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“It is true to say that there are no unexplored regions. Every square mile of the Greater Continent has at least been flown over, and all of the flatter areas have been inhabited at one point or another. However, even if we are generous and include the era of the Old Alliance, surprisingly little has been peopled during anything you could call ‘the modern era’.”
– Atlas of the Greater Continent, Circa N.D. 500, collector’s edition.
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Chapter 20:
Here’s Everything
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#20.1 – Saturday, the 5th day of the 10th month…
The next morning, Scarlet went out to meet a boy.
She took pride in her breakthrough, but it didn’t amount to all that much. Emmerich’s research said Jason hid something of great importance at a place. Scarlet’s research indicated that ‘something’ was the sword. She had a what, Emmerich had a where.
But the ‘where’ now formed a new, insurmountable hurdle. Jason hid Echbalder in a place called The Feast of Aeons. Here are the three facts that make up the entirety of all knowledge regarding the Feast of Aeons:
- It is a Necromancer Temple built on a truly massive scale.
- It has been viewed only from the air.
- Haha! You really thought there was going to be a third fact, didn’t you? What a gullible!
That was literally the extent of it. The temple had been sighted once by aerial reconnaissance during the Fourth Age* of the Old Alliance, close to six millennia ago by Scarlet’s calendar. The pilot flying the mission didn’t even pass over it, just snapped a dozen pictures or so with his personal, civilian-grade camera. These images had been lost to time, along with every detail gleaned about them. And the location. It lay somewhere beyond the Barrier Range†, in the Greater Continent’s+ vast interior.
In a bit of irony, it was the lack of detail that preserved knowledge of the place within the public consciousness. Scarlet knew well from her work how it went; all the solved mysteries were forgotten in time. But unanswered questions endure.
So, lacking any possible forward momentum with her books, Scarlet turned to the next best resource: the people who’d built the place. Living or dead, someone at the necromancer temple had to know something, and as it happened Scarlet was on great terms with one of their priests.
Well, priest-in-training.
Scarlet promised her mother not to pursue Hezikah, but some inner force compelled her to give looking cute a try. Maybe she’d meet a handsome necromancer her own age who might like to comment on the subject. Necromancers were very nice that way.
She put on one of her new skirts. The sky blue one, and a matching blouse with silver sparkles scattered across the neckline. In a vague attempt at femininity, she wore cute strappy sandals instead of her usual thick boots. For reasons known only to itself, Scarlet’s hair cooperated that day, and sat neatly in a loose pony-tail.
It was a beautiful clear day, but in the mountain city of Arindell that meant only one thing: wind. Specifically, a very irritating casual light breeze that came and went. This being her first time in a billowy knee-length skirt, Scarlet did not know how girls kept warm in these silly things. Every time a gust came it went up around her legs and made her knees feel prickly. Skirts, like many aspects of traditional femininity, were a deep mystery to ScarletP.
She took the usual buses, then had to wait at the temple visitor center because the special trams that went from the center to the temple did not start to run until nine. After noon there would be dedicated tour buses, but those cost extra. Meanwhile, Scarlet could take a regular bus for free, hang out at the visitor center, and then just hop on a shuttle.
The modern image of The Feast of Aeons# came in the form of a painting called ‘The Aeon’s Torn’. Being of a decidedly modern lilt, this picture was of no use at all to Scarlet. She knew many interesting facts about the painting, but its contents were based entirely on the three known facts about the temple. It used a lot of artistic license.
Whilst perusing the gift shop(having nothing better to do), Scarlet noted that, despite being one of the most famous paintings associated with Necromancy, the store did not house even a single print of The Aeon’s Torn.
Scarlet road the tram from the visitor’s center to the temple alone, the tourists wouldn’t arrive for another hour or so. Carrying a sweater and, for the first time ever, a purse(cursed girl’s clothing and it’s lack of pockets!), she arrived right as the Necromancers began milling about to prepare the temple for the day’s visitors. She made a few inquiries as to where she could find Hezikah; which sent Scarlet indoors and, excitedly, underground.
Temple layouts were dictated according to tradition and sacred geometry. While Scarlet knew she would flunk regular geometry when the time came, the sacred kind was a breeze.
Scarlet found Hezikah cleaning a shrine used for the morning rituals. This particular shrine looked odd. It depicted a large, bipedal cat-like creature which had been mummified, lacquered, and eventually gilded. Around it sat several mummified mice as ceremonial offerings. The shrine was also full of regular, living cats, that wandered about meowing while Hezikah attentively cleaned in between them.
A sizeable heard followed him.
“Is that a giant viveren?” Scarlet asked.
“Meow?”
“You’re right, they never got that big, or had faces that… human.”
“Mrow!”
“Ok, that cat-like, better? Hmm… so if it’s not a viveren, what is it?”
“It is a Dakriel,” Hezikah replied from across the room. He currently had roughly twelve cats at his feet, one on his shoulder, and a kitten cradled in one arm while he desperately tried to work a ceremonial broom without disrupting any of them.
“There aren’t Dakriel# around here!” Scarlet protested. “They all live in the Mabak System in The World, mostly building cool starships for export.”
“That is true now,” Hezikah confirmed. “During the late Second Chaotic Period, most of the remaining population migrated off-world, but during the Mage Wars they were common. They may even have ruled Old Oncar.”
While not as much of an authority on the Mage Wars as she was the old Alliance era, Scarlet did know the theory that Dakriel controlled the once prosperous kingdom of Oncar. She hadn’t given it much merit, but the notion that the necromancers believed it provided serious weight.
“Ya don’t say,” Scarlet whistled.
Through a combination of pleading and scratching behind ears, Hezikah persuaded the last cat to move so he could sweep the space under it. He then pried the lid off a large storage jar, and all hell broke loose.
Every cat in the room, at least thirty of them, raced instantly to his feet. A few tried to climb his robes, while every single one began meowing incessantly.
Hezikah, meanwhile, fought to keep his balance as he took a stack of solid gold bowls off of a table, and began measuring cat food from the jar into them. After piling several scoops, he poured some sort of oil over the bowls, then set them on the floor where purring kitties swarmed. Once ten bowls had been set out, he closed the jar, sealed it, and tip-toed out of the clowder.
“May we go?” he asked Scarlet, who was trying desperately not to burst out laughing.
“So, why do you guys have a mummified Dakriel?” Scarlet asked.
“Our tradition dictates they created the house cat,” Hezikah explained. “Our people venerate them as a wise and ancient race.”
“But weren’t the Dakriel artificial, made during the Mage Wars?” Scarlet asked. “And thus, younger than cats?”
“But still older than Necromancers,” Hezikah said. “Our tradition is tradition, it is not about right or wrong.”
They reached an open chamber that functioned as a common room, where a few other Necromancers were drinking tea* and talking. Hezikah gestured towards a table.
“What was it you wished to speak to me about?” he asked.
Scarlet smiled at him. “I want you to tell me what you know about the Feast of Aeons.”
The room fell silent.
Scarlet became acutely and painfully aware that all eyes turned towards her. Hezikah, who had been guiding her to a table, suddenly started to push her back towards the entryway.
“We do not speak of that place,” he said the words calmly, but forcefully, as he pushed her back out into the corridor.
“Well, I know not ‘officially’,” Scarlet pressed. “But I—”
“WE do not speak of that place!” Hezikah repeated. As he spoke, he held a finger to his lips, then pointed to a set of glyphs on the wall. He grabbed Scarlet by the shoulders and took her around a corner into a store room.
“I just,” Scarlet began once the door closed, but Hezikah took hold of her again and pushed her to the very back where he opened another door into a darkened chamber. Without hesitation, he practically shoved Scarlet inside, then closed them in.
“Hezikah,” Scarlet blushed, forgetting herself for a moment.
In the darkness, Hezikah lit a lamp and placed it on top of a crate. Actually, he placed it on top of a sarcophagus, one of many stacked floor to ceiling.
“They’re all empty,” Hezikah said.
“I’m not scared of dead bodies,” Scarlet lied.
“You should be,” Hezikah replied. “There are ears all over this temple. Ears and eyes.”
“Is that why you brought me someplace private?” Scarlet asked.
“Those glyphs I pointed at?” Hezikah frowned. “There is a body imbedded in the wall behind it. The paintings represent its eyes and ears, and allow a Necromancer to use them.”
Not understanding, Scarlet shook her head. “I thought the magic eyes had to be right on the skull?”
Hezkiah held the lamp up near one of the stacked sarcophagi where an image of eyes had been painted. “So long as they are on the other side of any barrier, a Necromancer may see through them.”
Scarlet forced herself to swallow. “Good thing nobody’s buried in the girl’s locker room.”
“Since you are my friend and an inquisitive sort, I will forgive your trespass,” Hezikah said in a low voice. “But you must hear my words: we do not speak of that place.”
“You have to give me more than that,” Scarlet pleaded. “I need to find it!”
“I cannot give you what I do not have,” Hezikah said.
“You knew enough to shut me down the second I asked,” Scarlet frowned. “You must know more.”
“I would be dismissed from the priest caste,” Hezikah rapped his knuckled against his thigh. “Forever denied my chance at immortality.”
Scarlet dropped her shoulders. “I’m assuming that means ‘pretty please’ isn’t going to make a difference?”
Hezikah sighed and lowered his head, touching his brow. “I know only this. From the day we first learn to speak, all Necromancers are taught that, if anyone should ask, we are to say that we do not speak of that place. But… I once overheard that it is a dark place, a cursed place.”
Hezikah stood in silence for a long time, staring at a blank spot on the wall, deep in thought. Finally, he spoke in quiet, curt tones. “That it was not a place of our people.”
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* #20.2 (Saturday 5/10) *
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Hezikah would discuss the subject no further, and urged Scarlet to leave the temple as quickly as possible. She had stumbled across apparently the one thing his people were touchy about, and told her she would not be welcome if word got round to the high priests.
On the somber ride home, Scarlet contemplated going to the lab. But, then, what was the point? Any books that could help her locate the Feast were buried somewhere deep in The Stacks, so close but forever out of reach.
Instead, she went straight home, hoping some volume or another in her personal collection would spark an idea.
“Scarlet, there you are!”
“You can’t prove a thing!” Scarlet shouted reflexively.
“Huh?”
After calming down a bit, Scarlet wrung her hands and forced a smile at her parents. “I mean… hi! I’m home!”
“Scarlet, we need to talk,” Ann said in her quiet, somber voice.
“It didn’t go on a date! I just went to ask him about a temple!” Scarlet sputtered.
Ann’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on, what was that?”
“Dear, we need to talk to her about the membership,” Roy cut in. “Come along, Scarlet, sit down.”
“I am not sure I want to hear anything that requires sitting down right now,” Scarlet said as she moved over to the couch. “I just got dumped by the necromancer I totally was not dating AND got banned from the temple somehow. I’m emotionally fragile!” Scarlet was not emotionally fragile, but would take any chance to avoid a conversation with her parents that started with ‘we need to talk’.
“Ok, we’re going to circle back to that part later, young lady,” Ann folded her arms and glared at Scarlet. “For now, though, your father has something to tell you about your Antiquarian membership.”
Roy sat down opposite Scarlet and ran his hands over his knees. “I got a certified letter yesterday, for some reason it went to my office instead of the house. Anyway… I won’t get in to that. There’s dues, you know? The junior membership you have is free, but everything else costs money. An Assistant Membership like Emmerich left to you is fifty thousand wingbeats. Annually.”
Scarlet sank back into the sofa as she felt her eyes go wide. Fifty thousand? That was almost as much as her father earned in a year.
“Emmerich hadn’t meant to burden you,” Roy continued. “He started setting up a trust for you before he passed. He planned to pay into it for five or ten years; and that would be enough to cover the dues until you’d made something of yourself. Because of the death-duties, well, the family can’t just give you the money. It’s a whole complicated legal thing I’m happy to get in to if… you don’t want me to do that obviously.”
“The point is, there’s no way we can afford it,” Ann said.
Scarlet felt herself go limp.
“I don’t really know what else to tell you, kid,” Roy continued. “Maybe you can get some kind of a discount, like at the movies? I don’t know.”
“You know how much it means to me, right?” Scarlet said in a small voice. “How desperately I want—I NEED—this?”
“Yes, we do,” Roy stated. “No question in our minds. But we can’t do it.”
Scarlet sprang off the couch and started for her room.
“Scarlet—” Roy called.
“I’m not giving up this easily,” Scarlet shouted over her shoulder. “I was born to be an Antiquarian!”
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End:
Chapter Twenty
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