She's still alive and has changed as everybody else in the family. Enjoy…
–oOo–
20 Chapter 20: Asian Adventures
–oOo–
"And next time I'll crush your throat and cut your balls, do we understand each other?"
Her voice was a little husky but not shaken and her Hindi quite understandable. She decided that she had done well.
She stood up and walked toward the bar without even looking back. Hopefully Donald would cover her back while she walked away.
"You could have helped, Donald…"
He shot her his 'I don't really care' smile.
"I could have, indeed, Lydia dear, but that would have drawn all his friends into the brawl and we would have been killed by multiple back stabbing. So, you just humiliated him in front of said friends. He'll be back this night to take revenge, of course, but he will be alone and we will be able to kill him without making a fuss of it…"
He scratched his bushy red beard.
"Tomorrow we'll both be alive, and you'll still have a hell of a reputation. Nice defensive move by the way, I'll have to ask you to teach it to me. Could come handy some time…"
"I keep thinking you're just lazy, Donald."
He shot her his 'you know me too well' smile and shrugged before sipping at his vodka.
"Should we move immediately?"
"Only if you want to save his miserable life" answered Donald Gordon. "He's afraid and he won't follow us because he will be able to present our departure as a flight and boast about it. If we stay, he won't have a choice if he wants to remain that rubble's boss."
She took her cup drained it and put it back on the bar with a loud 'clang'.
"Well let's do a good deed and save an idiot's life, let's go, Donald, adventure awaits…"
Donald sighed took a few coins out of his pocket and paid for the drinks while looking at the –very- comely back side of his lover. He surprised himself while imagining her in a dress and not leather trousers, boots and wool poncho. With an umbrella in her hands and not a knife or a rifle, she would do, indeed she would…
–oOo–
"You said he wouldn't come…" whispered Lydia while looking at the little group of riders passing by a hundred yards down below.
"Seems I was wrong, but I still feel like he hadn't the balls to follow up. If he's here, there's something else driving him, not revenge anymore."
"How many?"
"I count ten" answered Donald. "We could take them out but I'm quite sure the rest of his little gang is a few minutes behind." He looked around them. "And I'm even surer we won't be discreet while taking them out. And this is Pachtoun territory. They'll get reinforcement within hours."
"Why isn't it possible to just have a quiet and uneventful journey, for once?"
He smiled but not at her.
It wasn't the first time in the last weeks that she complained about too much thrill. She was finally getting tired of their life. He had hoped for just that for quite a long time. Indeed, he had hoped for so much since they joined their journeys –and a few other things- up there in Siberia three years ago.
But at that time, she was all over 'fearless adventuress-journalist-writer' and he had just followed suit. Since they arrived in India it had been a little tamer. Visibly her life was beginning to weight on her.
"Can you remind me once again why we haven't taken an airship, for God's sake…"
"Gandhara isn't visible from the sky" she answered for the twentieth time. "There are magical fogs protecting them from outsiders."
He hid his smile. That the most modern woman he had ever encountered could believe such crap was a sheer impossibility. But well, she did believe it and since she had her little temper he wasn't going to risk their relationship because he was feeling 'superior macho male' again.
"And those fogs don't protect them from riders or men on foot?"
"Yes, they do but I'm awaited and they will guide us through the fog… I haven't heard that they were able to fly!"
"That's a pity, why magical fog and not magical flying?"
"Don't know you'll have to ask them when we get there" she answered as solemn as a judge.
"I'll do just that" he said while frowning at the path down below. "Here comes the rearguard. Ten, no eleven more to deal with."
"They are following the caravan now; they won't know that we have quit the others for at least a day more."
"They'll know it sooner but they won't be able to go back where we took the southern road for at least two days."
Lydia stayed put until the last of their followers had disappeared behind a slope. She had learned patience a long time ago.
"Let's go North then, after all that's where we want to go."
You want to go, love, I'm just following you and by all my Scottish ancestors I'm on it for whatever period is necessary till you decide you've had enough.
–oOo–
"God, how I'd like to send them all to hell! Won't they ever give up?"
Donald tsk-tsked at her language and shook his head.
"As I said a week ago, they are no longer there for revenge. His men would have forced him to stop following us long ago. If they go on with that chase it's because somebody is paying them and has promised a hefty reward to bring us/you back…"
"So, you believe they aren't out just to kill us?"
"They had two occasions to try these last three days. They could have shot at us over the canyon and buried us under a rockslide. They didn't even try to scare us. No, they want to get at us and capture us. Perhaps capture only you since you are the only one who has a market value in these countries. I'm only a second son, my brother would even pay them a bonus to get rid of me and my scandals…"
"When I'm done here, I'll go see your brother and tell him what I think of him."
"To what purpose? If he knows we are together he'll try to get rid of you too, that's all. And he's perhaps only a marquee but he has enough money and relations to make life a lot more difficult for you. Great Britain has perhaps changed a lot these last years but a woman who's chosen to have a job and run around the world is still a scandalous event."
"My family doesn't seem to mind…"
"You're lucky they are open-minded. Most wealthy family and almost all aristocratic families aren't open-minded at all."
"The Regent's family seems open-minded enough, the others should follow suit, shouldn't they?"
"The Regent can't be compared with anybody else in Great Britain. He's an oddity that shouldn't exist at all. He's been contaminated by that d'Arcy fellow. He had legally two wives! And nobody in his family seemed to see a problem there. There is no other family in England who's even close to that degree of eccentricity."
"And you disapprove?"
He made a face.
"I don't know! I ran away because I could no longer put up with the hypocrisy of formal family life. I could no longer stand these false and overplayed family relations. There was no longer anything natural in the way we were behaving while together. Showing emotions was frowned at, by God! I should applaud at their efforts, but I am what I am and on an odd family level it irks me. But I know that without them we would have been nurturing the starchiest society one could imagine. Women would have been sealed off behind closed doors for at least a century more. No, they are crazy, but their craziness was Great Britain's greatest chance to evolve into something at least bearable."
She stared a long moment at the distant mountains before turning to look at him.
"Donald, are we together?"
He sighed before answering. Tricky problems with straight answers like that one were easy to solve.
"I would have thought that these last three years were answer enough, wouldn't it?"
Lydia just shook her head.
"We were together in more than one way but that doesn't mean that we are together, Donald. I'm not speaking linguistic or philology, I'm not even speaking sex, I'm speaking feelings and emotions. Are we together, Donald?"
He shrugged.
"For me there never was nor is a difference, Lydia. The day I encountered the famous Darnet writer explorer journalist, I knew I've found the right person for me."
"Why haven't you said anything?"
"To what purpose would I have made that mistake? You clearly weren't ready to enter a relationship where you wouldn't have been able to bail out the moment you wanted. If I had asked for more you would have run away so fast, I wouldn't even have been able to see you burst out of my life." He shook his head while smiling. "Best was to wait till you knew what you wanted, that's all! Meanwhile was fun, I have nothing to complain about."
He saw her sigh.
"I'm aware of what I wished for for quite a long time now," she said, "we could have…"
"What more could we have done?" he interrupted her. "We have done what we both wanted, we had fun, we have seen a lot of exotic places and we shared more interesting moments than any married couple of my acquaintance has ever shared. No reason to regret a single second of those past three years. Now if you are ready to follow that other path I've always wanted for us, I'm ready. As soon as you are really sure about your feelings let me know and I'll go ask you dad…"
"You don't have to ask anybody but me…" said she with a defiant glint in the eyes.
"You know as well as I that that's not the truth, Lydia. As long as we were living that adventurous and crazy life we've chosen, you were at the helm and I did what you wanted. If we stop being gypsies to contemplate a normal life, then we'll have to do it normally. And, for my part, I'll have to do it as traditionally as possible. And that means a visit to your father, a formal request followed by a visit to your local priest."
"And if papa says no?"
He shot her his most manly smile.
"Believe me, he won't."
–oOo–
"As feared, they are waiting for us…" whispered Donald. He winked at her. "And you were right; there is a fog behind them…
"That's Gandhara's border" explained Lydia. "We have to reach it to give them the possibility to guide us further in."
"No way to ask them to come to our help? Those thugs are at the best ambush point available. I don't see how we'll be able to move past them without being seen."
Lydia looked at him and smiled her 'I still don't believe my luck' smile –a recent addition to her wide range of expressive smiles- before adding a directional gesture showing the upward path they were following.
"Let's go on, Mr. Gordon, I'll show you what to do…"
"How do you know?"
"I'm following protocol" she answered. "It's always interesting to follow protocol when it has been created by smart people."
–oOo–
Lydia felt dizzy. She was more and more distracted, and she was making mistakes. For now, said mistakes had been benign but she knew that she needed to get a few days without stress to gather her wits.
She was happy about Donald's admission and it had triggered a very silly desire to sing or whistle her satisfaction. Which could very well cost them their lives if she wasn't able to concentrate right now on what was necessary.
She searched the next waypoint, found it, walked toward it, signed him to follow and squeezed herself through the narrow slit in the mountain wall. He followed her with a lot of grumbled and swear words.
"That's why we had to shake the horses yesterday, I understand finally."
They had stored their horses the day before in a little cave the Gandharans had equipped just for that purpose and had been continuing afoot with just their weapons and a pair a wool blankets each.
They would come back in a few days to get their equipment and horses but for now discretion was what they needed and in her present mood it was very difficult for her to act as careful as she should.
"Even your smart little mare would have been in front of an unpassable barrier. No, the rest of our journey we well have to do it on foot." She turned and smiled at him. "We'll soon see if you are able to trust me, Donald…"
"Trusting YOU? After having witnessed three years of your crazy stunts? I'm perhaps in love, but I'm not in the least crazy."
"Well" said she with a teasing smile. "Today you'll have to trust me and act crazy or you can go back to your little smart mare to wait for my return. I'll come get you in a few days."
He shook his head.
"I haven't let you out of my sight these three last years, I won't begin the day you have, for the first time, listened to what I wanted."
"I still haven't accepted…" she threatened.
"You're still facing me and speaking with me, aren't you? I have seen how you react quite a few times when you were in front of a situation you considered unbearable. You are perhaps incapable to say it in as many words, but your behavior always speaks for you. I'm a patient man, in a year or two I'm quite sure I'll get an answer. And I hope very much that it will be a positive one."
She smiled.
"It will perhaps be much sooner, but you'll have to trust my words even if your senses shout that I'm crazy." She twisted her head and batted her eyelids. "Will you be able to give me the ultimate proof I need?"
She turned around and moved along the narrow passage.
As he had done for the last three years, he followed her.
–oOo–
"What do you mean, cross the gap?"
They had climbed quite a lot of steps to finally arrive in what looked like a room with a failing wall. Failing wall that looked over a precipice. Sometimes in the past there had perhaps been a parapet but clearly it had been gone for a long time.
In the middle of the room stood what looked like an altar with an embedded crystal.
Lydia had looked at it, smiled and has placed both hands on the crystal while closing her eyes. For a few minutes nothing had happened but then a light had become visible within the crystal. The light was first dim and almost invisible but very soon it had begun to shine brightly. It had been at that moment that Lydia had collapsed.
He was there before she hit the ground.
She smiled at him while holding him tightly with her arms around his neck.
"Sorry about the collapse but I wasn't aware that it would be so tiring," said she while pointing her chin at the precipice. "And now we have two minutes to cross the gap. Run toward the light you see on the other side…"
"There is nothing before us… A gap… We will drop to death!"
"Trust me and run, Donald. You doubted that magic existed. Now you'll have proof." She looked him in the eyes. "Have I ever given you to believe that I have suicidal tendencies?"
"No, but…"
"Then just trust me and run toward the light on the other side. Hurry if we are not there in time, we'll really drop to death."
He looked her in the eyes, shook his head, smiled and ran…
–oOo–
"I can't believe that I ran…"
"I never doubted you would!"
He looked at her and shook his head.
"You're so sure that you hooked me?"
"I was sure of nothing till a few hours ago."
"Well that's because when you chose not to be aware you are blind and deaf… I have been hooked for years now."
She closed her eyes and let herself relax.
"I liked you for years too…"
"I loved you since I first saw you climbing out of that snow pile. I knew that the girl I've always looked for just fell out of the sky."
She laughed.
"I remember, it was the day I got my first airship shot from under me and jumped with a corked parachute. Thank God for the snow drift, it saved my life." She embraced him fiercely. "And then you dragged me to your base camp."
"Couldn't let you die somewhere out in the cold, well could I? You were injured remember?"
"A few broken ribs, if I remember well."
"And a head commotion that had you dizzy for two weeks, a sprained wrist that rendered your right hand unusable and a deep cut in your left calf which would have bled you to death in less than an hour…"
"I would have survived; I wasn't ready to die yet…"
"You bet! But your chances were better with my help, you can't deny it."
"I don't deny anything, I just pretend that I wouldn't have died, that's all."
He sighed.
"Of course not, not with me in your immediate vicinity!"
She nodded and closed her eyes.
"Thanks… For that and for everything else."
"You're welcome my Lady."
"I'm no Lady, I forfeited that title a few years ago with my scandalous behavior."
"You're my Lady because there can be no other. And if I remember well I did profit of quite a few of your scandalous stunts. You wouldn't try to deprive me of the only woman I'll ever get to love, now, would you?"
Her smile was back when she heard him speak of his love for her. It just sounded right.
"I wouldn't dare, but let me warn you that you're entering realms nothing in your life has prepared you for."
"Well, I just ran half a mile over a cliff with only thin air under my feet, I really hope I've entered said realms or else I'm going to end in a lunatics' asylum."
"Can't promise you won't end there anyway…"
"As long as it is with you, I don't give a damn, my Lady."
–oOo–
Lydia and he had been welcomed by a small group of elderly females. They had been pleasant but had been more than discreet while they were outside the city walls.
They had joined them after only a quarter of an hour after his mad rush over nothingness and had invited them to follow them.
And then they had taken them to the city. To Gandhara.
Which was indeed a very special place.
Beautiful with little multicolored three stories houses lining the narrow streets. Ancient with some amazing buildings showing very unusual Asian and Greek architectural traits. Mysterious with light bulbs maintaining the streets in bright light even at night. Captivating with people which were and welcoming and shy.
They had been guided toward an empty house where they would live while being in Gandhara. Each story was one room with two openings in the front wall and stairs joining the upper floors. A door and a window opening to the street for the first floor and two windows upstairs. A shared multileveled terrace was crowning the neighboring buildings.
They settled in the bedroom on the second floor and very soon were asleep in each other's arms.
–oOo–
When he woke up she was already up and away.
Which was unusual since he was always the first awake.
He shrugged and looked for the chamber pot which he didn't find because there was, on the first floor a cubbyhole which was clearly built to eliminate body wastes. He had seen some of the new flush toilets of modern English houses and was quite amazed to find similar fixings in a century old Asian dwelling in the middle of the Hindu Kush. Clearly it hadn't been added in an existing house, it had been built with the rest of the kitchen/bath part of the house.
Well, the Roman had them two thousand years ago, beware of your ethno cultural arrogance, Donald my friend. People in Asia were civilized for as long as in Europe…
Fruits and green vegetables had been brought while they were sleeping and he decided not to wait on his partner's return. He was hungry and the holes in the servings were proof enough that he wasn't the first to eat this morning.
Half an hour later he was exiting the house.
–oOo–
"You'll have to learn the languages," said her hostess whose name she didn't know. She had presented herself as 'the teacher'. "We cannot teach you in a foreign language. The song of the language spoken is important for the balance of magic. I'm sure it can be adapted to other languages but that's a job for a native speaker who already knows everything she needs, we won't be able to do it."
"Languages? Are there more than one?" asked Lydia.
"In fact there are three different languages you'll need to live and study here. The Common tongue which is the language spoken by everybody in Gandhara. You'll need it to learn the basic rituals and to speak with the people of the town. Then there is the Kushoulain, or the women's tongue, which is the language of basic crafting. You'll need it to perform ritual magic and elemental spells. Most of what the common people call magic are performed in Kushoulain or common. But to cast the most difficult of spells you must speak the most ancient of all languages. To master real magic you'll have to learn Owgor, the language of the soul. You'll need it to enter the realms of the Gods where you'll find ultimately the essence of your own magic."
Her hostess looked her in the eyes.
"But to learn Owgor there are two conditions, you must swear never to teach it to anybody who hasn't been approved by the Council of Ancients or the Gods and you must have been able to reach out to the Gods."
"You mean praying?"
"No, I mean reaching out to the Gods, as in exiting your formal body and entering their Realm. We will help you to understand the technique, but you'll have to do it all by yourself. There is no cheating possible in this matter. You succeed or you don't and since a reaching out is a ceremonial spell, we will all witness your success or failure."
"How long will it take?"
"Are you in a hurry?"
Lydia shook her head.
"Not really but I'd like to send a few messages to my family. They don't know where I am, and I wouldn't see them worry without reasons."
"We have the means to send messages to our brethren in Chipanga and they are on what you call the Chap'lines. They should be able to convey your message to your family. Please give us the exact wordings and we'll send it."
"Will you be able to get an answer?"
"The link we share with our brethren is a two-way link where we are able to speak from mind to mind. They'll be able to get us the answers if answers there are."
Lydia nodded.
"Well that done, where do we begin?"
"It depends" came the immediate answer. "You came with a man what is he for you?"
Lydia hesitated, not because she had any doubt but because she didn't know exactly what her hostess was asking.
"He's the man I'm pledged to. If he agrees he will be the father of my children."
Her hostess sneered.
"It is your body and your children; you are the only one who can make that decision. I know that out there men play an awkwardly dominating role but you'll have to surmount your education to retrieve your real role because the base of any magic is your inner strength. You can't master the flux of the realms if you are submissive to anything. You must always be in command and if you show the least weakness the forces out there are going to eat you alive… Literally!"
Lydia couldn't help but smile. Being in command had always been a second nature with her.
"I love him that doesn't mean I'm submissive to him. We have a real partnership, not a master possession relation."
"If you had to choose between him and being taught, what would you decide…"
"Him," answered Lydia without a hesitation. "I need the trust and cooperation we built over the years. And the intimacy. He's more important than any power."
"That's good," agreed her hostess. "It would have been bad had you chosen the power for itself. The power of magic is a huge and traitorous force that you must keep at bay. If you plunge too deeply in it you will be, sooner or later, eaten alive. Having other priorities is a good thing. Children are best because of the link they have with you for the first twenty-eight years…"
"Why twenty-eight years…"
"In fact, it is forty two but the first twenty eight are the most important years because the mother shares a part of herself with her kids."
"A part of herself?"
"You are not only flesh and blood, you know that, I suppose?"
"There's soul and spirit, too, isn't it?" she risked as an answer.
"One can outline it with those words, but it is more complex than that. It is a lot more complex than that."
"Well let's go for our first lesson, then!"
"Not yet" said her hostess. "You need to learn our common language first. You need to know the words that have real meaning in essential matters. But since your man is important to you it is necessary that he learns with you and progresses at the same speed as you. I'll schedule your first lesson this afternoon. Don't come without him, please, it is important to teach the both of you together."
–oOo–
"You are going to fall out of the window, that's all you're going to achieve…"
Donald sighed and brought his torso back into the room. He shook his head while looking puzzled.
"I can't believe it; those things do light the street and there's nothing to explain how it is done!"
"Yesterday morning you've run over a canyon and you didn't fall, what's your explanation for that?" insisted Lydia. "Gandhara is a city of magical power that's all and I'm here to learn what's necessary to be able to use these powers…"
"You'll end on a scaffold, that's all you are going to get!"
"Could be" answered she with a wise smile. "That's why once we are back in more backward countries, I won't boast about it and you won't speak about it." She shrugged. "It will be our secret. Is it too difficult for you to accept?"
"Of course, not but I'm more than a little worried. I wasn't joking when I spoke about a scaffold, even if a pyre is a more traditional way to deal with witches."
"You heard the teacher, I won't be a witch, I'll be a force-weaver."
"I'm not sure that calling it with another name will change anything to the people's reactions when they learn the truth."
"That's exactly why we won't even allude to what I know. I hope you believe me mature enough to be able to maintain the necessary secret."
He closed the physical gap between them and soon was embracing her.
"I know you are not stupid but you know as well as I that sometimes, if only to save your life or mine, you will have to do things that will betray you."
"I very much hope that once we are back in Great Britain we won't be under as many death threats as here these last three years. Let's not forget that we will be in the most technologically advanced country of the entire world. The essence of modern civilization will be all around us. We should be safe there."
"I'm not so sure," he grumbled. "I have seen what those civilized people do to get richer or mightier. I really prefer the Asian savages. They are perhaps dangerous but at least falsehood is not their main quality."
"We'll manage, you'll see. We can choose any place on the Isles. We could live in the North near the Scottish border. You could go visit your mother."
"I'm not sure she still wants to see me. She never ever answered to my letters."
"You can't be sure, there are perhaps a hundred of her letters scattered everywhere in Asia."
"I doubt it very much, love. If she wrote it's probably my brother who made them disappear. We are not in good terms he and I.
"I'm sure he will be a lot more welcoming when you come home with a wife at your arm."
"I wouldn't bet your life on his welcoming you. He despises me but he will still treat you like a servant and reproach us what he will with certainty consider a misalliance."
"We'll see if he continues to use those terms once he knows me better. Don't condemn him in advance, please."
"Whatever you want, love, but don't bet your life on it." He sighed. "What you can bet on, on the contrary is that we won't be welcome at the family estate. We'll have to find a place to stay and a way to earn a living once back. I'm good with a rifle and even better at reading tracks in the wilderness. I'm not sure I will be able to find a job suitable with what I'm good at."
"You won't need to work, my books are selling quite well and, as you know, I never failed to be able to finance our trips. Money won't be a problem."
He pouted stubbornly.
"I won't live at your expense; it is a matter of principle."
"Let's not fight for something that won't happen for quite a few months. We are here and we are guests of the city…"
He frowned at her.
"Indeed, that's another thing I don't understand. Why are we guests? We are strangers after all."
"Gandhara is a part of British India, dear, as such and in compensation for the protection the Federation bestows them, the city has pledged to accept and host any British citizen who would come to their gate asking for shelter."
"And with their hiding fog those visitors are probably not very numerous…"
"But the treaty stands and that's why you are welcome."
"And you?"
"I'm a student, students are all welcome and since time immemorial their living costs are paid by the city council."
As her man he would have been taken in just because she had said that he was with her but that, she decided, he wasn't really ready to accept.
"So" she added, "while we are here, we are welcome but if you want to help you are free, when not following language lessons, to help the men to perform their tasks."
"And what are said tasks?"
"I don't really know, I don't even know yet what the work division between males and females here is. What I'm sure, on the other hand, is that men do not 'weave' in Gandhara. Only women are accepted as students." She stopped his question before it came out. "And to prevent your question, I don't know why men are excluded you'll have to ask the teacher yourself."
–oOo–
"Hmm, hmm" sighed the teacher when he had asked his question. "I'll give you the answers but before I'll have to ask you a few questions myself."
"Go on" answered Donald. "I have nothing to hide."
"First: do you resent the fact that Lydia here has been accepted as a student and you won't?"
He frowned and took a few seconds to weight his feelings.
"Yes, I do…" said he finally. "Even if I'm not interested with learning that stuff, I resent it that I was excluded even without having been asked. But I don't resent Lydia."
"At least a frank answer… Second: do you believe that women are more unfit than men?"
Once more he didn't answer immediately. He took the time to think about his feelings in that matter.
"It is commonly believed in my society that women are too emotional to make good leaders. They are believed to be too easily overcome by emotions to make harsh decisions when those harsh decisions are needed."
"What you really mean is that women are less prone to kill to get what they want, aren't you?"
"Perhaps but I must admit that I never even thought about the reasons behind the gender differences in my society. It was a commonly admitted fact that men are the superior gender, whose task was to protect women…"
"Which, if you look at it honestly, just means that men place women at a lower level where they can exploit them, even sexually, and prevent them from playing a role in your society's power's structure."
"Aren't you doing the same here but in reverse?"
"Not exactly since we don't exploit our men sexually" smiled the teacher. "But you are right here it's the female part of society that plays the dominant role. And we won't change it, here at least. But in Chipanga it is different. Men and women there do try to establish a new way to live together in a more egalitarian way. But if Chipanga is a city of young people that doesn't mean that you will find only elderly people here in Gandhara. We, who stayed here, we are probably too set in our ways to envision and accept a real change. We let all those young unsatisfied fools move to that other continent to make their experiences without disturbing our peace. We, on the other side, we stay and we go on as usual. And you would be surprised to note that most of our men did want to stay here."
"Did want?"
"Yes, they finally moved because their wives moved." She smiled in a very cat-like way. "Men are, it was once more proven, too emotionally engaged to make cool and overthought decisions and they let their feelings overcome their analytical mind!"
Donald couldn't help but answer with a smile of his own.
"I see what you try to convey." He looked at Lydia and his smile evolved visibly. "I, for my part, no longer consider what my society teaches as a general rule. There are clearly women who have the same possibilities than men but that doesn't mean that all women are or can be like them. Most are very set in their beliefs and since they are those who teach the next generation, the changes won't happen quickly."
"That's also why we created Chipanga. There, with a majority of progressive men and a great deal of women who are ready to consider some changes in the way the society is structured, evolution should be possible a lot faster. Faster than here that's sure."
"Will they teach magic to men?"
"If I can judge from the leader they elected, they will try but they will fail because men can only learn the basics. Anything more developed will end in catastrophe."
"Why catastrophe, some men are as intelligent as women…"
"It is not a question of intelligence. Men are most of the time, smarter than women in the problem-solving field and magic is typically based on problem solving…"
"So why stop men from learning?"
"Because they lack a very important feature only women have: they don't bear children!"
"What does the fact to bear children have to do with the possibility to weave?" asked Lydia.
The teacher pouted.
"It is difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't been able to look behind the veil but I'll try to make it easier for you to understand."
She shut her eyes and they saw her nodding.
"First I need you to understand that your body, I mean your flesh body is only a little part of your creature. There are seven more 'bodies' your body of flesh hosts. I won't try to explain you what is exactly the role of each of them but I'll give you the basics. The order I present them is in direct link with substance and energy. Your body of flesh has the less energy and the most substance. All the others have less substance and more and more energy. The first body is very intimately linked with your body of flesh. We call it the ethereal body, it is the body which maintains your matter, your flesh, alive. When you die this body ceases to function and slowly disappears but much sooner than your matter. When you weave healing magic you don't heal the flesh, you restore the ethereal body and give him extra energy and it's him who does the healing of the flesh because light weaving can't impact on matter, only on energy."
She looked around her and stood to get a scroll which she unrolled after sitting back. Inside was a picture of a woman surrounded by seven bubbles of different colors. The woman herself was pierced from head to feet with a blue channel that at irregular intervals was dotted with what looked like flowers. Each bubble and each flower had a different color but each flower had a color which was similar to one of the bubbles.
[to have a similar picture to look at, please try the following web page: pulse/aura-colors-meaning-ginni-aneja_ after having erased the spaces. It is not exactly as the Gandharan chart but if you don't look at the comments, it is very similar.]
"Here you see a human being as I can see it with my mind-eye. You can chose not to believe me but I and all the other weavers of Gandhara are able to see exactly that when looking at another person. The only variance is that the colors of the different bodies are very often not constant but rather motley. The color mix you see is also very revealing of the inner balance of the being you're looking at. But that's going too much into details. Let's go back to your question."
She placed the scroll before Lydia and Donald and pointed toward the color bubbles around the body.
"I already spoke with you, Lydia, about the fact that a woman shares her bodies with her children."
"How is that possible" asked Donald. "How is sharing a body possible…"
"Well it happens all the time when a woman is pregnant, Donald. The child shares its mother's body. And that's a fact that lasts, for the other bodies, for years."
"How is it possible?" asked Lydia.
"Because at birth a child has only two functional bodies, the body of flesh and the body of life energy –the red one on the picture-, all the others exist but they are non-functional. So in order to operate the child must use his mother's while it is nurturing one body after the other."
"How long does it take to form a complete body?" asked Lydia.
"Each body needs around seven years to be functional. So with seven your child has three functional bodies, with fourteen, four and with twenty one five… And so on till all his bodies are fully functional and he is, finally a real grown up…"
"That means that we are not fully functional even now" frowned Lydia.
"Indeed you are not, dear" answered the teacher. "You still have at least three bodies you are sharing and that explains the close bond which exists with your mother. And it will last for a few more years."
Lydia could only shake her head.
"But we are thousands of miles away…"
"Distances have no importance in this matter. We are not speaking matter, we are speaking energy and distance doesn't have the same value when one speaks about energy."
"It's difficult to conceive" said Donald.
"I agree but it is the truth nevertheless. I must add that, beyond the mental body –it's the green one on the picture-, it has not real importance on a matter planet like this one. The spiritual plane bodies are very often unused –or misused but both words give you a false idea, since they aren't machines you chose to use or not but they are qualities you have to nurture- by dwellers on this earth. Only very spiritually engaged people do consciously awake those three last bodies." She looked at Lydia. "That doesn't mean that they are unused but just that normal people don't learn to develop them."
"What happens to them when unused?"
"They are not really unused, but in essence nothing happens, those bodies cross unchanged from one incarnation to the next essentially remaining the same. In other words, if you don't enrich them while living; they just went on untouched to your next live."
"So you say that we go from one life to another. Could we come back as animals?" asked Donald.
"Only of the two legged human sort of animals," answered the teacher. "Our soul –which is the group of bodies including the emotional body, the mental body and the astral body- and our spirit –which includes the other more essential bodies- can only have three fates: finding another body, joining the Light or being returned to the primordial chaos to be re-forged. Animal bodies cannot host our souls."
"What about paradise?" Lydia's face was showing distress.
"We can probably call thus the joining with the Light which is when our journey around the Universe ends and we go back to share our experiences with the Creator. Purgatory being what we are living now and the re-forging of the soul being what's commonly called Hell. So you see everything is there but not quite like it was described to you."
The teacher shook her head.
"But I still need to answer to your question about men and magic. Men can wield magic as women do but they risk a lot more than women because they don't have their children's souls to anchor them into our world. And without anchorage it is a lot more difficult to come back from the Otherworld where the Great Weavings can be done. Most of the greatest male weavers have lost their mind while out there and since a crazy weaver is a very dangerous opponent to control, we chose to not take that risk again. And that's why only mothers with living children are allowed to implement the Great Weaving techniques." She looked at Lydia. "And that's why you will be taught the theories but restricted in their use until you've given birth to your first healthy child."
–oOo–