by Pedro Urvi
He knew the place. He had been there to represent his Royal House on several occasions for ceremonies and sacred rituals. Once, when he was a child, he remembered being there with his father. He could not remember the occasion, but the High King had presided over the ceremony. The Five High Kings were the highest authority, above the high priests who served them faithfully, always following the path to eternal life. Adamis remembered well the solemnity his father had shown on that day; perhaps that was why the place had become engraved in his memory.
He scanned the area, in front of the temple. It was deserted. This did not surprise him; everybody was resting, masters and slaves alike. At that late hour only a few Enforcers were wandering about: some on watch-duty, like the two Custodians standing by the Square of the Roses a little further down, others finishing their work and their preparations for the following day, like several Eyes-of-the-Gods who were heading for the docks. The sky was overcast that night, with the moon hidden behind dark clouds.
Not a good omen for an appointment which may very possibly be a trap. The Prince assessed the situation one last time and came to a decision. Let us find out who wants to speak to me in secrecy, and why. He lowered his head and crossed the square towards the temple.
He found the door open, as it should be: the priests’ duty was to care for the wellbeing of all their people, day and night, without rest, for all eternity. He went in cautiously, ready to react at the least sign of danger. The temple proved to be empty except for a single priest who was nodding off beside a brazier.
When the priest woke and saw him, he got to his feet with a start, lost his balance and nearly fell. When he had recovered, he bowed.
“Well… welcome! How may I help you tonight? Are you looking for the way to eternity?”
Adamis stopped a few paces from him and gave him an appraising glance. The man of faith had not activated his power, and judging by his appearance, which was rather disheveled and self-satisfied, he seemed to be a genuine priest. This was something Adamis had not expected. He certainly was no soldier or assassin.
Adamis returned the bow. “We are all looking for the way to eternity.”
“You have come to the right place. The Western Temple, although the most distant from its destination, is the one that reminds us that the path is long and that we must never falter.”
Adamis nodded.
“Come in, and we shall look together upon the golden path, for our conjoined spirits make the wait for the glorious day more bearable, as the Golden Dogma says.”
Without really knowing how to reply to the words of faith, Adamis followed the priest.
“Or perhaps you might prefer to meditate alone? Yes, you would, of course, wouldn’t you? How unperceptive of me. You must forgive me. The hours of solitude are so many that one is grateful for company.”
Adamis gazed at him without saying anything.
“Of course you prefer to meditate alone. I shall leave you to it. If you need me I will be at the back.” The priest turned and vanished through a round door.
Odd, Adamis thought. He must spend too much time shut up in here. He waited for a moment, tense and alert, but nothing happened. Yet he had the feeling that at any moment half a dozen soldiers of the House of Aureb would attack him from behind. But nothing happened. Perhaps they will not come. Perhaps they have thought better of it.
There came a metallic click, and he half-turned. A round trapdoor was opening in the floor a few paces away. He invoked his Power at once and prepared to attack.
A light came out of the trapdoor, followed by a mental message.
Fear nothing, Adamis. It is not my wish to cause you any harm. You are among friends.
It was the voice of the woman from the pearl. He almost raised his protective sphere, but held back. He used his Power to send a fine mist down the trapdoor, as if it were a spirit, the mist inspected what was awaiting him on the lower level. It reported: A person: woman, powerful, alone.
Come down, I beg you. We need to talk.
He hesitated. He knew he ought not to put himself in danger. His father would be furious if he did.
Please. It is extremely important.
The Prince measured the Power the woman emitted. She was Powerful, of a noble family, ancient… but not as Powerful as he was, as his own family was.
If he kept alert he could defeat her, should she threaten him, although nothing was ever certain when weapons, or the Power, were drawn. It would not be the first time that one of lesser lineage and with less Power had killed a noble with far more. There were too many variables at work in a confrontation. But he had been trained to use his Power, and in combat, few of the Golden could defeat him. Still, his father’s words came to his mind: “There is always someone better, stronger, more powerful. Remember this, or else it will be your downfall. There is no place for pride or vanity in my House.”
I have no wish to disobey my father, but I must find out what is behind all this. He went down the opening. A flight of stone stairs led him to a damp, cold underground chamber lit by two oil lamps. The trapdoor closed after him. At the far end he saw the woman of the pearl come in from an adjoining room. Her face was hidden by a curious mask in the shape of a tree, and she wore a simple green linen robe. From her shoulders fell a brownish-green cloak with little decoration.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, stretching out her arms, palms up, and bowing her head solemnly in a gesture of peace. “I am truly grateful.”
Adamis watched her with a frown, searching for a possible hidden trap. He was not prepared to let himself be fooled by the young woman’s friendly aura.
“I did not think you would be willing to come, not in this irregular fashion… and particularly being as you are a Prince of one of the Five Houses… I am pleased that you have. I can understand that the secrecy of this meeting makes you wary, but you have nothing to fear from me or my intentions.”
Adamis was frowning. “Who are you?”
“Forgive me, your Highness. My name is Ariadne. I am a Commoner, a Healer.”
“Healer? For which House? Whom do you serve?”
“All of them and none, my lord, or so I like to think. I serve whoever is in need, the infirm, the wounded, whoever suffers.”
Adamis was not happy with this answer. She must belong to one of the Five Houses, whatever her profession may be.
“Which House?” he asked again, sternly.
“I was born in the House of Aru, the House of the Fifth Ring.”
Using a tiny fraction of his Power so that the Healer would be unaware of it, he tried to perceive the essence of the young woman’s Power. I feel water, so she is not lying; she does belong to the Fifth Ring. But there is something else… as if there were a little of each of the other elements, as if they were mixed. That is very uncommon. Power develops around one element and one alone.
“If you had asked for an audience I would have granted it. All this… was not necessary simply to speak with me.”
The woman raised her head, but the mask prevented him from seeing her eyes clearly.
“You see, your Highness, this meeting must be, and remain, a secret. Many lives depend on that.”
Adamis was not at all happy about this. The last thing he needed was to get mixed up in more trouble and upset his father even more.
“You had better explain yourself,” he said firmly.
“This meeting has been arranged in this way for two reasons. First, so that no one can know it has taken place, since we both have many enemies who spy on every step we take. As a result of a notorious incident, for which you are to leave at dawn for the distant land, you are the focus of all eyes in the Five Rings. For this, an audience would have betrayed my presence to many unwanted observers. We cannot allow that. My actions must remain secret. The second reason has to do with your character. We needed to know whether you would come, by yourself, and that I would not be arrested. The fact that you have come says much in your favor, and confirms what
we were expecting.”
“We? I thought you were alone.”
“Tonight I am, but nevertheless I could not be more accompanied and supported. I am not here for myself. I have come as an ambassador, to strengthen connections before you go into exile.”
“Ambassador? I do not understand you. Relations between my House and that of Aru are excellent.”
The young woman shook her head. “I am not here to represent the House of the Fifth Ring. I am here to represent the Children of Arutan,” and she pointed at the mask she wore.
Adamis took a step back in amazement. “The Children of Arutan were exterminated several millennia ago.”
“That is what the powerful Five Houses believe and wish.”
He shook his head. “No, it cannot be. The archives of knowledge make it clear that all members of the sect were exterminated more than five thousand years ago.” He vaguely remembered the emblem of the secret order: an oak in flower.
“Sect? That is what the powerful called them, those who pursued the peaceful founding fathers, hunted and killed them, then catalogued them. But they were never a sect.” She spread her arms wide. “And we have not been exterminated, as you can see.”
“You mean to tell me you are trying to revive the Children of Arutan?”
“They were never dead. We have always been here, watching, protecting our Mother Nature Arutan, serving her with absolute loyalty, living according to her principles, being her good children. We have kept ourselves hidden from the eyes of the powerful, from the ancient noble families. Always carrying out our work from the shadows, with the fear of being discovered, of being pursued once again, of being all-but-exterminated once again, if our existence were revealed.”
“Are you looking to reintroduce their dangerous beliefs?”
“You say dangerous, your Highness, but in truth they are not, not for the Commoners. They are indeed for the powerful families of the Five Houses: not for their content, but because they go against the established order. What is the danger in respecting Mother Nature? What is so dangerous in caring for her, protecting her and living according to her wise teachings? What is so dangerous in renouncing violence, following the way of peace, living in harmony with other races, other species, other creatures? There is nothing dangerous in us, in our ideals. On the contrary, I believe it is the way we must follow, abandoning our present one, which is full of death, pain, slavery and the vain search for immortality for the greater glory of the powerful. All that will only lead us to a cataclysm. One which is already on its way.”
“You speak of peace and harmony but your true message is one of treachery. You seek the downfall of the established order, as you have always done, and that is to go against the Five High Kings, against my father, my family… against me. You speak of protecting Nature and following her teachings. Is that not the foundation of our beliefs? That is precisely what the Dogma is based on. And from the need to protect Mother Nature came the creation of the High Kings, so that the old families would not fight among them for the power, so that they would rule wisely.”
“And has it been so, I ask you?”
“It has indeed been so. We have enjoyed peace for several millennia, and it has seldom been broken. The system is not perfect ‒ I admit it myself ‒ but it has allowed us to prosper, without wars, with order, with purpose.”
“The Five Houses are at perpetual war with each other. Blood might not be shed as often as in the olden days, but that is an illusion. The struggle for power continues, stronger than ever, even in the heart of the Houses themselves. The ancient families fight to stay in a position of privilege and wait for the slightest misstep so as to gain power for their own House. Or does your father, the High King, not keep a close watch on his own cousins and the longest-lived and most powerful families within the House of Eret?”
Adamis was silent, Ariadne was right on that point, but the families guaranteed order and progress. So they had done for thousands of years.
“You speak of prosperity, but at what cost? Alantres, our wonderful city, grows out of hand, perversely, giving free rein to its lords’ vainglorious dreams. The cost: slavery for thousands of people, suffering and death such as we have never before caused. Why? Because we want to live like the Gods we are not, because we want to reach the divinity which immortality promises us. And to that end our Erudites twist and pervert our Mother Nature’s most sacred principles, making hybrids, creating monstrosities, cruel servants without a will of their own, to serve us so that we may live better, believing still further in the promised falsehood, developing new technologies for a corrupt end. No, the Children of Arutan do not wish for this false and abominable world. We do not wish it to go on poisoning our Mother. We wish to return to her basic principles, to the beginning, to the harmony, when we were not corrupted by greed for false divinity.”
Listening to Ariadne’s words, Adamis could not avoid feeling rage. Rage because the young woman’s vehement words meant treason, and rage too because he knew that to a certain extent she was right.
“That vision is unfair and extremist,” he said haughtily, “and also high treason.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is the chimerical Golden Dogma which is that: proclaimed by false priests to a misled society, all in the service of five High Kings and their long-lived, powerful families.”
“Very well. In that case, tell me: how do the Children of Arutan want us to live and prosper?”
He wanted to understand the young woman’s position. Before meeting Kyra, he would never have tolerated a speech like this. It represented high treason. Now, though, he wanted to understand the reasons behind the words. Perhaps he was no longer the same vain aristocrat he had been, or perhaps he still was… what he knew for a fact was that Kyra had changed him. Changed him for the better, even though there was still much left in him to change. It is not enough for a Prince to be born, he must be made.
Ariadne heaved a deep sigh. “By respecting Mother Nature, following her teachings. By discarding the Golden Dogma, since we will never be immortal, nor should we wish to be. By rejecting the manipulation of Mother Nature, whether it involves searching for immortality or creating servants and other aberrations. By abolishing the regime of the Five High Kings, since their rule benefits them and their families alone. By doing away with the three classes, since we all come from Mother Nature and to her do we return at the end of our days. By uniting the Five Rings, since we should not be separated but united, like brothers and sisters. The Power, the greatest gift Arutan has given us and the thing which sets us apart from other species, does not have to be specialized and divided; the five elements can coexist in any one of us. And most of all, we must look for peace and harmony: not only among ourselves, but among the rest of the races, since we are all children of Arutan.”
Ariadne’s declaration was so moving and honest, and defended with such conviction, that Adamis was left speechless. He could not find words to refute the young woman’s arguments, and this unsettled him even more. For a single moment his thoughts turned to Kyra. He remembered her courage, her dedication, her fire, the truths she had spoken, and Ariadne’s words began to leave their mark on his spirit.
And yet they could not be allowed to. All this was high treason, after all. The woman sought the downfall of his father and his family. All the same, he felt a deep unease in the pit of his stomach.
“Why do you come to me? Why are you revealing your existence to me? I belong to the establishment, I belong to one of the oldest families among our people, whose origins lie in the dark days. Everything you have told me goes against my family and my principles.”
Ariadne’s face was now deeply worried.
“A turbulent time is coming, a time of great danger, for everyone. We are nearing the precipice of the eternal void, and if we do not change course we will fall into it, never to return. The time to act is now, before everything is lost, before there is no salvation left for the Golden, before we are consumed by our own
ambition and wrong-headed vanity. We must fight, and that is why I was sent to look for you. We need to join forces, to seek allies, since by ourselves we cannot defeat the evil which will soon come to threaten our people. That, your Highness, is why we came to you.”
“To me? Have you forgotten who I am? I am a Prince. You talk of fighting, of opposing the Five High Kings. You talk of treason. I should hand you over to the Guard.”
“But you will not do that, your Highness. Not if the Ancients, our spiritual guides, have chosen well. Not if there is still hope for the Golden.”
Adamis knew he should turn in that subversive young woman. It was not the first time the Houses had faced internal rebellion, nor would it be the last. Where some rule, there will always be others who oppose that rule. That is logical and natural. Accepting things as they are, just because they are, is not rational. But she speaks of fighting, and that is a step too far.
“Why me?” he insisted. He wanted to know the specific reason before he made his decision and handed her over to be taken for trial.
“The rumor has reached our Wise Ones that one of the most powerful Princes, the son of one of the High Kings, member of one of the most powerful families which go back to the dawn of time, has fought another Prince as powerful and highborn as himself, shedding blood, during the lower cycle.”
Adamis attempted to make light of this. “It has happened before.”
“So it has, but never to defend a slave.”
He was petrified. The details of what had happened were secret. And he had never admitted it had been for a slave. Not even to his father, although the King had guessed.
“Who told you that? Answer me!”
“The Children of Arutan have eyes and ears in all the great houses. They notice anything significant that happens. And this one, your Highness, is deeply significant. For a long time the Ancients have been following you with interest, as they do others among the privileged classes who are different, who do not submit themselves to the system, who think for themselves, who have their own voice. Your actions reveal much about your honor and courage, and that is how the Ancients have interpreted them. That is why they have sent me. They wish to have you as an ally, to be able to count on your support in the dark times which are coming.”