Chapter 9
This chapter will go between the two points of view, mine and Pera's, so istead of announcing who is speaking I will leave a couple lines of space between the two. But I will start with hers. I woke up early the next day, I woke up with the rising sun, and still Kath woke up before me, and found him preparing breakfast. To me it seemed that he was always awake and never idle, and when I asked him what he was up to, and his answer was simple, training, when I asked him training what? He simply smiled and said nothing more.
After breakfast, we went down the mountain, we could have reached the church from the backside, but instead Kath took us around, he insisted that I would want to see the church properly, from the front side. The detour took us a little longer, but it was definitely worth the walk. I of course saw the church before, but I had never paid attention to what it looks like, and I mentally chided myself about my idiocy. The church is not something to be glossed at and then moved from, you have to see it, and study it, pay it the attention that it deserves. It was as if I was looking at something that one of the elder spirits had plucked from the spirit world and threw it to our own world. It is such a big structure that I do not know how it was built, and where everything in the city I had seen up to this moment was dirty and full of grime, this building, this church was immaculate, everything was kept a pure white that puts snow to the shame, and looking at this building I saw why these people believed in their Holy Father and his Keepers, I found myself believing a little in them. At my obvious shock and awe at what I was seeing, Kath chuckled and said, "wait until the Day of Creation it makes this look like dirt hut." The only thing I could get out of my mouth was a stuttering, "hhhow? It is… It is… majestic."
"I won't ruin the surprise." And how right he was, the first time I saw this church clothed in lights of every color, I knew that if the spirits I believed in weren't the same as his Keepers, then they both existed, nothing else could explain the majesty and sheer beauty of what I saw on that day. But best to return to the story. After I took it all in we went inside and it was as beautiful as the outside if not more impressive, and I could see the story about the Holy father painted on the murals all around this floor.
While I let Pera study the murals surrounding us, I found one of the attendants that are responsible for the daily maintenance of the church, and dragging Pera by the hand I approached one of them and said, "I would like to see the High Speaker." He looked at the two of us, at the cloth we were wearing, we had chosen the best things we had available but they were still not fancy enough to meet with a Speaker let alone the High Speaker, so he laughed at us and continued laughing, saying "people like you should not be allowed to enter the church, and you want to speak to the High Speaker." It is at this moment that I am happy to tell you footsteps came behind the attending, and none other than the High Speaker I was wishing to see came to view, and apparently he had heard what was said, and sharply he replied, "ATTENDENT," at that one word the face of the attendant I was speaking to turned pale and he jumped trying to look the person speaking to him, and he managed, a stumbled, "spspspeaker, I was only," and without letting him continue he said, "are we not here to serve the Keepers, and are not the people here serving the Keepers." Meekly he replied, "yes, your holiness."
"Then instead, of laughing at the people you should be serving them, now get out of my way and let me deal with this," the attendant turned to go away but I was sure he saw the smug smile I gave him before he continued, "I am sorry for that, little brother, little sister, some people here are not fit to be serving the Keepers but I cannot throw them away, I have been trying to get them to turn around, to look at things from my way…sigh… I should not be boring you, you wanted to speak to me, speak away, my ears are open."
I replied, "we wish to speak to you privately," I saw him open his mouth to say he was busy, I continued, "please, by the Holy Father, creator of the skies and seas, you will not regret giving us this boon, High Speaker Lux." A Speakers name is not common knowledge, so by using his name I sparked his curiosity and so he replied, "fine, I have a sometime, follow me." Triumphantly we both followed him.
Once we reached his office he sat at some floor cushions that were not there the last time I was here, and then invited us to join him, as we sit down he asks, "you son I think I remember you from someplace, I just cannot place it," looking at Pera, "you however I do not think I have ever seen you."
I replied, "I do not expect you to remember me, after all you I was two years old when you met me and gave me my mark," with that I lifted the sleeve of my shoulder and showed him the mark." The moment he saw my mark he jumped up from his place and just gripped me by the shoulders and said, "it is good to see you boy, the last I heard you escaped from an orphanage and for all I knew you were dead, so you do not know how happy I am to see you again the first and only person who claimed the Banished as his patron, if I die tomorrow I will die happy, you do not remember Olive do you? Oh, I am being rude, why don't you introduce me to your companion."
Pera replied, "I am happy to meet you High Speaker, K…" and at my look she corrected, "David spoke highly of you," after some hesitation she says, "I am Lily nice to meet you."
Lux replied, "Nice to meet you Lily, I am Lux."
Throughout this all Murtok has wanted to enter the room, so I asked, "do you mind if I opened the window?"
"Go ahead the heat is stifling."
Once I opened the window Murtok came directly through and landed on my shoulder, and I introduced him, "this is Murtok you must remember him from when we met, and I remember Olive do you know where she is, I would like to see here again if that is possible."
"Of course, I remember this little bird, and I am sorry to tell you I am no longer in contact with Olive, we used to send letters back and forth, but she took the loss of you hard, in her last letter she said that she was travelling to another country, I do not know where she ended, I am sorry to disappoint."
"You didn't, I didn't expect to hear from her again," hiding a pang of pain I continued, "now back to business, my friend Lily here never went through the Ceremony of Choosing, and I was hoping you would do us a favor and let her go through it now."
"I am sorry to hear that Lily, but you have to understand, no one has gone through it when they are older than two, the oldest person to have gone through it to my knowledge was 5 years old, and it has nothing to do with age. The feeling of having your Keeper call you gets weaker with each year so I doubt you could follow it even if you try."
"Come on, it is not as if it has anything to do with us, commonsense is afraid of me. Remember I am the first person to choose the Banished as his Patron, there must be something you can do, besides she only wants to try if nothing happens then we are sorry for wasting your time."
Pera seeing him waver quickly added, "please High Speaker, I am aimless without a Patron, I thought I was cursed until I met David and he told me that you could help me." We both looked at her, at this display, I looked impressed, and Lux looked sorry, sorry that she had to go through that.
So he answered, "May the Father help me but the two of you will be my end, however I will do what I can."
Seeing as how he accepted this I quickly added, "one more thing, I want to buy a house in the city and I need proper paperwork, and I cannot go telling people that I my patron is the banished, could you help me with that to."
"Sigh… I swear you will be the end of me, after we go through the ceremony, I will get the both of you proper paperwork."
Together, me and Pera thanked him before he could change his mind, and he started leading us downwards towards the Doors.
We went downstairs to the main hall again, and then we went down under that hall, into a room that I learned was called the Doors, it is intimidating, coming down that staircase, reaching the middle of the room and looking all around, seeing those ten doors and how each is tailored specifically to a different Keeper, it made me feel better about my choice, because I was not abandoning the teachings of my tribe, nor was I abandoning the eldest, but in truth I was exploring something else something that I felt has a really good chance to be real and not just a hoax to gather people and power to those few that run the church. Then the High Speaker said, "usually we do it with the young ones because they do not know what they are doing, they cannot be biased and choose the Keeper that they want, but with you Lily I have no idea what we are supposed to do. If somehow you manage to find your Patron, I will give you the mark, but I do not know what to do to get you to your Patron."
Then Kath replied, "I have an idea of what we can do," looking at me he continued, "Lily, I want you to close your eyes." When he saw me hesitating, he continued, "if you want to do this all I want from you is to trust me," he then leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I know how afraid you are, I can smell it, but choosing a Patron does not mean that you are abandoning who you are, it means that you have an open mind that you do not through things away because they do not back what you believe in, but if you do not want to do that I understand."
I managed to stammer, "I want to, but…"
He seemed to pick up what I meant, and he gently raised my face until I was looking into his eyes, and that is the first time I realized how black they are, that instead of pupils he has twin voids that he sees through, and he said, "listen to me, really listen, you are not abandoning your parents by doing this." My expression must have told him that I do not believe him, that in truth by just acknowledging the existence of the Keepers I am inherently abandoning my parents, the two people that mattered to me the most in the world, so he repeated himself, "you are not abandoning your parents." Something in his voice told me that he was right that if my parents were here they would support me if this was my choice if this is truly what I wanted to do, and remembering what Kath said about buying the house in the city, and how he seemed to must have proper documentation that mentions his Patron to enter and live in the city, if I want to do the same, I have to do this. And I knew that my parents would not begrudge me surviving, that if this was the only option for me to live, they would not just help me they would go through it to just to help me, like how they gave their lives in order to let me escape the murders that attacked them. So I hugged Kath so fiercely that I might have broken a couple of ribs, pulled back, looked into his eyes and closed mine, showing him my trust.
I closed my eyes, and darkness flooded me, it was eerie how silent everything was, in this entire hall there was only three people and a raven in it, and no one was speaking. Then in the calmest voice possible a voice that is full of comfort and trust Kath began speaking, "you are alone, feel everything you are, look inside of you, look at the essence of your being, look at your soul, examine your spirit, feel it inside of you, feel the threads that weave your being into existence, and follow the threads." What he was saying was making sense in a weird way that I didn't completely understand. Some of what he was saying is contained in the teaching to becoming a shaman so it was easy for me to follow the first steps, I fell into my own being, I felt those threads that are weaving me into being, I felt them at my core, my spirit, my will join my parents in the spirit world, and he continued talking leading me farther, "follow the threads, see yourself in the threads, notice one of the threads leading away from you, tugging at the rest of your essence, follow it, it is your Patron leading you to themselves, follow it, find your patron." Now that he mentions it I feel that thread leading me tugging at my spirit telling me to come and reach my home, reach the place I belong, it was faint at the beginning but after some time that could have been minutes or years it started getting stronger.
With my eyes still closed I start walking, and the others follow me, I headed in the opposite direction I was facing and continue walking until I could feel the space close around me changing into a tunnel that leads me towards my destiny. I was talking one more step when strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and made me stop, and Kath said "open your eyes, you have chosen." I opened my eyes, and with the return of my senses the tug lessened as if it was being drowned, but I also saw that if I took one more step I would have fallen into a river. Fortunately, there are a couple small boats for us to use to traverse this river, and as we get in one, quietly as to not give myself away I whisper to Kath, "who did I choose?" Just as quietly he answers, "The Keeper of Love and Light, we are going to go to their church now for you to get your own mark."
We sit in companiable silence enjoying the tunnel until we reach the church, with Kath rowing, I focus on the tunnel, everywhere I look I see scenes of love, of lovers and marriages, of swans embracing, of parents hugging their children, and the tunnel unexpectedly is bright, brighter than the surface in midday. We reach the end of the tunnel and get out of boat, and Lux says, "we will not meet anyone here, this area is only attended on The Day of Creation, now the both of you wait here until I speak with the Speaker and see what we can do."
As he left Kath said, "if they ask you who is your guardian, you will have to say it is me, understood?"
"Yes, I understand. I have a couple of questions that I should have asked before but now will do. Will it hurt? And What is the mark of the Keeper of Love and Light?"
"The mark is a red rose in the middle of the sun. And it will hurt, after all they will be injecting your skin with magic ink," seeing the look of horror on my face he quickly continued, "but I am here all the way, I will not leave, and the whole thing will be done quickly, just focus on something else, not on the pain."
We waited a while longer, and then finally the High Speaker comes back, with him he has an elderly woman, exuding the aura of a loving grandmother doting on her grandchildren, in a robe much like his but instead of it being pure white, it is a mix of yellow and red, and Lux introduces her as the Speaker of the Keeper of Love and Light. Once she sees me she says, "you must be the wonderful Lily, to think that you had to stay this long without a patron, I cannot tell you how saddened I am by this predicament, and to think that you are one of my sisters, lost in the world not knowing that you have a home here, that you have another family it saddens me." Somehow, I knew that she meant everything that she said, that if I wanted to I could just stay here and she wouldn't bat an eye, but I didn't want to, I was starting to like Kath, and he has been taking care of me ever since I stumbled upon him. So when she told me to follow her into an adjacent room I started following her, but when she told me that Kath that he cannot enter with me I was devastated, he was supposed to help me through this, this was supposed to help us both, something that I went through with him at myside, and in that moment not two days since I met him, I knew that I started depending on him, that he was my shelter in the storm. But I didn't have to go through this alone, because Kath spoke up and said, "will you deny her a guardian?" Those five words stopped her in place and she replied, "and will you be her guardian, David, sweete, you are a child barely older than her how could you be her guardian." Immediately he challenged, "do you deny her the right for a guardian, a right that the Holy Father requires, and tell me where does he mention that a guardian has to be older, show me that and I will stop. And if the Holy Father isn't enough for you, you can ask Lily if she wants me as a guardian, and if she says she doesn't I will also stop." This left her speechless, and before she could come up with any argument I jumped in the conversation and said, "he is my guardian, and he will enter with me." So, me wanting him to be my guardian and no one else being available, and the Holy Father ordaining that everyone must have a guardian forced her to accept strange arrangement, even if reluctantly and she didn't mention Murtok coming inside the room with us.
We entered the room, and it was not what I was expecting, everyone was saying that this is a ceremony and treating it like the most important event in their life, so I expected decorations and festivities, but what I saw was the complete opposite, I saw a room with a small chair in the middle fit for a two year old on a raised pedestal and a cupboard on one wall. While the speaker went to retrieve something from the cupboard, Kath led me to sit in the pedestal in the center of the room, and held my hand not letting go, understanding how much I do not want to do this alone. Then the Speaker finally got what she wanted and she came towards me, "I am sorry it has taken this long to prepare, the brand was not ready, we do not have it at hand outside of the ceremony so I had to prepare it." That is when I saw what she was holding a machine that has tanks of ink connected to a piece of metal that consists of hundreds of tiny needles in the shape of the mark of my patron, I was tempted to get up and run straight through the door, instead I just grabbed his hand harder. As the Speaker got ready to use that thing on me she continued talking, "David, dear, you will have to hold her arm down, it must not move throughout the prosses, and obviously we cannot use the restraints on the chair." His only response was to nod and get position himself on my left in a way that he could hold my hand down while still being able to hold my hand. I rolled up the sleeve on my right shoulder got ready, I could not remove my eyes from that spot on my shoulder, not even when the Speaker approached, nor when she put the brand on my skin and the needles went through it, all I felt was a sting, and I was turning around to ask Kath if this was it, that I didn't feel anything. I never got the words out of my mouth, because I heard the Speaker whisper under her breath, "let us start," the few heartbeats between those words and the starting of the machine all I felt was horror, and then it started. The needles went digging in my skin, ripping it apart, shredding it out of existence, and then the ink started pouring in and filling the tender spots of my shredded skin. All I could do was bury my face in Kath's chest and scream, it lasted hours or days I do not know, all I know that throughout the entire process I screamed into Kath's chest, and he pinned my arm to my body, and my body to his, so as not to move a single muscle, all the while murmuring comforting words into my ear. It finally finished, and I was tired so tired that I could have collapsed on that same pedestal and slept for a day, instead the Speaker congratulated me and we started heading back, back to the cave. Once we exited the room, we were met with the High Speaker, and he asked to speak to Kath alone, but seeing as he was holding me up, he made do with speaking to the both of us, out of earshot of the Speaker, "I got you the proper documentations, I made your patron the Keeper of Mercy and Peace, I felt that it was appropriate, that you needed as much mercy and peace as could be given, and they are signed by one of the clerics as to not arouse suspicions." Kath thanked him and we were on the way.
Once we were out of eyesight, he put the documentations inside of his portals, which I was still not used to, and that prompted me to thinking of his own patron, and that led me to thinking of his mark, and how strange it seemed, as if it was alive while mine looked like a picture drawn on my skin. So I started asking questions about everything I was curious about that I should have asked before going through with this and he was happy to answer them.
"What did the mark do? I do not feel any different. And will everyone be able to see it?"
"Look at the thread I told you to follow, do you not feel how strong it is now, how connected to it you are?"
Him Saying that made me realize that it was stronger more solid, that I would not have problems with catching it again if I wanted to, so I nodded.
"As to your second questions, no. No one will be able to see it without you allowing them to see it, except me and the Speaker, because we were there during the ceremony. In preparation to your next question, you just think about it and it appears to the other person.
"Did your hurt as much? And why is so different? Yours almost seems alive."
"Mine hurt a lot more than your, and at first it was the same as yours basically a picture." Looking at Murtok he continued, "we changed that… once I was finished with the machine, it hurt just as much by the way, we felt that it was inadequate, and that tug that you felt, mine was telling me the same thing. So without thinking I took a feather from Murtok, and he took a clump of my hair, and we set both on my mark… then he changed it, using his beak and talons he ripped apart my skin and used the feather and hair to change mark to make it what it is today, I call it the true mark, it seems fitting. AND it hurt a lot, what the machine did, Murtok did 10 times over."
I continued asking him questions about anything and everything, and by the time we reached the cave, he was carrying me in his arms, and as he put me on my mattress I fell to sleep.