Another class of
people you know about are the Miners. They collect the rocks and ore that are
the basic earth spirits that can become metal. The Miners are trained from a
young age to pick rocks with certain qualities: green for copper malachite, red
for iron laterite, yellow for gold nuggets, black for lead and silver galena,
and so on. They Miners also operate the bloomeries and forges for many
purposes. The most important to us as Healers is the production of blades. As
Healers are completely dependent on their bladed weapons, it is important to
know Miners that we can trust. We are fortunate in our family, for I have a
brother who is a Miner.
I come from a family
of Miners. Our father was a Miner, and his father and so on going back twenty
generations at least. I would have been a Miner if I had not been born as a
left-handed twin. I was given to be raised by the Healers’ sect and trained in
the arts of Healing until I was a little bit older than you are now. Most
Healers never get to see their families again, but I had a connection to the
only skilled and trustworthy Miners in the whole region. So I was able to
reunite with my brother and father to continue to study Healing and Mining.
Although this is rare, it is a very valuable trait to have and learn. I can try
to teach you what I know.
Each metal has
different spiritual properties, and different interactions with different
materials that contain different spirits. Your copper blade is soft and
malleable, and it takes this property from its affinity for water spirits. Just
as emotions will bend and twist with small changes in weather or time, the
copper will mould itself to outside forces. It turns green if exposed to rain
or wet environments, as the water spirits join the metal. Your blade is also
mixed in with tin, however, to make it stronger. The tin has earth spirits that
help counteract the softness of the water spirits. Tin is very rare, and I had
to have my brother obtain some rare tin at great expense from some traders to
the south.
However, my blade is
made from iron. Iron is a new metal only discovered in the last five
generations. My grandfather, whom I only met briefly before he died when I was
a boy, explained to me that iron is such a new metal that he was only trained
on how to produce iron blades at the end of his life. My father, similarly,
only worked on iron after my brother was born. My brother wrought this blade
for me only three years ago. It may be the only iron blade in this region, and
possibly in the world.
The iron metal is
filled with the fire spirits. It is faster and lighter than your copper and
silver. It will spark when struck against another metal or against armour. This
is the angry fire spirits coming out of the blade. It takes great skill and
balance of mind, body, and emotion to utilise the iron blade correctly. I am
the first Healer in all the world to use one. Indeed, I have been cast out as a
heretic because of my use of non-standard tools and procedures for Healing. But
these new techniques are required if we are to advance the art of Healing.
When I learnt Mining
with my brother, he showed me that copper and tin melted when the coals were
deep red, nearly the colour of fresh blood. Blood will start out darker from
the body and then turn brighter as it combines with the air spirits. This
knowledge of blood from Healing and metal from Mining caused me to learn the
connection that the water and air spirits have in the blood and in copper.
Blood flows like a liquid, so it is mostly water. Blood flows in the heart and
the heart is the seat of emotions. Everything makes sense so far and is not
necessarily new.
However, when we
experimented with iron ore that our father had discovered in a strange circular
valley formation, we discovered that the dark blood red colour of our burning
wood was not enough to melt it. After a few years of experimentation and
guidance from our father before he was healed, we had created a leather box of
air that we were able to squeeze so that the air spirits were forced to move
very quickly into the fire of the bloomery and our coals would glow bright
orange. Only then would the iron melt enough for us to work it with the hammer.
After much
experimentation and deduction, I have understood that the earth spirits of the
wood, which the tree absorbs from the ground, will combine with the rushing air
spirits from the bellow box and form fire energies high enough and angry enough
to combine with the iron in the rocks our father found. And, when we hammered
the new metal to shape it, sparks and slag flew off in every direction as the
spirits roared from the metal at our insistence to shape it. About the time
that you were born and entrusted to my care, I had proposed that several blades
my brother and I had wrought should be brought into service of the Healers. I
had assumed that the Elders and my mentors at the Healing sect would be open to
new ideas.
They were not open to
such things so I have been banished with you. 2711 held up his hand and his
eyes were bright as he looked down at his daughter. Do not worry, he said, I am
proud of my heresy and I believe that it will come to fruition at some point in
the future, if Ahura is pleased with me. If not, then I deserve not to be a
Healer and perhaps the Elders will let me be killed myself by one of my former
brothers and sisters. I am not worried about it. I welcome it. The difference
between the words healed and killed is small, but Healers practice their arts
on those who are already willed by Ahura, and killing is taking a life in the
service of Ahriman.
But we hide from them
for now because I am worried about you. I have not finished your training, and
it’s obvious that you are not keeping up as I would expect. I think that I am
not a good parent for you, because you probably need a mother Healer to raise
you properly. I always look for explanations for things that I observe that
make sense when applied as if someone else had described them. I believe that
explanations produced by others can be confirmed mutually, and this makes the
explanation of the event full of _asha_, or order and truth.
When you produce an
explanation of events that makes sense only to one or two people but does not
stand up in a group of wise adults, then the explanation is deceit and _druj_.
I also have learnt the secrets of Perfect Sight, which is the power to view
things as they truly are, rather than as you wish them to be. Perfect Sight can
only be obtained in the later years of life, and only after all the precepts of
Healing are completely mastered.
The first mastery we
learn is the body. It takes at least 20 years to master just the body. You have
a few more years to go. When a child is born, it is completely unable to move
about on its own. As it grows, an infant is carried, then crawls, then walks,
and then runs. But even children who run and jump cannot throw a fist or elbow
with power and accuracy. Fighting and punching is fire, or aggression. This is
actually quite easy to obtain without application or training, but it is harder
to block a fist or elbow. This is the use of earth and water spirits to defend
against fire. Thus, to truly master all the martial arts of self-defence and
striking takes 20 years.
The second mastery is
over the mind. The control over the whirling thoughts of the mind is something
that many people cannot achieve on their own. Most people are often consumed
with the fire of their bodies and aggression, so they never even hear the
whisper of the winds of their minds. In fact, it is nearly impossible to
control one’s mind without proper training and study. Only Healers, Elders, and
Masked Ones are taught the intricacies of letters and language arts such as I
have taught you. All other people cannot even hope to achieve mastery over the
mind in 40 years. I had achieved it by the time I was 30, helped by my training
and work in Mining.
When I adopted you, I
was already in mastery of the physical martial arts. I had been studying and
adapting my mind for several years. But the last and most difficult master is
over the emotions. It could take another 20 years after mastering the mind to
even come close to mastering emotions. Some say that the Elders are over 100
years old. They would practice emotional control for 50 years. Most people we
know and meet will not even live to see 50 years before we Heal them.
It was after I was
driven out of the Healing sect that I obtained perfect mastery over my
emotions, mind, and body. It was a most _spenta_ gift that my Healing mentors
taught me the final test of emotional mastery by removing me from their
tuition. I could have been angry or sad or manic, but instead I achieved inner
calm. Only after I was completely calm and could not be swayed by any internal
or external forces that I achieved Perfect Sight. I used my Perfect Sight to
observe the events of my life and appreciate them for what they actually were,
rather than what I had believed them to be. This was a great lesson for me and
it further instilled calm and equanimity in the face of any forces in the
world.
A dog yapped and a
wolf growled. She had meant, but you were angry with me and tried to kill me.
Her father looked
sternly down at her and hovered over her to make his intention clear. He said
sternly, you deserve to die if you will not master the skills I am teaching
you. If you do not apply yourself carefully and listen to my teaching exactly,
then you will not be able to practice the arts of Healing. This will mean that
your life is devoid of meaning and full of _druj_. It means that I am a failure
at raising you, and that you cannot succeed in any profession that is available
to a woman. You will die either from a lack of focus or in the misapplication
of the Healing arts. Disorder and lack of focus is death.
Speaking of death, I
have not shared this with you, but you must know the urgency that has been
building in my training and why we must move quickly. I have used my Perfect
Sight to look ahead, into the future. This is not a natural act, and it is part
of the reason I believe I was excommunicated. The future sight is very blurry
and difficult to understand. However, I have looked forward and I have seen it
and interpreted what it is telling me. It says that I will be dead before I
have achieved 40 years. It is important that I either succeed in teaching you
the Healing arts by then, or you will be unable to learn them on your own and
cannot succeed on your own.
If I cannot teach you
everything you need to know, or if you cannot master most of it before the next
spring, then I am afraid that our line of Healers will die with us, and it is
possible that the Masked Ones will control our world forever and humans will
not be free to think and master the ten professions.
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