Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“Of course, God-Voice!” Merwan Ma retorted, blurting the response with surprise and horror.
“I am not accusing you, my son,” said the Chezru Chieftain. “I am merely reminding you. If we are to believe in the Revelation of Yatol, then we should accept the onset of death with open arms, confident that we have lived a life worthy of the Cloud of Chez. Am I to be sad, then, to think that Paradise is soon to be my home?”
“But we do not ask for death, God-Voice—”
“I know, however, when death begins to ask for me,” Yakim Douan interrupted. “This is part of my station, to understand when death approaches so that those around me—so that you, Merwan Ma—can begin their preparations for the search for the new God-Voice. Do you understand?”
Merwan Ma lowered his eyes. “I am afraid, God-Voice,” he said.
“You will not fail.”
“But how will I know?” asked the young attendant, looking up suddenly at the Chezru Chieftain. “How can I be sure that I will select the correct replacement? It is a terrible burden, God-Voice. I fear that I am not worthy to bear it.”
“You are,” Yakim Douan said, laughing. “The child will be obvious to you, I assure you. When I was selected, I was reciting the entire Fourth Book of Prophecy.”
“But could not a mother so teach her young child, if she wished him to ascend?”
“I had not yet seen my second birthday!” said a laughing Yakim. “And I could answer any question put to me by the Yatol Council. Do you doubt that they chose correctly?”
Merwan Ma blanched.
“It is not an accusation, my young friend,” said Yakim. “It is merely a reassurance to you that you will know. Your predecessor voiced similar concerns … so I have heard,” the Chezru Chieftain quickly added, for how could he have firsthand knowledge of what Merwan Ma’s predecessor might or might not have said?
“Even so, God-Voice,” the obviously nervous Merwan Ma continued. “Once the child is found—”
“Then your duties are clear and with many recorded precedents,” Yakim Douan interrupted. “And those duties are minimal, do not doubt. You will watch over the child and see that he is well cared for through the early years of his life. Not so difficult a job, I would say.”
“But what of his training? Who will tutor the new God-Voice in the ways of Yatol?”
Yakim Douan was laughing before Merwan ever finished. “He will tutor you, if you so desire! Do you not understand? The child will be born with full consciousness, and full understanding of all that is Yatol.
“Do you doubt?” the Chezru Chieftain asked into Merwan Ma’s scrunched-up face. “Of course you do!” Yakim added to alleviate the tension before it could ever really begin. “Because you have not witnessed the miracle of Transcendence. I have, firsthand! I remember those early days well, and I needed no tutoring. I needed nothing, just the climb to Consciousness, and by that time, I understood everything about our beloved Chezru, both good and bad, better than any of those around me. Fear not, my young friend. Your time of indenture in the house of the Chezru Chieftain is to end in scarcely more than a decade, it would seem.”
If those words were of any comfort at all to Merwan Ma, he didn’t show it; in fact, his expression revealed just the opposite.
“You know this to be true,” Yakim prompted.
“As with your anticipated death, it is not a subject I am comfortable discussing, God-Voice.”
“Ah,” Yakim answered with a great laugh, and again he patted the young attendant’s arm. “You are to serve me, and then to see the next God-Voice to Consciousness, and then you are freed of all responsibility to the Chezru. That is the way it
has always been, and the way it must continue to be.”
“All that I love—”
“That does not preclude you from joining Chezru more formally,” Yakim went on. “In truth, I would be sorely disappointed if you do not pursue your calling to piety. You will make a fine Yatol, my friend, and as such, will prove a valuable asset to the next Chezru Chieftain. Why, I have already penned a long letter to my successor and to the Yatol Council expressing my beliefs in your potential.”
That seemed to calm Merwan Ma considerably, and he blushed with embarrassment and lowered his eyes.
Just the effect Yakim Douan had hoped for. He truly liked the young man, and would indeed miss him when he came to Consciousness in the next incarnation. But on this point of ritual, Yakim had to hold fast. He couldn’t take the chance of keeping one as bright as Merwan Ma around for too long.
Familiarity might bring danger.
M
erwan Ma made his way through the great columned hallways of the airy palace. The whole of the place was made of stone, mostly marble, pink and white and the subtle pale yellow of Cosinnida marble from the south. The many columns, ridged and decorated, were of the type that came from the northwest, from the foothills of the Belt-and-Buckle near the borderland of Behren and To-gai. This stone was the brightest white of all, but streaked with red veins throughout, so much so that it appeared to Merwan Ma as if red vines grew all along the columns. He could almost envision large grapes hanging from the vine, ready to be plucked and savored.
Merwan Ma’s sandals were leather, and not hard-soled, but his footfalls echoed along the vast chambers of the palace, where every ceiling was delicately arched to catch the sound and roll it about. The young attendant often lost himself on walks such as this, wandering the great ways past the inspiring tapestries and the amazing mosaics tiled on the great floors. On such jaunts, he felt alone in the vast universe, and yet at one with it, as well.
He needed that now, that comfort that he was part of something larger than himself, larger than human flesh. His master had done it again, another conversation about the God-Voice’s impending death. How could the Chezru Chieftain be so calm about that? How could he speak in such commonsensical terms about the end of his life?
Merwan Ma gave a great exhale, thoroughly jealous of his master, of any man who could be so at ease with mortality. Merwan Ma was a dedicated and pious Shepherd, a rank above the common Chezru folk but a rank below the Yatols. He prayed every day, and followed every ritual and precept of the religion. He believed in an afterlife, in a reward for his good behavior. Truly he did. And yet, how pale his convictions seemed next to the supreme calm held by Yakim Douan!
Perhaps he would come to such a place of tranquillity as he aged, Merwan Ma hoped. Perhaps he would find a day when he could so easily accept the inevitability
of his own death, when he could be so confident that one journey was ending only so that another journey could begin.
“No,” he said aloud, and he fell to his knees briefly and pressed his palms against his eyes, prostrating himself on the floor, an expression of submission, obedience, and repentance for his last thought. He could never find a place as content as that of the God-Voice! He could never come to understand the mysteries of life and death as the Chezru Chieftain, and he alone, obviously understood! Not in this life, at least. Perhaps enlightenment awaited him on the other side of that darkest of doors.
With another deep breath, Merwan Ma pulled himself up from the floor and resumed his journey. He was late, he knew, and the others were likely already gathered about the sacred chalice, the Chezru Goblet, in the Room of Forever. Mado Wadon, the overseeing Yatol, had probably already prepared the sacrificial knife, filling its hollowed hilt with the oils of preservation. But certainly, without Merwan Ma there, the others had not begun the bleeding.
Y
akim Douan continued to enjoy his meal at the northern window, staring out at the towering majestic peaks. He knew what was going on in the Room of Forever, and he knew well the ultimate danger to him and to his secrets whenever the seven gathered for the ritual. But the centuries had taken the edge from the Chezru Chieftain concerning this anxiety. He had watched the bleeding closely all those early years, centuries before when he had instituted the ritual.
No, not instituted it, but merely altered it to cover his secret. Since the beginning of Yatol, the selected group had kept the sacred Chezru Goblet filled with their blood, standing in a circle about it and taking turns slicing their wrists until the deep and wide chalice was full to the appointed line. That ritual of blood-brotherhood and the resultant pool of blood had proven to be a wonderful binding force for Yakim Douan, for embedded in the base of that sacred chalice was a single gemstone, a powerful hematite. When Yakim added his own blood to the pool, every week immediately following the bleeding ritual, he somehow created a bond to that embedded hematite that he had learned to exploit from a great distance, from the other side of the palace, even. That was important to Yakim, not because he often utilized the hematite, but because he understood that if a sudden tragedy should befall him—the dagger of a rival, perhaps—he would be able to establish enough of a connection to the hematite to free his spirit from his dying corporeal form.
The only real danger to Yakim, then, came during the process of changing the blood pool, for though all of the attending bleeders would be blindfolded and instructed, strictly so, never to glance into the chalice, one look with the blood level low might be enough to arouse great suspicions. For the Yatols were not fond of gemstones, magical or not, and to see one embedded in their most-prized religious symbol, the Chezru Goblet itself, would strike a sour note in the heart of any true Yatol. Gemstones were the province of the hated Abellicans to the north, the
source of Abellican magical powers, and for centuries, since before Yakim Douan’s first ascension even, the Yatol priests had denounced the enchanted stones as instruments for channeling demon magic.
Seeing a gemstone—and a hematite, a soul stone, at that!—embedded in the base of that deep chalice would bring about questions that Yakim Douan did not want to answer.
But the Chezru Chieftain held all confidence that it would not come to that. In all the nearly eight hundred years he had been secretly using the magical hematite, the blood level in the chalice had only dropped to a revealing level once, when a young Yatol priest had inadvertently tripped and spilled the contents.
That unfortunate Yatol, so flustered, so horrified by what he had done, hadn’t even paused long enough to consider the ramifications of what he had seen. He had only stammered apology after apology when Yakim Douan had come upon him, to find him kneeling on the bloody floor and crying, his head in his hands. He had begged forgiveness from the God-Voice, even as Yakim’s knife had reached for his unprotected, undefended throat.
That one had died confused.
Yakim Douan shuddered at the memory of that awful day. He had never wanted to kill the man, but so much had been at stake. How could he jeopardize his own theoretical immortality, centuries of life, against the few decades the poor fool might have remaining?
To Yakim all these years later, it had been pragmatism, and not hatred and not any evil lust for power, that had guided his dagger hand that fateful day.
Yakim Douan couldn’t even remember the clumsy Yatol’s name. Nor could anyone else.
M
erwan Ma stood perfectly still, chanting softly the intonation of sacrifice, his voice blending beautifully with the others standing in a circle about the small table that held the Chezru Goblet. The young attendant held his left hand out across his chest and to the right side, ready to take the knife, while his right arm was out before him, his forearm resting on a padded shelf, his wrist dangling above the sacred vessel.
He was blindfolded, as were the others. In fact, Merwan Ma, as principal attendant to the Chezru Chieftain, had been the only one to enter this holy room with his eyes open, guiding the others to their respective positions. Then, with a prayer, Merwan Ma had taken his place and reached below the table and turned the lever. He had watched the red fluid level slowly dropping as he had applied his own blindfold.
That lever and release under the table was counterweighted, designed to slow the flow and then close altogether as the blood in the bowl drained. This group would not replace all of the liquid, but only about three-quarters. A bell sounded as the lever closed, the signal for the sacrifice to begin. And so it had, with the chanting. The man immediately to Merwan Ma’s left took up the treated knife,
reached forward, and cut his right wrist, then counted out the appropriate time, in cadence with the verse of the common chant, as his lifeblood dribbled down into the chalice. When the verse ended, the man passed the blade to the man on his left and the process was repeated.
And so on, until the knife came full circle, back to Merwan Ma. The attendant, his right wrist crisscrossed with lines and lines of scarring, finished his duty stoically and efficiently, then reverently placed the blade back on the table.
As the song finished, Merwan Ma lifted the blindfold off of his head and looked down at their work. Some blood had spattered outside of the great goblet, as usual, and the level wasn’t as high as it should have been, though it was well within the marks of tolerance inside the chalice. Had it not been, then the sacrifice would have been declared void and one of the men gathered about the table would have been killed and replaced, with only the attending Yatol and Merwan Ma exempt from that fate.
But the sacrifice was acceptable, the level of red fluid more than sufficient to hold the sacred goblet until the month had passed and the next sacrifice ensued.
Merwan Ma nodded at the handiwork—he’d have to come back in later and clean up the sacred vessel, of course, but other than that, the duty was done. With perfect precision wrought of months and months of practice, he took up the hand of the man on his left and led the group, joined as one line, out of the room.
In the anteroom, as soon as the door was closed, the others pulled off their blindfolds and tightened the bandages on their wrists, congratulating each other on a job well-done.
The exception, as usual, was the one Yatol in attendance. The older man looked to his wrist first, securing the bandage, but then, as he did after every sacrifice, he glanced at Merwan Ma.