Out of the Nest
by Cassandra Beals
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Mjal walked out of the internal elevator and padded toward the Shambhala leader’s domicile in a large cave at the top of Temperate Mountain. He picked up the familiar scents of rock, sand and flint blended with the more specific smells of papyrus, inks, clay, and dozens of herbs along the way. The aromas brought back cozy memories of his childhood; the community’s leader just happened to be his mother.
Mjal’s visit today was more formal; according to custom, medical trainees finished training by running a solo shift at the Constitutional. Graduation involved visiting the community leader for some tea and conversation about their future. Mjal had managed an unsupervised shift yesterday.
“Hello, Mom!” Mjal walked into the main room, but Xia was nowhere in sight. He looked around, eyes wandering across the walls. His mother had once told him they’d been carved into their polished-wave shape by a species of rock-eating insects that one of his half-siblings had discovered millennia ago. Numerous children’s drawings and blankets made of different materials were hanging along them, each uniquely designed. Organically cut shelves lined each wall. They were filled with awkwardly shaped pieces of pottery, arrowheads, and well-used toys.
Mjal’s earliest memories were of this room. He had chosen his bedtime stories by pointing to a random object, and his mother had told the tale of how she’d collected it. Her yarns had spanned across great cycles and continents. He wasn’t sure he’d ever asked about all of the items on her walls.
Mjal also remembered this chamber as the place where he’d come to a personal revelation regarding his future. He had been around eleven stellar cycles old and working through the apprenticeships at the end of his general education. Each time he’d been exposed to a different possible vocation, it had uncovered another layer to Shambhala’s existence.
His classmates had either been oblivious to how they all interweaved together into a beautiful and complex organism or had simply accepted the wonder and left it at that. Mjal’s mother had organized the village, and so every revelation had also left him more and more in awe of her accomplishments while at the same time making him less and less certain he could make his own contributions.
Mjal had come home one day during his Infirmary rotation and had a seat in this room. His eyes happened to alight on his mother’s original medicine bag, it had reminded him of a few stories she’d told. It had struck him then that he could make his greatest impact in healing; he could use medicine to help many other people. He’d wanted to learn it all, though, not just the mortals’ version but the more in-depth training his mother’s immortal children received.
He’d been told there would be consequences; immortals were expected to go out into the world and contribute to another civilization. He’d embraced the idea; leaving Shambhala would allow him to touch many hundreds more of people’s lives.
Mjal looked at one of Xia’s massive windows, remembering from his rotation days that they served the dual purpose of providing all light and heat to the level. He looked through them at the cars moving along their simple declined, lipped tracks from one terrarium to another. He could see a young man sitting on a rock farther below, surrounded by children, no doubt going through a lesson.
The food market was in an area more underneath Mjal, it was filling up even as the sun’s rays began poking through the mountains. Mjal noticed a group going through a synchronous pattern of movements — kata — in a more isolated niche off to his right. Mjal couldn’t determine which of his mother’s styles the kata was a part of: self-defense, speed, strength, brilliance, or a handful of other disciplines. He was proud of the fact that his mother had developed so many, they were at the core of Shambhala’s lively and nurturing community.
A cup of tea materialized in front of him. He turned to face his mother.
“I wanted to talk about yesterday’s shift.” Xia was standing well away from him, both hands on her own cup. Xia looked as she always did. Silky black hair, even healthy skin, epicanthic eyes, slim, youthful figure. Mjal had enjoyed the fact that she didn’t age when he was young, but now that he had begun to look older than she, it was off-putting; he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.
“Why do I feel I’ve been brought into an inquisition?” Mjal grimaced.
“You are intelligent and perceptive,” Xia smiled. “You’re also much too self-conscious.”
“What did you want to go over?” Mjal sighed.
“How did it feel to be in charge of The Constitutional for the day?”
“I felt like the world was on my shoulders. Like everything I did could have been done just a little bit better.”
“Exhilarating?”
“Absolutely!”
“You’ve graduated. What’s your next step?” She took a sip.
“I’d like some time to find myself. I’ve pushed myself to get here and haven’t been a very good father to my children or resident to the people of this community. I want to rectify that.”
“Shambhala is no longer your concern, son.”
“What do you mean?” Mjal tried to sound coy.
“You have known what I mean since early in your studies. I have developed knowledge and wisdom over the great cycles. It has always been my responsibility to pass that on to as many different groups of people as possible. I have done it personally many times, but now I disseminate what I know by teaching others and sending them out. You asked to be part of that tradition when you insisted on learning everything I knew about medicine. It’s time for you to fulfill your end of our bargain.”
“I had seen eleven cycles then, I had no idea what I was getting into.”
“I warned you. The elders warned you. You told us you loved the idea of exploring the world.”
“My life has changed since then. I have a wife and child. I’m connected to this community.”
“You just told me you aren’t that attached.”
“I want to be. I owe a debt to so many people here.”
“They’ll understand that what you are doing is for the benefit of others.”
“My wife and daughter have relationships. I can’t ask them to pick up and leave.”
“I was there when you talked to Cioke about your responsibilities. She knows this is coming. Your daughter is young, she’ll adjust.”
“No! There’s no point to it. It’s just a senseless tradition.”
“My children were at the core of many of the world’s greatest civilizations. They—”
“The world is already explored and civilized, Mom. Boundaries are established.”
“I need my descendants out there now more than ever. When the world was full of androgynous communities it was healthy and relatively peaceful. The earth was healthy. That’s when we explored. The world changed drastically several millennia ago. I need to find a pattern to the change, and the only way that will happen is for people I trust to be out there giving me their observations.”
“You’re giving me an excuse, Mom.”
“There are always many different levels to the things I do, you know that.”
“I know you’re good at making stuff up when you want to win an argument.”
Xia’s face was strained for a moment before it dissolved into a blissful expression. She took a deep breath. “It’s normal for students to take some time after they’ve finished their training to make these decisions. It’s also normal for my children to want to linger in the familiarity of Shambhala before they leave. I suppose I haven’t ever had to have this discussion with someone so young before, either. Their age gives them a perspective that you don’t have. We could both use some time to re-evaluate our respective situations.”
“Yes, time.” Mjal smiled.
* * *
Mjal woke, smiled, and stretched, running his fingertips along his wife’s skin. Cioke crinkled her nose before pulling a blanket up to her neck. She’d flipped her curly black hair free and drifted back to sleep in another moment. Mjal pet it, enjoying the silky feel. Why did this goddess choose a soft, plain man like me as her partner?
Mjal silently rose and swung out of bed, still pondering that question. A piece of woven art based on a panda was hanging on the wall. Cioke had told their daughter Nual that he spent all of his time helping the sick, so she had crafted it as a thank-you for his service. The image had one too many limbs and its face reminded Mjal of a bird they kept in one of the terrariums, but the sentiment behind it made him smile. And cringe. He should have spent more time with Nual.
Mjal had done just as badly as a citizen of the community. He’d tried to make up for his negligence in the few days since he’d spoken to his mother by using his time away from The Constitutional to integrate himself into Shambhala’s community. He’d browsed the crafts market, learning about each creation and the skills required to make them. He’d spent one day walking every bridge and stairway in the settlement, including the passageways up to the glass roofs. Mjal had even started taking kata lessons to help him cope with all the aches and pains he’d developed recently, knowing the participation would also be a new form of involvement in the community.
Mjal hadn’t just learned about Shambhala during his time away from his medical responsibilities; he’d learned about the people who made the community what it was. He had made a point of stopping and asking questions whenever he had them. Mjal hadn’t hesitated to chat with anyone who wanted to speak with him, either.
Today wouldn’t be about learning, teaching, or even socializing, though. Mjal’s day had been set aside to spend with his daughter at school. His only goal was to have fun with her.
Mjal poked his head into his daughter’s bedroom. She was bouncing on her bed, alternately singing and screaming. He was learning that children did such things as naturally as they breathed. He’d have to think of some playful way to get her off to her lessons in a moment.
Mjal padded to the common room. Several loaves of bread were wrapped in a papyrus scroll on the counter. The rough image of a bear and her cubs had been drawn on the papyrus; the bear’s ears were unmistakably Cioke’s touch. Mjal’s wife would be gone on one of her exploratory surveys for the next couple of days, leaving him to look after their daughter without help for the first time. Mjal had never learned to cook, so she had baked ahead to help with his meals.
Mjal found himself smiling even as he hung his head.
A rap at the home’s doorway jarred his thoughts. “Mjal, are you home?” Xia poked her head in.
“What are you doing in Desert Mountain at this time of day?” Mjal regretted sometimes that the only actual doors in their society were those keeping the cold out of the sky-trams and the one that hid their settlement. Nothing else was possible inside the mountain; without the light from the residences passing to the corridors further inside the mountain there would be no way to walk them.
“Can we talk?”
“I still haven’t changed my mind.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to, and right now I’m glad you haven’t. Something else has come up that I would appreciate your help with.”
“Avalanche?”
“A malady.”
“Something came in with the new animals?” Mjal said.
“The sum. That’s my guess. I’ve traced the problem back to about the time they arrived, but early symptoms were minor, and many people didn’t report them. I’ve interviewed everyone who has taken ill recently. Caretakers were the first to show symptoms. I’m seeing fever, chills, exhaustion, and nail clubbing.”
“You’ve tried the usual treatments?”
Xia nodded, “I haven’t seen this disease before, so I tried balloon flower, coffee senna, magnolia bark, watercress, and karvy on five different groups. No one I’ve treated has recovered.”
“It could be something else?”
“There is no other commonality,” Xia said.
“You have thousands of years of experience with diseases, surely you—”
“I’ve experimented with other possible cures, no luck so far. I’d appreciate a pair of fresh eyes,” Xia said.
Mjal nodded, “the next step is to isolate them as we watch symptoms develop.”
“We’ve observed that the disease is spread by proximity. Almost all the caretakers’ partners are already sick. Most of the people working in the terrarium and many of the people they speak with in the markets are showing early symptoms.”
“The entire settlement is in danger.”
Xia sighed, “it’s spreading quickly, too. A couple of days ago, I had my first seriously ill person. I have fifty today. My students and I are overwhelmed. The staff can only do so much.”
“You want me to find a cure?”
Xia smiled, “I’m suspending teaching for the time being. The trained healers and nurses will run The Constitutional under Juha for now while my best medical minds try to figure out a cure.”
“I’ll do anything I can to help my friends and neighbors,” he smiled.
* * *
Mjal shuffled down the hall in Desert Mountain. The disease had been raging for six months now. Half of the people who’d first shown symptoms had died after long and debilitating struggles with the disease. Several had developed permanent vascular problems before they’d recovered, and only a handful of those who’d gotten better would be able to return to the lives they had once led.
Mjal and Xia had learned a great deal about the disease over that time; a person could feel run-down for up to a full lunar cycle before showing any obvious symptoms, some infected people developed a nagging cough over time, and insomnia could be a side-effect. The trouble was that those symptoms were also normal complications of living in the mountains, especially during stressful periods like the one they were passing through.
The slow pace of the disease had made tracing the transmission difficult. Its unusual behavior hadn’t helped. An infected person could cough and not contaminate anyone near them. Those who somehow didn’t get sick through direct contact often infected their household. The carrier would often get the disease from someone in their own family eventually. Mjal and Xia had even seen a few cases where there was no intermediary; the disease had been left in organic material that someone else had come in contact with. Mjal had eventually confirmed the sum had introduced the disease, but that had been long after it no longer mattered.
Copyright © 2024 by Cassandra Beals
