Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity (49 page)

Tashi read her words as if seeing secret candle-writing beneath. As he made his deductions, his very thoughts seemed to be broadcast. “Is this necessary for your continued immortality?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “The twins Zanzibos and Bablios are always collaborating against all reason. This will be their undoing soon. Mandibos will always follow the strong majority; the god of cattle behaves like a cow himself.”

“And Kis?”

She wrinkled her perfect nose at this thought. “He lays among the fallen now, unable to return. Osos should never have made him a god in the first place. He was a mere workman, a technician, no more.”

Tashi knew he couldn’t hold back his conclusion from her hearing. Therefore, he relaxed his hold on the abbots of the past and bombarded her with several thoughts at once. The most seditious and softest of the voices was a revelation. “But you couldn’t stop him or didn’t dare. He knew something you didn’t dare leave behind, built something the rest of you couldn’t.” While on the top layer, louder than all the others he shouted, “Lies! You want me to lie to the people?”

Her face remained polite, but the ice in her voice could cut. “We prefer to call it simplification. The new message will eliminate all this terrible, fractious behavior we’ve been seeing lately. Besides, the pursuit of truth should have nothing to do with religion. The ideal religion should keep the herds happy, unquestioning, and productive without causing too much inconvenience.”

“What would my incentive for spreading the vision of your simplified world be?”

She led him to the edge of the tea garden and stretched out her hand. Green hills, cities, and by some trick of dream geography, the whole world lay stretched out before the base of the Holy Mountain. “We only want the mana we need to survive. Anything from the physical world is yours, including the Fallen—anything you desire.”

The words were flush with intimacy and emotion. Tashi calmed himself again for a final question. “But you don’t like me. Why are you making this offer?”

She sighed, weighing the commodity of honesty like a coin in limited supply. “You’re a permitted conduit. Divine laws on this are very strict, and there are very few conduits remaining. If you cut all ties with the old ways and declare that endorsement of Sandarac was the last word of the Traveler, we’d be willing to overlook all of your former transgressions.”

She looked away, bending to examine a blossom. Her dress tightened in several interesting places as she tried to sound light and casual. “Those words never passed my lips. But I can tell you that such an occurrence would greatly please me. In fact, I can think of none of the gods remaining who’d object to that course of action.”

The goddess sighed again. “Pity. I’ll win either way, but this would’ve been more convenient. Since you refuse my offer of mercy, I can no longer protect you. My husband will have his way with you. I assure you, his enticements will be far less pleasant.”

Tashi noticed the man with the porcelain mask beckoning him to the veranda. Small, white, honeysuckle blossoms scented the breeze. When he turned his head back, the goddess was gone. The sheriff strengthened his resolve and walked up the terraces to the pair of men on the covered porch. The small, masked man remained silent, allowing the beggar to speak. The beggar wore an almost-absurd circlet of tin around his head made of items rummaged from a trash heap.

Now recognizing both statements as being quotes from the holy tomes, Sandarac changed his tactics. “A wise man, then. An ascetic, I assume, immune to the charms of money?”

At this, Tashi was amused. “Your worm should have informed you that I’ve learned the secret of creating sesterina. After this, mere gold seems cumbersome and petty.”

Again, the beggar king seemed taken aback. He did some calculating. The value of his cooperation just rose again in Sandarac’s eyes. He continued probing for any leverage he could use against the captive sheriff. “We also know you were disowned from your clan. This means you have no lands, no possessions, no loved ones I can hold hostage. As far as we know, you have no real name. As far as the world is concerned, you don’t exist. I can give you all that—more than treasure, I can give you belonging. You’d be a valued part of something greater than any one man or kingdom, honored and loved, admired and revered. Only tell me who you are and swear allegiance.”

“I am a walker of the Path, the Sheriff of Tamarind Pass, and the Abbot of the Spirit Temple.”

Sandarac set his jaw, eyes flashing. He shook his finger at Tashi, an indicator of wrath that for most men warned of impending death. The sheriff didn’t have the same sense of fear as most men and didn’t change his expression when the emperor raised his voice to scold, “Those are just titles, what you do, not who you are! Why do you dissemble? What are you hiding?”

“I answer every question put to me.”

The small man with the porcelain mask entered the conversation now. “Everyone has something to hide,” the Viper hissed. “Lawmen and judges are the worst. Often they must break laws to catch wrongdoers. They allow themselves to kill and inflict their will on others on a daily basis. Soon, few strictures apply to them at all. They begin to feel that they’re above the lawlati matters get interesting.”

The beggar seized on this admission. “That way is most perilous. Even my best runners seldom come back with any new artifact. Everything that comes from that place is cryptic and potentially lethal. We don’t know if the destruction was intentional or accidental, but we know that it is the only remaining city of the Dawn Race. It stands as a grave monument to some great catastrophe. Nothing good could come of this visit. As Defender of the Ancient Ways, for your safety and the good of the realm, I couldn’t allow you to continue on that path.”

Tashi looked down at the raggedy man and explained, “I’ll take no loot from the City as you’ve done. I seek only the right of petition. Once a pilgrim reaches this stair and declares his intent, the Keepers of the Ancient may not stand in his way. Indeed, if you were a true follower of these ways, you would’ve offered me food and a bed to aid me on my journey.”

In the shadows behind the emperor, his bodyguard Ginza winced at the rebuke. However, Sandarac showed no such remorse. “Oh, I intend to offer you a room, sir. Just which room depends on the answer to my next question. No such petitions have been granted in living memory. Having established the impossibility of your pilgrimage, what is your next greatest goal, your highest aspiration?”

Tashi considered this and then answered, “To shut down the abomination to the south known as the Temple of Sleep.”

Sandarac sputtered, unable to contain his fury. “I will crush you! By the time my people are through, you’ll beg to serve my empire, if only to end your misery.”

“Victory is in the final blow of the sword,” Tashi quoted, not intimidated by the beggar’s promises or threats.

Hidden in the solarium behind the fluted columns of the veranda, Ginza spoke in an effort to calm his liege. Raising a hand against such a holy man would be a bad omen indeed. “Highness, the sheriff is correct in one respect. Past experience has proven that, while on this mountain, no chains will hold him, no door bar his way. The sole person who can impede such a pilgrim is the pilgrim himself.”

For a moment, the same fire burned behind the emperor’s eyes as the small man’s. “Let it be so, then. Hisbet, he’s yours. Let him be held in the room without doors. He shall not descend my mountain until his secret is revealed.”

The room without doors was at the pinnacle of a round tower with a conical roof. The interior was less than four paces in diameter and seemed taller than it was wide. The effect was enhanced by the fact that the room was bare except f
or a bed mat and two large cushions. Nothing weapon-like was permitted in the cell. The floors were porous, white stone, several cubits thick. Once inside this cell, no one had ever escaped, though a few had opted for suicide.

The exit was though a sliding panel in the ceiling. The ladder had to be lowered from above. After dark, the Nightfall effect kept anyone from putting their head above eaves’ level and surviving. By daylight, a narrow drawbridge ran from the roof across a seven-pace chasm to an even narrower ledge chiseled out of the rock of the steep mountainside. From there, a staircase went upward to a guard shack with a large bell and two arrow slits facing the approach.

When the sun sank below a certain mark on the shack window, the guards locked the sliding door, pulled back the drawbridge, barred the top of the stairs, and ran. There was no passage down below the Nightfall line for half an hour’s walk, and then the descent passed through another security control point. A squad of veteran Keepers made sure no one from below could pass into the City of the Gods and that nothing from above could be smuggled back without their knowledge.

The priestess performing the interrogation was nervous, checking to make certain that the sheriff was still unconscious on the mat before continuing to write her report. After a day’s effort, she had little to show. The woman, thin and pale, was covered from head to toe in layers of veils. Each veil represented a secret of her order: the Weavers of Dreams. It would’ve been so much easier to break him in the temple, under the Great Eye. The Eye was a round, stone window set atop an ancient door, the highest point on the ruins of the old temple. Through the stone window, she could have watched what her subject was dreaming. Instead, she had to fumble around blindly here.

On a fresh piece of parchment, the priestess scribbled a note to Zariah. “Hypnotic trigger established for subject. Large reservoirs of self-hatred that aid his ascetic and military life will also make him easier to control. Likewise, the numerous episodes of physical pain in his past will give us weapons. Maps of Tamarind and personnel profiles complete. Concentrating on deepest secret. A lover. Several taboos involved. Keeps calling her name, as mentioned before. Each time I get close, he evades. Very strong defenses; progress slow. Even the word ‘birthday’ can send him into seizures. Plum scent helpful. Will try to accelerate questioning with physical enhancement.”

The priestess hesitated before adding the last. Given the intensity of past reactions, it was dangerous terrain. A thump behind her made the veiled woman jump. Her breathing returned to normal when she saw the guard lowering her afternoon meal on a string from the ceiling. “Less than four hours, miss. Will you be staying the night with him?”

“Not if I am successful. I have another message for her holiness. Don’t disturb me for any reason until sundown warning. Even then, ring the bell before opening the hatchway. The slightest sunlight could be disastrous, and I’ll hold you responsible.”

The guard nodded. After she removed the bread and fruit, she placed the report in the meal bag. After sealing her in again, this trusted guard would relay the message to the aviaries from whence it would reach Zariah herself.

Soon, the subject’s eyes moved again beneath their lids. The tattooed man was dreaming. Safe from interruptions, she began the process again. Calming herself and lighting the incense, she entered a near-dream state herself. Once there, the priestess touched her subject on the center of his forehead and whispered the word ‘nightingale’. Tashi was now conditioned to describe aloud what he was seeing and responded to her subtle suggestions.

For the tenth time, they entered the secret garden. Tashi climbed in through the well exit at night to steal the guildmaster’s plums and enjoy a moment of privacy. He was sitting snug in a tree eating when someone carried a lamp into an upstairs room that faced the courtyard. The window was less then ten paces away and covered by a thin, gauzy curtain. However, shapes and movement could be seen through the veil. All of these apartments belonged to the guildmaster. His people would certainly report Tashi if he were caught. The punishment for an outsider found there was death. But being a foster child of the man, his sentence might be commuted to mere exile. Tashi held very still as the lamp settled into position on a table in the center of the room.