Shamans were primal beings who could wield the elements of creation. Fire, earth, wind, and rain, these were but external manifestations of the power of the Light. This relationship was often misunderstood by those unable to utilize those powers. To a shaman, it was critical to understand how the elements served Life, and ultimately the Light.

Chapter 6

Trynneia and Ditan walked back to the village together, but alone in their thoughts. Her second confrontation with Driver had left Trynneia more confused than before. He’d gone from being the only option for Ditan to learn from, to someone she now knew was only interested in her. She couldn’t use the Light in any capacity, and his unwillingness to actually converse made her reluctant to see him again. Everything was one-sided, and he always threw statements back at them as a means of self-reflection. Perhaps that was the point.

This frustration coupled with her unresolved concerns over the slaughter she’d witnessed in her dreams, and the vanishing of the Eternal Light left her very wary. These past few days had challenged her world views more than the previous seventeen years had. Something was out of sorts and she couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

To the northwest, she saw a trail of black smoke rising into the sky. Trynneia nudged Ditan, who had been walking along paying attention only to the ground in front of him.

“Hey look, something’s burning near town. That looks like it’s close to…”

Ditan’s eyes went wide, seeing what she had not.

“Run, Tryn, the Chapel is burning!” he yelled. Trynneia did not wait, but took off at a sprint, knowing Ditan would do his best to keep up.

This can’t be happening, she thought. Her runes flared once more, easing the fatigue in her limbs and increasing her speed slightly. When she arrived, she saw the Chapel was indeed engulfed in an inferno. The magistrate led several people trying to put out the fire, and for a moment it held her attention. This makes no sense!

Trynneia asked where she could help, looking for her mother. Ditan caught up to her, winded from his jog, and tugged at her tunic. He pointed at the rectory, and her heart stopped when she realized that the door wasn’t shut, but slightly ajar. It had been bashed in, when the hinge normally opened the door outwards.

“Oh Light,” she exclaimed, realizing that so much effort (and even her attention) had been focused on extinguishing the Chapel that no one had so much as spared a glance at the rectory.

“What in the world is going on?” Ditan asked, out of breath.

“I’ve got no idea,” Trynneia admitted, striding purposefully to the rectory, her friend a step behind.

She yanked the door open, and screamed as she watched her mother’s body fall to the floor, a rapidly weakening geyser of blood spurting from what remained of her neck, covering her two murderers. Caught in the act, one flung a hatchet at her, which Trynneia just avoided by dodging to the side. The other murderer, still grasping Rendrys’ dripping head by the slain woman’s hair, gestured at the back wall. Inky blackness swirled and reduced the wall to charred cinders. Both assailants escaped through the opening, having claimed what they sought.

Hearing the scream, the magistrate rushed over with several other men, observed the scene, and directed two deputies to give chase before leading the two teens out of the rectory. Both friends were shaken, but Trynneia’s world crumbled around her with every step she took, and she tried to feel numb. Had to feel numb. Needed to put that sight out of her memory.

“But why the heads? These murders are bad enough, but why take the heads and leave?” the magistrate pondered to himself. “What in the Light is going on?”

Trynneia cried, her runes glowing a searing metallic gold that almost blinded Ditan and the magistrate. She sat on one of the benches across from the Chapel of Light as the magistrate turned back to putting out the fire. One of his men remained behind at the rectory to ensure no one disturbed the crime scene until the very real threat the fire posed to the rest of the village could be extinguished.

“My mom, my mom,” she uttered almost incoherently. “Why would someone do that?” Her skin prickled, and she felt warmth flood through her body. Ditan grasped her hand, but didn’t know what to say. She felt his grip tighten.

“I knew no good would come of this! Why did you leave the house, Ditan? You were forbidden from seeing this girl. You expressly refused to obey us. You are an embarrassment to our family, a disgrace to our profession, and abomination in the eyes of our clan! What do you have to say for yourself?” Master Coinlock came down the road, well-dressed and with his eyes focused only on his son. Ditan sighed.

Her friend looked at her sadly, then at his father. “The LightbIessed Chapel is burning and all you care about is that I disobeyed you. I don’t think I can say anything you’ll approve of anyway, so there’s no point in answering.” He stood up and looked at Trynneia, “Sorry I didn’t listen to the whispers sooner,” he said quietly.

“You impertinent, lazy, good for no-” Master Coinlock stopped his rant mid sentence as he watched his son raise his hands. Winds began to pick up, creating a barrier on the town side of the burning trees. Water squelched free from the mud, flinging itself back up into the flames. Ditan made a pulling motion, and the intensity of the flames began to lessen. Within moments, every trace of the fire had been extinguished.

“I am a shaman, father. Keep your bank,” he spat at his father, taking Trynneia’s hand once more. “Follow me, Tryn.”

Trynneia had already embraced numbness, and only his insistent tugging got her attention. The friends departed, leaving behind a sputtering Master Coinlock and half the townsfolk puzzled behind them.

They were almost to Trynneia’s home when she recognized their destination. Seeing the house, she stopped, pulling Ditan up short.

“I can’t go in there. Not now,” she said, falling to her knees. She looked like a mess, covered in soot from the fire, boots muddy from the water used to fight it.

“I needed to get you away from...there. I’m so sorry, Tryn.” Ditan sat next to her in the road. “I didn’t think about where to go, I just followed the whispers. How can I help you?”

“Make it all make sense,” she said quietly, to no one in particular. “Oh Light, Ditan, your parents!”

“I think I fully burned that bridge, saving what I could of the Chapel. I don’t suppose it matters any more,” he reasoned.

“Mom never taught me how to use the Light. What good is being Lightblessed if you can’t do that? She said I was so close! Would she have taught me soon? I don’t…” She sighed. “It’s all rhetorical now. How did you do that?” she said, changing the topic while glancing at him. “Put out the fire?”

Ditan cleared his throat, and his cheeks browned. “It all happened very fast. The whispers were so frantic, everything overlapped. I listened to one voice, but it was difficult to focus on just one of them.” He looked off into the distance. “It’s really become very hard to listen to the here-and-now, with all these voices. The present has started...distracting me.”

He paused for a moment, and Trynneia looked at the home she’d shared with her mother. “You said the voices led you to Driver, right?”

Ditan looked at her, confused. “Not really, I just had a sense that I should go to my normal practice spot. It was more just a feeling than anything else. I guess I was guided by intuition.”

“Do you have a sense of what to do right now?” She asked. He swallowed and nodded. “Whatever it is, let’s trust in it. Cast our lot to fate.”

“You sure? Want me to at least tell you first?”

“Just do it. Surprise me,” she replied, fully serious.

Ditan inhaled deeply. “Alright, here we go.” He shut his eyes and raised his fists. Spreading his fingers with palms up, he made a grasping motion with both hands and jerked down.

Trynneia watched in awe as great stalagmites pierced upwards through her home with a shuddering tear as the ground rumbled all about them. The rock twisted and arched downwards, collapsing what was left of the frame and pulling the house into the ground. Only rubble and shattered earth remained.

“You’re more practiced than I thought,” she said, remaining calm as the last vestige of her life folded into the earth. She looked at her friend with new appreciation. “It took you a while to get the courage to tell me, didn’t it?

“Yes,” he admitted. “Or at least, I’ve accepted this as my role now. I can’t go back home either.”

“At least you have something to fall back on,” Trynneia’s emotions crested, and new tears slid down her cheeks. “I’ve got nothing left, Ditan.”

“That’s not entirely true,” he suggested, then looked defeated.

“If you say ‘you’ve got me,’ I’m going to smack you.”

“You’ve got me,” he responded, bracing for a smack.

She laughed through a sob. Trynneia punched him softly in the shoulder instead. The ground continued to rumble with aftershocks. “Is that supposed to happen?”

“This was the biggest thing I’ve tried yet. I don’t know.” His eyes danced a bit, as if trying to lock on to something that wouldn’t remain stationary. It reminded Trynneia of Driver’s odd mannerisms. “As far as I can tell, the ground is just resettling. It will stop eventually.”

Trynneia tried to think. With her mother murdered and the Eternal Light gone, the last remnants of the Light had been purged from the village. Except her. No one else was Lightblessed. But she couldn’t make a connection between the man who had been slain and her mother. What motive did the murderers have? Where had they gone? She couldn’t be sure she wasn’t a target as well.

How did Driver factor into all this? He’d gone from someone she’d only been peripherally aware of to someone who wanted to teach her to use her absent powers. Trynneia couldn’t fathom how a shaman would instruct someone in the Light. They were completely different things.

Weren’t they?

“We have no idea where the killers went, or if we’re safe,” Ditan said, echoing her thoughts. “I guess my mom was right to be worried,” he said dejectedly. “What? No, I’m not going back to him.”

Trynneia looked at Ditan. At first it seemed as if he had been talking to her but now he talked to someone else. “Ditan?”

“Anywhere but there. Someplace safe. I already told you no. Take us somewhere but to him. I don’t want them to find us. No, I’m not the crazy one. Oh, who am I kidding, this whole situation is insane.” Ditan kept turning his head side to side, as if addressing multiple people.

If this is what communing with the elements is like, I’m terrified what it means to serve the Light, Trynneia thought. She had only a vague idea of what he was talking about in his one-sided conversation. It seemed more likely that her only true course of action now was to take up Driver’s suggestion that he train her. The thought did not sit well with her, and she did not trust him. Yet, she had nowhere else to go.

“Okay, I have a plan,” Ditan said to her.

“Finally decided to talk to me now?” she replied, forcing herself to sound amused when she felt only misery.

“Yeah, better to not ask me too many questions though, so I don’t decide to talk myself out of it.” That didn’t sound good. “Can you meet me down by the pond? I’m going to head back to the village to pick up a few things, and I’ll find you there when I can.”

“But your parents-” she started. “You pissed them off pretty good.”

“Well, what more damage can I do then?” he asked cheekily. “Go on, I’ll see you in a while,” he paused and looked her up and down, suddenly unsure. “Will you be okay- no, are you doing okay? I can wait, if you need me to.”

Trynneia stared at the dusty ruins and shook her head, “No, I’ll never be okay again.” She stood up, gave her friend a hug, and started walking away towards the pond. “Just don’t be too long, Ditan. Thank you.”