[New Voices] Mysti
A fourth extraterrestrial beauty with power over minds comes to admit her guilt and seek help for a fatal, incurable disease...
Short story speculative fiction by S. H. Marpel
- - - -
THEY CALL ME MYSTI. Because of my mystic origins.
The beings who raised me almost killed me before they found out my real value.
They became my mentors, and then - as my powers expanded - my servants.
What they never knew is that "mystic" means both master and novice.
So I left them to find someone who could actually teach me balance between the two extremes that lived inside me. And like a double-edged sword, could cut both ways.
And like a flip of the coin, either of my faces could show at any time.
One of salvation, the other of instant annihilation.
Like I was now facing, in person.
I
WHEN SHE ADMITTED TO hurting three other young women who came to me for help. I stood up from the round table, The chair behind me scooted back.
My hands were clenched into fists, although I then forced them to relax.
The atmosphere in that main room of the Western saloon went cool, or it felt so to me.
I had three girls upstairs who had gone unconscious, all of which possessed unique supernatural abilities. Bending time and space. A trained warrior who could throw disintegrating fireballs from her bare hands. And the last was able to generate the heat and radiation of a star in space.
And here was the person who admitted to knocking them all out, burning two of them, and various cuts to their bodies through bulletproof clothing.
For me to get into any physical conflict with her would be foolhardy at best. Suicidal at worst.
Hami and Gaia also stood at this. Gaia was more to worry about than any of us in the room. But her skills as an Earth goddess were a bit of a blunt instrument. Sinking whole continents at a gesture was more her trademark.
Hami was better at cooking and healing - but it was her and I standing there that kept Gaia from taking any action, regardless of how she felt about this stranger.
The golden-headed woman lowered her insulated hood and padded toward us in soft-soled, high-topped boots.
"I've heard about you, John of the Ghost Hunters, and read all about the Lazurai you've written up. Those two factors brought me here. And, as much as it may have just upset you, I've come to you for help.
Because I'm dying."
- - - -
"IS THERE SOME REASON that I should do anything to preserve your life when you just put three of my friends into critical condition upstairs?"
"Only your basic humanity. And one story you wrote about 'autists' - as you called them. Gaia here would understand this condition as being 'unbalanced' and is what is killing me, slowly."
Hami walked behind me and crossed to face her. "If you wouldn't mind, could I have your hand - I only want to read it. Oh, I'm Hami, you said you know of Gaia and John. Do you have a name?"
The red-head held a thin, pale hand out for Hami, palm up. "My name is Mysti."
Hami took Mysti's hand in both of hers and looked it over carefully, then turned it to look at the other side. She then held it sandwiched between her own and closed her eyes for a few seconds. At last, she took it to pull herself to Mysti's side and put her arm around her shoulders.
Hami looked at me, more serious than I had ever seen her. "She is understating her condition. Right now, she shouldn't even be able to walk, or even breathe. I must insist we get her into her own bed upstairs and begin treatment immediately."
Gaia then came forward to Mysti's other side putting her own arm around Mysti's waist. At that, Mysti slumped slightly - as the three shimmered out of my view.
And now I had four young females entering my life and asking for help in as many days. All fighting for their lives in a makeshift clinic upstairs.
While I stood here. Alone and unable to help any of them.
II
I OPENED MY EYES AS I laid there, flat on my back, but my head laid to the side. The first thing I saw was John, sitting in a ladder-back chair by a small side table.
He seemed calm, some worry lines by his eyes, but not on his forehead.
"Glad to see you're awake. Hami had me come up, as you're not healing, at least not to their standards. All they've been able to do is to keep you in some sort of stasis. She said that this was now more my own territory than theirs. Since you have no illness that their healing can cure."
"She's right. Which is why I'm here."
"To the point you mentioned that 'Autists' book. Why is that important?"
"Imbalance."
John leaned toward me, elbows on his knees.
"Those 'wise' scientists call it a right-left brain imbalance. But you and I know that it's a mind problem, not some gray-matter tissue at war with itself."
John then got up and pulled his chair over by my bedside. "If this is uncomfortable, I can move back, or I can move some pillows to raise your head."
I just rolled my head back to look at the ceiling. "Beige. The ceiling should be beige."
John got the joke and chuckled. "Well, there's hope for you yet. Seriousness kills more than bad humor."
I had to smile at that. Exactly why John was going to be my healer.
Turning to look back into his eyes, "Your Lazurai are missing an element here. They are concentrating only on the physical. While we both know that mental posits the physical..."
"...and practically the only thing that really heals, by most schools."
"Exactly. Now I'm going to say something very carefully. And the reason for this is that Hami is right - and a wrong thought at this point would simply make me into a dark spirit. And your Sal, Jude, and Ben would have a mess on their hands."
John nodded. "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."
"I can't afford sorrow right now, as this is a knife edge of reasoning. At some point, I'll come back to saying I'm sorry for all I've done to arrive here. But first, we have to bring me back from the edge."
A sound at the open doorway made me glance that direction. Hami appeared, her hand on the door frame. She gave a small reassuring smile, and then ducked away.
I felt what brought her here, and how her presence restored the stasis field within me. I had much to learn from her and her nursing skill. Learning itself probably drove me more than anything to stay alive - a bit longer.
- - - -
THE STORY STARTS WHEN I became self-aware. Most people think this is when they are born. But being conscious of being conscious is a better term for a real birth. Memory doesn't count. People are always changing their memories, revising them to make better sense, to fit into their current worldview.
The only constant is change, evolution - or revolution. Changing from, or turning back. But you can never return to where you came from, not the identical you, not the identical "where."
I've changed so much, I hardly remember anything like I "should."
It's all "now" now. And so what I recall is just as valuable as I've read in a book, or listened to someone say. I don't trust any of it more than it's useful to me now. Because now is all there is, actually.
The problem with this is being in two parts. Of course, that's a fiction, like all life. There are no dichotomies. Black is just a very dark shade of gray that runs right up to white. White was there first. You can't turn off the dark, but you can turn on a light.
If you followed the above, you can see exactly how I think. Because I quit thinking years ago. Lifetimes ago, for all practical purposes.
Like Gaia, I'm here to find balance. And I failed.
So my body started failing me. And before anyone starts saying how "failure is just another opportunity" I'd have you talk to my doctors. Even the last hospital I was in. Clinically dead. But I was still moving around, circulating blood. But my vitals were so off the bottom of the chart they only registered every now and then. On and off life-support. Didn't matter.
So one night, I simply turned off the monitors so they wouldn't alarm anyone, got dressed, and left between shift changes.
Then came to find the one set of people who could help me solve this mystery. The Ghost Hunters - and their alter-ego's, the Lazurai.
For I was more spirit than human. And was quickly losing touch with my own humanity. When the last of it was gone, I would be only spirit.
The problem was in how I was losing my humanity. It was being stolen.
Bit by small bit. Drained is probably a better term.
Again, because I wasn't balanced in my approach to remaining human.
95% of humanity (on average) is happy scratching out a living on this mud-ball spinning around a radioactive gas giant amongst a herd of similar solar systems called a galaxy, which in turn herds into an alternately expanding and contracting universe - one of many, that are themselves dancing.
Somewhere around half of that 5% (on average) is composed of screaming genius types (genii) who are either devoted to improving humanities condition (and generate the bulk of the jobs to keep everyone else employed) or are finding all the apparent loopholes that earn them the label of criminal. But because that latter half is devoted to destructive activities far more than constructive, they usually die off faster and leave no real legacy. And that seems the core reason civilizations continue, regardless of the opinions of tragedy-loving fiction writers called historians.
For the individual, the bulk keep their lives in balance by simply following conventional "wisdom" and keep up to date with their "now-we're-supposed-to's" that friends, family, their jobs, and the government all remind them about weekly, daily, hourly, minutely.
And their minds are cross-connected to share these with the others around them. So the world continues bumbling along. The top 2 1/2% are making gradual improvements, and overall there are less wars and strife and illness - other than fast-food over-consumption and “social” media, most everything else is going in a positive direction.
Evolution will eventually cure those last two diseases as well.
My core problem is that I quit believing in myself.
Lack of faith.
Belief being the father to fact, I quit existing.
So this isn't a problem of body, it's a problem of spirit.
Soon I'd quit existing even as a spirit as well. Poof.
This led me to John.
And to the flaw in his Lazurai books.
- - - -
THE DAY HADN'T CHANGED while I'd been off thinking. Same room with the vintage wallpaper and dark wainscoting half way up - to the height of the ladder-back chair John still sat in.
"So let me get this straight - there's five elemental classes. And we haven't met one of the fifth elementals." John was puzzling over this, frown on his forehead, looking off into space as if in some chalkboard where all these formulas were writing and erasing themselves.
"Exactly." I said. "I need the treatment that such a fifth elemental would be able to provide. A Lazurai or a god(dess) type."
John reached for the turquoise pendant-stone that hung around his neck. Looking off into space, he rubbed it absent-mindedly.
A thump sounded in the hall outside the room.
John rose at this and walked just outside the doorway, returned pushing a wheeled library cart, with numerous books. All were tabbed and book marked variously.
He noticed my amusement. "Maybe a bit antiquated, but these beat having to carry a computer and Internet connection everywhere."
I had to smile at this. He'd simply used his connection to Ben and his Library. And the smell of old books filled the small room, a delight.
Positioning the book trolley near his chair, John sat again and started pulling them out to look up the various bookmarks and tabs at their pages. Two or three he stacked on the floor. I was more interested in his reaction than keeping count.
"OK, here's one - Aristotle called it 'nous', but he wasn't the first. That was a principle though - and tied to how the universe operated mechanically." The book went on his stack.
Next book. "Hera was the wife of Zeus, and could temporarily cause insanity. Typically, this was jealousy. But that was a skill, not a being. This is where the phrase 'no fury like a woman scorned' has application. As you would point out, this isn't balance." Another book to that stack.
Next book. "Romans and Greeks had goddesses for both Harmony and Discord. But that's not what you are looking for. At any rate, they were minor. The Discord one was blamed or starting the Trojan War, as a sidebar..." That book was added to the now taller pile.
And then: "Now we go much earlier - Sanskrit. A word 'buddhi', which literally means 'to wake, be awake, observe, heed, attend, learn, become aware of, to know, be conscious again' - I think that is what you are talking about.” John closed the book and placed it on the bed by my side.
I nodded and smiled.
"But you are right. All the stories of the Lazurai don't mention any that dealt with this aspect. They all were either fire, wind, air, or earth." He looked off into space, considering.
Then suddenly looked at me. "I hate to leave you alone. But I have to talk to someone." He stood and moved his chair back carefully to not upset that tall stack of books that now rose from the floor. "But while I'm gone, feel free to study up. Great stories in these." Smiling, he strode out of the room and I relaxed as best I could.
Then sleep found me. My old friend.
III
"GAIA - DO YOU KNOW of any old gods hanging around India or the Himalayas, maybe some old libraries in monasteries or like that?"
I'd interrupted her noshing on Hami's comfort food downstairs. The long bar was filled with various dishes, covered and uncovered. And the smells of her cooking were a complete distraction - and the point of it.
All set up so the healers could come down on their breaks and recharge.
Gaia was helping Hami keep everything organized down here. Hami was of course doing double-duty, but had done all she could for Mysti and sought to distract her own self by cooking.
Gaia was at loose ends and was trying to keep herself busy. Of course, she was also the volunteer taste-tester, since her healing powers had to do with planets, not tiny things like bodies.
"Oh, hi-ya John. Is Mysti any better?"
"Some, mainly we've sorted it down to mental, not physical. But back to my question - know any mental-type gods that are still around?"
Gaia frowned at this. Then raised one eyebrow. "Maybe. But you are probably the only one who could interest him in taking Mysti on as a project."
She stood and took my hand. "Here, try this first." And handed me a stuffed pastry. I bit into it and felt nirvana.
"Thought that would help you out. OK, let's go." Stepping next to me, she put an arm around my waist, while my other arm (the one without the pastry in it) went around her shoulders.
In that position, we shimmered out...
- - - -
AND SHIMMERED BACK, inside a darkened library, lit only by intermittent candles. Few books, mostly rolled-up scrolls on thick solid wood shelves.
"A question, Gaia. How is that we transport by holding waists instead of just hands?"
"John, you silly. Because I can, because I want to, and because I love to."
I had to smile. "I love you too, Gaia."
She gave me a squeeze and then dropped her arm to take my hand - the one that had been around her shoulder.
A monk came toward us in orange robes. More like - floated.
"Gaia, good to see you again. And this must be John of the Ghost Hunters. The honor is ours. People here call me Akashi."
"It is my honor, Akashi. Thank you for seeing us."
"No biggie, as your culture says these days." His eyes fixed on my other hand. "Are you going to finish that?" He pointed to the stuffed pastry I still held.
I gave it to him with a smile. The pastry disappeared in a fluid motion.
His smile far out-stretched my own. He closed his eyes and held his hand just in front of his lips as if holding a phantom pastry there.
When he opened them, he looked at Gaia and me holding hands, then came forward to take her other hand in his. "As I think you say, 'there's more of that where you came from'."
Gaia chuckled and I grinned.
Then we shimmered back again.
- - - -
WHEN WE ARRIVED, AKASHI first took a look down the long, polished wood bar filled with dishes of aromatic food. Then headed straight to the stairs. I had to step lively to keep up with him.
Akashi told me over his shoulder, "First, I pay my dues, and then I can reap the reward I earn."
We were both now going up the steps two at a time and were then soon through the hallway and into Mysti's room.
"Hi-ya doll!"
Mysti lit up like a light bulb, and was the first color I'd seen in her cheeks since she had shown up.
"Akashi!"
He sat in the single chair by her bed and took her hand with both of his.
The rolling cart of books had been moved somewhere. She had a single book on the bed, with a variety of bookmarks and tags in it.
"Balance problem, eh?"
She nodded with an embarrassed smile.
"Didn't I try to warn you about that earlier?"
She rolled her eyes at being teased. "Yes, Akashi."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
"Nothing?"
"Yes. You have too much nothing inside you and not enough something. Now, here's your prescription: get up, go downstairs and try some of Hami's food. She has some stuffed pastries that are real nirvana - no kidding."
With that, he patted her hand and then stood. "With any luck, there will still be some left by the time you get down there - if you hurry."
He strode toward the door, and paused at the door frame. "We have much to talk about, so don't waste time lolly-gagging around. Chop chop!"
Another step and he was gone. But his head reappeared as he ducked it in. "That means you, too, John. Much to talk about, but only so many of those pastries left..."
And then we could hear his rapid steps going down the hallway.
Mysti grabbed the covers and threw them to the side. She swung her purple silk pajama legs out and stood up. I caught her as she teetered a bit, and then she smiled at me. "OK, I'll accept a courtesy escort as long as it includes a strong arm around my waist, Gaia-style."
I smiled back and by the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, her energy was completely recovered. She almost flew to the pastry platter and then to the table where Akashi had surrounded himself with small plates of just about every dish Hami had prepared.
Hami came out about that time, around the bar and gave me a hug, flour-sprinkled apron and all. Then looked up at me with misty eyes.
"I knew you'd solve that one, too. Go enjoy yourself. They are both waiting to compare notes with you. A little fan club - but don't forget to take some extra napkins as you go. That food is disappearing fast. I'll be over with some hot spiced cider in a bit."
Taking another napkin dispenser from a nearby table, I followed her suggestion.
And both time and pastries flew as we filled up Mysti with somethings she could have a reason to live for.
Notes: Not only is this the short ending to this series, it’s also a two-for. You meet both Mysti and Akashi. She shows up many times in the upcoming books (one seminal work, in a completely different style, is the “Tao of Mysti.”) whilc Akashi (a reference to the fabled Akashic Library) appears at a few more key points.
I’ll leave you to sleuth out the many references here that John drops about the power of the mind, and powers over it.