All These Shiny Worlds

by Jefferson Smith

  “No.” It was truthful enough. Kyron said he wasn’t one of the gods.

  “But you’ve seen some unusual behavior from The Sacred Thing—I mean, from the Upshan Berental, correct?”

  “I wasn’t lying. The first night, when I touched it, it turned off and rolled down the stairs.”

  “Unnecessary complications,” the high priest muttered. “We were warned, you know.”

  Brother Uther nodded. “Before that? Before you touched it, I mean.”

  “It was red.”

  “I see. You recall nothing else?”

  “Nothing,” she lied. What was she supposed to say? There’s a boy in your ball, and we’re having a quarrel?

  She snapped back to reality a moment too late. “What?”

  Brother Uther repeated, “Until the Conduit stops following you, we can’t allow you to leave the temple.”

  ***

  Reesa was beginning to suspect that the priesthood actually enjoyed waiting on her. They’d rigged up a tent and some bedding behind the pedestal, giving her a private place to sleep. One of the older priests taught her how to repair the temple’s books, then set up a work bench near the pedestal. The priests took turns bringing her meals, and released her and the other acolytes from their vows of silence as they stood watch. And once every waking hour, they would escort her to the temple’s entrance to see if the Upshan Berental would follow. It always did, like an eager puppy looking for a walk.

  Occasionally she would try and strike up a conversation with her captor, but without success. Sometimes it seemed like Kyron was stubbornly refusing to respond. Other times, it was like he wasn’t there to answer. But whatever the reason, it was almost a week before she heard from him again.

  The silence was broken after the third visit from her parents. Their meeting had gone poorly. Her father had yelled at her, as though the whole thing was something she’d made up to get out of chores. As usual, mother seemed to disagree, but her objections were timid and muted. When her parents left, Reesa burst into sobs.

  Reesa?

  The girl’s temper flared for a second, but she fought it down. As much as she disliked the boy, she would never be free without his cooperation. What can I do for you, Kyron of the Glowing Marble?

  He laughed. I’m in an awkward position. I have many strange and fantastic stories to tell, and some secrets of the universe to reveal. But the only one I can tell them to is angry and cannot forgive me.

  Of course I’m angry! You’re keeping me prisoner!

  You were ignoring me!

  You humiliated me in front of everybody! Why don’t you bother someone else?

  Like I said. You’re the only one I can talk to.

  Reesa was taken aback. Not even the other acolytes? There was only silence. “You’re alone in there, aren’t you?” she whispered aloud.

  Not exactly. Sometimes I can sense others, but they’re impossible to really talk to, and they never stay long.

  Reesa wasn’t quite sure she understood, but she got the sense that he was lonely.

  So, if I forgive you, you’ll tell me the mysteries of the universe?

  Yes.

  Then I forgive you. But let me ask for ink and paper. Mysteries of the universe ought to be written down.

  ***

  Nearly seventy years ago, Kyron had watched over the Upshan Berental, as so many had before him. He had been fascinated with it, maybe even obsessed. He found that when he was completely calm and relaxed, he could feel the orb as a distinct, textured warmth in his mind. He’d meditated upon it for years, becoming familiar with its shifting patterns. Late one night, he found something deep inside. It was a way in.

  It was open.

  The moment his mind entered it, the door slammed shut. Kyron watched in horror from inside the sphere as his body stood up and shambled away, eyes unfocused. For years, he could do nothing but watch, the temple’s weekly services punctuating the monotony.

  Every week, his parents would dress his walking corpse, comb its hair, guide it to services, and seat it next to them. His mother would stand in front of the congregation sometimes, weeping openly as she spoke to the congregation of the difficulties they were having raising their suddenly silent, mindless child.

  Those years of imprisonment had felt like the Blackfire. But after exhausting himself with pounding on the walls, screaming to get out, Kyron gave up. He began to explore in earnest. With careful focus, he could look up and down or side to side. After getting bored with spinning himself dizzy, he explored further. He found another direction to move, one which he couldn’t reconcile with the physical space he was familiar with. A small twist in one “direction” and he found himself looking out over a gleaming metal city at sunset. Another twist put him face to face with strange and frightening creatures, all feathers and tentacles, squawking at the sphere in either outrage or lust.

  He quickly became lost, and his attempts to retrace his steps only led him further afield. When his panicked dash through the sphere had exhausted itself, he found himself staring at the surrounding ruins of an abandoned temple, half collapsed and covered with jungle life. Two creatures that looked like shriveled people with extra arms were beating the sphere with sticks, howling at it.

  It seemed as good a place to stop as any.

  The creatures eventually got bored and left. Kyron also got bored and began fumbling around, looking for other controls. He found one, which he explored for the longest time before giving it the most tentative twist he could manage. Time froze. Emboldened, he twisted it further. The shriveled humans returned, walking backwards. Another turn, and time moved much faster; the jungle life started retreating from the ruins, which were stacking themselves back up into a fully-constructed temple. Kyron recognized the temple he’d stared out at for so many years. He was home.

  He went forward in time, briefly, watched as the Temple of the Upshan Berental was sacked and burned by a pack of angry, fuzz-faced creatures.

  It must have been awful, Reesa whispered.

  She felt his muted agreement more than heard it. Imagine cute, fuzzy stuffed animals slaughtering each other. Better yet, don’t. It’s not pleasant.

  When he couldn’t bear to watch anymore, he fled backwards in time, watching the great hall undergo hundreds of sudden redecorations. Time ground to a halt, putting Kyron face-to-face with a girl his own age, her face scrunched in concentration as she pressed her hands against the sphere.

  I’ve probably left thousands of times since then. I still don’t know my way around, but it always draws me back to that point when you’re making your vows to the Upshan Berental. I think it wanted me to meet you.

  After vainly trying to grapple with the enormity of that statement, Reesa gave up. When you leave, she asked instead, where do you go?

  That’s hard to explain. It’s like I’m always in the same place, but looking in different directions. At first I thought I was moving between different spheres, but I’m not. This sphere is the only one there is, but it looks out upon millions of worlds. This is just one.

  “Millions?” Reesa wondered aloud, then she clamped her hand over her mouth. She’d never had any real use for that number before. After several minutes of clumsy explanations, Kyron gave up. I’m not making sense. I can’t explain what it’s like to live in an all-seeing sphere that permeates the fabric of reality, and you look tired. Reesa only nodded in befuddled agreement. I’ll let you go, if you like. But I have other things to tell you, so promise you’ll come back.

  The next time the priests came to escort Reesa to the front door, the sacred orb didn’t follow. She went home and, after reuniting with her parents, stole off to the barn to find a secure hiding spot for the mysteries of the universe.

  ***

  Five years later, another dreaded day had come. Upon reaching her eighteenth year, Reesa had been expected to take up new vows, which would induct her into the ranks of the town’s adults and its marriageable women. Thus would she be freed from the
duties of guarding the Upshan Berental—or, as she now thought of it, story time. Reesa had stalled as long as she could, making every possible excuse. Her dowry was poor. She could offer guidance and moral support to younger acolytes. She’d lied to the Brethren, swearing she’d been warned away from the rites by a soothsayer.

  The dreaded day had already arrived once before, but she’d cheated adulthood by faking an upset stomach. Her efforts were making her the subject of gossip and ridicule, but Reesa didn’t care.

  She tried not to care.

  Now, as she walked next to the now-High Priest Uther, she knew her excuses were at an end. He would ask her to take the vows, and because it was Father Uther doing the asking, she knew she would relent.

  “Reesa,” the high priest’s kind voice carried only a small hint of his frustration. “I suppose I must pull it up by the roots. The guarding rites are for the benefit of those who guard. They instill physical and mental discipline, to prepare you for your life as an adult in our community. The Glowing Marble—and I truly wish you’d stop calling it that—doesn’t require anyone’s protection.” He looked at her expectantly, and she realized with a start that he thought he was telling her something she didn’t know already.

  “I… I understand.” She tried to summon up a thoughtful look, as though it came as a revelation. She wasn’t sure she’d succeeded, but the conversation flowed on.

  “You’ve always impressed me as an intelligent, deliberate young woman. From the beginning, you’ve had more discipline than most of your peers would ever develop. The whole village is waiting for you to take the last step into adulthood, and I wish I understood why you’re hesitating.”

  Reesa mulled this over for the longest time as she walked with the high priest through the town square. Father Uther, infinitely patient, allowed her the time to think.

  Reesa hazarded a glance at his handsome features, deciding to trust him with a small part of the truth. “I guess I enjoy the time I spend with The Sacred Thingy. It’s a quiet place where I can live in my head, where I can ponder—” she hesitated, then added, “the infinite variety of the universe.”

  Father Uther made a thoughtful noise. “If you enjoy it that much, I suppose some arrangement could be made.” He thought quickly. “Perhaps you could become a special advisor to the acolytes. The younger ones practically worship you already, though I’ve warned them it’s kin to idolatry. But from such a lofty position you could still guard the sphere yourself from time to time.”

  “Really?” Reesa tempered her initial rush of excitement. She poked and prodded at the idea, as though it might be booby-trapped, then felt her eyes well up. “That would be nice,” she concluded. “But people would find it a bit strange.”

  “Strange? Who knows? I minister to a widow on the edge of the village who keeps thirty cats. She insists that I treat them as full participants in our conversations.”

  Reesa laughed. Uther smiled and continued. “Nobody is without their eccentricities. I would be disappointed if you were the only exception. Is there anything else bothering you?”

  “When I think of marrying, the idea overwhelms me. That is, even if I could find a man who would be tempted by the dowry my family could offer.”

  The high priest nodded. “Your family is poor, true. But only a truly stupid man would need a bribe to marry you.”

  Something in his tone gave her pause. “Why do you say that?” she asked. She slowed her steps noticeably.

  He glanced at her, looking nervous. “You have a keen mind and a gentle wit. You desire to honor the gods in all things. You’re beautiful.”

  “Nobody would call me beautiful.”

  “I would,” Uther said, a little too sincerely. “But I cannot speak for other men,” he added quickly, then winced as he stumbled over the subtext of what he’d just said.

  “But, speaking only for yourself,” Reesa said, trying not to laugh, “you think I would make a good wife?”

  Reesa caught the frown of concentration that crossed the young priest’s face. She stopped walking, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to a halt. The question spilled out of her before she could stop it. “Uther, do you love me?”

  His response was simple, with only a hint of hesitation. “I believe I do, yes.” Reesa had expected him to be flustered, to stammer, to perhaps deny that any such thought had ever crossed his mind. “You seem disappointed,” he continued. “I promise that we need never speak of—”

  “No, no. Uther, I’m not. I feel the…” she faltered. “I love you. I think I have for a while now. But they made you the high priest, the youngest ever. That is such an accomplishment, how can I ask you to throw it all away for me?”

  Uther smiled. “I know marriage is…discouraged. I’d probably be asked to let someone else take over the duties of high priest, and I would not protest. But I would remain a priest still; taking you as a wife would not break any sacred vows. The gods won’t hold me in contempt for it, so I don’t care if the priesthood does. I only fear that you might.”

  “No, never!”

  The priest laughed with relief, his eyes joyous. “Then the day you take your vows, I’ll go to your father and ask for your hand.”

  “Only my hand?”

  “Only your hand. I could never convince him to part with eyes as green as yours.”

  Reesa smiled graciously. “Are priests allowed to flatter innocent maidens so?”

  “Tell me you’ll say yes when the time comes.”

  A thought came to her, one that both thrilled and frightened her. “Before you ask for my hand, I have to tell you…” she trailed off. “I wouldn’t want to keep secrets from my husband.”

  “What is it?” He squeezed her hand, looking concerned. “What sort of secrets?”

  She laughed. “The secrets of the universe.”

  ***

  Trapped, deeply shamed, physically and emotionally spent, Reesa watched the eyes of the priests as they pored over the notes she’d gathered over the last five years. From time to time, one of them would glance up at her, each look accusing her of the most vile blasphemies. Except High Priest Uther, who seemed unable to look at her at all. She kept looking, hoping for a compassionate glance, a word from him in her defense. But no, she only saw the chasm between them and the betrayal and despair on his face.

  They had been in council for six exhausting hours. Reesa was desperately thirsty, but didn’t ask for water. If her throat was dry, then so were her eyes, and at the moment her only solace was that she had no more tears left in her.

  “Now, child,” Brother Nolhein’s high, cutting voice bored into her. “Are we to understand that, on one of these… other worlds,” he spat the phrase in disgust, “there is a race of lizard men named the Tarktok?”

  “Yes, Brother,” she whispered, without a shred of resistance.

  “And they have another sex which is neither man nor woman? And fly about in these metal birds?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And these orgies you describe…” As he spoke, Reesa sank lower in her chair. “They’re part of the religious rites of these demons?”

  Reesa only whispered, “I don’t think they’re dem—”

  The priest cut her off. “Clearly, they are. Blasphemous, low creatures who mock the gods with their disgusting rites. Others here have encouraged you to recant. I disagree; you should stand by these tales, pretend the gods whispered them to you. Far better than admitting you could invent such vileness.” Some of his peers nodded.

  Father Uther addressed her for the first time in several hours. “What disappoints me most, my child…” My child. The cold formality of the phrase shook the girl to her core. “…is the absence of piety in your imaginings. You don’t even tell lies about the gods. It’s as though they don’t even exist in this world you’ve invented. All these years, I saw you as an impossibly devout young woman, who loved the gods and was beloved of them in turn.” He stood, turning away from her. “All those long nights you spent with
the Upshan Berental, you weren’t worshipping the gods. You were mocking them.”

  Reesa realized that she’d still clung to a shred of hope; that was the moment it was torn away from her. Head hung in shame, tears flowing, she whispered, “Burn them. They’re all lies.”

  Uther gave a nod, then strode from the room. The other priests gathered up the tattered papers with their delicate writing, then began to feed them one by one into a blazing cistern in the middle of the table. Reesa hid her eyes.

  ***

  The priests escorted her down the stairs and out into the main tabernacle. She passed the altar without looking at the orb, her eyes fixed dully ahead.

  Reesa? What happened? The words whispered in her mind. Kyron asked her again. She tried to keep her mind silent and empty, but she couldn’t conceal the depths of her humiliation from him. She stared at her feet, kept walking. The marble tiles brightened to an angry red.

  She exited through the front door. “Reesa Calvaugh,” Brother Ralsam spoke behind her. She turned, barely able to meet his gaze. “You are convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to one year’s banishment. You are not to approach these doors—”

  His words were lost in a crack of thunder. The priests turned. The Upshan Berental floated like a flame amid a rising cloud of dust, above the rubble that used to be its pedestal.

  As the priests exchanged wide-eyed glances, Reesa turned away and began her long walk home.

  ***

  At the end of her year’s banishment, followed by three days of fasting, Reesa returned to the temple. She feigned penitence as she asked Father Uther’s permission to perform the rites which would reunite her with her village. Their meeting was brief and cordial. They did not discuss marriage, and Reesa did not regret that they never would.

  When the time came, the doors to the main hall opened to grant her entrance. She marched to the front of the hall, where Brother Nolhein was waiting. She knelt before him and offered her penitence. The priest poured water over her head, then bid her to stand.