Chapter Four
Temptations Lane
I was led back out of the citadel and into the city. Larc had been drug off into the inner depths of the citadel, kicking and screaming. Hot anger coursed through me, but I kept it from showing and passively followed wherever my captors led me, biding my time until a chance to escape presented itself.
About an hour later I found myself climbing the stairs of the temple of pleasures, as they were often called throughout the Zoarinian Empire and neighboring lands. My steps, the steps of an unwilling man, were far different than those of the eager steps of the frequent visitors of this place. The sounds of drunken revelry spilled out of the temple balconies and polluted the evening air. I had no desire to see any of it. In short, these temples of pleasure were an abomination.
They were populated with the fair youth of the empire. It was considered a great honor throughout the land of the Zoarinians to be selected as a temple girl or boy. The position brought wealth to their families, who, all too willingly, sold them to the temple magistrates. The boys and girls were raised to attend to the carnal and ceremonial needs of the temple consortium and its body of believers.
A believer was anyone who could pay enough to the temple magistrates to buy their way in the door to enjoy the forbidden pleasures that lay within. The temples were viewed with favor by almost all Zoarinians, as they brought entertainment and diversion from the stresses of everyday life to the general populace and wealth to those in positions of power.
It was the desire of almost every Zoarinian to see and participate in what lay beyond the gilded doors at least once in their lives. Those who had visited once felt an even greater desire to return and waste their lives laboring to fund the continued pursuit of the ultimate in self gratification. The depravity didn’t stop there, however.
The children, who resulted from the frequent liaisons of the temple priestesses, were sacrificed to the gods of the Zoarinian Empire upon birth. It was believed that these acts of innocent human sacrifice, in homage to the gods of the land, renewed the land by keeping it fertile and the people healthy. It was a custom that was observed by many outside the temple grounds and throughout the Zoarinian Empire. To their way of thinking, more sacrifices could only be a good thing if it brought continued prosperity; not to mention freeing the parents from the need of caring for unwanted offspring.
As I was led up the stairs, I thought over all I knew of the customs of these people. I shook my head in wonder over their lunacy. I thought of my own mother and tried to picture her offering me and my brother up as sacrifices and I just couldn’t. My parents had something in them that had set them apart from these people and they had been hated for it. With the Creator’s help, I’d become just like my parents, that is, if I survived long enough.
The Creator must surely hate the activities of these people! All I could wonder was why He hadn’t already torched the place! For their sins, these people were certainly deserving of destruction, even as I had been. I had turned to a different path, but I doubted that these people would ever do that, as they loved the twisted lives that they led and had no desire to change.
“The city remains because I have those yet within it that are faithful to Me,” came the whisper into my consciousness. It answered my question and sent a ripple of awareness through me that my Creator had not forsaken me, but was even now here with me in this ordeal. It comforted me to know that I didn’t have to face what lay beyond the doors ahead alone and I felt strength flow through me at that awareness. With renewed confidence I lifted my head to face the future head-on.
Completing our journey up the wide steps we made our way through the open doors of the temple. Fires blazed brightly in the temple, keeping the cool evening air at bay. Vibrantly colored silks and crystal chandeliers hung from the ceilings and the massive pillars of the temple halls, while vibrant tapestries adorned the walls. The scenes portrayed around me were set off by the richness of their surroundings. Some sights and sounds disgusted me, while others threatened to enslave me with the tempting pleasure they offered.
Trying to control a body I suddenly hated, because of its betrayal of me, I turned my head forward and concentrated on two pillars at the end of the long hall across which we were traversing. The women here were very attractive, and the sight of their barely clothed or completely bare bodies, as was the case for some, threatened to overwhelm my senses. The seductive welcome in their eyes and the sensual grace with which they moved was as provocative as the sight of them. The activities of the men around me, however, acted as a slap in the face, keeping my perspective of the wrongness of this place alive in my consciousness.
I was filled with disgust as I saw what they were doing in various places in the hall around me. Their activities reminded me of the vileness that had only been too common in the dungeons of the arena, when men had forgotten their created purpose and settled for something less and unnatural. Boys being used in the place of women was horrible and yet the room was filled with such debauchery and worse. Even the women were inordinately focused on giving each other pleasure, which made no sense to me.
Was this display of hedonistic wantonness supposed to be the example of what the world should be more like? If it was, I wanted no part of such a world where everything that had been created so perfectly had now been reversed into the shameful self degradation of an individual’s created glory and purpose.
It was as if, in the height of the immoral decadence which was on display all around me, the beauty and rightness of one man and one woman enjoying each other had been twisted into a thousand disgusting lesser forms of affectation. Why would a man hunger for something other than the beauty of a woman, and why would a woman settle for the affection of another woman, when only a man could ultimately fulfill and complete her deepest needs?
I thought of my mother and father and the way they had been with each other. My mother had been a beautiful woman too, but she would have looked completely out of place in this hall. Not for any lack of beauty on her part, but simply because she wasn’t the kind of person to share herself with anybody else other than my father. Often, as a boy, I had covertly observed instances where she would simply look deeply at my father or say something softly to him; which usually resulted in their unexplained absence, often lasting hours, a short while later.
Witnessing how they had been with each other had both relaxed me and made me want the same in a relationship one day. My mother hadn’t had to dress as these women did or display half the open eroticism that they displayed to completely overwhelm my father. I had never once seen him regard another woman other than my mother. What they’d had was special in a way that wouldn’t and couldn’t be understood in this place of such moral reversal and discontentment with what was naturally ordained.
The beauty of these women only went skin deep and knowing that helped me to disregard any earlier desires I’d had for them. The women that had drawn seductively toward me seemed to sense the change in my demeanor and, like candles extinguished, their looks of open invitation disappeared and were replaced with disinterested looks of hostility as they moved away to partake in pleasures elsewhere.
Feeling the weight of the spirit of the place lift off me with my denial, I noticed something about the place that I hadn’t seen before. In the bare open areas of exposed wall between the rich tapestries, shadows danced.
The shadows numbered many more than the people moving in front of the light, given off by the many fires throughout the great hall. There were thousands of them! A sudden chill swept through me as I heard the sound of terrible laughter ring throughout the hall, drowning out all else. It almost paralyzed me mid step, so frightened was I at the sound of the laughter.
“Peace Roric, you can hear them, but they can’t touch you as I have sealed you for My purposes as long as you remain faithful to My will.”
I felt peace settle over me as I felt the words pour into my innermost being, even as the sound of laught
er grew louder and more hateful in pitch all around me.
Curiously, I looked around the place. The laughter was deafening, but no one here seemed to be hearing any of it. Not even the guards, who prodded me along, gave any indication that they were hearing what I heard. Were they all so unaware of the foul spirits they were keeping company with?
There was no peace in this place, other than the peace I felt within my own soul at the steady words of encouragement spoken into me by my Creator. What must hell be like when all those lost and led astray, by their own desires of self-gratification, became aware of where their paths of pleasure had taken them and whose will they had been so busy accomplishing while alive? What must the full weight of the emptiness of their lives and actions feel like, when it became clear to them what they had missed out on for all of eternity?
It was scary to know how close I had come to making the same mistake myself. It was even scarier to think of falling back into my errant ways and rejecting the ways of the Creator, whom I was just now learning to serve. I said a silent prayer for the futures of all those around me. I prayed that they would wake up to the reality that I was even now beginning to see as plain as day. Who knew? Perhaps it had been someone’s prayer for me that had steered me back onto the right path in life.
At last, we came to a pair of double doors at the end of one of the long halls. One of my guards stepped forward and knocked on the door.
“Enter,” came the muted reply from within. The guards swung the double doors open and I entered the room, which was shrouded in darkness. A single candle, on an end table near a shuttered window, cast its glow feebly out into the room.
“Leave us!” came a sharply spoken command from a darkened corner of the room.
The guards shifted hesitantly as they glanced at each other uncertainly, “Go now!”
The guards hastily exited the room closing the heavy doors behind them as they left. Many a man who had defied a temple priestess, or even just displeased one, had found himself dead or wishing that he was dead. My own family had once fallen prey to such a vindictive action by a priestess.
I stared into the darkened corner of the room where the voice had come from, hoping to discern who or what resided there.
As if in answer to my probing gaze, a voice softer and more feminine than it had sounded before replied, “You have your father’s way about you, that is of a certainty.”
A shadow separated from the darkness of the corner of the room and became clearer as it came into the dim light of the candle and was revealed as a beautiful woman. She carried herself with grace and dignity, which was hard to imagine in a place like this. She was resplendently dressed in a scarlet colored gown that echoed the temple’s opulent embellishments. Her choice of clothing, while provocative, was not what I had expected of a high temple priestess. She was more covered up rather than less, which puzzled me considering the attire or lack of it by the other women I had seen so far. I was puzzled, until I gazed into her eyes and face.
Her face was evenly proportioned, with clean straight lines and skin that showed no signs of wrinkling or the effects of a hard life spent surviving in the elements. Deep blue, intelligent eyes gleamed like faceted sapphires from her face. It was her eyes that hinted at what made this woman more formidable than any other woman in the place. I felt the impact of her gaze on me like fire! A man could easily lose himself in a pair of eyes like that. Panicking somewhat, I broke eye contact with her and made to step back, but the door was there. I pressed back against it, wanting out of the room.
The priestess said, even softer than before, “And his self control, too.”
I looked at her again quickly and saw that her face had changed. Her face was now filled with a look of sorrow and remorse that I would never have expected to see in a place like this.
The realization of what her words hinted at flooded me with anger, and in two steps I was across the space between us with my chained hands wrapped around her throat. She made no move to resist as my hands tightened on her throat.
“It was you that destroyed my family! Everything that’s gone forever and that has happened since is because of you, isn’t it?” I cried out, giving her a violent shake.
She nodded, even as a single tear welled out of the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. As the tear touched the skin of my hand and dissipated, so did some of my anger. ‘She deserves to die, and pay for what she has done!’ came the angry thought coursing through me as I suddenly felt resistance to killing her.
My hands tightened further around her throat as I asked, “Tell me, why shouldn’t I end your worthless life here and now?”
“The children!” she responded, half choking, which caused me to see that I was practically strangling her to death.
I loosened my grip some and she gasped for air. Sensing that it was somehow wrong to kill her in cold blood, I stepped back, disgusted at myself and puzzled at her answer as well.
“The children? What about these children?” I asked roughly.
Moving to a chair in the room, she sat down somewhat stiffly as she felt at her throat with a hand.
“You were saying about the children?” I restated testily.
Looking back up at me she began, “After your father refused all of my advances I felt gravely insulted. I was young then and full of myself. I made up my mind to kill him and the woman that he had chosen over me. If he wasn’t going to be mine, he wasn’t going to be anyone’s. You’ve seen this place and the living filth of its occupants! I loved it and all its unseemly passions with all my heart.”
I looked down at her condemningly, seeing through her words what had brought the end of all that I had held dear in life.
Crying softly she continued, “Which explains why I sacrificed two of my own children to the gods of this land. I did it myself, with these two hands! Do you know how real a curse can be? I only became aware of the curse my life had become after I ordered your father’s death and received back word of its completion. Instead of joy at the news, all I felt was a crushing emptiness. I threw myself into the acts of selfish indulgence that this place has to offer, but there was no joy in any of it. No peace! I became aware, for the first time in my life, of just how meaningless my existence had become. I looked at everything that I had done and I was overwhelmed by the grotesque monster that I had become. I couldn’t stand it! The willful slaughter of my own babies and your family haunted me day and night. I made up my mind to end it all. I went to one of the high balconies of the temple. I was balanced on the railing of the balcony, ready to jump, when a warm breeze blew the scent of a nearby flower to me. The smell of the flower overwhelmed me with its fragrance. It was the first thing I had truly sensed in the weeks of grayness and internal misery. It got my attention like nothing else. It reminded me of the sweetness of spirit that I had lost. When you live as I had done, you find out very quickly that there are powers that go unseen in this world. There is evil. This place is a place dedicated to the worship of that evil. The dark spirits of this place dominate the people within. They revel at our carnality and our lustful desires. They feed off our foolish sins and encourage the people of this place to greater extremes of depravity. Why do we do this? Why do we serve such dark masters? These dark spirits create nothing but havoc and suffering wherever they go. The seeds of impurity spill out of this place and others like it and infect all that surrounds it. As everything is reduced to self expression and selfish desires, kindness of spirit is lost and the only love remaining is love of self. I was their instrument. I allowed myself to be used by them to do unspeakable things. All this was made real to me, as I smelled the purity of the flower’s scent. There was no hope left in me that anything could ever redeem what I had lost, until that flower reminded me that there is a Creator. A Creator that made everything to be good. It was I that chose to use my beauty for my own selfish whims. It was I that made what was beautiful into a thing to be loathed. The smell of the flower let me know
just how far I had fallen from the good creation I was created to be. I was about to jump when a man’s hand appeared beside me as I stood on the railing. He asked me if I would like to step down. I asked him who he was because I had never seen him before and he did not look like a man who would frequent a place like the temple. He smiled and said, ‘I am the Son of the Creator and I would like you to look at that flower over there a little closer.’ I don’t know why, but I took His hand and let Him help me down. I followed the aroma to the actual flower and I was surprised. It was a single little blossom on a vine that was gnarled and almost broken off in places. I had assumed that the aroma was from the flowers planted by the temple gardeners as there are many flowers around the temple. I had smelled none for weeks, except for this one. The vine clung precariously to the granite of a temple pillar. It wasn’t planted in the fertile ground of the courts below, but it sprang out of a crack near the top of the pillar. The flower was the only one on the vine and it was small, but it was beautiful. I leaned closer to look at it and smell it once more. Peering into the flower the colors faded and were replaced with a reflection of my own face. Drawing back startled, I turned to the man, whom I hadn’t noticed standing there. 'What is this?' 'Treorna, the flower and the vine represent your life,' He had replied. 'You have rooted your life in a precarious spot and the paths you have taken and the decisions you have made have hurt you severely, but yet you are very precious and not something to be cast away. Won’t you change your path and follow Me? Let Me plant you in a sure place and give you the nourishment needed to grow and flourish into the person you were created to be.' He spoke kindly. ‘Me?’ I asked, in disbelief. ‘Yes.’ ‘But I’m filthy and I’ve done things! Unspeakable things! How can You want me after the things I’ve done?’ Looking at me He said, “What you have said is true. You are guilty of much and deserve death, but I offer you life. Follow Me and forsake your past deeds and do them no more and I will forgive you and give you a new future. One that will last forever.'”
She paused in her narrative. Still not quite believing her story, I said peevishly, “So, I guess you didn’t jump.”
Smiling, she looked up at me and said, “No, Roric, I didn’t jump.” Feeling like a chastised little boy under her gaze, I fidgeted, waiting for her to continue.
She began again, “I accepted the new path offered to me and it completely changed me. Since then, I’ve never been the same. I could have walked away from the temple life then and there and enjoyed a peaceful life away from the darkness of this city. However, I got the feeling that although I had the Creator’s blessing to leave there was more to be gained by staying here and helping to right the wrongs of this place. I’ve had to be wise about it though. The people here see only what they want to see. The vision that you saw, when you first came in here, is still what they see because that is what I want them to see. It is safer that they see me as such so that the mission that I have undertaken has less of a chance of being discoverd.”
“This mission concerns children?” I asked.
Nodding her head she said, “Yes. You see, contrary to popular belief, there have been no sacrificial slayings of newborns since I took over the high priestess position in charge of the sacrifice. Only a select few know of this, however. The children are switched for fake doll babies before the ceremony and, as high priestess, I preside over the ceremony as the head executioner. A position is unchallenged by the other priestesses as they much prefer someone else to perform the actual sacrificial slaying of their newborns rather than themselves. The real babies are smuggled outside of the city to an outlying farm that I’ve set up to care for them.”
Crossing my arms I stared at her, “I find it hard to believe that this has evaded the notice of the temple priests!”
“Oh, but it hasn’t. They have known about it from the beginning.”
At my puzzled expression she explained, “You see, it has been increasingly difficult in recent years to find girls and boys that have the innocent appeal that is craved by the temple’s most ardent financers. As the societal life of the Zoarinian Empire has decayed, so has any semblance of morality in its youth. It may sound like an oxymoron, but innocent children are preferred by the temple priests, who are the first to initiate them into their new life of whoredom. Not surprisingly, the children of this land are far from innocent when they come to the temple doors, which isn’t surprising given the hedonistic examples that their parents hand down to them. I suggested to the high temple priests that the continuing financial support of these grounds and festivities would be best served if the children meant for sacrifice were instead raised apart from the society, until such a time was needed for a renewal of the currently available flesh. They would then be able to provide their most affluent backers with fresher product, so to speak. The priests have been only too willing to provide assistance with their part of the subterfuge. Most of the girls and boys here are riddled with diseases that are carefully concealed by the priests so that they can continue to reap profits, but it is increasingly hard to disguise the sickened state of the temple consorts. The priests have decided to do away with all the current stock and bring in the children that I have rescued over the years to replace them, which will allow them to raise the rates because of the higher quality of the new stock. They couldn’t be happier with me or my plan. As it is, they stand to make a lot of extra money. They will be collecting them from the farm at the end of the month, which is where you come in, Roric.”
“Me?”
“Yes, I need someone to get those children to safety in the only place left that is safe for children to grow up; the Valley Lands. There they will have a chance at life and, most importantly, a chance at learning the Creator’s ways and His purposes for their lives. Will you do it, Roric? Will you help me save these children?”
Not wanting to believe her, but not being able to deny the honesty and clarity with which she had shared her story, I asked, “How would I go about doing it?”
Excited, she rose from her chair and appeared much younger for a moment, “The wagons are leaving now that are meant to pick up the children. I want you to intercept them, pick the children up at the farm, and get them safely to the Valley Lands.”
“I’m going to need help to accomplish all that, and this,” I said, raising my chained hands, “might pose a problem.”
“It has all been arranged. I have set up a plan to rescue you from the arena tomorrow; however, the rescue cannot be attempted before the second round of the games. Which means you will have to survive the first round! Can you do that?”
Looking at her wryly, I noted her doubt of my capability for survival and I responded cockily, “I’ll make it to the second round.”
“Good!” she said smiling. “I have no doubt that, with the Creator’s help, you will.”
“What does the first round of the games consist of, by the way?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. They haven’t told anyone. All I know is that it involves animals and that it’s not expected that you will survive past the first round.”
“That sounds like fun. You’re sure no one suspects your ulterior motives concerning these children?” I asked.
I watched a darkness come into her eyes that made me sorry I had asked the question.
“Why should they? After all, I sacrificed my own children on the altar, didn’t I?”
Trying to soften the bitterness I saw in her face I said, “You were forgiven for that, weren’t you?”
She nodded her head, “Yes I was, but I fear that I may never quite be able to fully forgive myself.”
I had one more question, “How soon can I expect pursuit after I pick up the children?”
“A couple of days at the best. Although you may have close pursuit the whole way.”
“You know that your part in all this is likely to be exposed if you stay,” I said.
Giving me an evasive look she said, “I will do whatever
I need to
in order to make sure those children have a chance at a better life.”
Going to a cord hanging on the wall to her right, she pulled it, which would summon the guards. Coming once more to stand before me, she reached a hand up to touch my cheek and said, “Your mother and father would be very proud of you! I’m sorrier than you can ever know for taking them from you!”
The doors opened and as the guards entered I witnessed a transformation occur before my eyes as she spit out, “Get this arena rat back to his hole in the dungeons! I’ve had my fill of him tonight!”
Chuckling, the guards pulled me roughly from the room and back down the hall that we had come across earlier. The party was still going strong, but all I could think of was the cold cell waiting for me, and what awaited me tomorrow in the arena.
Later in my cell, which oddly felt like home to me, I stood holding the bars of the window, reflecting on everything that had happened. If one thing had become clear, it was that I was not in control of anything in my life. I thought I had been, but there was an unmistakable order to the events happening in my life all the same.
Was the Creator really orchestrating my life, or had everything been merely chance and circumstance? Giving up, as I already knew the answer; I sank to my knees onto the cool dirt of the cell and did something I hadn’t done since I was a boy. Something my mother had insisted that I do every night, and even throughout the daytime. I didn’t know where to start. The prayers of my boyhood seemed inadequate to say what I felt needed to be communicated. I decided to talk to my Creator as if He were a friend standing beside me.
“Creator, I’m not sure about where to begin here. I’ve done a lot bad things, for which I’m very sorry! Things I had to do to survive. At least that’s what I tell myself. Well, anyway, here I am with a chance to do something noble with my life. As You know, I’ve been trying to turn my life around and the path I've felt you leading me down has led me here. I have a chance to do something meaningful; a chance to save these children the priestess has rescued. It's something I know my father would have done if he were alive and able to do so. I guess what I’m saying is, that even though I don’t deserve Your consideration, I’d really appreciate your help in staying alive in the arena tomorrow so that I can help those children get to a safe place. I guess that pretty much says it all. Oh, one more thing, be with Larc tonight and help him stay strong and help me get him to safety, too.”
I felt a tingling sense of peace descend upon me as I prayed for the others, which calmed my spirit about tomorrow’s troubles.
As an afterthought I added, “Thank you for the time I did have with my mother. She tried to teach me about You, but I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention. I regret that! If You would consider teaching me about Yourself again in some way I would really appreciate it!”
The night air was still and quiet. No answer. Remembering my mother, I thought of how some of her prayers weren’t answered right away either. She had said that it was up to the Creator, if He chose to do what was asked of Him, but the important thing when waiting for an answer was to be faithful and keep praying. Maybe an answer would come in the morning, hopefully in time for my date with the arena. I wasn’t nearly as confident of surviving the first round as I had led Treorna to believe that I was. Moving over to the cell wall I leaned up against it, as I had many times in the past, and went to sleep almost instantly.
A Warrior's Redemption Page 8
