The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  “The officer at City Hall told me that you took off on foot, so I got concerned,” Hoffman says as he extends his hand to K. “You are one crazy devil, you know that? I figured you might have collapsed along the way, so I hurried out to find you.”

  K leans his head on Hoffman’s rather large back.

  “Sorry for all the trouble, but I didn’t have any money to buy a horse.”

  Not a prayer of a chance that K will tell Hoffman his real reasons, that he will tell Hoffman about losing his virginity at Clara Hall. That is for K alone to know.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Hoffman says with the hint of a chuckle. “I could have easily lent you some. Oh, by the way, Serena asked me to say hi to you for her. She seems to have taken a liking to you.”

  Serena. The woman at that wine bar. Hoffman makes no attempt to hide the fact that he spent the night with her.

  “So what happened to you out here?”

  “Nothing special, really.”

  “Sure . . .”

  Did Hoffman swallow his story?

  “You know, when I was your age, I had already bedded quite a few women.”

  Hoffman regales K with the stories of all the women he has slept with. Make no mistake, he has not been living his life in accordance with the commandments of the Papal Court. Is it disgust that K feels toward him? Or admiration?

  The setting of the sun in this desert wasteland mounts a sublime display for them. The massive fireball of the sun slowly descends behind the horizon. Shrouded in a deep-red glow, the monastery and the rocky crag it stands on extend a shadow all the way to the ends of the still blue-tinged eastern horizon. On the western horizon, the sky is set ablaze like a forest fire. Little by little, the colors deepen, from orange to crimson, until the darkness blankets it all.

  Hoffman spurs on his horse to speed off on the road toward the Holy Igitur Monastery.

  Total darkness has fallen by the time they arrive at their destination.

  Upon their arrival at the foot of the crag, a large old man wearing a black hood over his head emerges from the stables that stand underneath the rocky canopy of the crag. The horse’s bridle passes from Hoffman to the old man.

  “So, good man, how do we get up there, exactly?”

  Hoffman hands over a few coins to the old man. But the old stable hand must be mute, as his only response is to gesture toward a precipice on one corner of the crag.

  Hoffman nods.

  “This way,” he says to K.

  Approaching the cliff face under the cover of darkness, all they find is a single rope dangling from above them.

  Hoffman gives the rope a tug. That must be the signal, for as soon as he does so, a lift cage descends from the top. Only one person can ride at a time, so Hoffman goes on first. After another tug of the rope, the cage hoists up, creaking its way to the summit.

  Now, it is K’s turn. K flinches when he steps into the total darkness. Unable to see anything, it is not the ascent to such a great height that perturbs him. No, his fear comes from being left all alone in the darkness. Is it because of his encounter with that strange, ghostly hand earlier? Is it because he wonders whether that blood-spattered hand will again appear before him in this darkness?

  3

  And so it begins. K and all the other students embark on a life of meditation sequestered from the outside world. Some thirty-odd students have gathered at the Holy Igitur Monastery. Not all who have completed the Sacred Service Examination are here though. Those already inducted into the clergy are exempt from this prescribed six-month period of training. The Law of Five Galaxies and Sacred Knowledge permits only properly licensed clerics to practice research on any of the Holy Disciplines. Obtaining such a license in accordance with papal edicts is the objective of this period of theological training for K and the others.

  K’s life at the monastery begins the day after his arrival. As much as it involves a strictly regimented routine, little of it involves any kind of academic work at all. After all, everyone here already counts among the intellectual elite of the Holy Empire of Igitur, so any further academic training would only be superfluous. Certainly, with the likes of Abir, who already teaches at a regional university, not to mention all the others who have also successfully completed the Sacred Service Exam, there is some basis for this thinking.

  Still, K finds it all immensely disappointing. Whether you call it a lofty intellectual ambition or a strong sense of passion for research, the desire to learn is what K came here to satisfy, not long hours of meditation and repetitive prayers alongside all these older men. It isn’t supposed to be such an excruciatingly dull affair.

  But K’s luck has not run out just yet. Because they are the only two assigned to the Planet Bosch Research Center, he ends up sharing a room with Abir. So, he takes advantage of his good fortune by asking the old art professor if he would be willing to tutor him.

  At first, the old professor is taken aback.

  “You passed the exam just the same as I did. What could I possibly teach you that you don’t already know?”

  But once Abir realizes the earnest nature of K’s request, he accedes to his wishes.

  The first thing Abir teaches K is the ancient language of The North. As the center of Twilight Era civilization was located in the Northern Hemisphere in days long ago, learning the language is essential, an invaluable piece of foundational knowledge that K will need. K demonstrates exceptional powers of memory in these lessons, making quick progress that renders Abir speechless.

  Alongside these language lessons, Abir also provides instruction in his particular area of specialization, the art of the Twilight Era. K always hangs on to every word Abir says, to the point that anyone watching the two during these times might think that they’re related, that they’re an old man with his grandson. Abir speaks with an air of casualness, making his lectures seem more like bedtime stories. And there are plenty of stories to tell.

  Only one thing causes Abir to go tight lipped on his student, and oddly, it is precisely the most important matter at hand, namely, Planet Bosch. Sheer dread overcomes Abir every time K brings up the subject, repeatedly making Abir lose his usual calm composure.

  Hoffman, however, has a thoroughly different experience of life in the monastery. He quickly becomes the ringleader of the younger students, with his room becoming the place to hang out. There, students vent their frustrations at the monotony of their lives at the monastery, which always begins at sunrise and ends at sunset, but without a single clock to tell time precisely. At some point, his room is christened “Hoffman’s Bar,” a name that comes about from his access to contraband prohibited within the premises, specifically narcotics and alcohol. K later learns that Hoffman has bribed the man taking care of their horses at the base of the crag to procure and deliver the goods to him in secret.

  When one time Hoffman asks K to receive the delivery at the gates, he teaches him the signal. First, tug on the rope of the lift three times. Then pause. Then another two tugs. The same signal will come back from below. Only then should he hoist the lift to the top to retrieve the contraband.

  Late one night, past the scheduled lights-out, howling laughter gushes out of Hoffman’s room. The next day, he is promptly summoned into the rector’s office. All he receives is a warning though. Surely, the staff at the monastery are perfectly aware of Hoffman’s violations of the regulations. Still, he does not receive any further punishments.

  “Perks of having a big shot at the Papal Court for a dad,” Hoffman explains.

  Clearly, the staff overlook what they consider minor violations of the regulations, if only to be able to manage all these young and vigorous students day after day. Hoffman himself must recognize this, making sure to never cross any lines that would actually get them disciplined.

  Being the youngest student there, K too sometimes visits Hoffman’s Bar. But whenever he does so, he lingers in the corners without saying a word to anyone. All anyone talks about are girls, with Hoffman
repeatedly regaling everyone with lively stories of his many sexual conquests. The wealth of Hoffman’s experience always astounds K. Of course, listening to these stories always brings a tinge of regret, as he wonders if this will lead to the gradual corruption of his soul, perhaps even turning him into a man like the heretic Darko Dachilko.

  For troubled souls, the appropriate place to seek penitence is the central chapel in the white tower, where they meditate all afternoon every single day. According to Abir, the design of the chapel is based on the Byzantine architecture of the Twilight Era, which emphasizes the idea of a revival of the microcosmos. At the time it was built eight hundred years ago during the reign of Pope Micros I, this was the fashionable choice of style.

  Abir tells K that architecture is often a reflection of the intellectual climate of a given time.

  “The reign of Micros I is known as a time when humanity longed to advance into space. The two-hundred-year war between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres had just ended in the year 182 of the Sacred Era, drawing the boundary between the two worlds. It’s important to remember that the origins of this conflict can be traced back to a dispute about who had the right to lead an advance into outer space. The war erupted out of the two hemispheres’ scramble to acquire colonial territories in outer space.”

  “I see,” K says. “So, I know that by treaty, the Holy Empire’s domain goes as far as one thousand light-years. But is this also the reason why missionaries only travel to stars in the Southern Hemisphere?”

  “That’s correct, K. This dream of advancing into space is also an important context for the promulgation of the Law of Five Galaxies and Sacred Knowledge in the year 223.”

  And so began a time when the idea of a “Millennium of Prosperity” spread across the entirety of the Holy Empire, first articulated by a small group of scholars, before being promulgated as official doctrine.

  Abir’s face takes on a grave look.

  “I do believe that this was a glorious period in the history of the Holy Empire. But our Millennium of Prosperity will soon end in five years. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about how little we have left in this world.”

  Abir’s words are certainly melodramatic. Or so K thinks.

  The discovery of the Field Theory of Hyperspace Navigation came about less than a century after the death of Micros I. Finally, the Holy Empire’s dream of advancing into space could be realized. The glory of the Holy Empire could now spread far and wide across star systems several hundred light-years away. What made this possible was the development of the Karnak propulsion system, a revolutionary engine design that opened the possibility of ethereal navigation, thus providing the means for the first wave of massive space colonization vessels to travel vast distances at much faster speeds.

  Among his cohort of students, K may very well possess the most knowledge of this history of the Holy Empire. This is why he finds every bit of Abir’s lectures so fascinating. And now here they are, at a time when the yearning for outer space and for space interweaves with mythology, going so far as to serve as the inspiration for the architecture of the chapel within the monastery’s white tower.

  The domed ceiling of the chapel makes these connections visibly apparent. While the specific workings of the mechanism elude K, through the clever use of some kind of optical illusion, the normal deep-blue glow of the domed ceiling can be made to display the night sky, showing the constellations that constitute all the interstellar territories of the Holy Empire of Igitur in the southern half of the sky. As they move, they provide onlookers with an elegant theater of the stars.

  Seating himself in the silent chapel and casting his gaze upon the scattered glittering of stars in the heavens always purifies K’s spirit. There was no way around it. Seeing all these stars lets you grasp the smallness of your own existence, allowing your material body to fade away until you become a being of pure consciousness. It opens the eyes to the utter truth of astral projection as laid out in the Southern Scriptures, when the soul splits off from its physical body.

  4

  Three months into their isolated lives in that crag in the middle of nowhere, a series of uncanny occurrences, a series of ghostly encounters, create ripples of unease over the monotony of the students’ daily lives. The first to appear is that ghostly hand K has already seen. Then a torso. And a leg. No one recalls who first reported seeing these ghosts. However, it does not take long for one, then another, until ten, then fifteen people all claim to have seen the ghost, giving these sightings an air of credibility. Yet not a single one of them panics or starts a commotion. These are the intellectual elites of the Holy Empire, after all. Such responses are not acceptable. No, they instead attempt to formulate a theory to explain these ghostly appearances.

  When they gather to debate a range of opinions about the identity of the ghost, the most cogent and persuasive explanation that emerges comes from a young man named Mullin. K gathers that quite a few people consider this Mullin a genius. Not only did he score the top marks among those who passed the Sacred Examination, he also studies the field of Divine Incarnation. Rumor has it that he possesses the talent and caliber to eventually be elected pope in the future.

  Mullin believes that these five ghostly limbs, including the floating hand that K first encountered, are none other than manifestations of Darko Dachilko.

  Not a single person in the empire still needs to be told the story of the heretic Darko Dachilko. While his trial for the crime of heresy happened almost seven centuries ago in the year 313 of the Sacred Era, even now few can forget this momentous historical event. Of all the events, discoveries, and developments that have taken place during the Millennium of Prosperity of the Holy Empire of Igitur, none is more shocking than this execution.

  Having just risen from the ashes of a two-hundred-year civil war, the Holy Empire was on the cusp of beginning anew an unprecedented era of glory. The world of theology was in full bloom, generating various theological debates and discussions. Of these debates, one that split the members of the Papal Court was the question of the divine incarnation of The Holy Igitur, a debate revolving around the question of whether The Holy Igitur was indeed a divine incarnation or merely a prophet.

  Darko Dachilko vigorously participated in these debates, taking on all manner of thorny theological issues. Mirroring an old controversy concerning the doctrine of Trinitarianism during the Twilight Era from days of long ago, in the end these debates eventually resolved in the enshrinement of a doctrine of Quadritarianism consisting of God, the Holy Spirit, Christ, and Igitur. However, Darko Dachilko rejected the idea of The Holy Igitur’s otherworldly divinity, insisting instead that he was a material being, an embodiment of the concept of the Übermensch. This led to his expulsion from the Papal Court and his forbiddance from further theological practice.

  Thus branded an apostate, Darko Dachilko ended up leaving his post. This, however, did not stop those who admired his genius from continuing to follow his teachings. They remained in great numbers, transforming the man’s teachings into a countervailing theology in opposition to the Papal Court and its orthodox theology. So influential did he become that his disciples even regarded him as the second coming of Christ, in effect elevating him to the status of a divine incarnation. Because his influence refused to wane, the Papal Court increasingly regarded him as an alarming challenge to their authority. They had no other recourse but to put him on trial for the crime of heresy.

  A slight smile forms on Mullin’s elegant face.

  “Just between all of us here, there were those who believed that Darko Dachilko was a time traveler of some kind,” he whispers. “We can talk about this now, but back then even the mere mention of time travel could bring down the powers of the inquisition upon you. It seems to me that not even the Papal Court could categorically deny that he was a time traveler, hence the brutal crackdown.”

  Mullin then reveals a secret long held by the Papal Court.

  “Not many people know this, but it
was actually none other than Darko Dachilko himself who first developed the Field Theory of Hyperspace Navigation.”

  Shock is the only reaction K can muster at hearing this fact. It all makes sense though. Every single textbook in the Holy Empire teaches that no one knows who discovered this theory of hyperspace. But if it were indeed the case that the famous heretic made this discovery, then maybe there is some truth to the idea that Darko Dachilko is capable of traveling through time. As Mullin tells it, Darko Dachilko possessed a truly keen mind capable of authoring scores upon scores of books during his lifetime. Of course the Papal Court suppressed his work in the wake of his trial, so it’s almost impossible to get hold of them now. Some volumes, however, still remain in the archives of the Papal Court.

  Mullin continues.

  “Actually, one time, I snuck a peek at one of his books in the library. When I read his essay “On Hedonistic Nature,” what immediately struck me was just how different it was from the official accounts known to the general public. I was quite surprised, to be honest.”

  It was precisely this work, “On Hedonistic Nature,” that brought Darko Dachilko to the attention of the inquisition, eventually leading to his trial and execution.

  “Accusations of moral obscenity have always been a weapon of last resort for those who seek to destroy their intellectual opponents,” someone blurts out.

  Hoffman, who is also present at their meeting, says something in turn.

  “Precisely! There’s no way they can convince me that he was just some corrupt hedonist!”

  “Hoffman? What are you saying?” K whispers to him.

  “Hey, man, don’t get me wrong,” Hoffman says. “All I’m saying is that I think issues of morals often stand in the way of getting to the truth.”

  “If you say so.”

  Hoffman’s explanation makes some sense. Still, it’s far too reckless to be openly making such statements. Rumor has it that even now those who follow Darko Dachilko’s heresies are among them, forming secret societies organized around his ideas. Could Hoffman be a member of one such secret society? That is the question in K’s inquisitive mind.