Soldier Scarred

by D. K. Holmberg

  “This was not a sacrificial place. I noticed it when the priest appeared. It’s a place to prove yourself and to prove your commitment to the gods. This was never meant to be a place to sacrifice yourself.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “When he said that believers would go over. There have been few religions where the believers are the ones sacrificed.” Urik stabbed at a man and braced himself for another attack, keeping his attention half on Endric. “In most religions, the believers are the ones who force the sacrifice of others. Often it’s an animal sacrifice.” He grunted as he blocked an attack. He kept himself positioned in front of Endric, preventing him from facing the priests, and it took Endric a moment to realize why. Urik wasn’t trying to cut them down. He wanted to slow them.

  “Urik?” Urik glanced over at him. “Why aren’t you fighting?”

  “I’m doing what needs to be done,” he said.

  “You’re refusing to fight.”

  “No. I’m refusing to destroy these priests. We know nothing about what they are after,” Urik said.

  “Other than a desire to have us dead.”

  “Is that what they’re after? What if there is something else that they might be after?”

  “What?” Endric asked. The priests were fighting like they wanted them dead.

  “I don’t know.” He grunted as he swung his sword at the next attacker. “Have you considered the fact that they think we aren’t who we are?”

  “Who do you think they would believe us to be?

  But even as he asked, Endric thought that he knew: the fake Conclave. Considering everything that had happened, and all who had been attacked here, why wouldn’t they?

  If that were the case, and if there were some misunderstanding, then Endric and the others had already destroyed more than they should have.

  “We’ve made no attempt to present ourselves as the fake Conclave,” Endric said.

  “And we’ve done little to prove to them that we are not. We’ve come to the temple, violating what I presume to be custom, and now we’re throwing ourselves against them.” Urik glanced over at Endric. “What else could they do but think us the fake Conclave?”

  Endric wasn’t certain what the fake Conclave was after, but he could see that there would be some desire to appropriate the power of the priests. Could they have it wrong? Could it be that the priests were not what he had suddenly begun to fear that they were?

  “Then what should we do?”

  “First, we need to prevent them from killing us,” Urik said. “Then, we need to see if there’s anything that we can do to prove ourselves to them.”

  At this point, after everything they had done while facing the priests, Endric wasn’t sure that there was anything that could be done. And maybe that was the point. Maybe they had already fought and attacked so much that they had lost an opportunity to convince the Salvat priests that they meant them no harm. And Endric wasn’t entirely certain that he wanted to convince them that he, Urik, and Pendin meant no harm.

  The priests had attacked. They had attempted to sacrifice them. Which meant that they weren’t completely benign, regardless of what Urik might think.

  But Endric could work to stop them without trying to kill them.

  He leaped forward and slammed the hilt of his sword into the first man’s temple. He moved through the line of priests, no longer fearing being pushed back, having the element of surprise on his side. He knocked out multiple priests before they were even aware that he was there.

  And then the final priest remained.

  He stood with his hands clasped together, looking at Endric with an expression of utter commitment. He knew what was likely to happen if Endric attacked, and he appeared as if he were willing to accept his fate.

  “Why did you attack us?” Endric said.

  “You should not be here.”

  “Who did you think that we were?”

  “You are exactly who I thought that you are.”

  “Only because you attempted to force us off the ledge.”

  “You survived. The gods—”

  Endric shook his head and jabbed a finger in the man’s chest. “The gods had nothing to do with my survival. Who have you feared coming here?”

  The priest eyed him for a long moment, saying nothing.

  “The only reason I’m here is to find someone,” Endric said.

  “We all search for someone, soldier. Only the gods ensure that our search is not in vain.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Endric asked.

  “You are an outsider. You cannot know.”

  Endric glanced at Urik. “I’m an outsider, which is why I should know. Who are the people that you fear coming to your temple?”

  “The gods protect us. I fear nothing.”

  “You fear something. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have attacked us in the way that you did. That tells me that you do fear something, despite your protestations to the contrary.”

  The priest looked at him for a long moment and then motioned to Endric. “Come with me.”

  “I have no intention of coming with you, not until you tell me what is going on.”

  “I will tell you what you want to know. First, you need to come with me.”

  Endric looked to Urik and Pendin for their opinions. He wanted to know, but he also felt as if something was taking place here that he didn’t fully understand. It was as if something was being kept from him, though what?

  Could there be some connection to the fake Conclave? Was there some connection to what had happened to Tresten?

  Without going with the priest, Endric didn’t think that he would be able to get the answers. That meant that he had no choice. He needed to go with the priest.

  30

  The inside of the temple was warm, and it was strange being here with permission. When he’d been here last, he felt as if he were violating some custom, but now the temple glowed with light, leaving him wondering how he had missed the movement through here before. There were other priests, and though he and Pendin had cut down many of them, there wasn’t a sense of anger at what they had done.

  “This is the temple?” Pendin asked.

  Endric looked around. They were in one of the massive chambers, where he’d fought the men of the fake Conclave. “This is the temple,” Endric said.

  “It’s impressive,” Pendin said.

  “We still haven’t found the priest entrance,” Urik whispered.

  “Why is that important?” Pendin asked.

  “Because it leaves me to wonder whether the fake Conclave has found another way in.”

  “Why would they want to get into the temple?” Pendin asked.

  “There must be something here they are after.”

  “And why would they be after something here?” Endric asked. “What do you think the priests are hiding?”

  “I don’t have any idea. The priests have been here a long time. This temple will predate anything that we would find in Thealon. A place like that is bound to have many artifacts, and I suspect that those would be incredibly valuable.”

  “Not only valuable,” the priest said. “They would use what they should not to access the gods.”

  “I don’t understand,” Endric said. “How would they use something here to access the gods?”

  The priest stared at him. “Have you not wondered why the mountain has failed to erupt in centuries?”

  He thought of the tremors that he’d been feeling since coming to Salvat. “The tremors aren’t typical?”

  “They would be typical were we not here. They would be typical were we not celebrating. And yet, they have returned.”

  “What do you mean that they have returned?” Endric asked.

  Urik looked at the priest for a long moment. “The temple is the reason the volcano hasn’t erupted?”

  The priest nodded.

  “How?”

  “We have celebrated the gods. We have honored them, and the gods
have given us their favor.”

  “It’s something more than that,” Urik said.

  “You don’t believe the gods have the capacity to favor us in such a way?”

  “It’s not that. The gods are… The gods. I believe they have the ability and the strength to do many wondrous things. What I question is why would they have chosen here to demonstrate their strength.”

  The priest regarded Urik for a long moment. “This was once a place the gods frequented. One must only look around and search deep beneath the ground, and you can see evidence of it. They might have left us, departing Salvat the same way that they have departed other places by Ascending, but that does not mean they did not once view our home with favor.”

  Endric thought about the tremors and what they might mean. The mountain had been rumbling far more than it once had been. He had heard that from the waitress, and he had heard offhand comments from the Teachers in the canicharl. If that were the case, then it made him question why that had been—but even more, it made him question why it had changed.

  “You have something here that controls the tremors.” Endric looked over at the priest, and the drawn expression on the other man’s face told him that he was right. “And these others, the people that I know as the fake Conclave, they search for it. That’s what they came here for.”

  “Are you truly not with them?”

  Endric spread his hands out. “I am one of the Denraen. I am not with these others. We seek to help maintain peace. We have no interest in destroying other peoples.”

  “The Denraen seeks to maintain the Urmahne faith.”

  “The Denraen seeks to maintain stability. I care very little about what religion is followed to ensure that we have that stability.”

  The priest looked from Endric to Urik and then finally to Pendin. A debate seemed to war behind his eyes. Finally, he nodded to Endric. “Come with me.”

  He led them through the temple, weaving a pathway that Endric hadn’t taken before and eventually opening a door that Endric assumed would lead to a wide-open chamber much as the others had, but this one had a narrow stair set into it. It led down and into darkness, no lighting visible as they descended, and Endric followed the priest, curious as to where this was going to let out. Every so often, a lantern set into the wall glowed with a faint light, barely enough for Endric to see that it was there but not enough for him to see the next step. He moved by feel rather than sight, continuing down the stairs, descending into a darkness that should make him nervous. The stairs curved, sweeping around in a way that reminded him of the path leading up to the ledge overlooking the fountain. Could it be that he was following the fountain of lava again? Could the priests have some hidden way of accessing it?

  His legs began to burn. The lights were finally placed closer and closer together, and he was at last able to make out the stairs, but little else beyond that. Every so often, he risked looking behind him, just to make sure that Urik and Pendin still followed. They did, neither of them saying anything. Endric could hear one of them breathing heavily as they made their way down the stairs and suspected that his breathing was much the same. With the heat—and even in the stairs, the heat continued to press on him—and the effort, he felt increasingly fatigued.

  “We’re going to have to climb back up these,” Pendin said, breaking the silence.

  Endric laughed softly. “We are. I thought you could handle darkness like this.”

  “I’ve had far too much experience in darkness like this,” Pendin said.

  Endric’s soft laugh turned into a chuckle. As had he. There had been too many days spent in darkness, surrounded by rock, surrounded by the presence of teralin much as he felt around him now. When he had come to Salvat, he had not expected to have been surrounded like this again.

  Endric considered asking the priest how much longer they had to go, but refrained. What point was there in questioning? They were far enough along that Endric had no intention of turning back. The stairs began to narrow, and he did begin to wonder whether the priest was leading them into some sort of trap. Considering the fact that they had managed to defeat most of the priests, stopping them, he had a nagging worry that perhaps this was a way of tricking them.

  It was too late now. They were far enough along and far enough down the stairs for it to matter.

  And by now, Endric was curious. Where was the priest leading them?

  There had to be something here that he wanted, but how far would he bring them before they found it? How much farther before they managed to get answers?

  “Priest?” Endric asked.

  They had to have gone down nearly three hundred stairs. Maybe it was more than that. It was enough that Endric was panting, not looking forward to the return trip.

  “Not much farther,” the priest said.

  “What is it that you intend for us to see?” Endric asked.

  “You wanted to know why the gods have favored us.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you must continue to follow.”

  Endric realized that the priest was barely breathing hard. How many times had he made this journey? What of the other priests? Could they have made this journey also; could they have struggled just as little? If that were the case, how was it that he and Pendin had managed to withstand them for as long as they had?

  Unless they hadn’t.

  Thoughts and doubts began to go through his mind.

  And then they reached the bottom.

  At the bottom of the stair, a reddish orange light erupted again, and Endric knew they were close once more to the fountain of lava. After all those stairs, they emerged into light. It was surprising that the light seemed to explode around them, that they were trapped in darkness until then, but he realized there was a trick to the way the stairs had curved, leading them in such a way that it had been completely obscured until the last moment, blocking his ability to see anything other than the darkness. Without that trick of the stairs, there would not have been such darkness. The light from far below would have been visible.

  “This is it?” Endric asked.

  The priest walked to an edge overlooking the fountain of lava. Endric followed and realized that it wasn’t a fountain, not here. Where the fountain had been high above, it now poured into a massive pool and fire burned all around him, leaving the air sizzling. A perimeter of rock surrounded the pool, enough that Endric could walk all the way around it. There was something within the pool that gave him pause.

  “This is what they search for.”

  “I don’t understand,” Endric said. “What’s here?”

  “This is a place of the gods.” The priest said it with deep reverence in his voice and he stood with his hands clasped before him, staring out at the pool of flames, his eyes filled with an expression that Endric had seen in zealots before. This was a man who was committed to the gods. He was committed to what he believed was his task. This was a man who had true devotion, something Endric had never managed.

  “What is it here? How is this a place of the gods?”

  The priest looked over at him and a tight smile crossed his face. “Do you not see the evidence of the gods all around?”

  “I see the lava that’s here. Is that the evidence of the gods you think I should see?”

  “That is but one piece of evidence. Do you not see the rest?”

  Endric looked out around the pool and noticed the markings that he had seen all around. He had thought them nothing of consequence, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe they did have more importance.

  “What are they?” he asked.

  “They are something that cannot be explained, only experienced.”

  It was a typical priest response and Endric resisted the frustration that immediately came to him, knowing that there was no purpose to it. Instead, he started around the rock surrounding the pool of lava, making his way around until he reached the first marking that he had seen. When he did, he paused and stared, surprised at what he ob
served.

  It was a sculpture.

  The detail in the sculpture was exquisite. It stood taller than Endric and had features that reminded Endric of a man, but somehow, he didn’t think this was a man. The outline of the figure was wrong in subtle ways. He wasn’t certain why he felt that way, but it was more than simply the excessive height, and more than simply the slight tip to the ears or the taller forehead. Altogether, it appeared like a better representation of the gods.

  Endric had seen sculptures of the gods before. Anyone who lived in Vasha for any period of time would have seen sculptures depicting the gods, but this was something different. This was not only a depiction of the gods, this was one that he suspected was made in a particular god’s image.

  He squeezed around the sculpture and continued to make his way around the perimeter until he reached the next such sculpture. Endric wasn’t surprised that he would find another, and wasn’t surprised that it had a distinct look, one that was much like the last, yet almost entirely different. This sculpture was no more similar to the last than Endric was to Pendin.

  He continued his loop, and at the third one, he was no longer surprised when he saw the sculpture of the god. What surprised him, and what he hadn’t paid attention to before now, was that the sculptures were made of teralin.

  Had the others been made of teralin?

  He hurried back to the last and realized that it had been. The metal was not charged, so it carried neither positive or negative polarity, neutral in a way that radiated the heat from the lava. Somehow, the volcano didn’t create enough heat to melt the sculptures. It was almost as if the gods themselves wanted to ensure their likeness remained.

  Endric continued his slow circle around the perimeter. At each sculpture, he stopped, studying the faces. There was wisdom in their eyes, something that Endric was not surprised by. There was something else, almost an angry tilt to their jaw. Why would that be? Why would the gods be angry?

  When he had nearly completed his circuit and had nearly returned to the priest, he found a space missing.

  If this were to be like the others, he would have expected that there would have been another sculpture here. It only made sense and only fit the pattern that he had seen, but there was not.