by Guy Antibes
Pol expected frigid air in the cathedral, but the air felt warm. A line of worshippers formed halfway to the front. He looked around at the walls. Square windows were built into the thick stone, seemingly at random. They were about three feet square, but varied in opacity and color. The windows at the very top looked small, but to Pol’s eyes it just accentuated the height of the walls.
He looked up at the front and nearly lost his breath. The huge irregular star-shaped symbol carved into the stone matched his mother’s amulet. His hand went to the necklace that he had constantly worn since his mother had given it to him.
“Look, a stall sells the amulets.” Shira bought one and gave it to Pol.
Pol took his off and compared the two.
“The metal isn’t the same,” Shira said.
After flipping over both amulets, Pol said, “The one they sell has only one side. Mine has two.” He gave his amulet to show Shira.
She put the fake over her head and gave the real one back. “Let’s get in line.”
As they walked slowly forward, Pol noticed items set into the walls. ‘God’s Blood’ read the plaque beneath a glass vial filled with red liquid. It didn’t look like any blood Pol had seen. He used his magical sight, and he was convinced it wasn’t anything other than colored water.
They passed other relics. Each one had a metal plaque. ‘God’s Hair’ showed long hair the color of Pol’s lying underneath a pane of glass in an ornate metal frame. There were others, including fingernails and a swatch of cloth from a robe. Pol looked for a case with the God’s eyelashes, but was glad he didn’t find one.
The line disappeared behind a black curtain. When Pol and Shira reached it, disappointment had overcome his excitement. He had traveled all this way and put his friends in constant peril to visit a sham.
He slipped through the curtain, and his disappointment vanished. In front of them lay a man-sized metal cylinder. The workmanship of the metal was…alien. It had flutes and tubes. Colored patches were in a script Pol had never seen before. He pulled his amulet out again and compared it to the metal, the very same gold-silver.
The supplicant line started at the bottom of the cylinder. Midway up, Pol learned where the religion had acquired its symbol. He was amazed to see one side of his amulet in the exact same size formed in relief on a small panel.
“It’s the same as on the wall,” Shira said. “This is creepy. I thought it was all make-believe, but I can’t deny the god’s resting place looks genuine. There is nothing like this in Shinkya.”
Shira reached out to touch the metal, but she found that a pane of glass protected the Sleeping God from human hands. She looked up and saw the panel rise up to another level.
Pol had been so taken by the Sleeping God’s resting place that he hadn’t looked up at the priests in orange robes. They stood on a platform above the Sleeping God.
“Those are huge panes of glass,” he said, when he noticed a corner showing the thick green color of the edges.
A flight of spiral stairs went over the patrons and descended on the other side of the glass. A priest walked down and touched the cylinder. The man assumed an expression of ecstasy. Pol didn’t think that the metal would do that, but he didn’t really believe in the Sleeping God.
They gradually shuffled to the front, and underneath a glass insert was the face of the Sleeping God. Pol gasped as the thing looked similar to the alien face that Pol had inadvertently shown when he practiced disguises. The hair matched even Pol’s hair color.
He threw his senses towards the being in the chamber and couldn’t detect any life. The cylinder preserved the remains of the alien, and that was amazement enough for Pol. He had no doubt that he looked at the face of an ancestor.
What was he? He wanted to talk to Shira about the being, but what he had to say would certainly be counted as heresy in the cathedral. They walked around the priest’s stairway, and then the line moved more quickly.
Pol had to sit down. “My ancestor,” he said as he sat down on a bench.
“Is he alive?” Shira said quietly.
Pol shook his head. “I don’t know how the body is preserved, but there is no life,” he said. “Now what is the deal with the conical hat?”
A priest passed by.
“Excuse me, I am a foreigner. How long has the Sleeping God been sleeping?”
“Longer than this cathedral has been in existence. Some say two thousand years or more. This is your first time?”
Pol nodded.
“You both look like you are from Teriland.”
Shira shook her head. “We are touring Volia from Eastril.”
“That is brave of you. It isn’t easy for people to make the pilgrimage.”
Pol smiled. “It hasn’t been easy. I noticed the statue in the square. Is that a representation of Demeron?”
“Demron,” the priest corrected. “Yes it is. A metal plate was found with the Sleeping God’s chamber. No one can read the writing, even to this day, but the plate shows Demron wearing the conical hat. We think magicians adopted the shape from the beginnings of man and still wear a style similar.”
“I didn’t see the plate on display anywhere in the cathedral,” Pol said.
“Ah, it is very delicate, ancient, even. It is too precious to display.”
Pol could tell the priest withheld some of the truth, but he left it.
“We were talking about the hat,” the priest said. “Magicians don’t use such hats where you are from?”
“Not in Eastril.” Pol could tell when someone changed the subject, and the priest just did.
“Not in the Empire,” Shira said.
Pol raised his eyebrows. Did Shira give him another Shinkyan nugget in a very unique place?
“A magician arrived yesterday and gave the citizens quite a stir, wearing a similar hat. Perhaps you might have seen him.” The priest chuckled. “Some called it the coming of Demron, but as you can see, Demron hasn’t risen in centuries.”
“Or even millennia,” Shira said.
“Indeed. Did you come to Gekelmar to try to find Demron’s Treasure Cave?”
Pol shook his head. “I’ve never heard of Demron’s Cave before. What is it?”
The priest smiled. “Treasure hunters seek it. There is a legend of a cave in the Penchappies where Demron arrived on Phairoon from heaven. Riches abound inside, of course.”
“Do you believe in the Cave?” Shira said.
“It’s part of our canon, but there probably have been treasure hunters long before this cathedral. Feel free to purchase some of our pamphlets. The price is reasonable. If you will excuse me.” The priest walked away.
Shira had already taken off toward the stall that sold the pamphlets. “Reasonable?” She had three pamphlets and a book. “This is close enough to Eastrilian that even I can read most of it,” she said. “These,” she held up the heavy book, “are the Scriptures of Demron.”
Pol doubted that the body in that capsule wrote in Eastrilian thousands of years ago. He would be surprised if anyone had even interpreted the script on the colored patches he noticed on the cylinder.
“There are pictures!” Shira said. She showed Pol woodcuts of the cylinder. “I can’t wait to show Loa. I’ll bring her here tomorrow.”
Pol smiled. “Do that. I wonder about Demron’s Cave. Do you think it would tell me more about my ancestors?”
“If it exists. Do you really believe in a hidden treasure?”
“Not the same kind of treasure that the priest might.”
~
Pol and Shira studied the pamphlets and books together for the rest of the afternoon in her room. He couldn’t find any sketches from the mysterious metal plate that the priest didn’t want to talk about, even if it existed, which Pol now doubted.
Loa walked in on them carrying a new satchel. “Figures. Generally when you walk in on a man and his woman, they are doing something that would be done in private, but you two both have your noses in books.”
>
Pol felt embarrassed, but he stood and handed a pamphlet to Loa. “If you’re interested in the local religion, give it a look. I will want it back,” he said as he left the room. He heard the two women giggling behind him. One of them shut the door.
He passed Paki going down the stairs. “How was your day?”
“More than interesting,” he said. “We can discuss it over dinner.” Pol sat in an overstuffed chair in the lobby with a glass of watered wine, trying to re-establish the pattern of his ancestors in light of the day’s revelations.
The pamphlet wasn’t reliable, but there were some interesting points. The Terilanders were descendants of the gods, but had turned away from Demron, and were generally considered heretics. Shira had told him that Shinkyans had come from the north, and to Pol that indicated a split from the Terilanders.
With Shira’s hair still lightened, the priest had identified them both as Terilanders, so it made sense that they were all connected somehow. Pol wondered if they should go to Teriland and do a little Seeking. After all, he had come to Fassin to get information about his ancestors, not to absorb the experience of seeing the Sleeping God.
A couple walked into The Prophet’s Wake with close to the same hair color that Pol naturally had. He jumped up from his seat.
“Excuse me. I noticed your hair. Where are you from?”
“You should know. Aren’t you a Terilander, too?” the man said.
“No, I’m from the Baccusol Empire.”
“Your features are common in our country. We actually have more dark-haired people,” the woman said.
If they only knew. “No, I didn’t. I was told I had family in northern Volia, but my family had didn’t know from where.”
“There are enough of us on the Gekelmar side of the Penchappies, but most live in the west.” She then spoke quietly, almost a whisper, “It has to do with their Sleeping God. It is a fraud.”
“Not exactly,” Pol said. “That is a real person in the chamber, but that person isn’t sleeping. It is a dead body.”
The pair of them looked shocked. “How do you know?”
“I’m a magician and can tell.” Pol gave them a nervous laugh, since he should have kept his mouth shut. “Don’t tell anyone, though.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t.” They quickly left his side, muttering to one another. The woman looked back as if Pol were insane.
Pol ran his hand through his hair. What if he had turned it back to its normal color? He would still be doing more stupid things. He shook his head at the mistake, but at least he had learned something significant about his heritage. Pol might very well have relatives in Teriland.
His mother’s family must have also been from there.
He walked up the stairs to talk to Paki, but stopped when Fadden and Kell walked in.
“We have news,” Fadden said.
“So do Shira and I.”
Fadden rubbed his hands together. “They have cold springtimes up here. I’ll tell you ours while we eat. Go get the others.”
Pol grabbed Paki, and Kell summoned Shira and Loa. The two women entered the dining room wearing new dresses and wide smiles. Pol wondered how they would transport them all back to the Empire.
“You look very nice,” Pol said, “for a Shinkyan Sister.”
Shira frowned, but her eyes still sparkled. “And you look like a Terilander.”
Pol colored as he instantly remembered his encounter with the couple earlier.
“So what have you learned?” Fadden said.
Pol let Shira tell the others about their visit to the cathedral. She didn’t talk about Pol’s amulet, but included everything else.
“What about Demron’s symbol? It’s just like your amulet. They even sell the things in the marketplace,” Paki said.
Shira asked for how much, and she narrowed her eyes to learn she had paid three times more than she could have. “Well, Pol’s is a bit different. It’s made out of different metal, and it has two sides. The symbol is from the one side that is cast into the metal of the capsule.”
“The Sleeping God’s hair is really white?”
The Teriland couple walked into the dining room. “Just like theirs,” Shira said. “They are Terilanders.”
It appeared that there were enough Terilanders in Fassin that Pol’s light hair wasn’t a novelty.
“We heard about your ride through the market,” Loa said. “Everyone was talking about it. They thought the God had stopped sleeping.”
Pol nodded. “We found that out, too. The hat is hidden in my room, now. It wouldn’t be wise to wear it again.”
“I agree,” Fadden said. “Although you can go back to your normal hair color.”
“I can, too?” Shira said.
“Just not here.” The ex-Seeker smiled. “Did you hear about the treasure hunters?”
“The Cave of Demron,” Paki said. “It’s in the Penchappy Mountains.”
“A priest said that treasure hunters have been trying to find the cave for centuries, but no one has been successful,” Shira said. “Maybe we should give it a try.”
“Not without more information,” Pol said. “Maybe I can sign up to become a priest and get some inside information. It would be my third time as an acolyte.”
“I’ll go with you,” Shira said.
Fadden shook his head. “The priests are all men.”
“I’ve been a man before.”
“You were lucky we were thrown together, or you would have been found out,” Pol said.
Shira put her lip out in a pout. “That’s not true.”
“Think about it.”
She kicked him underneath the table. “You may be right. Anyway, while you’re wearing those horrid orange robes, Loa and I will be shopping. The market here is the best we’ve seen in Volia.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Kell said, “but Shira’s right. It’s as good as any market in the Empire.”
Pol smiled. “We bought some tracts on Demron worship. I think I can pick up enough to give it a go.”
“Then we will do some Seeking on the outside. Maybe they have treasure maps,” Fadden said.
Pol laughed. “Right. To give us a good idea of what areas to avoid.”
“My thoughts precisely. Anything to help build up a pattern.”
~~~
Chapter Thirty
~
A white-haired Pol stepped out of The Prophet’s Wake, dressed in Fassin-style clothes purchased in the market. He tucked the scriptures under his arm and headed for the cathedral. He looked across the square at Demron’s statue wondering what secrets he might uncover about the man, not the god.
He slipped inside the cathedral and stopped a priest.
“Are there any requirements to become a member of the Demron priesthood?” Pol said.
“A Terilander, eh?”
Pol smiled. “So I’ve been told. Truthfully, I wasn’t brought up there.”
“A point in your favor. How old are you?”
“Sixteen, sir,” Pol said.
“You look strong enough to wash the cathedral floors. Do you wear Demron’s symbol?”
Pol pulled out his amulet. “I do, given to me by my late mother,” he said.
The priest examined both sides. “This is not an authorized copy, but it is good enough for me to show that you are devoted. Go back out the front doors and turn right. The next building is our headquarters. Tell them Joah sent you.”
“Joah?”
The priest nodded and turned from Pol to talk to a couple standing nearby.
The building was to the left of the cathedral, Pol found out. As soon as Pol spoke the name, the priests around him broke into laughter.
Pol laughed along with them. “That’s not the first time I’ve been led astray.”
“Good for you,” the priest at the reception desk said, “You really want to serve Demron?”
Pol nodded.
“We don’t need any priests, but if you serve
as an acolyte for three years, we can review your devotion. You won’t be allowed to touch the God’s resting place.”
“I won’t?” Pol tried to look disappointed.
“Not at first,” the priest said. “What is your name?”
“Pol Cissert.”
“Cissert is usually a first name for Terilanders, isn’t that right, Wissem?”
Another priest with Teriland features, but dark hair, nodded. He looked at Pol with a calculating gaze. “Usually, but I wouldn’t hold it against him.”
The priest scribbled on a paper and gave it to Pol. “Go through that door.” He looked at the scriptures in his hand. “Did you buy that in the cathedral?”
“I did. It will have special significance all my life,” Pol said, cringing inside as he spoke.
“No, it won’t. That’s just for the public. We will issue you a real one. Go on through. Welcome to the Order of Demron, Acolyte Cissert.”
Evidently, they used last names to identify the priests. Pol walked through the door and he was outside in an alley leading to the square. He couldn’t help but smile. He walked back in.
“I suppose you meant a different door.”
The priest put his hand to his face. “Oh, I must have. How silly of me.” He looked at Wissem and nodded. “He’s all yours.”
Wissem gave Pol a wry smile. “Generally we lose half or more of our acolytes that way. Think of it as a little test that you passed. Where are you from?
“Actually, a little village close to the Gekelmar border in Bossom in the Penchappy foothills. My father was a miner.”
“That is tough work,” Wissem said in broken Bossomian.
“Indeed it is. I wanted to serve my fellow men in a different way,” Pol said, in a better version of the language.
“You want to touch the resting place, that’s what you really want. That’s why I came. Just like everyone else they expect to commune with Demron. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Why not?” Pol said.
Wissem stopped and put his fists on his hips. “The god is sleeping. Got it? He can’t communicate when he’s asleep.”
It made sense to Pol, but the fervor that Wissem expressed just about made Pol laugh out loud. “Of course. Still, the resting place is the holiest of relics.”