by Kyle West
“And what about you?” Isaru asked.
Father Markas nodded, his face sad. “And us.”
“There is a source of ichor here?” Isaru asked. “And I suppose a way to refine Aether?”
“Yes,” the priest said. “Long ago, the city was part of the Red Wild. Many do not know that…but xen overtook the Ruins, and it was an enclave of the Elekai. It was during that time that the Sphere was built.”
“By the Hyperboreans,” I said.
“Yes,” Markas said. “Though not many remember the Hyperboreans – only the Sphere, a consciousness of its own.”
“You say consciousness,” Isaru said. “You consider the Sphere a god, then?”
“A god is a mind which is immeasurably greater than a man’s, to the point of being incomprehensible. Any who studies the Sphere quickly discovers this fact. And like a god, the Sphere cares for us and feeds us, without fail. Without it…we all perish.”
“Is the battle over, then?” Isaru asked.
“See for yourself.”
Markas stepped out of the way, clearing a way for us to walk to the outer railing. Things had seemed to quiet while talking to him. Isaru and I, along with the rest of the Dragons, walked to the railing. Below, men milled within the inner wall, seeming to go nowhere in particular. Large groups appeared to be on their knees while others stood around them. And still, more of the coalition forces were climbing over the walls with ladders. An entire section of the second wall was in flames.
“It really is over,” Valan said, his voice expressing his disbelief.
“Though the battle may be won,” Markas said, “it is still far from over. But it is now time for you to leave this place, for I have much to say to my brethren in private.”
“Of course, Father,” Valan said, with a bow.
“Merely follow each set of stairs you come to, and go straight. You will find the entryway without fail.”
Markas then looked at me, a curious light in his eyes. “I thank you again, Seeker. I have more to discuss with you and your friend, but that will have to wait. Go now, and may the eternal peace of the Sphere guard your steps.”
* * *
When we arrived at the bottom of the Sphere, there was a large gathering of about a hundred soldiers. It took me a moment to figure out what it was they were gathered around: the body of Mithras. The crowd parted as we approached from the entry tunnel. There was no hiding it, now; everyone in the Ruins would know that we had entered the Sphere, and this was why everyone’s eyes went wide while their faces were white with shock and fear.
Through the crowd, closest to the body of Mithras, stood Lord Avon, dressed in leather battle armor and a blood red cape, watching us approach with a calculating gaze.
By the time we stood before him, he waited a long moment before speaking. At last, quietly, he said, “Follow me.”
He led us away from the crowd until we were in the nearest open area. A contingent of some dozen guards followed him, whom he nodded toward. The guards then formed a perimeter around us, so that none could approach or hear what was being discussed.
“Tell me,” Lord Avon said. “All of it.”
And so, Valan explained everything we had gone through.
“I don’t pretend to understand it, my lord,” Valan concluded. “However, the Priests have said it was so: Mithras was using this Aether to control his lieutenants, which allowed them to fight beyond the capacity of normal men. Even Mithras himself was taking Aether. I suspect that this is part of the reason for his success; and if the Priests were under his control, that made it easy for him to conquer the Sphere.”
“I know nothing of Aether or the ways of Priests,” Lord Avon said.
“We have seen Covenant Hunters do the same thing,” Isaru said.
“So killing Mithras broke the control over his army. That he controlled the Priests as well…it is unfathomable. You said they all survived?”
“They seem to be no worse for wear, Dragonlord,” Valan said. “A bit confused, as if waking from a dream.”
“I see,” Lord Avon said.
Valan nodded toward me. “Champion Alara used her Elekai magic to break the spell.”
“Then I must give credit where it is due,” Lord Avon said. “Truth be told…this attack was a gamble. A terrible gamble. My very best men for the slimmest of hopes. And yet, against all odds…we have prevailed.”
Isaru and I looked at Lord Avon expectantly. He was publicly acknowledging that we had fulfilled our end of the deal, so now it was his time to fulfill his. This was where we found out if he was going to keep his word.
“Of course,” Lord Avon said, “you must be duly compensated.”
It was all I could do to not sigh with relief. Out of the corner of my eye, I could also see Isaru visibly relax.
“Whether the Sphere is open to your study, however, is not my call,” Lord Avon said, firmly. That had been part of the original deal – what he thought was the most important thing to us. “That is the purview of the Priests. Traditionally, they have allowed no one in, but I will do my best to persuade them to let you study the Sphere. If they refuse, then there is very little I can do.”
“And the supplies?” Isaru pressed.
“The supplies, you may have,” Lord Avon conceded. “Once you are finished with your studies, should the Priests agree to them.”
“And we may need to go north before we begin with the Sphere. Food, water, medicine, if you have it…”
Lord Avon nodded. “Yes, you shall have it. But I prefer you remain here, in the city, for now. And it may be some time before I can secure for you an audience with the High Priest Markas. These things take time, but let there be no doubt: never let it be said that the Dragonlord does not pay his debts.”
At this point, High Priest Markas approached the group, apparently having slipped past the guards. Everyone looked up in surprise, but Markas only looked resolutely at Lord Avon.”
“I must speak with these Elekai,” he said.
Lord Avon stared dumbly for a moment. I could tell he was not used to being so directly confronted, especially in front of his men. And yet, a High Priest was a High Priest.
“Of course, High Priest. They are yours to command.”
Markas then ignored the flustered gang lord. “Come, Seekers. We have things to discuss.”
Immediately, Markas turned and began walking back to the entrance of the Sphere. Isaru and I only had time to look at each other, bemused, before following.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WE FOLLOWED HIGH PRIEST MARKAS back into the Sphere. Of course, I was curious about what he wanted, but something told me he was only going to tell us what that was when we reached our destination.
Before long, we were back in the maze of green tunnels. We followed him for a long time, the path slightly curving. We turned to the right, down a spiraling staircase.
At first, there were still plants, but they were soon replaced by a plain tunnel with metallic walls. And still, we went down, until I got the feeling that we were deep underground.
I was about to ask how much further when the stairs came to a sudden end, revealing a small cave lit only by a bright pool of pink ichor. Delving right into the middle of the pool was what appeared to be a tree trunk, only it disappeared right into the ceiling.
“This is the Xenofont,” Markas began. “It powers the Sphere, and without this ichor, the Sphere would be useless. The Sphere sustains us; is there any reason to wonder why it is worshipped? Why even a Dragonlord bows to a humble priest?” He turned to face us. “Without the priests to maintain the Sphere, the Sphere itself would die. It's strange, to think of a building dying, but the Sphere is not a building, but something else entirely.”
“You draw priests from the population,” I said. “They are all Elekai, aren’t they?”
Markas nodded. “Yes. This is one of the deepest memories of our order, only revealed upon an initiate’s ascension to the Priesthood. The young priests do not always…accep
t it. Not at first. But in time, they come to know and believe. They dream, and they manifest.”
“There are no women priests?” I asked.
“No,” Markas said. “No doubt, there are women with the Talent…but they do not live among us. Outside, they have their own orders and places in the community. They occupy an important role…perhaps the most important, ensuring that our blood does not die out. We men come here to live, to tend the Sphere and to take it as our wife rather than a woman.”
“You have no choice?” Isaru asked.
“Why would any refuse the highest honor our society can bestow? A man who comes here need never worry about food, about becoming a slave, about dying in an endless series of pointless wars. There is only one thing a warrior fears, and that is a priest. No one dares challenge us. No one, at least, until Mithras came. And he grew up among us.”
“How did he take control of this place?” Isaru asked.
“Mithras…was always troubled. He was not always called such, as you might have already guessed. Among us, he was Brother Mateya. From the beginning, he was a rare case; powerful indeed, but an outsider. What is more, he was deemed by all the Elders as being too old for training.” Father Markas smiled bitterly. “All deemed so but myself. But we will get there in due time.
“At the age of sixteen, he arrived. Such was his power and ability that I was averse to turning him away. Besides, he would only become a slave, and without training, his power might be enough to undo him. And so, we took him in, gave him training, taught him our precepts. Nearly four years passed, and even so, it was difficult for him to accept our ways. He left the Sphere ten years ago, after receiving a mysterious revelation, the contents of which he would not reveal to me.” Markas looked every bit his age saying that. “I did not learn this until he had returned, much later.
“You see, all priests, at the time they turn twenty, make a final choice whether or not to commit their lives to the Sphere. If they choose not to do so, they must leave the Sphere and the Ruins entirely – a brand is placed upon their forehead, a brand unlike any other in the form of a perfect circle.”
That explained the curious marking I had seen upon Mithras’s – or Mateya’s – forehead. I also couldn’t help but notice the coincidence that, traditionally, Seekers also ascended at the age of twenty.
“Few make the choice to leave, but it happens a time or two in a generation. Most of the priests come to accept their role within the Sphere. It is not as if it is a hard life. In fact, most are grateful for the opportunity, for there is no other occupation in the Ruins that guarantees such a long and blessed life, though it might be argued that we are made to pay in other ways. We can journey outside, on occasion, and there are balconies along the Sphere, so that we can look upon the Ruins and desert beyond. Such sights are barred from all others, for none but we can enter here.” He gave a small chuckle as he looked at us. “So many traditions broken. A priest is allowed to visit his family once a year, until he grows too old, like me, and no longer has one. In time, a priest comes to see the brothers here as family. There is happiness, there is sadness, just as there is in any life. But it is a different kind of happiness, and a different kind of sadness – two kinds that are not understood by anyone living on the outside. It is a life only a priest can understand. The greatest crisis that every young man has is coming to the realization that, if he commits to the Priesthood, he will take no wife, have no family, nor ever experience what is considered a normal life. Even knowing such things, even being taught to prepare for them, most priests choose to dedicate their lives to the Sphere, for when taken young, they know and desire nothing else.
“Mateya, however, was a different case, since he came to us not in the innocence of youth, but having already lived a long life, even for one sixteen years of age. Our Searchers had missed him for all those years, and for good reason; he claimed to have wandered from the Red Wild, and spoke little of his past – not until later.”
“He was from the Sanctum, wasn’t he?” I asked.
Four years in the Sphere, combined with ten years away, meant Mithras had arrived here fourteen years ago. I would have only been three, then.
Markas nodded. “It is so. He claimed no family, and it was only later that he related that he was the survivor of a Colonian purge.”
There had been a minor purge when I was young – too young to remember such things clearly. My parents had told me that it was a small thing, that only a handful of people had been executed at the hands of the Hunters. Such purges happened every ten years or so, even if they weren’t necessary. It was a way of reminding the populace that the enemy was always within, even if that enemy had to be manufactured.
“Even given the circumstances, there was resistance to admitting Mateya, despite his great potential. I strongly supported his entry. I even prophesied that Mateya would rise to become the leader of us all.” Markas smiled ironically. “Often, prophecies do not turn out in the way you expect them.”
“You said there was a darkness in him,” I said, after a long silence. “What did you mean by that?”
“Mateya was unusually bright. It might sound strange to say that, for I have said there was a darkness. He asked questions few think to ask, in perfect innocence, and while some might say that might lead to darkness and clouded judgment, I believe the hard questions are necessary to ponder. To run from the hard questions is to blind oneself from reality; if your faith can survive even the darkest of nights, then it has proven itself. But of course, not all are of a similar mentality.
“There was nothing within Mateya that I could definitively place as darkness, or even evilness. Not while he lived here, for I was only able to see that which Mateya wanted me to see. And yet, all the same…it was something I often felt, in my heart of hearts. I discounted this feeling, but I did take note of certain things. He had very few friends; this is a common quality of those who live a hard life, for if one is never loved, then they never learn how to love. This, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of the world, but it is not insurmountable. Love, of course, is the only cure, but it is the hardest kind of love to find within oneself, because you may never get anything returned to you but further grief. But I digress. What friends he did make, I would not even call as friends. He was always feared, both for his power and his innate ability to influence. No tool was out of bounds for him; he might just as easily be cruel as kind to achieve his ends. I am sure you have seen such people, even as young as you are, but this strategy rarely works, in the end, for once a person no long fears you, they have no reason to be beholden to you. This, after a time, is what happened with Mateya. He had no friends at all, even in name. I did not see this at the time; it was only during his ten year absence, in my mediation, that I perceived things thus. At the time, I had believed it was his intelligence and ability that isolated him, and that the other initiates were merely blinded by envy. And perhaps there was a bit of that.” Markas paused, considering. “However, even when we perceive ourselves to be wise, we have a tendency to be the greatest of fools. And, even if the darkness was writ right before my eyes, my heart sympathized with Mateya all the more.
“He never complained, working harder than the rest…and yet, with each passing year, his otherness became all the more apparent. Few were surprised when, given the choice, he decided to leave. Some priests were even relieved, and when he left, a palpable tension left the air…a tension that had been with us so long that it was as if it were never there.”
“The darkness left you,” Isaru said.
“Looking back, it would seem so. The only question is, what was this darkness? Why did it linger within Mateya? Did he choose it…or did it choose him? Such questions have haunted me these last ten years, but now that his story has ended…some of these answers have at last come to light, though others, still, remain in darkness.”
Markas turned back to face the pool. It was as if he expected to find answers there.
“Mateya would often come
here,” Markas continued. “He was drawn to prophecy, and nothing captured his imagination more than some of our tales passed down from the oldest priests, who in turn learned them from the Priests of Hyperborea. Tales of prophets who had seen the future, had predicted the coming fall of the city, only to be scoffed at by the court in all their glory…glory which was brought to nothing in the form of the Shen invasion.”
Markas’s words stirred my memory of Mia, who Elder Isandru had told me prophesied the downfall of Hyperborea. What the Elder hadn’t told me was that Mia was his own sister, even if he had said he had lived long after her. Maybe the lie had been his way of putting some distance between himself and something that had caused so much pain.
“Mateya received revelations of his own,” Markas went on. “The other boys would laugh at him, when they were bold enough to do so, and Mateya soon learned to keep his viewings to himself. He would tell me, of course, for I was his mentor. But even so, some of the things he revealed to me were…disturbing, to say the least. And yet from the content of his dreams, I could see that he was not making things up. He knew things he could have never known. Things lost ever since the Ragnarok War.”
“What things?” Isaru asked.
“Demons. Monsters. Great vessels flying between the stars. An ancient mind, buried beneath the Earth, sleeping, plotting to kill all. Swarms of dragons, forests burning. Warfare, disease, and strife. These things, and worse.”
“And you think it was all true?” I asked.
“At the time, I doubted. But all the same…I was fascinated by his apocalyptic viewings. And yet, it was clear such prophecies were worsening his condition; his behavior became more erratic. He would terrify the other initiates, often cornering them when they were alone, bullying and hurting them. Such was his fearful presence, that these horrible things only came to light once he had left. And yet, I was his confidant. One of the things that troubled me was why the Xenofold would give such dark prophecies to such an impressionable boy. It was as if it wanted him to fall into darkness.” Markas paused, apparently lost in thought. “In the end…I believe his prophecies may have been what caused him to accept the brand and leave.”