by Ginn Hale
“Gaunan Fikiri’in’Bousim?” John asked. He was smaller than John had expected and seemed younger than thirteen.
Pivan nodded. “He has not yet entirely committed his heart to the priesthood.”
“I can see that.” John considered the Thousand Steps again. That would be quite a distance to drag an unwilling boy.
The distant pounding of the tahldi’s hooves became a thunder. The riders surged up to the top of the road and Mou’pin reined in his tahldi beside Pivan. Grinning, he tossed Fikiri down to his commander.
Pivan caught the boy and set him on his feet directly in front of the steps.
“Today you are called to serve Parfir. Honor him and honor his house.” Pivan shoved the boy forward but Fikiri resisted.
“She’ll hate me if I go!” Fikiri cried out.
Pivan leaned down close to the boy and whispered, “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Fikiri bolted forward, scrambling upward in a panic. Pivan straightened and then clapped John on the shoulder.
“He’s all yours. Parfir help you.”
John just started climbing.
The moment Fikiri caught sight of John behind him, he threw himself ahead with greater speed. He slipped and caught himself, and then gave out pathetic groans and sobs. He sprinted up the steps with reckless energy. John didn’t try to catch him. He paced himself.
Twice he called out to reassure Fikiri that he meant him no harm, but his booming voice only seemed to further frighten the boy. After that, John concentrated on not falling down the frost-slick steps. As he went higher, the frost solidified into thin sheets of ice.
Steadily the air grew thinner and colder. Wind cut through John’s coat. The first dull ache began to play through the muscles of his thighs and calves.
Behind him, Pivan and his rashan’im had receded to tiny shadows against the Holy Road.
Ahead Fikiri dragged his feet up one step, swayed, and then slowly negotiated the next. He glanced back at John and, seeing how much distance John had gained, again bolted forward. He stumbled up a few steps and then slipped down to his hands and knees, sobbing. He curled his arms around his legs and sat there in a miserable, trembling heap.
When John reached him, he knelt down and said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Fikiri’s face was red and wet from exertion and tears. His breath came in gasps and unappealing snuffles.
“I want to go home,” Fikiri mumbled. He didn’t lift his eyes to John.
“I know,” John told him. They had that in common at least.
“Please, can we go home?”
“I’m sorry, but no.” John slipped the sheepskin of daru’sira from his shoulder and handed it to Fikiri. “Drink some of this.”
“What is it?”
“Daru’sira.”
Fikiri met John’s face for the first time. He seemed startled. He said, “You aren’t Alidas.”
“No, I’m called Jahn.” John smiled, exploiting the innocuous nature of his Basawar name as best he could.
“I had a hunting dog called Jahn.” Fikiri gave him a weak smile and glanced to the edges of John’s hood, where strands of his blonde hair hung against the black wool. “Are you a friend of my mother’s?”
“I’ve met her. I’m the man who stopped your convoy on the Holy Road the night before you reached Amura’taye.”
Fikiri looked at him blankly.
“You were in a carriage on your way here,” John reminded him.
“I remember the train station at Nurjima but after that all I remember is the priest’s voice, chanting prayers over and over…” Fikiri trailed off. Tears began to dribble down his cheeks.
“Drink a little daru’sira. It’ll warm you up,” he told the boy.
Fikiri sniffed and sipped the drink and then handed the skin back to John.
“Do you think you can walk?” John asked.
Fikiri’s mouth trembled. “Do I have to?”
“Yes, you have to.” John felt like an utter asshole making the boy stand and keep going, but he needed Fikiri to get into Rathal’pesha. And anyway, Pivan wouldn’t offer Fikiri much of a welcome if he caught him dragging himself down the mountain.
John helped Fikiri to his feet and let the boy lean on him as they continued climbing.
Icy mist from mountain clouds drifted over them, enfolding them in whiteness and cold. Sudden, sharp winds swept down, slicing through John’s clothes and chilling the sweat on his back and thighs. Fikiri shivered constantly and wept intermittently. When the sound of his crying didn’t drown it, John could hear the boy’s teeth chattering against each other.
“They won’t let us enter even if we reach Rathal’pesha.” Fikiri sniffed. “They’ll leave us out to freeze to death on the mountainside. There are prayers that have to be said and words—”
“I know,” John told him. “I know the prayers and I know the words.”
Fikiri halted as though riveted to the stairway.
“You know them?”
John shrugged and then began to chant the prayers.
A strange, dreamy expression spread across Fikiri’s face.
John stopped chanting and said, “You see? It’ll be fine.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, it will be fine.” John frowned at Fikiri.
“No, it won’t!” Fikiri’s lips began to tremble. “There are prayers and words that have to be said . I don’t know what they are.”
“I just told you that I know them.”
“You did?” Fikiri’s look of surprise seemed utterly genuine.
“Yes, I just said one of the prayers to you.”
“You didn’t say anything,” Fikiri told him.
John began the prayer again, and once more the tension and fear drained from Fikiri’s face. His arms hung limply; his eyes drooped nearly closed. A slight, sweet smile spread across his lips and he swayed with John’s voice as if it were music. Then Fikiri began climbing. He took the steps with the rhythm of John’s voice, moving with an ease and grace that he had previously lacked.
So that was the purpose of the prayers, John realized. Inducing this trance-like state was what the attendant did and why Fikiri needed one. There was no way he would endure the climb on his own will alone. Left to himself, Fikiri would have just sat down and cried until sunset.
John felt slightly guilty as he continued chanting prayers that compelled Fikiri to mindlessly climb the steps. It seemed like a sinister power to have over the boy and one that, as a decent person, he shouldn’t use. On the other hand, they were making much better time this way and Fikiri wasn’t crying.
John kept praying.
The words that had pervaded the last two days flowed from him. One prayer led into the next and the next after that. They repeated in a long cycle, the words pulling him onward.
John’s climb wasn’t a painless daze like Fikiri’s. His muscles burned and his throat ached. He didn’t dare to look ahead him. He didn’t want to see the endless line of steps still before him. He kept his eyes on his feet.
There was snow now. Little patches of it filled the shadowed corners of the gray stone steps. Clumps clung to John’s boots. John’s legs felt like weights. The bruises across his back throbbed. Ahead of him Fikiri continued, oblivious to both fatigue and cold.
Suddenly, John felt something in the air. Something like a breath blown against his ear. It was a familiar sensation. It was the way the air seemed to tremble just as Ravishan appeared before him.
“Nahara’hi, muhli,” a low voice hissed.
John instantly looked up, searching for the source of the threatening words. But only Fikiri stood before him, his dreamy expression fading as John fell silent, listening.
“Shir’im’hir inaye!” the voice came again.
John whipped around and looked down the steps. Still, no one. He looked farther ahead on the steps.
“Korud,” a second low voice growled over them. “Shir’im’hir maht!”
More voices joined in, hissing and growling in Basawar.
“Turn aside, unworthy filth.”
“How dare you walk the Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door, hideous, ugly creature.”
“Dirty.”
“Sinful.”
“Filthy.”
“Piece of shit.”
Fikiri collapsed to his knees, weeping and begging Parfir to forgive him, to spare him.
The voices swept over them, seeming to rise from the sky and stones. John narrowed his eyes. Sky and stones didn’t speak Basawar or any other language. These were human voices, men’s voices. The air shivered with the sensation of hidden spaces opening and slipping closed. It had to be the Payshmura priests.
“Fikiri.” John crouched down beside the boy.
“I’ll kill you,” a voice whispered.
“Tear you to pieces,” another hissed.
“Burn you alive.”
Their words were like a swarm of insects slashing through the air. John could almost feel their words brush across his face. He could smell their breath.
“It’s a trick, Fikiri. They’re testing you,” John told him.
Fikiri sobbed. “I don’t want to die! Please! I don’t want to die!”
“You won’t.” John placed his hands over Fikiri’s ears.
“Go back.”
“Give up.”
“Turn aside.”
John kept his hands pressed over Fikiri’s ears and slowly Fikiri began to calm down. He looked up at John and then glanced from side to side as if he expected to be able to see if the disembodied voices were still there.
“Are they gone?” Fikiri asked.
John shook his head and slowly peeled one of his hands back.
“You will suffer.”
“Burn.”
“Bleed.”
“Scream for mercy.”
Fikiri’s lips trembled.
“If it was Parfir,” John said firmly, “could my hands keep his voice from reaching you?”
“Are they devils?” Fikiri whimpered.
“No.” John found that he was almost shouting now.
“Run from me!”
“I am death.”
“I am ruin.”
“It’s just a trick that the priests are playing to test you,” John shouted over the threats and insults. “You must not listen to them.”
“I will devour your flesh.”
“Rot your bones.”
“Eat your soul.”
“I’m scared.” Fikiri was trembling. “I don’t want to die.”
“You aren’t going to die! Just look at me, Fikiri.” John forced Fikiri to lift his head. “Just look at me and repeat what I say.”
Tears dribbled down Fikiri’s face but he didn’t look away.
John shouted out the words of the prayers. And slowly Fikiri began to repeat them.
“Parfir,” John led Fikiri as Pivan had led him, “the earth is your flesh, the rivers your blood, the skies your breath. Parfir, the earth is your flesh, the rivers your blood, the skies your breath. I honor you. I honor you. I honor you...”
Slowly Fikiri’s eyes drooped, his mouth relaxed, so that he was only whispering. He slumped into John’s chest, still muttering the prayer.
John continued chanting. He carefully lifted Fikiri onto his back and then pushed himself up to his feet.
Angry, resistant pain shot through his muscles. For a moment John’s legs trembled as if they might buckle. He stumbled, caught himself, and continued grinding the words of the prayers out. Slowly, he struggled up the steps. The hissed insults and whispered threats washed over him.
John ignored everything but the prayers and the steps. The weight, the cold, the pain—he refused to feel them. Staring down, he took gray step after gray step.
Gray step after gray step.
They seemed to go on endlessly beneath him.
And then there were only cobblestones beneath his feet. John lifted his head. A white stone wall rose up in front of him. It glowed a pale yellow in the early afternoon light. Only a few feet ahead of him, the last step stood before a broad iron door in the wall. The step gleamed brightly and as John drew closer he realized that it was made of gold.
John lowered Fikiri to his feet. The boy moaned and called sleepily for his mother.
“Wake up.” John could hardly get a sound out, his throat was so raw.
Fikiri opened his eyes. He looked like the nap had done him good.
He said, “The voices are gone.”
John nodded and pointed to the tall white wall and the iron door.
“We’ve reached Rathal’pesha.” John pulled the sheepskin of daru’sira from his shoulder and drank. The juniper-like bitterness felt good against his dry throat.
“You have to go through the door.” John still couldn’t get much more than a whisper out.
“But I don’t know—” Fikiri began.
“The word you must say is I-am-here-my-lord,” John told him.
Fikiri tried and failed.
“I-am-here-my-lord,” John repeated. “Say it.”
“I’yam herem’myl’ord,” Fikiri whispered.
“That’s great.” John sipped more of the daru’sira. The burning in his throat cooled to numbness.
“I already knew the word,” Fikiri confessed. “My mother will never forgive me if I go in.”
“I’m sorry,” John said.
He suspected that Lady Bousim might not forgive Fikiri for becoming a Payshmura priest. She despised the Payshmura absolutely, maybe even more than she loved her son. John entertained no illusion about parents and unconditional love. It wasn’t fair to put Fikiri in that position. But then, life wasn’t often fair.
And John had not climbed nine hundred and ninety nine steps to turn around and walk back down.
For a brief, exasperated moment he considered dragging Fikiri to the door, kicking it open and hurling the boy through. Pivan had probably had something like that in mind when he had told John the holy password. But John was exhausted and the big iron door didn’t look like it could be kicked open easily.
“Fikiri, you’re going to go in there one way or another.” John corked the sheepskin and swung it back over his shoulder. “You can either do it with pride and dignity or you can be thrown in on your ass, crying. Those are your options. Right now they are the only choices you have. So what’s it going to be?”
Fikiri sniffed.
“Look,” John said, “your mother isn’t going to know how you entered Rathal’pesha. As far as she knows, I beat you up, tied you in ropes, and you fought every inch of the way. But the men on the other side of that wall are going to be watching. And they’re who you’re going to have to live with.”
Fikiri wiped his eyes.
“What would you do?”
“If I were you?”
“If you were me,” Fikiri said.
Shove the big exhausted guy out of my way and run like hell down the stairs, John thought in all honesty. But then, he wasn’t Fikiri and he would never have allowed himself to be carried up the steps in the first place.
John said, “I’d walk in on my own two feet. I wouldn’t let those priests think that I was unworthy of them.”
“Are you coming in with me?”
“I am.”
Fikiri straightened his shoulders and then turned to face the huge white wall. He strode to the door, called out the holy word, and then walked through as the iron door was pulled open before him. John felt a little proud of Fikiri as he followed silently behind him. At least he’d managed to pull himself together at the end, when it had mattered.
Just past the iron door, hundreds of gray-robed priests had gathered to greet the ushiri candidate. They lined the walkway leading to the Great Temple and cheered as Fikiri stepped before them. Others stood on the high battlements that lined the great white wall and cheered.
Most of them were grown men in their f
orties or fifties. The rest seemed to be spread between mid- and late-thirties. Only rarely did John notice a boy as young as Fikiri or even a man as young as himself.
The uniformity in their slim builds, soft features, and dark hair implied some common heritage. Pivan would have blended into their midst flawlessly. Fikiri’s dark blonde hair stood out. But at least his build was small and slim. Aside from the slightly sharper point of his chin and nose, his features resembled those of the men around him.
John, on the other hand, stood out among them as utterly foreign. Nothing he could do would disguise his greater height and muscular build. Months of hunger hadn’t helped things either. The hard angularity of his face and body had only become more marked since he had been living out in the woods. With his bright blonde hair and light eyes, John guessed that the priests, like Lady Bousim, would think he came from an Eastern bloodline.
Still, none of the priests seemed unfriendly towards him. As he trailed Fikiri, they smiled at him and seemed to be cheering him as well. One hunched old man caught his arm briefly and pressed a tiny yellow cookie into his palm.
“Strength for the attendant,” the old man said and then he nudged John along.
The Great Temple rose up like a white mountain of its own. All the stone paths in the courtyard seemed to converge at the foot of its gray stone stairs and massive black doors. Arched over the doorway, silver moons caught and reflected the afternoon light. At the very top of the arch there was a single gold sun. It looked a little like the cookie John had been given.
Fikiri came to a dead stop at the foot of the Great Temple’s stairs.
A group of men in black coats and gray cassocks stood at the top, forming a line before the doors. John recognized the silver emblems of moons marking the collars of their coats. They were ushiri like Ravishan. He scanned the line of men for his friend’s face but didn’t find him there.
An old, skeletally thin priest stepped forward. His hair hung past his waist in white braids. The skin of his exposed face and hands was finely creased and folded, like paper that had been balled up and then spread flat.
Another priest, a man in his forties, stepped up behind the old man and steadied him. Though the action was one of servitude, John didn’t get that kind of impression from the younger priest’s face. He towered over the older man. Thick black braids cascaded down his broad shoulders. His bearing and expression radiated pride and self-assurance. John immediately sensed that it was not the dark priest’s obligation to care for his elder but his right.