The Temple of Truth’s vast iron doors parted for him. He breathed in its heady incense. Felt it slip through the chinks in his soul’s armor. He felt it carry the power of confession. Possessing the key that unlocked inside him an all-consuming abyss. He knew he could lie to her no longer.
He gripped her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. He concentrated as he felt her heart thundering. His mind traveled along a psychic plane. There, he crossed a bridge to her mind. He beckoned her mind to join with his. His eyes narrowed and he let her catch a glimpse in a light at the end of a tunnel to her terrible fate.
She struggled to free herself from his grasp.
“Why?” she cried.
He could not answer. “I am sorry for this,” he said. “But I must ask you for the ultimate sacrifice.”
A wind brought hot embers and flaming dandelion seedlings whipping his eyes. He caught her gaze and held it like a dandelion flower’s precious seedling head swaying in a gentle breeze. Moments before the reaping of a cruel wind. With his mesmerizing stare he held her in that state until she slowly yielded to hopelessness.
He turned back to the beckoning darkness of the temple.
The heady scents of burning incense welcomed them to a sanctuary from the hell raining down upon them. He relinquished the last vestiges of doubt that hammered him with guilt. He swept it away and with it, the truth that he would rather take his chances outside than step inside these walls.
Like a lingering seedling in the wind he wondered if all those years ago he had saved Gaia simply for this moment.
He feared above all else the mind probes of the priests. Their cruel reaping of his scattered thoughts. He collected his thoughts and walked tall.
He found the high priest, Sacerdos Enid, kneeling at the altar. Without turning to greet Sol, the priest’s voice echoed around the high vaulted ceiling.
“Your scientists concede failure, Sol Morlok?”
Sol felt the priest’s voice probing his mind. But whatever Sacerdos found there, he sensed the old man would make him say the humiliating words.
“We need more time, Eminence.”
“And so you come crawling back to religion?”
“Failure is forbidden. The burden tears apart the senate High Council,” Sol said. “I come for a sign that what we do is the right thing. Only certainty can give us the strength to succeed. I seek a light to guide us.”
The high priest looked down and stooped over the cowering human, Gaia. He reached out and stroked her wet face.
Sol watched the priest with disgust. To her he must seem almost human with that single gesture of compassion. Were it not for his eyes of a raging storm, consuming her.
“Your scientists mock the ways of the House of Maleficus,” the priest said.
Sol said nothing. What is the point of denying a truth to a creature that can see all my secrets?
“You have made a wasted trip,” the priest said.
Sol felt the news like a dagger to his heart. Even as our world crumbles, this priest seeks to whittle down my bones for riches and favors. What more than my soul can I give these foul creatures?
“I am forbidden to use Caro Festum,” the priest said, “unless the council sanctions it.”
Finally, he turned to face Sol. Peering out from under a hooded robe with the eyes of Vanguard’s twin suns. One, blood red. The other, ocean blue. Clashing like the storm of legends. The final storm to end all life on Vanguard.
“Does the council sanction Caro Festum?” the priest asked.
Sol knew the old man wanted to see him on his knees begging for help.
“It does not.”
“You command me by presidential decree?”
Sol hesitated. “A presidential request.”
“Why should I defy the laws of Vanguard for you, Sol Morlok?”
Sol could barely contain his anger.
“I care not for science or religion, only the truth.”
The priest looked once again at the human and this time struggled to look away.
Her blood must be singing to him.
Sol sensed she was a temptation too much to bear for the priest.
“Do you understand why the ritual of Caro Festum is forbidden?” the priest asked Sol. “Or is it just a fairy tale? A nursery rhyme to scare children? Am I just a political toy to throw at the masses?”
“I am a believer.”
The storm clouds of eyes raged through Sol’s mind. He felt the priest’s voice fraying his soul.
“I think you need reminding, Sol Morlok. For centuries we Vanguard struggled to purge ourselves of the blood lust,” the priest said...
A vision appeared to Sol. To a time two centuries past. The white marble streets and gleaming towers of Vanguard’s capital. Strewn with the carcasses of other races. Slaves taken from planetary raids. Humans, Lupos, and Ursu. Piled up to the sky. Their throats or necks slit or bearing savage bite marks. The marble stained with bloodlust and shame.
The bodies emptied of blood along crimson streets. The dignity of the once great race that was Vanguard now flowed into the gutters. Its sanity soon followed.
Once the adult slaves were gone, bloodlust sought the slave children. Sol saw the images in his mind of the Senate debate. It was as if he was standing amongst the ancient senators. He could smell the vile stench of their bloodlust.
So it was, that fateful day when madness overcame the proud traditions of self-discipline that the noble Vanguard had cherished. The doomsayers were shouted down. Lust for blood out-voted the cries of compassion. The Vanguard elite sanctioned sacrifice of the human, Lupos and Ursu slave children.
All for the lust of blood and the secrets that flowed within. All for Caro Festum. The Flesh Feast that fed the religion. The madness. Promising the gifts of gods. The false promises that took as much as they gave.
The elite guard of the warrior House Ignis Sanguinem raided the great houses for slave children. Dragging them out on the streets with the war cries of fire blood igniting their senses ablaze.
Caro Festum fractured Vanguard society down the middle. The warrior class of House Ignis Sanguinem sided with the religious cult House of Maleficus and the royal blood line House Regium. All that stood in the way of Caro Festum slaughtering a thousand populated galaxies were Vanguard’s elite strategists of House Nexis and the diplomats of House Von Rha.
Their appeal for sanity split the largest faction, the common House Sanguinem. Sol watched civil war devour their families. Rip apart their culture and their souls.
All houses stood entrenched in their opposing beliefs. Except for the one house that might make a difference. House Mortuus est Sanguis. The banished house of the dead blood.
For months House Mortuus waited on the sidelines. Sol watched as his father and the diplomat Tristan Von Rha pleaded with House Mortuus. Only when both sides of the civil war were on their knees did House Mortuus intervene and force a truce. Their price was dear.
The righteous won the civil war. Sol’s father the senator, led the peace negotiations. But the price was dear. And ever since, House Mortuus ruled the senate council with an iron fist. Never quite trusting. Never quite trusted.
Slowly squeezing the life out of the liberal elite.
That was over two centuries ago... Now, Sol’s presidency felt tainted by the puppets of House Mortuus. Cruel puppets like Chief Justice Meuric. Her tools of extremism kept the populace in line. Tools such as her Colosseum of Death.
Sol cried out with shame and disgust. “Enough.”
The visions ceased and Sol found himself back in the temple nave.
“Once we return down that road,” the priest said, “we become invincible and something else. What precisely?”
“Damned.”
The priest nodded. “So you do understand.”
Sol dropped to his knees and said the words the priest had been waiting for. “Just this once, Sacerdos Enid, I beg you.”
“You do not know of the dangers to what
you ask. It becomes a drug. A craving. It will boil me in a galaxy of despair.”
“I am aware of your sacrifice, priest, as you no doubt are aware of mine.”
Sacerdos pursed his lips together and nodded. “Custom dictates you give up your most cherished. Do you have the strength of conviction?”
Sol Morlok glanced at Gaia and smiled with bitterness. “She will be the first of many.”
Sacerdos Enid threw back his hood. His eyes dilated with lust.
“She must be untainted,” Sacerdos said. “She is compliant, or drugged?”
“Paralyzed with fear,” Sol said.
“Fear is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”
Sol knew he’d ensnared the priest.
Sacerdos glanced into the shadows and another hooded priest appeared at his shoulder. He whispered, “Prepare for Caro Festum.”
He turned back to Sol. “Come.”
Sacerdos lead Sol and Gaia down a wide spiral staircase with high glass walls on either side. It seemed to twist away into subterranean darkness forever. Ocean waves lapped at the other side of the glass. They descended until they were under the ocean.
The beauty of the delicate bio luminescence in blue and green parachutes seemed to transfix Gaia. As these creatures drifted along the other side of the glass in spiraling clusters, she reached out to them. Their tentacles briefly scrapped along the glass. As if pleading to save them, before drifting away into the darkness.
Sol felt Gaia’s empathy for the clustering mass of globular tissue. She tried to compare them with jellyfish on her home world of Earth.
If only she knew what they really were...
The staircase spiraled below the ocean to a marble floor scored deep with the flow of volcanic channels. Flaming torches on stone walls marked the outline of the patterned floor. Sol recognized the pattern signified the twin suns joined by a circular gate to the universe.
In the bowels of the temple, Sacerdos stood before an altar. A vast gold circle hovered in the air. It surrounded a trillion twinkling stars.
It can only be one thing.
“Yes,” Sacerdos said as if reading Sol’s mind. “The Gate of Vanguard is real.”
“A worm hole?”
“In the language of your science, yes. But to the ancients it is a drowning pool.”
“How do you use it?”
“We listen at the gate, and some dare to stare into it,” Sacerdos said. “But without the strength of a blood sacrifice, the mind of the watcher is lost forever.”
“A psychic connection?”
“You might say so.”
“With what?”
“The mysteries of the universe.”
“Forgive me, Eminence, but my scientist’s brain struggles to comprehend your faith.”
“And yet as our race faces the dawn of its destruction, your faith allows you to turn to us?”
“Forgive me, Sacerdos, but I must understand before I can sanction this.”
“Doubt laps at your mind like a sea of volcanic acid, Sol Morlok.”
“When a Vanguard tempts the furies to devour his soul,” Sol said, trying to hold onto his temper, “he needs to know how it will be, so he might endure.”
“The gate separates our universe with a fold in time and space, Sol Morlok. But we think of it as a whirlpool. A place where all things in all times converge. All moments past, present and future are mixed together. To place one’s cupped hands in the pool and drink is to taste truth and madness. We briefly become all things in all places, at all times.”
“You experience Quantum Immersion with the universe?”
“If you say so. Only through the divine ritual of Caro Festum do we acquire the strength of understanding, and yet remain an individual.”
Sacerdos pointed to the shadows. A hundred priests stepped out of the shadows and encircled Sol and Sacerdos. They were illuminated by flaming torches held up to the light of stars shining from inside the Gate of Vanguard.
“Through my connection with the Brethren,” Sacerdos said, “they will hear my thoughts and transcribe them in their communal voice.”
“The Blood Voices?”
“Sanguis Magna, yes.”
Sacerdos offered Sol a blade.
Sol drew his own blade from his sheath and held it up to the Brethren. “Tradition of House Nexis demands I use this one.”
He stepped into the center of the circle, dragging Gaia with him.
“This blade was given to me by my father, Talfryn Morlok of House Nexis,” Sol shouted for all to hear. “This is the blade inscribed with the words of the last priest to commune with the Gate of Vanguard, and learn all its secrets.”
Sacerdos stepped back in horror. “You bring the Priest Slayer into this house of the holy?”
“I bring it to complete a circle of life. One human life to light the way for the race of Vanguard.”
Sacerdos narrowed his eyes and let a crooked smile escape his lips. “Then the honor is yours, Sol Morlok,” he said and pointed at Gaia. “Slay your lover.”
Sol swallowed hard. He held the blade to Gaia’s throat and stared into her pleading eyes.
“Gaia, it has been my honor to accept your friendship, your love and your sacrifice.”
In her eyes he saw she fought against the pacifying hypnosis he had induced in her.
Her lips quivered.
“Please, Sol,” she gasped and looked about her for escape through the wall of bodies surrounding her. “Please don’t do this.”
Sacerdos eagerly held out an empty gold chalice. But Sol couldn’t lose her like this. He cast the blade aside. The stone floor echoed the shameful rebuff of tradition. Sol cared not.
“If you taste her blood, Sol Morlok,” Sacerdos whispered in his ear. “You keep her inside you, alive forever.”
Sol took Gaia’s slender wrists and raised them to his lips. She’d be a part of him forever. A cherished soul. A curse reminding him of the price of truth.
Damnation.
Sol kept his eyes locked with hers as he bit deep into her wrist. Her heart pounded in his ears as the first droplet touched his tongue.
“Yes,” Sacerdos said with a twisted sense of delight, “alive with madness.”
Sol snapped his head back in fear. He grabbed the chalice and collected her blood. Her unblinking eyes seemed to drain of love, until only hatred remained.
When it was full, Sacerdos took the chalice. He knelt before the Gate of Vanguard and drank greedily.
Gaia’s head slumped to the floor. Her blood flowed into the channels along the marble floor. Sol felt his own heart empty.
Sacerdos reached into the swirling pool of blackness and the Brethren began to chant the ancient language of the Vanguard’s religion.
Sacerdos pulled out seven stars.
“The seven will oppose you, Sol Morlok,” the Brethren spoke as one.
“Who are they?” Sol asked.
“Clarity is an art, not a science.”
“I must know.”
“They are from the seven corners of the universe. They are each other’s enemies... and yours.”
“Then I must endeavor to make sure they remain at war with each other.”
Sacerdos cried out in pain, or ecstasy. Sol wasn’t sure if there was a difference anymore. They were the cries of madness.
The seven stars converged above the center of the floor.
“The Gate hears you, Sol Morlok,” the Brethren chanted.
“What does it mean?” Sol asked.
“When the seven stars converge into one then their union is invincible.”
The stars faded and vanished.
“I must know their identities,” Sol shouted.
Sacerdos buckled and twisted in pain. He plunged his hands in the whirling pool once more.
“I am slipping, it takes me,” the Brethren cried out.
Sol grabbed the empty chalice and scooped up Gaia’s blood. He placed the chalice to the priest’s lips.
Sacerdo
s gulped down the blood. He pulled out another star. He threw it into the air and it exploded into a dozen smaller stars. These morphed into the shape of a bear standing proudly. It grew clearer, until he could see its brown fur sticking out between cracks in its black and gold battle armor. But to Sol all Ursu looked the same.
“An Ursu?” Sol asked. “But who?”
“A king who flees his crown,” the Brethren chanted.
The stars formed into a wolf who walked on two legs.
“A Lupos?” Sol asked.
“A spy who knows only the bitterness of betrayal,” the Brethren chanted.
“I need names,” Sol shouted.
Sacerdos cried out in anguish. Sol scooped more blood into the chalice and tipped it down the priest’s throat.
The stars formed into a human male.
“Another spy,” the Brethren chanted. “He shall lead the others by the name of Zen Dax.”
“Lead them to what?” Sol asked.
The stars formed into a human female.
“She is the companion of the Ursu.”
“The bear has a human slave?”
“Not slave,” the Brethren chanted. “Friend. She is Myf.”
The stars formed into a second young human woman.
“She is fifth of seven. She sails to the stars on the cruiser Hermes. She is known as... Bron.”
The stars morphed into the shape of a young human boy. No more than ten years of age.
“Number six... Shall be known as Codi,” the Brethren chanted. “Perhaps the bravest of us all.”
Sol shook his head. “Are you asking me to believe a small human child weakling threatens the entire Vanguard race?”
“I ask of you nothing,” the Brethren chanted. “I speak only what I see can be.”
“Show me number seven.”
Finally, the stars morphed into a Vanguard female.
Sol looked away in horror.
It can’t be true. Not her!
“You are mistaken Sacerdos Enid,” Sol shouted.
“You know her,” the Brethren chanted. “How sweet are her lies to you now?”
“Distortions,” Sol shouted. “You are the one who lies.”
The stars collided and sparks covered the atrium.
Sacerdos collapsed in a pool of Gaia’s blood.
Valiant (Jurassic War Universe Book 1) Page 2
