First Tome – Awakenings
1
Arrival
His reality was spinning, lurching, and weaving in a manner that seemed almost engineered to make him sick. He could see nothing but swirls of intangible concepts of light and space blurring past as he tumbled, the visuals only adding to the vertigo effect. He wanted to scream but knew that to simply open his mouth would be to invite his previous meals to make an appearance.
With no warning there was a crash, as though he had impacted against the fabric of reality itself, and everything went black. Although this was disconcerting, the sudden cessation of the tumbling movements more than offset that feeling. All was still, dark, quiet.
A bright flash comes and goes, and then a new reality presents itself for him to discover. Darkness, then blue sky dotted with clouds. Silence, then sounds of a light breeze blowing, birds tweeting happily to and between themselves among the rustle of nearby trees. Feelings of nothingness, then of warm sun on his face, of the slight nip of coolness in the breeze as it flitted past.
He had seemingly moments before been minding his own business, checking E-mail and surfing the Web as he had so often done when first arriving home from work, when an explosion of light and noise ripped him from his comfortable surroundings. Now he lie, prone, on what felt like concrete, staring up at the sky in mid-day when moments before it was night.
He turned his head to one side.
He was lying on what appeared to be a great stone circle made from interlocking tiles, presumably of some form of granite. Intricate patterns carved into the stone were somewhat visible from his unusually low viewing angle but what they were he could not yet determine. A series of elaborate stone pillars rose from the grassy field surrounding the stone circle, each looking like it was carefully hewn from the finest marble and topped with a beautiful crystal set in a gold mount. As he looked at the various crystals, each caught the sun in its own particular way and glimmered with a beauty that defied easy description. The pillars appeared to be about ten feet apart and surrounded the stone circle on which he lay.
The sound of a person clearing his throat caught his attention and he snapped his head to the opposite direction. Standing just outside the edge of the stone circle stood an ancient-looking man dressed in robes that vaguely resembled a Japanese kimono. A thick, golden rope-like belt tied his robes shut, and from the belt hung various unidentifiable items and small pouches. His right hand bore a walking cane, and he reached to his belt with his left to remove a small leather pouch tied shut with similar but thinner golden cording.
He and the old man also had additional company. Farther back from the stone circle stood several other people, some male and some female, some looking fairly young and others looking like they were present when the planet first sprouted life. They were all standing amongst the swaying grass in a small group and talking to each other quietly while staring at him.
The old man stepped out onto the stone circle and motioned upward with his pouch-filled hand, as if inviting him to rise to his feet. The old man also spoke, saying “Y’esh-thut, Y’esh-thut,” the old man’s voice conveying both extreme age and authority. He surmised that the gesture and vocalizations both meant the same thing and sat up.
He was more able to see his surroundings now. He was in the very center of the stone circle that looked to be some fifty feet across, and into its surface was cut a series of concentric circles with him in the center of the innermost circle. Along the perimeter of the stone circle were intricate patterns and what appeared to be characters of some unknown language whose style was reminiscent of Sanskrit. Triangular patters overlapped the concentric circles, each aligned with one of the pillars that surrounded the stone circle and pointed inward to the center in which he still sat. One side of the circle had a pillar missing, a stone ramp from a worn gravel roadway replacing it. Next to the edge of the ramp, where it met the road, a pedestal stood. It looked as if it were made from the same marble as the pillars but wider and only a few feet in height.
He started to look around, slowly panning his head from one side to another. Beyond his immediate surroundings it was plain that he was on a small hill covered with grass that swayed gently with the passing breezes. Several hundred yards away the grass gave way to trees, source of the symphony of flora and fauna he had heard earlier. A turn of the head in another direction revealed a small village of adobe homes with wood-slat roofs in the distance in a small valley, with the road from the circle he sat upon winding down the hill to it. Smoke ascended from several chimneys and moving people-shaped specks confirmed that it was populated. Beyond the village was a great sea, stretching off in the distance. All in all, the scenery was pristine and beautiful.
The old man stopped, just outside the innermost circle carved into the stony ground, and motioned him again to rise. He smiled to indicate his understanding and struggled to his still shaky feet. The old man then motioned for him to come, not moving any farther forward himself. Apparently there was something about the idea of setting foot in the very center of the stone circle that the old man was trying to avoid.
He walked to and stepped outside the innermost circle, and then turned to face the old man. The face he saw was one of experience, one that had seen both incredible joys and great sadness. The old man’s eyes radiated both compassion and power.
The old man held out his hand to offer the leather pouch and muttered something he didn’t understand. He reached to take the proffered pouch but the old man suddenly said “N’al! A’ckla arg-vesh thula neist” while placing his cane under one arm and then held out his right hand openly, palm up, and shook it briefly as if trying to tell him to follow suit.
He did so and the oldster gently placed the small pouch into his open hand, and with his now empty left hand the old man rolled his fingers closed over the pouch. He then closed his eyes and pressed both hands onto his closed fist, with the pouch inside, and started to mutter some incomprehensible gibberish. Suddenly a flash made him flinch, and the old man looked at him and said “can you understand me now?”
He gaped. He immediately understood what the old man was saying although he KNEW he was still hearing him speak with that unknown language. The old man, as though sensing this line of thinking, interrupted it. “I have given you the ability to speak, hear, read, and write our language. That should help you comprehend what we must discuss with you.” Turning and fetching his cane from under his other arm he started to move, adding “come, we have much to talk about and time is our enemy.” The others waiting outside the circle had already begun to walk over to the ramp to meet up with them. As he got closer he could faintly hear them discussing something, and although he could pick out occasional words they were speaking too quietly to hear from the thirty or so feet of distance.
The two walked out from the center of the circle to the stone ramp, the old man telling the others that arrived at the same spot that the introduction would have to wait. The group then started the walk to the nearby village. Hushed discussions continued behind him as he followed the old man, with the others in a separate group following them both. The group made a point of talking quietly enough that he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
As they walked around and down the side of the hill he looked around some more. Now visible in the distance were fields filled with crops and the occasional person tending to them. Off in another direction a person tended to a flock of sheep. Overhead a flock of birds made an appearance, a cloud of individuals clearly headed toward the forest on the other side of the hill that he had seen from its top.
All in all, the entire scene was idyllic, if confusing – where exactly was he?
As the group of people made their way closer to the village, people within the village noted their approach. On making eye contact with the curiously dressed stranger with the others that they were familiar with, most of the people out doing whatever they were doing literally stopped and stared for a few seconds. Some discussed his arrival in hushed tones with each other, while others made their discomfort obvious by quickly heading for whatever they were about to do. He had the strange feeling that he, still dressed in his white polo work shirt and khaki work pants, looked about as attractive and in-place to the robe-clad people of the village as he would if naked.
The group, with the out-of-place recent arrival in tow, arrived at the village. Now that he was closer he could get more details about it. Its roadway was made of carefully-hewn stones instead of the gravel they had walked down the hill on, and on each side a row of homes was set back to allow a small patch of front yard. The homes themselves were relatively basic, looking like adobe or mud-brick construction with thatch or wooden timbers sealed with more adobe, or more frequently wood slats, for roofing, with the occasional window that was usually covered by a cloth shade. Most of the homes had flowers planted in front of them, while before a few remained knee-high patches of grass, and each had a cobblestone walkway from its front door to the central road.
Next to each home, where its walkway met the road, was a small sign with a name and number. Attached to the pole that bore the sign was a small wooden box that he surmised was for mail, strange as the idea of a people with this level of technology having a postal mail system was. Visible behind some homes were smaller structures that resembled outhouses – given the technological level he was seeing he figured that was what they were.
In the distance, at what appeared to be about the center of the village, a small fountain was centered right in the middle of the roadway, complete with a statue of some unidentified hero in its center. Past that, farther in the distance, the faint horizon of an ocean was visible, indicating that this was definitely a coastal town.
A few of the buildings in the village were larger and built with more modern practices than the rest. The group headed for one such building. It bore a larger sign in front of the building, to the right of its walkway and just in front of the building itself that read, “Town of Ni’che – Luin Sardo – Mayor.” The building itself was of interlocked wooden-timber construction, a large log cabin, with a roof covered in shingles of aged wood planks. Several windows were cut into the structure’s walls to allow in light and ventilation, and in each of these a shade hung at various heights that appeared to be made from a burlap-like cloth.
The old man entered the building first, he followed, and the rest of the group followed them. They entered a foyer area with a hallway connected to it, but took a left turn into a large room whose walls were lined with books. Near the far wall was a large desk and behind it a handmade chair. In each of the room’s corners stood tall poles topped with a brilliantly glowing crystal. These were lighting up the entire room.
The old man made his way to the chair, while the others moved to take seats on benches around the periphery of the room. One of them fetched a wooden chair from a corner and set it before the desk for him.
“We have looked for you for a long time,” said the old man as he rounded the desk and made the final steps to his seat. “Would you please be so kind as to tell us your name?”
He looked around, noting that everyone in the room had stopped talking to each other and was keenly interested in the answer to that innocuous little question. “Joe. Joe Ross,” he replied, concerned at the interest they all showed in him. He felt like he was the guest of honor at a cannibal tribe’s cookout.
The old man got comfortable in his seat and leaned his cane against a small stand beside the desk. “Joe Ross, I am Luin Sardo, the mayor of this small town.” He waved at the others around him and added, “and these are others that have traveled a great distance to help me find you. I’m sure you have many, many questions but please allow me to explain first. Then I will answer what I can.”
Joe nodded in agreement to the presented terms, and Luin leaned foreword onto his desk, hands clasped in front of him.
“We have a problem that we alone cannot solve. We face an evil that is beyond us, and this has driven us to seek a suitable champion from beyond our home world. We have spent a great deal of time searching for someone with the moral fiber, the loyalty, the sensibility, and the compassion to assist us in purging our land of this great evil. Our search has brought us to you.”
Luin glanced around the room as he continued. “We found you and examined you quite thoroughly to make sure you had what it would take to do what has to be done, and you passed all of our tests. So, we combined our collective power to bring you here.”
Luin now stared intently at Joe. “I would like to propose a task to you. If you choose to attempt it, you may gain fortunes and power beyond anything you could achieve where you came from. If you choose to decline, we will send you back. However, there are catches to both choices.”
Joe was already intrigued – and worried – enough to want to hear what the old man had to say. “Such as?”
“Such as the risks inherent to the task for which you have been brought here. Such as the problems inherent in sending you back should you elect to decline this task. To attempt is to risk death. To decline is to be forced to wait until we can send you back.”
“What is this task, anyway?”
“The task is to achieve what we cannot – the recovery of certain artifacts of our past before the evil I mentioned before does so. This task is a race against time, and against evil that seeks the same artifacts. If you wish to attempt this task you may face destruction, destruction of yourself, or destruction of others, or both. We will prepare you and help you along your path as much as we can, but outside that preparation and assistance we cannot offer much.“
That “death and destruction” stuff lacked a certain appeal to Joe, who was usually content to just be left alone. “And if I choose to go home?”
“We expended our collective energies to bring you here. We can send you back, but to do so will require waiting until we recover enough energy to do so, and also require waiting until the right moment in time for the universe to open a window between our world and yours. The next such window is just over a cycle away. I wish we had the capability to send you home immediately as it is unfair to you to be ripped from your home and not have any say in the matter, but we underestimated how hard you were to find and bring. Naturally we would be glad to provide food and shelter while you are here and I’m sure you can find some tasks around the village to keep you busy while you wait.”
Okay, that wasn’t sounding good. He wasn’t sure how to react to the news that he was no longer on Earth, but there were more immediate issues to discuss so he chose the first one that leaped to mind. “Cycle?”
“Our harvest is coming soon. One cycle will come and go at the next harvest.”
Realization of meaning lit up Joe’s face. “Oh, a year. I understand.”
It was the old man’s turn to be confused by terminology. “Year? What is this ‘year’?”
“You know, a year. The time it takes for a planet to make one full pass around its sun. From one harvest to the next or one planting to the next, that sort of thing.”
“Ah. Yes, a ‘year’ would be correct. We would have to wait just over a ‘year’ to be able to send you back, assuming…” Luin trailed off, as though not intending to say “assuming.”
“Assuming?” asked Joe, who noted this with concern.
“Assuming the evil of which I speak does not attack us. If it attacks us, we would have to direct our energies to self-protection.”
“Meaning you wouldn’t have enough power to send me back when the time comes.”
Luin frowned. “Correct.”
Joe sat back in the chair and glanced around. Everyone else present in the room had been hanging on every word in the conversation and was staring at him, waiting anxiously for whatever he was going to say. He got the impression that whatever this evil they faced was, they were plainly worried about it and were desperately seeking a solution.
“So,” he started after pondering for a brief time, “if I choose to try to help I could get killed, and if I choose to go home I’ll still have to wait a year. And if this evil you’re worried about comes looking for you I might be stuck here longer. In other words I could get killed here if I help or die here if I don’t.”
“Sadly, this is a fair assessment of the situation.” Luin’s eyes showed a glimmer of compassion and sadness, as if he wished so much that he didn’t have to lay his problems on some stranger and not give them so much as a chance to say whether they would accept them. “I do apologize for subjecting you to this. It’s horribly unfair. Please believe me when I say that our actions are borne of desperation – you are the only person we could find whose heart and mind bear the qualities the task requires.”
Joe pondered again. No matter what he chose to do he was stuck in a foreign land on a strange planet, and everything about the situation so far indicated that he was not going to be able to get home without their help. And, to make things worse, there was something really, really bad going on here that had them all so worried that they searched other planets for help. Why they picked him, he had NO idea.
As if sensing this line of thinking, Luin interrupted Joe’s thoughts again. “We chose you because we sensed that you have the goodness in your heart. We sensed in you great courage that remains untapped, sensibility that remains underutilized, leadership ability that remains untested. There is a light in you, a sense of clarity of purpose. This, and only this, can combat the darkness we face. Only an incorruptible heart can do battle against corruption. Perfect evil can be fought only by perfect goodness. You have a brilliance within that you have not yet discovered, and to this we were drawn.”
Joe thought this clinched the idea that they had the wrong man. But there was something about Luin Sardo that spoke without speaking, something that said “yes, I believe you are in fact the perfect choice, even if you don’t.” Luin believed with every fiber of his being that he was staring at the face of the man that would save his world from destruction, even if that face hid a mind that thought the very idea was preposterous. Another slow look around the room told him that everyone else present was also in possession of a similar conviction.
Joe found a desire to at least investigate this “evil” was starting to build. He sighed.
“First, how’d you make it so I can understand you?”
“We on this world can store energy within ourselves. We accumulate it gradually over time. By releasing it carefully, and using a mixture of natural materials to control this release, we can use the energy to perform many functions. The pouch I placed into your hand contained a mixture that we use to send thoughts into the mind of a person. I sent our language into your mind so that you can speak with us and understand what we say. As a byproduct you also gained my ability to read and write in our tongue, since something else is always demanded when something is given. The energy I used to perform this I will recover in a few hours, less if I sleep.”
A novel idea, Joe thought, novel but effective. “Before I agree to anything, what is this ‘evil’ exactly?
“To explain that I must first start with a little of our history.” Luin stood up and started to pace slowly, occasionally staring at the spines of random books as though looking for reminders. “Roughly twelve hundred cycles ago we were a mighty people. We were quite advanced technologically, enough to do things like fly from place to place like birds. We could talk to each other over great distances, and travel those distances almost instantly.” He turned to face Joe. “We were also a violent people. We fought over land, we fought over gold, we fought over food, and we fought over misperceptions. Those were usually short-lived conflicts, though – we fought hardest and longest over ideals.”
Luin resumed his slow pacing. ”Eventually two opposing schools of thought formed, and over time their animosity toward each other built to the breaking point. A great war started exactly one thousand, seventy-three cycles ago, and we to this day do not know what the war was fought over. One thing we do know is that in that war each side used every weapon available against the other, no matter how insidious or inherently dangerous the weapons were. Everything was used, from diseases made solely to kill to bombs that made even the air burn. Everything we had was destroyed, and with all we had we also lost most of our own people. We killed everything in some places – every person, every plant, every animal. We left vast wastelands where nothing grew for hundreds of cycles and everyone that entered got sick and died. We had diseases that killed us no matter what we did to mitigate them. It was a nightmare that lasted for a few hundred cycles.”
Luin stopped pacing and sighed deeply. Then he resumed the pacing. “The survivors found that they could store this energy that they gradually accumulated from their surroundings. A few discovered that this energy could be channeled into a mixture of plants or minerals that acts as a catalyst, and the resulting reaction could cause anything from the healing of wounds to the destruction of mountains. Because of the terrible destructive power they discovered everyone has, our ancestors made a pact and taught it to their offspring that no dangerous knowledge would be unleashed against everyone again. They formed a group from the wisest leaders, called the Guild of Wisdom, and placed higher learning in their charge. The Guild would educate the people and study new technologies and abilities before releasing them to the people so that only knowledge that is not inherently dangerous would be cultivated. There is even an island devoted to the Guild for use in making sure their research is not harmful to the rest of us.”
“The Guild was also charged with educating the people, finding their strengths, and training them to best utilize these strengths. The best leaders would then be groomed to join the Guild once they gained leadership experience and then proved themselves to have the proper moral foundation to be placed in charge of more important – and often more dangerous – duties. This system has been in place for over nine hundred cycles, and in that time only once has our world seen a war.”
“That war is part of why you are here. One secret project – well, they were all secret as a preventive measure – that the Guild was working on created a set of seven artifacts they called ‘controllers.’ The first was completed just over two hundred cycles after the end of the Great War. Each could harness the latent energy each of us possesses and use that energy to command a specific aspect of nature. One was called a ‘geocontroller,’ and with it a properly trained person could quite literally move a mountain. Another was called a ‘hydrocontroller,’ and it could command water, allowing lakes to be moved. A third was the ‘anemocontroller,’ and it commanded the winds themselves. These artifacts are amazing in both complexity and power – they can even be combined to produce additional capabilities. By using the hydrocontroller and anemocontroller in tandem, for example, the weather could be controlled. Combining all seven would create the ultimate artifact, one that could control every aspect of reality with only a mere thought.”
“The Guild realized these artifacts would be of great benefit for the people, but also that they could unleash destruction on a scale not seen since the Great War, so they tried to destroy them. Sadly they could not, as the artifacts were designed to become more powerful and more efficient the more they were used. So they did the next best thing. The Guild chose seven of the bravest, most noble, and most powerful warriors and assigned the stewardship of one artifact to each. These lords each hid their artifacts, most constructing elaborate protections for them, lest they fall into the wrong hands. They remained thus protected for three hundred cycles.”
“One of the Guild, a man we know from the Guild archives was named Draygon Asgor, turned aside from his position of authority to pursue his own ambitions after learning of the controllers. He formed an army and attacked each controller’s keeper, taking their controller and slaughtering everyone that opposed him. A great army was raised to stop him, and when they clashed was the only war our world has seen since the Great War ended.”
Joe thought it was fascinating, but long-winded, and was looking for a closure to the history lesson. “So where do I fit into all of this?”
“I’m getting to that point, please be patient. Where was I? Oh yes. Draygon obtained all seven controllers but lacked the one thing he needed to join them together, a final artifact know as the Unifier. The Guild hid that in a separate location. So he attacked the Guild itself, and tortured and then killed everyone he could until he finally found someone with the knowledge he needed. As he traveled to where the Unifier was hidden the surviving Guild members from villages and towns all over our world traveled there too, to stop him. The final battles happened within sight of the Unifier, and in that battle all but a handful of the Guild were lost. Thankfully they were able to defeat Draygon.”
“Those of the Guild that made it out alive took the controllers and hid them, each not even telling the others where, in the most remote locations they could find. They created lethal traps to protect them, and placed pulls in each in order to cause creatures of every level of dangerousness and lethality to make their homes in the resting places of the controllers. All of the work was done with the idea of preventing a repeat of the earlier tragedy. That was about five hundred cycles ago.”
Luin stopped pacing and returned to his seat behind the desk. He again leaned foreword, staring intently at Joe. “Now, we come to the present, and where you may ultimately fit into our history.”
“The controllers have been safely hidden away for hundreds of cycles, but an evil has emerged. We know very little about whom or what this evil is, but we do know that an army has invaded one of the ancient hiding places of the artifacts, and may have recovered one of the seven controllers. If that is the case, we must dispatch a champion of our own to recover the others before they fall into evil hands. This is the task for which we have found you, to find and recover as many of the artifacts as possible before the evil does. We can then devote our time and efforts toward discovering who or what the evil actually is, and then we can deal with this evil accordingly.”
Joe now understood why they were so worried. Whatever these “controller” things were, it was apparently really bad news for bad-guys to have them. “Assuming I agree to all this, what will you do with the controllers if I do manage to find them all?”
“We will try to destroy them, and if we cannot, we will exile them to the farthest reaches of the universe, where they cannot be used against anyone, ever.”
Joe thought about that for a moment, and a thought suddenly popped into his head. “Will they work if taken to another world where people can’t power them?”
Luin thought about that rather unusual question. “They shouldn’t. Why do you ask?”
“Well, if I find them all and go home, I could take them with me and get them away from here. On my world people can’t store energy within themselves so they should be useless.”
“Ah. But why would you want to take them with you if they would not work?”
“I’d like to have some way to prove that I’d been to another world. A set of alien artifacts would be irrefutable. Nobody I know, and I mean NOBODY, would ever believe me if I told them about this unless I could show something to prove it. Plus, it’d be nice to have a souvenir.”
“Ah, I think I understand now.”
Both men sat for a few moments, staring blankly at each other while lost in their own thoughts, saying nothing. The others in the room started to squirm at the uncomfortable silence.
“I’m gonna need to think about this,” Joe said at last.
“I understand. I’ve already arranged for lodging for you while you are here on our world. Do you have any additional questions?”
Joe thought about this for a moment and replied in the negative.
“That being the case, I will introduce our other visitors, as you will need to know them later should you agree to undertake the task for which you were brought here.” Luin waved an outstretched hand, palm toward ceiling, in an arc to indicate he was referring to the group that had been with them since Joe’s arrival. They were still sitting, silent, on the benches along the walls of Luin’s office.
Luin held his had out toward a woman who looked to be about twenty years old. “First, we have my daughter, Elena. She helps me here with the various aspects of running the town.”
Beside her sat a man that looked like he was present when the world was formed. “Next we have Xandi Ra. You will find that he will require some proof of your capabilities before he will assist you.” At this, the seated man grunted his displeasure at the introduction, further reinforcing the impression that he was a disagreeable old coot.
To his left sat a younger man who appeared to be in his mid fifties. “Next, is Agustu Elorganid. He can assist in areas involving horticulture. He is also adept at reagent mixtures.”
To his left sat an older gentleman who exuded an air of prominence. “Next we have Ini Riddala, the expert on belief systems and psychology. If you need help with any aspect of the mind, he is the man you should seek.”
Luin then presented the next bench’s worth of visitors, seated on the opposite wall. The leftmost fellow looked to be in his early thirties. “From the left we start with Aron Dyson. He is the newest initiate to the Guild.
To his left sat two older fellows that each displayed with an odd smirk. “Next is Robius the Enlightened, our expert on the use of our powers. And next to him is his brother, Brutin Robius.”
To his left, the last person on that bench was a fellow whose demeanor screamed “bookworm.” Liun introduced him, “Then we have Aidni Zrid. He is our historian, and since he travels our world you may encounter him in odd locations. If you ever have a need for more details on our history he is the man to whom you need speak.”
Luin then waved his hand at the two smaller benches on either side of the entry door in the back wall. Each had a lone person seated there. To the left of the door sat a smaller woman, her face conveying great wisdom. “Finally we have the last two, the leaders of the Guild, Ryan Neronium,” Luin now waved toward the right of the door and chuckled before continuing, “and Vinulac the Strange.” Vinulac grinned maniacally in response.
Luin’s arm dropped slowly to his side. “These are the remaining members of the Guild of Wisdom. We are here to serve the people of Dhara, our world. And if you undertake the task presented to you, we are here to assist you in any way we can.” He then looked at everyone and said, “Thank you all for coming.”
The guests stood up at random intervals based on how long it took for them to stand, bowed to Joe and the to Luin, and then each faded away. Only Elena didn’t fade – she instead walked out of the room.
Joe stared, agape, and then looked around wildly. “Where’d they go?”
Luin chuckled. “They were never actually here. They each used their stored energy to project their minds here from their respective homes. They saw through us, and we saw them by means of each person’s projected consciousness. This is another ability we discovered was possible by releasing energy into the right mixture of reagents.”
Elena returned and said, “excuse me father, the evening meal is ready.” Smiling at Joe, she added, “We’ve prepared an extra place for our guest.”
Luin nodded and replied, “thank you my dear, we will be along in a moment,” to which Elena nodded and departed to another place in the building.
“I think it would be best for you to get some sleep before deciding, as I’m sure you have a lot to ponder. In the meantime I would invite you to dine with us this eve. Then I will have Elena show you to a room we have prepared. We will start with training and education in the morrow to prepare you for either a temporary stay while waiting to go home or a temporary stay while carrying out your quest, depending on which path you choose.”
“Training and education?”
“Yes, my dear boy. We cannot have you challenge evil unprepared, nor can we have you in a strange land uneducated. If you choose the path of helping, we must get you trained in combat arts and skills so you won’t get killed in your first fight. And then there are local and not-so-local customs you will need to be aware of, whether you choose to help or to go, so that you will do well in any social situations you find yourself in.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
The two men left the office and turned left into the hallway. Portraits hung of various local heroes and leaders on either side of the hallway, with Luin’s portrait in the far end. A right turn at its end brought them into the dining area, the center of which was dominated by a great table with room to seat twenty or so people. A few were already seated, Elena included, and Luin headed for the head end of the table after asking Joe to take a seat next to one of the others already seated.
After an introduction of the assistant mayor and local constables that were seated, a cook brought out a massive hock of an unknown animal. The meat looked in texture to be reminiscent of pork, but the size was more like cow. The cook then sat beside Elena and the feasting began.
During the meal everyone was most interested in Joe’s world; what it was like, what living there involved, what unique challenges it held. To him it seemed as though they wanted all the details he could muster about an existence he personally found rather boring and devoid of challenge. Where he was from, death as a result of someone else’s stupidity was a constant threat in some manner or another and that tended to make you hardened to a lot of things. This world also had its share of unusual connections – these people had never heard of an automobile but knew what an airplane was, and this seeming disparity struck him as odd.
Also, where he was from, you had to be evil or actually wicked to accomplish things – a “good guy” was doomed to never acquire wealth or prestige or power. The others at the table received Joe’s discussions on this with astonishment – this led him to surmise that he was now on a world where evil did not ordinarily prevail unless special circumstances existed. When coupled with the fact that they were desperate enough to seek help from other worlds, he finally realized the importance of the task they selected him for, to the people of this world.
The meal wound down, and eventually it was time for everyone to depart from the dining hall. Luin and Elena asked Joe to accompany them as they started down another long hallway off the back of the building where the hallway to the dining hall ended. As they walked, Luin and Joe side-by-side and Elena following, Luin started to discuss what Joe wanted to ask. Luin had done this several times by now, and it was starting to annoy Joe. It was almost like the man had ESP or something.
“We’ve prepared lodging for you here while you are with us. I have also taken the liberty of contacting the town seamstress to make you some clothing more in keeping with local styles of dress, so that you will not be so obvious. She will visit in the morrow.”
Joe glanced at his work wear and thought that it’d be nice to not have to worry about a dress code for a while.
The three reached the end of the hallway and Luin opened the left door. “This is your room. It is modest, but should provide for your needs for a while, unless and until you acquire more preferable accommodations.”
Joe stepped into the smallish room. It looked to be about ten feet square. Against the far wall was a single bed, made up with a fluffy-looking quilt and a large, inviting pillow. To the right stood a three-drawer chest whose craftsmanship reminded him of Amish handiwork back on his home world. To the left was a small writing desk with an assortment of writing paraphernalia and a small stack of paper sheets that looked homemade. On the chest’s top stood a washbasin and a large pitcher. Behind that was a large mirror in an ornate wooden frame attached to the chest via risers on its back corners. A window was cut from the wall to the left of the mirror, with a pair of drapes pulled over it that were flapping gently with the passing breeze. The room was illuminated by a small brightly glowing crystal hanging from a cable in the center of the room.
Luin continued as Joe surveyed the room. “If you need to relieve yourself, the exit to the outhouse is opposite this door. I am not certain about how your world’s hygiene works, but you will find that cleanliness is critical here, so please be diligent in that regard.” He blushed after saying this, prompting a smile from Joe who had turned to face him when he heard the phrase “relieve yourself.”
Joe shuffled his feet uncomfortably, coughed, and asked about whether – and what – they used to clean their posteriors. He was hoping not to hear the phrase “pine cones” as a reply, given his own experiences with those when camping one time as a teenager. He had miscalculated his T.P. needs and was a roll short for that outing, and thus had to resort to the use of conifers. He still remembers the event vividly, especially the discovery that many species of pine tree have very sharp little barbs all over their cones.
Luin, on the other hand, was somewhat surprised by the question, but a moment’s reflection reassured him of the question’s validity given the circumstances. “We use fine-fiber papers for that task, so that we can dispose of the cleaning tools along with the waste material. Helps preserve cleanliness. When you’re finished, just clean up and toss the papers down the hole.”
Joe relaxed. “Good, we use something similar where I’m from.”
Uncomfortable from the conversation on body functions and cleaning up after them, Luin started to leave. “Get some rest, as you will most assuredly be needing it for the morrow. Until then. Oh before I forget, to extinguish the light you must tap on the light crystal gently a few times.” Luin pulled the door partially closed behind him, leaving Joe alone.
Joe walked over to the drapes and parted them, leaning out to see the night. The window faced toward the village’s center and lights from various homes going out indicated that the locals were bedding down for the night.
Joe looked up at the sky, and saw stars whose positions he couldn’t identify. No north star, no big dipper, nothing he could work out even remotely related to the stars he used to stare at endlessly as a child. It was at once beautiful and foreign. It again hit him that he was very, very far from home.
He closed the drapes sat on the bed’s edge to remove his shoes. He next pulled the covers down on the bed, fluffed the pillow, and grabbed the dangling crystal’s cord to inflict the required tapping. The crystal itself was glowing brightly, almost too brightly to look at directly, but was strangely cold to the touch. A few taps and its glow dropped off sharply to a faint, almost imperceptible level.
Joe slid into the comfort of the bed and was out within minutes, lulled to slumber by the faint sounds of peacefulness – of the occasional cricket and the rustling of passing breezes.
(End of chapter)
