Being in Dreaming: Chapter 19.

Being in Dreaming ©1991 by Florinda Donner.

Chapter 19.

A loud, shattering noise woke me.

I sat up in my hammock, peering into the darkness, and saw that the wooden panels covering the windows were down.

A cold, sucking wind swirled up around me. Leaves rustled across the patio outside my room.

The rustling grew, then abruptly faded to a gentle swishing sound.

A dim brightness seeped into the room. Like mist, it clung to the bare walls.

For a moment, as if I were conjuring him up, Isidore Baltazar stood at the foot of my hammock.

I cried out, "Nagual!"

He looked real, yet there was something undefined about him like an image seen in water.

I cleared my throat to speak, but only a faint croak escaped my lips as the image dissolved in the mist.

Then the mist moved, restless and abrupt like the wind outside.

Too tense to sleep, I sat wrapped in my blanket, pondering whether I had done the right thing to come to the witches' house looking for the nagual Isidore Baltazar. I had not known anywhere else to go.

I had patiently waited for three months, but then my anxiety had become so acute that it finally prompted me to act.

One morning seven days ago I had driven nonstop to the witches' house.

There had been no question in my mind then about whether I had proceeded correctly, not even after I had to climb over the wall at the back of the house, and let myself in through an unlocked window.

However, after seven days of waiting, my certainty had begun to falter.

I jumped out of my hammock onto the tiled floor, landing hard on the heels of my bare feet. Shaking myself that way had always helped me dispel my uncertainties.

It did not work this time, and I lay down again in my hammock.

If there is one thing I should have learned in the three years I had spent in the sorcerers' world, it is that sorcerers' decisions are final, and my decision had been to live and die in the sorcerers' world.

Now it was time for me to prove it.

An unearthly sounding laughter startled me out of my reveries.

Eerily it reverberated throughout the house, then all was silent again.

I waited tensely, but there was no other sound except that of dry leaves being pushed by the wind on the patio. The leaves sounded like a faint, raspy whisper.

Listening to that sound not only lulled me to sleep but pulled me into the same dream I had been dreaming for the past seven nights.

Gradually I became conscious of my body lying in the hammock.

I discerned, through a shifting haze, the book-lined walls of the room.

Then I was fully awake as the realization hit me, as it had hit me every time during the past week, that this had not been an ordinary dream, and that I knew what it meant.

The nagual Mariano Aureliano had once told me that sorcerers, when they talk among themselves, speak of sorcery as a bird. They call it the bird of freedom.

They say that the bird of freedom only flies in a straight line and never comes around twice.

They also say that it is the nagual who lures the bird of freedom. It is he who entices the bird to shed its shadow on the warrior's path. Without that shadow, there is no direction.

The meaning of my dream was that I had lost the bird of freedom. I had lost the nagual and, without him, all hope and purpose.

What weighed the most on my heart was that the bird of freedom flew away so fast it did not give me time to thank them properly, and did not give me time to express my endless admiration.

I had assured the sorcerers all along that I never took their world or their persons for granted, but I had, and in particular Isidore Baltazar's.

He surely was going to be with me forever, I had thought.

Suddenly they were gone- all of them- like puffs of air, or like shooting stars, and they had taken Isidore Baltazar with them.

I sat for weeks on end in my room, asking myself the same question, "How can it be possible that they vanished like that?"

It was a meaningless and superfluous question considering what I had experienced and witnessed in their world.

All it revealed was my true nature. I was meek and doubting.

The sorcerers had told me for years that their ultimate purpose was to burn and to disappear swallowed by the force of awareness.

The old nagual and his party of sorcerers were ready, but I did not know it.

They had been preparing themselves nearly all their lives for the ultimate audacity; to dream-awake that they sneak past death as we ordinarily know death to be and cross over into the unknown, enhancing and without breaking the unity of their total energy.

My regret was most intense upon recalling how my usual doubting self would emerge when I least expected it.

It was not that I did not believe in their stupendous, otherworldly, and yet so practical aim and purpose.

Rather, I would explain them away; integrate them; make them fit into the everyday world of common sense- not quite, perhaps, but certainly coexisting with what was normal and familiar to me.

The sorcerers certainly tried to prepare me to witness their definitive journey. That they would one day vanish was something I was almost aware of.

But nothing could have prepared me for the anguish and despair that followed.

I sank into a well of sadness from which I knew I would never come out.

That part was for me alone to deal with.

Afraid I would only give in to more despair if I stayed a moment longer in my hammock, I got up and made breakfast.

Or rather, I warmed up last night's leftovers of tortillas, rice, and beans. This was my standard meal of the last seven days except that for lunch I would add a can of Norwegian sardines.

I had found the sardines at a grocery store in the nearest town. I had bought all the cans they had.

The beans were also canned.

I washed the dishes and mopped the floor.

Then, with broom in hand, I went from room to room looking for some new dirt, or a spider web in some forgotten corner.

From the day I had arrived, I had done nothing else but scrub floors, wash windows and walls, and sweep patios and corridors.

In the past, cleaning tasks had always distracted me from my problems and had always given me solace. Not this time.

Regardless of how eagerly I went about my chores, I could not still the anguish and the aching void within me.

A quick rustling of leaves interrupted my cleaning chores.

I went outside to look.

There was a strong wind blowing through the trees. Its force startled me.

I was ready to close the windows when the wind abruptly died out.

A profound melancholy settled over the yard, over the bushes and trees, and over the flower and vegetable patches. Even the bright purple bougainvillea hanging over the wall added to the sadness.

I walked over to the Spanish colonial motif fountain built in the middle of the yard, and knelt on the wide stone ledge.

Absentmindedly, I picked out the leaves and the blossoms that had fallen in the water.

Then, bending over, I searched for my image on the smooth surface.

Next to my face appeared the very beautiful, stark, and angular face of Florinda.

Dumbfounded, I watched her reflection. I was mesmerized by her large, dark, luminous eyes, which contrasted dazzlingly with her braided white hair.

Slowly, she smiled. I smiled back.

I was afraid that she might be only a dream, and I was afraid that her image might vanish, so I whispered, "I did not hear you come."

She let her hand rest on my shoulder, then sat beside me on the stone ledge.

She said, "I am going to be with you only for a moment. I will come back later, though."

I turned around and poured out all the anguish and despair that had accumulated in me.

Florinda stared at me.

Her face reflected an immeasurable sadness.

There were sudden tears in her eyes, but they were tears that were gone as fast as they had come.

I asked her, "Where is Isidoro Baltazar?"

I averted my face, and gave free rein to my pent-up tears.

It was not self-pity or even sorrow that made me weep, but a deep sense of failure and of guilt and loss. It was drowning me.

Florinda had certainly warned me in the past about such feelings.

She said in her deep, husky voice, "Tears are meaningless for sorcerers.

"When you joined the sorcerers' world you were made to understand that the designs of fate, no matter what they are, are merely challenges that a sorcerer must face without resentment or self-pity."

She paused for a moment, and then in her familiar, relentless manner she repeated what she had told me on previous occasions.

Florinda said, "Isidoro Baltazar is no longer a man but a nagual.

"He may have accompanied the old nagual in which case he will never return. But then, he may not have."

I started to ask, "But why did he..." but my voice died away before I had asked the question.

Florinda said, "I really do not know at this time," and she raised her hand to forestall my protest.

She said, "It is your challenge to rise above this, and as you know, challenges are not discussed or resented.

"Challenges are actively met.

"Sorcerers either succeed in meeting their challenges, or they fail at it.

"And it does not really matter which, as long as they are in command."

Irked by the prosaicness of her feelings and attitudes, I said resentfully, "How do you expect me to be in command when the sadness is killing me? Isidoro Baltazar is gone forever."

She retorted sternly, "Why do you not heed my suggestion, and behave impeccably regardless of your feelings."

Her temper was as quick as her brilliant smile.

I asked, "How can I possibly do that? I know that if the nagual is gone the game is over."

She replied, "You do not need the nagual to be an impeccable sorceress.

"Your impeccability should lead you to him even if he is no longer in the world.

"To live impeccably within your circumstances is your challenge.

"Whether you see Isidore Baltazar tomorrow, in a year, or at the end of your life should make no difference to you."

Florinda turned her back to me, and was silent for a long time.

When she faced me again, her face was calm and oddly bland, like a mask, as though she were making a great effort to control her emotions. There was something so sad about her eyes it made me forget my own anguish.

In an unusually harsh voice, and as if her tone was meant to cancel the pain in her eyes, she said, "Let me tell you a story, young woman.

"I did not go with the nagual Mariano Aureliano and his party, and neither did Zuleica. Do you know why?"

Numb with anticipation and fear, I stared at her, open-mouthed. I finally managed to say, "No, Florinda. I do not."

Her voice was now low and soft as she said, "We are here because we do not belong to that party of sorcerers. We do, but then we do not really.

"Our feelings are with another nagual, the nagual Julian, our teacher.

"The nagual Mariano Aureliano is our cohort, and the nagual Isidore Baltazar, our pupil.

"Like yourself, we have been left behind.

"You, because you were not ready to go with them.

"We, because we need more energy to take a greater jump and join perhaps another band of warriors. A much older band. The nagual Julian's."

I could feel Florinda's aloneness and solitude like a fine mist settling all around me. I barely dared to breathe lest she stop talking.

At great length she told me about her teacher, the nagual Julian who was famous by all accounts.

Her descriptions of him were compressed, yet so evocative I could see him before my very eyes. He was the most dashing being that ever lived.

Funny, sharp-witted, and fast-thinking. An incorrigible prankster. A storyteller.

A magician who handled perception as a master baker handles dough, kneading it into any shape or form without ever losing sight of it.

To be with the nagual Julian, Florinda assured me, was something unforgettable. She confessed that she loved him beyond words, and beyond feelings. And so did Zuleica.

Florinda was silent for a long time, her gaze fixed on the distant mountains, as if drawing strength from those sharp-edged peaks.

When she spoke again her voice was a barely audible whisper. "The world of sorcerers is a world of solitariness, and yet in it, love is forever.

"Like my love for the nagual Julian.

"We move in the world of sorcerers all by ourselves, accounting only for our acts, our feelings, and our impeccability."

She nodded as if to underline her last few words.

Florinda continued, "I no longer have any feelings. Whatever I had went away with the nagual Julian.

"All I have left is my sense of will, of duty, and of purpose.

"Perhaps you and I are in the same boat."

She had said that so smoothly, that it took some moments before I realized what she had said.

I stared at her, and as always, I was dazzled by her splendid beauty and youthfulness which the years had left bewitchingly intact.

I finally said, "Not me, Florinda.

"You had the nagual Isidore Baltazar and me and all the other disciples I have heard about. I have nothing. I do not even have my old world."

There was no self-pity in me, only a devastating knowledge that my life, as I had known it until now, had ended.

I said, "The nagual Isidore Baltazar is mine, by right of my power. I will wait dutifully a bit longer, but if he is not here in this world anymore, neither am I. I know what to do!"

My voice trailed off as I realized that Florinda was no longer listening to me.

She was absorbed in watching a small crow making its way toward us along the fountain ledge.

I said, "That is Dionysus." I reached into my pocket for his pieces of tortilla.

I had none with me.

I looked up at the marvelously clear sky.

I had been so engrossed in my sadness, I had not noticed that it was already past noon which was the time this little crow usually came for its food.

Florinda said, "That fellow is quite upset."

She laughed at the bird's outraged caws, then looked me in the eye and said, "You and the crow are quite alike. You get easily upset, and you are both quite loud about it."

I could barely contain myself from blurting out that the same could be said about her.

Florinda chuckled, as though she knew the effort I was making not to weep.

The crow had perched on my empty hand and stared at me sidelong with its shiny, pebble-like eyes.

The bird opened its wings but did not fly away. Its black feathers sparkled blue in the sun.

I calmly told Florinda that the pressures of the sorcerers' world were unbearable.

As if she were talking to a spoiled child, she chided, "Nonsense!

The crow alighted, and Florinda said, "Oh look! We scared Dionysus away."

Enraptured, Florinda watched the crow circle over our heads, and then she fixed her attention back on me.

I averted my face.

I did not know why, for there was nothing unkind in the gaze of those shiny, dark eyes.

Florinda's eyes were calm and utterly indifferent as she said, "If you can not catch up with Isidore Baltazar, then I and the rest of the sorcerers who taught you would have failed to impress you.

"We would have failed to challenge you.

"It is not a final loss for us, but it certainly will be a final loss for you."

Seeing that I was about to weep again, she challenged me, "Where is your impeccable purpose? What happened to all the things you have learned with us?"

I asked tearfully, "What if I never catch up with Isidore Baltazar?"

She asked sharply, "Can you go on living in the sorcerers' world if you do not make an effort to find out?"

I closed my eyes to prevent my tears from spilling, and mumbled, "This is a time when I need kindness. I need my mother. If I could only go to her."

I was surprised at my own words, yet I really had meant them.

Unable to hold back my tears any longer I began to weep.

Florinda laughed, but she was not mocking me.

There was a note of kindness, and of sympathy in her laughter.

With a pensive and distant look in her eyes, Florinda said softly, "You are so far away from your mother that you will never find her again."

Her voice was but a soft whisper as she went on to say that the sorcerers' life builds impassable barriers around us.

Sorcerers, she reminded me, do not find solace in the sympathy of others or in self-pity.

I asked, "You think that all my torment is caused by self-pity, do you not, Florinda?"

She answered, "No. Not just self-pity, but morbidity, also."

She put her arms around my shoulders, and hugged me as if I were a small child.

She murmured, "Most women are damn morbid, you know. You and I are among them."

I did not agree with her, yet I had no desire to contradict her.

I was far too happy with her arms around me.

In spite of my somber mood, I had to smile. Florinda, like all the other women in the sorcerers' world, lacked the facility to express maternal feelings. And although I liked to kiss and hug the people I loved, I could not bear to be in someone's arms for more than an instant. Florinda's embrace was not as warm and soothing as my mother's, but it was all I could hope to get.

Then she went into the house, and I dozed off.

I came suddenly awake.

For a moment I simply lay there on the ground at the foot of the fountain trying to remember something Florinda had said before I fell asleep in the leaf-spotted sunlight.

I had obviously slept for hours. Although the sky was still bright, the evening shadows had already stolen into the yard.

I was about to look for Florinda in the house when an unearthly sounding laughter echoed across the yard. It was the same laughter I had heard during the night.

I waited and listened.

The silence around me was unsettling. Nothing chirped, nothing hummed, and nothing moved.

Yet, still as it was, I could sense noiseless footsteps as silent as shadows behind me.

I wheeled around. At the far edge of the yard, almost concealed by the blooming bougainvillea, I saw somebody sitting on a wooden bench. Her back was turned to me, but I immediately recognized her.

I was afraid that the sound of my voice might scare her away, so I whispered uncertainly, "Zuleica?"

She beckoned me to sit beside her and said, "How happy I am to see you again."

Her deep, clear voice, vibrant with the briskness of the desert air, did not seem to come from her body but from far away.

I wanted to embrace her, but I knew better. Zuleica never liked to be touched, so I just sat beside her and told her that I, too, was happy to see her again.

To my utter surprise, she clasped my hand in hers, and hers was a small, delicate hand.

Her pale, copperish-pink, and beautiful face was oddly blank. All the life was concentrated in her incredible eyes which were neither black nor brown, but strangely in between, and were oddly clear.

Zuleica fixed her eyes on me in a prolonged stare.

I asked, "When did you get here?"

Her lips curled into an angelic smile as she replied, "Just this moment."

I asked, "How did you get here? Did Florinda come with you?"

Zuleica said vaguely, "Oh, you know. Women sorcerers come and go unnoticed.

"Nobody pays attention to a woman, especially if she is old.

"Now, a beautiful young woman, on the other hand, attracts everybody's attention.

"That is why women sorcerers should always be disguised if they are handsome.

"If they are averagely homely, they have nothing to worry about."

Zuleica's sudden light tap on my shoulder jolted me.

She clasped my hand again, as though to dispel my doubts, then gazed at me calmly and keenly, and said, "To be in the sorcerers' world one has to dream superbly."

She looked away.

An almost full moon hung over the distant mountains.

"Most people do not have the wits nor the size of spirit to dream.

"They can not help but see the world as ordinary and repetitious.

She fixed me with her keen gaze, and asked, "And do you know why?

"Because if you do not fight to avoid it, the world is indeed ordinary and repetitious.

"Most people are so involved with themselves that they have become idiotic.

"Idiots have no desire to fight to avoid ordinariness and repetitiousness."

Zuleica rose from the bench and put on her sandals.

She tied her shawl around her waist so her long skirt would not drag, and walked to the middle of the patio.

I knew what she was going to do before she even started. She was going to perform a dance in order to gather cosmic energy. She was going to spin.

Women sorcerers believe that by moving their bodies they can get the strength necessary to dream.

With a barely perceptible gesture of her chin, she motioned me to follow her and imitate her movements.

She glided on the dark brown Mexican tiles and brown bricks that had been laid out in an ancient Toltec pattern by Isidore Baltazar.

He intended his sorceric design to symbolize the binds between the generations of sorcerers and dreamers throughout the ages, and their webs of secrets and feats of power. He had put himself around the design and inside it, and with all his strength and all his intent, he willed myth and dream into reality.

Zuleica moved with the certainty and agility of a young dancer.

Her movements were simple, and yet they required so much speed, balance, and concentration that they left me exhausted.

With uncanny agility and swiftness she spun around and away from me.

For an instant she vacillated amidst the shadows of the trees, as though to make sure I was following her.

Then she headed toward the recessed arched doorway built into the wall that encircled the grounds behind the house.

She paused momentarily by the two citrus trees growing outside the wall that stood like two sentries on either side of the path leading to the small house across the chaparral.

Afraid of losing sight of her, I dashed along the narrow, dark trail.

Then, eagerly and curiously, I followed her inside the house all the way to the back room.

Instead of turning on the light, she reached for an oil lamp hanging from one of the rafters.

She lit it. The lamp cast a flickering glow all around us but left the corners of the room in shadows.

Kneeling in front of a wooden chest sitting under the window- the only piece of furniture in the room- she pulled out a mat and a blanket.

Zuleica spread the mat on the tiled floor, and softly said, "Lie down on your stomach."

I heaved a deep sigh and gave in to a pleasant sense of helplessness as I lay face down on the mat.

A feeling of peace and well-being spread through my body.

I felt her hands on my back. She was not massaging me, but rather, she was tapping my back lightly.

Although I had often been in this small house, I still did not know how many rooms it had nor how it was furnished.

Florinda had once told me that that house was the center of their adventure.

Florinda had said it was there where the old nagual and his sorcerers wove their magic web.

Like a invisible and resilient spider's web, the house held them when they plunged into the unknown and into the darkness and the light as they as sorcerers routinely would.

Florinda had also said that the house was a symbol.

The sorcerers of her group did not have to be in the house or even in its vicinity when they plunged into the unknown through dreaming.

Everywhere they went, they carried the feeling and the mood of the house in their hearts.

And those feelings and moods, whatever they were for each of them, gave them the strength to face the everyday world with wonder and delight.

Zuleica's sharp tap on my shoulder startled me. She commanded, "Turn on your back."

I did so.

Her face, as she bent down, was radiant with energy and purpose.

Zuleica said, "Myths are dreams of extraordinary dreamers.

"You need a great deal of courage and concentration in order to maintain them.

"And above all, you need a great deal of imagination.

"You are living a myth that has been handed down to you for safekeeping."

She spoke in a tone that was almost reverent as she said, "You can not be the recipient of this myth unless you are irreproachable.

"If you are not, the myth will simply move away from you."

I opened my mouth to speak, and to say that I understood all that, but I saw the hardness in her eyes.

She was not there to have a dialogue with me.

The repetitive sound of branches brushing against the wall outside died out and turned into a throb in the air. It was a pulsating sound that I felt rather than heard.

I was on the verge of falling asleep when Zuleica said that I should follow the commands of the repetitive dream I had had.

Alarmed, I tried to sit up, and I asked, "How did you know I have been having that dream?"

Zuleica pushed me back onto the mat and whispered, "Do you not remember that we share one another's dreams?

"I am the one who brings you dreams."

I was seized by a desperate desire to weep, and my voice trembled as I said, "It was just a dream, Zuleica."

I knew it was not just a dream, but I wanted her to lie to me.

Shaking her head, she looked at me and said quietly, "No. It was not just a dream. It was a sorcerers' dream; a vision."

I asked, "What should I do?"

She asked in a challenging tone, "Did the dream not tell you what to do? And did Florinda not?"

She watched me with an inscrutable expression on her face.

Then she smiled, a shy, childlike smile, and said, "You have to understand that you can not run after Isidore Baltazar. He is no longer in the world.

"There is nothing you can give him or do for him anymore.

"You cannot be attached to the nagual as a person, but only as a mythical being."

Her voice was soft yet commanding as she repeated that I was living a myth.

Zuleica said, "The sorcerers' world is a mythical world separated from the everyday one by a mysterious barrier made out of dreams and commitments.

"Only if the nagual is supported and upheld by his fellow dreamers can he lead them into other viable worlds from which he can entice the bird of freedom."

Her words faded in the shadows of the room as she added that the support Isidore Baltazar needed was dreaming energy and not worldly feelings and actions.

After a long silence, she spoke again, saying, "You have witnessed how the old nagual, as well as Isidore Baltazar, by their mere presence, affect whoever is around them.

"Whether it be their fellow sorcerers or just bystanders, a nagual makes them aware that the world is a mystery where nothing can be taken for granted under any circumstances."

I nodded in agreement.

For a long time I had been at a loss to understand how naguals could, by their mere presence, make such a difference.

After careful observation, and comparing opinions with others, and endless introspection, I concluded that their influence stemmed from their renunciation of worldly concerns.

In our daily world we also have examples of men and women who have left worldly concerns behind. We call them mystics, saints, or religious people.

But naguals are neither mystics nor saints, and are certainly not religious men.

Naguals are worldly men without a shred of worldly concerns.

At a subliminal level this contradiction has the most tremendous effect on whoever is around them.

The minds of those who are around a nagual can not grasp what is affecting them, and yet they feel the impact in their bodies as a strange anxiety, or an urge to break loose, or as a sense of inadequacy- as if something transcendental is taking place somewhere else, and they can not get to it.

But the naguals' built-in capacity to affect others does not only depend on their lack of worldly concerns or on the force of their personalities, but rather on the force of their irreproachable behavior.

Naguals are unreproachful in their actions and feelings regardless of the ambushes, worldly or otherworldly, placed on their interminable path.

It is not that naguals follow a prescribed pattern of rules and regulations in order to have irreproachable behavior because there are no rules and regulations.

Rather, they use their imaginations for adopting or adapting to whatever it takes to make their actions fluid.

For their deeds, naguals, unlike average men, do not seek approval, respect, praise, or any kind of acknowledgment from anyone including their fellow sorcerers.

All they seek is their own sense of flawlessness, of innocence, and of integrity.

It is this that makes a nagual's company addictive.

Others becomes dependent on his freedom as one would to a drug.

To a nagual, the world is always brand new.

In his company, one begins to look at the world as if it had never happened before.

Zuleica, as if she had followed my train of thoughts, said, "That is because naguals have broken the mirror of self-reflection.

"Naguals are able to see themselves in the mirror of fog which reflects only the unknown.

"It is a mirror that no longer reflects our normal humanity expressed in repetition, but reveals the face of infinity.

"Sorcerers believe that when the face of self-reflection and the face of infinity merge, a nagual is totally ready to break the boundaries of reality and disappear as though he was not made of solid matter.

"Isidore Baltazar had been ready for a long time."

I cried out, "He can not leave me behind! That would be too unfair."

Zuleica said, "It is downright foolish to think in terms of fairness and unfairness.

"In the sorcerers' world, there is only power.

"Did every one of us not teach you that?"

I conceded gloomily, "There are many things I learned."

After a few moments I mumbled under my breath, "But they are not worth anything at the moment."

Zuleica contradicted me, "They are worth the most now.

"If you have learned one thing it is that at the bleakest moments warriors rally their power to carry on. A warrior does not succumb to despair."

I said softly, "Nothing of what I have learned and experienced can alleviate my sadness and despair.

"I had even tried the spiritual chants I learned from my nanny, but Florinda laughed at me. She thinks am an idiot."

Zuleica pronounced, "Florinda is right.

"Our magical world has nothing to do with chants and incantations, not with rituals and bizarre behavior.

"Our magical world, which is a dream, is willed into being by the concentrated desire of those who participate in it.

"It is held intact at every moment by the sorcerers' tenacious wills the same way the everyday world is held together by everybody's tenacious will."

She stopped abruptly.

She seemed to have caught herself in the middle of a thought that she did not wish to express.

Then she smiled and made a humorous, helpless gesture. She added, "To dream our dream, you have to be dead."

In a voice that was getting hoarse I asked, "Does that mean I have to drop dead right here and now? You know that I am ready for that at a drop of a hat."

Zuleica's face lit up, and she laughed as though I had told the best of jokes.

Seeing that I was as serious as I could be, she hastened to clarify, "No, no.

"To die means to cancel all your holdings and to drop everything you have, and everything you are."

I said, "That is nothing new. I did that the moment I joined your world."

Zuleica replied, "Obviously you did not. Otherwise you would not be in such a mess now.

"If you had died the way sorcery demands, you would feel no anguish now."

I asked, "What would I feel, then?"

She declared, "Duty! Purpose!"

I shouted, "My anguish has nothing to do with my sense of purpose. It is apart. Independent. I am alive and feel sadness and love. How can I avoid that?"

Zuleica clarified, "You are not supposed to avoid it, but to overcome it.

"If warriors have nothing, they feel nothing."

I asked defiantly, "What kind of an empty world is that?"

Zuleica answered, "Empty is the world of indulging because indulging cuts off everything else except indulging."

She gazed at me eagerly, as if expecting me to agree with her statement. She said, "So the the world of indulging is a lopsided world. Boring and repetitious.

"For sorcerers, the antidote of indulging is dying. And they do not just think about it. They do it."

A cold shiver went up my back.

I swallowed and remained silent, and looked at the splendid sight of the moon shining through the window.

I said, "I really do not understand what you are saying, Zuleica."

She maintained, "You understand me perfectly well. Your dream began when you met me.

"Now it is time for another dream. But this time, dream dead. Your error was to dream alive."

I asked restlessly, "What does that mean?"

"Do not torment me with riddles. You, yourself, told me that only male sorcerers drive themselves nuts with riddles. You are doing the same to me now."

Zuleica's laughter echoed from wall to wall. It rustled like dry leaves pushed by the wind.

She said, "To dream alive means to have hope. It means that you hold on to your dream for dear life.

"To dream dead means that you dream without hope. You dream without holding on to your dream."

Not trusting myself to speak, all I could do was to nod.

Florinda had told me that freedom is a total absence of concern about oneself, and is a lack of concern achieved when the imprisoned bulk of energy within ourselves is untied.

She had said that this energy is released only when we can arrest the exalted conception we have of ourselves and of our importance; an importance we feel must not be violated or mocked.

Zuleica's voice was clear but seemed to come from a great distance as she added, "The price of freedom is very high.

"Freedom can only be attained by dreaming without hope and by being willing to lose all, even the dream.

"For some of us, to dream without hope and to struggle with no goal in mind is the only way to keep up with the bird of freedom."