The Reincarnation of My Failure

Over the years, I have trained many, but boys like him rarely appear in a millennium.

“Master Muida, we need you!”

The part when they call me “Master” always makes me want to run. To direct them to any other powerful being that is more skilled, more qualified, and much more refined.

It’s the part when they say “We need you” that makes me stay.

But this time, I’m not sure I can.

The tawny youth knelt outside my door. He resembled a man I’ve not seen in a thousand moons, yet one I will not forget after thousands more cross the sky.

Years have made the wood of my abode moss-ridden, and I can’t understand why these fools know there is a door here at all. Despite my most recent failure, I still haven’t put up a sign of cautionary nature: “Those who wish to save their world, look elsewhere for your salvation. You will not find it in me.”

I cannot save them, though they believe I know the means to. However, I can tell you how it all began, and how it will go, and the record remains unanimous: it all ends the same. I, Muida, goddess of teaching and looking to the future, will not take on another student.

It’s not that I’m tired; I enjoy the thrill of training. It gives me a good workout, both physically and mentally. And please don’t misunderstand me when I say that the kids are all the same. I’m not bored, bitter, or bothered by the fact that they keep seeking me out.

It’s the fact that they seek me out and then don’t learn all I taught them. I trained them to protect others from the enemy. I can’t protect them from their own humanity once they leave my oasis. Some seem to understand that.

Let me rephrase: He never understood that.

“Are you Master Muida, or shall I search for her elsewhere?”

 The boy outside called and woke me from my internal monologue. I opened the door. I knew I shouldn’t have. The lean, freckled teen looked up at me, surprised that I actually greeted him. His hazel eyes peered into mine. I suppose he expected a great wizard of sorts; a creature weathered by years of solitude. What he got was along that line, although my skin isn’t weathered, and my light hair has not yet turned silver; it’s my soul that’s done the aging.

“What has brought you to this place, traveler?” He wasn’t from around here. His sand-ridden sandals and tanned complexion told me that much.

“I come to seek your training and guidance. The signs of the gods have led me to this place.”

“And those signs?”

“The ones written in the stars above me as I traveled, and the ones hidden deep within the caves of my village.”

“From whence do you hail, sign-follower?”

“A small village on Amyra, the little island far south of this place.”

“I recall the island, traveler-”

“Kellen. My name is Kellen Indiros.”

“Tell me, Kellen Indiros, what threat brought you to this place?”

“Raiders from the far west seek to destroy us. They have sent warnings that we are to give up our ways and our land. My people are strong in the faith, but I do not have enough faith in their ability to fight. That’s why I consulted the caves. The elders painted the history of our land there, and that’s where I found mentions of you.”

“Mentions? And what did the painted histories speak of?

“The paintings told of a warrior who trained the greatest hero Amyra has ever known. Is it true, that you trained Barak Acaraus?”

Warrior. Hero. Barak. These words, concepts lost to my memory but not fully faded. He had succeeded all that time ago. But at what cost?

“Well, Indiros, you must be told that I am no warrior. My purpose is to teach those who wish to learn for the betterment of their future. But you will be relieved to hear that you have come to the place of Barak Acaraus’ training.”

Kellen’s face relaxed into a wave of relief. His journey had not been in vain, or so he thought. His parched tongue forgot its thirst and began to ramble. “The songs of his praises are sung throughout each household in my village, but he cannot save us now. The call of the sword has been passed to me. My father…”

I attempted to listen as the boy spewed a familiar backstory, common to every wet-behind-the-ears underdog I’ve ever trained. Here are the commonalities:

1.    Parents: Deceased or never known.

2.     Hometown: Tiny, and of the agricultural variety.

3.    Occupation: In the typical farming or sheep-herding department

A silent part of me thinks that my fellow deities find it amusing to push the hearts of cast-offs toward this place. These children just want to be needed, and if it took a suicide mission to save their people to gain some sort of favor, they would lap up the water of death rather than flounder in their obscurity.

Once he had completed his tale, the youth kneeled before me once again. I offered Kellen a drink, which he graciously accepted as I gathered my robes and motioned to the useless walking stick I keep around for decoration. He retrieved it for me and we walked into the night. Time for his first lesson; whether he will receive it or not determines the acceptance of his apprenticeship.

At the brink of the steep ledge overlooking the great sea Kellen crossed only hours before, I sat on a weather-worn boulder. I motioned for Kellen to repeat my action for himself, and the shocked human knelt. He had removed his dirty sandals at the point of my destination, doing what every good worshipper of mine would: showing the respect they think I deserve.

I stared at the constellations above; each named for someone I had met so far back into the past that they had become myths. Barak did not have a constellation, but if he did, I would know which one it was: it would burn so bright only to fall and I’d never see it again. My clear irises reflected light, and although it was painful, I kept my gaze turned toward the sky.

I began my lesson. “Look up at those stars again, Indiros. The signs pointing you to me reside within your hopeful heart, not penned in pangalactic charts. And the people you so desperately wish to save didn’t send their now-hailed Barak Acaraus here so I could train him. They sent him here to die. Every ‘chosen one’ is. Impossible odds, unbeatable forces…You’d be surprised how many youths are exactly your type. I have trained countless, but you and Barak were different, can you believe it?"

 My memories took me back. "When Barak arrived at my door, he wanted nothing more than to leave this place as a hero. To prove to his people that he could be the one to save them all, from what I can’t recall. Probably raiders of the same sort you desire to defeat. Barak turned to me, believing I could be the solution. I could train him, certainly.”

Kellen’s eagerness overtook him, “What did you train him in? Swordsmanship? The dark arts?”

“I trained him to be a listener, as I do all of my students. In the past, I had begun with the sword, and if my students truly needed the skill, a little enchantment was granted. But Barak was impetuous. Before I could trust him with a blade, I needed to trust that he would listen. So I attempted to train him, to hear the people’s woes, and to acknowledge the logic of his foes. I taught him that the last weapon he should utilize is the sword by his side, and the first two in his arsenal should always be at the ready: The thread of thought in his mind and the wit imbued in his tongue.”

“Those things surely cannot be that difficult to master,” Kellen declared, preparing to bow again. “If you taught him, then by all means, Master, make me your student, and send me to glorious triumph!”

Oh, had I heard those words a hundred dozen times before. “Those who believe it’s all that simple can go home empty-handed. The last thing you need is a sword, Indiros. You are headstrong, but not yet strong-minded. What does your village say about Barak’s victory?”

That last remark of mine wasn’t necessarily for Kellen to ponder a deep truth. I just wanted to know what had really happened to him.

Kellen’s face dimmed, the enthusiasm levels dropping as fast as the moon rose overhead overhead. He narrated the ballad as if he had been told the story each night since infancy. “Barak did not fail in his enchantment of the people, and he fought bravely to the end, his sword in hand. His words of wisdom saved the village he so loved, but he died crying out the name of his love...Muida, Muida, my strength and my love. Welcome me once again: master, teacher, pure dove."

So, that’s what happened. He listened...and that still didn't save him. My tears were spent for Barak long ago, and I hadn’t taken a student since. One would think that I remained professionally detached from those I train. That was often the case. But Barak was an overeager moth that was in desperate need of a flame I didn't know I possessed. While he casually and easily learned my most important lessons, he studied me, and any human trait he could find within me. My loneliness left me weak, and Barak took down my walls that had been overgrown much longer than my ivy-woven hut. Training with the sword became a dance, and any enchantment of mine was quickly matched with equal force, but he had me under his own spell. The man I loved worshiped the ground I walked on and went to his death in my name.

           “I need you,” Barak had begged me in his ethereal voice; the voice that had matured into adulthood just as much as I presumed his character had grown since we had met. His dark complexion contrasted with my own albino skin, his hands forever combing through my long spider-web-hued hair. I’d have given immortality up to see him to the ends of the earth.

But, bound forever to this soulless oasis, I could not follow him into battle. He kissed me for the last time, his hand leaving mine as his boat left the shore. In a song of his own, he promised to return. He had forgotten the second lesson: don’t make your loved ones promises you cannot keep.

I didn’t cry for him now. A soft laugh of fond remembrance was the only sound I could manage.

“I always wonder what happens to my students,” I redirected. “Obviously I'm still breathing and I’m here to be sought out, so the world hasn’t burned. Well, at least most of it hasn’t.”

           “But that’s just it! If you don’t wish the world to end, you must train me as you did him!”

           “No,” I choked. “I cannot-no, I will not attempt to train another. If they do not listen to me and know that I see their fate, I see that all their efforts will be in vain if they do not realize their human frailty. I let my guard down and thus failed to teach him to safely guard himself. An expert swordsman, he was, and he had a way with words like no one I had ever heard. But he was too headstrong, as you are. So I command you, find a trainer that will take you. Do not fight in my name. It means nothing. Do not call upon me for victory; I cannot give it to you."

“But Muida, I need you-”

  “I certainly don’t need another Barak’s blood on my hands. Leave me…please.”

I had only ever begged a mortal to stay once, and now I begged one to forsake me. What kind of a goddess am I?

Kellen rose from his prostrated position, placing the sandals back on his feet. I guess he finally realized he wasn’t standing on hallowed ground. He stood in the presence of a true fool. His hazel eyes brimmed with bitter tears; he didn’t bow as he left.

"I believed the legend of Barak to be true. That a great master teacher would gladly teach. His skills were only learned from you. It was not his sword fighting, his magic, nor any words he could speak that saved him. It was the love that you showed him. I see that now. But you are right. As you have commanded, I will succeed. But I will not credit you with teaching me."

He turned and descended the craggy stone staircase that led to my hilltop, boarded his small boat, and disappeared as silently as he had approached me at sunset.

I knew not whether he would succeed or fail. The future was unclear to me for the first time.

Returning to my lodging, I shut out the day I just had of reliving memories I wished would evaporate. My countless students who had succeeded in their quests would forever be memorialized in ballads, epics, and the stars themselves. But nothing could drown my true legacy: I had sent two young men to certain doom because I tried to get them to hear me. I forgot the humanity of one and tried too hard to remind the other of his own.

I had failed Barak all those years ago. And my failure had been reincarnated before my eyes just moments before.

           After he left, I wondered about Kellen and whether I had made the right decision. My fear had taken hold of my tongue. Perhaps I spoke out of turn. After all, he learned the first lesson. I asked him to leave.

And he listened.