Spirituality - Shamino and the Spirits
The night is already near when a small group of children in the outskirts of Skara Brae prepares for their little adventure. A camp has been pitched already and now the children are sitting in front of a jolly crackling campfire. They are roasting sausages on sticks and their chatter can be heard for miles, they are excited and looking forward to one of those warm summer nights without their parents that tend to be so magical to every child at that age. It gets darker and darker, and the children get almost a bit bored as they slowly run out of food and appetite. "Someone should tell a story!" All eye a girl with a fiery red pageboy and a wolfish grin on her face. She obviously is the oldest of the group, and as she sees all eyes rest on her she quickly agrees to be the one to entertain the friends. "Good, then, I will tell you the story of Shamino and the Spirits." Her childish soprano echoes back in the darkness of the warm summer night when she starts to tell the tale of Spirituality...
If you ever dared to visit a graveyard at night you might have noticed that the dead of Britannia are a rather restless lot. I cannot tell you about the reasons, and it is said that it might be that the vitality of the land itself is so great that it bestirs the memory of itself even in lifeless flesh. However, as you can easily imagine - not only nowadays some of the dead decide to come back to wander beneath the living again, and as far as our history reaches it has been that way.
Knowing this, let me get back to my actual tale. The tale I am going to tell you concerns itself with a certain town, where the inhabitants of the graveyard had forgotten their proper decorum. Unluckily for the citizens of this town there were not only one or two aimless revenants, but there was a vertable plague of lifeless stalkers. Mostly every night was disturbed by a company of the undead making riot, as those creatures did not wander aimlessly as they are normally said to do, but set themselves about the business of terror and destruction with a methodical efficiency that demanded a malign will behind their executions.
I do not have to tell you that the inhabitants of the town were not very happy about this plague, even more they felt terribly disturbed by those happenings. Soon they had to face a lack of sleep, and although certainly none of them was afraid of work their tiredness started to ask for its toll. People did not dare to visit their faded beloveds on the graveyard anymore, and some who lived in immediate range of the graveyard even moved away from there. Short, the villagers soon figured out that this problem was nothing that could be dealth with by a few torches and pitchforks, or a cantrip or two, especially as their former efforts had terribly failed. So they held council, and soon came to the agreement to pray Lord British himself for aid.
Their call was answered most expeditiously, for Lord British bade none other than Shamino, the Ranger, first hero of Britannia and best and oldest friend to his majesty, to deal with the situation.
Shamino soon arrived, much to the joy of the villagers, and without taking the time to take a rest after the journey he went about his work, with his sword, bow and shield. The undead fell a dozen under his shimmering blade, and so the ranks of the revenants were quickly reduced to a few small piles of putrescent but inamate flesh. After clearing his way the path to the graveyard was eventually open, and so Shamino fearlessly entered the place where he suspected the root of all evil to be. And, indeed, he soon discovered a newly opened tunnel, which lead down to an ancient catacomb far below.
The tunnel was as dark as the night, and a terrible smell ascended out of it. Yet, Shamino would not have been the brave knight the bards besing him as if he would have fled just because of that. So, again, without hestation and his sword unsheated, he descended down to the catacomb. The first few steps he had to navigate almost blind, but soon his eyes got used to the dark light and so it happened that Shamino had not search too long until he found the source of all trouble in this dank and haunted place. It was a lich, and ancient and potent spirit from the First Age of Darkness. For centuries the creature had lain dormant in its stygian tomb, but as of late it had bestirred itself, and immediately its malicious and undead sould had driven it to start the harassement and torment of the living above.
So Shamino found the thing, and without hestitation he slew it. The battle was a terrible one indeed, it lasted almost for the whole night, the air swirled from the magic used and the floor was wet with the sweat and blood of the lich and Shamino himself. At last, though, Shamino defeated the lich and so he made his way out of the catacomb again, exhausted but content about his success. Now, if you think that I pass over such an epic battle with inappropriate haste let me tell you tthat this is merely the prelude to the tale I am actually going to tell you.
With the evil wight dead, Shamino chose to reamin in the town for a while, to have his wounds tended and recover from the fight and the journey, and as he had fought many undead before he also wantted to assure that the restless evil was indeed put down and that the unhappy soul could now rest in peace.
And indeed, as Shamino had feared, two nights after the lich's most recent and final death, a lad of the village was brought before the knight in a pitiable state of terror and nervous exhaustion. Shamino smiled at him in a friendly manner, and spoke some gentle words in the effort to calm the poor chap down.
At last the lad had calmed enough to speak, thanks to Shamino's efforts and the bless of forgetting, and so he started to report what had happened with a shivering voice. Thinking that all evil had departed he had spent an hour on the the graveyard on a dare. He had scarcely arrived when he was set upon, not by crawling corpses, but by a howling cloud of spirits. He could not understand their gibberings, and by now he was terrified already, but although he could not get behind the meaning of their appearance, the force of the despair and desperation in their voices was terrible and frightening, and a little bit shy he added that at that point he would have preferred to face an honest undead body.
Shamino was not overly surprised by this news, and so he spent the day in preparation and that night took himself again to the graveyard, an hours before midnight.
The paths of the cemetary were barely lit by the pale moonlight, and only minutes after he had entered through the gate he was set upon by the cloud of ghosts, and the sorrow of their incoherent wails and moans tore at his very soul. Indeed he could understand the fear of the lad perfectly now, and he thanked his fate that he was not an unexperienced youth anymore. Although the ghosts were a terrifying sight indeed, Shamino could not sense any evil in the things, but only a terrible, lonely despair that raked his sould and mind.
After some moments of desperation Shamino eventually managed to shut the moans of the ghosts out of his mind, as he knew that the things had no power over him physically, and made certain preparations. Completely concentrated on his task Shamino spoke some magic words and formulas, and thanks to the arts he knew and was practiced in, the spirits were quieted, albeit temporarily, and held in that place before the knight.
Without a sign of fear Shamino indicated the first of the spirits, and bade it: "You there, speak now, and tell me plainly why you haunt the night."
"In my life," the spirit sighed, "I was rich, and gloried in my riches, but did nothing to use them to help those around me, and now I see my life meant nothing."
"Your pride was great," Shamino replied calmly. "But where is it now? Look about you, you rest in a grave no finer than many of the poor folk you ignored. Rest now, and take comfort in the Humility of death."
The spirit acknowledged Shamino's words, and for a moment it hoovered in the air movelessly. At last, though, the ghost vanished into a small puff of mist.
Indeed Shamino the Ranger was very skilled with questions of Spirituality, and so, despite a common man could possibly never have convinced a restless spirit to be banished at a mere word, Shamino spoke with Authority, so that creatures of the supernatural planes might be compelled by his very words.
Shamino faced the next spirit, and when its ghostly voice was heard in the darkness of the night it said: "In my life I put on airs, telling folk that I was a hero, or a noble, or possessed skills that wer not mine, hoping therby to find friendship and fortune. And I see noww that everything I gained falsely was itself false."
"And yet," answered Shamino. "You still take on the seeming of that which you are not, for you pass among the living and trouble their lives. Put dishonesty behind you and be what you are. Rest now in the Honesty of death."
The comfort and authority in Shamino's voice reached its goal, and before the second ghost had even vanished, the third one spoke: "In my life I thought that I was a wolf among men, and the weak were my prey. I took the little that they ha d, and thereby accrued much for myself. But now I mourn, for I was most bitterly hated."
"Why then do you still trouble the living?" asked Shamino. "You regret your lack of Compassion in life, but I tell you to rest, and thereby learn Compassion from death, which ends all pain and sorrow, even thine."
"In my life," the fourth spirit eagerly started his speech, seeing that his companions had found peace already. "I ran from danger, while those I cared for stood and fell. Now I see how much finer it would have been to have died in the glory and comfort of their companionship, than to have gone on to the guilty and futile life which I led."
"And you are still running," Shamino said strictly. "Let rest your fear, and Valiantly embrace the mystery of death. Your friends and loved ones await you."
The fifth spirit immediately took up the litany. "In my life," he said. "I stood up in defense of the guilty, to gain by their friendship, and spoke out against the innocent when so bidden by my masters. Can ther by any payment now for the wrong I did?"
"You seek restitution for your deeds, but you flee the judge which all men must face. If you hunger for Justice, you will find the Justice of death, which is the proper sentence of all in the end."
"I was a miser in life," said the sixth. "And I sat alone with my wealth all my days. I did nothing of importance to anyone, not even providing honest work to those whom I might have hired, for I valued my gold above their service. Where is my gold now?"
"Gold indeed is forever beyond your reach, but there remains one Sacrifice within your power to make, and that is to Sacrifice this sad unlife to death, which patiently awaits your gift."
Now only two spirits remained, swirling sadly in the moonlight, and after it seemed like none of them would speak Shamino once more pointed at one and asked it why it was still haunting the world of the living.
"In my life," the ghost said. "In my life I served a man who loved me, and vlaued my service and friendship above all else. I betrayed him, seeking greater wealth and power. Now I see that I gained nothing and lost all, for those I came to serve saw me as only the worm which I was."
"The evil you did was very great," Shamino replied gravely. "And I cannot offer you absolution. But see now that one final obligation waits you, which you have yet to fulfill. Will you not Honorably go through the final veil of death?"
The ghost seemed to nod and puffed into a small cloud of mist to never be seen again in the lands of Britannia. Now only one ghost remained, swirling through the air, and obviously not intending to speak at all. At last Shamino broke the silence, as he was unsure on how long he could keep up the chains he had bound the ghosts with.
"Speak, Spirit, and tell me of the sin which torments you in your unnatural wakikng."
"I have no sinned," the ghost replied, "for I honour the Virtues to the best of my ability."
"Be that as it may, why then do you thus linger after your death?" Shamino inquired.
The thing thought for a moment and then replied: "I am no dead ghost, but have been cast out of my own body by the evil thing that formerly hautned this place. Pray reunite me with my body, that I may resume my rightful span of corporeal years."
Now such happenings were not too uncommon, and it is said that powerful mentalists are able to speak such curses, or that inexperienced ones sometimes accidentally lost the connection to their bodies while their spirit was travelling the world of mind. This case, though, was differently, and despite the words of the ghost Shamino was experienced enough with those matters to see the difference between a living spirit and an unliving shade, as clear as he could see the difference between a young, strong and flourishing oak and an ancient, rotting stump.
With all gentleness he could Shamino eventually said: "You are mistaken, friend. You are truly dead, my word and oath on that. You must now go to y our final rest, and cease to trouble the living."
"You lie!" howled the spirit. "For I move and se and speak! How can I be dead? I live! I live!" Suddenly the ghost tried to break free from the mental chains Shamino had used to bind it, but they were well wrough, and after a short, exhausting fight the ghost eventually had to give up, as the dismissal of the other spirits had weakened its energies and Shamino's will was as strong as the magical binds he had thrown over the ghosts.
Shamino sighed and pitied the poor creature, as he now knew what kept the spirit bound to earth, for it is the nature of the Spiritual to see the reality of things that are hidden from the less gifted. The creature in front of his eyes was most damnably cursed, as the curse was of its own making. Shamino knew that there was nothing he could do to lift the curse and it saddened him greatly. Where the other ghosts had been tormented by the sins they had committed in life, this creature tortured itself withholding knowledge about the sin that caused it to wander amongst the living although its natural time was over. The ghost lied to itself, cowardly running from death, hating itself and it true nature. In this, it rejected al three of the great Principles, which together compose the ultimate Virtue of Spirituality.
Shamino stood a while, his eyes set on the pathetic thing, and at last he spoke: "I can do nothing for you. Go about your existance, if such it can be called." With a slight movement of his hand he dispelled the magical web that had kept the spirit and left the place forever.
As for the ghost, it haunted the graveyard thereafter. It was weakened by the mental battle that had been fought, and therefore did not have the power to terrorize the living anymore. And so the unhappy creature lurked about, moaning and sighing to itself in the dull moonlight, and of its own delusion.
