Chapter 5: The Storyteller

"To be nobody but yourself in a world that wants you to be anyone but yourself is the hardest thing in the world." - e e cummings

A long time later Zeremaya felt Karl shaking her.

“I can’t imagine how you could sleep on a pile of charcoal.” He commented.

“For the discomfort? That’s nothing. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink in two weeks. I’m beyond famished, beyond thirsty. I’d be tempted to try except feeling my body reject what I put in it would be worse than what I’m feeling now.” Replied Zeremaya. Karl offered his bare skin. Zeremaya leaned into him thankfully.

“It’s amazing how strong you are. I’ve only tired you once and that was emergency level, all-stops draining for hours and hours. Do you even feel it when I replenish myself from you?” asked Zeremaya.

“That time, the healing – that hurt. I think that was the first time in my life that I felt what pain was. Since then? It feels good -- like I can move something that I slept on funny. I rather wish you would pull out more.” Said Karl. Zeremaya smiled. “I can use you like a big ‘ol pile of fuel and do more here. But I don’t think you came here to feed me.” She made an enquiring gesture.

“Actually, while you were healing the twins, you tend to ramble on and tell stories. They can’t tell them, but have related bits and pieces of the tales you have told them over time. People are very confused and want you to tell the stories yourself.” Said Karl. Zeremaya shrugged.

“I told the stories because most of the time what I have to do to their bodies is uncomfortable to painful – I’m trying to distract them. It’s hard on both of us, so it helps us pass the time. There would be a real market for handheld games in this world, but the games I brought are still broken.” Said Zeremaya.

“I’ll take a big hit later just for the sake of Aruin and Inchkin if you have something that would make their lives easier. In the meantime you are called to the counsil.”

Oh, great, thought Zeremaya. At least she didn’t have to worry if her stories were appropriate for children – gypsy children were considered pure. On the other hand she had loved trashy tv when she was the twins’ age. They had enjoyed her retelling (and embellishing and explaining) Knight Rider plots among other gems of television storytelling.

She figured she would let the audience guide her narrative. That generally worked. Among magicians she wasn’t considered a great power, but what she was known for what finding something to do that no one could have predicted; a lot of that was based on the legends and great tales she was raised on, and that they didn’t know.

Zeremaya went back to Karl’s vardo to put on the clothes laid out for her -- she was wearing a green and silver threaded skirt and blouse this time – she wondered whose. People had been making use of her “fix by touching” abilities, though no doubt with plenty of work afterwards to restore whuzo – the gypsy equivilant of kosher. It would seem that this magical ability to restore newness was worth risk from her touch. It was nice to be needed, anyway.

Karl marched her out, into the circle of light by the fire. The people parted as if touching either one of them would make their arms die then fall off. Many of the parent age gypsies held back barely contained sneers – at which of them Zeremaya didn’t know.

Well, that made it easier. With a reputation that bad she couldn’t do anything to make the situation worse

Zerema made a dramitic swirl of her skirts and sat facing the friendliest part of the crowd – the children. She had mentally labeled them the “Karli army of the dark” because these children looked up to him so – he was seemingly endlessly patient and being the blacksmith had a job children in particular found fascinating – the loud sounds, the explosions of steam, the actual items he made.

“What sort of tale would you like me to tell? She asked. Several gypsy men behind her picked up instruments – drums, pipes, violins, mandolins. Zeremaya felt her shoulders relax. This she had heard, smelled before.

“While you debate I’ll tell one of the oldest stories I know – only told by my mother’s family tribe as far as I know, so for me it’s special.

“When the Gypsies were the lords of their own country” as told by Zere’maya.

“Once a long time ago, long before anyone born now the people we know as the Gypsies, all of them in their different tribes live in a land that belonged to them. Most people think that we have always wandered, but long ago we had our own place to wander, traveling back and forth along a long, narrow, mountainous land between two great oceans of salt water. Many other kinds of people lived there but some of us were settled, and some of us moved around. It was a time of peace and prosperity in a land that was always capable of feeding everyone , for the trees and plants that grew there came up year after year, and the weaving plants could be used to make wonderful things. Iron was as precious as rare gold, and only the most noble used it, but stone there could be used as iron can here. We had wise kings to guide us, and all was well for the Gypsy people and the others who shared their lands intil a new, vicious people came down from the North, enslaving the Gypsies and putting them to the task of being warriors.

The gypsies would not fight them, and would not fight for them, their hearts were filled with dispair.

Secretly, the kings and tribal leaders made plans to leave their land – better to die on the endless oceans than to have their skills and knowledge, and so they wove boats of reeds and collected them, disgusing them from their prison guards as roofs, as beds, whatever they could persuade them, making preparations to throw themselves into the ocean, to die there or be cast on some new land, for what was happening to the people there was worse than death – they were losing their hearts – better to die with their hearts than live without them.

So, they prayed, and when their great, dark Goddess told them that the time was right they hooked their woven boats together, and great connected pads of Gypsy ships floated away. The time was terrible on the water – all the animals died and people despaired of reaching land and resolved themselves to their fate. But as time was diminishing they saw land, and washed up on the first of many islands they would take, traveling ever East, spreading, looking for the land where they could wander free and free to be who they are, the Gypsy people.”

Zeremaya folded her hands. “Of the tales of us as warrior people, and of the second great migration there are many, but my uncle had heard of the Middle American people – the Maya – and always wanted to meet some, to see if they were the people who stayed on our long yearned for, far to the West, Narrow Land where we all have come from, long ago.” She smiled. The gypsy children fidgeted.

“We’ve heard that story many times. Tell us a story we haven’t heard.” Said an older girl, obviously chosen as a spokesperson for all of them. Zeremaya sighed. She was tempted to dig into her memories of Saturday morning cartoons, but she knew what the older people wanted to hear – what did the people she had been living with for half her lifetime believe about the world, how people worked, and what was she, Zeremaya, capable of as she lived among them?

“How the great Magic came to be” Zere’maya began.

A long, long time ago there were great, powerful beings, beings who were not capable of harming each other they were so powerful, but they were childlike – they still could bicker and they had no parents to teach them – they had to solve their own problems.

What they did was make small beings, and put a little of themselves into each one – so that each being was connected to the others like a necklace of beads is each connected to the other through their unseen string. Each being got a little bit of the powerful beings’ strengths and a little bit of their restless, unguided natures. The different beings’ groups would fight with each other and in their winning and losing the greater beings found amusement for their lonely, uncontented lives.

So this went on for a long, long time. At some point the attention of the great beings wandered off, or they died – any way they haven’t been seen for a long, long time but we have found the remains of their cities, and their writings, and know something about how they put a little bit of themselves into those other beings. Some of our people wish we could find them to ask them why they would do this, others just shudder and are glad that they seem to be gone for good, and hope that they are never known again. Some think that God himself became appalled and ended their pointless, hubris-driven lives, I certainly don’t know where they went. I would not go looking for them and if anyone of you thought you were near one I would advise turning around and going the other way.

The more of the people with little bits of these powerful beings are together, the stronger each one of them becomes. The more bits of these powerful beings one person has, the stronger they are. But when there is someone born who has bits of two different beings, beings that had warred against each other, the magic becomes unstable, and much, much more powerful. What these people can do with their urges – especially their anger – makes them a danger to themselves and others.

People like me have bits of more than one of these beings in our blood. We were saved from hurting ourselves – and the people around us – by others who go looking for great surges of power to dampen them, to offer to teach them, to contain them – but if all fails to end them before they and their power. It’s a sad duty when it gets to this point but failing that duty –“ Zeremaya sighed.

Zere’maya looked left, looked right, and glared. The children pulled in their breaths. The effect was complete.
“Such is the risk of going to help one of our own.” Finished Zere’maya, holding up a warning finger.

“The moral of this story is that children are to be helped, however dangerous they may be. Adults are here to help the children, even to the point of laying down our lives if we must, and at last, desperate terrible need protecting all the children by ending the life of one.”

Zeremaya laid her hands on her thighs and leaned forward. “Questions?”

“Yes. That explains how you left, but not how you became a vampire.” Said a boy. Zeremaya laughed.

“Because people gossip and when gossiping tales become bigger. I told Karl that I was a Strigoi Vii – an energy sucker. I had drained enough energy from him to remain alive myself, to leave Karl and then return to finding the person I was to find. He brought me here instead. I had taken from him, though in need; he had the right by the law I was living under to expect that I would work for him. I’m more or less bound by the rules of the genies to him. What I am is closer to a Jinn or Genie than a vampire.

Do you want to know how I became a Strigoi Vii? “ There was a general murmer of agreement from the children, a rumbling from their parents, and dead silence from those older.

“There were legends that people in my family could shapeshift – my relations included powerful shamans and I felt drives inside myself needed explained. Though my father had raised me I sought out my mother’s people. I was not welcomed with grace – and I was young. I created enough bad magic so the people I have been around sent someone to collect me. I went to a place of power – great magical power. They sent someone who had the ability you know as Strigoi Vii – who could absorb large amounts of power, drain by touch. I had no training and a bad temper.” Zeremaya shrugged “Also no good raising on how to control myself. I threw a tantrum and when confronted by my collector I declared that I could do his job better than he could. I got his abilities, and the magic went out of control. I was grabbed by a woman trying to save me from what she thought was a hurricane wind, and I was pulled by his leadline into the universe. I have been working his job and my own ever since.”

“But you are a vampire?”
“I’m not dead. See – I have bones – and middle fingers. In fact, I have a daughter, Iscah, who is a powerful dhampir – who joined me in my work when she grew up. We don’t yet know what magic her children will bring with them.” Concluded Zeremaya.

There was silence. “It’s hard to be afraid of a mother who loves her daughter, even if she is Strigoi Vii.” Said a very small girl.

“She has power to be careful of, but she means no harm. She has abilities that are inherently evil, but what she does with them is good. She is a knife.” Said Karl.

At this point one of the men stepped in and began to play; his fellows joining him. The adults still stayed far enough from Zeremaya and Karl as if their breath would hurt them, and Zeremaya noticed that a leather-backed cloth from Karl’s vardo was placed where both of them were seated.

Zeremaya felt a pang of pain. She was two, maybe three weeks from her home and loves and life. Karl had grown up like this, among but not of. She shrunk back a little – maybe not so that everyone could see, but inside.

Zash came up to her.
“You know, you are right at the border between child and woman. You are going to have to bear with the fact that my presence is polluting. Children can’t be – they are always pure. Women --- “ Zeremaya gave a little hand motion.

“Leaders are almost like children. They also have to explore out further. If I want to lead one day I have to learn to live with one shoulder to the dark.” Said Zash.

“How different from being a preacher’s family, where you have to be just a little bit more righteous than everyone else.” Said Zere’maya. Zash shrugged.

“You left everyone who ever knew you, everyone you ever could have known is hundreds of years dead. Why?”

“Same reasons as most people coming of age. Some run from a past and other are hoping to make a different future for themselves. Of course I didn’t know when I left my father that he’d not see me again, ever, but that didn’t seem important at the time. I don’t think he ever quite knew what to do with me. There wasn’t really any culture, as such, that he could show me besides what I could see for myself so he read me lots of gypsy stuff.” Zere’maya laughed bitterly.”I spent much of my time with my father learning about Gypsy culture and much of my time among gypsies being a living show and tell project. After I wasn’t amusing, visiting my mother’s family, everyone kind of ignored me. Not cruelly, but there really wasn’t any more place for me to fit in there than there would be here. I thought that if I could force out of them which woman was my mother by use of magic – I’d fit in. Either place, no matter what I did or did not do – no more trace of me left behind than a fish leaves on water. Even as a black sheep, or a bad example I would have liked to count for something. One of the good points of having a head injury is that the past is so sharp. I don’t remember now, I can feel,” at that Zere’maya drummed her fist into her stomach,”How it was when I could not wheedle or trick or intimidate anyone into admitting that they knew who really was my mother. It hurts all over again, as if I was eighteen all over again, burning for answers.”

“Immortal vampire monster wants her mommy.” Said Zash. Zere’maya made a face at her. “I ~am~ a mommy, not that I really remember much about her but – “ Zere’maya’s fists beat down on her legs “as much as I do know, even though she is an adult I know she still needs me. I would never, never leave or abandon my Iscah as my mother left me. Never.”

Zash look at her differently “You don’t intend to stay with us, do you?”

“I once wanted this. I don’t fit here any more. I left that world knowing I would never fit in and went on with my life. Even though I can’t remember much of it I know getting back to my work is the worthier part. I once would have gladly laid down and died if I could only have done so as one of a party like this. I would have done anything to live this life. But I know I moved on, sad, but no longer trying. Somewhere there’s a way of life for me to get back to. This is wonderful, like the late fulfilling of all my childhood fantasies and dearest hopes. But I’m not a child anymore. I didn’t get to do this. I want to find out what I did, indeed, find myself able to do.”

Zash looked amused. “So you gig is, I take it – to save the world. Over and over again.”

Zere’maya looked contemplative . “I think that’s a side effect. I come and go from places like a fish (or that’s how it goes when I’m doing my job well) – but when I come into anyone’s life – big change.”

“And you can tell me all that without remembering anything about your life.” Zash’s tone was teasing.

“Yes. I ~~know~~ it’s a really strong hunch anyway.” Said Zere’maya with certainty.

“I’m recording what I remember now about being a child, because I know that I will forget again. People who recover from head injuries find that the past fades back to its proper place. And if I don’t recover, well, maybe someone will take my recorder to my daughter someday, who will want to know.”

Zash’s face washed over with thoughtfulness. “You’re talking about a person you just have a name for, that you can’t remember parenting, you can’t remember her face or even what her voice sounds like, but you think about her over and over again, every day of your life.”

Zash looked over to Zere’maya. The old vampire had fallen asleep. In many ways though Zere’maya acted like she was her age and looked like she was her mother’s age, her habits were that of someone very old indeed.

I’m going to have to get you back home somehow, thought Zash, and when Karl came walking by them again she had him pick up her frail friend and carry her back to his vardo. In all of that she never so much as shifted. Carrying Zere’maya was like moving a very small child, or someone who had been completely fatigued.

Who would have believed that the first demon she would meet would be so – vulnerable?