The Sacred Era: A Novel (Parallel Futures)

by Aramaki Yoshio

  “You too.”

  The man keeps his eyes on K even as he picks up his rickshaw from the ground. With just a slight tug at its handles, he pivots and runs off, straight to the other side of the plaza, where a massive wall of hewn stone looms above their heads like an overlooking castle. Basking in the searing sunlight, the walls gleam a bright white glow. K can only afford a brief glance at this wall of light, fearing that just one look at the sheer brightness will burn right through his eyeballs.

  The black-roofed rickshaw heads straight toward the wall of light, making no attempt at turning around. Soon, it becomes little more than a black sunspot on the fiery glow of the wall. So black, as if blotting out the very light itself.

  What happens next stuns K. Just as a drop of sweat trickles into K’s eye, the wall of light consumes the man and his rickshaw. Only the echoes of the rickshaw’s rattling remain to fill the empty plaza.

  Was K imagining things? No, it can’t be. But if this was no mere mirage, then just who was that old man?

  What turn of events has brought K to this place? It was only an hour ago that K had climbed aboard the old man’s rickshaw. He had gone to City Hall to receive his official notice of appointment. The rickshaw man suddenly appeared while he was at the plaza in front of the building.

  K ended up spending the night all alone at the Holy Igitur Monastery after he was left behind to fend for himself. Only when he awoke the next morning did he realize that he had fallen asleep in the empty monastery. Staggering about due to his lack of nourishment, he only barely made it back to the capital, collapsing that night by the city’s north gate.

  Why had he been left behind without receiving any notice of appointment? What was that strange encounter in the evening all about? As the answers to these questions eluded K, his only hope of getting a handle on what was going on was to visit City Hall again. And so, with his gate pass in hand, he did just that.

  Those he spoke with listened to his story. Yet not a single one of them seemed to understand what he was telling them. Everyone just fidgeted about.

  What were they all hiding from him?

  When he persisted in his questioning, all they offered him were embarrassed looks but no straight answers to his questions. A few even went so far as to try to drive him away with their impertinent words.

  “The heat must have driven you mad! Go away and don’t bother us!” they told him.

  K was completely flustered.

  Or to be more precise, something he heard so shook him that he was at a loss for words. All because one of the more mild-mannered administrators finally did listen to K’s entire story, only to give him a stiffly askew stare in response.

  “This Sacred Exam that you speak of, it did indeed exist a long time ago. But it has long since been abolished.”

  “What? Abolished? When did that happen?”

  “Well, I’m not really sure. I mean, that was such a long time ago.”

  “Don’t be absurd. That’s simply not possible. I just passed that exam before heading off to the Holy Igitur Monastery for training to earn my clerical certificate.”

  “Oh, when was that?” The older man asked in turn, giving him a curious look.

  “When? Just half a year ago. I completed my period of training and returned here just last night.”

  “Hm. Are you sure you’re not possessed by some demon or something? This monastery you speak of—it’s the temple to the north in the middle of the desert, right?

  “Yes, that’s the one. What about it?”

  “What do you mean what about it? Pull yourself together, man. That monastery has long been abandoned. There isn’t anyone there.”

  “No way.”

  K let out a gasp. His shock nearly stopped his heart.

  The man gave K a sympathetic look.

  “You know, it might be best if you get yourself an exorcism,” he said with a shrug.

  Well, at least he didn’t just brush him off.

  K’s distress left him unable to do more than stutter another question about the monastery.

  “It was in the year 567—not long after the trial of the heretic—that they shut down the monastery.”

  That meant it happened soon after the Second Papal Conference. That was when they discussed the proper interpretation of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.

  “I believe it was the place where the heretic Darko Dachilko was beheaded. After that, his ghost . . .”

  “Oh, the ghost? Actually, I saw Darko Dachilko’s ghost too . . .”

  “Oh?”

  The man contemplated K with dolorous eyes. Did he see the ghost inside K too? Just then, the bells marking the arrival of noon rang throughout the city.

  “Thank you for your time,” K said.

  K left the office. He didn’t get very far though, ending up sitting at the steps at the main gates of City Hall. He couldn’t shake off that feeling of the ground beneath his feet slowly vanishing before his eyes.

  The heretic must be toying with me. Was the Holy Igitur Monastery nothing more than the manifestation of a temple from another dimension? What other explanation was there?

  So what about the rest of the gang? Hoffman? Mullin? Where did they end up?

  Over a thousand candidates took the Sacred Exam. Were they all just an illusion? An elaborate fantasy concocted by that ghost of Darko Dachilko?

  Why? Why would Darko Dachilko be perpetrating such an elaborate mischievous game on me?

  K would have kept going from one thought to another without coming up with a single satisfactory explanation had it not been for the child who approached K, handing him an envelope from City Hall.

  “I was asked by a cleric to give this to you.”

  Without waiting for K’s response, the boy dashed through the plaza, disappearing from K’s sight.

  K tore open the envelope, finding inside it the official notice of appointment addressed to him.

  Was this some kind of cruel joke? Maybe he should just rip this letter up?

  Suddenly, the old rickshaw man appeared before K.

  “Sir, please get in the rickshaw. It’s those bastards in City Hall who are possessed by demons. They know nothing about anything.”

  2

  Now alone in the empty plaza, K has no other option but to head up the stone staircase. Upon reaching a landing halfway up the ascent, the stairs veer left, then right again, continuing up to the city streets above.

  K emerges in a narrow street that traces a gentle curve on the ground. It is as silent as a crypt, making the whole place feel like a ghost town. K follows the street, until it eventually leads him to an arch-shaped gate. Beyond the gate, the street widens into a boulevard teeming with throngs of people. Rickety old buildings on the verge of collapse line both sides of the boulevard, where residents have stretched out dozens of cords for drying their laundry.

  The boulevard ends at a small park, where an old temple complex stands just slightly off to K’s right. An imposing metal sign, ill-matched to the small size of the buildings, stands in front of it. It reads “Planet Bosch Research Center.”

  “I guess this is the place,” K mutters to himself.

  K presses the buzzer at the gate. After a few moments pass without any answer, he pushes against the door. The door turns out to be unlocked. Only a brief pause, a passing moment of doubt, precedes K’s decision to step inside.

  A long and narrow courtyard leads K farther into the interior of the temple complex. Wilted and dried-out plants line one side of the path, while a pool of water surrounds the base of a moss-covered fig tree. The lush greenery dampens the cool air.

  Weeds engulf the other side of the path, almost completely camouflaging the presence of another door behind them. Again, no locks bar this door. Just one slight push reveals the dark staircase ascending behind it.

  Peering up the steps, K calls out to see if anyone is around. Still no answer. He climbs up the staircase, leading him to a room with some five or so d
esks arranged within.

  K raises the blinds inside the gloomy room, letting the sunlight stream inside. Clearly, the room hasn’t been occupied for quite some time. So thick is the dust atop the desks that K has to restrain the urge to trace words over their surfaces with his finger.

  “Is anyone in here?”

  Standing in the middle of the empty room, K calls out with all the voice he can muster.

  A clanging noise from an adjacent room responds to K’s call. Soon enough, a shirtless paunchy man walks in while still in the process of putting on a pair of pants.

  “What is it? Something you need?”

  His words are intemperate. Was he taking a nap?

  K hands him the official notice of appointment.

  In a blink, the man’s attitude completely changes.

  “Oh! So you’re our new director. We’ve been waiting for you for quite some time now. Please sir, follow me this way.”

  He bows slightly, before leading K inside, rubbing his hands together all the while.

  After offering K a seat, he calls out toward the back of the room.

  “Martha!” he yells. “Martha! What are you up to over there, Martha?”

  The cheap screen hanging in front of the arch-shaped entryway flaps open, revealing a young woman behind it.

  “Martha, the new director has arrived. Go get him something cold to drink. No, don’t just stand there—introduce yourself to him!”

  The slim-figured woman looks at K with a sparkle in her dark eyes, offering him a vague smile and a bow.

  “This is my daughter. I am Tantra. I’m the office manager here. We have been expecting your arrival.”

  “Is there no one else here other than the two of you?”

  “Just the two of us. Everyone else departed last month.”

  “Departed? For where?”

  His response is evasive.

  “Well, it’s really not my place to speak of such matters,” he says.

  “If there’s something you know, you need to tell me.”

  “Of course, if it is the director’s pleasure, sir. I believe that their destination was Planet Bosch.”

  “I see,” says K with a nod.

  The truth is that not a single thing has made much sense to K. According to Tantra, five researchers were stationed here. Last month, however, every one of them departed all of a sudden.

  “Did the previous director leave behind any messages or instructions for me?” K asked.

  “No, nothing in particular, sir. All Mr. Bose asked me was . . .”

  “Bose? He’s the previous director?” K interjected.

  “Yes, that’s right. So, all Mr. Bose told me was to await the arrival of the next director.”

  K looks askew at Tantra in puzzlement. All he can do now is bring to his lips the cold yogurt drink that Martha has handed him.

  Later, K takes his place in the director’s chair, examining the documents atop the desk. Nothing there seems to be of great importance. What is he supposed to do now without anything to work with?

  He’s been appointed to the post of director of this institution, so all he can do for now is the work tasked to him. But since no duties have been handed off by the previous director, simply sitting at the desk will have to become his task for the time being, at least until he can come up with a way out of this predicament.

  K sits in that dreary room in the research center until evening. Not surprisingly, idly sitting alone in the room turns out to be a truly monotonous task. Not a single phone call reaches him. Not a single visitor stops by.

  When Tantra comes by with a pitcher of water, K inquires about the daily routine of the previous director and the other researchers here.

  “Well, mostly, they did what we are doing now,” he says. “By the way, at what time would you prefer we serve your dinner?”

  “What did the previous director do?”

  “Mr. Bose usually had his dinner at nine o’clock.”

  “I guess the same time works for me as well.”

  More time passes.

  Something catches K’s attention. A book caked with a layer of dust sits atop the desk. Some reading will at least break the monotony of it all. But a lock adorns the covers of the thick leather-bound book. K searches for a key in the drawers of the desk, eventually finding one in the back of one drawer. When he inserts the key into the book, its covers click open.

  Behind the locked cover is an old edition of one of the books of the exalted Southern Scriptures that The Holy Igitur left for the people, the famously incomprehensible “Book of the Seed.”

  K flips through the pages, skimming over the words in the Sacred Euclidean language. Traces of Bose’s careful study notes have been left behind in the margins of the book’s pages. Perhaps he did not have much in the way of clearly defined tasks either, leading him to pore over this book every day.

  3

  It takes only a few pages for K to quickly realize that the book left behind by his predecessor is not the standard edition of the “Book of the Seed” from the Southern Scriptures. No, this one is a heterodox version of the scriptures, long banned from publication. Rumors of all manner of apocryphal editions of the Southern Scriptures not officially sanctioned by the Papal Court abound within the Holy Empire. However, this is the first time K has seen an actual specimen of such a banned book. His surprise soon becomes suspicion. Now he understands why the book is kept under lock and key.

  The Holy Igitur left to the people many exalted scriptures, but among them, the Southern Scriptures stands out for its exceeding complexity. With its labyrinthine language impossible to translate into any modern tongue, with its employment of a Möbius configuration that layered one theory atop another, no wonder scholars of the text often found themselves thoroughly confounded by it. Indeed, the central issue during Darko Dachilko’s trial for heresy in the year 313 revolved around precisely this problem of conflicting interpretations of the scriptures. In the end, Darko Dachilko’s position was defeated at the First Papal Conference. However, according to K’s friend Hoffman, this defeat had little to do with whether his interpretation was correct or heretical. Rather, it was the political outcome of a factional war within the Papal Court itself.

  Understanding the scriptures is an exceptionally difficult task for a young, inexperienced man like K. All manner of strange symbolisms suffuse the entire text of the scriptures, known for its prophetic quality. Although its supposed “Möbius configuration” is a description ascribed to it in retrospect through the work of scholars of the scriptures, it is, in fact, quite apt. Every word of the text embeds a doubling of meaning, an ambiguity between its front side and its back. Moreover, its complex sentence patterns and grammatical features create an even more multilayered text. Misread one small detail and the entire meaning of a passage can change completely. K has to admit that his reading only scratches the text’s visible surface, with some sections simply impossible for him to apprehend no matter how much he tries to make sense of them.

  Images of vegetation permeate the “The Book of the Seed.” One section reads as follows:

  Should anyone be in doubt, think yourself the seed that rides the gusts of the wind. Or think yourself the seed of the ripened bracken exploding into the air.

  Learn from the dandelion, the maple, the touch-me-not, the jewelweed, and others. When we grasp the various aspects of nature, the secrets of the revelations of Hieronymus will unravel before us.

  The Seed is the word of the Lord.

  The Seed wanders. Through the great dark space. Through the narrow path to eternity.

  The Seed is the word of the Lord, sent to us from the Garden of Eden.

  Like the Seed of the Lotus that sleeps for centuries before its flower ripens, keep safe the words of the Lord in times of long sleep, until the great awakening of the time of enlightenment.

  Wandering and wandering, around and around every place in the galaxy . . .

  K notices that the words Garden of
Eden have been encircled, with a line pointing to a note in the margins. It reads: “Where is it?” Other notes appear elsewhere on the page: “Ascension X degrees. Declination X degrees. Five hundred light-years from XXXX?” These must be his predecessor’s comments.

  In the Papal Court’s canonical interpretation, the Garden of Eden is understood as a parable, as a mere conceptual device. To treat it as a real thing, as his predecessor’s notes seem to hint at, is heresy. This much tells K that his predecessor was already enthralled by the heretic’s thinking.

  This brings K to the next passage, which captures K’s attention. This is the passage wherein The Holy Igitur himself prophesized the existence of Planet Bosch. This is the passage that K must fully comprehend. He silently mouths each word as he tries to make sense of it all.

  And so, like a mosquito seeking out the light in the darkness, like the small boats of fishermen seeking out the light of land, the Seed flies in search of a shore to make its destination.

  And so, like a billiard ball bouncing from edge to edge of its table, the Seed flies from one center of gravity to another.

  Catapulted from Our Lord’s Kingdom, from its mother planet, the Seed bursts open like a sorrel, carrying within it the wisdom of time immemorial, as though it had become Great Wisdom in slumber.

  Perhaps, with the passage of time, a flower will bloom. And the holy words of Our Lord, creator of all of this great heaven, will be spread to all the children.

  “The seed is the word of God”—an expression adopted from the Christian Holy Bible. For a long time, this section of the great Southern Scriptures garnered only meager attention from Sacred Service scholars of scriptural interpretation. But for K, it is the phrase that most clearly shows the miraculous quality of The Holy Igitur’s foresight, of his powers of prophecy.

  Still, K cannot shake off the thought that Surim, the astronomical engineer from Yilan who connected the text to a small discovery in the Sigmen Astronomical Almanac, met a violent death shortly thereafter. As did Tinguette, the first to set foot on the planet, who also vanished without a trace soon after returning home following his marooning on the strange vegetable planet.