BODY MAGICK Chapter One: Rain Mountain

Chapter One 

Rain Mountain

The little old man slipped quietly through the cold sodden forest towards the mountain. The rain told him that he was near, though in the darkness of the storm he could barely make out the outline of its peak. The threads of the old robe he wore provided no protection against the wind and rain, but he did not care.

Occasionally he touched a red symbol on the inside of his wrist which glowed briefly and warmed him some from the inside. The heat emanated from a spot in his stomach and spiraled slowly outwards through his groin and chest, his neck, then thighs and arms, and finally settled in his hands, feet, fingers and toes. He shook his hands vigorously and small blue sparks flew from his fingertips. He wiggled his bare toes in the mud and fine blue lines ran circles around his filthy, long toenails.

Lightning flashed, revealing the old man’s wire-thin body which was covered from head to toe in writing: symbols, glyphs, and words from every language in the world covered him from his bald head to the soles of his feet. In the flash of light, the symbols in myriads of colors--blue, green, red, ochre, black, every color imaginable--all seemed to be moving across his skin from back to front, pulling him forward.

There would be a cave, he knew, on that mountain. There would be a cave and a fire and a man waiting for him. There would be a cave and a fire and a man and a village below in the valley. There would be a village below in the valley and there would be three children, two girls and a boy, born at the exact same moment just as the sun crested the mountain above. But that would be years from now. How many years he did not know.

Now, he must find the cave and the fire and the man, and he must begin to write. He must write it all down, covering the walls of the cave and the mountain and village with all the words he had learned. But first, he needed the one word to start it all—and the man would come and he would carve it into the old man’s tongue, and the old man would never speak True Words again until the One Word could be spoken.

And that day might never come.

And that day might never come.