Blue was awakened earlier than he had planned to get up, not by an alarm clock, a rooster or the smell of fresh-made coffee, but by the gentle stroke of a hand upon his face. There above him stood Anna Marie. He was about to speak, to launch into a story about how he planned to wake her, but his vision cleared of sleep and he recognized that she had been crying. "What is it," he said as she gently pulled on him, clearly in a hurry to leave the tent. "Okay, Anna Marie, I'll follow you," Blue said softly as he stepped into his pants and shoes and slipped on a shirt with the speed of a fire fighter answering an alarm. He had trouble keeping up with her as she bounded down the path and made her way to the hut of Mojahdii. As they neared the hut, a crowd that had assembled around the outside parted to allow Anna Marie and Tommy access to the narrow doorway, made smaller by those assembled, all showing signs of fear, dread or grief. Whether Mojahdii was dead or dying, Blue could not yet determine but he knew it must be either. All eyes were upon him as he slid his way closer to the center of everyone's attention, to the very spot where he had first met Anna Marie. There, directly on the ground, lay Mojahdii, eyes closed in what the yogis might call rest or corpse pose, his feet several inches apart, legs outstretched, arms by his side, hands a few inches out from his waist, palms upward. Blue could tell that he was not dead but only by the subtle heat, slowly passing from his nostrils. No one said a word. Seconds later, the hulking form of Vinny was standing just behind Blue, his hand gently but firmly grasping Blue's shoulder in support. Sansaa raised her eyes to Vinny, through her tears a peaceful acceptance shone.
But Blue looked around at everyone within the hut; and for an instant could see right through its walls, outside to the multitudes already gathered and still on their way, and he did not feel acceptance. In that moment he saw both the living and the dead, those who had come before and those yet to be born. He saw great ribbons of light in varying intensities and sizes stretching for an eternity away from him while passing through him. As he turned his eyes toward Mojahdii he noticed equally strong bands of absolute lightlessness, beyond blackness, so dense yet so vacant that the weight of them was visible, palpable and at the same time forbidding, as if touching them would swallow the very life of the soul. The most ominous of these lightless bands passed directly through Mojahdii and precisely where it did all of the ribbons of light ceased. Though the light filled the hut and every soul assembled within, without and beyond, these same ribbons died at the very heart of Mojahdii. And then he saw it. Floating in the middle of what appeared to be miles of lightlessness, seemingly stretching deep into the very earth upon which Mojahdii lay, was the faintest of sparks, like a single fleck of glitter floating in an endless night. Without a word or a moment of hesitation Blue plunged both of his hands into the blackness, into the breast of Mojahdii.
A shriek of horror rose up from those assembled within the hut, confusion and fear gripped the crowd as Onjadiavaan vanished and Vinny's arm, still reaching forward as if clutching his brother for his very life turned black as pitch. The blackness crawled its way up his arm toward his shoulder then began to take over his chest and neck and for the first time in as long as anyone who had ever known him could remember, fear crept across Vinny's face.
Suddenly, light, the equal of which no living being had ever encountered filled the entire hut. It blazed its way through the very walls of the hut and drenched the valley with its glow. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone and Onjadiavaan stood before the crowd holding Shedavah in his hands. "Tommy!" cried Vinny, restored to his normal self but weeping as he reached out to hug his brother.
Mojahdii sat straight up into what the yogis would call the lotus position, looking as healthy as ever if not more so and said, smiling form ear to ear,"Onjadiavaan, thank you for delivering Shedavah to us all," and then he bowed his head in respect.
Blue smiled then held the crystal high for all to see and this time it did not vanish.
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