[IC] Tales from the Spire

[Tancuras]

Eiru Sent’ank fell to his knees on the rough stone floor of the temple. A bright moonbeam from the skylight cast his face at first in pale ecstasy, then horror, then bleakness. Such emotions filled him as he channeled the will of the gods, alone in that dark room. His body convulsed unwillingly, tossing him limply across the floor as his naked body was torn and bruised. For a moment he stilled, and forced himself to take a jagged breath, but in the next instant his trance was renewed with greater force. His back arched violently with the surge of fire in his veins, then, abruptly, he rolled to the side. A thunder-crack echoed on the walls, and Eiru felt the bone in his forearm splinter as it met the ground, but that was what it meant to be a messenger of the divine.

Indeterminate time passed, and Eiru was left panting, limbs contorted beneath him. He pushed himself to his feet with some difficulty and gazed around, filled with inexpressible zeal. The center of the temple was a tall room with four corners and straight walls, cast in deep shadow. But no shadow could hide the shrine from the eyes of a true Speaker.

Before Eiru stood a wall with great carvings. He had committed each to memory, every line, every crack, every faded patch in the stonework. The gods took many forms, but on Mount Amathet, they took the forms of the land. Kaio, the elk, protecting Oyuhcal, the oak. Nearby was Ousuo, who took the body of a dewdrop, but held the power of every crushing waterfall. Even the greedy, deceitful and cunning Shinan had a place on this wall, a snake in the corner, watching the others with envy from afar.

Eiru reluctantly turned away and limped through a small doorway nearby. It led to the chambers of the temple’s Speaker, his own room. Rather, the room that he was borrowing from this divine place whilst he served. Until my death, he thought, a fractured smile appearing on his lips, only the faintest curling of the corners. Only that can keep me from serving here. His room was barren by his choice. The last Speaker, the one he deposed personally, had been living quite luxuriously. Everything, from the carpets to the feather bed, had been burned, returned to the mountain. Eiru slept on the cold earth, only books, a wash basin, and crates of food and water decorating that space. Speakers were forbidden clothing, so he had no need for chests or wardrobes.

The Speaker moved to the basin and used his right hand to splash frigid water over himself, washing his face of sweat and dust. Locks of unkempt brown hair fell around his face as he let the water drip from his crooked nose. He then made his way around the room until he found a length of threadbare cloth and wrapped it around his left arm, bent sharply near the wrist. He grunted as the bones cracked and set, then limped back out into the antechamber, fixing his eyes once more on the shrine.

Eiru dared a thought, a pebble skimming across his mind, gone almost as soon as it came. He saw Xaro, the great mountain cat, and envisioned that strength within him. Eiru Sent’ank, devout and unwavering servant to the gods, was going to become a great power on Mount Amathet. For the gods were angry. The gods had been forgotten. And now, the gods were going to have their voice heard.

[Tancuras]

At the very center of Mount Amathet’s summit, carved into a wide bowl, was the Dais, a stone disc fifty strides across. A symbol was etched expertly into its smooth surface; it was the symbol of Karma, the force driving the world. The Dais was used for all of Amathet’s ceremony. It was the largest singular piece of oraculum known, stone that never discolored or held a stain. Stainless stone was important on Amathet, for most of its ceremony was bloody.

The symbol of Karma was represented by two interlocking rings, one dark, one light. The dark represented passion, motivation driving man to create and destroy. The light represented serenity, and the consequence of desire that every man must bear. Where the rings interlocked was a small space, the balance that everything in the world strived for. Only the victors of Amathet’s many duels were allowed to meditate in the center of the Dais.

A boy passed through the Dais, striding across the dark ring. His name was Ezan Voldu’ank, a boy of fifteen years, not quite as tall as the others his age. Locks of wild russet hair reached back along his scalp, baring a youthful face with wide, slightly tilted black eyes, a small nose and a mouth worn in an open snarl. While he was not as tall as most others, the canines of Ezan’s teeth were twice as long as most others, a trait shared between few of the families on Mount Amathet. Together, with the long dagger thrust through his sash, and the purple bruise glaring on his cheek, they made a ferocious visage, not unlike a cornered animal.

The moon touched Ezan’s loose clothing as he mounted the steps out of the center of the bowl. The moon, full and bright as it was every night at that time of the year, illuminated the path before him far brighter than the torches to either side. The snarl never left his face as he advanced toward Amathet’s Great Hall, a large building with stone corner posts and carved logs laid atop one another to make the walls.

The muffled din of shouting men, dragging stools and heavy mugs exploded before him as Ezan heaved back one of the Hall’s tall arching doors. Squinting against the light, he stalked inside, shoulders back and staring hard directly ahead of him at nothing in particular. He forced himself to sit at the closest table before looking up and around. It was a night of celebration, and all around him were large men in merriment, all wearing a huge sword or a long spear on their hips or backs. Beyond them, seated near the back, were the new initiates into the ranks of the men, the victors of that day’s test, and the boys Ezan had grown up with.

A hand closed roughly around the back of his neck and dragged him to his feet.

“You’re not allowed to be in here, Ezan,” Ivro said, not in the familiar friendly way he usually spoke to Ezan. Ivro’s hand guided him back to the door, but he pulled back, breaking the man’s grip.

“I deserve to be here!” Ezan shouted, straightening his back as his words were lost in the celebration of the other men. Ivro was quite tall, and several years older than he, but he tried his best to meet the man’s glazed stare.

“You failed the test of manhood, so you are not a man. Do not disgrace yourself further.” Ivro snatched his wrist and sent him stumbling out of the Hall. One of the other men caught a glimpse of him leaving, and called after him. “It’s not too late to join the women’s ranks! They’re running short of beardless boys!” A gale of laughter was cut off as the door slammed shut.

Ezan felt his face flush as he stood staring at the ground, clenched fists quivering with fury. The ank suffix in his family’s name meant “true blood of the mountain”, but whatever that meant, he did not feel like part of the mountain in that moment.

As if summoned by mention, several women passed by the Great Hall, all with bows on their backs. They looked to him, and then to the Hall, talking quietly amongst themselves. Ezan heard “foolish men,” and “lazy drunks,” and “while we hunt their dinners and defend their walls.” Things he had heard before, and that at times would anger him. At that time, though, he felt like agreeing with them. The men of Mount Amathet were trained for battle with other men, to fight in wars and appease their gods, but never to track and hunt an animal or beast. And as of late, there had been very few wars to fight. Ezan thought he could feel the mountain growing restless, and maybe the gods, too.

His anger subsiding into sullenness, Ezan made his feet work the path back to his home, along the torch-lit path leading to the common quarters. Approaching his family’s dwelling, a single-story house on a foundation cut into a slope, he found his mother, Auriem, checking the arrows in her quiver. She was a stick-slender woman, straight as a board, with pale lilac hair in a long braid. She wore her hunting outfit, brown and beige furs to blend with the earth.

“I’m glad I caught you, child,” Auriem said, squatting to speak to her son. She brushed a thumb along Ezan’s bruise and he flinched back, pushing her hand away. She shook her head passively. “Don’t feel like you need to hold a torch to those men. You are young, yet. You will be strong someday.”

“I’ve waited long enough. I am a man. I just didn’t feel good today, during the test. It’s not my fault,” Ezan said, avoiding his mother’s eyes. “I’m tired of their ridiculous rules and traditions.”

Auriem stood, now two heads taller than her son. She was one of the tallest women on Amathet. “I know how important this is to you, so I’ve arranged a trainer for you tomorrow.”

“I don’t feel like training!” Ezan shouted indignantly.

“You know, if you stopped skipping out on training so much to go lay in a tree, you might actually have done well today,” Auriem said. “I want you in bed. You have an early day tomorrow. I will be back at sunrise.” With that, she picked up her quiver and let her long legs carry her down the slope and away, not looking back.

Now less than ever Ezan felt like fighting, or training to fight. He did not feel like he would ever amount to a warrior, the way everyone else had. Fully grown at fifteen, the year when boys became men, and he could still not stand on equal ground with the rest of them. He walked through his home and to his bed with resignation in his step and sat back against the pillows. Watching the moon through the nearby window, the thought he had been trying to avoid all day crept into his mind. He wished his father was still alive. He was certain the man was a great warrior, and could teach him to be strong. But he could not even remember the man’s face. He soon fell into sleep.