Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity (50 page)

“Isn’t she pretty? Don’t you like her? Don’t you
want
her?”

“You can tell me; no one else will know,” the priestess whispered. “She had long nails and she wanted you in that bedroom with her. Why run?”

The priestess knelt beside him, leaned over, and placed her hand under the sheets. “You went to talk to the mother, but she was there instead. The one with the body, and the long nails. In that room. Alone.” The subject began panic-breathing, the type that usually signaled the onset of an episode. To break him, she had to take him through that scene and learn every hidden morsel. “You’re there now, watching yourself from above. Safe. She promised to keep your secret if you did what you really wanted to all along.” The priestess slid her hand downward until she touched flesh.

At the contact, Tashi shouted, “Not again! You can’t make me!” As he jerked to a sitting position, his forehead accidentally connected with the side of the priestess’s nose with a sickening crunch. Pain and tears blinded her as she collapsed in a sobbing heap. Tashi looked around the smoky, doorless circle for a moment, dazed.

When the priestess overcame the initial shock, she removed the covering over her nose and mouth to check for blood. Finding none, she then groped at her side for a bowl of powerful sedative powder. As soon as Tashi saw her hand move, he instinctively grabbed her wrist. With his left hand, he seized the weapon himself. When she began a great intake of breath to scream for help, he tossed the entire contents of the bowl into her face. He had to hold his own breath and grip her until the coughing and thrashing stopped.

Tashi wiped the toxic residue from his hands, face, and clothing with one of her veils. After a long drink of water, the sheriff searched for a way to escape the room. He’d just used the first few veils to bind and gag the unconscious priestess when the ceiling panel shifted. He flipped the sleeping mat up to protect himself from any potential rain of arrows. No arrows came. The square of sky he could see was gray and overcast.

A voice from an earlier dream said, “I see you didn’t need my help with that little problem. But come along before it gets too late. The other one will be back soon.” A rope ladder dropped and Tashi saw no other option but to climb.

Once on the roof, he marveled at the quality of light that filtered through the clouds. All colors seemed drab or muddy, but anything white like his kalura stood out brightly by contrast. The man beside him seemd to blend in with the dun surroundings; only the whites of his eyes shone through the gloom. His strong legs and stocky build and uniform proclaimed him a Keeper, but he wore no blade. The grim man handed over a neat stack with Tashi’s chainmail shirt, tuning fork, and assorted belongings. The sheriff wasted no time in donning everything. When he was dressed and wore his symbols of office, Tashi said, “You didn’t bring me a weapon.”

The Keeper pointed upward. “You’re a legitimate seeker being kept from the Stair. The gods of this place don’t look kindly on that injustice. It’s my responsibility to set that right. When you see the gods, tell them that Ginza and the Keepers are loyal.”

Tashi nodded. Remembering the previous Door to Eternity, he said, “You could come along and tell them yourself.”

The eyes glared at him. “There can be only one per generation. You know that. This has been the rule since the time of the first Keeper. I must obey that law, for I’m chief among them. My fate isn’t your concern. But I would ask you: did you mean what you said about closing the Temple of Sleep forever?”

Tashi nodded. “I’ll do what I have said.”

Ginza sighed. “Then all is well. Come, the emperor has destroyed too much of the old stairway. I’ll lead you to the new, easier way. The emperor has built a rail system to transport workers, food, and equipment back and forth. If we hurry, we can be taken up in a counterweight car as the workers come down early to avoid the storm.”

As they climbed past the guard post, Tashi saw the body of a dead guard, also a Keeper. The sheriff raised an eyebrow. Ginza didn’t pause. “He was a traitor who worked for the harlot of dreams, not the mountain or the law of the ancients. His death helps clean our people.”

Tashi said, “You knew him, then?”

The Keeper said softly, “My brother. I’d hoped to be wrong.”

They said nothing as they jogged along the narrow, stone path. A smooth, shiny rut had been worn in the center over the years. When they reached the control point, Ginza led them up instead of down to the fortress. On the mountainside above were four metal rails leading up a steep incline. Two of the rails had covered mining carts at their base. Ginza pointed to the nearest, and said, “Climb in.”

The sound stirred someone locked in a small storage shed nearby. Tashi ignored muffled cries for help.

Ginza opened the large cart lid and signaled him over. In the main compartment, the workers had to lay flat on their backs inside. It reminded Tashi of a group coffin. The Keeper then opened a second, smaller door leading to the storage compartment below. “Squeeze into the cargo area. No one will look there. When the voices stop, you may climb out. Time will be short then, so you’ll need to run. The place you want is at the center of the City of the Gods. It’s a stairway that ascends several cubits into the air without any visible means of support.”

Tashi nodded, rubbing the special coin in his pocket. “I’ll find it.”

Ginza grew quiet, unsure what to say. “No one has succeeded at your quest in a very long time, even before the Silence. It’s likely you’ll die.”

“The laws of chance and probability bend like trees in the winds of destiny. I feel a debt to you that I cannot repay. Could you not at least come with me to the place of offering?”

Ginza swallowed. “Someone must work the machinery and silence the workers returning, at least long enough for Nightfall to decide matters one way or the other. If you do all you say, it’ll be enough for me.”

Tashi bowed to him again before crawling into the cramped cargo area. Ginza said no more, but closed him into the wooden box. Within minutes, the wheels were turning. Tashi was moving upward in darkness.

Jotham the Tenor and Brent, his twelve-year-old apprentice, drifted down the widening river that ran toward the Inner Sea. Days later, they docked at a humble port called the Land Between Two Rivers by the original settlers and la
ter shortened to Turiv. The low, sprawling city wrapped around them on three sides, and the wide, misty expanse of the Inner Sea stretched ahead. The tell-tale, dark ribbon of the Emperor’s Road was visible on both shores. The green- and black-swathed slopes of the Lone Mountain towered over them to the north.

The boatman let them off at the docks on the west bank so they’d be outside Semenosian territory and bade them a hasty farewell. Since most of the watercraft in the area had been taken over by the military, a multitude of stranded passengers and loads of cargo were now crowded on the docks. People were willing to pay outrageous sums to be carried on the river, and the boatman was eager to collect. The monk decided to return to his homeland with the first heavily packed load. In the awkward silence that followed, Brent hugged him about the waist as if he were a departing relative. Because the travelers had nothing, the monk pressed his coin purse and solid, wooden staff into Jotham’s hand without a word. Upon examination, the wood proved to be from the Sacred Grove, strengthened by years of faithful service.

“May you always travel well and find the profound in everything, not just books,” said Jotham, conferring a blessing. So they parted ways.

When they cleared the crowds, Jotham gave Brent the coins. “I don’t like to handle old money. It has too many stories, been through too many hands.” First they purchased the bare essentials for provisions like nuts, dried fruit, and rice. The boy was delighted by the responsibility of paying the shopkeeper himself.

Then they decided to indulge in a small luxury, something warm to drink while they got their bearings. Soon, the two shared tea in front of a shack made of weathered and warped wood. Jotham soaked in the sun and the breeze. Not many people lived in the poor, run-down dockyards. Most people were visitors from the river traffic, the Emperor’s Road, or the military. There were a lot of businesses that catered to the transients, although none of them spent much on upkeep. Even the once brightly colored signs were faded.

Jotham laid a finger alongside his nose and waited until there were no potential eavesdroppers or witnesses on the street before explaining. “Long ago, judges in our order found the need to be able to locate the nearest band of sheriffs when edicts were in need of enforcement or people were in need of protection.” Brent fidgeted while the Tenor sipped his tea. “After about a month of walking around the countryside, praying and performing our daily rituals, we discovered that a flare builds up a bit of a spark inside it, like a person in wool clothing on a dry winter’s day.” When Brent jumped and stared down at his own handmade, tin holy symbol, Jotham said, “Not to worry, yours doesn’t have the necessary metals, runes, and wrapping to act like a lodestone for power.”

“So you just use it like a compass to point out the nearest flare?”

Jotham shook his head. “That’d be like a magician relying on the power of similarity. This is more like divination. This procedure only works for detecting a flare militant, through the release of potential energy across the path of…” Brent’s eyes were glazing over, so Jotham said, “I’ll show you.”

First, Jotham took out a map of the area he had copied from the boat’s extensive charts and laid it on the table with the correct orientation, using the Lone Mountain and the invisible sun behind him as landmarks. Second, he removed a chunk of cliff chalk from his pouch and sharpened it to a point using an eating utensil. Finally, he withdrew his own holy symbol, the six-armed flare heraldic. The priest closed his eyes, balanced the flare between the index fingers of each hand, parallel to the tabletop, and intoned, “Where is Justice to be found?”

The top of the flare pivoted slowly northward like a weather vane in a gentle breeze. Jotham consulted the map, sketching a line in chalk between the docks and a point just to the left of the mountain peak, using his flare as a convenient straightedge. As he studied the map, he muttered to himself as one seeking the right strategy at a chess board. “He lies to our north, but how far I cannot say. He wouldn’t have proceeded to the Final Temple without me. My guess is that he waits at the ruins of the Bard College, which I know to be somewhere close at hand, but doesn’t appear on this map of waterways.”

When the elderly, female proprietor of the shop came back to refill their cups and bring Brent a piece of licorice candy, Jotham asked her, “Where would a man with an interest in history find the ruins of the Bard’s College?” When she looked confused, he clarified, “The temple that used to be somewhere between here and the mountain.”