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Sime~Gen Inc.

WorldCrafters Guild

Course Examples

Who Trusts a Traitor

Chapter One

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 [Begin Hidden Comments]

Started May 12, 1986 finished at 11:30 AM EDT May 26, 1986

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PACT

 

The following is the full and complete text of agreement between the below listed twenty-two Immortals and the eight Allied Kingdoms known as the River Kingdoms.

 

1. No Immortal of the twenty-two shall act in such a way as to impair the length or quality of any mortal's life, or the collective lives of the mortals of any of the River Kingdoms.

 

2. During each temporal year measured by the River Kingdoms, each Immortal shall use his powers no less than twenty-two times to enhance the prosperity, security, comfort, and health of the mortals of the eight Kingdoms.

 

3. In addition to the twenty-two Acts, each of the twenty-two Immortals will grant the King of each of the eight Kingdoms at least one petition a year, for the sustenance and defense of their Kingdoms.

 

4. In return for each Act of largesse an Immortal performs, the eight River Kingdoms shall publicize the name of the Immortal and the Act so that all mortals of the River Kingdoms will be moved to offer gratitude and worship.

 

5. In addition, the eight River Kingdoms will establish and maintain a Shrine City where each of the Immortals will have a magnificent Temple. The Kingdoms will endow and support a legion of priests to serve each Immortal with constant worship at centers scattered across the eight Kingdoms.

 

6. If one Immortal breaks this Pact, the River Kingdoms will no longer be bound by it, and all worship may cease. If one of the eight Kingdoms fails in its entirety to provide worship, then none of the Immortals are bound to restrict themselves to Acts of Largesse within the borders of that Kingdom until or unless worship is restored.

 

Chapter One

 

As Rozell and his mother approached, the open gates of Shrine City sparkled in the sunlight, framing the black marble monolith of the Pact that stood a hundred paces inside the city walls.

Magically incised into the marble were the words of the sacred Pact between the eight allied River Kingdoms and the twenty-two Immortal gods they worshipped.

At the end of each of the eight Kings' signature was a crystal orb sunk into the marble, preserving a drop of the king's blood. The twenty-two Immortal gods had signed their names, pledging to use their powers to protect and nurture the River Kingdoms, and since Immortals had no blood, they each left a glowing ruby embedded beside their name, a ruby said to contain a fragment of their very souls.

One flowing signature loomed out at Rozell, "Vertum, God of Abundance."

Oblivious to the market day throng, Rozell pushed his way up to the monolith. He could not have named the emotions churning through him, but they surfaced as a desperate plea. Exalted Vertum, as you blessed me with my life, teach me to worship. On impulse, he reached up to touch the god's name.

As his fingers caressed the groove, he felt a strange thrill of familiarity, though the angular script did not resemble his own hand. The gem on his ring finger grazed the chip of fiery ruby at the end of Vertum's name, and flared brilliant blue white, a fire that raced up his arm and rushed through him.

Rozell gasped. Pictures danced inside his eyelids, and he flinched as a silver rod hurtled toward his head swung by two huge hands.

"Don't show that ring here!" His mother yanked his hand down. The phantom staff disappeared without landing its blow, and Rozell tore his eyes away to stare dumbly at his mother. "Cities are full of cutthroats and thieves who'd try to take it!" she admonished.

The silver rod? No, my ring! "Great luck they'd have," he answered bitterly.

"Don't be so sure. There are those who'd take your finger or even your hand off to get it. Put your glove on."

Instead, he stuffed his hand into his pocket. The gem that glittered on his right ring finger circled by a silver collar was no ordinary ring. And it was the source of most of his trouble. He'd been born with that crystal embedded in his flesh, down into his very bone. It was why, at the age of seventeen, he wasn't an apprentice scribe or an apprentice anything. It was why his mother had to bring him across half a kingdom to petition an Immortal for help in finding her son an apprenticeship.

When his abnormality had become known, his mother had been forced to have a silver collar fashioned to make the gem look like a ring, and then she had to take her small widow's pension and her infant son, and move far away from family and friends where her son was not known as a freak. But with time, everyone learned that Rozell was different.

She pushed Rozell on around the black marble slab and into the main boulevard of the city. It stretched before them into Temple Square where the twenty-two shrines to the Immortals stood in all their magnificence. The boulevard was wider than six carriages abreast, and lined on each side with a double row of shade trees in full spring leaf.

At intervals, side streets curved off the main boulevard. The streets were laid out like a palm leaf's veins, with the main boulevard as the stem, and the side streets circling the core of the city formed by the Temple Square. Smaller alleys connected the circling streets, and it would be on one of these that they'd find an Inn cheap enough for them.

Rozell hefted the pack on his back, their clothes and food for the trip. They'd been walking for eight days, and were filthy. "We should ask directions to an Inn," he suggested. Judging by the crowds, there wouldn't be many Inn rooms available tonight.

"No, first the Temple."

"Dressed like this?" He'd gone to worship in the town near their farm dressed in field clothes, but this was different. His whole life might depend on making a good impression on the god Vertum.

"You think the Vertum of Creekcross is different from the Vertum here? He knows how you dress at home."

"Well, but . . . ." Nervously, he rubbed his ring finger against his thigh. It itched and tingled.

Just then a commotion boiled through the gates behind the Marble of the Pact. Pushed and shoved and spun nearly off his feet, Rozell ended up alone in the middle of the boulevard staring at two columns of black horses clad in regal livery and ridden by fierce men in green uniforms, trotting briskly right at him. The columns had split to circle the Marble.

At the right of the Marble, a black and gold carriage emerged, drawn by eight white horses. Behind the carriage came a line of huge wagons pulled by shaggy brown horses, the biggest, meanest horses Rozell had ever seen.

Rozell gaped, stupefied, and would have been run down had not a gnarled old farmer pulled him aside. "Them's Hill Traders, come to market. Smart boy stays outa their way!"

His mother's hand grabbed a fold of his tunic and yanked him back into the crowd toward a side street. "Man's right, smart folk stay out of the Hillers' way. They're not Pact bound, not of the Eight Kingdoms. No telling what such folk or their Immortals might do. Come on!"

Hillers. Rozell followed his mother, but twisted to watch the foreigners pass. His ring finger throbbed and he saw the strangers in searingly sharp focus, burning their images into his mind. One in particular, dressed in charcoal gray with an over-tunic of the Hill Lord's livery-green, had a distinctively broken nose. His head turned to follow Rozell as the mounted column passed.

The Hill Kingdoms bordered the River Kingdoms' broad delta where the eight rivers converged and emptied into the sea. All inland trade from deserts and planes had to pass through their territory to reach the seaports controlled by the Eight Kingdoms of the delta.

Only the Pact which allied the River Kingdoms to the Immortals kept the Hillers from invading the Kingdoms. No mortal army could stand against the power of twenty-two allied Immortals. But now that power, and the Pact itself, had been weakened by the mysterious absence of Vertum.

But he's not gone. I felt him in his ruby.

They emerged into a market square, a huge open arena filled with colorful stalls, tents, and wagons that unfolded to look like buildings. The odor was overwhelming, and the babble echoing off the hard marble of the buildings hurt Rozell's ears. But at least the painfully sharp edges of things had disappeared. He scratched his ring finger.

His mother skirted the square and ducked down side alley that led to a caravansary. They entered a flagged courtyard with a fountain and trough in the middle, and two-storied buildings on all sides. The bottom story was open, forming animal stalls and feed storage. Above each stall, accessed by a ladder from inside the stall, was a guest room.

Off in one corner, a small group of men and women wearing long dust colored pilgrim's robes milled about among horses and mules. There was a yelling match going on between the leader of the pilgrims and the head drover. "I ain't goin' no farther! From here you take a bloody boat to Godsbridge, but I get paid first!"

"You get paid when we get to the seaport, not before!"

"Come along, Rozell, it's ill luck to stare at Climbers."

But he couldn't tear his eyes away. The searing brilliance was back again. These robed pilgrims planned to climb Godsbridge and become Immortals themselves. It was said only one in ten million might make it. It was a form of suicide. Still . . . .

"Rozell!"

He glanced up into the sky at the arc of Godsbridge, a hazy stripe rising through the clouds. It touched down on an island far out to sea in waters so dangerous few ships dared go near it. And those that did charged exorbitant fees. He stared as if he'd never seen it before, as if looking at it should tell him something important.

"Rozell! Come along!" She nabbed him by his pack and pulled him along. When they were half way to the exit on the opposite side of the caravansary her mouth worked as if she bit back tears. "Listen to me. You are not going to climb Godsbridge. You are not going to be on any ship going anywhere near that island. Do you understand me?"

Her totally uncharacteristic panic made him assure her, "Yes, Mother." But he couldn't make himself promise never to do it. The throbbing heat in his finger made him lick the ring to cool it.

He guessed, however, that her panic had to do with the way his father had died. Had he been a Climber? He knew asking would get him no place. So he held his peace.

They emerged onto a cramped street overhung with balconies and lined with shops that spilled their goods out into the walkway. People jammed in among the hawking merchants, bargaining at the tops of their lungs.

They wormed through another alley, and came out onto the main boulevard again, but this time there were no Hill Traders parading through. And they were now at the mouth of Temple Square.

The scintillating white marble shimmered hotly all around. It made Rozell's eyes ache.

The twenty-two buildings stood one next to the other, connected by a single colonnade of white marble. At intervals, giant hammered-gold doors stood open on deep darkness. The buildings and doors were identical, no god singled out above the others, each one's name inscribed over a temple door.

They circled the square. Traffic was less frenetic here, but still they spent a lot of time dodging sumptuously draped sedan chairs and men and women who walked amid armed escorts. They kept to the outside of the colonnade and shuffled along behind a family goggling at the buildings.

As they passed the door labelled Idalia, the itch in Rozell's ring finger flared again, but he was distracted by the tinkling of a thousand crystal bells wafted to them on a scented breeze that carried harmonious chanting. Squinting into the dark door, Rozell estimated there must be hundreds of worshippers within. Idalia was a goddess who loved beauty and could be counted on to help artists and lovers.

Rozell stopped dead in his tracks as a vague sensation stirred through his mind. A voice. A form. A friendly, familiar laugh nearly drowned by the rush of water cascading over a cliff. Mist glowing with a rainbow that seemed to twist and wrap itself around a woman bathing. The hard ache of familiarity fraught with nostalgia. Idalia.

It was her. He knew it was her in the vision, yet he'd never been to such a place, let alone with an unclad woman, a goddess! You can't feel nostalgia for a place you've never been! But he did, a poignant, throbbing nostalgia.

"Rozell! We're almost there! See?"

His mother nudged him toward the corner temple. Vertum's temple. "Let's petition Idalia first!" He was embarrassed by the note of childish panic in his voice, but he knew only that he had to talk to Idalia, now, before entering Vertum's temple.

"Don't be absurd. She has nothing to do with earning a living. You can petition her after you have a profession and enough money to afford beautiful things."

"But . . . " What could he say?

"You wouldn't want Vertum to be offended. He is your own god, after all, don't forget that."

His mother never tired of telling how she had been praying to Vertum for a son at the very moment he was conceived, and how she'd worshipped Vertum faithfully all her life. "The more you worship a particular god, the more chance that god will notice you and grant your petitions when you have to ask for something."

Swallowing a perfectly irrational fear, Rozell promised himself a visit to Idalia the first moment he could get free of his mother.

He followed her to the door of Vertum's temple, ignoring the fiery itch of the gem. The door was identical to all the others. The outside of the building was just as white. But it exuded the essence of shabby and unkempt. Deserted.

Inside, a service was in progress. The giant hall dwarfed the handful of men and women clustered near the far end where an altar held offerings and sacrifices as well as a honeycomb rack for written petitions.

Magnificently tiered, the altar climbed the wall behind the priest. Above it stood a huge, but totally realistic statue of Vertum. Rozell's eyes riveted to that statue and a most peculiar sensation went through him, vaguely akin to the strange familiarity he'd felt when he'd traced Vertum's signature on Pact and touched that ruby. For a flickering moment, it seemed he was the statue, and he was looking down on the worshippers. Or was that a memory?

He shook off the deja vu, telling himself that it took time for sun dazzled eyes to adjust to the light provided by hundreds of candles ranked along the edges of the hall. Now he could see the other twenty-nine statues of Vertum that graced the edges of the temple. Elsewhere, they would have been small, crude wooden carvings. Here, they were immense marble replicas, each a work of art towering into the shadows near the shadowed roof.

There were stone benches in groups around each of the statues. And another group of benches was ranged in front of the altar at the far end of the hall.

 

[Begin Hidden Comments]

ESTABLISHED ABOVE IN HILLER MEETING THAT VERTUM IS ABSENT BUT ROZELL KNOWS HE'S NOT BECAUSE RUBY RESPONDED

[End Hidden Comments]

 

There were very few worshippers, most of them priests and priestesses of Vertum. It had been at least five years since Vertum had performed his full quota of thirty Acts of largesse mandated by the Pact. The only reason the River Kings had not declared the Pact null and void and suspended all worship of the Immortals was that the Kings' own annual petitions were answered, and sometimes a few of Vertum's other Acts were performed.

However, for decades before this, Vertum had been the most active of the Immortals, performing miracles almost daily, and for the common people as often as for the nobility. He had been popular and beloved, and nobody knew why he had suddenly quit. People suspected that the Acts now performed in his name were done by the other Immortals in order to keep the Pact alive.

It was officially forbidden to refer to Vertum the Traitor, or Vertum the Lazy. The River Kings wanted to keep up their end of the bargain, hoping to collect the missing Acts from Vertum when he returned. With the River Kingdoms pressing at the borders, they might need Vertum's favors soon, and there was no sense antagonizing an Immortal.

Knowing all this was one thing. Seeing the sparse and lackluster worship accorded here in the main temple, mostly by those paid to offer it, was something else. Tears sprang to Rozell's eyes. Sorrow, and a twist of something oddly close to guilt overwhelmed him.

He sank down on a bench beside his mother, facing the main altar and slid his pack to the floor behind him. His shoulders ached, and he was glad to sit on the cool stone though he wished mightily that he was in Idalia's temple.

But his mother's face glowed as she avidly devoured the words of the service. To see that expression on her face, for that alone he would endure anything. He dragged his eyes to the serving Priest and watched as the man went through his motions.

He lit a brazier with a taper, and colored, scented smoke wafted up to the rafters obscuring the altar and its statue.

At that point, everyone stood and Rozell fought vertigo as he stood and sang a song of gratitude for past Acts.

Rozell enjoyed letting his newly deepened voice boom out among the others. The acoustics here were like nothing he'd ever felt. His own voice became a source of sensuous joy. He had to restrain himself when he realized he was the only one in the room who could carry the tune. When the priest looked at him oddly, he shut his mouth, lowered his eyes and mumbled the words like everyone else. Being able to sing wasn't one of his differences that he had to hide, yet he also knew that any priest could tell he enjoyed the singing itself, not the worship.

He had never once in his life been able to achieve worship. He knew, because people told of the thrills and warm joys that carried them through those moments. He knew because he saw it in them, and felt nothing like it in himself.

He could not worship the Immortals. It was another of his differences, and this one he had hidden even from his mother. He peeked sideways at her and saw her face transfigured with the joy of worship. All the care and worry of the trip was erased, and here was the mother he remembered from his youngest years.

Maybe, on the strength of her worship alone, Vertum would answer their petition and provide an apprenticeship for him before he was too old. After all she had once been blessed by Vertum, and he was the son come of that blessing. It was possible they could be the ones to lure Vertum back to his oath of service. He couldn't forget the feeling he'd had touching that chip of ruby, the god Vertum's actual soul. Vertum cared for him. He knew it.

When they sat down again, his mother hissed, "Get it ready!"

He rummaged in the pack to find the rolled parchment on which he'd written his petition with his own hands. He had twenty-two of them, each perfectly scribed. They would offer one at each service for three days. His hands trembled, and he almost achieved worship as he felt the need to have Vertum back again.

The Priest finished emptying the honeycomb case of all the petitions that had collected since the last service, feeding them one by one into the brazier. Then he called for petitioners to step forth. Rozell did his best to worship as he stepped out to join the short line. He was the fifth and last petitioner, and he shuffled up to the brazier, tried to mumble the formula of petition in exactly the same way the others had, and dropped his parchment into the flame.

Unbidden, something deep in the vital core of his being stirred to life. It was a fluttering thrill like facing danger, and a flooding power rooted in proven manhood. For the first time in his life he was real to himself. This must be worship. Can I be the one to bring Vertum back?

At that, the gem on his finger flared with a searing heat he'd never felt before. Pain went through him, and with it an infusion of energy that made it seem that nothing was impossible to him now.

In that very moment, when the smoke from his words rose to the roof, the huge statue of Vertum above the Altar glowed and throbbed to life. The image detached itself from the lifeless stone as a shimmering blue phantom, manlike in form and dress, but godlike in size and power.

Trembling, Rozell raised his head and gulped around a dry, sandy lump in his throat. Up and up his eye travelled, until he found the god's face.

Dimly, he was aware that he was the only one looking up. Everyone else was face down on the floor chanting Vertum-Vertum-Vertum.

But he couldn't take his eyes from the god.

Oh, Great Vertum, please forgive my presumption. I'm only a humble farmer, son of a hard working farmer's cook. His mind gibbered the formula of humility, but his eyes were glued brazenly to the god's form and there was no worship in him.

The image stepped down the giant tiers of the altar as if they were porch steps. He strode across the ceremonial rugs and loomed over the brazier, his fingers sifting through the smoke as if he could read the petitions wafted up to him by that gesture and choose one to grant.

But the expression on his face held Rozell's eyes. It was a contemptuous, angry sneer. And the features on which that sneer rode - the features - by all the gods, they were not Vertum's features!

The dark eyes transfixed Rozell, who felt smaller than an infant as he threw his head back to peer upward. As the worship grew ever more fervent during this manifestation, the image grew stronger, brighter, more defined.

The certainty in Rozell also grew until his lips formed the words, You're not Vertum! Of its own accord, his right hand rose, fingers pointing at the Immortal. He husked, "You're not Vertum! You're not any of the Twenty-two gods of the Pact. Who are you!"

One eyebrow arched regally. "Who questions me?"

The gem throbbed with heat, radiating a white light as words flew from Rozell, words declaimed in a vibrant, deep voice that rang from the high vaults. "You're Tyrnak!"

His mind heard the words and asked him, Who in all the world is Tyrnak? His gut told him, The Enemy! and twisted sickly within him.

The sharp corners of the god's mouth turned up in a smile that did not touch the eyes. "And you, presumptuous Rozell son of Lilli, will taste Vertum's power."

The shadowy blue arm reached out to the side of the temple. It reached and reached, farther than any arm even of that size should have. Rozell didn't know what the god was doing until it was too late, and then the nearest of the huge statues of Vertum tilted majestically forward, tilted and tilted . . . .

"Mother! Run!"

Rozell scrambled over prone worshippers, leaped over benches and collided with his mother who was doubled over one of the benches, chanting Vertum-Vertum.

There was a loud crack, and the statue hurtled downward. As Rozell tried to scoop his mother out of the way, she came to life in his arms and saw the danger.

"Rozell!" she screamed, and pushed him away harder than he ever expected she could.

He stumbled backward, overbalanced, and fell as the statue crashed into the benches, pinning his mother's body between marble statue and marble bench.

The benches supporting the statue gave way, and another loud crash filled the temple. Billowing dust rose, obscuring everything, but screams and shouts filled the air.

One hand of the statue had broken off and fallen on Rozell's outstretched ankle. He pulled free, shredding his trouser leg on the marble fingers. Squinting back at the altar, he could make out the form of the god now, stronger and brighter than ever.

He gathered his feet under him and rose, wrath flooding his limbs with strength. He raised his fist and pointed at the god. "You murdered my mother!"

A beam of scintillating white light shot from the ring and engulfed the god who recoiled as if stung. His eyes began to glow, and his face transformed to a mask of hatred.

"People of the River Kingdoms, hear the voice of Vertum!" The booming voice filled the whole temple and stilled the babble even of those who had pressed in at the doorway to see what the commotion was all about. "Cursed be the boy Rozell, for he has defiled Vertum's Sacred Name! Know him by the Gem he wears. I sear it into his very flesh to mark him."

A bright shaft of orange fire flashed out from the god's hands and washed over Rozell. The heat of it scorched like boiling water, and he gasped, collapsing on the floor amid marble chips and his mother's blood.

When the beam abated, Rozell sobbed, "You bastard!" and crawled to his hands and knees.

The onlookers stared at him like some new variety of many-legged thing crawling out of a sewer. But all he knew was a sense of violation. The god was an Immortal, possessed of real power. Rozell, even with his ring, was only a mortal of no particular account in the scheme of things. "You bastard!" he shouted. "Go fight somebody your own size!" And he made a punching motion with his right fist, knowing it could never strike the Immortal, and knowing that if it did meet the image, it would just go right through without landing. But the impotent gesture made him feel better.

At the full extension of his swing, the gem on his finger energized again, and shot a searingly brilliant beam at the god. This time, the god recoiled as if hurt. The light spun filaments around the image, and then, with a flash and a soundless pop, the god was gone.

The temple went dark. Many of the candles had blown out, and now, without the glowing presence of the god, the whole place was shrouded in black shadow.

There was a silence broken only by scuffing and breathing. Then someone shouted, "Get him! He angered Vertum, and now Vertum has gone again! Get the little slimeworm of a traitor to the Pact!"

They mean me! He couldn't believe it. For precious seconds he stood rooted to the spot while humped shadows with pale faces shuffled toward him.

"Get some pitch. We'll burn him in the square!"

Rozell turned and ran. He had no idea where he was going. There was no way to get to the door, since most of the onlookers had crowded in from that direction. He darted this way and that eluding groping hands, and then flew up the steps around the altar.

Trapped, he turned at bay, preparing to die. His mother's smashed flesh oozed out from under the fallen statue. Oh, we should have gone to talk to Idalia first!

An image floated up in his mind, like a memory, but one he couldn't possibly have. There was a door, a small hidden door, behind the lower pillars of the altar.

He spun in place and raced around the base of the carved pillars, going unerringly to the spot. His fumbling hands found the catch, and a narrow door fell open on darkness. He had to turn sideways to squeeze through, and pull the door shut behind him. He heard it latch, and hoped nobody there knew how to open it. But of course the priests will!

He was in a narrow tunnel. Recklessly, he ran through the blackness, hands out before him. He smashed his nose on the end of the tunnel, another door, which opened the same way. Only this time, it let out on a brilliantly lighted back courtyard of the temple.

There was a small formal garden railed away in one corner, and a fountain. This was a private place of the priests. Rozell raced across the open space, squinting hard against the dazzle. He ran full tilt into an iron grating that filled an archway, and to his surprise it gave at his weight.

Leaving it slapping behind him, he took off down the crowded back street at the rear of Temple Square. Rounding a corner, he slowed to a walk, hoping to blend into the background. After all, how good a look could they have had at him in the gloom of the temple.

But he'd hardly gone a hundred paces when the advance cadre of the mob rounded a corner ahead of him, and someone shouted, "There he is. The cursed of Vertum! Get him!"

Rozell reversed in place and ran for his life.

 

End Chapter One

 

 

"Who Trusts a Traitor" Copyright © 1986, 1999, 2000 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
all rights reserved

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