Ninja Nights - John Stormm (howl and other poems .txt) 📗

you, not to view war craft and wisdom, as two separate things. Seth and the boys, are my tools to train you, and spread a bit of much needed wisdom into the human gene pool. We make better men of them, and I train my son in the process. I am making a force, capable of keeping the worst of the darkness at bay. In so doing, I make the world a little better place to live.”

“I’ve always loved the martial arts, Dad,” Jon said. “I always felt so proud when we went to visit other schools and we’d share knowledge, but I feel very lacking as a wizard, though. It’s like you and Melanie got the best of the magick, and all I got, was card tricks.”

“I won’t lie to you, son,” his father said. “There’s been more than a few times, I wondered if any kind of wizardry was in you. The curiosity was there, but the knowledge seems to take you a bit longer to grasp fully. But when it does, I noticed, you’ve got it. When you drop your own limitations, Seth and the boys, can’t keep up with you. They never will. You are more human than your father, as I am, but considerably less so than them. We are not to be measured or weighed as a full blooded human being. We are LIKE them, but we are not EQUAL. But there’s a bit more to do, to prepare you. Tonight, I would like to initiate you, a bit more fully, into your non-human side.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Jon wondered aloud, “Will we cross over into the Otherworld tonight?”

“No need to,” his father said. “This is a place where it crosses over to us. Over there, you will feel like the alien. Here, you will meet others, remotely like yourself, in ways that humans are not. I’m thinking that if you see similar traits, in creatures that are obviously not human, you will understand that part of yourself, that much better. When the boys bed down for the night, place Seth on camp watch, and you and I will pay the White Lady a little visit. I’ve been needing to introduce you two.” The old man moved back to the campfire and the boys, to boil some water for tea in the kettle of his mess kit. Jon stayed and contemplated the darkness, reaching out of himself for things he felt related to there.

* * *

     Every one was bedded down for the night. Seth sat up, by the fire, occasionally tossing a dry stick or twig in to make more light. Flashlights were not allowed in this type of outing. Jon and his father were making their way, in the pitch blackness of the forest, down a trail known as the Emerald Tunnel. This winding trail, covered a large distance through the park, along the ridge of a series of hills, through hardwood forest. Its hard packed clay trail was worn smooth over decades of feet and bicycles traveling it. The crabapple trees, hawthorns and wild grape vines formed an arched, emerald ceiling above the trail. When speeding down its winding path, it was like shooting through an emerald tube, thus the name. At night, the light of the moon and stars did not reach here. The glow of fireflies and foxfire were the only illumination to be found. Jon’s father could negotiate these places easily. He followed his father’s black-on-black form southward, to a meadow on a hill, bounded by white oaks.

“Some words of knowledge are in order here,” said the old wizard, as he removed his weaponry to place on a granite bolder in the moonlit meadow. For a brief moment, the men had to squint in the light of the meadow, as their eyes adjusted from the blackness of the forest. After the ‘Emerald Tunnel’, the full moon seemed like high noon. Jon followed his father’s lead and divested himself of weapons at the rock.

“I take it, you plan on having a friendly chat with the White Lady’s ghost,” Jon assumed. “But what about her dogs? Are they safe?”

“When you say ‘ghost,’” his father lectured, “I must assume that you are speaking of the disembodied spirit of another human being.” He pulled his son to face him. “First: the White Lady was never human. She’s fae. She’s a Sidhe of an order known as Bean Sidhe, commonly referred to as a ‘banshee’ or the White Sidhe. They are a higher order of faery creature. The human woman form she assumes, is one she took from the woman, whose family she had ties to. None of them are left, but the Sidhe remains. As the woman was mistreated in life, this Sidhe is inclined to deal with such predators in the way she deems fit, as this is her ‘haunt.’ It’s not hard to understand why she likes this area, and stays even though the family is gone. She is, in actuality, thousands of years older than the woman, everyone thinks she might be, and has been linked to her family for untold generations.”

“Much as Shabriri and others have been linked to ours?” Jon questioned.

“Precisely so,” said his father, “and the dogs are not white German shepherds. They are white wolves, of a sort. They are not just the animals they would seem to be. They are both guardians and familiars. The mere presence of these, would suggest an even higher order of banshee is what we’re dealing with. In ancient times, such would only accompany a goddess of some degree, and not just a common fae.”

“So she’s ‘nobility?’” Jon asked.

“In Ireland, she’d hold a high rank in the Seely Court.” His father explained, “Here in these woods, she holds a very high status in the local fae court. Sometimes, I’m allowed to attend, sometimes not. But I’ve seen her there before. When you refer to her as ‘Lady’, say it like you mean it as a courtier would. You will not offend her.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with this and the wolf thing, “ Jon said uneasily. “Are you sure we’ll be safe?”

“I never said anything about being safe,” his father corrected. “She doesn’t care much for humans, and doesn’t like men at all. She doesn’t even think too greatly about the intelligence of the women who let themselves be victimized here. It’s her nature to behave as she does.”

“And you want to introduce me to her?” Jon asked, incredulously. “A human eating, man hating, ancient goddess from hell?”

“That’s my point, son.” The wizard continued, “You already know about humans, but very little about that fraction of you that is Sidhe. The White Lady will know you for who you really are. Human or Sidhe. I’m half human, I get along alright.”

“What if I’m not so very Sidhe as you?” Jon queried nervously. “What’re my chances of surviving thus encounter?”

“If there was no chance, son,” his father said softly, “I would not have brought you here at all. You would live your whole life, and never see this part of your heritage. If I erred in my judgment, then I alone, am your chance at surviving this meeting, and my vote here, also counts for something. Just follow my lead. Do not look long in her eyes, but rather look at her feet and be aware of her in your mind. She is a lot easier to look at with your eyes closed, then you see her through less deceived senses. Show no fear, to her or the wolves. They are not corporeal, but they can hurt you, or worse. We won’t give them a reason to, as it is our nature not to be the kind of creature they prey upon. This is where you meet and identify your nonhuman side. That’s why we came here tonight.”

The old wizard directed Jon to remove his tabi, and they both turned and faced the full moon, barefoot, and with their eyes closed. Jon was to visualize a ‘moon goddess’, a feminine aspect of the silvery illumination, as his father suggested and only open his eyes when he felt a feminine presence. A pair of low growls to the right hand and left, were Jon’s first clues that they were no longer alone on the hilltop meadow. He was wishing his keen edged, ninja-to was not on the rock, so many feet away. His father began a halting litany in ancient Irish, and the growling subsided. In the moonlight. Jon could make out the clear forms of the white wolves to either side. Their heads were low and their eyes held an unnatural gleam of fire. They made no move to advance. The old wizard was making a fist with his right hand and touched it over his heart, and extended it, palm upwards and open, to the vision of the White Lady, standing before him, as though he was handing her his heart. The Sidhe, in turn, made a motion as if she were picking up, what he offered, and was touching it to her own heart. As she completed this move, the old man declared the meeting would be a safe one.

The Sidhe appeared as a lovely, doe eyed, woman in white, and covered in flowing, white, gossamer veils. As Jon studied her features in more detail, he found the image to shift uncomfortably in his mind to something that more than suggested certain, gruesome death. He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, and viewed her in his mind. There he saw a luminous creature, that held traits like compassion for innocent victims, and unholy recompense for unrepentant violators of the weak, in an extreme light. Where a human might possess these passions to a mixed extent, in a subdued kind of candle light, this creature had no mixed feelings, and had the glare of an arc lamp, as opposed to a human candle. He could feel her getting closer to scrutinize him more fully. He never felt so naked and vulnerable. His hairs stood erect as if electrified, as her gaze swept him up and down. His knees began to tremble, and Jon was hard put to control them to stop. He could understand, what the fae and his father had in common. But he could not find it in himself, not like this. Then she flooded his mind with visions of women violated and murdered over the centuries. Scene after gruesome, unrelenting scene, imposed themselves on his memories until he could control himself no more and roared his rage to the universe. The spectral wolves howled in an eerie harmony with him. Deep down in his soul of souls, Jon felt that if there was one such person, capable of inflicting that kind of woe on another, he would have to remove such from this plane of existence, without any human remorse. There was none to be found in him. The White Lady seemed to smile at him, but it was a fierce smile. She nodded, and vanished in the mist rising out of the tall meadow grass. Jon sank to his knees, weeping.

“Are you okay, son?” his father asked gently, his hand on his shoulder.

“I never knew I could hate something so much,” Jon sobbed.

“It pleases me to note,” the wizard pointed out, “that it is a ’what’ you hate, and not a ’who.’ There is a time for all things, love as well as hate. All of these have an appropriate place. You’ve never had to make decisions based solely on these things in your past. The Lady felt you alienate yourself from her, and she showed you that given the same choices, you were very much alike. That, and other things, comprise your nonhuman side.”

“It makes me feel lucky I have a human side.” Jon concluded, “I would not want to live so long in a world of such glaring extremes without toning it down a notch.”

“I have