Lower than the Angels

Chapter 1, The Office

Tengri had long kept a little office in the original WBI house on Coon Island. Most of his visitors used their QAR lenses to meet with him from far away, so he did not need much physical space. In fact, the room was largely a repository for the books old Sedna had accumulated in her Chicago home. It had now been many years since Kore had returned to Chicago to pack up Sedna's books and other things and arrange to sell the house. The books had found a new home in this room. 

Before long the little room had become a library of sorts, with desks and comfortable reading chairs for Tengri and Kore. At the time Kore had been sharing her body with her grandmother Sedna's now bodyless spirit. That arrangement had helped her become aware of what the books in this collection were about. It might have been nearly unreadable arcane lore to most people, but not to Sedna, and through her influence Kore soon understood it all as well.

Tengri too valued the collection. He and Kore began to share a love for these books that soon became a love for each other, and sharing the books became the sharing of a bed. It was a three-way affair, with Sedna very aware of the lovers and pleased with the arrangement. Tengri's awareness of Sedna almost equaled Kore's, and he relished the unique opportunity to learn Sedna's lore.

They were happy together this way for several years. Then Dema and Cern decided to have a child, and Sedna had a new opportunity. She became her granddaughter Dema's new daughter, her own great-granddaughter. Dema was well aware of this and gave her the same name. In acquiring her own new mortal form, Sedna had given up her full time link to Kore. As Kore and Tengri both well knew, this was not an unusual occurrence among shamans.

The young Sedna, now Kore's niece, retained her awareness of the lore and her appreciation of the books. She soon shared Kore's desk. That worked out well, since neither she nor Kore were much inclined to spend a lot of time there. They both held the lore in their hearts.

Often enough, something came up in his daily affairs that led Tengri to consult the books. Often enough, he still had questions, and would consult with Kore. If Sedna was available, she might join them. Her understanding of the lore was deep. But Kore had always been uniquely perceptive, and hadn't missed much during the years she and Sedna were together. Now that Sedna lived on Mars, the link between Tengri and Kore was stronger than ever.

Tengri had a deep understanding of the shaman dream. But new events presented new challenges. With expanding awareness of the Q among people who used QAR links, his understanding was being challenged more than ever.

Dome communities had been very successful in drawing much of humanity away from traditional practices that had begun to unsettle their environment. But that success had been largely confined to the Eagle side of human nature. People who were Eagle by nature had long preferred quiet village life to more stressful environments. The domed communities catered to that preference.

Ravens had no such worries. They valued their freedom far too much to be content for long with any form of confinement. They were happy to take advantage of the free room and board, but they yearned to wander. To Tengri, this was a potential problem, a destabilizing influence. To sort out how to deal with it, he needed help from Kore.

Tengri knew the defining legend of Raven and Eagle. How Raven had created Eagle to help deal with chaos. How, gradually, Eagle had brought order to chaos by employing the fact that similar entities are linked, adjacent in the Q dream. How this had evolved into the stabilizing effect of history, as more and more entities with similar links became intimately aware of each other. How this intimate mutual awareness had come to be perceived as the material universe.

Tengri knew that, in shaman terms, his understanding was mainly that of Eagle, tightly bound to others through their shared experiences of physical existence. Kore's predilection, on the other hand, was toward the Raven's free-spirited approach to life.

Tengri knew that this Raven aspect was natural to many women. As a rule, it was tempered by their maternal instinct. They knew how to dream, but their dreams were very personal, little caring for the broad concerns that occupied the Eagle view.

Tengri recognized that there was something in Kore's Raven nature which he still did not comprehend. His fallback stance was of course that of Eagle. When he didn't understand something, he was inclined to analyze it more closely. In all their years together, his understanding of Kore had never felt complete. But his analytical mind helped him realize that this was exactly why he needed her.

Kore understood Tengri at a spiritual level. She had little patience for his fascination with the details of material relationships, the forces that guide the planets. Her fallback stance was that nature should obey her will. When that didn't happen, it was nature's failure, not hers.

To Tengri, they presented a classic dichotomy. They could engage in endless dialog without either one ever completely understanding the other. But they would, in time, come to a mutual agreement on a course of action. It didn't matter if they had different reasons for agreeing.

So they were a team, and their teamwork was mutually beneficial. As well as being beneficial to the broad community they chose to serve. It was as this team that they resolved to investigate the nature of the spirit world that Raven took for granted, and that Eagle did not know how to trust.