Free Blade Kin by David Farland

was left of the wild Pwi. If his army met any organized resistance, it could take much longer twelve weeks. “All right,” Mahkawn said, “you have two days.”
    ***

Chapter 8: Wake to Sleeping
    All day, Tull felt the urge to move, to walk. The young men of the village got together in the afternoon, and Chaa taught them how to use swords, to prepare earnestly for war.
    Tull and Fava attended the practice, and Tull spoke with Chaa briefly, made an appointment to see him that night. Tull did not tell Fava of his plans.
    That night while Fava slept with little Wayan, Tull slipped out into the cool night air, listened to the sigh of breakers pounding the rocks, the howls of a cat in heat. He walked down the path to Chaa’s cabin, called softly at the door, “I am here,” in the manner of the Pwi. Chaa opened the door. Tull could smell curry and beer on his breath.
    “I’m ready,” Tull answered.
    “Then come with me.” Chaa escorted him through the front door, holding Tull’s elbow, guiding him down the corridors in the darkness to his Spirit Room, a circular chamber with a dome-shaped, mud wattle roof.
    A circle of stones at the center of the room was used as a fireplace, and a large water jug sat by the ashes of a fire. The fire had burned out hours ago, and the only light to enter the room shone from a smoke hole in the dome, a small hole that let in moonlight. The room smelled thickly of smoke. A mat of woven reeds lay on the floor next to the fire.
    Around the room, the walls were decorated with hunting trophies—the serrated teeth of a tyrannosaurus gleamed whitely even in the muted light. The shadowed shape of a bear hide hung on the wall. Tull could not see much beyond that.
    “Would you like me to light a candle?” Tull asked, but Chaa shook his head.
    “We have more than enough light to see by,” Chaa said, and he motioned for Tull to sit on the mat. The thin moonlight coming in from the smoke hole illuminated Chaa’s features, his wispy hair and prominent nose and brows. He spoke softly, “Before you were born, your spirit danced in the Land of Shapes, and your spirit did not comprehend some of the things you understand now—lust, greed, fear. But it understood something. Mostly, it understood intense curiosity. So your spirit entered your body in order to sate its appetite for curiosity—to learn to see with physical eyes, to move and taste joy. The Land of Shapes is behind you, and it is ahead of you.
    “For now, your life is like a bridge, a narrow trail connecting two vast worlds. But the new sensations that you feel, they overwhelm you, so that you have been blinded to your previous life in the Land of Shapes. Your physical eyes cannot see it. Your tongue cannot taste it. In a sense, you have fallen asleep, but your heart knows the terrain, the geography of the Land of Shapes.”
    “You mean I am asleep now?”
    “Yes, a fitful sleep. You are asleep to your own beauty, your own potential, like all the other people in the world. Most of them can never be wakened. Their spirit eyes are firmly closed,” Chaa said, and he paused.
    “But I have seen that you are different. You seek places of power for your spirit. You can feel your enemies even in the dark or behind stone walls. It is only because your sleep is uneasy that I can wake you.”
    Chaa motioned to the water jug, “Tonight I will begin to teach you to see in the Land of Shapes. It will be a great task for you just to open your spirit eyes, and that alone may take many weeks. Do not worry if it seems difficult at first.” He picked up the water jug. “I have made seer’s tea. It has mushrooms to open the eyes, roots to open the ears, seeds to open the mind.”
    “Like the drugs the Okanjara take?” Tull asked. The wild Neanderthals of the plains took many drugs, often to excess, and Tull did not want to be like them.
    “Yes,” Chaa said.
    “But won’t such tea make me crazy?”
    “With the Okanjara, fear makes them crazy.