Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

by Stephen Lawhead

  Treet caught only the barest hint of what the Preceptor was saying, but he let it go. “You’ve stayed away from Dome ever since?”

  “The Protector gave us Daraq, the desert, as a shield. Dome will not cross the Blighted Lands. Now they live turned in among themselves. Their disease will not be healed. It festers within them; it devours them and will in time destroy them. We leave them to their madness.”

  Treet stared at all those around him and knew in that instant why he had come here to this place. Words bubbled up from inside him and fought their way to his tongue. He felt like shouting, like hiding, like running from the hall screaming, like weeping and singing all at once. He began to tremble and felt Yarden’s hand on his arm.

  He clamped his mouth shut, determined not to make a bigger fool of himself than he already had. But his mouth would not stay shut. Hot pincers gripped his tongue, and the words came of their own accord. “The horror is starting again!” His voice grated in the hushed room.

  The assembled Fieri looked at him strangely. The Preceptor nodded and said, “Speak freely. Tell us what has been given you.”

  Treet drew a quivering hand across his damp forehead and said, “You know that I—that is we,” he included those with him, “escaped from Dome. But while I was there I saw the signs—the madness you spoke of just now—it’s all beginning again. Already the leaders of Dome are searching for you, fearing you without reason. It’s only a matter of time before they overcome their fear and come for you.”

  His words sent shockwaves of surprise coursing through the assembly. “Treet!” came Yarden’s urgent whisper. “What are you doing?”

  The Preceptor merely nodded once more, pressed her palms together, and brought her fingertips to her lips. Treet waited. Needles pricked along his scalp from nape to crown.

  She leveled her eyes on him. “What will you do, Traveler?”

  The question was not what Treet expected. “Do?” He looked to Talus and Mathiax for help. They merely peered back at him with narrowed eyes waiting for his reply. “I’m sorry—I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your purpose has been revealed to you,” the Preceptor explained. “Now you must decide what to do.”

  “Why me?” Treet sputtered, looking around helplessly. “I mean, this affects every one of us. We all—”

  “You must decide,” said the Preceptor firmly.

  “I’m going back.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think, but once said he realized he’d been waiting to say them since the moment he’d set foot in Fierra, perhaps even before. “The signs are there—I’ve seen them before. We’ve got to stop Dome or they’ll destroy everything. Come with me.”

  The Preceptor regarded him silently and then said, “We have seen what war can do; we carry in our hearts its terrible wounds—wounds which can never heal.” She shook her head. “No, Traveler, we will not go with you. We will not fight Dome.”

  “But they wi—”

  “The Fieri have vowed eternal peace. We will never lift a hand against another living being.”

  “They will annihilate you,” Treet said wonderingly.

  “So be it.” The Preceptor’s eyes glittered in the light. “It is better for us to join the Comforter in the pavilions of the Infinite Father than to increase the hate and horror of war by participating in it. We have vowed peace; let us live by our vow.”

  Treet could not believe what he was hearing. He looked to Mathiax and Talus for help, but they merely looked back emptily, their faces drawn in melancholy. “You will die by your vow,” he said, shaking his head.

  The Preceptor turned and moved away. The ranks of Fieri broke and the hall began to empty. Treet watched them go and then turned to his companions. Each regarded him with expressions of incredulity and contempt mixed in equal portions.

  Crocker said, “You put both feet smack in the brown pie this time. Coo-ee!” He strode off.

  Pizzle shrugged. “What can you expect from a guy who’s never read Far Andromeda?” He shuffled away, following Crocker out into the courtyard.

  “I’m going to my room,” Yarden said icily.

  “What did I say?” whined Treet. “Yarden, listen!” He hollered at her retreating figure, but she did not turn back. In a moment he was all alone. No one has any use for a doomsayer, he thought; and that’s just what I am.

  SIXTY-TWO

  “You’re insane, Orion Treet! Is this some kind of kinky death wish? Is that what it is?” Yarden seethed. Anger flared her dark eyes with flecks of fire and honed her words to piercing points like needles of ice. Treet had never seen such fury in a woman and stood back in awe, as from a flame-sprouting geyser.

  “Yarden, be reas—”

  “Be reasonable yourself! If you weren’t so infatuated with that gigantic ego of yours, you’d see how crazy it is!”

  Treet flapped his tongue in response, but his reply was lost amidst Yarden’s fresh tirade.

  “It’s a fool’s errand. You’ll get yourself killed for nothing. You have some kind of misguided messiah complex, and you think you’ll change Dome. But you won’t. They’re evil, Orion. Through and through evil—rotten with it. I won’t stand here and listen to you delude yourself.”

  “It’s not that bad, Yarden. Honestly, do you think I’d—”

  “Think you’d walk into that nest of vipers unawares? Yes, I do. You don’t know them for what they are. You did not see them like I did. Please, listen to me. Stop this stupid, stupid plan of yours now. You don’t have to do it. No one will care whether you go or not. No one will think less of you for not going. Give it up.”

  “I can’t give it up! Can’t you see that?” He’d tried the calm-down-cool-off-let’s-talk-about-it approach, and it had proven about as effective as a pup tent in a hurricane. Yarden’s reaction mystified him. She had blown up instantly, without warning. He hadn’t seen it coming. “Someone has to do something about Dome or the holocaust will begin again.”

  “You have no proof of that.”

  “I know what I’ve seen. I know the pattern from history—I’ve seen it time and time again. The machinery of war is already in place. We’ve got to stop them before they get full control of it.”

  “How do you intend to stop them?”

  She had him there. He had no idea. “I don’t know, but I’ll find a way. Come with me.”

  “No! I won’t be a party to your suicide. I love you. I won’t watch you kill yourself.”

  “I’m not saying it isn’t dangerous. I know it is. I’ll be careful. But dangerous or not, it’s got to be done. Don’t you see that?”

  “No, I don’t. The Fieri have lived for two thousand years avoiding Dome. Why should that change now all of a sudden?”

  “It’s the age-old pattern, the cycle of hate. Dome despises the Fieri, and over time that hate builds up until they can’t contain it anymore and it explodes. Last time they incinerated the Fieri cities—changed a million kilometers of fertile farmland into a sterile desert waste; they blasted three generations of civilized human beings into sizzling atoms in less than two seconds. They’ll do it again unless they are stopped.”

  Yarden stared at him. Her lips were compressed into a thin, straight line. Her face was clenched like a fist, teeth tight, jaw flexed. “I can’t believe you’d do this to us,” she said finally.

  “To us? You think I want this?”

  “Yes. In some strange way no one will ever understand, you do want this or you wouldn’t insist on going.”

  “Yarden, I don’t want to go. I’m no hero. But someone has to go, and there’s no one else. You heard the Preceptor. None of the Fieri will go. Fine. I’m not bound by any sacred oath. Besides, I promised I would go back.”

  “You what?”

  “I told Tvrdy I’d return. They’re desperate for help, and they’re waiting for me to bring it. I told them I’d come back with help, and I meant it. That’s why we left, remember?”

  “I don’t believe this,” Yarden huffed.
“After all you’ve seen here, you can still think about returning?”

  “They’re waiting for me—us—to come back with the help they need.”

  “They’re using you, Treet! Open your eyes. Suppose you helped them overthrow Jamrog—what makes you think Tvrdy would be any different, any better than the fiend he replaced? They scream about injustice and brutality. Yet, when the new regime comes to power they show themselves worse villains than the villains they replaced: more brutal, more unjust, more repressive. It’s the politics of terrorism—you end up replacing one terrorist with an even bigger terrorist!

  “Wake up, Treet; they’re using you. You owe them nothing. You’re not bound by anything—except your own inflated ego!”

  “You don’t know—”

  “Give it up,” Yarden pleaded. “Please, give it up. You don’t have to go. You don’t owe them anything. What goes on in Dome doesn’t concern us any longer. We’re free. Forever free. The life we’ve always dreamed of—that all mankind has always dreamed of—is here. And it’s ours for the asking. Please, Orion, stay with me. We’ll be happy.”

  “I want nothing more. You have to believe that, Yarden. But what happens inside Dome does concern us. Can’t you see that? Dome will strike again; they can’t stop themselves, so they have to be stopped and there’s no one else to do it. I have to try. I don’t want to, but I’m going.” He moved toward her, raising his hands to touch her. She stiffened and turned away.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  “No, wait. Don’t go, Yarden. Let’s talk about this.”

  “You’ve made up your mind. There’s nothing more to talk about.”

  He watched her rigid form move through the doorway and disappear in the darkened corridor beyond. He knew that everyone in Talus’ pavilion had probably heard them fighting, but he didn’t particularly care anymore. He sank into a chair and shook his head wearily. Of all people, he expected Yarden, if not to support his decision, at least to understand it. Instead, she had reacted in the worst way possible.

  Was she right? Was he being a stubborn, egomaniacal ass? Had he misread the signs entirely?

  He thought about this, remembering the haunted expressions he’d seen on the faces of Dome’s inhabitants: that vacant, sunken-eyed hopelessness that in the strange alchemy of repression was transmuting the simple desires of an abused people into a volatile ether awaiting the proper spark to ignite it. The spark would be a leader who, to slake his unquenchable greed and power lust, would turn the force of firestorm toward the innocent Fieri. The Fieri would become the hated enemy whose destruction would be presented as the panacea for all Dome’s ills.

  Treet knew that torturous trail for what it was. He’d seen the bloody cycle repeat itself too often in history not to recognize it now. The mystery was, why did no one else recognize it?

  He would have gladly agreed with Yarden if there had been even the smallest particle of doubt in his mind, if there was any other logical explanation for what he had seen and heard. But he knew in the marrow of his bones he was right, and his scholarly integrity was too keenly developed over too many years to allow him to back away from his assessment just because it was inconvenient or threatening.

  He was right. Dome would attack again, probably very soon. Something had to be done. It was all well and good to appeal to two millennia of peace and invoke a sacred oath of nonviolence. But the rabid, power-mad rulers of Dome would not think twice about violating peace or sacred oaths when they could conceive of neither.

  As soon as Dome whipped themselves into enough of a killing frenzy, they would strike. They would venture out from under their enormous crystal shell with death in their hands; they would seek out the Fieri and annihilate them. They would do this, Treet knew, because, as it had happened time and time again on Earth, the mere presence of the Fieri challenged their warped existence the same way a single ray of light jeopardizes whole realms of darkness. Dome could never be reconciled to the Fieri— the differences between them were too great.

  The problem was classic: how do you appease an enemy who will not be appeased by anything less than your death?

  If the Fieri could accept annihilation out of religious conviction—as the Preceptor had pointed out, they knew the horror of war better than anyone else and had vowed that they would never increase that horror by participating in it—so be it. Treet had taken no such vow.

  Besides, there was a chance that Dome could be diverted from its present course if he acted soon enough. And he wouldn’t be alone: Tvrdy and Cejka and their followers already struggled to dismantle the war machine, or at least halt it. Perhaps with help they could succeed—perhaps not. But in any case there was absolutely nothing to lose. If they failed, there would be no life for the Fieri anyway.

  One day soon Dome would again fill the skies with fire, and there would be no escape. To think otherwise was utter delusion. Besides, what kind of life would it be to awaken every morning wondering if this was the day the world would end? What kind of happiness could exist as long as the specter of inevitable destruction loomed larger every moment? What kind of feast is it where hooded death sits at the head of the table?

  He had to go. There was no other way.

  “I think you’re nuts, too,” said Pizzle when Treet saw him in the courtyard the next morning. “If you think you’re going to talk me into going back with you, then you’re more than nuts—you’re psychotic.”

  “I knew I could count on you, Pizzle. True blue.”

  “So sorry! I’ve just never been much of a martyr. Aversion to suicide is one cultural trait I approve of. It’s very practical.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be anything but practical. That’s you all the way—good old pragmatic Pizzy.” The sarcasm in his voice finally got to Pizzle.

  “Look, if you want to toddle off on some lunatic crusade, go right ahead. Who’s stopping you? Anyway, you should thank me: a coward like me would only slow you down. You could save the world a lot quicker without me hanging on your back.”

  “You’re right about that. But, loath as I am to admit it, Pizzle, you’ve got a cool head on your shoulders when you choose to use it. You’d be a help.”

  “Right. And this head is staying fixed on these shoulders. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Treet got up and looked down at Pizzle with dismay. “You don’t have to make up your mind right now. Think it over, I’ll be back.”

  “Suit yourself.” Pizzle shrugged and looked myopically up at him. “But I’m not leaving Fierra. Ever. Jaire is taking me sailing today. You know what? I’ve never been sailing in my life. I’ve never been alone with a beautiful woman either, as a matter of fact. And this is just the beginning. I intend to start doing a lot of things I’ve never done before. I’d be a fool to leave this, and so would you.”

  “Don’t you think there’s the slightest chance you could be overdramatizing all this?” Crocker sat across from Treet, leaning toward him, resting his forearms on his knees. The courtyard was cool and quiet in the midmorning sun. The yellow canopy made them both look slightly jaundiced.

  Treet shook his head slowly. “No. I wish I could make myself believe I was wrong, but I’ve seen too much, I know too much. Pretending it doesn’t exist won’t make it go away.”

  “I agree,” said Crocker. “If you feel that way, I think you should go.”

  “You do?” Treet looked at the pilot closely, studying him for any trace of the odd aloofness he’d displayed since the travelers had been reunited. Crocker seemed himself, but Treet remained wary. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, if you can have an opinion, why can’t I agree with it?”

  “I mean, why do you think I should go? No one else does.”

  “No big secret there, Treet. I just think a man has to do what he thinks is right no matter what.”

  “Code of the Wild West, eh? A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  “Go ahead, make fun of the only person who believes in t
his crazy scheme of yours.”

  “You say you believe and you still call it crazy. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’m willing to go along with you.”

  That stopped Treet cold. “You what?”

  “I’ll go with you—back to Dome. What’s the matter? Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “But what? Isn’t that what this little conversation was leading up to—asking me to go with you?”

  “Yeah,” Treet admitted, feeling unsettled, but not certain why. “I was going to ask you to go with me.”

  “So I saved you the trouble. This way, if anything goes wrong you won’t have to feel responsible. You didn’t recruit me—I volunteered.”

  “You really want to go, huh?” Crocker’s reaction was so different from what he’d received from Yarden and Pizzle, Treet was suspicious.

  “It’s not a question of wanting to go. But let’s just say your little speech last night convinced me. Something has to be done, or we might just as well lie down in a deep hole and pull the sod over our heads. I’m not ready for that yet. If there’s a chance we can prevent it, we’ve got to try. That’s how I see it.”

  “Crocker, you’re a wonder,” said Treet “I figured you’d laugh in my face like Pizzle did.”

  “Pizzle’s a spineless, self-seeking coward! He’s not worth spit,” replied Crocker with a vehemence that surprised Treet. Crocker and Pizzle had been the best of friends throughout their desert ordeal. It wasn’t like Crocker to denounce him so strenuously.

  Treet got to this feet, and Crocker slumped back in his chair, staring up at him. Treet said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m going to look in on Calin. We’ll start making plans for the return trip in the next day or two.”

  “Fine.” Crocker nodded slowly. He looked gray and exhausted, as if wilting before Treet’s eyes. “I’ll be here.”