danced on, weaving the tapestry of the Art and the
Way into the earth of Dor el Arad.
Tiny bursts of light issued at her feet. Sometimes blue, then green, a bit of gold. She began filling the ground with the
energy it needed to revive, and each incantation brought more than flashes of light. The night air thrummed with the Art
and the Way, much in the manner a thunderhead will be charged with lightning waiting for release.
Tasha’s dance continued to slow as she bled the ether of geomancy and let go of her life with each step. Tendrils of mage
fog pulsed from her fingers and eyes and navel to reach across the fields and brush the dead trees and caress the broken
ground before penetrating the soil. Three centuries of lore left Tasha Kovnika, who smiled despite the inevitable knowledge
her weakening steps brought. Audibly, the earth groaned as if waking from a long sleep.
Tasha wrapped her arms around herself as if trying and failing to embrace the night.
“Receive me,” she said.
The earth whispered, heavy in its sleep.
“Please.”
It acquiesced. A spider web of spectral blue light burst from Tasha and crackled and hummed along the ground. She
became a bridge, and the long-disrupted ley line rejuvenated.
Tasha collapsed, falling on her back and her arms thrown wide. The light filling her eyes began fading. In the moonlight
flowers bloomed early, and the earth sighed for Tasha a last breath. Before her vision gave way to darkness, she thought
of the merchant caravans and smiled.
Autumn was not far away.
She was a geomancer, divining and manipulating the powers of the earth and bound to the land. Tasha acutely felt the need
to take her final rest where the land would welcome her life-force. She and her kind had been duty-bound to maintain the
integrity of the earth’s ley lines. They were the ones who coaxed the rains to end droughts; she knew a man, once, who
had rescued seven rivers from a dragon in the East, near faraway Cathay. Of course, there was a time and a place to use
her geomancy, but Tasha had been known to reduce the blight on farmers’ crops or stay a flood or two. Floods were the
worst, taking a lot out of her.
Walking down an old trade road, she remembered the words of her master. Thoughts swirled lazily like flotsam in the
eddies of her thoughts. We must tend the garden of this world, no matter the cost to ourselves, even, Tasha, unto the death
of ourselves, Joppa ben Joswani had said. This is the guiding, foremost tenet of the Art and the Way.
Joppa ben Joswani had always maintained that geomancers must harvest residual power (and sometimes more than that)
from a generous land in order to distribute that energy where it might be needed most. Consequently, the death of a
geomancer became a delicate matter. In the moment of transition from life to death, all the energy a geomancer had plied
during the course of a lifetime would bleed from ethereal wounds back into the earth.
That was the Law of geomancy.
Tasha was among the last of the practicing earth-mages. Other so-called geomancers were dabblers who pursed maging
more as an affectation than a lifestyle. Trying to keep tradition alive, Tasha had sought apprentices. This task had not been
easy. Indeed, Tasha had brought dozens of pupils under her tutelage, but here at the end of the days of maging, the
number of willing, devoted students dwindled. She had even seduced some she thought would be worthy students of the
Art and the Way, and although those young men had almost all been apt lovers, too many were much, much less worthy
to possess arcane earth lore.
When the new gods came—-wearing the guise of logic, not magic—the study of science and the rise of more reasoning
minds had undercut the discipleship of the guild of mages. Experimentation held more sway than incantation.
So came the quietus of the speakers of spells.
Tasha wandered and wove spells in a world where people had forsaken the beauty of the old ways. Poetry dwelled in an
incantation, which proved as intricate as the mathematics she had studied and found enlightening, but not useful to her
chosen lifestyle. Tasha too keenly knew all things have their place, and all things have their end. The new poetry of the
world lay in the sciences, which had so cruelly proven that magic existed but was no longer necessary.
She shook her head as she considered how much the world had changed in the three centuries she had been alive. She
didn’t know how much more it would change—she had guesses the world would forget magic eventually. She had
devoted her life to curbing such a fate, but the crusade would come to an end tonight.
Cresting a hill, Tasha approached her dying ground.
Below her lay the pastureland of Dor el Arad, where the land once breathed. Beasts had wandered from the bordering
forest and grazed and slept in these fields. There had been birdsong, but no more.
Springtime had brought the nobles, who had struck pavilions for feast and revelry. Bodies danced naked in the sun and at
night danced different dances. The nobles had come with their free-flowing wine and freer ways and hungry courtesans.
In the spring, it was said, the old gods sometimes woke from their slumbers and enjoyed walking these fields. Some had
lain with mortals in the twilight.
The merchant caravans of the East had come every autumn, the merchant princes sowing their bazaars in Dor el Arad.
Gypsy wenches whirled moth-like around musical flames fed by mandolins, zithers, and drums. Tiny cymbals on the
thumbs and forefingers of the dancers had sounded brazen notes for their steps. Tasha well remembered the onlookers’
hoots and the dancers’ gyrations, which presaged the secret pleasures of those autumn nights.
At Dor el Arad, Joppa ben Joswani had found her and fallen in love with her, then over the years taught her the Art and the
Way of geomancy. He had persuaded her to leave the caravans and shown her the secrets of the earth and more.
Tasha hurried down the hill and recalled how the hinterland folk had trickled out to see strange magics, to taste foods
whose names halted near the tips of their tongues. Occasionally, el-spendhas dared to partake of the trading and the
festivities. Such an oddity had been a welcome sight to everyone because in the autumn the fellowship with the First Ones
had become as anticipated an event as the arrival of the eastern merchants. In those days the golden age of the el-spendhas
had long since passed. Now Tasha could sympathize with the few First Ones left, mere vestiges of a nation haunted by
memories of empire. They had challenged the old gods and found favor to rule alongside them. They had disdained the
new gods of enlightenment and science and been found wanting.
Yearlong the fields of Dor el Arad were brown and sere. Not even the spring rains could coax tender green shoots from
the ground. Trees still stood, forlorn and bereft of leaf and bark as if the last winter they had seen had blighted them
forever. No one came here for pleasure anymore. Even travelers skirted these dead fields.
It had been generations since Tasha had passed this way, walked the fields of Dor el Arad, and it had been news of the
pastureland’s death that called her back to the place where she had danced so long ago and which had drawn so many folk
into its bosom. That had been why so many came—not because of the emerald green sweep of land with its mild air and
constantly blowing wind, but rather because all who had come to Dor el Arad intuitively heeded the summons of powers
fluxing within the soil. Now that power was cut off, stanched prematurely as sometimes happens when the ley lines
become unattuned to the rhythm of the earth’s heart.
Tasha knelt for a moment and touched her palms to the ground. Her lips tightened against themselves. Disappointment that
this could occur? Surety that the earth had rotted within itself? Joppa ben Joswani had taught her that even dying earth
whispered for the cycle of the seasons.
Tasha heard nothing.
The westering sun touched the clouds’ underbellies with magenta and fringed the edges with flame-hungry orange. My
seasons have come around, Tasha thought as she watched the sunset. Time for the circle of my life to clasp itself here.
She sat and watched the sun drift down like vermilion gold to the horizon. Twilight began creeping like a leopard after
prey. The light lingered a moment longer than it should have, and Tasha saw movement along the forest’s distant treeline.
An el-spendhas hunter ventured out of the woods. Seeing Tasha with his owl eyes—pausing even to sniff the air—he
waved his bow at her. Lifting her hand in reply, she watched him drift into the great shadows waiting for him in the
forest. A refugee from old, forgotten causes. She would miss these moments.
With sundown came moonrise, and something within Tasha spoke to her—a whisper she welcomed more than obeyed.
She had prepared for this moment for more than three hundred years. She slipped out of her cloak and began taking off
her blouse and leggings. The moon traced a silver finger of light down her bare back and legs as she bent to fold her
clothing.
Tasha had waylaid the siege of time against her body.
She was a vision of youth, still with coltish legs. The rest of her honed sharp and tempered firm by travel and hard work
and not a little manipulation of the Art and the Way. She had always prided herself on the dancer’s body that had so
charmed Joppa ben Joswani. In Dor el Arad, where she had danced while traveling with the merchant caravans of the
East, in the place where she had come to die, Tasha Kovnika danced again.
Each step was measured out like elixir given to a dying man. Her arms were snakes that twined about each other and
swayed in sinuous rhythm to a music only Tasha heard. The toss of her head and the roll of her belly and hips completed
the wave that was her body, undulating across the great fields of Dor el Arad. Only her paced breathing and the occasional
clap of her hands interrupted the still concentration of the night. The moon, silent and patient, watched in earnest as a
familiar child danced on gypsy feet with gypsy heart and thoughts.
The shift was subtle but palpable. By degrees Tasha slowed her dance. An owl landed in one of the dead trees and
screeched twice before taking flight across the face of the moon. In the dreaming of the night, the hours slowed,
straggling behind the rest of time. Tasha’s body gleamed silver-blue in the moonlight as a sheen of sweat coated her. The
wind made her shiver. She reached within herself while spinning around a fallen tree and bridged the gulf between thought,
deed, and existence. Wordlessly, her mouth began to move, and she danced on, weaving the tapestry of the Art and the
Way into the earth of Dor el Arad.
Tiny bursts of light issued at her feet. Sometimes blue, then green, a bit of gold. She began filling the ground with the
energy it needed to revive, and each incantation brought more than flashes of light. The night air thrummed with the Art
and the Way, much in the manner a thunderhead will be charged with lightning waiting for release.
Tasha’s dance continued to slow as she bled the ether of geomancy and let go of her life with each step. Tendrils of mage
fog pulsed from her fingers and eyes and navel to reach across the fields and brush the dead trees and caress the broken
ground before penetrating the soil. Three centuries of lore left Tasha Kovnika, who smiled despite the inevitable knowledge
her weakening steps brought. Audibly, the earth groaned as if waking from a long sleep.
Tasha wrapped her arms around herself as if trying and failing to embrace the night.
“Receive me,” she said.
The earth whispered, heavy in its sleep.
“Please.”
It acquiesced. A spider web of spectral blue light burst from Tasha and crackled and hummed along the ground. She
became a bridge, and the long-disrupted ley line rejuvenated.
Tasha collapsed, falling on her back and her arms thrown wide. The light filling her eyes began fading. In the moonlight
flowers bloomed early, and the earth sighed for Tasha a last breath. Before her vision gave way to darkness, she thought
of the merchant caravans and smiled.
Autumn was not far away.
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