"How do we start?" Taylor asked excitedly.
"First, we call out to the spirit we want, and greet it," said Shaman Kweli. "Be sure to be very polite. The spirits like to feel respected. Try it."
Taylor's eyes landed on a gazelle spirit, standing up from its drink at the watering hole. Taylor attempted to look it in the eye. "Good evening, Mr. Gazelle? I... hope you're doing well?" The gazelle glanced at Taylor for a second and then went back to drinking.
"Try to feel more confident as you speak," Kweli advised. "A spirit must feel a soul of steel within you as you commune with it, or it won't respond. And try to make your words sound... grander. The spirits take it as a sign of authority."
"Okay," said Taylor. Shi waved at the gazelle spirit and made eye contact. Shi focused on feeling like a true shaman, wise and powerful. To hir surprise, shi managed to conjure up the insight to divine the spirit's name: Sadiki. Taylor called out to him. "Hail, O wise Sadiki, prince among gazelle spirits! Blessed be! I call out to thee and humbly beg thee to come unto me and give me your mighty aid!"
Much to Taylor's amazement, Sadiki slowly approached hir and bowed his head to hir. "What do I do now, Kweli?" the shaman-in-training asked.
"Make him an offering," Kweli said. It can be anything, but food and drink are the most common.
"Where do I get that?" asked Taylor. "I didn't bring anything."
Kweli chuckled. "You don't have to. This is the Dreamworld. Dream an offering into being, just like you dreamed yourself into your anthro form."
"Oh, right," Taylor giggled. Shi concentrated and a bowl of milk appeared in one hand. Shi concentrated again, and a bowl of blackberries appeared in the other. Shi looked Sadiki in the eyes again. "Great Sadiki, I honor thee with this offering. May these milk and berries please thee." Sadiki eagerly began feasting on the offering.
"Now you make your request," said Kweli. "Maybe you want the spirit to bless your pack's land with abundant hunting, maybe you want it to fill someone's womb with fertility, maybe you want it to ward off your enemies, maybe you want access to its knowledge, maybe you want it to help you heal a packmate (or stop making hir sick if its that kind of spirit), or maybe you just want to greet it properly when entering its territory. Just always remember to be polite."
Taylor nodded and turned back to Sadiki. "O insightful Sadiki, I beseech thee to reveal to me what has transpired while my mortal body has lain in slumber, if it please thee."
Sadiki nodded. "I accept your request, young shaman. You shall now see what you have missed in Karnstein Manor."
Sadiki raised his hoof and placed it on Taylor's upper pair of breasts, right over hir heart. A vision suddenly came to the shaman apprentice. Shi saw the foyer of Karnstein Manor. The Karnsteins were leading a naked Asian girl to a coffin. Taylor recognized the girl as Jessica Tang, one of the cheerleaders from hir school. Once Taylor was in the coffin and the vampires finished singing in some ancient language, a veiled vampiress in a gauzy see-through dress walked into the room. She ritualistically asked Jessica questions before drawing aside her veil, revealing the face of Carmilla von Karnstein. Carmilla then bit Jessica's neck as the vision faded.
"Jessica!" Taylor gasped. "What's she doing in the manor?!" Shi turned to Sadiki. "O wise one, please let it be that this transformation was of Jessica Tang's own free will."
Sadiki nodded. "It was Jessica's wish to become a vampire. She met two daughters of Clan von Karnstein in a place of nighttime revelries and learned of their nature. She decided that she wished to join the vampire clan, and her friend Micki likewise chose to join your werehyena pack. Micki's transformation shall happen the day after tomorrow. As for Jessica, she traveled to Karnstein Manor and begged Carmilla to turn her. The matriarch assented. Your friend is now known as Persephone von Karnstein."
"But what of her parents?" Taylor asked, struggling to keep up the old-fashioned diction. "Will they be not grieved by the vanishing of their firstborn child?"
"Persephone is to continue living with her mortal parents until she turns eighteen," Sadiki explained. "She will then move out in the human fashion and move in with her new clan. Is that all you wish to know, shaman?"
"Yea, verily," said Taylor.
"Now thank him," said Kweli.
"Many thanks unto thee, O gracious Sadiki," Taylor said, bowing hir head. "Thou hast gladdened my heart with thine aid. So mote it be!" Sadiki smiled at Taylor and then pranced off.
"Nicely done," Kweli smiled. "You may have gone a little thick with the archaic language, but I doubt Sadiki minded."
Taylor was beaming. "I can't believe I contacted my first spirit! This whole amazing new world of magic is open to me!" Shi gestured around the watering hole at all the spirits as they drank their fill beneath the stars. Taylor suddenly noticed a large batlike monster drinking from the lake. "Who's that?"
Kweli looked at the bat spirit darkly. "That, Taylor, is Popobawa. Don't deal with him unless you absolutely have to. He's one of the most malevolent spirits in the entire spirit world. A very violent and lascivious spirit, he is. Don't worry, he can only enter the mortal world through certain spirit doors in Zanzibar... unless summoned by the wicked or foolish, of course."
"Don't have to tell me twice, Kweli," Taylor said. "I don't like the way he's looking at me."
"You're safe as long as I'm around," Kweli said resolutely.
Eager to change the subject, Taylor asked hir mentor a question. "Hey, Kweli?"
"Yes?" Kweli responded.
"You said that the more intelligent something is, the easier it is to contact its spirit. Well, what about trees, rivers, and mountains? I thought shamans contacted those kinds of spirit all the time, but they aren't intelligent at all."
Kweli smiled knowingly. "Don't be so sure about that. Plants and stones and water merely have a different sort of intelligence than animals. Animals and people have individual intelligence, while the other things that make up nature possess a collective intelligence."
"I don't think I understand, Kweli," Taylor admitted.
"Think of it like the sects of Hinduism where every individual god is just an aspect of the true God," Kweli explained. "A cell in His body, if you will. That's kind of how inanimate nature works. Earth is a vast intelligence made up of tightly connected lesser intelligences, from mountains to blades of grass. These all have spirits that a shaman can talk to, but they tend to be more withdrawn than animal spirits. The easiest to commune with are the spirits of vast things like entire forests or great mountains. Think of them as organs that make up Earth's body. Harder to contact are the spirits of individual trees and stones. Think of them as the cells that make up organs."
Taylor just looked at Kweli blankly.
"You don't have to understand it perfectly at first," Kweli said. "It's all very metaphysical. All you need to know is that the big things are easy to speak with and the little things need more effort. Would you like to watch me greet a water spirit?"
Taylor nodded. "I would, Shaman Kweli. Thanks."
Kweli knelt before the lake, manifested a bottle of wine and a bowl of grilled fish, and poured their contents into the lake. "O spirit of this mighty lake, I, Kweli Mchawi greet you and wish to do homage to your majesty. I beg of you, come forth!"
A man with a body made of water, and hair and a beard made out of reeds appeared in the middle of the lake. "I, Angavu, grant you an audience, shaman," he said.
Kweli manifested more grilled fish to offer the lake spirit. "O noble Angavu, you outshine the stars that sparkle on your life-giving waters. To see you before me is my delight. Please accept this dance as a sign of my joy in you."
Kweli then danced before the spirit. Taylor watched, transfixed by the graceful movements of Kweli's muscular body, hir four breasts and hir cock bouncing wildly as shi gyrated. Taylor couldn't imagine Angavu not enjoying the display. Shi certainly knew shi was enjoying it!
As Kweli finished hir dance, Angavu's watery face grinned. "You are truly a fine dancer, Shaman Kweli. I accept your homage. Go forth and enjoy my blessing of good fortune over your next ritual. Farewell." With that, Angavu's watery humanoid body melted back into the lake.
"You'll learn how to contact the spirits of inanimate things yourself in time, Taylor," Kweli said. "But, like ghosts, I advise you to wait until you are more practiced before you try it. Until then, feel free to practice on beast spirits as often as you like. Just remember everything I've taught you, young one."
"I will, Shaman Kweli," Taylor promised with conviction. "Thanks so much for everything."
Kweli placed a clawed hand on Taylor's golden-furred shoulder. "This is where tonight's dream ends, Taylor Wagner. I bid you farewell until tomorrow night." Kweli waved goodbye to Taylor, once again walking the rainbow bridge that would lead the elder shaman back to hir body. Taylor felt hir mind fading from the savanna and into some other unrelated dream.