Thirty-eight

 

It was still dark. Dawn was about to break. In the stillness around, the music of The Master’s flute was serene and calm. The little girl sat listening to the music as it welcomed the sun. With Crow on her shoulder and Balloon beside, she closed her eyes, wondering what the day would bring. But there was no fear in her heart. Her mind was calm. She knew what she had prayed for, ever since she saw her parents that horrible day, was near at hand. It was the fateful hour of reckoning.

The Master turned towards her, flute in hand.

‘The most difficult battles are never physical,’ he said, ‘because they are the battles of the mind.’

‘My mind is calm,’ she said to The Master.

‘Lesson One, my child,’ said The Master, ‘is to realise that your strength lies in his weakness. What does he want? What does he truly want? When you know that and deny him his principal craving, you have broken through his strength.’

‘He wants me,’ she replied, ‘to be like him, to join him and to become evil and despicable. That I will not do.’

‘But how will he do that?’ asked The Master. ‘Is he going to offer you a better life, one of luxury and great wealth? I doubt very much because that is not what you crave for. What if he offers you a life with your parents? Do you have the courage to turn it down?’

‘Life with my parents?’ cried the girl. ‘How could I refuse that? How can any orphaned child reject such an offer? It is what I have missed for so long and crave so dearly!’

‘I thought so,’ said The Master, ‘for that is how he will win you over and, thus, the battle.’

He let the words sink in and continued, ‘Do you not remember what I said to you once before, to let your parents go is not to deny them? They are yours for life, for you are bound together in this lifetime and the ones to come, as indeed the many others that you have already lived. You are soulmates.’

The little girl was silent. She gazed at the rising sun and the sky awash with colour. She soaked in what The Master had just said. If she and her parents were soulmates, they could never be separated.

‘And as you imbibe Lesson One and make it your strength, let me give you Lesson Two!’ The Master appeared to be enjoying what he was doing but did it ever so gently. Pointing to the little boy who had by then come to stand beside him, The Master said, ‘The little boy will accompany you. Do you remember what you were told when you first came into our village, that he is the key to the mystery that will unfold?’

The Master laughed as he turned to the little boy. ‘You were told he is the oldest amongst us, and you all rightly wondered if he was the oldest, why did he look like the youngest? This is a land of mysteries, and some that we have truly guarded well.

Trust in the boy and you will be protected.’

‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

But the boy put his fingers to his lips. ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Lesson Two is, nothing is what it seems to be! Doubt everything. Life is discovering how to see and not merely to look, to listen and not simply to hear!’

‘How exciting!’ said Crow wryly. The conversation seemed to disinterest him and, at the same time, he had this nagging feeling that somehow he was going to be dragged into it as well. The thought worried him. He preferred his sedentary lifestyle.

Crow cleared his throat and interjected, ‘Love these lessons, and I promise to pass them on to my grandchildren, but while you all are at it, Magic and I propose to do our part as well. We will remain here while you clobber the snake. After which, you will return home triumphant, exhausted and hungry. A celebratory dinner will await your return. The dear chef will rustle it all up and I, Crow, will be the food taster! Don’t want to get the salt wrong, if you get my drift.’

Having delivered what he honestly believed was a highly plausible reason as to why he should not be enlisted for the battle, he sat on a rock, folding his wings over his chest, looking most important.

‘Ah yes, of course, the dear bird needs to know where he fits in,’ said The Master and pointed his finger at Crow’s head.

As soon as he did that, Crow froze. He seemed to go into a trance and was overcome with a most strange sensation. Every part of his body seemed alive.

‘Something seems to be happening to me,’ he said, sounding most upset. ‘Good heavens! My wings seem funny, my nails sharper! I feel bigger!’

Strangely, Crow kept growing larger by the minute.

‘How lovely you look!’ said Balloon, smiling sweetly, ‘but I gather you do realise,’ she continued, ‘that his appetite is bound to go up if he keeps growing at this rate. And that he most certainly would need to take flying lessons again to get his weight off the ground!’

Crow glared at her. But he was overcome with a sense of confusion that he could not fathom. How was it possible, he wondered, that Balloon who was only inches away just a second ago, seemed like she was a foot, no many feet, away! And that, he was actually looking down on her from a great height! Why was his body feeling unfamiliar, as if it didn’t actually belong to him?

‘Bizarre,’ he told himself.

By now, Crow had undergone a frightening transformation. Instead of a little bird, a strange creature of enormous dimensions sat on the rock, half crow, half panther with vicious claws and terrifying fangs. What kind of strange bird this was, nobody knew. But, it looked monstrous and unfriendly.

Crow gave an enormous roar that shook the earth. ‘I will shield her from The Serpent and the forces of evil. I am her guardian and I promise you, Master, that I will always be by her side!’ The voice came from deep inside Crow.

The Master smiled. ‘You have just experienced the power of your mind, the innermost wondrous magic with no illusions or deceptions. That was Lesson Three.’

Crow shrank back to his normal size.

‘Things,’ said The Master, ‘seem to be going according to plan.’

Little Girl closed her eyes and remembered her father’s teachings. ‘Learn to look with your mind’s eye, quietly, silently, gently,’ he had said. ‘There is no need for impatience and hurry. If you have faith in yourself, when the time comes, you can bend a spoon. You can even bend a fang, or hold the slithering tongues.’ And as she closed her eyes, she could hear the music and visualise the scent of the blue jasmine.

The Master said, ‘Go to the river and anoint yourself with the sacred waters.’

As she bent down and gazed at the river, she saw images of her parents in the water. She saw her mother by the jasmine tree and her father with a flute. She closed her eyes and said, ‘I miss you and I wish you were here. Come to me, for I need your strength dearly!’

Other images also came to her. She saw the village she had left behind, the old balloon-maker and his wife, the children from the school, the postman, the bicycle man, and everyone else. She could see how cruel and unkind the villagers had been to the balloon-maker and his wife on the day of the picnic. She saw how the un-dead had turned unjust and bitter, and how quickly their dark side had taken control of them. What would killing The Serpent achieve, she wondered. Did she wish only to avenge the death of her parents, she wondered. Would that be enough, she asked herself.

‘I am glad your mind is awake,’ said The Master. ‘You question your purpose and rightly ask if defeating The Serpent is only to avenge the death of your parents. If that were the only purpose, you would simply be scoring points. Today, it might be you who returns victorious, and tomorrow it might well be he. What you are truly asking yourself is if you can rid the world of evil for once and all, when you vanquish The Serpent.’

‘Yes it is,’ replied the little girl, ‘will evil die with The Serpent’s death? Will there only be goodness and justice after that? Will people be kind to each other? Will love matter? Will human indecency become a distant memory and then fade away altogether?’

‘Alas, no,’ replied The Master, ‘for evil resides in us all like cancer. Evil, like good, is timeless. Killing The Serpent will temporarily rid us all of evil but remember always, we can awaken it when, once again, we succumb to temptation. The Serpent will be reborn, and that is life’s tragedy.’

‘I know that this has to do with the next lesson you have for me, Master,’ said the little girl, ‘teach me so that I might know and not fail my parents or you, or more importantly, myself.’

‘Your last lesson is simply to realise that if this is only your battle, your victory will be temporary, for The Serpent will always know that the un-dead continue to remain vulnerable to temptation. On the other hand, if they were to join you, The Serpent would be handed over a more telling defeat,’ saidThe Master.

The little girl understood exactly what he had said. And so, she closed her eyes and prayed as she said, ‘Come with me, dear companions, as you remember your children and your grand children. What you have suffered is nothing compared to what they might have had to undergo. Join me, in righting the wrong that you have done!’

Her voice echoed through the skies. The villagers, who were in their homes, knew the little child was going to face The Serpent. They shuddered as they heard the words. In the village she had left behind, the old balloon-maker and his wife heard it too. As indeed did many others, including The Serpent.

The old man with one leg knew that if the villagers joined in, the little girl would have been handed a most powerful weapon against The Serpent. He needed to distract her mind, so that she might not call out any longer to the villagers. He hobbled across to her and said, ‘You are powerful enough to destroy them all by yourself. Leave the others alone for they will only hold you back.’

The little boy exchanged glances with the little girl, for they had talked about this man. They had to be careful that he did not know that they suspected him all along.

‘I have given you your final lesson,’ said The Master with a smile.

‘Will you be here when I return?’ she asked.

‘No, I will watch over you from the sky. If you win, I will have companions with me. It does get lonely up there,’ he chuckled. ‘But I will leave behind my flute for you on this rock. Should you ever have need for me, play the flute.’

It was the final goodbye and so, she folded her palms and bowed deeply as she looked at The Master. Then, she began her walk to The Serpent Hill with the little boy. Crow was on her shoulder and Balloon neatly tucked in her backpack. Hobbling on his staff, the old man with one leg led the way.

No news had come from his shadow and The Serpent was getting impatient. He touched the magic window to find out what was happening.

Myriad images flowed in, rapidly switching from one to another. The window seemed to know what The Serpent was looking for as it settled on the little girl, followed by a quick zoom and focus. There he was, hobbling on a staff, whispering to the little girl. The Serpent frowned for he had heard the little girl call out to the villagers to join her in battle. ‘They will not join,’ he hissed, ‘for they are a bunch of sissies!’ He knew the pieces were set and the game was about to begin.

He stared into the distance. This would, indeed, be a deadly encounter.

‘Come,’ he said to his consorts, ‘let us prepare to welcome our guests!’