I cast the circle and issued
a challenge to the manure
in my mind and out
to come forth and battle me on even terms.
I drew the trance with the drum
used the Bardic voice as my weapon,
and went at it: it was only
a couple hours in mundane time but much more
in the Dreamtime.

I could see myself clad
in samurai garb
wielding an all-black katana
whose blade could hurl
lightningbolts at my opponents.
I knew the sword the moment
I felt its weight in my hand;
indeed it was the Sword of Truth,
for the Bardic Gift is to wield
the Truth of Emotion,
against which no veil,
spiritual or mundane,
may stand.

I sang the ghosts of the past to ashes,
the evil of here-now to cinders,
and challenged the Carnivora to reveal to me
if They would have me renounce my Vow
and take to the hunt again.

There the maneater spoke and demanded
that I slay my lover and sacrifice it
to the Panthera; then I could have the strength and skill
to prevail among humans.
Perhaps the maneater is stupid:
that after so many millions of years
a ghost of the Panthera would ask such a preposterous thing!
This maneater is the embodiment of those
who would stay Gaia's dance
and have the multiverse revolve around them...
after millions of years of evolution
who would have thought so.

I sang the most painful yet liberating song
I have woven yet: that the jungle is
no longer what it was,
that lifetimes have passed,
the past is gone, and that such sacrifices
never saved anyone...
the Panthera best of all should know
after the foolishness of you-know-what...
we would do better to cast out
the old ways and end the insanity...
blood cannot bind
those who do not wish to be bound,
and bloodlust cannot release from loneliness...
we should know that by now,
for haven't we toiled heartbroken and scarred,
haven't we cursed our lot many times,
haven't we the many-lived
learned the hard way that
True Love cannot be bought or bent
or made to bow before a lie,
and to even try is to lock
ourselves in unending pain, the pain
of an existence without hope and without end...
best to cast out those old ways
that never brought anything but ill fortune...
best to embrace the truth
to let it shine and guide the way.

We locked blades as the drumming became faster and faster;
the frenzy of its beat silenced everything else,
and I could see no more the drumsticks
but the katana slashing and parrying,
its lightning power ripping through illusions and mirages,
ripping through the lies of many lifetimes,
held together by a flimsy and corroded
link of power-hunger that would dare
defy Love.
I staggered as my enemy scored,
and as I grew tired in the mundane time,
but blocked the pain and battled on,
for I knew now that victory would be mine.
And so it was.
As I collapsed upon the drum so
the samurai placed all her weight and might
behind the blade and drove it through
the heart of the maneater:
a shattering roar replaced the drumbeat
the warrior and the tigress both collapsed,
and the samurai let go ever so momentarily
of the hilt of the mighty blade.

I opened my eyes to see the drumsticks lying by my feet,
and realizing that the circle was not uncast
I gathered them back
and returned the drumbeat to its former frenzy,
for indeed the maneater still lived
and sought to win by treachery.
It was I, the woman,
who sang to the samurai my alter ego:
"Warrior! Never let go of your weapon!
You court destruction that way!
Your enemy is not vanquished!
Like the Panthera of old it demanded
that you slay your lover:
slay it instead...
behead it, and skin it,
offer the skin to the Panthera,
and let the Circle be thus closed...
13 lifetimes is enough of this!
Let this be a new dawn for the Panthera!"

To the rhythm of my song
the samurai wielded Truth,
and met the maneater in midair,
the somersault of my drumbeat was her own somersault,
the shrill slash of my voice was the slash of Truth,
the maneater's head fell
to the ground on one side of the samurai,
and the rest of its body on the other,
yet the warrior hit the earth
on both feet.
As I sang to the Panthera
the samurai skinned the maneater,
wrapped its skin around herself,
and gathered the hideous head.
"Be sated Panthera, this is the end of the madness!
Be still Panthera, this is a new beginning!
Time who is Queen of All-There-Are returns
to end the reign of lies and treachery
and bring the victory of Truth
and of the True Love that willingly went
to battle for your sake,
for the honor of the Panthera
and of all the Carnivora!
Time the Queen who slays demons
but halts her battle frenzy upon beholding True Love
bestows her blessing upon this day and night!"

The Circle was then uncast,
and I, the woman, returned
to the realm of the mundane
to burn candles on the shrine
to the Panthera who are my spiritual Ancestors
and my Guardians, the clan
to whom my spirit was born 13 lifetimes ago.

This is my story, and I am Bard:
I write my own story,
not lies and treacheries,
I write the Truth of my heart and soul
which is that I, the woman, thus reclaim
the gifts that are mine,
the story that is mine,
to live it truly,
to love truly all those
that love me truly and all
that is deserving of true love.

Later on, when my spiritual clan called
on nonhuman energies to replenish me,
I saw this daydream in my mind's eye:
the same samurai, after having offered the sacrifice
of the maneater's flesh and blood,
crawled painfully back to her abode,
the katana still unsheathed
for so heavy was her pain and weariness
that she dared not attempt
to place it back into the scabbard
for worry that she might drop it.
Just then the sun began to rise,
and full of unnamed joy even despite
the savage pain that tore at her every muscle,
she plowed on toward the glorious star on the horizon.
I was again the samurai,
felt the pain and weariness but also the joy,
and dragged myself closer to the bright sunrise.
I realized a glass stood before me,
and on the other side stood a little girl
with a look of absolute terror on her face.
"I must look like a demon", I thought to myself,
as I followed the little girl's gaze to my arm
which wielded the still bared Truth,
bloody to the hilt, so bloody in fact
that its wrapped hilt had become ruby red in places,
thus the fearsome sword was no longer
all-black but black and ruby red.
I sheathed Truth and reached
out to the little girl,
struggling to find my voice
with which to say something to allay her fear.
Upon reaching out I caught a glimpse
of the wilderness behind me and realized
how awful must this look in the pale
light of the sunrise far ahead,
all the shadows becoming horrid shapes,
and how horrid I myself
must look to this young one.

"Little girl, do not fear me, I wish you no harm..."
I cried one tear and a sob choked me
"today I fought for True Love and Living Truly...
but surely you do not understand my words...
I would say that in a way
I fought for the chance to be like you,
a little girl... I would be as you one day."

Then I realized that the little girl was
none other than myself
in that nightmare on my parent's house
many years ago, looking through a glass
at a horrible image of a blood-drenched warrior,
a demon in the semi-darkness of the dawn.
I laughed heartily and fully,
and told the members of my spiritual clan what I had seen.

The ghastly wounds of the samurai
were bound and healed as the terror that
traumatized a little girl many years ago
was also healed by the sight of Truth.

The Return of the Warrior
by Cindy Aixmar Salgado