Read Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity Online
Authors: Scott Rhine
Later it would be noted, but not remarked upon, that the lord had all his fingers for the ceremony. Yet, another finger of the same size and coloration was discovered by the wharf the next morning, this one with an indentation where a ring might have once gone. No one asked about the donor for the ceremony. The lady’s wrath had been averted.
Next, she whispered to the steward, “Now what was the other gift you were talking about?”
The steward led her to where Tumberlin hung upside-down from the roof eaves, gagged and trussed like a game bird. An odd piece of jewelry dangled from a nearby torch sconce. “The wizards say it’s a spirit stone that Lord Kragen made to subdue his apprentice. It controls his life force. The dwarf turned it into an amulet and placed a protective casing around the imprint. The ki mages won’t touch it because Kragen never showed anyone else how to control man spirits. In spite of everything, the dwarf does beautiful work,” he said admiringly.
Humi smiled for the first time since sunrise. “Yes, a true craftsman. And don’t worry. Kragen told one person the secret, or at least where he kept it written down. Tumberlin and I are going to have a lot of fun this afternoon. He always said he wanted to get to know me better.”
The steward bowed and left immediately.
Tashi followed the dwarf into the maze of crypts beneath the Halls of Remembrance. Had his faculties been more intact, the sheriff would never have followed so recent an enemy into the underworld. Soon after they descended into the basement, things began to go wrong. The first thing Tashi noticed upon entering was the centuries of incense smoke that coated the walls in an attempt to mask the stench of corruption. Smell was a powerful trigger for memory, but none of his memories were clear. Vague images and feelings many layers deep struggled to surface.
The passages were not straight, but twisted around every axis. It seemed that leagues of such tunnels wove under the island, far more than the physical space above ground could have accommodated. The realm was not intended for traveling through, but for storing things where they would never be seen again. The warren of tunnels had no obvious rhyme or reason, having evolved organically over the centuries. Tashi would’ve been lost if it weren’t for the light from the miner’s helmet he wore that enabled him to keep the artificer in sight. The helmet had a small flame of some kind, focused by a mirrored back and lens arrangement that lit four paces in any direction he looked.
Weaving as he walked, Tashi lost his footing on a steep slope and slid to the bottom. His light went out and he stared at the black vault overhead, unmoving. A familiar stone slab pressed against his back. This was a ceremonial chamber known as the House of the Dead. All Houses of the Dead were the same on some level deeper than mere architecture or tradition. Left to his own, he would have drifted off, becoming a permanent resident. The dwarf returned to his side. The artisan looked at him with sympathy. “I know you’re weary, but you can’t rest yet.”
A seizure wracked Tashi.
The last time he’d been in the House of the Dead was after his head wound. Nobody had believed he’d survive. The peasants who’d left him at the gates thought him gone already. He lay in this hazy limbo for ages. Nobody believed in Tashi until the teacher with the wild hair and even wilder eyes. “Are you going to just lay there and join your ancestors, or do you want to make a difference?”
The dwarf shared a bit of his fire, relit Tashi’s candle, and began to hum.
This tune blended with the memory-dream where Jotham, his teacher, had begun the tattoos and the singing. e teacher had a miraculous voice, the strength and experience of an adult with the penetrating innocence of a child. There’d been many injuries, years ago. Herbs, smoke, and salve were applied with the splints and bandages. Freeing had allowed his body to devote full energy to repairing itself naturally. But his new rate of healing was anything but natural. He could eat the day after the teacher had performed that ceremony. Within three short weeks he could stand with assistance. Full use of his limbs took the rest of the year and vigorous exercise. It had only been possible by focusing on his training, the lessons given to him by the teacher. More than his body, the peace of the rituals calmed the confusion and struggles of his mind.
Performing the kata called “lotus rising”, Tashi arose in the present House of the Dead. The dwarf had disappeared. Making his way in a daze like a sleepwalker, Tashi wandered through the twists and turns by the dim light of his borrowed flame. Eventually, fresh air washed in on him, and he sensed faint light above. Staring at a pale, cramped staircase leading upward, he shook himself awake. With no other option, the sheriff climbed silently into the night air.
Nigel the actor was roasting a scrawny rabbit over his small fire. He was startled to see the dark figure standing on the rock above him.
“Why are you here?” asked Tashi, sounding as formal as the giant had been.
Oddly calmed by the formality, the traveling actor said, “Waiting for you, I suppose. Have a seat by my fire and share my poor hospitality. What are the stakes this time, old friend?”
The newest abbot tilted his head. “We do not recognize thee, but accept thy offer of hospitality given freely.”
Nigel jumped upright and staggered back. He crouched, holding out his eating dagger. “You’re not him!”
Again, Tashi tilted his head. “But you’ve already offered. I find myself hungry and in need. Your teachers trained you better than this,” he chided. Tashi knew somehow that this man had received temple training. The way he packed his gear and pitched a tent marked the traveling man as a bard as surely as tattoos would have. Bards had carried news from town to town, served as town criers, and scribed letters. Once welcomed by all, bards were now frowned upon by regional priests as “purveyors of the unwholesome” and often imprisoned by local kings as potential spies.
“I’ll do anything you ask, just leave me be!” the old actor shrieked, his knife hand trembling.
Tashi’s borrowed sword remained in its sheath as he crossed his arms over his midsection. “Where can I find the Answer?”
“What?” From his reaction, Nigel knew nothing about the legend the sheriff was seeking.
Tashi sighed, “Then, as your service, you will assist me till we reach the next Temple of the Traveler. But because you have already tried to renege on one vow, you must swear by the One Sword.”
Pale, mouth agape, Nigel dropped his weapon. “How did you know?”
“Swear!” Tashi demanded.
Weary, the actor murmured, “I swear by the Sword of Fire that cuts both metal and stone.”“And by the one who placed it there.”Glassy-eyed and overwhelmed, Nigel whispered, “Yes, by all that. It was such a long time ago. I thought I’d be safe.”Tashi sat down and began eating from the actor’s dried rations without comment.****After several uncomfortable minutes and the sharing of his watered wine, Nigel’s nerves were calm enough to attempt further negotiation with this threat. “Your clothing marks you as an executioner.”
The newcomer spat, “I’m a sheriff, not a killer.”
Nigel was amused. To his mind, the distinction was rather like a prostitute objecting to the term “whore”. “By the symbol on your chest, you have murdered at least ten men for the guild.”
Tashi stopped eating, his face frozen. When the swordsman said nothing further to defend himself, Nigel pressed on. “Then you are both, which doesn’t surprise me. But because you denied it, you are a liar, too, by extension.” The actor smiled, feeling more in control of the situation. Liars and criminals he could deal with, for human frailties always gave him room to bargain.
“I do not lie,” Tashi said proudly, gripping the hilt of the Kragen sword.
Nigel refused to be intimidated by the tacit threat; he knew the rules of hospitality. This self-proclaimed sheriff could never draw steel against a host who had provided food, shelter, and a boon. “Come off of it! Your sect never felt itself bound by the same laws as the rest of us. Whenever something illegal happened on the road, half the time a sheriff or an Imperial was involved. If you can’t admit that you break as many laws as the people you kill then you’re a hypocrite as well!”
“Were I the villain you make me out to be, you’d do well to guard your tongue,” said Tashi, bluffing.
Nigel crossed his arms, and looked at the scratches on the bottom of the other man’s sheath. “Or what, you’ll prove me right? That isn’t even your sword. It belonged to a much taller man. You’re too short on one end to be an Imperial, so I can only assume that you stole this blade.”
When the sheriff flinched, the actor cackled with laughter. “You did! So you are a thief as well. What fine company I keep. Are the hounds after you?” Tashi considered this and then nodded. “Ho, this is rich. My service is to help a thrice-condemned criminal escape justice.”
Tashi stood. “Are you reneging?”
Nigel began packing his gear. “No, no. I just like to know who I’m traveling with is all. You douse that fire while I gather my things.”
“But it’s night time,” protested Tashi.
“Are you so sleepy that you are willing to share your bed with the hunters?” asked the actor. When the sheriff shook his head, Nigel said, “Then we must work hard to place the veil of many leagues between us and your pursuers.”
The sheriff extinguished the fire and buried the evidence. Afterward, he adjusted his borrowed sword into a back-harnessed position for a better fit. While walking about, however, Tashi acidentally kicked over a coin that had been sitting in the middle of the road. Nigel hooted at this before picking up the coin. “West it is.”
“But my goal is northeast of here,” the sheriff complained.
“So are the hunters, stalking the very road they expect you to take,” the actor countered. When the sheriff was not convinced, Nigel asked, “Do you believe in the Traveler?”
Tashi nodded. The actor seemed gratified at the rapid response. “Then it is not accident that brings us together. As you pointed out earlier, I’m trained in the bardic ways. Do you trust my ability to evade pursuit?”
The sheriff nodded.“Do you trust the Traveler to protect you from an unbladed, old man?” asked the actor.“Absolutely.”“Then what are you waiting for?” asked the actor, taking the lead down the path where the coin had finally pointed. Unable to come up with a reason not to, Tashi followed.
Every morning the sheriff would, without a word, exercise, eat, and resume travel down the road. His ribs were still sore, but binding them tightly seemed to help. He missed much of what his companion grumbled about due to the damage the giant had done to his hearing, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. After three days of virtually no communication, the sheriff interrupted his morning sword exercises with the observation “We’ve been through a lot of border towns lately.”
The older actor blinked, caught off guard. The entire scene reminded him of the old joke about the mute boy who spoke only to complain about burned biscuits. “It stands to reason, sir, as we are on the border.”
Innocent-faced, the swordsman asked, “Why?”
The amusement drained from Nigel’s eyes. Angry, he burst out, “For the last time, you said that Kragen’s men were looking for you on the Emperor’s Road. You drafted me to get you to the Seer’s Temple, and that’s what I’ll do. But I refuse to get myself killed in the process. We travel north by obscure roads until we reach Barnham, hopefully by tonight. The central trade route across Intaglios is in good repair and will get us safely to the new Imperial capital, Reneau. The ruins of the Seer Zariah lay within a day’s walk to the south of the capital.”
“Oh,” the sheriff mumbled, returning to his practice. He went through forms of all seven sacred stances, drawing energy into himself with one move, while shielding his vital force with another. The ritual was an armed variation of “greeting the sun” performed by Jotham. Once finished, Tashi ate a handful of dried grain and fruit, the same as he had the day before. Then, he commenced the day’s walk at a brisk pace.
Nigel chewed on stamina root to keep up with the younger man and hummed a ballad. Early in the morning, they passed yet another miniscule town. Small children and women gathered about a well, playing and gossiping respectively. Nigel pronounced himself in need of refreshment, and veered from the road. The sheriff intervened between the actor and the community. “We have enough water on us for today. If we tarry, we may be too late.”
“We don’t know,” Tashi replied, resuming his league-eating pace.
Irritation built in the old traveler until, an hour later, he burst out, “Dogs must love you.” The sheriff wrinkled his brow. “A strong hand and mind-numbing repetition, that’s all they respect.” The actor ranted for a while, concluding with, “But all that I could accept. The problem is that you have no sense of wonder, no appreciation for the world around you. You lack a soul.”
Far from being stung by the insult, Tashi stared into himself for a moment, trying to catch a resonant thought. “The journey is more important than the destination.”
Hearing scriptures for the first time in two decades stunned Nigel again.
“But in proper repetition we may find the seeds of perfection,” the sheriff continued, as if quoting someone else’s sermon. “When I practice my sword, I rebuild my muscles, visualize what I will do in each situation, focus my being, and remove doubts. In practice, I define who I will be and how I will react.”
Snidely, the actor snapped, “So you must be the best killer in the world by now.”
At this, the sheriff stopped in his tracks while dust clouded up around him. With anger held in check, he said, “Killing is easy. Control and direction of force is an art.”
Seek innocence
, the guardian had said.
The old man sneered. “So what if you know a few tricks? The grave is full of talented men!”
Tashi winced at memories triggered by these words. The sheriff continued the journey, stone-faced and silent. The actor seemed content in his verbal victory and followed. After a few bits, Tashi asked, “Why do you sing the same verse over and over?”
Nigel ignored the irritated tone, glad that his companion was finally showing signs of humanity. “To perfect my performance, to try minor variations, and for meditation.”
“Ah, the same as my answer for my sword,” the sheriff said smugly.
This comparison seemed to anger Nigel anew. “How dare you put the two of us in the same category? I’m not a butcher for hire. The ballad I’m singing now was written for this road. It was designed to pace the journey and point out landmarks and rest stations, not for the shedding of blood.”
The insult flowed off Tashi’s back as he absorbed the new piece of information. “Fascinating! Are there other songs like this that have secret meaning?”
“Most of them, for everything from harvest to the marriage bed. Yet, the meaning is not supposed to be a secret. Songs were meant to be useful and meaningful to people’s lives, not trapped on the written page and condemned to iron-bound bookshelves,” the actor said vehemently. The old man had coarse, salt-and-pepper stubble on his face, sour-grape scent on his breath, and coals of hatred in his eyes. But the sheriff was no longer paying attention.
This tirade had triggered another thought for Tashi about procreation and what writing was really for. However, the revelation vanished like a dream when the actor smacked him in the shoulder. The old man’s eyes had the intensity of an attacking wolf. “I asked what you had to say for your analogy now.”
The sheriff responded as his master would have, uing the strength of his opponent against him. “Your goal is to make songs alive. Mine is to make the law alive. The law, too, suffers when kept bound on the shelf. My sword is just one tool I use on that mission. Our two ways are just petals on the same, six-fold path.”
Nigel hissed like a tea kettle, unable to speak coherently for several moments. “You… justice? Self-righteous, sanctimonious, pompous fascist. Just who died and made you my judge?”
Tashi stared him full in the face and said calmly, “When a warden dies, authority falls to the next sheriff encountering the prisoner to complete the sentence until he is paroled. You, sir, were a member of the work gangs and never paroled.” His companion had indeed been bard trained, but not at the colleges.
Shocked, the actor asked, “How could you tell?”
It galled Nigel that a man who mumbled to himself and asked questions like a child could pierce his veil so casually. Without malice, the sheriff recited his reasons. “You have the aura of the unfinished about you, some mark on you that will not allow you to settle in any one place for long. However, your hatred for the church and authority tells me that you were not a willing participant in your own enlightenment. Your acceptance of my fugitive status tells me that you are one as well. Finally, the way you gather extra pava leaves to stock every outhouse we pass tells me you were on the rehabilitation work crew rather than leading it.
“I just don’t know what your original sentence was for. Neither do I care. As long as you get me to the Temple of the Seer, your debt is canceled,” Tashi said.
Now, it was Nigel’s turn to stew in silence for hours. What irked the actor the most was that he could find no fault in anything the man had said. In his own heart, the actor admitted to being a criminal several times over and deserving far worse punishment than this. Still, it seemed a waste for any man, even one this annoying, to spend his life on a dead religion. The actor decided that it might be better to befriend this man and teach him the obvious error of his ways. Nigel’s tone shifted from vinegar to honey when he spoke again. Over lunch, he apologized and asked, “Out of curiosity, how did someone of your obvious youth learn the Old Ways? I thought that all the priests were dead.”
Quite calmly, the sheriff drank from the waterskin and replied, “My master received his training from the clerics in the Temple Fortress of Tor Mardun.”
Nigel stopped chewing. “Um, son. That hasn’t been a temple since before the Scattering. It became a prison, one of the most severe in the empire. A lot of really bad people were sent there. During the food blockade from Mandibos, there were riots. Supplies meant for the prison were rerouted and the inmates starved. No one ever left again through its front gates.”
Tashi nodded and kept munching. “My master mentioned something about the food problems. They got worse over the years, until he was forced to leave. He only mentioned it because I asked him about the brand on his shoulder. He keeps his hair long to conceal it.”
Nigel was incredulous. “He escaped? Your master’s an escaped convict from the vilest prison in the world?”
Tashi assessed the statement as substantially accurate and nodded again.
“Doesn’t this raise any doubts in your mind ashis trustworthiness?”
The sheriff seemed puzzled by this correlation. “No.”
“What hold does he have over you that you’re so unwaveringly loyal?”
Tashi rubbed the side of his head. “I remember nothing of my old life. I was injured unto death, and he brought me back with his miracles. My master protected my life with the sacred glyphs until I could practice the disciplines on my own to reinforce the wards.”
“Who injured you?” the actor asked sympathetically.
“I’m told I was betrayed by my own people,” the sheriff said, downcast.
“I’m sure you were betrayed by someone, young man. The only question remaining is by whom. Did you ever once think that you don’t remember
because
he cast this evil, magic spell on you?” Nigel prodded, trying to get the gullible sheriff to reason for himself.
“Impossible. He’d never do such a thing.”
Nigel saw a weakness and attacked it. “But you admit he cast a spell on you and uses black magic.”
“Miracles, not magic,” Tashi insisted. “And there’s nothing black about it.”
The actor looked about as if to an invisible audience to support his claim. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an admission to practice of ancient magic, of a kind banned by the emperor and every civilized king and church in the world, which is the very definition of black. Yet he cannot admit the two words together.”
“You twist words like a lawyer,” grumbled the sheriff.
“What is this? Hatred of lawyers when you love the law?” mocked Nigel. When Tashi didn’t respond, but raised an eyebrow, the actor conceded, “All right, I’ll grant you that one. No one can admit to love of lawyers, not even their mothers. But you must concede to being a victim of black magic wielded by a desperate criminal.”
Tashi shook his head. “I yield no such admission. Even if my master is a black magician and a criminal under the narrowest possible definition, that does not make his spells on me evil.”
“Fair enough,” Nigel said, thoroughly enjoying their philosophical courtroom. “We’ll judge the spell by its results and the man by his deeds. What’s he commanded you to do in repayment?”
“Only to help him,” Tashi said weakly. Nigel motioned with his hand to elaborate. The swordsman struggled a few moments with his words. “Well, I don’t claim to understand all of it. His mission is to find the Traveler and right some old wrongs.”
“Power and revenge. These have been the goals of evil wizards throughout time,” Nigel said, satisfied that his point was been proven.
“Would you stop calling him that?!” Tashi said, irked. “We’ve been scouring all of the old holy sites, gleaning what we can from them and using the knowledge to guide our next steps.”
“That sounds tame and scholarly enough. Why are the hunters at your heels?”
Tashi grimaced. “The latest batch is after me because I killed their boss and took something from the shrine.”
“Boss?”
“Lord Kragen,” Tashi explained.
This made Nigel chuckle even louder. “Your teacher sends you to kill lords, steal Honor, and defile temples in his name?”
“You’re twisting my words again,” Tashi protested.
“Your words are evidence, my friend, running as straight as a farmer’s furrow. It is your thinking which has become twisted,” insisted the old traveler.
Tashi’s eyes narrowed. “I will not listen to a cleaner of outhouses slur the reputation of a great man whom he has never even met.”
The actor bristled at this verbal missile, but then recognized it as yet another misplaced virtue. Clearly, the walls around his master were too well-guarded to be overcome by a frontal assault. Fortunately, even the best walls could be sapped at the foundations by one who had the skills.
“Then I’ll ask only one more thing. What’s your master doing while you are wreaking twisted justice on this world?” asked Nigel, picking food from between his teeth.
“He is searching for a very special, young boy, an innocent. Once he finds the child, they’ll meet me at the Seer’s Temple. They may be waiting for me already,” explained the sheriff.
Violating his promise, the actor pushed further. “What makes this child special?”
The voices from the abbot that Tashi had been fighting during the debate answered this question before he could even consider it. “A sacrifice.”
Nigel’s face hardened, and darkened. “I see, sir, we have a different definition of the word evil. I shan’t trouble you further on the matter.” Tashi, on the other hand, had trouble enough wrestling with himself. Where had this knowledge come from and what did it mean?