Setsassanar gestured and Wodan looked down at his wrist. It was whole once again. Wodan flexed his hand and felt the ache of flowing blood.
“You say that you know me,” said Wodan. “That’s hard to believe. Have you even been to my land? The nation I created – that’s who I am.”
“Rabble!” said Setsassanar, brushing the idea aside with a wave of his hand. “Poor brutes who hide from the blazing sun in the shade cast by you, Wodan. You dream of a world where demons are hunted down and exterminated by men and women worthy of standing at your side, but can you really say that these Valliers would do anything more than flee when they see the horizon split by waves of shrieking monsters? Not that we should blame them, Wodan. They’re children. We are not.”
“You would teach me things,” said Wodan.
“I would. I would give you what you need to recognize, and fulfill, your secret ambitions.”
“And Dove?”
Setsassanar shook his head once again. “Everyone you have associated with so far has been a result of making do with what’s available. You’ve built an identity around accidental relationships.” Setsassanar leaned forward slightly. “Time for the mask to slip free.”
Wodan looked at the strange robots around the throne. Setsassanar seemed to be waiting for a signal, his violet eyes glowing in the blood-light. Wodan wondered if that ancient being was torn between the excitement of finding someone who could break the monotony of endless years, and the old habit of needing nothing but mechanical servants. None of this felt strange to Wodan. He cast his gaze downward, overwhelmed by the feeling that he had encountered someone, finally, who could see into him - and could demand only that he exist as himself.
The Master of the Tower, Setsassanar the Ancient, sat back in his seat. His patience was at an end. “Wodan!” he said. “The time for games has passed. Will you abandon your lands and your friends and follow me and learn my teachings?”
Wodan felt his heart beating like a drum, signaling the death of something inside of himself. Veins throbbed in his temple. He could feel the pulse of something new. Wodan approached the throne, then knelt before it.
“Yes,” said Wodan. “I will.”
“Yes, what?”
You knew you couldn’t beat the demons on your own, Wodan thought. You always knew.
“Yes… Master.”
As soon as the words left Wodan’s mouth, images flickered along the black walls. From many angles Wodan saw Dove Langley crouching over the pillows of her prison, saw her watching images of Wodan standing before the throne, kneeling, declaring fealty to this wasteland god. “No!” he heard her shout. “No, Wodan, no!”
Wodan tried to avert his eyes, but could not. Her eyes were wet with tears. He saw his new master, Setsassanar, smile cruelly. The ancient creature laughed quietly, and both of them knew that the pain of the disciple Wodan had only just begun.
Part Three
The Slave
Chapter Sixteen
Entertainer Interlude
On the fourth day in Srila, Jarl the Entertainer went to the Temple of the Summons. He felt eyes on him as he climbed the long gray steps. He had tried to avoid just such a situation by leaving his shiny brass buckles for his belt and boots back at the camp, but apparently his long cape, tall pointed hat, brilliant red scarf, and twisted staff of oak were enough to make him stand out. The orange robes at the gate nodded silently and a young monk, little more than a toddler, led him within. The boy waited patiently as he paused to gape at the winding halls of stone and columns that ascended into darkness.
Finally they came to the office of the High Priest, with its long rows of new and ancient texts. Immediately he was taken by a memory of when he was first allowed within the inner circles of the Entertainers – a basement in Pontius filled with books and cared for by a few men and women who had sworn that they would face starvation rather than sell even a single book for pulp. After living in the Valley he had seen many such libraries, but the knowledge that all this could be lost so easily never left him. Would the demons someday gather in this land and turn this library into a tomb? Would ancient culture be replaced with guttural howls, then silence? But even if not demons, what if…
Jarl looked about and saw that he was alone. “Boy!” he called.
Silently the boy returned from the hall.
“Boy, what will happen to these records when the soldiers come into the Temple?”
The boy looked at him quizzically.
“Shouldn’t they be hidden?” said Jarl. “Aren’t you afraid that… well…”
“Can’t you see?” said the boy. “The books are already burning.”
After a moment, Jarl nodded.
“I forgot,” said the boy. “Down the hall – that way – there is a window over a private garden far below. You can use the window for a bathroom.”
“Thank you,” said Jarl, nodding again.
With practiced discipline Jarl ignored the need to pore over unknown documents and instead gathered a collection of copies of the Leather Book, also called the Book of the Red, so that he could find what he hoped were early, unedited version of the Book of Job, also called Suffering.
Jarl was well acquainted with the story. It appeared as a strange aside within the larger pseudo-historical mythological account in the Book of the Red, but the Entertainers believed that the Book of Job was far older than the other tales. As far as they were concerned, it was one of the oldest recorded stories in all the world, and was far older than the Ancients themselves.
According to the tale, an older man, Job, had a large family, great wealth, and prestige. He was also incredibly pious. (Jarl noted with some interest that the being called Ghost throughout much of the Leather Book was referred to as the Lord, or simply God, in the Book of Job.) Job was so pious that the Lord held him up as an example to his angels. How could he not repay his servant with wealth and good fortune? But one of his angels, the Accuser, asked the immortal question: “Does Job serve for nothing?”
The question is a challenge, and so the Lord gives the Accuser permission to destroy Job’s life in order to test his nature. Fire rains down on his livestock, killing his livelihood. When his family gathers to discuss the matter, a storm knocks the tent over and kills them all. After every affliction Job continues his rituals and says only, “It is the Lord’s will. Thanks be to God.”
Sickness and infection ravages Job’s body. The community shuns Job and casts him out. Alone, in anguish, Job despairs and slices his own flesh with shards of broken pottery.
Several of Job’s friends come to counsel him. The old men cry together, then the friends turn on him with harsh counsel. They reason that Job must have sinned in order to bring such disaster. Job is adamant that he is without blame, and in many poetic passages he describes all the horror that has been done to him without reason. The friends continue on, describing their God as a god of justice. They say that the universe is upheld by a rational karmic economy in which evil is repaid with evil and good is repaid with good. If the Lord is not just, they reason, then the world is uninhabitable by human beings. But Job will not back down from his position that he is blameless, and that if he could, he would bring his claims before God Himself.
Near the end of the tale, God comes down in a great wind. With the voice of the storm the Lord confronts Job, saying, “Who are you to judge Me?” The Lord doesn’t speak of justice, or right, or wrong, but about the wonders of nature, of all the mysteries of the workings of the creation of which Job is only a small part. Can Job count the grains of sand? Can Job open up the frigid storehouses of snow? Can Job plumb the depths of the sea, or pluck the stars from the sky? If not, then he should lay aside his belief in righteousness, especially his own, and accept that the world does not turn about his Throne of Troubles. Justice, as conceived by man, does not exist. In the end, Job has even the comfort of his own delusions taken from him. Utterly broken, he repents that he ever questioned the Lord his God.
Jarl ignored the tacked-on ending in which Job is suddenly granted more wealth and a more attractive family; no doubt it was added due to the largely inexplicable nature of the story. Like the world itself, it was without morals. It was a poem about senseless, endless suffering, and good and evil could only be appended by man after the fact.
Like a man in a daze, Job wandered to the distant window in order to relieve himself. He considered that the main reason he had been drawn to the Book of Job was its description of two mythical beasts. As God lays out the grand workings of nature, he mentions Behemoth, a legendary beast that roamed the land, and Leviathan, a terrifying creature that ruled the sea. They were mythical representations of creation and her inexplicable nature of which Job, and all his troubles, were only a minor manifestation. Jarl was shocked that several older copies of the Book of the Red went to great pains to “reveal” the true identities of the Behemoth and Leviathan, as if cataloging an animal that could easily be driven to extinction was somehow more important than grappling with the nature of reality as presented by myth. But that was typical of most men, who avoided the terror of the grand mystery they were born into by labeling and categorizing the minor things they encountered.
As Jarl leaned out from the window and pissed into the narrow, shaded garden, he knew that he was utterly disappointed. He had been hoping that the third mythical beast, the emblem of his order, would be included in at least one of the copies of the Book of Job. It was not. Just as his kind had been forced to live in the shadows and the depths, so too had the third and secret mythical beast been edited out from that most ancient record of suffering.
Then an idea struck him. A new area of research presented itself.
***
That same day, Zachariah found Jarl eating voraciously over an old woman’s large bin of soup. Before Zachariah could get a word in, the Entertainer began talking his ear off about suffering and the need to rub a magical animal on one’s self in order to alleviate suffering, or something to that nature. Before he could ask for clarification, Jarl dashed off as if in flight from Vallier Enforcers.
Loneliness struck Zachariah. Naarwulf and Yarek were hopeless, both being mindless simpletons, and even Magog was good for little once various artistic techniques were discussed, which could be done within one half-hour. Of course Haginar was nowhere to be found. And with Wodan gone, Jarl was the only close companion that he could talk to. But Zachariah felt a deep dread about investigating the Temple of the Summons, as if meeting Globulus by accident would bring about a series of events that would result in his forced ejection from Srila and thus an end to any further exploration.
He knew that he would have to wander the village, but so far he had met only mindless devotees of simple philosophies and groundless, quarrelsome religions. The wonder of it all wore off quickly. Zachariah decided that he would need a nap in order to strengthen himself for what could be a dreary, lonely search.
Zachariah was shaken from his bedroll by Jarl.
“Good!” said Zachariah. “I was hoping we could talk about-”
“No time for that!” said Jarl. “Listen! I’ve been reading about the Redeemer. Did you know-”
“Yes, yes,” said Zachariah, rising, already bored. “The miracles, the cross, the nails, I’ve heard it before.”
Jarl shook his head violently. “Zachariah, there is an astounding number of different versions of that very story in the Temple’s library!” He paused, waiting for some sort of realization to knock him over.
“Of course there are,” said Zachariah. “It’s a large, old library. Probably has records from all sorts of sects. We had half a dozen sects in Hargis, feuding constantly. So what’s-”
“But Zachariah, many of the differing accounts in the library are new. Not old, man, new. And I could almost swear that many of them seem to take place in this very land!”
Zachariah sighed. “Have you not seen all the black robes wandering around here? What do you think they do with all their time? I’m sure they make new copies and variations all the time.”
“Do they? Do they, Zach? Do they strike you as the creative type?” Jarl suddenly seized Zachariah by his shirt. “What if those accounts, each so different, each seemingly taking place in this holy land, but each one beginning with a virgin birth and ending in a violent execution, are pointing to some kind of repeating, ritualized event that happens here, in Srila?”
Jarl was shouting by the end of his tirade. Zachariah put his hands around Jarl’s wrists, saying, “Aren’t you the one who’s always moaning about people mistaking myth for literal history?”
“Zachariah!” someone shouted. Turning, they saw Naarwulf approaching, his chest puffed out as if anticipating violence. “Zachariah, what are you doing to Jarl? You leave that man alone! I’ll have none of your craziness out here in public!”
“But I didn’t-”
Jarl released Zachariah and jogged back toward the Temple of the Summons. Before Zachariah could explain himself to Naarwulf, the old dogman waved his hand and turned away, satisfied that the matter was over.
Fool! thought Zachariah. Does he think I’m going to sharpen my teeth on idiotic Entertainers before I attack his precious High Priest?
With his nap ruined, Zachariah wandered into the village.
***
Ktari soldiers stood like rain-soaked statues at every corner, glaring with dull eyes. The doors and windows of every house seemed to be shut. He began to wonder if the military had made some kind of draconian declaration. He cast the theory out when he remembered that he had seen plenty of villagers freely moving about at the foot of the steps leading to the Temple. Eventually he heard a commotion at the far end of the village.
He came to a large open area filled with people shouting at one another. Dozens of San Ktari soldiers crouched atop thatched rooftops, watching but making no move to interfere. Rather than force his way through the crowd, Zachariah climbed atop a cart filled with cucumbers. Across a sea of heads, he saw that the center of the square was dominated by a large fountain, which had run dry perhaps years ago and was decorated with ancient, faceless statues. The fountain was being used like a stage by wild-looking, almost primitive people shouting and preaching. His curiosity quickly waned when he realized that all the commotion was merely another religious squabble in a land defined by the noise of religion, but then he saw that several groups of black robes were watching from the periphery. Their expressions were bloodless and sour. It was clear to him that they were thinking of violence. Seeing a path through the crowd, he stepped over the mound of cucumbers and climbed down from the cart.
Different preachers from the same group shouted different things at the crowd.
“They’ve taken your temple!” shouted one preacher, a man with a beard as wiry as a bird’s nest. “You feed them, and in return they circumcise your little boys!”
“Why live under the shadow of that temple, that old tomb?” shouted another preacher, a woman wearing necklaces filled with herbs, bones, and rocks. “Your visionaries are a joke to them! They’ll never acknowledge you or discuss your visions. The only vision they see is their own!”
“Ever wonder how the black robes can get along with the orange robes?” said another. “When all you want is control, it’s easy to get along with someone who never challenges you!”
Still another preacher, who looked more like a wild-eyed barbarian than a monk, shouted, “Why does the High Priest hold the leash of the Cognati when foreign soldiers are here? You think those soldiers aren’t scouting for your boys? Or worse, for your girls?!”
As Zachariah passed through the crowd, a man with wispy hair shouted at the preachers, “What of the Redeemer’s laws? The Temple keeps them! And our history! The High Priest and the Temple keep them safe!”
“Temple of the Summons?” said Zachariah, making sure the man saw his look of scorn as he passed by. “What do they summon besides your tithe money?”
Strong fingers grabbed his arm. He turned an
d saw a beautiful woman with blond hair, pale lips, and intense eyes that ripped away his mask of scorn. He could tell, by her pale green and white dress and the flowers in her hair, that she was one of the strange preachers. He had not expected to meet any of them walking in the crowd.
The woman glanced at the wispy-haired man. “The Temple of the Summons is a shadow cast by a form. The form is the idea of control. All recorded history is a fabrication. Accept that, and you’ll lose a burden you never knew you carried.”
As soon as her eyes returned to Zachariah, he thought of High Priest Globulus. Her words made him consider how his journey had been ruined by the idea that he had to do something to Globulus, either confront him or kill him, based on hearsay he had heard in Hargis and carried with him for all these years.
“You’re right,” Zachariah said quietly. He nodded to the preachers on the fountain. “These people… they’re your family?”
The woman smiled. “Even the idea of family is just another ploy for control. Leave yours and come with us.”
Zachariah choked. Several thoughts pulled him in different directions. He removed the woman’s hand from his arm, then looked about guiltily, thinking that somehow Haginar would see him interacting with the woman. Similar things had happened on other occasions.
“Who are you?” he finally said.
“We’re from the Deepest Vale. We’ve come to spread the word.”
“Word of what?”
“That the son of God has come to the world.”
The noise of the crowd seemed to recede in the distance. Zachariah was overwhelmed by the woman’s quiet force of character. Again he looked to make sure Haginar was not watching.
“I’m Yardalen,” she said. “In a few days we’ll return to the Deepest Vale. Why don’t you leave everything and come with us?”
[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants Page 25
