BREATHE
The Cull are a tale, meant to frighten children into doing their prayers,” Tau said.
“I am telling you what we are taught at the citadel.”
“They teach make-believe?”
“Shall I finish?”
“Is the rest a child’s tale too?”
“Fine,” said Zuri, turning away.
Tau grimaced. “Go on. Please.”
Zuri sighed but turned back. “Ukufa stole the energy Ananthi left for our realm and pulled it into his prison. There is nothing left of Ananthi in Uhmlaba, which means our powers must come from Isihogo. This is because Ananthi is Isihogo. Her essence forms both the realm and the barrier that Ukufa and his corrupted may never pass. So, if we are to use Her gifts, we must enter the underworld and use them from there. All the races can do this, and every man, woman, and child can enter Isihogo.”
“All? It’s forbidden for any but Gifted to let themselves slip to the underworld.”
“Yes, and you are warned away for good reason. The demon took your arm, you said?”
“I… I fought but couldn’t beat it.”
“No, you couldn’t. Thankfully, the harm they do cannot transfer to Uhmlaba, unless—”
Tau’s eyes widened. “Unless?”
“Unless you draw power from Isihogo.”
“Only Gifted can do that.”
“No, anyone can do it.”
“Everyone is Gifted?”
“I didn’t say that,” Zuri said.
“You’re losing me on this path.”
“Everyone can enter Isihogo, but the corrupted, the demons, attack all living souls, seeking vengeance for their imprisonment. They can do no physical harm, so long as the soul they seek to destroy does not draw energy from Isihogo. Drawing energy from the underworld makes you corporeal there.”
“The entire purpose of being Gifted is to draw energy from Isihogo. Why don’t demons kill Gifted?”
“They…” Zuri stopped herself. “You are asking what makes someone Gifted. The answer is that Ananthi gave us the ability to hide from the demons.”
“Hide?… Ah, I think I saw that. The Enervator—”
“Namisa.”
“Yes! In Isihogo, my body and the bodies of the other fighters were cloaked in golden light—”
“The light is your soul. It draws the demons.”
“Namisa had no soul light. She was all darkness.”
“That’s half-right,” Zuri said. “Namisa has a soul, and it must shine in Isihogo, but she can shroud it. That is the definition of being Gifted. It is not being able to enter and draw energy from Isihogo. Everyone can do that. It is the ability to shroud your soul’s light for long enough to draw, then use the energy.”
“How long?” asked Tau.
“How long what? Can we shroud? It’s individual and depends on the strength of your gift.”
“How do you strengthen your gift?”
“You can’t… You’re born with your gift. It’s always the same.”
“You can’t improve it? Train it? Why are you at the citadel? For the stories?”
Zuri did not look amused. “We are here to learn how to use the strength we are given.”
Tau frowned, trying to place this in terms that would make sense as a fighter. “You can’t train your gift?”
“It is a gift.”
“So is my body. I can train that, make it stronger, faster.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Perhaps,” Tau responded, earning himself a cold look. “Either way, what happens if you take energy from Isihogo and are found by the demons?”
“We are killed.”
“Like in Daba…”
“What?”
“During the raid on Daba, there were several Gifted with the Entreater who called the dragon.”
Zuri’s face changed. “Yes…,” she said.
“A demon must have found one of the Gifted. She died without any cause that I could see, but… she wasn’t using power. The Entreater was, but the one who died, she was just standing there.”
Zuri said nothing. It gave Tau pause. He could tell she was hiding something. He thought to press her but still didn’t have what he needed. It was enervation that interested him. “If I don’t take power from Isihogo, is there anything the demons can do to me?”
Zuri relaxed, a little. “No, nothing real, but the demon-haunted—”
“The crazy ones who see things?”
“They’re not crazy. It’s just… some people break after a demon attack.”
“It feels real. The pain, the fear, all of it feels real.” Tau clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Can one learn to hide?” he asked.
“Have you listened at all? The ability to shroud is what it means to be Gifted. You are either born with it or without. That, like the strength of the gift, does not and cannot change. Also, among the Chosen, only women are ever Gifted. It’s why the citadel tests every Omehi girl when she becomes a woman. The testers teach us how to shift to Isihogo and how to leave it. They show us how to shroud ourselves. We flee the underworld before the demons attack, and the test is repeated as many times as needed to confirm each new woman’s gift, or lack of it.”
“Every Omehi woman has faced a demon?” Tau shook his head, trying to picture his mother doing it. “No one talks about that.”
“It’s not something you talk about.”
“No,” said Tau, recalling his own experience. “It’s not.”
“So, other than shroud yourself,” Zuri said, “you can do everything in Isihogo that I can.”
Tau tried to see if Zuri was teasing him. “I can enervate?”
Zuri tilted her head from side to side, weighing the question. “You can learn the technique, you can take yourself to Isihogo, you can even take energy from the underworld, but you’d die before you had the chance to use it.”
“The demons,” Tau said.
“In part. Time works differently in the underworld. A single breath on Uhmlaba is more than fifty in Isihogo. Also, souls shine brighter when they take on Isihogo’s energy. Without being able to shroud, the demons would find you and tear you apart before you could use what you had taken. Tau, if you are ever in Isihogo, never take energy into yourself. Never.”
“Show it to me.”
Zuri started. “Show you what?”
“I need to know how to resist the enervation.” Tau could tell Zuri was beginning to regret the discussion, but he pressed on. “I got lucky today. We were isolated from the bigger fight and Namisa hit her Indlovu as well as my sword brothers. I won’t be able to keep winning if an Enervator can just point her hands and drop me.”
“Resist enervation?” Zuri shook her head. “If a Gifted hits you with it, you can’t stop your soul from being shifted to the underworld. Anyway, in the skirmishes, we’re not supposed to hold you there.”
“I know, but that’s not the point,” Tau said. “Even if I’m not held long enough for the demons to attack me, I’m still dazed when I come back.”