Drakkor recognized the words of the prophecy. The words swirled into the void of endless stars. Drakkor closed his eyes and raised his face as if drawn to a presence that reached down to take his soul.
When the stone was placed in his hand, he was jolted back into the moment. The stone was the size of an egg but oddly shaped and strangely translucent, like crystal shimmering with a dark light. It was cold as ice but burned his hand.
Drakkor was swept up by the congregation of red-robed men and taken from the domed room. As they left, he glimpsed the scrawny Peddler standing in a fringe of shadow where he’d been allowed to watch. His eyes were wide and red with broken veins. His face was twisted in a grin of greedy anticipation, and his yellowed teeth glinted in the firelight. Drakkor answered the Peddler’s hopeful look with a twitch of a smile. The skeletal scum of a man writhed with delight before a guard took him by the arm and pulled him away.
He believes I will keep our bargain. Fool! When the magic stone touched Drakkor’s hand, he’d sensed a rippling wave of chilling warmth. It lingered and strangely smothered the throbbing pain in his back. With the magic stone in his hand and unimaginable thoughts pounding through his head, whatever promise Drakkor had made was gone. Broken, betrayed, and forgotten. The Peddler of Souls would never have the stone of fire.
CHAPTER 3
“So here be the young fools!” A voice cackled from behind Ashar and Rol.
The boys spun about in surprise. A bedraggled old man was standing near enough to touch—except Ashar was struck with the fleeting notion there was no one there at all.
An apparition from my mind immersed in expectation, my body starved by the cleansing fast, and my muscles fatigued from a fitful night on the hard stones.
He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, the stranger was still there. A scornful laugh rumbled up from the man’s throat.
He wore a billowing dark robe of coarse woven wool with a cowl that extended beyond his face, keeping his eyes in deep shadow. A cast-iron skull hung around his neck on a chain. Sinister and foreboding. Ashar had never seen the symbol before.
The dark arts and sorceries were forbidden by the writings in the Codices of the Navigator, but only the pilgrims of the valley and votaries of the temple kept the laws and followed the Way of the Navigator. Many people had returned to the superstition of the old gods and the conjurings of talisman and magic. In spite of the sanctions against dabbling with such things, postulants found it irresistible to frighten the younger boys by filling their heads with haunting stories about the ancient citadel on which the temple stood.
There were whisperings about the ancient caste of evil priests expelled from the brotherhood for sorcery, who called themselves the Magica. Whether it was true or not, the tale was established folklore in the village. It was an enduring mythology even among the Council of Blessed Sages.
Is this man a magus? A sorcerer? The thought sent a shudder up Ashar’s spine and a snarl of hunger through his empty stomach.
“Who are you?” Ashar asked with more respect than an intruder deserved.
“Whom would you wish me to be on your day of days?”
Solving riddles was a method the masters used to teach postulants the skill of abstract thinking. The bone-chilling timbre of the stranger’s voice petrified Ashar’s ability to think, abstractly or otherwise.
The sorcerer, if that was what he was, had gauze wrapped across his nose and mouth. It was the color of dirty smoke and smudged yellow below his nostrils. Ashar feared the man was infected by the illness of putrid flesh and the flimsy linen was covering his oozing sores.
“Are you”—the words stuck in the back of his throat—“one of the Magica?”
“You know of us?”
Ashar’s mouth was dry even with the pebble in his mouth. He had kept it there since he awoke to keep his tongue moist so he could speak clearly when he stood before the council. Cramps of hunger tightened his stomach.
From beneath the folds of his robes, the old man withdrew a loaf of bread. He held it out to Ashar. Saliva came with the sight of it. He could taste the smell of it, and the thought of sweet dough in his mouth sent a ripple of hunger through his gut.
The magus chuckled kindly. “Eat, eat,” he said. “Have some.” His words were cut short by a scraping cough that caused him to turn away. When neither Ashar or Rol moved, the man shrugged and laid the bread on the stone floor between them. A streak of yellow sun turned the toasted crust to gold.
Rol reached for the loaf.
Ashar caught his wrist. “No! We are still in our period of purification. Our fasting does not end until the inquisition is through and only then if—”
“A bite or two of bread. How can it matter?” the stranger asked, sounding like a kindly parent.
Learning to control his emotions was, for Ashar, the most difficult of all the challenges of self-mastery. His anger toward the stranger started as an iron fist that gripped his gut and twisted it tight. His hunger confused the feeling, but his breathing quickened. He inhaled deeply without realizing his fingers had balled into a fist.
“We are probationers to the Sodality of Priests of Oum’ilah!” he said, straightening his shoulders. “We are in the final time of our preparation. We have looked forward to this day for more than twenty seasons. How can you be here and not know this?”
The stranger nodded. “But I do know. Of course I know. I came here because I know! I’ve seen scores of lads like you caught up in this madness. Many, many foolish boys for many, many seasons beginning before you were born.”
“Then why do you entice us to break our bond? You must leave. It is almost time for the trumpets, and you have broken our meditations. Please. Go! Our time is near.”
“Quite near indeed, Ashar, son of Shalatar, but it makes no difference.”
“You know my name?”
“You have proven yourself worthy. You, and Rol, son of Blynes,” he said, turning to other boy.
How can he know us? The thought loomed large in Ashar’s mind. It frightened him.
“You are the choice ones.” The stranger mocked the expression. “That is what they call you, isn’t it? Choice ones?” Another guttural cluck of disdain came from the face in shadow. “You have been told you must sacrifice and suffer to show your devotion to the imaginary ‘god of the mountain,’ but just because they have persuaded you to believe does not make it so.” He tapped Ashar on the forehead, his slender finger protruding from a woolen wrap covering most of his hand. “Suffer yourselves to endure discomfort no longer,” he soothed. “They’ll be none the wiser if you indulge in a bit of nourishment. You’ll be better for it. The pain will go, and your minds will be more focused for the questions.”
He snagged the leather flagon slung over his shoulder with his thumb and handed it to Rol.
Ashar reached out to stop him, but he was too slow, and Rol sucked gulps of water from the flask like a dying man in the desert.
The stranger watched Rol, then turned away. As he did, a bounce of light reached into the shadows of his hood. Was there a flash of disappointment in the old man’s eyes? Before Ashar could be sure, the light was gone and the shadows returned.
“You ask me why I’ve come.” He moved toward Ashar as if Rol was no longer of interest. It was unnerving, and Ashar backed into the trumeau supporting the archivolt that framed the opening above. A railing was all that kept him from falling into the chasm. He glanced down, and his belly was gripped by iron fingers. Not from the lack of food but from his dread of heights and fear of falling.
“You’ve yet to conquer your fear of the mountain,” the magus said as he brushed past.
Ashar braced himself with one hand against the side of the opening.
“How do you know about me?” Ashar demanded. “Please go and leave us alone!”
“I kno
w everything about you,” the magus whispered, his mouth close to Ashar’s ear. “I know more than what you fear. I know your doubts.” His words rasped like the sound of a skinning knife dragging across dry hide. He was so close Ashar could smell the fusty, mildewed stench of his robes. “You are giving up your life and the pleasures of your body for what?”
Ashar turned to escape, but long fingers caught his arm above the wrist and pulled him back. His first impulse was to twist away, rise to anger and strike back, but the crushing pain of the grip was too much. He felt paralyzed. Under the spell of the sorcerer.
Sorcerer! Ashar tried to focus his thoughts.
“You think you follow a path appointed by the God of gods, but you are a fool.” The heavy cowl kept his face in shadow except for a protrusion of dirty gauze that moved when he spoke.
“It is only a legend,” he chided, the tone sardonic. “The Navigator. Shining stones of light. The finger of God. Life beyond death.” His guttural laugh ridiculed the ideas. “Folktales. Myths. Stories told by old men afraid to die. And for these you are willing to sacrifice the pleasures of life?”
Ashar’s paralysis of fear fled before the storm of his anger. He jerked his arm free and pulled back with doubled fists. “By the will of the God of gods, if you do not depart this place, I swear that—”
“By the God of gods?” the stranger cut him off, his voice dripping with disdain. “You really believe there is such a being as the mythical Oum’ilah, Creator of All Things?”
“I embrace our tradition with all of my being.”
“Hmm.” A sound rumbled from the thick robes, almost approving in tone. “Then no doubt you also treasure the mythology of the so-called stones of light?
“I trust the Codices of the Navigator, which testifies of the miracle of the shining stones of light.”
“What else do you believe, Ashar, son of Shalatar?”
“That there is but one God of gods and Creator of All Things.” Having affirmed the first tenant of the Way of the Navigator, Ashar recited the second canon of the brotherhood. “All that is, has always been and will forever be, and who we are and were before will continue through endless time.” Reciting the dogma that had become the core of his consciousness spiked his courage. His anger flared, and he fought for restraint.
“Your face is vexed and swollen. You stand there, a young fool with your fists curled, but not the slightest skill of combat.”
It was true. The dogma of the order put the well-being of others before self, thus postulants were not trained to fight. Mastery of self demanded discipline of the body as well as the mind.
But Ashar was not without physical prowess. He was remarkably strong in spite of his gangly frame, and it gave him confidence. Adrenaline gave him courage.
The only fighting he had ever done was wrestling with the other boys, but this was the day he’d worked for all his life. This stranger was not going to take that from him. Anger surged ahead of reason. He took an aggressive step toward the man hoping the threat would be enough to drive him away. He clenched his fists and prepared for a fight.
He glanced at Rol, hoping for his help, but his friend was staring at his feet. His shoulders were quaking with heaving sobs.
The magus slipped a dagger from his sash. The handle was carved from an ivory tusk and set with a ring of sapphire stones the color of a hummingbird’s wing.
Ashar realized that until this moment he had never seen a weapon on the mountain before.
The rasping voice brought him back. “Have your masters prepared you to die for what you imagine to be truth?”
A reflection of sun off the blade splashed light on Ashar’s face, making him think of the shining stones. He shook the thought away. “I have sworn the oath of reverence for all living things and to do no harm, but if you do not depart this place, I am prepared to break that oath.” A surge of power coursed through him. He tensed every muscle and prepared for whatever was about to happen.
“And for this God of gods you would sacrifice your honor and yourself and all that you hold precious?”
“Even my life!” Ashar widened his stance without moving his eyes from the blade. “I have warned you.” He had no idea what he would do if the man lunged with the dagger.
“I think, then, I might spare you from breaking your oath.” The voice, still shrouded by the cowl of the man’s heavy robe, was suddenly different. No longer menacing and caustic. The dagger disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The man pushed back the hood and loosened the gauze from his face.
Ashar shied away, not wanting to see oozing wounds of putrid flesh, but there was nothing like that. The face of the man glowed in a streak of the early sunlight pouring in from the east.
“Master Doyan?” Ashar gasped.
Rol groaned in agony and sagged to his knees in despair. The intruder was not a magus or a sorcerer or an enemy of Oum’ilah. Master Doyan was their favorite teacher, their mentor and spiritual guide.
“Well done, Ashar, son of Shalatar,” he said and bowed his head in a show of respect. “The inquisition is over. Your test of faith is ended,” he announced with obvious satisfaction. “It will now be my great honor to present you to the synod. The Council of Blessed Sages is eager to meet you.”
Ended? The inquisition? Ashar could not speak. His mind cascaded backward, trying to untangle reality from perception. “But I thought that . . . Isn’t the inquisition . . . ? You have prepared us over all the years to stand before the learned masters of the blessed council.”
“You need not be so disappointed. You will yet experience humility before the Council of Blessed Sages.” Master Doyan grinned. His teeth were straight in spite of being alive for ninety years. “They expect the recitation of the genealogies, though I confess they do find strange pleasure in intimidating postulants. A bit of a game, I suppose, or perhaps because they are old and impatient, but you go before them having endured the trial that matters most.”
“It is always like this?”
“Always, since the time of First Landing in accordance with the writings of the Navigator. An answer prepared in anticipation of a question already known can never reveal the heart like the choice a person makes when no question has been asked.”
Rol sagged into a corner and put his hands over his face. In giving in to the appetites of his body, he had bungled the most fundamental test of sacrifice and devotion. He had failed.
Master Doyan lifted him up. “You must not punish yourself. Your foot has been placed on a new path. Your life shall be different, but it need not be less. Take all you have learned and use it well. Your path is known to Oum’ilah, and your destiny shall not be less.”
Ashar threw his arms around his friend. They held each other a long time before Rol turned away and ran down the twisting stairs. Ashar watched until his friend disappeared from his sight.
Will I ever see him again?
Ashar left the thought on the south porch of the tower and followed Master Doyan across the hanging causeway to the grand plaza of the temple, his eyes raised to the magnificent edifice beyond.
CHAPTER 4
The shadow of the obelisk touched the vertex of the calendar stone on which it stood. The instrument rose from the center of the outer court where it had marked the flow of time since the ancient city was discovered by the Navigator in annum 7, Age of Kandelaar.
Ashar stood beside Master Doyan and stared at the portal that opened to a long arched hallway. The end of it disappeared in darkness. The time had come. He heard the escorts before he saw them. Their rhythmic chanting echoed from the tunnel in monotonous repetitions and rolled across the courtyard. Four temple virgins adorned in ceremonial vestments emerged from the shadows of the hallway carrying the ensigns of the temple furled on long poles. Their faces covered.
It was hard for Ashar to suppress the flutter of feelings when the escorts beckoned
them forward. He was anxious about standing before the Council of Blessed Sages, but that was not the reason a hundred butterflies took wing in his stomach. It was the fleeting glance of eyes the color of a summer sky and the flutter of long lashes above the gossamer veil. Their eyes connected for less than a moment, but for Ashar it was a delightfully long and lovely conversation.
The girl was fourteen. Celestine. He whispered her name in his mind, and a flush of guilt was added to the flutters. It was only by chance that Ashar knew her by her true name.
Celestine had been given to the temple in the first season of her fifth year. All the temple virgins came as children and served until they were of age to be married. Most returned to their villages, but some remained and continued serving in the ceremonies and other duties at the temple. The most blessed became matrons and stayed until the twilight of their lives, finding their final rest in the tombs on the holy mountain.
The matrons who looked after the temple virgins were like mothers. Worrying about them. Protecting their purity. Keeping the girls away from the postulants when the boys entered the second season of their thirteenth year. That’s when it had happened: the unexpected encounter between the temple virgin and the postulant.
Celestine had gone to fetch water from the fountain flowing from a grotto known as the Tears of God on the east side of the mountain. A stairway of stone, mortared in pulverized rock with lime and sand, descended from the flattened ridge of the main temple compound. It climbed down the twelve terraced steps of the vineyards to where footholds had been hand cut in the face of the rock by someone lost to history.
The Immortal Crown Page 4
