by L. M. Roth
They entered the grove of oak trees one by one, each stooping to kiss the ground as they came within the circle. A dozen or more entered, until a tall man clad as the others but with a gold circlet around his neck brought up the rear and ended the procession.
He stood erectly with a primitive kind of majesty, as he nodded at a younger man who held a type of flute in his hands. The young man piped a tune so haunting in its eerie beauty that Marcus would not have been surprised if the trees began to dance. He felt his own blood respond and with difficulty restrained himself from rising and dancing.
No such restraints inhibited the participants, however, who all danced in a circle around the man who had entered last. He remained impassive, and as rooted in place as the oak trees among which he stood. He might have been as one with them, so stoic was he in his silent dignity.
The dancers continued their strange gyrations. Leaping, twirling, and bowing before the oak trees they continued. Marcus felt his limbs begin to cramp, and Felix stifled the urge to yawn. Dag and Bimo remained impassive.
At last, the dancing ceased and the worshipers dropped to their knees in a circle around the man with the gold circlet. He raised one arm and all became instantly still. The man walked the outer perimeter of the circle, then moved back into the center of it.
He spoke words in a tongue that even Marcus had never heard, no, not even during the months he spent in captivity in Eirinia. The language was guttural, and the man’s voice deepened nearly into a growl as he spoke. On occasion the celebrants repeated a phrase and bowed their foreheads to the ground, then kissed the earth.
And then silence descended on the entire group. The eyes of the participants stared straight ahead, and it appeared to Marcus that each one held his breath. The reason became apparent when the man in the center withdrew from the folds of his robe several long sticks.
He held them in his hands, and circling slowly, turned to each man to take one from his hand. Each man drew a stick until none were left. Then, at a snap of the fingers from the man in the center, they turned toward one another and held out their sticks, each one crossing the other.
Marcus and his friends could now see that the sticks were of varying lengths. The leader carefully inspected each stick, and then held up the arm of one man. It could be seen that his stick was the shortest.
The other celebrants closed their eyes and dropped their sticks. They gathered around the man who drew the shortest stick and pulled him to his feet. Each man bowed before him and chanted a phrase, then withdrew back to his place. One by one they did this until every man had bowed before him.
At last the circle was reformed with only the man and the leader standing in the center of it. The leader pulled a small jar of what appeared to be an ointment of some kind and opening it, smeared some on the man’s forehead. The man closed his eyes and moved his lips silently.
Then the leader raised one hand. A small wide basin carved of wood was brought to him.
He chanted over it solemnly, before he placed it on the ground in front of the man with the ointment. The leader clapped his hands, and two of the celebrants came to the other man, one on each side of him. Together they removed his robe.
Clad only in an undergarment that covered him from waist to his knees, the man stood before them all. His eyes widened and he paled. He took short, hard gasps of breath, and seemed on the verge of fainting.
And then the leader moved up behind him, and grasping him by the hair, forced him to kneel over the basin at his feet. So intently were Marcus and his friends focused on the man that they had not noticed the leader draw a large sharp knife from the folds of his robe.
Too late they saw the flash of it as it was raised in the air over the man’s head, then lowered in an arc around him. The leader swiftly and savagely cut the man’s throat, holding him over the basin, to catch every drop of his blood.
He pushed the dead man’s body aside, then held up the basin of blood, and as the celebrants chanted once again, sprinkled it on the ground in the inner perimeter of the circle.
But for Dag it was too much to bear.
“No!” he cried in outrage, as he burst from his hiding place into the sacred circle.
“This shall not be!”
Right on his heels followed Marcus, Felix, and Bimo, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
The shocked celebrants rose to their feet, and the leader lunged at Dag with knife upheld. But Dag was too quick for him and twisted his wrist violently, forcing him to drop the knife. Bimo leaped on it and took it for safekeeping.
Dag and the leader stood glaring at one another, so closely their noses almost touched.
“Why have you done this vile thing?” Dag demanded, speaking in the Common Tongue.
In his furious indignation the leader nearly spat his answer in Dag’s face.
“It is our custom, to worship Tuadan, and ask for blessing on the harvest!” he bellowed. “You have defiled our holy place! Get out or we will kill you!”
Marcus never knew how Dag had the courage for what happened next.
“Your gods!” Dag shouted. “Your evil, false gods! Is this how they want to be served? I would never give my heart to such a one! No! I say to you that I serve One who gives life, not takes it!”
“There is no such One, only the Tuadan, who came here before us,” the leader snarled.
But Dag was not to be silenced.
“I know who your Tuadan are!” he shouted, in a voice that thundered in the small grove of trees.
“They are the Astra, whom my God cast from Heaven for their crimes. It was He who cast them down to the earth, where they lie and kill, demanding the blood of men to slake their pride.”
“I do not believe you,” the leader growled, and turned his back on Dag.
“Then I will show you!” Dag declared, almost beyond reason now, flinging every caution to the wind.
He walked over to where the dead man lay on the ground and stood over him.
“Your gods take life, but my God gives life!”
And as Dag stood before them all, he extended his hands over the dead man.
“O most holy Dominio,” he spoke, “you who have the power of life and death, I ask in the name of Alexandros whom I serve, that you would grant life to this innocent one.”
Every eye was now turned to the body of the dead man. He laid utterly still, his face waxen from the flow of blood that had seeped from him. One moment passed, then another. Marcus felt a drop of sweat trickle from his brow down to his upper lip. He ran his tongue over it: it was salty.
The men’s eyes were now turning away from the victim to look at Dag. He faced them defiantly. The men began to mutter, and to give him menacing looks.
Just when Marcus thought that Dag was about to join the victim on the floor he heard it. At first he did not know what it was, and then recognized it; the rattle of someone struggling to draw breath. And it came from the body of the man lying on the floor.
Chapter XXXI
The Secret of Life
It could not be, and yet it was so. The dead man struggled for breath; it began to come in shallow breaths, then deep inhales. Color returned to his face, and the wound in his neck closed and the blood congealed.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. He blinked then as if uncertain of where he was. Becoming gradually aware of murmuring voices that suddenly rose to a clamor, he sat up and looked about him.
The celebrants were now shouting and gesturing and crowding about Dag. Their leader who had slashed the man’s throat stood in stunned silence. He struggled to speak, but his voice refused to obey him, and the color drained from his face until he was as pale as the dead man had been before being restored miraculously to life.
Marcus turned to those around Dag and addressed them in their own tongue.
“This miracle you have seen with your own eyes is the work of Dominio. It is He who raised this man from the dead. Who will you serve: your Tuadan, who demands the blood of your frie
nds? Or Dominio, the Giver of Life?”
With the sole exception of the leader the celebrants raised their hands in the air, their faces shining with exhilaration at the marvel they had just witnessed, and shouted as one.
“Dominio! Dominio! Dominio!”
What had begun as a dark festival with a sinister sacrifice made to evil idols turned into an impromptu classroom as the men clustered around Marcus and Dag demanding to know more about Dominio and His Son Alexandros. The night was late so Marcus asked them to meet them the following morning on the village square. Only the leader remained silent, but whether from shock or from sullenness Marcus could not tell.
The next morning, Marcus and his friends met the men in the village square as promised. With them came the man who had been sacrificed and resurrected. They were told his name was Oengus. He looked rather pale and weak but, as Marcus reasoned, it wasn’t every day that a man died and was risen from the dead, and no doubt Oengus needed time to come to terms with such an occurrence!
Marcus shared with the men gathered around him his own testimony, of the injustice done to his family and the months of captivity among the Eirini. With no mention of the Pearl, he told of his quest that led him to the truth, of Alexandros who came to reconcile man to Dominio, and to proclaim His Kingdom of Heaven had come.
The men responded, each one giving their hearts to Dominio, and pledging their lives to His service. For had they not all witnessed the miracle that happened to Oengus? Oengus himself was the first to surrender, for he had been granted a second chance at life, and who would be so foolish as to refuse the One who gave it?
One by one Felix, Dag, and Bimo also revealed their experiences with Dominio and their new faith. Felix schooled them in some of the laws that Alexandros had taught His followers, and said they were the guidelines by which they must live: mercy, faith, forgiveness, and charity. Dag warned them that persecution might arise but they must stand strong and trust in Dominio. Bimo assured them that no matter in what circumstances they might find themselves, Dominion would always be beside them to share it.
After they had spent more than an hour speaking and praying, a slight disturbance on the edge of the crowd drew the attention of them all. Someone stood waiting and silent, and glancing over Marcus recognized the man who had led the rites the night before.
Silence fell on all present: none knew what to expect. The man stood a moment with head erect, and then opened his garments slightly to reveal the gold circlet about his neck. Slowly he withdrew it from his neck, looked at it for a long moment as though taking leave of it; and then tossed it on the ground. He then dropped to his knees and joined the other men around Marcus.
They met every day in the square for seven days, and received instruction from Marcus and Felix. A warm camaraderie sprung up quickly among the Alexandrians and the Eirini. To make friends with them and talk on terms of equality was not the same treatment Marcus had received from them before when he had previously suffered captivity at their hands. There was much laughter and good will now as the Eirini demonstrated a mischief in their nature that he had not suspected before.
Then one day Marcus began to feel a restless stirring within him. He could not stay here indefinitely, he knew. For his task was still to be completed. The lives of his parents as well as his own depended on the success of his mission. And yet there was still one thing more to be finished in Eirinia.
It was an early October day when Marcus woke one morning with the impulse to consult Logos. He took the scabbard from his belongings and withdrew from the hut.
It was a lovely morning to walk in the woods, so he ambled through a grove where maple trees burned crimson among the last vestiges of green.
When he was certain he was out of sight, he drew Logos from its scabbard. As always, the shining beauty of its blade and hilt caught him unawares, and for a moment he simply gazed at its silver sheen.
Then Marcus asked his question.
“Dominio, You have faithfully led me and guided me. Four objects I was commissioned to find. Three have I found under Your careful leading: the Fountain of Youth, a star from the heavens, and the Rays of the Sun. And now, I ask: where may I find the fourth, the secret of life, to finish my task and return to my parents, and so accomplish their release?”
Marcus stared expectantly at Logos. Faintly, then with growing clarity, the words appeared on the blade.
“Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.”
Marcus puzzled over this, and closed his eyes to ponder on the meaning of this statement. He struggled with the words, for they made little sense to him.
Something fell from the tree above him, and brushed his nose. Startled, he opened his eyes and looked at the ground. Nestled among the fallen leaves was the winged pod of a maple seed, dislodged from the tree just overhead.
Uncomprehending, he stared at it. Then he picked it up and looked at it intently.
A seed. Sowing. Reaping. Seeds and sowing and reaping.
Revelation suddenly dawned on him. Of course! Whatever was sown would also be reaped. If one sowed a maple tree one would not reap an oak tree. Whatever a man sowed, or planted through his deeds whether for good or evil, it was that which he would harvest, whether of reward or punishment.
Marcus let out a shout of joy and danced an impromptu little dance of celebration. His task was accomplished and he was free to go home.
He carefully wrapped the seed in his handkerchief and put it in the pocket of his robe. Then he strode back to the hut of Cadeyrn where he would tell the others that it was at last time to return to Valerium.
Chapter XXXII
Farewell To Good Friends
After much discussion and consultation in prayer, it was decided that Marcus, Felix, Kyrene, and Elena would depart at once for Valerium to report to the Empress Aurora with the four objects which she had sent Marcus to obtain, and thus win the freedom of Marcus’ parents, Valerius and Honoria, who had been held for so long in the dungeon of the Empress.
Dag would remain in Eirinia with Cort and Bimo to disciple the little village of Leith, now brimming with new believers. For after the news of the rising of Oengus from the dead had spread among them, they all turned their lives over to Alexandros, and Leith was transformed into a thriving and happy community of vibrant citizens, eager to live their lives for the glory of Dominio.
It remained for them to be taught the teachings of Alexandros in their entirety and to grow in maturity. Marcus knew this was of vital importance if they were to remain in their new faith and accomplish whatever mission Dominio set them to do, yet he must finish his own task and therefore could not remain.
It was Dag who brought the solution.
“I will make my home here,” he announced. “And Cort with me. For we have no home to go back to in Trekur Lende. We will stay in Leith and teach them.”
Bimo decided to remain also, as he too, had no place to call home.
“Perhaps I will journey on in time,” he told Marcus. “Perhaps I will one day return to Solone as I have dreamed of doing. But for now I feel I must stay here to help Dag and to be taught also.”
Marcus realized the sense of this and could not visualize Bimo in Valerium, although he had once lived in it as a slave. Perhaps in Solone he might one day find contentment. But for now in Eirinia he would be free, at one with the land. And for Bimo, that was enough.
There was one more thing to be done before they took leave of their friends.
The evening was fine, a warm day with no breeze to chill the air such as can happen in early October, with the rays of the setting sun turning the copper curls of the bride to burnished bronze. The groom stood beside her, his usually stoic face wreathed in a smile that crowned him with a noble dignity. Behind them their sons exchanged grins, and as if suddenly aware of their new relationship, impulsively hugged one another with beaming faces and eyes suddenly filled with happy tears.
It was Marcus who led the ceremony. Dag had requested it, and h
e could not refuse him this one last service before they parted their ways.
Having no written order of service with which to marry them, he followed the promptings of the Spirit. He asked the bride and groom to hold hands and pledge themselves to one another. He prayed a blessing over them as they became united.
“O Dominio, look now on these two as they become one. Grant them a spirit of unity in all things. May they always be in harmony, agreeing on all matters close to Your heart. Make them as a fruitful vine, bringing forth children to raise in Your Kingdom purposes and to spread its advancement. May their home be filled with peace, and all they do be done for Your glory. Amen.”
“Amen!” responded all present.
When they were pronounced man and wife, Dag threw up his hands and clapped them over his head. Then he turned to Judoc and lifted her in his arms, swinging her in a circle, laughing from pure joy. Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks. Dag let them flow, for once heedless of those about him.
It was the only sign of open emotion Marcus had ever seen him display.
He found himself deeply moved that at last Dag had found his konnae unnae, his lady love. He felt tears prick in his own eyes, and turning, saw Kyrene’s eyes swimming with tears. Felix kept clearing his throat.
The three of them drew closely together, while the villagers crowded around the newly married couple to offer their congratulations and good wishes.
“Well, Dag is settled at last,” Felix spoke, his voice wavering.
He cleared his throat again.
“Yes, but I shall miss him and Cort so!” Kyrene cried.
“So shall I,” Marcus agreed, his own voice faltering. “Yet we were only to be together for a time. It was always thus in the Army, my father used to say. You meet, work together, bond, and then part.
“We each have our own road before us, which each must follow. It may be that we shall return to Eirinia someday, and be reunited. And we will all meet again in Dominio’s Heaven. This is only farewell to our good friends. It is not good-bye.”