Nirvana Effect

5



The pain had changed. Edward sensed that his body had made definite progress on the head injury, but the torture along his nerve channels had grown much worse. It felt as though every neuron in his body were generating charge, ripping up and down his body like electric fire and ice.

The feeling of disconnection was gone. Instead, he felt much too connected to his body.

He heard a din of voices nearby, hundreds of voices. Some sort of crowd. They were muttering, shouting, displeased.

He felt trapped, and for an instant he fought the impulse to jump up and flee. He checked himself. Sudden motion would undo every bit of healing he’d done.

According to the reasoning he’d conducted before he’d fallen asleep, running would serve no purpose and could actually estrange Mahanta, the only reason Edward was still living.

That logic, however, seemed hazy at best. He didn’t feel like he could process again everything he’d gone through before the sleep. Just the thought overwhelmed him. He couldn’t bring back into recall the concatenation of evaluations that had led him to that conclusion.

I guess I could…very slowly…

He picked it all over in his mind as best he could. The pain dispersed his concentration. The salient points stood out. Manassa is Mahanta. Mahanta, for now, is a friend.

His mind drifted to the drug that Bri’ley’na had injected into his veins. And I had worried it was mud. A dream he had buried a decade ago resurfaced.

Edward stands in Father’s study. Father is kneeling, praying on his rosary. Thomas has just left the night before. “Are you sad, Edward?” asks Father.

“No, sir.” But his voice is cracking.

“It’s fine to miss your brother.”

“I do miss him.”

“Let’s prayer together.”

“I don’t want to pray tonight, father.”

“That’s when we need to the most - when we don’t wish to.”

“I don’t want to go off like Thomas, father.”

Father chuckles. “Then what do you want to do?

“I want to learn about science, father. I want to learn about electricity, biology, chemistry. I can’t stop reading about all of it. I want to make a difference.”

“You will be a Jesuit, then, the most learned of the priests. You won’t be a Franciscan like your brother Thomas. You’ll be a Jesuit like Allen.”

I don’t want to be a priest, father. I don’t want to be like either of them.

That part was never said.

Edward had held hope. After Edward had won a scholarship to Oxford, his father had let him attend for his bachelors “to prepare him for the priesthood.” All while he was in school, he’d held hope, though, that his course would change.

As he’d neared graduation, the pressure had mounted. Father. Then brothers. And then Cali - a different sort of pressure, and a final one. It left him with a terrible question: had those dreams ever been real? Though he held them so hard, had they fled?

They had. Now, after his experience with this mysterious substance, the dreams rushed back to him in full.

He knew that under its influence, with the inhuman mind that it gave him, he could solve mysteries that had plagued humankind for centuries.

That substance is not of God. The voice of his father. Edward ignored it.

It’s a drug, Edward, his cautious side protested. He quickly quelled it.

I don’t know what it is. Whatever it is, I need to learn more.

“Edward.” Edward opened his eyes. Mahanta sat with his legs crossed on his velvet pad.

“Manassa,” answered Edward with what might have passed for a smile. He noticed his throat didn’t croak so much this time.

“We shall name me something Western in time,” Mahanta said thoughtfully in English. Clearly Mahanta felt comfortable in Edward’s company.

Edward said nothing but took note of this. Mahanta was hinting at something that Edward wasn’t awake enough to decipher.

“How is your head?” Mahanta asked.

“Better and worse. My nerves…”

“It is the lleychta, the nectar - the unfortunate side effect of its trance.”

Edward could hear a growing din of Onge voices outside the hut. They were getting loud enough to contribute to the aching in his head.

“It hurt before I was given it,” said Edward.

“I tried to give it to you twice, while you were out, when it looked like you wouldn’t make it. But it doesn’t work while you are knocked out. I didn’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been knocked out and given it to myself before.”

Edward couldn’t help but chuckle at this. He was awarded immediately by a fresh throbbing radiating from his spine out to his toes and fingers

“I will get some eucalyptus paste to help with the pain. It soothes the nerves after the liquid,” said Mahanta.

“I could definitely use some soothing. What was that stuff? What did you put in me? And in you?” Edward stuttered trying to get out all his questions at once.

Mahanta smiled warmly. “I have many questions for you, too. All that in time.” The young man sighed as he stood up. “First, there is a challenge we must face. Can you sit?”

“I don’t know.” Edward hated the idea, but there was urgency in Mahanta’s voice.

“Let’s try,” said Mahanta. He helped Edward up into a sitting position. The motion was all Edward could bear.

“Quiet!” whispered Mahanta. Edward realized he had screamed. “Hurts?” Mahanta asked.

“Yes. I can’t take it. I need to lie down.”

“Can you stand?” asked Mahanta

“Oh, God, no,” said Edward.

The crowd outside kept shouting. They were getting loud enough for Edward to make out some of the words. Manassa. White man.

“Your ‘no’ is not a sufficient answer today,” said Mahanta.

“What is this crowd?”

“They want to kill you.”

Oh, God.

“You do not recognize their living god. This is a holy house, this hut, consecrated to me and those I command. It should be safe for you so long as I deem it, but unholy men might creep in the dark of night and kill you despite my commandments. Such is the force of our traditions.” This he said quickly, in the rolling poetry of traditional Onge. The older tongue was easier for Edward to follow, being closer to its Indo-European roots.

“What must we do?” asked Edward.

“I have a question for you, Jesuit.” A question that you obviously don’t want to ask. There was pain in Mahanta’s eyes.

“Yes?”

“Would your lord Jesus desire you to spit on his face if it eased your suffering?”

Edward thought it over. There was an awful hole in his stomach as he started to see where this was going. “Yes.”

“Today you must spit and ease your suffering.” Mahanta waited for Edward to prompt him further, but the priest said nothing.

“If you desire to live today, you must renounce your God and bow to me, proclaiming me the only living god on Earth, with the power to change the destiny of nations. It must be said this way.” Again he said this in traditional Onge, flatly. The prospect didn’t excite Mahanta one bit - in fact, it seemed to disgust him. Edward was feeling nauseated, himself.

Mahanta continued matter-of-factly. “I will announce that I have healed you with my powers, that you have come to see the light and that you are now my servant, higher than all Onge for you are the only mortal who may sleep in my house. I have calculated this in trance. This is the only path I see in which you may survive. Nockwe has grown ill and can no longer help protect you. Dook gains power by the day. It will only be a matter of time before tradition kills you. Perhaps today.” This was no argument. Just the facts.

Edward turned his head to vomit beside the bed. His body spasmed in pain as he retched. This didn’t faze Mahanta at all; rather, it was as though he’d expected it.

“Of course, your God will still live and be your God. I am no god at all, merely a…scientist.” He said this last word measuredly, in English. There was no Onge word for it. “This is all just a matter of survival. I know this is happening fast, but we have no other options at this point. I’m glad you finally woke up when you did. Are you ready?”

Edward knew he had no choice but to be ready. Whether Mahanta’s logic was correct or not was inconsequential. Whether or not his intentions were pure did not matter. If Mahanta told him to eat manure Edward would have to comply. Edward was too weak physically to defy his only protector. He did not want to die. He didn’t feel that God wanted him to die, either.

Edward heard one man’s voice ring out clearly over the wild hubbub outside. “Give us the white man!” He was followed by an approving roar.

God, please forgive me. Edward had prayed more in one week than he had in a year. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Mahanta nodded. “It is important, Edward, that during your brief demonstration to the tribe, that you look completely healthy. Is that understood?” Edward nodded. “I can’t give you any more of the nectar. You’ve had three injections in less than two moons. I’ve never had to experience the degree of pain that I know you now feel.” There was a touch of compassion in his tone that Edward somehow found reassuring. “Let us stand.”

Edward couldn’t help but scream again, though this time he was well aware of it. Once moving, he found it helped to stay moving. He wobbled back and forth, his vision almost seared out by the pain.

“Breathe more quickly. Increase your heart rate. Release your adrenal glands...get angry…Don’t look it, though.” advised Mahanta.

Oddly, Edward found that he could follow the commands, not nearly as thoroughly as he would have been able to while in that trance, but he started to feel his heart rate go up and the pain ease a bit. It was still unbearable.

“Are you okay?” asked Mahanta.

Edward did not speak, but almost swooned. Mahanta propped him up.

“You will need to speak loud and clear out there,” said the Onge. “You will need to look healed. And you will need to stand tall, and then bow to me.”

Edward breathed in deep and wiped the tears out of his eyes. He let out a long, frustrated groan. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

He leaned against Mahanta, shuffling all the way to the entrance of the hut. Bamboo reeds hung from the arch of the door by strings to make a rigid sort of drape. Mahanta deposited Edward to lean against the wall just inside and walked out to the crowd.