The temple is half again as old as
humanity, some say even older. Most of us come here in secret, often
just dropping off supplies for the others. Our existence here is
another secret: we rotate between being here
and out in the world. Here, we are – we have no words for it. Not
safe. Never secure. But this is the temple, and here we speak His
name. The world outside the temple is empty. Shattered. The sky is
indifferent colours, the sun a suggestion. It is cold here, and there
is nothing else alive. There
is wind and water, but it is not the wind and water of other worlds.
The temple is the only ruin
that still stands, because we have kept it going.
Sometimes, daring,
we pray.
I do
not know what I am hoping for. I don’t think any of us know. I just
know I’m happy to be stopped before I leave,
to be told the rotation has changed. Tumal
is in seclusion. I am not told why. I
park my shuttle, unload supplies. A few locations have changed, and I
am told about them. We don’t connect to System here. There are too
many who would destroy this place if they found it. Not being
connected is the hardest thing to learn. To let go of everything else
in the wider universe.
To trust each
other. The temple teaches us that. To trust, to wait, to be calm. A
storm rages across the surface as I finish unpacking – I am always
prepared to, though this has seldom happened. A week, an extra month:
I have no idea how long I will be at the temple this time. But here I
can utter prayers aloud. Trade stories with others. We talk over the
storms. They are sudden, ferocious and gone as quickly as they rise.
Without them the world would, perhaps, have been terraformed again
but terraforming equipment is destroyed. It takes skill and faith to
land here, but I have both.
I talk to a few
others, and then I wander. I like to wander for my first day or so
back. The temple is old and vast, and getting lost is so rare in
other places. No one connected to System can get lost. We have maps
here, but the grounds are old and shift often. I keep my biosuit on
minimal levels, and have two spares on me. They were expensive, but
I’ve saved a couple of lives with them. My own among them, several
times.
Biosuits are
strong, but even in the temple we are not safe. It is only fitting.
There is no safety from our god.
I walk six hours,
then ten. Sit. Eat a ration pouch. It is almost easy to forget how
old the temple is. Stones from other words, carved and blasted into
the foundations of this world. I find two rivers to add to our maps,
but they are easy enough to ford though the waters are colder than I
remember them being. There is darkness, but I am not afraid of that.
I say no prayers, alone in the darkness. There is a kind of darkness
than any light makes darker still, but I continue. Sometimes I don’t.
Often I do.
I never know what
I’m looking for. Why the temple was made? Some clue no one else has
noticed? A sign our god was at a specific spot here? I don’t know.
I walk. A day turns into two, and then I find someone.
No biosuit. Human.
Male. Sixteen. Just walking barefoot along the jagged stone floor of
a cavern.
“Excuse me?
Hello? Can I help you?”
He stops.
“Perhaps.”
“Do you need a
biosuit?”
He shakes his head;
not truly human then, I think, but there are many among our number
who are not. “Hingari?”
“No. I was
wandering. I think I took a wrong turn. And you?” he asks.
“I am having an
adventure.” I say the words. Old, almost oldest of the known ones.
To someone I cannot be certain is of the faith.
The young man looks
at me. “How nice for you,” he murmurs. “And if I asked what
kind?”
“A
seeking kind. Do you seek as
well?”
“Some days I
think so. Other says I am the sought, if there was a difference at
all. Sorry. I –.”
“It is no worry.
One learns from the darkness as well as the light. The Way teaches us
that.”
The stranger
blinks. He is a stranger. Somehow I am certain he is not of the
faith. “What way is this?” he asks.
I tell him. I don’t
mean to, but his voice demands answers. They say the Magrok can force
truth with words, but none of that species can breathe oxygen. We
avoid them regardless, to protect ourselves.
The young man
blinks again after I finish. “You – worship Jay.”
“It is what it
means to be a Jayist.” Oldest, holiest of secrets, and I speak it.
Tumal made a mistake, but I? I will be likely to escape banishment
and a mindwipe for this.
“Jayist,”
he repeats. “You worship
Jaysel –.”
“We do not!” I
think he’s as surprised at my outburst as I am. “We acknowledge
that one. We worship Jay, who is jaysome.”
“Why?”
“I was born on
Oujika IV, which has seven gods for each of the seven cities. And
they are gods. But they are only there. I went to the Duvellin
Cluster, and they knew nothing of our gods. And out there, between
the worlds? There are no gods at all. But there is Jay. Who is power
and wonder, who is jaysome and bindings, and can be anywhere.”
“And you think he
wants to be worshipped?”
“We
are certain he does not. There are almost no Jayists left after –
this world, and several others long
ago. His
time of destruction, we call it. He
obliterated temples and followers both. But even
so, he is still Jay, still
more real. Still –
still a hope, to us, of something more.”
“The
temples were razed,” the stranger says, his voice a whisper melting
into the darkness. “A hundred worlds burned in a single night.
Stars were snuffed out in moments, and all those who followed Jay –
terrible things were done to them if
they managed to survive.”
“He
was not Jay when he was
thirteen. We understand. We
forgive, because to forgive is to jaysome.”
“You
forgive perhaps because you were not there,” the stranger says
flatly.
“There
is pain that must be expunged. The Jayists of that time were –
that. A way for Jay to remove
His pain. We hope not to be,
but we are prepared. Because
He is more than we can ever be, and the least we can do is serve
Him.”
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“There are
bindings, yes, but bindings are not a serving. They are a choice.”
“You speak like
one who knows,” I say, hesitant. Perhaps this is someone I do not
know, who has been in the dark too long.
“I know –.”
“Wait.” My
biosuit scrolls warnings. I hand him one of my spare suits. “You
must put this on; water is coming, and it is cold.”
He does so without
a word and we hug the wall.
It’s bad. Not
water. I was wrong. The water is run-off from the storms, we always
thought, but this water is fresh and wild. The storm is screaming in
it as it batters into us, through us, over and around us. I feel my
biosuit shatter, and then a hand holds me. Firm, not letting go.
I
imagine I hear a voice speak,
something like: “That’s
enough.”
The
water pools into the earth, the terrible wind within it dying down.
My third biosuit
activates, this one just over
me. The strangers
suit was destroyed as well,
but he is not even wet. He crouches, hands running through traceries
of water, a
gentle brushing over stone.
“Screaming
waters. Heh.” He smiles at some private joke and stands. “Not
singing, not here. The
universe does love ironies. But
this is nothing I did. To bind the dead into a storm, to make them
tear a planet apart and themselves with it. Curious. It
seems our meeting was chance.”
And he holds up a hand, and
the storm rises about him. Comes from the earth,
the stone, the air my biosuit
protects me from. As though it’s always been there. As if it’s
always waiting.
It is grey and
green and a hundred shades of black and blue, like a thousand strings
turned into wind and woven together. It hurt to look at, and to see,
but somehow the scream of the wind was muted.
And
the stranger watches the storm flow about his hand. He listens. “I
see,” he says softly, and the wind goes away. “To
destroy a world is one thing. To imprison the dead within the weather
to avoid paying out insurance claims, well, that’s something else.”
“What?”
He
offers something like a
smile, and this
smile sets off warnings in my biosuit. “In this state, they are not
dead. But if I take them from
here, this world will be terraformed again. Which they do not desire.
They wish is to remain, as a
memory and a warning both. So
your temple gets to remain, I think, for now. If some of you wish to
come with me?”
And he’s no
longer speaking to me, because wind flows up and water dances about
him, settling into his clothing.
“I’ll return
you when we’re done, of course,” he says, and there is a hole.
Not in the wall but in the world, and he is walking toward it.
“Wait. I never
got your name.”
His gaze flicks
back to me. “You did not. You will not,” he adds, gentler still.
And he smiles, then, and this smile hurts in the most wondrous of
ways. “But I will tell you this: the power Jay has is impressive,
but power is not a reason for worship. No prayer that comes from a
place of worship is answered. There are other places within you,
other needs, other desires. Seek to be jaysome, as even Jay isn’t,
and that will be all you need to be. And all that can be answered
honestly.”
And he is gone a
moment later, taking with him the smile.
It
takes me three days to reach my quarters. I go slowly, I listen to
the water, hear the wind. Pay attention. I don’t get lost. I’m
not sure I could get lost even if I wanted to. I
find others. I tell them the temple should not be here, because this
world belongs only to the ghosts. I tell them that the only thing for
it is to not be jayists, but be jaysome. Be good, be kind, only do
bindings we know will help.
It
helps that news reaches us that all the major insurance corporations
on a dozen worlds ceased to operate overnight. System contains little
about what happened. There are gaps, in records and in history, and
we’ve always had suspicions about the cause. Even those who hate
me listen when I tell them
about the ghosts and the stranger,
and I think my voice contains truth when I speak truth now.
I
never wanted power. By the time we’re all ready to leave, I’ve
learned to stop my voice from being something more.
Because if I abused it, the stranger would return. And he would tell
me his name. And I would deserve whatever judgement follows that.
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