‘You’re not one of those serious souls, are you?’ Zehn asked me, grinning.
‘You’re not one of those superficial ones, are you?’ I replied, smiling sweetly.
‘Ow, claws!’ he said.
‘Sheathed at the moment, I assure you.’ I decided it was time to move on.
Minnow and Vole were happy to show me somewhere different. As we went out into the street, Minnow said, ‘I think Zehn likes you.’
‘I think he likes everyhar,’ I said. ‘Not my type at all.’
Minnow laughed. ‘What is your type? Do you want to find him tonight?’
‘No. I want to get my bearings here before anything else.’
‘Zehn made you angry,’ Vole said. ‘You didn’t need to get mad at him.’ He rarely spoke, so the comment stung.
‘I know his kind,’ I said. ‘Really, I’m not angry. I just don’t like hara thinking I’m stupid.’
‘Let’s go to Willow Pool Garden,’ Minnow said, so we went.
Like most Sulh communities at that time, Jesith ran mostly on bartering systems, although the phylarch, Sinnar, paid us in coins that could be redeemed at the few shops and bars. It was a kind of credit system for his hara. These tokens could also be bought from Sinnar with other goods, whether they were logs from the forest, trout from the river or wild blackberries from the heath for his wine vats. He’d set up commerce with other local phylarchs, so his tokens could be used widely in the area. Everyhar called them ‘sins,’ which amused him. Sinnar had been incepted further north in one of the cities, and had come south, after being trained in Kyme, to take over the phyle. Like most Kyme hara, he was fond of knowledge but, unlike your usual Kymian, far from ascetic. I guess he couldn’t have run a vineyard otherwise. He was the kind of har that is almost too easy on the eye; tawny hair, generous even features and sensitive hands. His manner was both composed and competent. A born leader, I guess.
Sinnar agreed to interview me at Minnow’s request, but I could tell it was merely a formality. The phylarch was keen to expand his business, so new workers were always welcome. As Minnow led me through the busy workshops and yard to Sinnar’s office, I wondered how my training would fit in around a physical job.
Minnow left me sitting in the office and after a few minutes, Sinnar came in, poring through a huge ledger. He appeared distracted, more interested in the entries in his ledger than in me. He sat down and closed his book, folding his hands together on the desk top.
‘You’re here to train with Ysobi,’ Sinnar said.
‘Yes, but I need to work. I don’t know much about making wine, but I’m willing to learn.’
Sinnar nodded, sucked his upper lip. ‘Fine. You have somewhere to stay?’
‘Yes, Minnow and Vole found me a cottage.’
‘Excellent. Well, you’ll obviously need to spend some time each day on your studies, so how about you come to the yard each morning at eight o’clock and work for four hours? Weekends off, unless we have a lot on.’
‘That sounds very generous.’
Sinnar smiled. ‘I don’t believe in working hara too hard, and I expect Ysobi will give you a lot to do.’ He paused. ‘You know of his reputation, of course?’
I displayed my palms. ‘It’s why I’m here. He was recommended.’
Sinnar nodded. He had an introspective look to him, which made me wonder what he was thinking. Did he think I wasn’t of high enough calibre for Ysobi to teach me?
‘Shall I start work now?’ I asked.
Sinnar collected himself. ‘Yes, by all means do. Go and find Minnow. He’ll show you around.’
And that was that: I had a job.
For three weeks, Ysobi went over basic training in various skills with me, such as far-seeing, psychic communication and healing. He taught me to be more sensitive to the energy of the universe, which the Sulh had named agmara, and how to manipulate it to create effects in reality. He was a patient and humorous teacher, but somehow distant. I never saw him outside of his Nayati, other than in the garden that surrounded the building on three sides. Sometimes we took lessons out there. If he had other students, I didn’t meet them. I trained with him for three hours a day, every afternoon. Before and after that, I worked for Sinnar. I’d been employed to work only mornings, but because things were so busy, I usually ended up going back to the vineyard after my training to help out with deliveries and so on. This meant I earned extra, so I wasn’t unhappy about it.
Jesith was a stable and close community, mainly because Sinnar was such a stable and open kind of har. They had trouble occasionally with rogues trying to loot crops and supplies, so there was a town guard that patrolled the borders and kept any rabble at bay. Zehn, I learned, was one of these guards. I imagine the tenuous glamour of that role had appealed to him.
I worked on my cottage and also acquired a pony, which lived with the sheep in the field behind my home. I began to build up a social life, revolving around the friends of Minnow and Vole, but something prevented me from initiating intimacy with anyhar I met. It wasn’t that there weren’t hara I liked, there were, but perhaps the intensive training stunted my sensuality. I don’t know. Maybe it was something else, a precognition.
The reason I say this is that a few weeks into the training, Ysobi announced that before I progressed any further, he must teach me the arunic arts, how to use aruna as magic. I’d always known this could be done, but imagined it was a private thing between hara working together magically. I said this. Ysobi told me it could be that way, but unless I knew what I was doing I would be an impediment to any har who might want to work with me, and who knows, there might come a day when proper training would save somehar’s life.
We were in his main room, which I noticed he’d tidied up a little. My mouth went dry. I felt apprehensive. The day was overcast, but humid. Later, there would be thunder. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.
‘Sit down,’ he said, indicating one of the cushions.
I did so and he sat cross-legged before me. He wound his hair into a rope and tied it in a loose knot at the nape of his neck.
‘Take my hands.’
I reached out to him, and his palms were dry and very hot in the centres.
‘Close your eyes, Jassenah. Good. I want you to extend your senses, become aware of my energy field. Can you do that?’
‘Yes…’ It was like a tingle. I could feel energy streaming up my arms from his hands.
‘Take it down into your body. Concentrate it in the lower belly.’
It went down as heat, like taking in a hot drink.
‘We must breathe together, in through the nose and out through the mouth, totally synchronised. Now focus.’
Even though our faces were some distance apart, it was almost like sharing breath. I took him into me, down into my lungs. I could feel my body stirring, like an animal waking up and sniffing around. He kept the breathing going for some time, until I felt light-headed. Then he withdrew his hands from mine, and it made me dizzy. I felt as if I was hanging alone in a void, spinning. It was euphoric and disorientating.
Gently, he pushed me back onto the floor cushions. ‘Relax, Jassenah. Do nothing but concentrate on your breathing. Keep it steady.’
I felt his hands at my belt. He undressed me as a healer might; efficiently and quickly. I felt cold then, despite the humid air. He raised my knees and parted my legs, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed. I didn’t want him looking at me, but was powerless to move. He put a towel beneath me.
‘There are five energy centres within the soume-lam,’ he said. ‘They are called sikras. I’m going to activate the first two, perhaps the third. While I do this, focus your mind on that area of your body. Pay attention to sensation. This is not for pleasure.’
I was lying there with my eyes closed, tense as a wire. I expected him to use his fingers, but he didn’t. He used his tongue. What I learned first that day was that all aruna I’d experienced to date had been fairly basic. I’d been ouana and roon
ed hara, and I’d been soume and they’d rooned me, but I’d done nothing like this. It was electrifying. I hadn’t even known about sikras, since all aruna to me had been one heady, intoxicating experience. No har I’d been with had ever been this precise. Ysobi stimulated the first sikra until it swelled into a bud. I could feel it and the sensation was incredible. I don’t think it had ever happened to me before, or if it had, I hadn’t noticed. I felt as if I was on the brink of an out-of-body experience. Then he went a little deeper inside and ignited a second fire within me. I had to make some noise, and all thoughts of breathing regularly flew up the chimney. Ysobi slowly ran his tongue over the two swollen sikras a few times and then reached for the third. Even though I felt drunk, I could tell that each sikra had a slightly different feeling, like a sound or a taste. The third one was a distant itch he could just about reach. I was so beside myself with desire, I pushed down on him. Was this arousing him too? I couldn’t tell.
Then he drew away from me. I lay there gasping for a few moments, my entire soume-lam contracting with need.
‘Focus,’ Ysobi said softly. ‘Feel the energy of it. Feel it circling. Try to contain it.’
I thought he was mad. How could such a thing be possible? Was he going to leave me like this? I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was kneeling between my legs, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. He smiled at me. ‘Hang on to that power, let it build within you. Don’t let it dissipate. When we reach the peak of release, you must send it out as a spear of intention. For now, you can just send it out for the good of Jesith and its hara. Just release it, as if it’s a bird that’s going to fly from your body. Do you understand?’
I must have nodded or made a sound. Ysobi lifted his robe and I had a brief glimpse of his erect ouana-lim. Then he leaned forward and pulled me towards him, his hands at the base of my spine. I felt him touch me, and now his eyes were closed, while mine were open. I wanted to see him go into me, if I could, I don’t know why, but the robe was in the way, as if he was modest. He entered me very slowly, almost teasing. He was hot and very hard, pushing through the soft yet swollen folds of me, pushing past the pulsing buds, stimulating them further. It was as if I had eyes inside myself. He filled me utterly and I could feel every part of him, even though I was so drenched with my own fluids and his saliva. I was frantic for him to go deeper, but he held on to my hips firmly to stop me moving too much and took his time. Once he was buried in me entirely, he remained still. I could feel his heart beating through his ouana-lim, I could hear the soft rush of blood. My fingers clenched on air at my sides, like a cat marking time.
Ysobi took a deep breath, then withdrew from me, nearly all the way. It was like the tide going out. Part of me was drawn out with him. Then he pushed back in, in a swift deep plunge. The sikras inside me were almost shrieking. His movements became deep and regular. He released his hold on my hips a little so I could move with him. I wanted to drag him down, feel his weight upon me, hold him close, but he was beyond my reach. We just connected at the groin, with my legs around his waist. I can remember every moment of it. I can close my eyes and relive the entire experience in detail. I can remember the power building up, as if my own release was a tidal wave surging towards me. Exquisite feelings burst like fireworks, flowers turning into sparks, sparks turning into flowers. When the inner tongue of his ouana-lim snaked out, I felt it make contact with the fifth centre inside me. I think what happens is that this tendril actually penetrates the flesh of the centre. That’s what it felt like, anyway. He was in me, but then he was in me in a different way. There was a roar in my head, and the wave crashed over me, catching me in its maelstrom, throwing me against rocks. The contractions were so intense, it was almost painful, yet the most delicious pleasure I had ever experienced. Aruna is often like a pageant of visions, but this was so physical. Ysobi’s voice was in my head: Jassenah, now! Direct it! It was almost too late, but somehow I caught it by the tail and threw it out of me with intention. It was like a fountain of light bursting over me. Ysobi uttered a cry. I felt him pulse inside me, expelling his own flood. It was very hot. When his ouana-tongue pulled out from the fifth centre, I experienced another heady release, and this time, I let it be mine, not the town’s, or anyhar else’s. Waves of feeling throbbed through me from the roots of my hair to my toenails. My body would not let him go until it was done. It held him as I had wanted to hold him: tightly. It let him go reluctantly, once the sensations had subsided.
Ysobi withdrew fastidiously and covered himself. His hair had come loose, but otherwise he appeared composed. I was just a shaking mass on the floor before him, like a jellyfish stranded on sand. He put a blanket over me, pressed on my knees to make me lie flat. I turned onto my side, shuddering.
‘You see,’ Ysobi said. ‘That is aruna magic.’
Yes, it was. I ached. I wanted to weep and laugh. I felt as if a universe turned inside me. I was immense, bigger on the inside than on the outside.
Ysobi moved away, and presently returned, bringing me a glass of unsweetened apple juice. This I drank greedily. The taste of it was intense; the very essence of apple.
‘The soume har is the conductor in this type of work,’ Ysobi said. ‘It is his responsibility to build the power, contain it and release it. You did quite well for your first attempt. Well done.’
I couldn’t speak, because all the things I wanted to say were inappropriate, such as how wonderful it had been, how amazing he was, how I wanted to hold him, share breath, and lie with him among the cushions until we fell asleep. Nohar had ever touched me that deeply, in any sense. He had no idea. To him, it was just work. I was bereft.
‘You can take a bath before you leave, if you like,’ he said.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to keep the scent of him on me until it wore off on its own. Somehow, I managed to sit up, the blanket around me. ‘I feel shaky,’ I said, and realised that my teeth were in fact chattering.
‘You should really take a warm bath, and perhaps you should sleep. It will be all right if you do that for a while. I have things I can get on with.’
How could he not be affected by what had just happened? It shocked me. I was so naïve, and he had proved it to me.
I dozed for a while, drifting in and out of sleep. I could hear Ysobi writing, the scratch of a pen on paper. Was he writing about me, a report of our experience? Eventually, he shook me to full wakefulness and gave me a cup of cinnamon tea. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like that. It knocked me around a bit.’
‘It can do that,’ Ysobi said. ‘It’s very different when you take aruna for a purpose.’
To me, the purpose was irrelevant. He had done or shown those things to me. I wished he could have done it because he wanted me. I wished it hadn’t been work.
‘We’ll work this way for a while, and soon it won’t be so disorientating. You’ll learn how to control it better.’
This news cheered me greatly. We would be together this way again. I felt better already.
I walked back to my cottage in a dream. I felt like dancing, yet was almost too tired to move. When I got home, I went and lay on my bed, face down. No way could I face going to the vineyard. My mind was numb. I didn’t know what to think.
Minnow came knocking at the door later, so I had to get up and let him in. ‘You look awful!’ he said, as I led him into the kitchen: the social heart of my house. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The arunic arts have happened,’ I said, rubbing at my hair.
Minnow laughed. ‘Ah! So you have sampled the famous mind-melting session.’
That was like a knife cut to my heart. ‘Ysobi is known for it, then?’
Minnow nodded and sat down at my table. ‘Pretty much, yes. Some hara find it too much to cope with. They don’t like it. They think it makes aruna too clinical. He doesn’t care. If the students can’t cope and leave, it’s no loss to him, or so he thinks. Will he lose you?’
&n
bsp; I turned away to put some water on the stove to boil. ‘No.’
‘He’s weird, I know.’
I concentrated on making a hot drink, because I didn’t want Minnow to see my face. ‘Does he ever go out?’ I asked casually. ‘I mean, have a social life.’
‘Not really. He thinks the whole drinking and chatting thing is shallow, no doubt. He lives for his work.’
These comments stung me deeply. I hated the thought of Ysobi doing what he’d done to me to hundreds of others. It meant I meant nothing to him. Why I should care about this mystified me, since he was only my teacher. Clearly, I needed to pull myself together.
‘Are you OK to go out?’ Minnow asked.
I thought I needed to. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want a drink… well, several.’
Minnow stood up and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Come back down to earth. Forget tea. Take the water off the stove. Let’s go and find alcohol.’
It might have been drink that impelled me to do what I did that night, or simply a desire to get Ysobi out of my head. Whatever the reason, once we got to Willow Pool Garden, where Vole was waiting for us, I proceeded to drink to excess. The thunder had come and gone while I’d been asleep at home, and now the evening was clear; fresh-scented and balmy. We sat in the garden behind the bar, which overlooked the river. Hara sprawled on the lawns that went down to the water’s edge. One group was singing, playing hand drums. I felt strangely ecstatic, as if Ysobi was there with me, or would come into the garden and look at me. It was a feeling of anticipation. I couldn’t stop thinking of him, replaying the afternoon’s events in my head. But at the same time, I was able to converse and laugh, play the part.
Zehn came up to our group, as usual with a new har in tow. ‘Hello Jassenah,’ he said to me. It was our habit now to snipe at each other, much to our friends’ amusement. That night, I couldn’t be bothered. I turned away from him to talk to somehar else. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like being ignored.