Chapter 10

In a fertile valley nestled between two fingers of mountains on the east and on the west, I chose a plot upon which to grow a house; it was a plateau that overlooked the valley; the western edge nestled against the foot of the mountains. Three months had passed and Tali had scarcely spoken to me; we had traveled far, spreading the word among the human enclaves at we went.

The three of us stood on the plateau looking down; Reena stood by herself with her bow drawn waiting for quail to rise from the grasses. Tali faced me and finally spoke, "What am I to you, Rohanan?"

"What do you wish to be Tali of the Staff?" I tossed back the question.

"There are many things I want to be, but they will not come to pass unless you release Reena."

"I asked you in the Sacred Grove if you knew how to break the slave bond and you didn't know. What do you expect me to do?" I shouted more than I should have.

"That is no longer relevant. You have been touched by the Staff of Life; you know have knowledge that no Eldenhaun has held in hundreds of generations. Have you searched the gift of Set-Ne'etha?"

She knew the answer before she asked the question. I hadn't and there was no excuse. I closed my eyes and creaked open the gate of that memory. The exact answer wasn't there but I knew now what was required. I looked into Tali's eyes, "the ritual is dangerous and it could kill her."

"Then it is her choice," was the reply.

Reena chose to be set free, saying that she had known my heart since that day on the rock of meditation in the Sacred Grove. We settled into our positions of meditation, Tali taking up a position directly behind her sister as she called her.

"Open your mind to me, Reena. I promise to be gentle." She laughed like a little girl and drew me in past the corridors of memory to the grand structures of her being.

"Take me to the core of your jadeena, to the band of darkness around it." We plunged down and again I faced the wild chaos of light and movement. I came closer and examined the unyielding band. There was no texture to it, no hint of how it worked or how it was removed.

"This may hurt," I cautioned and I reached out my jayda and tried to break the band. It wouldn't give and Reena yelped in pain. I began to stroke the band with my power, looking for some defect or pocket in which to insert my jayda. I stroked and stroked, finding nothing until I pulled back and an infinitesimal thread followed me. I drew it into me and thread began to come. I began to spool it and the thread began to unravel faster and faster. The more I pulled, the quicker it came. The band began to dissipate but the chaos of her janeeda also began to increase.

I shouted a warning to Reena, as the thread fed into me at a furious rate. The final taint of bond gave way, and her janeeda exploded in a riot of color overwhelming me, drowning me in the unbounded energies.

I cut my thread of jayda and lurched back into human reality. Tali held her sister as her body convulsed in an epileptic seizure. My stomach rebelled against me and I dove off the rock to vomit my guts upon the ground. My last meal mingled with yellow bile and tiny flecks of a black substance. I felt physically weak. When my stomach was empty, I crawled back to the women.