The Awakening Part I. Chapters 1-3

“I do not know your sins against the gods, but surely they wouldn’t condone your destruction amid this torrent,” the older man exhaled through gritted teeth as he strained to help Sufjan out of the obsidian sarcophagus. “You have my thanks,” the younger man said meekly as he struggled to regain possession of himself. As he studied the room from behind the cramped mask he wore, he tried to take everything in and staggered, dizzily, from the overpowering light. “Slow blinks, slow steps, slow breath my boy,” the older man advised, taking the younger man’s wet arm to bolster him. “Thank you, sir…” the younger man said, pausing to invite the older man to introduce himself. “Say not your name, boy,” the older man rejoindered. “One of us is bound to be caught and interrogated but you cannot name a stranger.” “I must admit, I’m something of a stranger to myself,” the younger man said wearily. The older man regarded him sympathetically, “You’re lucky,” the man muttered quietly, “few live twice.”

“What does that mean?” the younger man asked. “Nothing,” the older man said curtly as he pulled the younger man along as he searched the room. “What are you looking for?” “A way out,” the older man gruffed, “I don’t think we’ll get to far going the way I came.” “Why did you come down here?” the younger man asked. “There’s not enough answers for all your questions. You are an empty bowl. And can only take and take and take.” The older man regarded the younger man more completely, looking deeply into the eyes behind the mask. The older man’s gaze softened. “We said no names, but you don’t have one to exchange. So allow me to give you this gift and gift you this name,” as the elderly man brandished the curved blade from his side. “You are he who brings the sword – Sufjan.”

Sufjan twirled the sword in his hand – it gleamed as it cut through the dank darkness. The elderly man smiled brightly, golden light reflecting off his teeth. “A boy, a sword, and a name.” The walls groaned and columns seemed to shake, as shouts and stampedes raced closer to the two men. “Can I ask what’s going on up there?”

“I possessed a flower once, and a man finally snuck into my garden and snatched it with his greedy hands, and now it collapses around us,” the man answered sadly. Sufjan nodded and hoped his sympathetic look was discernable behind the rigid mask covering his face. “I’m sorry,” Sufjan said meekly. “The hour of sympathy has not yet come. We must survive to mourn. Shall we escape, my child of the Flowering City?”  Sufjan nodded, as the building shuddered more intensely, as if groaning from the man’s sad tale. The man clung to Sufjan firmly, as he worked to regain his footing. “Into this room,” the man called, tugging Sufjan’s arm and leading him into a darkened antechamber.

Footsteps and shouts made their way closer to Sufjan and his guide. “They’re getting closer,” Sufjan whispered sharply as he and the man hid in the darkness. “And so, the mob is,” the man responded knowingly. “To the catacombs we will go. They won’t follow us down there.” “And why is that?” Sufjan asked. “They fear the path because they do not know the way,” the man said cryptically. “If I have died once, then let me walk it again,” Sufjan said bravely.

The man chuckled darkly. “Keep your eyes affixed on heaven,” the man instructed as he led Sufjan into a pitch black room, where he unclasped the obsidian mask from Sufjan’s head. The man took Sufjan’s hand and pressed a necklace that glistened from the faint light emanating from the ceiling. “Follow the heaven’s, it is from whence we came and whither we return.” “Goodbye my friend, he’ll be expecting someone in the sarcophagus,” the elderly man said cryptically as he took Sufjan’s death mask and disappeared into the darkness.

Chapter 2

The children of the fallen paraded through Aldeena wearing the most elegant of their inherited fineries; Meza saw one man twirling and strutting in the procession, who was clad in a tunic woven out gold and wearing necklaces of diamonds shimmering like city lights on the Sea of Aldeena. Their march was a scroll of prosperity unfurling for all to see, telling the story of the cleric and scribe class: stolen wealth parading stolen wealth. Meza would have indulged in the irony or even taken some of the treasures for herself but felt a disturbing chill tingling down the nape of her neck as she observed the hideous faces of those parading down the street. They were unnatural yet somehow familiar. And then she saw one woman adorned with a carved Khasha-ala mask, and then she recognized that same wicked smile all around her.

Meza followed the procession, remaining pressed against the walls until she arrived at the sunken market. The shopkeepers, it seemed, had abandoned their stalls along the successive rings, as a bonfire consumed the former quarry, whose stones built the grand palace and monastery which overlooked the city of Aldeena. The procession was dumping the jewels and fine garments into the roaring blaze.

“You were the children of a false god. But he is no more, for we killed him with our unbelief and are now shackled no more,” a man’s voice bellowed from behind a leering Khasha-ala mask. He continued, “The people feigned authority from the Progenitor of Light and used that same authority to glutton themselves on your subservience.” “We’re forging a new world from the flames of this one and all that was old must burn.” A line of men threateningly encircled the gathered crowd who lined up along the perimeter of the sunken market. A woman grabbed Meza’s good arm with panic, as those around them started to cry out; Meza felt the woman’s pulse speeding away and turned to face the woman to deliver her a comforting glance. Of course she would be afraid, Meza surmised as she studied the woman’s appearance. Her soft skin wasn’t sufficiently skin-touched, and she was either newly poor or wearing poverty as a mask. Given the changing of the guards, Meza knew it was the latter and refused to pity the woman thinking, you’d have those guards take my good hand if I touched you like this.

 “These men are nothing to fear,” the masked man said calmly, bringing Meza’s attention back to stoic looking men surrounding the crowd, “in fact they present for you all a rare privilege. I present to you something your leaders used your brow-beaten wages to furnish for themselves. Fewer than one hundred people have ever seen what these brave heroes are about to unveil.” The crowd murmured excitedly. “I present to you all the Triumph of Luminos.” The men surrounding the gathered masses unfurled the tapestry for everyone to see, it’s majesty silencing the crowd.

The tapestry seemed to glow with a light of its own, and Meza traced it to its beginning, walking counterclockwise along the crowd’s perimeter. As she made her way to the beginning, Meza remembered how her grandmother would braid her hair and sing the old songs about Iiliios, Gaia, and Luminos.

Her grandmother’s voice sang on the whispering wind –

Ei-shu-na no-ei-shah-nor

The light itself from darkness pour’d

Shevek helah tavah ayor

The progenitor’s children came forth

Dineh oksom olum kunor

They were and blessed the holy land

Shunah fo-or in talum-or 

But sunlight vanished out of hand

Al-ash Khala shalah hakor

When Ish Khala betrayed the sunlight Lord

Alam erelm sunah da-nor

The child of light poured forth

Tshtoor ishtel faloon jor

To wrestle darkness at its vergence

Derlem Sha-nah gaia-dor

And let the children of light fall on the land  

Meza marveled at the tapestry’s radiance and could have sworn she witnessed woven sunlight spill out of a moonless night, a burst of heaven, as celestial beings emanated like brilliant starlight. The radiant beings rendered their light as all that is – came into being, before a singular impenetrable darkness fell over the firmament. As the light faded away to a singular point on the tapestry, two beings emerged, joining as one as they struck down Malkos.

The overwhelming beauty almost made Meza regret her task; she felt it a sin to steal from this tapestry, but these mongrels won’t miss it – not after they themselves clamor for it to be cast into the flames, Meza reasoned. She searched the crowd and found one of her team members and motioned for him to note the section they were to steal, a depiction of the great ancestor of all, Amahn, before rejoining the crowd huddled around the burning pit.

Meza watched as a weak looking child tumbled out of the crowd; his eyes darted around the gathered masses like a wounded field mice. Meza wondered what he was doing until she saw a golden ring half buried in the sand. The boy looked around to make sure he was unnoticed and scooped his fingers into the dirt and pulled the ring in close to his chest. That plain golden ring was almost unfit to be called a luxury, Meza surmised, but to the boy with sunken cheeks and tattered clothes, she knew it was more than a king’s ransom. Just before the boy managed to disappear into the crowd, the masked man’s voice called out –

 “Don’t disappear, my child. Do not do in secret what you wouldn’t for the eyes of all to see. When you steal from this flame, you rob us all of our redemption.”

The masked man descended from his podium like wind down the mountains to the west and swept up next to the boy, who now stood by himself. Meza squirmed uncomfortably as the masked man passed in front of her. He strode casually to where the boy stood and then lowered himself and whispered to the child, who threw the ring into the pit. “He of his want does not take but accepts what is given. Let all your treasures be cleansed and then used for the common good. And then shall we all share in abundance,” the masked man bellowed as he motioned for a woman to take care of the child.

“All of us are guilty of possession, clinging to things that poison our souls. That is what extravagance is.” “That is why,” the masked man boasted, “the wealthy anoint themselves in such fragrant oils, they need to hide the scent of their rotten cores.” “We’ve taken care of one stench but what of the other.” The members of crowd murmured in confusion. Meza studied her surroundings to try and guess at what the masked man was preaching about. Muffled shouting penetrated the mumbling crowd and then it all became clear as an elder man was towed into view. Meza had seen this man paraded into this square before during the city’s founding day, when he would release the ceremonial falcon into the air with the words “victory” and “peace” written on its wings. Finally, a ceremony he wouldn’t make last all day, Meza laughed to herself, as the chained man started to fall to his knees and beg the gathered masses for their help. “Help a servant,” he cried. “Help me. Help a person.” Meza was hardly a model believer, but even she was a bit touched after seeing no one offer to help the bedraggled man. His tattered clothing and face full of dust was quite the departure from the palanquin he rode throughout the city and the people who would prostrate themselves as he passed by.

“Would you speak for yourself?” the masked man inquired.

“Is it not written that man shall account for the gods and god’s children he served?”

 “Will you do so now?” the masked man tempted.

Meza struggled to see the point of all this. If the priest was to burn, then let it be done – no use toying with the man. The priest nodded with an eagerness belying his feigned stoicism. Meza looked to the masked man and imagined him grinning triumphantly behind his mask.

“Let it be recorded that we gave this man a chance to offer an account of his service.”

“I gave them the words of the gods in their own tongue, according to their own understanding. I restored the Lighthouse of Luminos, so neither gods nor sailing ships would fail to bless our beautiful people. I assuaged the pirate lord and made him our brother.”

Meza felt the crowd growing restless, tired of being bludgeoned over the head by the man’s accomplishments. “What a list of accomplishments,” the masked man mocked after waiting patiently for the high priest to finish. “I am a mirror reflecting the source’s glory,” the high priest said demurely. Meza rolled her eyes hard enough that she felt her head wobbling.

The masked man waved his hand, inviting the orphaned child to join him. “You say you cared for the children, but does their hunger not condemn you? Children cannot eat the holy writ, Abash,” the masked man said plainly. “I did my best,” the priest managed. “Tell that to Yusaac,” the masked man responded indignantly as he motioned to the boy standing next to him. Meza noted the shift in Yusaac, who only moments before looked small and embarrassed, but now walked with his head high and chest out, mimicking the masked man. But it was more than that, Yusaac was fully conscripted into the cause, a child soldier in a conflict he understood far better than most of the adults in the crowd.

The masked man thanked Yusaac for his help and then motioned for him to rejoin a woman smiling invitingly through a mesh veil. Although Meza could not see the veiled woman’s face, it was obvious that this woman was a foreigner. Their water wouldn’t nourish this foreigner, Meza thought, and neither would she like its taste. Did this woman and the masked man come from the same place? And what was the relationship between the two mysterious figures? Meza studied the woman and thought about her long after she disappeared with Yusaac into the crowd.

“What is the holy writ to a starving child? What good is a lighthouse when your children wander in darkness? And what good is a convert who fattens himself on wrested truths?”

“That’s not fair –“ the priest complained.

“You know so much yet you don’t grasp fairness because goodness cannot be taught only wickedness, only cruelty, only selfishness and your words preach a clarion sermon.”

The priest lunged for the masked man, baring his teeth wildly at the man. “I could get over your avarice and gluttony, but I cannot forgive you for poisoning the mind of this people’s ruler,” the masked man chided, regaining Meza’s attention. She studied the masked man more earnestly and began to press forward through the crowd to be nearer him. “Yes,” the priest answered proudly. “In what way?” “In all things spiritual, pertaining to the Dulcate, to the spiritual welfare of his people.”

“Is it not written that ‘a child shall lead the nation, but it is the nation that foster’s the child?’”

“It is blasphemy to wrest the holy words,” the high priest sniped.

“We both wear masks he and I,” the masked man said, addressing the crowd, “I wear mine openly, and he hides behind piety.” “But for all his piety, wherefore did the Dulcate go amiss? When I was a child, my mother and I were nomadic travelers, scrounging for a living in the high plains. We did not much more live than what was afforded by the soil of the earth and the bounty of the rivers. But she spoiled me with tales and legends. And it is not because I am here that I say so, but my favorite was always hearing of Aldeena” The crowd roared with applause. “On the lonely nights when I would try to sleep on the hard ground with an empty belly, I would think of the promises of the Flowering City. But the flower’s petals have wilted, and the delicate iris flowers no more.”  Meza felt the tide of civic pride turning against the masked man, as the mob started to boo and hiss. “My feelings are the same,” the masked man responded, commiserating. “Our fair bloom does not blossom now, but it will again. And soon.”

“If you could advise your king, what would you say to him now?” the masked man asked, as he motioned for a woman at the opposite end of the sunken marketplace. The crowd parted, giving the woman a wide berth as she made her way to the masked man and the priest. Meza nearly retched when she realized what sat atop the gilded platter – Aldir XI’s decapitated head. The priest’s eyes went wide, and he fell backward with horror, his whole body trembling on the ground. “Don’t have anything to say to him?” the masked man mocked. “You advised him spiritually? Will you not say something to guide him into the next life? They say that crooked is the way and few know the way.”

“So, guide him,” the masked man demanded.

 “I look to you for that,” the priest pleaded. “What would you have me say?”

“Where’s your loyalty, Abash? Did you not say the golden light blessed him with authority to rule?”

“That was so – for a time,” the priest added. “The light shines forth, and the earth moves under its rays.” “Aren’t you the soothsayer,” the masked man complimented. “He speaks like a false wind, promising temperate skies while delivering a tempest.”

Meza could feel the crowd behind her growing incensed at the priest’s audacity. “Would you answer me this?” the masked man inquired, “have you ever seen a vision?” The priest turned his eyes to the burning pyre and closed his mouth, ashamed.

“Where are your believers now?” the masked man said as leaned down to kneel beside the priest. “If they would leave you now, surely it was all a lie. Their devotion. Your authority.” The high priest cocked his head back and spat at the masked man. “See,” the masked man started as he wiped the priest’s spit from his mask, “this is what I was talking about.” “These men,” the masked man mocked as he took the priest’s face in his hand, “they are the source of all rot. They swing their incense in the air and pray your nostrils don’t notice their stench. “But now you are free from a false priest, who built up a false lord. You are free!” the masked man shouted triumphantly. “But what are we to do with these false priests?”

“Burn them,” a woman close to Meza shouted.

“And so shall it all burn,” the masked man responded. “Burn him,” the crowd chanted enthusiastically.

“Today, we will burn the lord and his priests who gluttoned themselves on the fruits of your blind obedience. But it is not enough that these things burn,” the masked man entreated. “Liberate your minds, cast out their vain teachings. That is the start, next expunge the elite and wealthy foreigners from Erlem Sunah and cast out  the traitorous merchants from the Butterfly Kingdom. But please – bring no harm to them! They have followed like cattle in a haze.”

“But their liberation shall also  come,” the masked man continued. “We are a light that will fill the whole earth. Let them spirit this glad tiding to their homes.”

“Today, take back your kingdom!”

The masked man returned to the pulpit where he stood, as people flooded in behind him. The mob took the priest into their arms and raised him high into the air and cast him into the pit below. The priest looked like a newborn angel as his gold clothing flickered brilliantly as the flames consumed his clothing. The clamoring masses drowned out his shrieks.

Meza looked from the burning priest to the masked man, but he was long gone. And a crowd drunk off righteous violence replaced him, clamoring to sate its appetite. “Burn them all,” a woman’s voice clamored, as she pointed up to monastery at the base of the hill. Meza made eye contact with a stoic man on the opposite end of the sunken market and shook her head. Their chance at the tapestry would come later. After all, she thought, the worst way to survive the mob is by getting its attention. Meza donned a black mask of her own and disappeared into the middle of the crowd heading toward the monastery on the hill.

Chapter 3

“Burn it all, Burn it all, Burn it all,” the chaotic zealots screamed in a violent fever pitch of enthusiasm. It was just his misfortune, Rasha thought as he watched the frenzied masses descending on the monastery. He wasn’t a monk, but he would sure burn like one, he considered. “Brother Rasha,” one of the elders called coming to his side, “let us go down so that we may live or die. Either we will prevail on them to preserve this place,” Elder Yasher said stoically as he gestured to the mosaic on the opposite wall and down toward the sacred mausoleum and its holy relics, “or they will walk over our lifeless bodies like loose rubble and stones.” Rasha might have been a fake devotee, but he could not deny the monks their devotion, he decided, as Elder Yasher towed him toward the front gate, where the sight of dozens of monks prostrate on the ground laid his hypocrisy all the barer. He looked back from the monks and back to the monastery, the place where Aldir I made water burst from the stone as he loudly declared an end to his pilgrimage, “It is the place.” Rasha didn’t believe the old legends, but the monastery and its sacred tomes and lapis springs were home all the same. And hypocrite or not, he would honor his brothers and their pact of nonviolence. So Rasha fell to his knees as the mob crested the hillside, the whites of their eyes dancing like mirages. He pressed his temple into the stone-covered road and listened as the overpowering footfalls trampled nearer and nearer.

A dry, wrinkly finger poked at Rasha, and he lifted his gaze to see Father Zoshima crouching over him. The timeworn man, pulled at Rasha’s collar on his white tunic and motioned for him to get up. “On your feet,” the elderly cleric called, “we haven’t much time.” Rasha climbed to his feet and followed Father Zoshima back into the monastery. Rasha shot Zoshima a look of confusion, “You have a different role to play,” the cleric answered as they passed under the archway of miracles, leading to Aldir’s Spring. Even as hurried as they were, Rasha took one last, long look at the archway; it recounted the life of Aldir I and how his descendants built the impossible city that, in the desert, blossomed like a flower.  “Better a noble death than a craven life.” “there’s always time enough for death,” the elderly man wryly countered, “you’re not one of us and the wings of fate are pulling you elsewhere.” Rasha shot Zoshima with a confused look. “My eyes struggle to recognize faces, but I can see the heart,” the man explained as he reached out with his frail hand to touch Rasha’s chest. Rasha felt a tear start to tumble down his face as he realized they had all known he was an impostor the entire time, but they let him into their hearts and into their sacred places anyway. He also cried because he knew his fate would be different than that of his brothers, who he now realized he didn’t just respect or even admire, he loved them.

“I saw a miracle during your time here,” Zoshima whispered as he looked up to see the prismatic light from the hanging pools of holy water. “It’s the only one I’ve seen since Charan died, and I became the eldest.” “What was it?” Rasha asked sincerely. “You.” Zoshima paused to steel himself, “I saw a man without faith walk in here, thinking we were so dumb that he could pull our tunics over our eyes. He was a hungry man, who reminded me of a sly sheep I used to herd when I was a child.” Rasha nodded, listening intently as the man recounted the tale. “That lamb was wild and silly and too clever for its own good and got lost one day. I got lost chasing after him and cursed the little guy. But I found myself, and that little sheep came back cold, hungry, and lonely.” The man’s winsome smile fell as tears welled behind his eyes. “I nursed him, and he always took care of me from that day on.” Rasha nodded as tears fell down his face. “The miracle I saw was you. You came here not believing in anything, even yourself. And I saw you become the most ardent of the believers, if in your own kind of way.”

“Time slips away like daylight on the horizon, and we are now well past sunset, so you must fly my boy. Those embers of glory no longer trail the horizon, but I believe they shall again.” Zoshima took Rasha to the base of the holy mausoleum. “Follow this trail into darkness all the way to the bottom, you have been lost, so you must help another find his way.”

Zoshima stood atop, and Rasha, in spite of all the swirling sounds of screams and terror, could have sworn he heard Zoshima’s tears penetrate the earth. I won’t let you down, I won’t let you down, Rasha silently promised Zoshima as he looked up one last time to see the man vanishing into the light shining down from above. He took a small, tentative step forward and that light disappeared, leaving Rasha consumed by the impenetrable darkness. “You must walk forward,” Rasha whispered, commanding his unwilling feet to carry him deeper into the darkness. He inched forward slowly, imaging what lay hidden in that darkness.