The Book of Deacon (49 page)

"You are not mistaken," he said.

"What does it mean?" she asked, as she
realized that they were headed to the Elder's quarters, along with
nearly every other resident of the village.

"Do you recall the prophecy I was reading
you? How it was the life's work of Tober, our prophet? Well, all
through his time here, he was constantly in search of the next
thing that could enhance his already remarkable scrying skills. He
drank potions, underwent treatments. Each altered his body and mind
to lengthen and deepen his trances. Soon he was able to commune
with the spirits for days at a time, and an army of assistants
worked in shifts committing every word to writing.

"One day, he entered the trance, never spoke,
and never left it. We still speculate on what precisely occurred
that day. Some say he had spent so much time with the spirits that
he left his body to join them. Others believe he asked one too many
questions of a malevolent spirit and paid the ultimate price. All
that is known for sure is that his body no longer contains a
soul.

"We've taken to calling the empty shell he
left behind 'Hollow.' It wasn't dead, not technically. It never
ate, never moved, but continued to live. We left it in his hut. No
one really knew what else to do. Then, decades later, someone heard
a noise. Hollow was speaking. His body remains a superb conduit to
the spirit realm. In times of incredible import, the voices from
beyond speak through him. The words are impossibly cryptic, but
flawlessly accurate predictions," Deacon said, lowering to a
whisper as they made their way inside and took a seat on the
crowded floor.

A heavy, throne-like chair was brought in by
four stout young men. In the chair was a frail and ancient man
dressed in a dusty, but not worn, tunic. A pair of milky white eyes
stared vacantly across the room at nothing at all. His hands,
gnarled like the branches of an oak, curled around the arms of the
chair. When the men lowered it to the ground, others opened a chest
attached to the back of the chair. Inside were chains and shackles.
The shackles were clamped onto both of his ankles and wrists. The
chains were attached to loops installed in the walls of the
hut.

"What are the shackles for?" Myranda
asked.

"Some of the spirits have never been in a
body. Their actions when they find a vacant one can be
unpredictable," he said.

When the restraints were in place, the
handlers retreated into the rest of the crowd. No one would venture
closer than ten paces from the seat. The only sign that the man who
was given so much space was even alive was the subtle twitch of his
fingers every few minutes. Despite this, the scene was tense.
Absolute silence was maintained as the most powerful wizards and
warriors of the world watched the withered old man. Minutes
passed.

Finally, the silence was broken by the
rattling of chains as Hollow shifted forward. He seemed to be
pulled by an unseen force in his chest, and in a flash he was
suspended in the air, straining at the restraints. He drew in a
breath, pained and ragged enough to be his first in years, as he
lowered slowly to the ground. His legs folded limply beneath him,
and he lay in a pile on the ground. Words began to flow from his
mouth. It was a terrifying sound. He spoke not with one voice, but
with dozens, perhaps hundreds. They formed a sort of sloppy
harmony, some voices lagging, others rushing desperately through
the messages. There were whispers and screams alike. Some even
uttered in different languages.

All who had the means to do so wrote madly.
Deacon was writing, not only with his own stylus, but with three
more that moved about on the page under their own power. Myranda
tried to listen, but the language was unfamiliar to her. As he
spoke, Hollow's body jerked and shifted, as though he was a
marionette with different hands pulling at every string. As more
time passed, his motions became more violent.

Nearly an hour passed without a moment of
peace before, as suddenly as it had begun, the tumult ended. Hollow
fell to the ground as though his strings had been cut. Fully half
of an hour passed before all were convinced that the prophet had
spoken his last for the day.

"Splendid. This has been a fruitful session,"
Deacon said, marking down notes and separating blocks of text.

"Did you understand that?" Myranda asked.

"A great deal of it," Deacon said.

The crowd was filing out of the hut. Deacon
was comparing notes to those near him as the handlers began to
unfasten the chains from the walls. As they did, Myranda approached
Hollow. He was being loaded back into the chair. All of the chaotic
life that had filled the hut was gone. She looked with curiosity at
this bizarre side effect of so many mystic procedures. His wrists
looked thin and brittle as twigs, yet earlier the chains had been
barely strong enough to restrain him. The eyes were disturbing.
There was no hint of the previous color of his eyes, and even the
pupils had clouded over. She was wondering what seeing through
those eyes must be like when they slowly turned, locking onto her.
Myranda shook her head, not certain if she was imagining it.

A moment later, she was on the ground and the
wrinkled fingers were stretching out in the direction of the wall
behind her. Three chains were still in place, but one had been
removed from the wall and was still in the hands of the handler.
Hollow's arm hurled chain and man effortlessly through the air. He
collided with the far wall. Five men rushed to the flailing chain
and tried valiantly to reconnect it to the wall.

"Light! More than for one! Another still!
Threads! Connections!" Hollow's many voices cried.

He was reaching out for something specific,
not like before. It was as though he was looking through the wall.
Beyond it. The three chains were creaking at their moorings. One
leg restraint broke free and lashed across the crowd. The possessed
form jerked out of the air and onto the ground with
earth-shattering force. He reached out toward Myranda.

"At the meeting of light, light, light! Above
the darkened door! A sacrifice! A blinding ring! The elders of the
crescent made equal! All is a whimper in the shadow of the white
wall! Victory is a prelude. The final struggle follows!" he
decreed.

There was no denying it. Myranda was the
target of this last prophecy. Once it was delivered, the shell of a
man fell limp once more. The handlers returned Hollow to the chair
and re-secured the restraints. White-robed healers emerged from the
crowd to care for the injured. The loose chain had bloodied no less
than five people. When they were satisfied that Myranda was not
hurt, they helped her to her feet. Deacon helped her outside.

"That has never happened before! Hollow, once
he dropped down like that, has never awoken again in less than a
year. And he never,
never
addresses anyone directly," Deacon said.

Myn came sprinting to the hut. The commotion
had attracted her. She surveyed Myranda for injury, and was less
satisfied than the healers. She shot angry looks at all who drew
near.

"Come on. I do not want her to start
breathing flame at imagined attackers," Myranda said.

They had to move quickly. Already witnesses
to the unprecedented event had begun to assemble around Myranda to
learn more. Still not eager to be confined to her quarters again,
Myranda joined Deacon in his hut. He closed the door against
visitors and took a seat at his desk. All of that which he had
written while watching Hollow was in the open book waiting for him.
Myn set herself faithfully before the door, adopting a hostile
posture each time footsteps passed too near.

"So much to be done. Translation,
interpretation. But first I must ask you. In the commotion, I could
not record Hollow's unexpected additions," he said.

He began to mark down the words.

"When he spoke to you, he said 'light' three
times, correct?" he asked.

"I believe so. Does that really matter?" she
asked.

"Not a single word is wasted when he speaks.
Of course, your message and the one before it are among the most
straightforward I have ever heard," Deacon replied.

"Do you mean to tell me that you know what
was meant by those words?" she asked.

"Well . . . no. But the imagery was at least
obvious. Most times interpreters must work for days, or weeks, to
uncover something that even resembles reality. Luckily, Tober took
volumes of notes before his transformation into Hollow. The spirits
that choose to communicate with us through him are often the same
ones that he relied upon. As a result, many of the allusions they
make are documented and translated," he said, selecting a book from
one of the carefully kept shelves.

"One of the shorter statements. Keltem gorato
melni treshic. Now, Keltem translates literally to people--or, more
specifically, physical beings. The spirits use this term most often
when they intend to indicate a specific body part. An arm or a leg,
for instance. Gorato is the name of a prolific gold mine of years
gone by. In older prophesies, gorato has been used to imply things
of virtue and worth, but mostly it refers to gold itself. Melni is
the name of a specific spirit that was known for terrorizing the
living. The spirits tend to use the name interchangeably with fear.
And finally treshic. Treshic is the name of a fabled ancient tree
that stood for so long against the forces of nature that it
eventually succumbed to rot from within. This is essentially the
spirit 'word' for corruption," he said, flipping constantly through
the book to find his answers.

"What does it mean?" Myranda asked.

"Well. If I were to arrange these
translations into a sentence as we know it, it would be . . .
Beware those with golden . . . no,
virtuous
limbs, for they are corrupt," he
said.

"I see," Myranda said with a smirk.

"It is not an exact science. There are other
listed interpretations for each one of these words. They could even
be intended literally, or some combination of literal and
interpreted. It could mean to fear people who wear gold on their
bodies, or simply warn against trusting the wealthy. That is why a
skilled interpreter is worth his weight in gold. Right now, the
best we have are the historians in the records building. When I
have had my fun with my personal notes, I am to relinquish them to
the experts," he said.

Myranda turned to the dragon, who had not
been at ease for several minutes. There was now an audible clamor
outside of the door.

"What is going on?" Myranda asked.

"I would imagine that my fellow Entwellians
have finally come to see the truly exceptional person I have known
you to be for some time," Deacon said.

"I really do not want the attention," Myranda
said.

"I should expect you will have a rather
difficult time avoiding it. Unless you sic Myn on them," Deacon
said. "Besides, you were just saying that you were hoping for
others with whom you could speak."

"This is rather more than I was hoping for,"
Myranda groaned.

When the door was finally opened, Deacon was
proven to be quite correct. Her earlier achievements had made her
at best an interesting oddity, admired by some, envied by others,
but nothing remarkable. Now she was nothing short of a celebrity.
Hollow had permanently labeled her as something of the greatest
importance. For several days, while she was still recovering, she
was constantly being approached by wizards and warriors alike. Some
made an earnest effort to converse with her in her own tongue.
Mostly, the admirers adhered to the standard policy of Entwell,
speaking in the language of their origin.

Myranda was able to muddle through most
conversations passably--but, in truth, she learned more from the
first day's dialogue than she had in all of the time she'd been
listening. The wizards who spoke to her were primarily
practitioners of white and black magic. They seemed to know that
she was something special, and tried their best to inject their
knowledge and expertise, hoping in some way to make their mark on
history though this unique girl. In the few days that followed, she
was made aware of dozens of techniques in white and black magic
alike, many of which were little more than theory. Warriors were
more interested in learning what great deeds she had done before
arriving. They latched onto her tales of the Undermine and
questioned relentlessly to that end.

The attention was almost more than Myn could
bear. She'd had a hard enough time sharing Myranda with Deacon. Now
she had to endure dozens of people a day. The little dragon had
learned restraint in her days in Entwell, but she had her limits.
Each new visitor received the same harsh treatment as Deacon had
when she had first met him. Even a handshake was cause enough for
her to flash her teeth and lash her tail. Visitors learned quickly
that a bit of caution was in order when dealing with her.

Myranda scolded her halfheartedly each time.
The times that Myn chased her visitors away tended to be the only
times that she was alone. It was something of a reversal of
fortunes for her.

#

Nearly three full weeks elapsed before the
clerics and healers agreed that Myranda was ready to continue her
education. Her next teacher, Cresh, had been contacting her during
the last few days of her recovery. He never met with her directly.
Instead, books found their way onto the table of her hut in her
absence. If the dirt smudging each page was any indication, the
books were from his personal collection, and he loved his work.
They were written in a language that made them incomprehensible to
her.

Now the time had come for her to meet him
face to face for the first time as his student. The usual crowd of
admirers followed as she approached her teacher's home, with the
exception of Deacon, who had taken to remaining in his own hut
rather than compete with the crowd for Myranda's ear. Cresh's home
was a low, unusual hut fairly buried in a jungle of plants and
trees. The structure was unlike any of the others. It had no seams,
as though it had been carved, or grown, from a single stone.