Stone of Tears

Richard frowned deeply at her, but she didn’t look over to see it. “It was at a gathering, with the Mud People. I was trying to talk to their ancestors” spirits, to try to find out how to close the veil, and he appeared.”

“Ahhh.” She nodded in satisfaction. “I see.”

“What does that mean!”

Sister Verna’s face set into an expression of tolerance, born of explaining things to children. “did the Mud People have you drink or eat some sacred potion before you saw this spirit?”

“No!”

“You simply sat down with them and saw spirits, yes?”

“Well, not exactly. There is a banquet first. For a couple of days. The elders eat and drink special things. But I never did. Then we were painted with mud, and then I went into the spirit house with the seven elders. We sat in a circle, and they chanted awhile. Then they passed around a basket and we took out a spirit frog, and rubbed the slime from its back onto our skin…”

“Frogs.” Sister Verna looked over. “red frogs, yes?”

“Yes. Red spirit frogs.”

With a smile she looked back ahead. “I know of them. And it made your skin tingle, yes? And it is then you saw spirits?”

That’s a pretty simplistic version, but I guess you could distill it down like that. What are you trying to say?”

“You have traveled the Midlands often? You have seen many of her peoples?”

“No. I’m from Westland. I don’t know much about the people of the Midlands.”

She nodded to herself again. There are many peoples in the Midlands, unbelievers, who do not know of the light of the Creator. They worship all sorts of things. Idols and spirits and such. They are savages who hold to customs of worship centered around these false beliefs. They mostly have one thing in common. They use sacred food or drink to help them “see” their “spirit protectors.’”

She looked over to make sure he was paying attention. The Mud People apparently use the substance on the red frogs to help them have these visions of what they wish to see.”

“Visions?”

“The Creator has placed many plants and animals in our world for us to use. The power of these things work in invisible ways. A tea, for example, of the bark of willow can help reduce a fever. We can’t see it work, but we know it does. There are many things that if eaten will make us sick, even kill us. The Creator gave us minds to learn the difference. There are some things that if eaten, or in the case of the red frogs, rubbed into our skin, will make us see things, just as we see things when we dream.

“Savages who don’t know better think the things they see are real. That is what happened to you. You rubbed the slime of a red frog into your skin and it gave you visions. Your rightful fear of the Nameless One made it all the more real to you. If these “spirits” were real, why would you need to use some special plant, or food, or drink, or in this case, red frogs, to see and talk to them?

“Please don’t think I am mocking you, Richard. The visions can seem very real. When you are under their influence, they can seem as real as anything. But they are not.”

Richard was reluctant to believe the Sister’s explanation, but he understood what she was talking about. From a young age, Zedd had taken him into the woods to find special plants to help people: aum to take away pain and help minor wounds heal faster, and wattle root to ease the pain of deeper wounds. Zedd had showed him other plants that would help fevers, digestion, the pain of childbirth, dizzy spells, and he had also told him about plants to avoid, plants that were dangerous, and plants that would make people see things that weren’t there: visions.

But he didn’t think he had imagined Darken Rahl. “He burned me.” Richard tapped his shirt where the bandage was. “I couldn’t have been having visions. Darken Rahl was there, he reached out and touched me, and it burned my skin. Pm not imagining that.”

The Sister gave a little shrug. “That could– be one of two things. After you rubbed the frog on your skin, you couldn’t see the room you were in, could you?”

“No. It just seemed to disappear into a dark void.”

“Well, see it or not, it was still there. And I’m sure the savages would have had a fire burning when you had this gathering. And when you were burned, you were not sitting in the same place, but you were standing, moving about, yes?”

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly.

She pursed her lips. “In the deluded state you were in, you probably fell and burned yourself on a stick in the fire and imagined that it was this spirit doing the burning.”

Richard was beginning to feel decidedly foolish. Could the Sister be right? Was it all this simple? Was he really this gullible?

“You said it could be two things. What is the other?”