Tother Hand, Chapter 4 part 2

The river ranged from a creek several metres across to wider sections a few metres deep. Despite the heat, the water was always cold and clear and the camels drank it in huge gulps. Water was not a problem, and dried provisions were possible from trade, but comfort and sustenance was to be found in yurts and huts along the road. As was the custom, visitors could enter any yurt unannounced and expect a cup of butter tea and perhaps some stale bread. The only repayment was the joy of company, a shared story or witticism, or sometimes, music.

9001 had been trained in the _ney_, a long wooden reed flute which she dutifully played while they rested and enjoyed the hospitality along the hard road. The flute was used by her father as the training instrument for learning the silent language. Therefore, she would tell a long story that sounded like this:

The spring sun would rise early and low in the sky. The announcement of the rising sun was shouted by the sand lark. The early birds ran around, scooping up insects to eat. The trees begin to wake up as their sap rises from the ground. The dew hung heavily on each blade of grass. A lone fox scampered home, dejected from the night’s long hunt. The five-toed jerboa peeked out of his hole and surveyed the scene. He held several pieces of plant roots in his hands and grated them ritually, finding the tastiest snacks. He sniffed the air occasionally.

An afghan flying squirrel woke up and darted from limb to limb. The tulips opened their petals toward the rising sun. Poppies splashed open their leaves to drink the light. A baby wailed and the mother hopped up and down slightly to soothe it in the sling on her back. She blew through a wooden tube to fan the embers as she cooks up a stew and prepares tea. The yak snorted and strained as the father tills the field outside. Tiny Bucherian voles shriek as their tunnels are destroyed by the farmer and his wooden instruments rip the soil.

A woodpecker tapped at the tree bark, searching out the larvae it knew are burrowing underneath. All of this life and bustle was overwhelmed, however, by vast stretches of snow and rock. Snow piled up during the winter began to thaw further and further up the mountain sides. It dripped, dripped, dripped. The drips swirled together to form rivulets. The rivulets fall, fall, fall, over the edge of a rock. The pools gather and cascade, bubbling downhill to join a river.

A leaf blows in the wind, tugged, tugged, tugged until it finally flies free. It floats one metre forwards, ten centimetres backwards, one metre forwards, and so on until it lands on the ground. A slug moved nearby crawled underneath seeking shelter. Two V-shaped groups of greylag geese travelled north, honk, honk, honking along. Above them, a steely-eyed peregrine falcon surveyed the scene banking in slow circles, trying to find a warm lift. It spiraled higher and higher until it spotted a mouse and then it dove straight down to catch its breakfast.

The leaf with a slug under it moved twice, then stopped. The baby in the sling cried until its mother shushed it and loosened the straps to turn the baby forward and suckle. The fox slunk into its hole and slept fitfully. The woodpecker feasted on a grub. The peregrine falcon pulled a long intestine string, stood upright to look in the far distance unblinking. The water droplets fell in a regular pattern.

When the song ended, the hosts would applaud and offer more tea. 9001 blushed at the attention, and her father tried to hide his tears by pretending to be interested in his bread or the pattern of a rug. She reached out to clap him on the shoulder as a sweet gesture and he was able to deflect it with _bong sao_, or the wing arm, even though he had not seen her move towards her. She was miffed and a tiny drop of acid dripped into the deep cavern she stored in her heart. Tiny drips and drops over time had accumulated into a well of resentment and anger.

Another purpose of the visits to the yurts was to perform any rites and rituals that the Healers could provide. After 9001 performed with the _ney_, the old woman motioned them over to one of the mats on the side of the yurt, behind a wooden screen. On it lay an old wrinkled man who coughed infrequently. The old woman nodded to the man and pointed as she pulled back the folding screen and leaned it against the _khana_. The old man was at least 60, and his features were deeply cragged. His hands the broken fissures of a ragged wall. He had white wispy hair and a scraggly beard.

The old woman said, may Ahura Mazda take him. His _mazda_ is gone, there is too much _druj_ in his _ahura_, his being. Ahriman takes him and he yells and shouts. You came by here last fall and he was already decaying.

She covered her eyes.

She begged, please send him to his guardian _mainyu_ and let me him battle against Them in the next life. He is not connected to this earth. Please help him.

2711 asked her, mother, who can take care of you when father is gone on to Ahura’s side?

The old woman beamed. She said, my two sons are grown. They have wives and children of their own. They each visit us in alternating seasons. They are fine young men who take care of their parents and venerate their ancestors.

She got onto her knees and bowed slowly, arms extended like child’s pose. Her voice was muffled by the dirt of the floor. She said, Ahura take him. Ahriman cannot have him here.

She let out a wail of grief. 2711 helped her up to her feet.

He said, mother, serve us another cup of butter tea and then fetch us some water from the stream.

She cleaned her face with her sleeve and set to the kettle, preparing two cups of butter tea. Then she bowed deeply, stepping backward, out of the yurt.

2711 sat cross legged in front of the mat, and sipped his tea. 9001 copied him as best as she could.

He said, we heal by joining the _mazda_ with the _mainyu_. The _mainyu_ is as water, flowing down from the icy mountains. It winds downhill and ends in a lake. That lake is like the afterlife. The water does not flow back uphill to the mountain and freeze again. Only the fierce fire spirits of the sun can stir the waters back into the air. The air is the mind, or _mazda_. This is not a metaphor. It is actually wind and water. Ahura created the earth and all the plants and animals from the four substances. It makes sense that the mind and the spirit are also formed from these substances.

2711 moved his hand over the old man’s features, but did not touch his face. The man’s whitened and cataract eyes opened briefly, then fluttered shut in fear. The old man began to whimper.

A twig snapped and a small axe made three chopping noises on a sapling trunk. The tree shook and leaves rustled. This was the silent language meaning, you have learnt the rituals and observed them. Now perform them. I will guide you.

9001 started from her contemplation of the tea. A lamb bleated. It asked, what about mother outside?

2711 turned to her and shook his head. An owl hooted, which meant that the old woman already knew. She was not fetching water from the stream.

9001 nodded and a sudden giddiness took over. She had always wanted to try her hand at a ritual of healing and hated merely watching and providing the implements. She walked outside to get the supplies and equipment from the camel’s pack. She saw the woman walking slowly, ambling on a stick toward the river. 9001 watched her for a long time, but the old woman never once turned back to look.

9001 gathered the equipment and moved back to the yurt. She looked one more time across the widest part of the valley for the old woman. 9001 finally spotted the top of her scarf-wrapped head, down in a depression along the stream. The old woman slowly raised her arms and stood up, then slowly lowered her arms and squatted. She was performing the supplication and offering to Ahura, who would be surely pleased, 9001 thought.

She brought the equipment inside and laid it out neatly in front of her, next to the old man’s head. Her father sat in meditation at the man’s feet.

9001 began, Ahura creates.

2711 agreed, Ahura creates.

9001 said, Ahriman destroys.

2711 said, Ahriman destroys.

9001 said, _druj_ is everywhere, unless we fight every day.

2711 spit to the side and said, _druj_ is everywhere.

9001 spit to the side because she had forgotten. She acted as if she had intended to spit later. She said, we will heal the body so that the guardian _mainyu_ will rejoin with the _mazda_.

She took a thin brass tube with a clinking cap on one end. The other end was pointy and hollow. In the other hand, she took out a wooden mallet. She blew on the pointy, sharp end of the tube and the clinking cap snapped shut and her cheeks puffed out. She sucked back in and the cap relented so that air flowed back into her mouth. Taking the tube and mallet, she scooted forward toward the man on her knees.

A dog barked, danger.

9001 froze, mentally examining the ritual steps. She looked down at her hands, then realised the problem. She swapped the tube to her right hand and the mallet to her left. The mallet felt very heavy and unwieldy in the left hand, but that was the proper hand taught to all the Healers since the beginning of time. She paused to make sure there were no further instructions, then continued.

She placed the pointed end of the tube at the man’s throat in target 1. Moving quickly with two heavy taps, she drove the tube home. The man gurgled and a little blood dribbled around the wound. She reached behind her and took a piece of cloth to wipe up the blood. No matter how much blood she wiped up, more seemed to accumulate after a short while.

2711 said, leave the blood. It will fill the voids if there are any left behind. Move quicker.

She nodded, wiped her forehead with the wraps around her neck. It was suddenly hot and close in the yurt. She was sweating and shaking. The old man continued to make sucking noises that seemed to get louder. His legs were starting to move about.

She took a longer tube from the equipment behind her, then shuffled down to the old man’s knees. This tube had a shiny first third, then a dull middle third and a grimy upper third. It was very tiny and sharp at the beginning, then tapered out to the width of a thumb at the end. Moving as quickly and as adeptly as she could, she aimed the pointy shape at the inside of the old man’s inside thigh, about one hand above the knee. The old man was shaking by now and his leg jerked.

2711 said, use the frozen time, it is almost too late.

9001 closed her eyes, then forced them open as she pushed herself into the area between the light and dark.

She could see her father sitting in meditation, eyelids drooping. She didn’t see any bands of light and dark and, in fact, she noticed it was quite bright. This meant she had performed a nearly flawless synchronisation with the hills and valleys created by the balance of spirits in the light of the yurt. She moved the hand with the mallet, but did it too quickly and met resistance. The lights flickered darker then brighter. She concentrated more and moved her arm slowly but smoothly through and arc.

The mallet struck twice and she could observe the tube move up the first third of the man’s thigh. The second strike drove the point home and there was a satisfying rebound of metal on bone from the tube inside the man’s thigh. She knew was was going to happen, so she moved the mallet back around her side and waited for a long agonising amount of time for a spout of blood to pour out.

A pair of cranes saluted the heavens with the loud honking. This meant, you forgot to place the bowl.

She looked over at her father who had spoken in the silent language and his eyes were now open. There was an amused look in his face. Ignoring his scorn, she moved the mallet as smoothly and quickly as she could to the ground and then, in one motion, scooped up the large basin to catch the blood. She could see the old man’s rigid body was beginning to collapse down, it was as if he were a rag thrown on the floor, just before it collapses onto the ground. She placed the basin and dragged the tube down to pour into it.

Deep purple, almost black, blood appeared at the end of the tube and drove downward in spreading rivulets. They moved as slowly as ants in the winter morning. Her eyelids were closing by now, so she gently fell out of rhythm with the light and landed back in the yurt.

She heard the metallic click of the spout in the man’s neck, heard a small hiss, and then splashing water in the basin. The old man yelped something that sound like not or night, it was probably the second letter 4: death. The bubbling and splashing sound of the blood continued for a few seconds, but the man was already dead. The hissing in the spout by his neck was gone. The basin was filling up with thick congealed ichor.

2711 said, _noit_.

9001 agreed, but too late, death.

Gathering her wits, she quickly recovered.

She said addressing the old man, may your spirit find no rest until your guardian guides you to _mainyo_, far away beyond the lakes and the mountains. Your body is spent and wasted, _druj_ is already setting in. Ahriman will take the body and you must not be around to meet Them. They will meet you instead with your guardian at the battlefield where Ahura and all the other _mainyu asha_ are fighting. Go away, far away, or else mother will come back and be tempted to visit you. She is not ready to join Ahura and her guardian yet. You must leave and never come back. I curse your horrid body forever.

Her father clapped three times. 9001 clapped three times, arms akimbo, hands straight up and facing each other in prayer position. The old man convulsed once. 9001 looked over at her father fearfully. He shook his head. The old man was gone.