29
Training
“Good morning, everyone! Today, I have something very special for you to try. The exercise is likely to seem strange, as it is an ancient practice from my own part of the world and therefore quite removed from your own experience.”
Ammu stood in the center of a strange room they had not seen before. It was located in a system of narrow tunnels beneath the building, the stairwell to which was hidden behind a gray steel door in the back of the lodge’s industrial kitchen.
The room held no furniture at all. A large mirror was set into one wall, but otherwise there was not a single mark in the pristine white paint. The whitewashed floor appeared to be smoothly sealed concrete. Round, bright lights lay perfectly flush with the unblemished ceiling.
The space was too large and empty to be comfortable, especially given the complete lack of color. It reminded Mackenzie of the despised gray carpet, making her want to shudder, but she hid it as best she could. She suspected the mirror to be a one-way window. Who knew how many unknown observers might be watching from the other side.
“I thought unconscious minds didn’t like basements,” Sam said.
Ammu turned to meet her eyes for just a moment but did not otherwise acknowledge the comment.
“In service of this experiment,” he said instead, “I have brought something that is quite precious to me, and I would ask you all, please, to treat it with respect when handling it.”
Slowly, carefully, Ammu produced a huge tome from a satchel he carried over his shoulder. It was bound in dark brown leather, the edges of each page delicately gilded, with hand-tooled lettering across the cover, painted in gold. The language was so foreign to them that they could not even decipher its letters, let alone its meaning, and it appeared to be printed either backwards or upside down, the binding positioned on the right rather than on the left.
When Ammu opened the book and turned it around so they could see it, Sketch gasped and took a step forward, reaching one hand out toward the page—until he remembered what Ammu had just said. He looked up, seeking permission to touch the illustration he saw there, and Ammu granted it silently, nodding once, allowing Sketch to run his fingers reverently across its colorful surface.
The vibrant picture depicted a creature with the brilliant body and tail of a peacock but the head and forelegs of a wolf. Watching Sketch closely, Ammu turned to a new page, this one displaying a classic gryphon. Its body and rear legs were clearly those of a lion, but its head, wings, and forelegs were just as clearly those of an eagle.
“That’s the picture you showed me!” Kaitlyn exclaimed.
“Almost,” Ammu said. “The picture I showed you in the workshop was very similar. It was created by the same artist, but it is not exactly the same. There are subtle differences, detailed here.” He pointed to more of the unusual writing, arrayed alongside the photo in a column down the side of the page, the lettering aligned on the right instead of on the left, just like the book’s binding.
“That’s Arabic.” Mackenzie leaned forward to take a closer look. “I can’t read it, but I recognize it.”
“Very good,” Ammu agreed. “As I said, the exercise we are to attempt today comes originally from my own part of the world, as does this book.”
“What do you want us to do, Ammu?” Rush asked, and Ammu smiled.
“The exercise is designed to strengthen the connection between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Since each of you commands a different ability through a unique pathway, you will each be performing a different aspect of the whole. To begin, Kaitlyn will set the pattern—the blueprint, if you will—for the exercise. From this image, Kaitlyn, when you are ready, clear your mind and try to see it, as you did in the workshop.”
Kaitlyn nodded uncertainly and stepped forward, lowering her gaze to the book. They all stood in silence for several moments, but Kaitlyn just frowned and eventually shook her head.
“I can’t see it like before,” she said, looking to Ammu for direction.
“Try again,” he said gently. “It will come.”
Kaitlyn nodded and stared at the image again, this time waiting several long minutes in silence before finally giving up.
“I’m sorry, Ammu. It just isn’t coming to me. I’m not getting anything.”
“That’s because it’s not as big as it looks,” Sketch interjected, and Ammu looked at him in surprise.
“How so?” he asked.
“The picture looks like a lion’s body, but it isn’t that big at all. It’s more like a cat. Like this.” Sketch held his hands out in front of him, indicating something closer to the size of a dog. He looked up at Kaitlyn to see whether she understood what he was saying, but she was already nodding eagerly.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I have it! I can see it, Ammu!” In her mind’s eye, as clear as day, she could see a circle of glowing runes that somehow, to her, represented the living energy flow of the miniature gryphon.
“Excellent!” Ammu exclaimed. “Both of you! That is excellent!”
Kaitlyn and Sketch both beamed with pride.
“Here,” Ammu said. He pulled a square tin out of his satchel and opened it to reveal several pieces of blue street chalk. Sketch started to reach for it, but Ammu surprised him by handing it to Kaitlyn. “Draw what you see on the floor. About this big, I think.” He held his hands apart, almost as far as his arms could stretch.
“Sure!” Kaitlyn agreed. She knelt on the floor and began drawing a large circle.
“Now, Samantha,” Ammu continued, “You will sit in the middle of the circle. If and when it occurs to you to do something, then do it. Use your sense of timing. If everything goes well, you will know when. Trust your instincts.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, shrugging, “’cause that’s not vague at all.” But she did as she was asked, sitting with her legs crossed in the middle of the chalk circle on the floor as Kaitlyn began to draw strange runes around her.
“Mackenzie,” Ammu said, turning to her next, “I would like you to bless the circle and ‘center’ the ritual through any series of movements that seems fitting. Your unconscious mind can already communicate spatial information to your conscious awareness through your martial arts. Use that ability to perform the movements that come to you.”
“OK,” Mackenzie agreed. “I can do that.”
“Wonderful!” Ammu turned to Daniel, who looked like he wanted to throw up. “Daniel, I would like you to sing any tune that represents the way you feel as you watch what Kaitlyn is doing.”
“Dear God, don’t ask him to do that,” Rush couldn’t help but interject, and Sketch laughed out loud while Daniel blushed furiously.
“Hmm? OH! Right. Yes, I see. The feelings that come to you through the runes on the floor, I mean,” Ammu corrected himself, looking like he was trying not to chuckle.
“Thanks a lot,” Daniel muttered, but Rush just grinned without any sign of remorse.
“Go on, Disco,” he joked. “Let’s hear it. Give us a Kaitlyn-rune melody.”
Daniel glared at him, but Mackenzie looked up from her series of movements long enough to say, “Hey! If I can perform an ancient spiritual cleansing by doing slow Muay Thai moves around a chalk circle, you can hum us a damn tune.”
“Fine,” Daniel muttered. He grew quiet for a moment and then began humming, very softly, an eerie melody that didn’t sound quite like anything any of them had ever heard before.
“What do you want Sketch and me to do?” Rush asked, more than happy to do any crazy thing Ammu asked of him now that they had made their deal.
“You will know when Samantha indicates that the time is right,” Ammu replied cryptically.
“Good enough for me,” Rush said. He folded his arms across his chest and stood back to watch the fun, Sketch mimicking his pose beside him.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sam said, holding up one hand after Kaitlyn had finished her drawing. “Go back to the beginning.”
“Beginning?” Mackenzie asked, she and Daniel both stopping and staring at her.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Mackenzie, wherever you feel like the ritual should start, go back there and wait for a second.”
“OK,” she agreed, shrugging and walking about halfway around the circle.
“Daniel,” Sam continued, “wherever that tune starts, I’m going to count you into it, OK?”
Daniel didn’t look happy about having to start over again, but he nodded just the same.
“And Kaitlyn,” Sam finished, “Go back to the part of the circle where Mackenzie is standing and trace over the runes again, moving in the same direction she does. I’ll point to you when it’s time to move to the next rune.”
“Okie dokie,” Kaitlyn agreed.
Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Rush raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Ammu, however, began to watch her with a new intensity.
“OK, everybody,” she said. “Here goes nothing. One… two… one, two, three, four.”
Daniel began to hum again, but this time he followed the beat that Sam had introduced, while Mackenzie moved to the same rhythm, punching and kicking at the air in slow motion. Sam pointed occasionally to Kaitlyn, who would trace the next rune while Mackenzie bowed in front of it.
As they came back around toward the beginning of the circle, Rush began to frown. He felt a strange sort of hum in the air, and he found himself wondering whether this was what it felt like right before you were struck by lightning.
It was not a comforting thought.
Suddenly, Sam threw her arms up over her head, and a dark void began to open between her hands. It started as a pinprick, so small that Rush couldn’t be sure he was seeing anything at all, but he felt it with absolute certainty. It was as though a hole had opened up between himself and something waiting just on the other side, in the same way that a narrow tunnel might suddenly allow you to hear someone’s voice through a wall of solid rock, or allow you to catch the scent of winter lingering on the other side.
As the hole grew, becoming as wide as a marble, and then a golf ball, and then a baseball, and then a softball, Rush could feel the thing on the other side struggling to shove its way into the tunnel, which was still too narrow for it. He felt it yearning toward him, and at the same time tugging at him, like two powerful magnets drawn inexorably toward one another.
“What the hell?” Rush exclaimed. He took a huge step backward and stumbled into Ammu, who barely managed to keep them both from falling.
“What?” Sam cried out, seeing Rush’s reaction. She yanked her hands back into her lap, her wide eyes meeting Rush’s across the span of the room between them, and the void snapped closed without a sound.