The Shaman

By Shannon Lee Martin

Smoke! Drink! Chant! Fire! Vision! Inter-dimensional Travel! (or whatever). A road! A threat! Running! Escape! Sanctuary! Revenge! Sleep! (Spoilers. . .not!) The End! Enjoy :D

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shannon Lee Martin
• Release date: Mar 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310095672

Shannon Lee Martin

Onlinebookclub.org said "The Silent Moment" is . . ."unique" and. . ."very creative". . . :D Feel free to contact me at any time at [e-mail]

Book preview

The Shaman

by Shannon Lee Martin

Copyright 2015 Shannon Lee Martin

Smashwords Edition

The shaman smoked the smoke and drank the drink, and as their influences flowed over him and through him, he began to chant the chant as he became the calm and the calm became him. Sweat glinted gold from his dark brown body as he swayed toward and away, toward and away the bright orange flames of the sacred fire that threatened to singe his kinky black hair.

At the height of the chant a dark brooding horn sounded a cold dirge from a char-blackened hilltop. The shaman=s eyes flared open with shocked awareness. He raised his arms into the air and shook them, sweat flying, one of the salty beads hitting me in the eye.

The shaman moaned once, and fell back violently to the hard dirt floor, head thudding with a slight bounce.

I sat there for hours as the shaman=s eyes stared away into the depths of something that caused my imagination to soar as I partook of a moderate bit of the shaman=s smoke. I lay back on a thin tattered cushion, relaxed, all my senses seeming to melt away into the dry earth beneath me.

The soft interlude of my dazed dreams was interrupted abruptly by a piercing wail from the prone shaman. He went from horizontal to vertical, it seem to my saturated senses, without bending a limb. He lumbered toward me, saying with a rumbling rasp, AChild, CHILD!@

I stood, and he staggered into my arms.

ASee boy, SEE!@ Before I could flinch or twitch or react in any way, the shaman clasped his hands around my temples. I felt a sharp pain at the base of my skull, and the shaman looked into my eyes and smiled. My vision blurred, the faint whiff of the smoke in my nostrils, my eyes, MY SOUL. . .

* * *

We walked along a winding road amidst an endless sea of ancient pine trees, dying slowly of thirst. We were all that remained of the slave caravan=s guardians, five of us out of fifty. A band of renegade White Devils had set an ambush to save their fellow beasts, murdering the merchants and burning their wagons. They captured, beat, stripped, and herded for sport what remained of us guards. There were twelve of us left at the beginning of the march, picked off one by one every noon on high. Won=t be long till we=re down to four. I wonder if the next one will be me.

Every one of those devils claimed to be members of the long-destroyed Aryan Nation. They were most likely from the wild herds that still roamed the Rocky Mountains, but that=s not what disturbed me. Three of them bore the holographic tattoos of the Aryan Stormtroopers. The last legion of that group was thought to have been destroyed twelve years ago, and if they were from the Rockies, that meant they might have access to at least some type of High Technology that lay hidden in one of the many undiscovered Fortresses of the Fourth Reich. Not that it matters. I=ll get an arrow through my neck soon enough.

If only I could have some of my wife=s fried chicken before I die. I can almost smell it now, the aroma it has when it=s still hot from the fryer, steam rising from a pile of it stacked on a plate, the grease-soaked paper towels, the steam, the heat, my flesh boiling away, the sun sucking moisture from my blood, eyelids stuck to my sun-dried eyes. . .

ATumoc! Tumoc!@ Slap! ATUMOC!@ Slap slap!

AStop slappin= me, Jumon. I can hear ya nigga.@ I said, shakin= off my daze.

AYou was zonin= out on us again, m= man,@ said short, stocky Jumon. You gotta keep yoe shit together if we gonna have a chance of makin= it to the highway. We gotta stick together, man, you hear me?@

AYeah, I hear ya. How much further to the ruins of Odinvale? We ain=t there yet?@

AFool, it was twenty miles twenty minutes ago, you think. . .shit man. We=ll get there. Keep it together. It=ll be alright.@

AWe won=t make it by noon. It was nice