Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity (34 page)

Jotham stared into the skies, remembering. “Between us, the sheriff and I have closed all of the Doors in the southern kingdoms.”

Clamping an oversized hand around Brent’s stick-like arm by surprise, the towering priest said, “If I don’t survive the Judgment of the Gods tomorrow, you must carry on.”

“How can I? I’m just a kid,” Brent protested, looking helpless.

“Find the sheriff I told you about. You can meet him on the road where east meets west. Help him close the last of the temple Doors. Promise,” the priest insisted.

“Sure. But let go, you’re hurting me.”

Jotham released him, his hand shaking with emotion. “It was important that you know, that you see.”

They sat in heavy silence for the remainder of the afternoon. The boy tried to nap in several positions, to no avail. The troubled priest lay on his back, not finding slumber either. After three hours, and waiting to make sure the guard was asleep, Brent asked, “Are you afraid of dying?”

A reassuring smile played on Jotham’s lips. “No. Death is the crossing of an important boundary, but it doesn’t change who we are. I am afraid that I might not get a chance to finish my task, though.”

The small voice asked the next logical question. An adult would have been too ashamed to utter it, but the question would have hung in the air all the same. “Are we going to die?”

This was not satisfying the boy as it might have an older acolyte, so Jotham continued, “Having faith in the Six-fold Path means remaining faithful to our precepts even when the way forward is not convenient or obvious. Don’t worry. I have plans for you to escape even if the judgment goes against me.”

Encouraged, Brent exercised some new-found, legal reasoning. “But the High Gardener said we would share the same penalty because I’m your lawyer.”

Jotham raised a finger, impressed by his own cleverness. “Ah, but the Gardener is gone and has no say in the matter. I have drawn up a document disqualifying you as my counsel under the laws of Semenos. A child cannot enter into a contract without the written consent of a parent or guardian. Since I as guardian wrote no such letter, the contract cannot be upheld. This will negate your death warrant and the young king can’t draft another without the permission of his own regent, who will be absent indefinitely. Renald wouldn’t dare execute you illegally. I’m sure your scholarly monk friend will stand behind you on this point. I believe that there may even be a minimum age to choose the ceremony.”

Brent was somewhat relieved, but not convinced. “What if the king refuses to hear the petition before the ceremony begins?”

Jotham’s face fell. He seemed less pleased by the alternative. “Then I’ll be forced to provide a distraction to cover your escape.”

Another painful silence carried them well into the afternoon. But the boy was able to doze lightly. When he awoke, Brent announced, “If I am to be a priest and carry on your task, you need to finish my training.”

The abruptness of the demand amused Jotham. “All before dinner?” When he saw the boy was serious, he sighed and asked, “What do you want to know? Because of your promise, I withhold nothing from you.”

Eager to hear the next tale, Brent sat cross-legged on the platform and asked, “How did the Traveler solve the problem of Osos?”

A weight settled on Jotham’s shoulders and face as he sat beside the boy and asked, “Are you certain you wish to know? Some words cannot be unheard, some lessons cannot be unlearned. Beyond this border you will be crossing into manhood. We usually don’t inflict this knowledge on a person until age sixteen or so.”

Brent gave the warning due consideration. “It’s important. Please tell me.”

“In the old days, all gods had their own lands,” Jotham began. “And all lands clustered around the mountain of Osos, at the center of his kingdom. The Traveler had no land of his own because he needed none. His price for solving the problem was for the other gods to reinforce in divine law what was already true in practice. The Traveler wanted to be named Lord of Boundaries, including the border with our own, mortal realm. There is power in difference. To fully appreciate some of this, you would need some specialized mathematics, but I’ll try to explain it to you in layman’s terms.”

Brent was puzzled. “Priests use math?”

Glad for the digression, Jotham explained, My boy, even wizards use math to describe the physical world: the path of boulders launched from a catapult or the power of lenses to focus light. Why should the metaphysical world be any less precise? Mathematics is the foundation of existence itself.

“The more difference in the energy of two things, the more power you can tap by connecting them. For example, the height of a waterfall affects the power of the stream. If water falls off of a drop as high as your waist, the added strength of the current could knock you off your feet. If the water fell from the height of my head, it could turn a large, stone wheel in a gristmill. You can see how the water from a tall-enough waterfall could crush any living thing put beneath it.”

The boy had recently performed such experiments from this very tower with acorns and covered wagons, so he nodded sagely while the older priest continued. “Long ago, the Traveler learned how to tap this power for food instead of the life force of other beings, but kept the method secret. Osos coveted this ability. The clever Traveler allowed himself to be captured crossing the elder god’s domain. As the price for his release, Osos demanded to be taught the secret so that he could be master of all mystic energies and feed his growing hungers. After a month in the dungeons, being questioned every day, the Traveler explained the technique of harnessing the energies of difference.”

“He doesn’t seem too clever to me so far,” mumbled Brent. Any fool could get thrown into a dungeon and tortured. It took a truly skilled individual to get out of such a situation.

Jotham frowned at the commentary. “But before sharing the secret, Calligrose extracted two promises. First, Osos had to have the Traveler escorted beyond the borders of his kingdom before the spell could be used. Second, the spell could not be used within ten leagues of any living thing. The intent was to force Osos into a remote region where nothing could live and where nothing else would be harmed. In his lust for power, Osos agreed.”

The teacher paused, trying to adapt the tale to his audience. “As expected, Osos couldn’t wait to try out the new ability. The head of the gods wanted to grab as much new power as possible as soon as he could. But because gods must honor the letter of their agreements for magic to work, Osos had to find a loophole in the agreement. Instead of traveling to a safe area, Osos flew straight up from his throne at the navel of the world until he was ten leagues above the highest living thing in his realm. The more distance he put between himself and the ground, the bigger his influx of energy would be. Therefore, Osos flew even higher until he couldn’t restrain his hungers any more. Then he opened himself wide.

“The resulting flow was too much even for him to contain. Have you ever seen a goldfish that keeps eating after it is full? Or a dry kernel of corn placed too long on a frying pan?”

Brent narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, trying to understand. “He died?”

“No. It’s more accurate to say that his form and information transformed into energy. Nothing was destroyed, only converted. But it’s fair to say that Osos burst rather spectacularly in a display that could be seen on at least three planes.”

Brent interrupted. “What’s a plane?”

“That’s another math term. Pretend I’m talking about a house and use the word floor.” Jotham waved away further digression as he continued with the heart of the lecture. “Now, the burst was so intense that it leveled all the moutains in the central kingdom and created a huge, bowl-shaped crater in the ground. The matter of this bowl contained not only dirt, sand, and rock fused into glass, but all living things caught in the blast. Because of the multidimensional aspect of the fire, their spirits were trapped as well, even after physical release. At the center, where the crater was deepest, the god made deep wounds in our world and the blood of the earth poured out as magma. Volcanoes darkened the sky and the world shook. Soon the rivers flowing into the central kingdom filled this bowl and cooled the earth’s blood, forming what you know today as the Inner Islands and the Inner Sea.”

Brent shivered at a cool breeze. “All those people and animals gone. I’m sure the Traveler didn’t mean for that to happen to them. He’s not a killer is he?”

Jotham put an arm around the boy to help warm him. “The Traveler sought to trick Osos into doing to himself what no other god could. You already knew he was a trickster. I’m certain he tried his best to ensure that only Osos would suffer, but even the ascended can’t think of everything. Some sages think that Calligrose has aided our Empire often in repayment for that mistake. However, I prefer to believe his actions to be out of loving charity rather than guilt.”

Brent asked in a small voice, “What happened to Osos?”

“He still exists after a fashion. The power from the differential tap still flows through his nexus; Osos just can’t control it and must release it in all directions equally. To those attuned to see, his spirit looks like a giant orb, a star hanging low in the sky marking the location of his folly. Do you know now what Osos became?”

Slowly, the revelation rose in the boy’s eyes. “The Compass Star,” he whispered, staring at the sky toward a light he couldn’t see but knew existed. They sat in silence again until the guards came for them near sundown.

The ceremony had been timed to culminate as the sun sank below the horizon. Normally, such
an event would call for a solemn procession. However, the guards were running a little behind schedule and trying to hurry matters along.

Jotham opened his mouth to address the head guard and the man stuck a loaded crossbow up to his throat. “No talking from you, mister, on the High Gardener’s orders. You’ll keep quiet through the whole ceremony or we’ll put a shaft in you and clamp the silencer back on your yap. The arrow won’t kill you right away, but you’ll be ready to jump off the wall just to end the pain. Are we clear?”

Jotham nodded and handed the guard his legal brief to exclude Brent from the proceedings. The guard laughed and ripped the folded document into shreds. “Heretics aren’t allowed to write either. You weren’t supposed to get any parchment to spread your lies. Your door guard will be punished. Now stop wasting my time. I don’t get supper till after you’re dead.”

As they manacled the priest and led him down the winding stairs of the Green Tower to the waiting ceremony, Jotham mouthed one word to the boy. “Pray.”

One of the guards jabbed him with a spear butt to prevent further communication.

The Trial was set to take place from the top of the River Gate. Guards were already stationed between the flanking staircases, awaiting the guests of honor. Behind them a semi-circular, raised dais, sat all the major nobles and clergy still supporting the crown. The young king and his cronies were arrayed in their best finery, adorned with as much jewelry and pomp as they could muster, with Renald as the centerpiece. These seats offered the best view of the upcoming event. The two remaining members of the heresy tribunal sat on either side of the king.

A thick beam on a swivel protruded over the center of the gate into the courtyard. The sizable block-and-tackle at the end of the beam was normally employed to load and unload river barges inside the castle. In times of war, the rotating mount could hold a giant ballista used to rain destruction down upon the enemy. That evening, a wooden cage dangled from the beam like an oversized lantern on the prow of a ship. The cage, containing a blindfolded ox, was suspended half over the river and half over the ground. Barricades kept everyone at least thirty paces from the monarch or the ox.

Unable to decide on just two traditional punishments, the event coordinators had arranged at least four possible fates for the prisoners. On the off chance that the fall didn’t kill the ox instantly, the ground below the animal had been covered with long, sharp spikes set almost a pace apart. If the ox avoided being impaled, the ground was covered with black pitch and dotted with lit candles. Any candle knocked over would light an intense fire that would engulf the victim. Even if the victim avoided toppling any candles, a fall from such a height would surely break a leg, making any movement slow. Because of this, torches set at the corners would burn down and light the tar if the trial went on too long without resolution. Rabid dogs had been considered, but they couldn’t be sufficiently starved on such short notice. Finally, a portcullis and another set of spikes faced inward from the banks of the river to prevent anything from climbing out before drowning.

But the extensive list of possible deaths was not what shocked the boy. The open courtyard seemed to be lined with more people than Brent had ever seen. They swarmed along the wall tops. Layered, wooden benches were propped against three of the four walls and covered the grassy expanse between so thoroughly that no evidence of vegetation could be seen. The great gates leading out of the trial arena had even been left open so that the breeze might help cool this sweltering mob.

Musicians and jugglers passed hats, and bakers sold warm meat pies to this sea of hungry people. When Jotham’s snowy head appeared on the walls, the crowd began chanting, “
Jump
!” The closer the prisoners got, the louder the shouting became. The things he heard people shouting about them made Brent shudder. Worse still, the monk who suggested this ordeal was standing supportively at the left hand of the king. Fear of betrayal made his stomach churn.

By contrast, the closer Jotham got to the ox, the calmer the teacher became. The frenzied roar reached a crescendo when the prisoners were placed before the suspended cage. Just when he thought there would be a riot, the king’s heralds blew their trumpets. The silence that followed was spectacular.