by N E Riggs
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
1 In Valal
2 Whispers of the Nephilim
3 The Sunken City of Atlantis
4 Drowning in Vodyanois
5 A Day Off
6 Shades of Desolation
7 The Yeti on Tikal
8 The Kindness of Travelers
9 Speeding Up Time
10 Calling Earth
11 The Mercy of the Law
Glossary
Afterward
Only The Inevitable
Book 2:
Life Across the Cosmos
N E Riggs
Copyright © 2017 N E Riggs
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
N E Riggs
[email protected]
NERiggs.com
Illustrator: Seth Pargin
[email protected]
SethPargin.com
ISBN-10: 1544664508
ISBN-13: 978-1544664507
Contents:
14. In Valal
Whispers of the Nephilim
The Sunken City of Atlantis
Drowning in Vodyanois
A Day Off
Shades of Desolation
The Yeti on Tikal
The Kindness of TravelersSpeeding Up TimeCalling Earth
The Mercy of the LawGlossaryAfterward
1
In Valal
Sunlight speared into David’s eyes. He groaned, pulling the pillow over his face. His head ached after the epic celebration last night. Then he grinned when he remembered the reason for the celebration: he was a Sword Priest now. He laughed and kicked the blankets aside, ignoring the remnants of his hangover from long practice.
He squinted outside his new window. His room overlooked apartments and shops and bars. He smiled benevolently down on them. “I so rock,” he told them.
He picked up the com pad Scatha had given him last night, examining it. The thin white rectangle felt cool and strong under his finger. Whatever material comprised it – and he couldn’t begin to guess what that material was – it didn’t feel stretchy. He flicked it out, and the playing-card size expanded to paper-size. When he put a finger on the middle the com pad came to life.
It was, to his relief, user-friendly. He found television, radio, books – which came preloaded only with the entire Tome of Ages – and phone. Someone, maybe Scatha, must have programmed in numbers, because the other acolytes – former acolytes, he thought with a grin – were listed, along with Rolan and Hue and other people David assumed were part of the sixth traditional division. He even found Brigid’s number.
He stared at that number for a long time. Over the last three months, there had been times he might have wanted to call her. He couldn’t call her, but if he’d really wanted to he could have gone to Kumarkan in the evening to see her in person. He hadn’t. Avoiding Brigid had been easier.
He was a Sword Priest now, and he was done being afraid. Before he could lose his nerve, he hit Brigid’s number, hoping nine o’clock wasn’t too early. The phone rang a few times before Brigid’s voice answered with a professional-sounding, “Lost Sister Brigid Dana speaking, how may I help you?”
“It’s David Kemp,” he said, grinning. “Remember me?” He had seen people use com pads as video phones, but he wasn’t sure how to do that yet. Also, as he wasn’t dressed, audio only was definitely better.
“Of course I do,” she said, her voice growing warmer. “How’s your training going?”
“It’s over. I’m a Sword Priest now.”
“Oh, David, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. He could feel himself grinning stupidly. “I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks. So, anyway, I have today free before I go on duty tomorrow. Could I see you sometime?”
There was a brief silence then Brigid said, “I’m free at three this afternoon.”
“Cool. I’ll meet you in your office?” He swung his feet lightly, congratulating himself.
“I’ll be waiting.” She then hung up, but the stupid smile remained on David’s face. Things were finally looking up for him.
He fixed himself some breakfast with the cooker then wandered out to explore. At the far end of the hallway was a large common room with comfortable couches around a large television, a pool table in the corner (although all the balls were red, so maybe not pool), and a bookshelf along one wall. A few Sword Priests from the sixth division sat in the lounge, and he recognized some from last night. He smiled and waved to them.
Alosh’s head appeared over the edge of one of the couches – he was sprawled all over it. “Not hung over?” he asked, grinning.
“Only a little,” David said.
“Have you cleaned out your old room?” Alosh asked, swinging his feet off the couch and sitting up.
“Not yet.”
“Let me help you.” Alosh stood and waved to the others, heading out of the lounge with David. He didn’t look hung over either, even though he’d drunk more than anyone last night. At least, David was fairly sure Alosh had drunk a lot – some of the later parts of the night were pretty fuzzy. The floor where David and the others had trained was completely deserted and unlit when David and Alosh arrived. Alosh hit the lights, which made it look even stranger. A powerful and sudden fit of nostalgia came over David as he looked around the gymnasium. He could almost miss training here. Well, except for the obstacle course. That he wouldn’t miss.
David’s meager possessions fit easily into one bag. “Is this all you have?” Alosh asked, hefting it over his shoulder.
“I didn’t have much with me when I came here. And I haven’t been able to go home.” He took one last look around his old room. He wondered if the bed sheets would smell of himself or Scatha, but he couldn’t check with Alosh here.
“I take it gateways to your world aren’t common?”
“Not exactly, no,” David said, closing the door behind him. “I’d never heard of Bantong or other worlds, not really.”
Alosh hummed softly. “It’s not easy being a traveler from somewhere far away. Gateways open to my home world once every month.”
David stopped, gaping at Alosh’s back for a moment. “You’re a traveler too? But you’ve been a Sword Priests for years, haven’t you?”
“Since I was nineteen,” Alosh grinned. “Aeons, that’s ten years ago now. I feel old.” He wrinkled his nose. David still stared at him. He’d thought that, even if travelers were allowed to become priests, it was a rare occurrence. He thought it must be somewhat more common now, with so many priests being affected by the desolation and the various priest sects being desperate for whoever they could get. But Alosh had been a priest for ten years, which predated the desolation. Alosh finally noticed him staring and laughed. “My family came to Bantong when I was three. So technically I’m a traveler too, since my world isn’t one of the allied worlds, but to me Bantong is home. I visit my cousins on my home world a few times a year, but this is where I live. To some people, though, it doesn’t matter that I’ve been here most of my life. They still call me a traveler and treat me like I’m less than them somehow.”
“Yeah,” David said softly. “That sucks.”
Alosh nodded. “So us travelers gotta stick together. You have any questions, just ask me.”
“Do the visions of Pass
ion Priests always come true?” David immediately asked.
“What, did they have a vision of you before your vows?” Alosh flipped off the lights as they left the floor, stepping into the elevator.
“Er, no?” Tresas had a vision of him, but he hadn’t been thinking about that. If Tresas herself wasn’t sure what the vision had meant, he didn’t think Alosh would know either. “Um, this is going to sound strange, but the other acolytes – I mean the other new Sword Priests - they think I might be some kind of prophesied warrior. Or something like that,” he added when Alosh turned to stare at him in shock.
“How did they get an idea like that?” Alosh asked as they walked towards Oisin Tower.
David squirmed internally. This was the main reason he hadn’t asked anyone before. Conal, Anur, and Niam already had huge expectations for him. Bellon didn’t really believe it, but he was sure Scatha had only been interested in him once she knew about Bramira. “There’s a couple of things.” He waited until they reached his apartment and put down the bag. “First, because I have Bramira. Cardinal Jing gave it to me.”
“I remember,” Alosh said, and David recalled Rolan had held Bramira briefly when he first arrived on Bantong. Alosh had seen him holding it on Lunari too.
“And also, when I was still back home on Earth, Cardinal Jing said some strange things to me before she gave me Bramira. The others went looking through The Book of Anan and found a prophecy that they thought referred to me.”
Alosh frowned, chewing his lip for a moment. “Do you remember what the prophecy said, exactly?”
“Not exactly. I’ve got a copy of the whole Tome on my new com pad, but I don’t know where Niam found it.”
Alosh picked up David’s com pad from the bedside table and opened The Tome of Ages. “You can search through it, see?” He poked a button with a question mark at the top of the screen. “I’ll need more than Cardinal Jing if we’re going to find it anytime soon.” He typed in Cethon’s name. Looking over his shoulder, David saw the keyboard was set up differently than ones on Earth. He hoped he wouldn’t have to type much, because he’d never get used to that.
“Try burn,” he said. “And sun.” Alosh typed those words in and hit the question mark again. Only one result appeared. Alosh tapped it and read aloud the passage that came up.
After Aeons vanished, Passion Cardinal Supsha Lomudra came to the retired Sword Cardinal Cethon Jing. Seeing how deep her mourning was, Lomudra said to her, “Do not despair. I have had a vision. These were the words of my vision: ‘He burns like a thousand suns. He is lost. He must be found. He is waiting for you.’ This vision was meant for you, Cethon. You must leave Pardis and seek out its meaning.”
“Who is this man I must find?” Jing asked. “Aeons?”
“I cannot say,” Lomudra answered. “But find him you must.”
So Jing gathered herself up from her sick bed. She left Pardis the next day, never to return.
He frowned, laying the com pad between them and studying it for a long time. “You think it refers to you?” he finally said.
David shrugged and didn’t look at him. “Well, um, when I met Cardinal Jing, she told me I burned like a thousand suns. So the others thought it might mean me.”
Alosh chewed his lip, still staring at the passage. “I’m hardly the person you should ask about something like this. You need a Passion Priest, really.”
“I can’t just go ask them about something like this!” David said, hunching over. It was weird enough talking to it with Alosh, whom he knew and liked. He couldn’t ask some stranger. They’d think he was mad or, worse, that he was some legendary hero.
“Well, the vision was actually a prophecy. When most Passion Priests have a vision, they see pictures, which is why they’re called visions. If there are words, then there aren’t pictures. They call those prophecies.” He shrugged. “Whatever, I’m not going to argue with them about nomenclature. Visions are pretty vague, since the pictures aren’t very clear. Well, sometimes they know what they’re seeing, but not always.” David nodded, having heard Tresas’s vision. Even she’d admitted the vision could mean a number of things. “Prophecies are more specific, but not always helpful. It’s usually only after the fact that the words mean anything. Really, the only useful stuff Passion Priests see are times and locations of gateways, but don’t tell them I said that.” Alosh laughed.
“So you think it doesn’t mean anything?” David asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He’d been so worried about being some sort of hero that he’d been desperate to hear the prophecy didn’t mean anything. Now that someone had suggested just that, he wanted Alosh to take it back, to think that David could be someone great. He hit himself lightly on the side of his head.
“Oh, I’m sure it means something,” Alosh said, closing out the book on the com pad. “I’m just as sure I couldn’t possibly guess what. Even without that, though, you’ve got Bramira. Someone thinks highly of you.”
David glanced over at the dresser next to his new bed. Bramira lay beside to his agitator, unlit since he wasn’t holding it. “Is it really important?”
Alosh rolled his eyes. “Really David, I know you’re new here, but no one’s ever going to take you seriously if you keep asking questions like that. Hold on to those thoughts till we’re alone, okay?” David nodded. “Anyway, yeah, Bramira is very significant. Millennia ago, just before the Eternist religion was founded, Aeons made six weapons to fight the Nephilim. The six people he gave the weapons to became the first Cardinals of the six sects. Bramira was one of those six weapons. It was given to Shia Runa, the first Beloved Cardinal, though the sect wasn’t called that back then.”
“So it’s magical?” David asked, picking up Bramira. It lit up at his touch.
“There’s no such thing as magic, David. It does have special attributes, as do the other five weapons. Think of the attributes like the gifts we priests receive. Don’t ask me what those attributes are, I’m no expert on legendary weapons. If you really want to know, ask Hue Teot. He likes that kind of stuff.”
David put Bramira back on the dresser. “I will. So what about the other five weapons? What are they? Where are they?”
Alosh scrunched up his face in thought. “Um, let’s see. I think at least one was destroyed when the king of the Nephilim was defeated. At least one more was lost over the past six thousand years, but there may have been two that were lost. Excabur, the sword, is here in Valal. Officially, it belongs to the Sword Cardinal, but it’s been centuries since any of them have been able to use it. The others were put in safe keeping on other worlds, including yours, I think.”
“Bellon said Bramira was on Mu,” David said. He wasn’t good at remembering names of other worlds, but he’d made sure to remember that one. Anything involving Bramira was important to him.
“Maybe it was, but it isn’t anymore, is it?” Alosh laughed. He jumped up to his feet. “Anyway, don’t think about things too much. It’ll all make sense in the end. Aeons works in weird ways, especially now. You should enjoy the day off. We’re supposed to be on crowd control tomorrow.” He stuck out his tongue.
They left David’s room, heading to the lounge. “Crowd control?”
Alosh snorted. “Normally they’d leave that stuff to the watch division, but there aren’t enough of them anymore. So we have to help too. A big rally is planned for tomorrow outside Castle Eternal.”
“What kind of rally?” Castle Eternal sat at the very center of Pardis, surrounded by the six priest districts of Pardis. Brigid had pointed it out to him the day she took him for the tour of Pardis, but they hadn’t gotten close. It was where the High Priest lived and worked. Aeons had lived there too before he left.
“Protests against the Law Priests,” Alosh said, “what else?”
David had no idea what to say to that. He guessed he’d find out more about why people were protesting the Law Priests tomorrow. It occurred to him that he’d met priests from every sect save Law –
well, he hadn’t met any Beloved Priests either, but there were barely any of those left anymore. During their lessons, Scatha hadn’t even bothered talking about what Beloved Priests did, they were now so rare. She’d talked a great deal about Law Priests, however. Sword Priests were sometimes called on to hunt down and capture criminals or transport prisoners, at which times they dealt with Law Priests.
Alosh introduced David to the other Sword Priests they saw in the lounge and the hallways. He then took David back to his room and showed him how to check his balance on the com pad. “We make one hundred dollars a week,” Alosh said as David set a password – everyone on Earth would guess spike87, but Bantong didn’t have Buffy or know his birth year.
“Scatha said my wages would be deducted for the first month?”
“Travelers always pay back their expenses. You got clothes and food – those cookers cost money to power, you know. And the com pad and translator. Be grateful you’re a Sword Priest. Most travelers take half a year to pay back their expenses.”
David looked down at the first row of numbers. This week he’d been paid ten dollars. That was nothing. In Boston, even one hundred dollars a week was nothing. From the way Alosh talk, he guessed it was worth more in Bantong.
Alosh made sure he had David’s com number in his com pad. He tapped his com pad against David’s, transferring the number and some other information. When he felt David wasn’t a complete moron about technology, he left.
David wandered out of his room shortly before three. One the second floor he found the room filled with gateways that connected different areas of Bantong and took the one to Kumarkan. He had to check the index there to find where Brigid’s office was; he hadn’t been to her office since his first day on Bantong and he hadn’t been paying attention to room numbers at the time.
She was filling out some forms when David poked his head in. “Hi,” he said, feeling a grin stretch widely across his face.
“David!” Brigid jumped up from her desk and came around. David almost started to hug her, but she clapped a hand over his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Congratulations, Brother Kemp,” she said, emphasizing his new title. She let go a moment later and stepped back. Her smile was as warm as ever, but David felt bereft. She’d been all too willing to hug before.