FOCUSED

“Sleeping God, Sleeping God

Come into our arms, show us where to go

In our hearts we know, these the parts that grow

One to teach, one to touch, one to reach, one’s too much

Bring us an old one, a cold one, a bold one

Give us a sold one, a told one, a gold one.”

The dance goes round and round, every step in time, everything perfect, as if we aren’t five people dancing, but one. And we are singing in a tongue we never heard before, but in words we understand. We were scattered pieces until the Finder found us; the Mender put us back together; the Healer gave us the beat of our heart; the Seer looked before and behind, back through the mists to those others, forward into the light of tomorrow’s dawns; the Lens focuses all, the power and the light; the parts the form the heart, the light.

No longer parts, but a perfect whole. No longer Sleeping, but Awake.

We are the Sleeping God.

“We can see the whole world. From the roots of mountains to the thinnest reaches of the air. Every heartbeat, every eye blink.” There’s awe and pleasure in her voice.

“And the Shape and purpose of all these things.”

“Look! A wrinkle there in the fabric of the world, just this one spot, where there’s a whole.”

“You mean a hole.” We laugh.

“Let’s Mend it, it’s easy when you know how.” The youngest part of us is very happy to be Mending.

Together we’re Sight, and we’re the Lens turning the Light until in it we See the Shadow. We’ll Find, and once Found, we’ll Mend and we’ll Heal.

“There.” The Finding part of us is strong and true now, Mended and Healthy.

“The Green Shadow.”

The youngest part is frightened; we all are, but together it is much easier to be brave.

“What is it?”

“It’s mad. Forced to ‘shape’ in our world, its wholeness makes it broken, and drives it insane.”

“In its madness it will destroy, unmake, undo.”

“To make a home for itself.”

“How sad, how frightened it must be.”

“We must destroy it, or let its madness destroy us. For the safety of all, and for mercy to it as well.”

“Please, don’t let’s hurt it. Can’t it be Mended? Isn’t it a lost child, singing the same in-and-out song that we know? Couldn’t we Find its home?”

“It’s too badly hurt, like a dragon, dying, but breathing poison as it dies.”

“It’s like torn pieces of paper and parchments covered with writing, glued and sewn together by a child. Form without true content, spilling lies.”

“It is a plague victim, innocent but spreading death as it walks.”

“We need to see more clearly, focus more. The Shadow is all and none of these things. If we must destroy it, let us give it honor. It will fight us, in its madness and its fear. Let us be a warrior, and give it a clean death.”

It is best to be the Wolfshead; skilled, deadly, and unstoppable. I alone of all of us have Seen this room before, and can feel at ease here.

The man looks up from the table, shock showing in his face. “You can’t follow me here.”

I approach him, looking at him with our head tilted to one side. “Who do you think you speak to?”

“Dhulyn Wolfshead.”

The man looks like Karlyn-Tan, but I shake that from our mind. Now he is Lok-iKol, his one eye blazing green, and that is easier. He looks down at his hands, face twisted in surprise.

“How-who are you?”

“You know who.” There is a sword in our hand and I cut, striking off the hand nearest us and a piece of jade-green stone falls to the floor. Its hand and arm remain still whole. I see the comprehension pass over his face like a cloud across the sun. He whirls and snatches the sword from the scabbard that hangs on the back of the chair. He strikes at me, but I jump back.

I look around us. “This is the room where it all began. There’s the mirror.” I leap on the table and cut at him again, but this time the One-eye parries, and jumps back himself, forcing us to descend once more to the floor. I strike and whirl and strike again, moving our feet in the Shora, but he wards off our blows.

“When I am whole-” his mouth twists as if the word itself was poison, “I can come back to this room. Behind that mirror, through that sky, is my home, the real world, not this place of shape and form.” His mouth forms those words, but the thought I can see in his mind is “horror” and “pain.”

“I can end your pain.” A cut, a thrust, which the one-eyed man does not parry in time. Our sword penetrates his left side to the depth of three fingers. If this were a man, he would be bleeding too freely to continue fighting.

Of course, if this were a man, my earlier cut would have removed his hand, and he would have bled to death already.

“No, you can only break me into pieces. Me, that should never have had form to be made into parts. Do you think that ends the pain?”

“What would end it?”

“Open the door, send me home.”

I smile and shake our head. “I would open the door, and others of your kind would come here.” But the youngest part of us, the part that is a little boy is crying, he, too, has lost his home. I shake our head again. Our homes are also lost, but I have found another. I have her Brotherhood. I have Parno Lionsmane. He is our home. The little one, he, too, will find a new home. But what about this one’s home, the little one asks us?

The man changes again. Now he’s the Mage. The sword flicks out, much faster than the One-eye could use it, and I fall back, tasting a sharp flicker of fear in our throat.

“Do you think I would wish this suffering on any other of my kind?” he says. He steps back, lowers his sword, and points to the book on the table.

“I cannot read the book. That is too much form for me, too much shape. It is not just words, but thoughts, the form of form and shape of shape. If I could use the book, I would have gone from here before the madness came.”

I keep our sword high, but think. It is true that I have Seen this man trying to open the gate, and failing. And that man wept, not from frustrated ambition, but from despair. I know, because I Saw truly, and I See truly now. I back around the table until I can glance down at the book. It is a language I have never seen before. I can’t read it. We can’t Find it.

I look up at him. “Would you promise to stay here, in this room, to leave the world alone?”

He shakes his head, rubs at his lips with trembling hand. “I must unmake it. It is madness. I must be sane again. I must.” He snatches up the sword again. He strikes, again, and again, and I fall back, suddenly feeling the young ones’ fear weighing down my limbs, the old one’s age in my laboring lungs.

The edges of the room begin to waver, the walls to dissolve and I try, my breath short and my eyes watering, to Find my place again as the NOT approaches, closer…

Focus. I need focus. The Hunting Cat Shora. Defense and offense. Stillness and movement. I grasp at the Shora and they all grasp with me, all breathe with me; our hearts beat as one. We breathe as one, and together I fall into the Hunting Cat Shora, sword up, left hand raised, feet sliding across the floor, keeping our weight balanced.

I glide toward him like the cat the Shora is named for and he cuts at our head. I parry, he cuts again, thinking to blind us with his speed, but I move when he blinks, faster than he imagines possible, for I am the God Awake. I cut his arm, slash his ribs, and miss his neck by a hair-breadth. He touches our thigh, but I Heal.

It is like a dance, and I hum a tune under my breath as I strike, and strike. I feel all our thoughts, all I feel, focus. The pain of loss. A home gone. The need to have that home restored, and the hateful and the horrible things that need drives us to do. Part of me weeps, and I know I must end this. I am the Sleeping God, but my bodies are human. I cannot dance this measure forever.