“Good idea, partner!” Lin exclaimed in a booming voice and slapped Ida shoulders with both hands. “A human being that want to be a sorceress must be calm and collected, and must never lose his or her grip!”
In a few minutes, Lin had placed a cup of hot cocoa in front of looked at fast moving thunderhead clouds behind the window Ida.
“The human being who follows the paths of sorcery is confronted with an imminent and senseless annihilation every turn of the way,” Lin said, grabbing her book from the table. “You keenly aware of your death as me and as all sorcerers of our line. You bet your life. Sorcerers are firmly and fully accepting that we are beings on the way to dying. Without this basic acceptance, our lives and doings are unmanageable affairs.”
Unexpectedly Lin body shivered as though she had been splashed by a sudden shower of cold water. She instantly turned left and looked out of the window. Lin listened attentively for an instant and one moment later they heard a first very loud and prolonged thunder sound. It started to rain.
“But you know that it is not so simple,” she said after a short moment of silence. “You had paid the price for this uncommon knowledge. You embodied an sorcerer’s idea of imminent death without any obsessions. You break the power of your obsessions. It is very important, because sorcerers have no obsessions. Obsessions destroy us.”
Lin lightly hit the table with her book and they heard another thunder sound.
“The sorcerer’s idea of death becomes an indifference,” she continued, gazed at the dark sky. “The indifference becomes a sense of detachment. The detached human being has no time for regrets or recriminations. The detached human has only one thing, the power of his or her decisions. And these decisions are final. The power of final decisions makes that human being able to choose without regrets and these chooses are always strategically the best. And one day, the detachment human will save enough energy that is needed for starting an inconceivable journey to the unknown.”
There was a sudden flash of lightning that illuminated the whole area.
“The sorcerer’s idea of death is not only way that exists,” Lin remarked. “There are another ways, but this way is the most sobering way that exist. You ...”
The deep thunder shut her speech and Ida heard a very loud eerie bird cry. She instantly stood up and jumped back behind Lin back in one single motion. Ida felt that there was something terribly strange in the bird cry, but she was unable to say what exactly was wrong with it. She felt threatened.
“Who made that sound?” she asked in a softly whisper in a Lin ear. “A bird?”
“A bird?” Lin asked anxiety and stared at dark shapes of distant rocks behind the window where pointed Ida with a light movement of her chin.
After a few seconds of silence when Ida heard rain’s noise only, Lin giggled like a child and moved her head to Ida. She felt the weight on her chest when Lin locked her shiny black eyes on the girl and broke into a belly laugh.
“That is the very funny bird,” Lin added one moment later in a gravely whisper and put hand on Ida mouth. “Do not talk. Jump on my back and close your eyes. You must keep them closed at all costs or we will die in a most weird and gruesome way.”
When she fixed on Lin back and closed her eyes they heard a deep dismal thunder and an enraged bird cry. Lin leaped forward horizontally with such a force that Ida nearly fall from her back. She did not use her muscles to leap the way she would herself. After two or three leaps Ida doubted that she used her muscles even. Additionally Ida felt an cold jolt in her stomach every time when Lin was making her another incredible weird leap.
Lin changed directions various times. Ida entire body became numb when Lin finally stopped her leaps and she heard a noise of scratching stones.
When the sound stopped, Lin made another leap. But that leap was different from others because she felt that they leaped somewhere down. Moment later she heard a loud stone sound and they entered into a deathly silence. She understood that they were landed only when Lin body shook with nervous spasms and fell on her right knee.
“Kiss my funny shaking ass!” Lin exclaimed in a hoarse vibrant voice.
Ida slowly opened her eyes. They were in a pitch black place.
“Where we are?” she asked in a unaffected tone and get off Lin back.
“In the chambers,” Lin replied and slowly crawled to the place where laid various things that she left a few days ago. She found a kerosene lantern and lit it with special waterproof matches that she took out from her pant's pocket.
Soft orange light illuminated a stone chamber about ten square meters with a low bumpy ceiling and a flat floor covered with hexagonal white stones. There was a small flat stone near a wall where stood the alight kerosene lantern, a bottle of gas water and laid two chocolate bars. Around the table laid three thick bamboo mats.
In front of the wall where stood the table there was a rusty bronze door. The door had a knocker that was covered with cobweb, as strictly speaking, all the door.
When Ida looked around, she turned and looked at a row of iron staples that began near the floor and hide in the darkness of the rough hole in the ceiling. She lifted her head up and narrowed her lids. She looked in the darkness when a horribly loud bang made her jump to the table side instantly. Her mind was calm, but her heart was about to burst out of her chest.
“If they will destroy the house will,” Lin said, looking at the hole. “Then we have to open the door, but I am not sure about that.”
“They?” Ida asked and sat down at the table. “Birds?”
“Creatures,” she replied in a soft whisper. “Right now there are creatures out there that have been searching for us. That is why we hid here. Master said that in the night time the house protection is impenetrable, but right now there is the middle evening time. Also we are not sorceresses, we have no power stood there when the house under attack yet.”
“Creatures?” she knit the brows.
Lin sat down cross legged on the mat and opened the bottle of gas water. She made a few small sips and put it back on the table.
“I will tell you about them later,” Lin said in a slow, deliberate tone. “All that I can tell you right now that our detachment saved our lives. We had a degree of detachment which allowed you to hear things and me to evade things. You had heard the cry and I had accomplished a maneuver that let us hide here.”
Ida silently nodded, silently turned with her back against the wall and stared at the door. She felt the hardness and the coldness of the rocks.
“I am going to give you a jolt,” Lin said after a long pause. “Any apprentice must get the jolt or series of jolts. The jolt will give an apprentice the necessary speed to get a glimpse of real world. Only if you got that glimpse you will understand the sorcerers’ explanation of the world. There are not much methods to make that jolt and I am unable to do it by myself, of course. But master gave me one thing that she prepared specially for you.”
She took a red wood box from her pocket, opened and took out two part of a thin long red marble pipe and a small red pouch. She united it and filled its bowl with a dense yellow powder from the pouch. After that she put the empty pouch in the box and handed Ida the red pipe.
“You have to use the smoke,” she said in a factual resolute tone. “The smoke will give you the necessary jolt to catch a glimpse. Master gave me only one portion of smoking mixture. She said that is pretty enough for such dismal person as you, so you have only one attempt. It is very dangerous to it so fast after your transformation in such situation, but I do not have time to teach you slowly. I only have time to put you on the road and trust your impeccability and I must say that your impeccability is good enough to make you worthy of that knowledge.”
“Everything is dangerous,” Ida said calmly and put the pipe in her mouth. “Just ignite it.”
Lin smiled, lighted a three matches at once and lit up the powder in the pipe bowl. Ida took a deep whiff and after a few seconds puffed a small cloud of yellow smoke.
When she finished smoking an unusual melancholy had overtaken her. She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. She laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. She were motionless for a while. Suddenly she was convulsed with spasmodic jerks of her head and back. Her entire body shook. She stood up and walked toward the door. She sat down and covered her face with her hands. Her breathing was very rapid, it sounded like the whizzing of bellows. Lin thought she was crying.
Ida body shivered. Her arms, trunk, and head trembled as if an intermittent electric current were going through them. It was a very long, tense moment before she regained some control over herself. She sat up straight, still covering her face with one hand. It was as though a force outside her control was setting her or driving her up.
Her body convulsed from head to toe with the most beautiful, coordinated ripple. The ripple went through her perhaps a hundred times before her body collapsed like a lifeless sack. Her both arms locked over her eyes, shielding them. She gasped and gave a loud involuntary shriek. She tossed, wobbled, and moaned for over an hour while she lay on the floor.
Unexpectedly she slumped forward and her forehead hit the door. She dropped to the ground again, on her chest, and extended her whole length, acquiring a strange rigidity.
A little later she started mumbling unintelligible words. She repeated it for hours, before it became an almost murmuring song. That song was very grim, simple and repetitious, but strangely beautiful. The words seemed to be the lyrics to the tune.
She stood up and began walking. She took a couple of steps toward Lin and stopped. At one moment she got very close to her. Lin saw her eye. It was dark, merciless, transfixed. Ida terrifically grinned, walked back to the door and laid down.
Lin felt a tremendous apprehension. Her mouth had a dryness.
After a while, when Lin verified that she fell asleep, she covered her with the mats and laid near her.
When Ida woke up, Lin silently handed her the bottle of water.
“I saw it,” she said in vibrant tone when did a few large sips and looked at hanging over her Lin. “I saw the luminous world!”
“Cool! Cool!” Lin said in an impatient tone. “Let’s go to the house! I can not wait anymore!”
“Sure,” she said and stood up with Lin help. “But what about creatures?”
“They left, of course! Better think about your clothes! You wet your pants the sleeping beauty!” she urged her and pointed at her thighs. “And me too! By the way! I will put your thoughts in an order, but before that we will go to the bathroom to wash up, because we smell like two addled pissed fishes!"
