Free Blade Kin by David Farland Page A

They gaze into the Land of Shapes but do not comprehend what they see, and so it frightens them. With the tea you will see a land where time can stop, or exist all at once. You can see the holiness of stones and men. Once you drink the tea, I will speak with you, guide your journey. You will not become lost.”
    Chaa opened the small clay jar. It was rounded on the bottom like a gourd, with a long neck, and it had been painted with dancing birds in bright whites and yellows, yet when Chaa handed the jar to Tull, he was surprised to find it nearly empty.
    Tull swirled the jug, drank a sip. The water felt greasy in his mouth, gritty with seeds and bitter roots. Chaa took the jug, poured it all down Tull’s throat.
    “Here, lie upon my pallet,” Chaa said, and Tull lay on the mattress of woven reeds. He suddenly felt dizzy and wanted to vomit, but realized he was dizzy with fear and that he wanted to vomit only because his stomach was knotting.
    “This will not take as long as you think,” Chaa said, and he waited, holding Tull’s hand. After only a minutes, he said, “In our world, we imagine that everything is separate, that I am separate from you, and you are separate from your friends, but in the Land of Shapes, there are fewer boundaries.
    “When I play a song on my pipe, and you sing, and another taps his foot, and another man dances, we all see ourselves as separate entities. But in the Land of Shapes, we see that the music and the dancer, the singer and the drum, all are one thing connected, blurring into each other. The music is shared, and we all become part of it.
    “In the same way, you are not a single person, but part of your mother and father, all blurred into one, and they are each parts of other mothers and fathers, all blurred outward over time, so that all people are really just different manifestations of a single person, manifestations that expand outward with time.
    “But in the Land of Shapes, there is no time, and all the connections are more easily found. Once you learn to see and maneuver in the Land of Shapes, you can touch another person on the far side of the world, or share the life of someone long dead, or glimpse the future of people who may yet live. You will learn to see the beauty in every man, and understand that your enemies are no less glorious than the sunrise. Doors will open to you. Yet it will not all come tonight. It will not happen in a moment.
    “Tell me, how do you feel?”
    Tull considered. He felt … dazed, but not frightened. The colors in the room had shifted. There was a green mist in the air, almost a haze.
    Chaa’s voice was loud, yet Tull suddenly realized that Chaa had been whispering, and that Tull’s hearing seemed keener somehow. He listened: below the floor, Tull could hear the crunching of termites’ teeth, the soggy noise of earthworms gushing through their holes. He had not been aware of the change coming over him. He’d felt only a peculiar lightness, as if he were floating.
    “I don’t know. I feel strange. Everything is so loud.”
    “But it is not an unpleasant loudness, is it?” Chaa asked. “I have felt it many times. It’s almost as if you have new ears, better ears—the ears of a fox.”
    Tull considered. He could hear Chaa’s intestines squeaking and rumbling as they digested. “No, it is … pleasing.”
    “You are just more open to sound,” Chaa said. “Tell me if I speak too loudly. Now, I want you to relax. Stare at the hole in the ceiling,” Chaa said, nodding at the hole where moonlight streamed in. “It is like the hole above your navel, which we Spirit Walkers call ‘the hollow of your soul,’ where your dark desires and fears are kept, only there is no light streaming from the hollow of your soul. Darkness streams from it sometimes, when it can. That is the nature of souls.”
    Tull tried to relax and watched the hole. He was very aware of the stars shining through the hole in the ceiling, so distant, so distant, yet