A Key to Unlocking Past Lives

I welcome questions from readers. After reading A Water Horse, many have asked about Conor and Nolan's fate in the next novel, A Monkey's Mask. I won't give away any spoilers of what is to come except to say they are alive and well, insofar as they haven't been killed off yet. Both have strong roles in A Monkey's Mask.

However, by the end of the Pawn of Samsara Duology, the man-lion shapeshifter Sinha is actively looking for one of these two. He just doesn't know where or in what form he's been born.

Here is the spoiler-free key to their past lives. Every character from A Water Horse appears in A Lion's Head and A Lion's Pride.

Please read "A Water Horse" before proceeding.

Conor

Then: Tissa (Father, Uncle, Widow) in A Lion's Pride
Now: Conor (Each-Uisge/Father)

Tissa is an apothecary living in a small rural community in what, 10,000 years later, would be somewhere in Rajasthan, India. He has a spirit-touched son, Yohan. His wife died following a miscarriage. He does not hold a high social status as a headman because he did not remarry. Both father and son live lives dedicated to serving their community. Tissa has a niece, and, as her father's brother, he is a surrogate father to her. Yohan and Nalini have a close relationship like that of a younger brother and an older sister.

Saoirse

Then: Tissa's dead wife in A Lion's Pride
Now: Saoirse (Mother/Wife)

Sairse was Tissa's wife in her last birth. This explains the instant attraction, recognition, and comfort—where Conor pursues her, and she pursues him. Her fear of motherhood stems from her experience of dying in her last life. Yet Nolan was meant to be her child, and she embraces motherhood once it arrives.

Eric

Then: Yohan (Son, Spiritualist) in A Lion's Pride
Now: Eric (Each-Uisge/Adversarial Brother)

Why is Eric so adversarial towards Saoirse? Why would Conor be reborn as an Each-Uisge, water horse in the Celtic seas? Can people choose where they will be reborn?

Eric is the reincarnation of Tissa's son, Yohan. His adversarial nature towards Saoirse stems from an unaddressed sense of abandonment from his past life. On some level, he had longed for a mother and resented her absence. Further, he has a close attachment to Tissa, who was his father in a past life and his brother in the present. He has witnessed Tissa's suffering at the loss of his mother, and in this life wants to keep Conor from the pain of losing her again (not realizing this time it's of his making). Ultimately, things get complicated when Conor rejects Eric for Saoirse.

Nolan

Way back when: Saida (The Warrioress) in A Lion's Head
Then: Nalini (The Abused Niece) in A Lion's Pride
Now: Nolan (The Child)

In that distant life in A Lion's Head, Nolan was the unborn child who wished to be Tissa's child. Perhaps they had a father-child relationship that goes back farther in Samsara.

Karma/Samsara blocked the past-version-of-Nolan from being Tissa's child. Instead, Nolan had been born as Tissa's niece. Born as the female Nalini, her parents would suffer greatly in that life and inflict abuse on her.

It gets even more complicated as we work our way through this. Nalini's parents have a backstory which I'll save for another newsletter. Let me know in the discussion section if you'd like to hear more.

Nalini is one of the main characters of A Lion's Pride. Going back one more lifetime—Nolan-Nalini had been Saida, the warrior woman from A Lion's Head and one of Sinha's core companions.

Nolan is of great importance to this universe.

I can't say more without spoiling the novels.

But Why Ireland—Ériu? It's on the other side of the world.

Nalini is reborn as Nolan outside the Indian subcontinent on the Isle of Ériu, but by the end of A Water Horse, destined to live on the open sea with her father, Conor.

In the events of A Lion's Pride, Conor and Eric are reborn to a 'higher plane' as Each-Uisge, water spirits, as a result of Tissa and Yohan's years of service to others (good karma accrued from charitable acts/dana), and their close connection to the spirit world. Since these water spirits are called many different names around the world, it can be assumed that they do not know space or boundaries. They simply are. Dig through Wikipedia for lists of water spirits or look up the Kappa of Japan, the Bunyip of Australia, and the Wihwin of Central America.

Why Ériu? Perhaps larger schemas are at play. We are left in the dark about the remainder of Tissa and Yohan's lives in A Lion's Pride after Sinha and his companions leave the village.

An even easier excuse: A Water Horse is a melancholy tribute to the author's time spent living in Ireland, where she fell in love with its wind-swept, timeless landscape, climbed its mountains, and discovered the Aran Islands. Rest assured, she had Irish sensitivity readers' feedback on the short story prior to release.

I met my husband in Ireland. Like Saoirse, I told him, "I will meet you later," on our first encounter. Unlike Conor, he detests cold water.
- D.M. De Alwis

Conclusion

What we know is that people who matter are reborn over and over again in close proximity—even IF the only way they can appear in that person's life is as a distant relative or acquaintance.

Finally, in A Water Horse, Conor and Eric have a misadventure with the Sea Hag off-screen. Perhaps there are deeper reasons why Saoirse and Conor can never be together, reasons that are beyond the scope of my current novels—perhaps a tale for another day.

Bread Crumbs

Now you know Nolan is the child in A Water Horse. But for the shapeshifter Sinha, in A Monkey's Mask, this child is the end of a three-century-long hunt. To see why Sinha is so desperate to find this specific soul, you have to go back to where the search began.

Read the Pawn of Samsara Duology. If you're an audiophile, the audiobook is available on Kobo, Apple, Chirp, and more. It has been submitted for review to Audible.

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The Pawn of Samsara Duology
A king is hell-bent on destroying the universe. Isha's pact with the tyrant grants his people safe passage home. But everything goes wrong for him when the gods unleash their champion.

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Have I hooked you or confused you? Let me know in the comments.

A note on the historical setting

Traces of homo sapiens have been proven to exist for ~300,000 years. At the time of A Lion's Pride, I imagine humans lived in hunter-gatherer or communal-village settings surrounded by wilderness. As you move upcountry toward the Himalayas, you encounter more technologically advanced civilizations with established towns.

History is routinely erased by natural disasters, disease, and the jungle reclaiming the land. It can all exist at the same time—the ancient people of Ériu building dolmens while advanced mechanized technology persists in other pockets of the subcontinent. When you look at how much our society has changed in a scant 100 years, you see what I mean: human relationships remain the constant, even as the politics and technology around them shift. It can all exist at once without being "wrong."

Where the world-building meets the work

If you want to look at the "blueprints" for how I established the rules, the latest episode of the Myths & Samsara Podcast goes into the Buddhist cosmology that anchors the Pawn of Samsara duology and A Water Horse. There are no spoilers—just a behind-the-scenes look at how the ground rules are set.

010 | How Buddhist Cosmology Inspired the Pawn of Samsara Duology

No spoilers. The Pawn of Samsara (POS) duology cemented the ground rules for world-building my fantasy universe. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look.

The Erudite BookwormD.M. De Alwis

And for those curious about the physical reality of the Each-Uisge and why I chose the sea as a setting for reincarnation, I’ve included a few links below. From rogue ot monster waves to the science behind the Kraken, this is the volatile environment Conor and Eric now navigate. Much of the reputation of these mythical creatures comes from the very real danger of rip tides and currents.

Physics Girl | How science explains monster waves | Season 1 | Episode 23

Enormous, spontaneous waves in the open ocean were once the tall tales of sailors.

In the Margins

-D.M. De Alwis

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