“Memory stones? White Magic? Limber? That’s quite a perfect collection of mythical properties. Why not raise a rebellion against Stoke while you’re at it?” the priest asked caustically.
Despite the provocative language, and despite having just been called out by a goddess, Theus felt calm. He had only come to the temple as a courtesy to visit Alsman, and the goddess had been kinder to him than her priest seemed to want to be.
Theus focused inwardly, and found his energy, then he called upon the spell that created invisibility. He silently stood up, and as the others watched him expectantly, he turned himself invisible.
Great goddess!” Alsman exclaimed. “Theus, where are you?”
“This is some trick,” the head priest tried to sound calm, though Theus thought the man looked paler than previously.
Theus walked towards the man and examined a jeweled pendant the man wore, one that appeared to Theus to contain a memory stone. Theus reached out and jerked on the pendant, breaking the chain that held it around the priest’s neck, as the man cried out in pain and surprise.
“Theus! Was that you?” Alsman asked.
Theus looked at the stone.
“Yes, it was me,” Theus confirmed, as he stepped away from the priest. He stood near a wall and examined the stone’s interior, looking at the distribution of stored memories.
“Give that back!” the priest said angrily.
Theus placed the stone against his head, and let a memory flow into his soul.
The priest was speaking before a conclave. It was a word Theus had never heard before, but the memory called the assembly of men and a few women a conclave.
“We will need to be more frugal in our functions,” the priest was saying to the group. “We can use the savings for our other projects, for reaching out to people in all parts of the province, not just the city. We will work with the royal governor to help spread word of Currense’s blessings.”
The priest looked across the stage he stood on. In the wings, unseen by the audience, a man nodded approvingly, and made motions of clapping silently in approval.
Theus roamed to the next memory. The man who had been in the previous memory was in an office, along with another man wearing opulent clothing. They were huddled over a desk, as the head priest stood nearby, examining himself in a mirror with a self-satisfied atmosphere.
“These are excellent funds, Bened,” the new man at the desk said. “Our treasury is indebted to you for your support. I’ll write most favorably to the palace about your assistance.”
“Governor Pince, I’m pleased to help you serve,” the high priest, named Bened, Theus had learned, replied.
“Your temple can continue to supply this level of funding for a while, so that we can meet our obligations to the palace?” the governor asked.
“Indefinitely,” Bened agreed. “We will find ways to provide you with funds.”
Theus pulled the stone away from his forehead and ended his invisibility.
“Why are you giving the money from the temple to the governor?” Theus asked. “Why does the governor give it to the palace?”
“Those are ridiculous claims! I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bened responded loudly.
”You recorded the memory of being in a room with a man who had been in the temple when you told the conclave you were cutting expenses, and he was with the governor, counting money you gave him, so that he could send it to the palace.”
“Don’t believe any of that, Alsman!” Bened exclaimed.
“I don’t know what to believe! Theus, how did you turn invisible?” Theus’s friend asked.
“I was given the gift of white magic. I was told I’ll need it to fight against the black magicians in the south. They’ve already invaded one country – Steep Rise. They worship a new god, an evil god, Ind’Petro,” Theus explained.
The temple began to rumble as soon as Theus mentioned the resurrected terrible deity.
“Alsman, Bened, you must help the white magician. Do anything he asks,” the voice of the goddess spoke for the second time that day in her temple. “Every member of the priesthood shall help this boy, any time he requests it. Bened, do you understand?” the goddess was direct in her question.
Both the priests fell to their knees. “I shall do as you say, my goddess,” Alsman immediately called out.
“He will fight against the great evil. Bened, I did not hear you – will you help this warrior?” the goddess asked.
“As you wish, my goddess,” the high priest replied. His voice sounded sullen to Theus.
“I am pleased,” the goddess addressed the temple one last time. The building shuddered again, and then her presence was gone.
“Theus, were you like this when you visited us before? Was your poverty and naivety just an act?” Alsman asked in awe as he began to rise to his feet.
“No, there’s been no act. I still don’t understand it all; there are many things happening in the world, and they are too complicated for me. I just know that I have to go to Limber, but first I’m going to help heal people here in the temple,” Theus replied.
“How will you carry out this miraculous healing?” Bened asked. The head priest clearly did not relish providing support or assistance to Theus in any way.
“I’ll go down and meet people, and find out what they need,” Theus answered. “And then I’ll get the items needed to mix their remedy, and give them a cure,” Theus laid out a simple plan.
“You won’t be able to treat many people if you’re going to treat them one at a time,” Alsman considered thoughtfully. “Maybe we can make it work better,” he suggested.
“With your permission, my lord, we’ll be on our way to carry out the goddess’s wishes,” he told the head priest.
“We can have temple scribes write down the list of items you want for each patient, and then gather them together so that you don’t waste a lot of your time,” Alsman suggested as the pair walked the halls out of the office.
“My lord,” a priest knelt at the sight of Theus. “We heard the goddess tell us to help you. What can I do?” he asked.
“You heard?” Theus asked in surprise.
“Everyone in the temple heard. We all heard what she had to say. We’ll all obey her, and you,” the priest declared.
Theus ended up working his way through a throng of priests, and out to the front steps of the temple, where Alsman’s plan of action was carried out, saving time as Theus mainly evaluated claims of illness among the worshipers who came to the temple seeking treatment of their health. He called out lists of ingredients and directions for blending them, while scribes and priests took notes, then escorted the patients away for treatment.
Hours later, as evening started to fall, Alsman came and called an end to the service.
“It’s time that you have a meal and rest,” he told Theus. “So that you can be on your way as the goddess wishes.”
Theus accepted the advice. He ate his meal with Alsman and over a dozen other priests who were eager to listen to Theus speak as if he was a holy man. Sometime later, Theus finally went to a comfortable bed in a quiet room, and he fell soundly asleep.
Chapter 13
Theus awoke the next morning rested and relaxed from his night of comfort. He was ready to head north towards Limber. He didn’t know where Limber was, but he counted on the Voice to lead him.
He had one wish to fulfill before he left Greenfalls, and he went in search of Alsman for help. Servants who recognized him as the extraordinary guest who had brought the voice of their goddess to the temple were extremely helpful, directing him to a dining room while at the same time searching for Alsman, to direct him to join Theus.
As he waited for the priest to arrive, he asked the servants to provide a supply of travel food he could pack for his mountain expedition. Within minutes he received a generous package of goods from the kitchen, which he arranged in his pack.
“Theus, has the goddess spoken to you with new co
mmands? The servants said you wanted something,” the priest spoke to Theus as he sat at the table where the boy was devouring slices of bacon for breakfast.
“I just want a staff to use before I go in the mountains to look for Limber,” Theus explained. “Is there a good market nearby where I can buy one?”
Alsman laughed. “The servants were sure you had another sacred communication! That’s why I hurried down here, to find out what you and the goddess were planning.
“And all you want is a walking stick for climbing in the mountains. Well, there is a morning market that is held in the plaza right in front of the temple most days. If you step out the front door, you should find it,” Alsman explained.
“What do you and the goddess talk about at night?” the priest lowered his voice as he asked the question.
“I’ve never talked to the goddess before, except to pray to her sometimes,” Theus replied. “Yesterday was the first day anything like that ever happened to me.” He thought of his experience visiting the temple of Limber in Great Forks. “Almost the only time, anyway,” he corrected himself.
“Well, Currense certainly changed the way people here at the temple think. I’m not sure that all our priests here actually even believed in her before yesterday,” Alsman said. “But a lot of them have a much deeper faith in her now. And many believe in you, as well.”
“I’m not anyone to believe in. I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m just following a voice and my luck and hoping nothing goes wrong,” Theus protested, then ate his last strip of bacon.
“I better get going,” he said, and stood up. “Thank you for hosting me.”
“We thank you for the visit, and we thank the goddess for her visit and yours,” Alsman stood up with him.
They walked to the front of the temple, as a sprinkling of patrons entered. The plaza had a large collection of stalls where vendors were selling a variety of goods. Alsman and Theus said farewell, and Theus received a chorus of farewells from others as he stepped down the stairs and entered the marketplace.
He was anonymous once he was among the vendors, no longer recognized as the special guest of a goddess, as he had been known among the temple priests. He preferred the anonymity, he decided. He’d found the rasher of bacon, and the sack of trail food to be marvelous advantages of divine acknowledgement. But he enjoyed the freedom of walking without eyes watching him.
“Voice? How far do I have to travel?” he asked his companion.
He spotted a vendor with walking sticks, and darted through the crowd to visit his table.
“About four days of travel,” the Voice replied.
“Four days of real travel, or four days for me to travel, going through magical steps?” Theus asked for clarification.
He paused in the conversation so that he could examine the bundle of sticks that stood erect in a basket. He liked the look of one that was a light-colored, almost honey-colored wood. He lifted it from the basket to inspect it.
“Good gods, this is heavy!” he exclaimed.
“It’s got a metal core,” the vendor explained. He grabbed the end of the staff and raised it, so that Theus could see the plug in the end. “It won’t break.”
“It would do a lot of damage in a fight,” Theus muttered.
“You could think of it that way too, I suppose, but I prefer to sell these as walking sticks. There’s a special tax on sales of weapons, so I’m not selling a weapon,” the vendor winked at him with a grin. “And you won’t pay the tax.”
Theus chuckled at the man’s tactics, and soon bought the stick. It would be especially useful for him to carry when he had to walk through the mountains.
“How many days of traveling?” he asked the Voice again, as soon as he walked away from the staff-seller.
“Two days for you,” the Voice answered.
Theus looked up over his shoulder, oriented himself with the sun so that he faced north, then grasped his energy, and took a step. He disappeared from the center of the market crowd, making a pair of women scream, though he didn’t hear their reaction.
He arrived in a mountain meadow, where a goat with curled horns bleated and leapt away as Theus appeared suddenly in the empty patch of grasses. Theus stood and breathed deeply, leaning on his new staff for support. The sun was bright in the deep blue sky above. The horizon was defined by a ring of mountain peaks, a few of which had patches of white snow mixed with the greenery and gray stones that defined the landscape.
Theus caught his breath minutes later, and began to walk north. He was glad to be back in a world of solitude and isolation, after experiencing the dense population of the city of Greenfalls. He needed to feel freer to move about, and not be under scrutiny.
His movements along the path drove the goat further away, though it chose to run in the same direction that Theus was heading. After three bursts of movement, the goat bolted directly upward, up the precipitous slope of the mountain, and out of sight.
Theus kept moving, trudging forward through the mid-morning light, enjoying the views around him. The mountains were lighter and more inviting than the Greentree Mountains had been when he’d traveled into and out of Southsand to rescue Amelia. He stopped and sat on a stone at midday, enjoying some of the food the temple kitchens had packed for him.
“Voice, are you the goddess Currense?” he decided to ask the question that had troubled him since he had dismissed it in the temple.
“Do I sound like the goddess?” the Voice sounded irritated. “No, of course not,” it answered its own question.
“Currense is a wonderful goddess, and she has been good to you along the way. I foresee that she might be good for you in the future as well. But she and I are separate. Now, get on with your journey,” the Voice directed him.
Theus rose and began walking. He was rested enough to travel once again, and within three more steps his magic had propelled him further north.
The second magical step of the day sapped him more deeply of energy, just as it always did. He hung onto his staff desperately, relying on it to hold him upright as his legs tried to recover from the distance he had traveled. He looked around as he waited for his body to reach a state of readiness to travel. The mountains seemed less green. They had more stone and fewer trees growing, as well as a greater amount of snow and ice covered the peaks of practically all the mountains he saw in the vicinity. The sky seemed to have a darker shade of blue.
He was breathing heavily, and for a longer time than he expected.
“The air at higher altitudes is thinner,” the Voice said. “You’ll need to go slow all afternoon. But not too slow; there is something complicating the situation, something I can’t explain yet.”
Theus silently nodded his head in acknowledgement, then continued to hold on to his staff and rest. Much later, he began to move north. The metal center to his staff no longer seemed like a positive modification; the staff felt heavy, and often contributed to his sense that he was carrying too much weight as he stumbled along the stony path he followed north.
When night began to fall, Theus decided he wasn’t able to take a third magical step; he was still unrecovered from his afternoon step. He found a cluster of large boulders, and settled down among them for his evening resting place.
While the sun set, he ate more of his travel supplies. The air cooled quickly as the sun’s rays disappeared, and Theus regretted that he had not purchased a blanket to keep him warm. He curled up and shivered as he slept fitfully throughout the night.
In the morning, he woke and rubbed his hands on his arms and legs to warm up. He stood and ate breakfast, then faced towards the north, and exercised his energy.
He arrived in a valley between peaks. The air felt cool, but also seemed to fill his lungs more satisfactorily as he inhaled. After a few minutes of standing still, Theus started moving again. He walked along the bottom of the valley, using his staff to step over fallen trees and wet springs. The valley turned towards the east, and so Theus began to c
limb the steep slope on the north side.
The slope was a difficult climb. He found a few trails that switched back and forth for parts of the climb, and he climbed straight up part of the time, while he also resorted to traveling east and west for part of the time, as he tried to cope with and overcome the high ridge that blocked his northward path.
By noon, he had gained several hundred feet in elevation, but he faced much more of a climb overhead. In addition, low gray clouds had moved in overhead, so low they brushed across the tops of the mountains – when he could see the mountain tops through the trees overhead – and they promised rain.
It was time to move on, Theus decided. He’d take his second magical step of the day. He could cease facing the mountain barrier that he could barely climb over, and he could escape from the rain that threatened to fall. He was traveling slowly, perhaps falling behind the Voice’s predicted two days of travel, but he continued to make progress.
He grasped his energy once again, invoked the magical spell that was inscribed in his memory, and stepped forward.
The world was white. It was blinding. It was cold and windy.
Theus arrived in a blizzard on a mountainside.
Despite holding onto his staff, he felt his weakened legs give way to the powerful forces of the blizzard, and he was blown to the ground. He felt snow on his face and his hands, while he tried to catch his breath from the effect of the magical step.
He rolled onto his knees and hands, then slowly raised himself up, using his staff as a prop. His teeth began to chatter.
In the whiteout conditions that surrounded him, he could make no sense of which way to go, nor could he see any of his surroundings to know if shelter was available nearby.
“Voice!” he wheezed. “Voice, help me! What do I do?”
“Go to your left, and look for the cave entrance,” the Voice replied.
Unpredictable Fortunes (The Memory Stone Series Book 3) Page 13