Chapter 11 Syssi
SYSSI
Syssi had been watching Eluheed throughout lunch, trying to understand the sense of familiarity she felt toward him.
It wasn't the first time she was seeing the shaman, but it was the first time she had spent time with him, and he already felt like an old friend. Family even.
She was comfortable with him, which was also unusual. Normally, it took her a long time to get used to someone, and that only happened after she got to know them quite well.
There had been a few exceptions, though. She and Amanda had hit it off immediately, but that was probably because they were such complete opposites.
Amanda was such an unapologetic extrovert to Syssi's introvert, a powerhouse of bubbling energy to Syssi's calm. When Amanda decided she liked someone, her exuberance just swallowed that person whole, and that was how it had been with Syssi.
Annani had just enveloped her in love and acceptance from the first moment they had met and had declared herself Syssi's second mother.
With Eluheed, it was probably their shared paranormal ability that created the sense of connection.
It was like finding a mirror, someone who saw the world through a similar lens, someone who understood the confusing nature of visions and their effect on the seer.
There was an otherness to him that probably had to do with his shamanic abilities, but it didn't bother her. On the contrary, she found it appealing. The best way she could describe it was that his soul shone bright.
Eluheed took a deep breath, seeming to gather his courage.
"I shared part of my story with Kian when I met him on Tuesday, which was a big step for me since it required the bending of a vow I made to keep this information a secret.
I had him swear that he wouldn't reveal it without my explicit permission, and he graciously agreed, but he suggested that I speak with you because you were probably better equipped to help me than he was. "
She smiled. "After such a preamble, I'm bursting with curiosity. Your secret sounds monumental."
"It is, and I needed to meet you face-to-face to decide whether I can trust you with it."
"I hope I passed your test."
"It wasn't a test." He smiled. "I trust my gut feelings, and my gut tells me that my secrets are safe with you."
"They are."
"I'll start with the basics. I was not born on Earth, and I'm much older than I look. I came from another planet, and I've been here over a thousand years."
He was immortal, but he had none of the visible characteristics of an immortal male. That explained the sense of otherness, the feeling that he didn't quite belong in this world.
"You don't have fangs," Syssi stated the obvious. "I assume that you don't have venom either, and both are necessary to transition Dormants. How can you be an immortal without them?"
"I'm a different kind of immortal. Perhaps the gods who created your ancestors created my people as well.
" He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
"But not the same way they created you. My people are indistinguishable from humans, and the vast majority have the same limited lifespans.
Only a select few of us are granted immortality, but don't ask me how.
It's one more thing I'm prohibited from revealing. "
That was disappointing.
"Was it a shamanic thing?" she asked, figuring he could at least answer that question. "Are all shamans immortal?"
He considered her question for a moment.
"Shamans are selected from a group of people who are immortal.
I can't tell you who they are or why they are chosen or how they are turned immortal.
" He paused for a moment. "But I can tell you that it's genetic, the same as it is for you, and the trait also needs to be activated, but in a very different way than your activation is done. "
Kian leaned forward. "How is it done?"
"That's a part I cannot reveal."
"You are keeping all the good parts to yourself," Kian said. "At some point, I will need to know the rest."
"I hope you won't press." Eluheed looked anxious. "The truth is that I don't really know the exact mechanism of the change. We don't go through a transformation like your Dormants. It's a very gradual thing."
"How did you get here?" Syssi asked.
Eluheed smiled apologetically. "I can't tell you that either."
Perhaps he couldn't tell her, but she could find out. She wasn't bound by vows like he was, and she could summon a vision about him. Hopefully, he wouldn't ask her to promise she wouldn't do that.
"Can you at least tell me why you are here?" she asked.
Looking relieved, he nodded. "I escaped enemies seeking my people's extinction. Our land is located high in the mountains, and it is not hospitable, but it's defensible. To a point. Our enemies vastly outnumber us, and they want to annihilate us."
Syssi's gut clenched. "Why?" she asked, even though she knew the reason probably made no sense. Most of the terrible wars on Earth that had cost millions their lives had been about religion or ideology, which were both nonsensical reasons.
"Religion," he said as if reading her mind. "They believe that by killing us, they appease their hateful, evil god of destruction. They are a cult of death and deception, while we revere life and truth."
"Same old story," Syssi murmured. "Evil seems to be a universal virus, not just terrestrial."
"It would seem so, but I've been exposed to the Brotherhood, and from what I've seen, they could learn a thing or two from the Shedun. Our enemies have perfected evil to an art form."
Kian lifted a hand. "Let's not play the game of whose enemies are the worst. It contributes nothing to our discussion."
She knew he wanted to spare her from hearing details of how terrible those Shedun were, and she was grateful to him for it. She didn't have the stomach for it.
"You are right," Eluheed agreed. "I'd better continue with my story so we can get to what I need your help with.
When Elucia fell, we implemented a plan of last resort, a desperate protocol to save Elucia's future.
Each shaman grabbed several sacred charges and fled with them to a different planet.
I ended up on Earth, on Mount Ararat, to be precise, and I hid them in a cave high up where only I could get to them.
They were safe there until the mountain erupted, and my charges were buried under tons of lava rock. "
"What are these charges?" Syssi asked.
"I can't tell you that, and I also can't tell you the mode of travel we used. That's the best-kept secret of my people. I will forfeit my life before I reveal it."
The conviction in his voice indicated that he would really take this secret with him to his grave.
Still, she might find out how they had done it in a vision, or maybe she could deduce it.
He'd said that the shamans escaped with something that Elucia's future depended on. Perhaps it was genetic material collected from their people so they could restart their population when it was safe to do so?
The location he had chosen to hide his charges evoked the story of Noah and the ark.
Some scholars believed that it had not contained two animals from each species but rather their genetic material, which made much more sense given the modest dimensions of the ark.
In Eluheed's story, the Shedun represented the flood, and the shamans represented Noah.
"Are you the only Elucian shaman on Earth?" Kian asked.
"As far as I know. For safety reasons, we were not told where the others were going."
"When was the volcanic eruption?" Syssi asked, hoping for more pieces of the puzzle she was trying to solve.
Eluheed closed his eyes, and Syssi could see him reliving the memory.
"July of 1840. The cave I used was destroyed or buried under new rock formations.
I've tried to find a way to reach them ever since, but I don't have the means or the know-how.
That's why I approached Kian, but he said that even the clan might not have those kinds of resources. "
"Could what you hid in that cave survive so long without your care?"
He nodded. "My charges can withstand far worse than a volcanic eruption, but I need to find them in case my people come for us."
For us? That was an odd way to refer to genetic material, and he'd said that there were no other Elucian shamans on Earth.
"Do you mean come for you?" Kian asked.
"Yes." He turned to Tamira. "I hope you will come with me."
"Naturally. But first I need to find my son." She smiled. "Maybe he will want to start a new life on your planet."
So, that was what Eluheed had meant. He planned on taking Tamira with him. And since he'd said that his people would come for him, that meant some kind of space travel.
Why was it such a big secret? It was not like Kian or she was expecting him to give them the technology of how it worked. He was a shaman, not an engineer.
"Of course." Eluheed gazed lovingly into Tamira's eyes, then turned to Syssi.
"Kian said that your visions have helped locate people in the past. Perhaps you can see beneath the rock and find a way to reach my charges that will not involve drilling through half the mountain.
" He winced. "Not that drilling is even an option at that elevation.
The only ones who can get there are professional climbers of the highest caliber and mountain goats.
We can't bring heavy equipment up there. "
He looked at her with desperate hope. "I know it's a long shot, and I know how tricky visions can be.
But I believe that I was brought here for a reason, and that you or Kian or others in your clan are the key to finding my charges and helping me get them back home.
" His Adam's apple bobbed. "I hope some of my people survived and that, after more than a thousand years, they have managed to rebuild Elucia. "
"I'll try," she promised. "Whether I succeed depends on the Fates and what they want to show me."
Relief flooded Eluheed's face. "Thank you. I will be forever grateful."
"I'm honored that you trusted me with this secret, but I need to warn you. When I summon the vision, the Fates might show me things that you don't want me to see."
He lifted his hand. "As long as the information doesn't come from me and I'm not breaking my vows, I don't mind what the Fates choose to show you. If they decide that you need to know, then you need to know."
Syssi understood what he meant. She'd felt the pull of destiny before, the sense of being in exactly the right place at precisely the right time. It was how she'd felt when she first met Amanda and then Kian, stumbling into the world of immortals and discovering that she was meant to be part of it.
Maybe this was another one of those moments, another thread in the tapestry the Fates were weaving.