Dhavalos ~ Gift of the Light
< The Calling
I was at my prayers – or rather, I was supposed to be at my prayers. Oh, I was there all right, kneeling in front of the Sacred Fire in the Kadeshan, the quiet holy room set apart from the rest of the monastery. I could hear the steady flow or Touraj’s words across the fire, his voice even and flowing like a stream in the high hills. He was no longer Brother Touraj, but Ankigos Touraj, head of the entire monastery. From what I had read, he was one of the younger monks to ever achieve the position, but even with his increased status, he still found time for me. Probably just as much to ensure that I was doing what I should be doing as out of affection. Affection was certainly part of it, although nothing beyond camaraderie and platonic care – I still remember my burning cheeks and a slight sickness in my guts the day I finally found out what “catamite” meant and realized what my father suspected of the Ankorites – but Touraj also seemed to think that I wanted a careful eye, in case I was to wander off in my boredom and leave chores undone for the sake of getting into some sort of mischief. Not that there was much mischief to be had or even made in the empty, rocky hill country around the monastery. Still, I have to confess that his feelings that I needed “proper guidance” weren’t misplaced. Even when I was meant to be in prayer, my mind had a tendency to go off on its own plans, and occasionally the rest of me went with it.
The words to Cycle of Days fell from my mouth, and in between each prayer I performed the ritual, scattering droplets on the fire with a sprig of ash. After ten years at Parzin with the Ankorite, I could have completed the entire thing in my sleep. And I practically was. Invocation of the Fires of Creation. The Canticle of the First Dawn. The Invocation again. The holy gesture of humility, both hands to the forehead, thumbs inward. Dip the ash sprig into the Elixir, a mix of water, honey, and olive oil, and flick it on the fire. Invocation. Canticle of the First Morning. Invocation. Gesture. Dip. Flick. Invocation. Canticle. Invocation. Dip. Flick. And so on and so forth through all the remaining Canticles: Bright Day, Dusk, Night. Then, it was back to Dawn again.
I had been gone five nights on foray into the hills, gathering the first plants and herbs of spring for the monastery. As the first assistant to Brother Gasad, the monastery herbalist, I often got to take trips into the surrounding country to gather various ingredients for medicinals and potions and salves. I loved these trips, and the chance to be out of the monastery and in lands filled with growing things. But five nights gone meant that I owed five recitations of the Cycle before the Sacred Fire.
I fought back a sigh, and continued my chanting. I’d always found it easy for my thoughts to wander in the Kadeshan. The small room was secluded from other portions of the monastery, set behind the main hall where all the Ankorites took our food and prayed together at the Morning and Evening Rites, and the walls were thick structures of sand-colored stone and reddish clay. There were no windows in the circular room, just the central circular altar with the ever-burning sacred fire, smoke and occasional sprays of cinders twisting upward through a hole in the conical ceiling. The only sounds were the snap of the fire, and the low drone of Touraj at his own prayers. It was supposed to create a feeling of connection to the Sacred Fire and what it stood for, to bring one close to the Great Fire of Creation, the All-Light that permeated all things that ever were or ever would be.
I tried to be devout, I really did. I tried to focus on my prayers, tried to keep my mind a heart on the chants, tried to really consider each word that I spoke like Touraj taught me. Sometimes I even felt like I was succeeding, like I was reaching out and breaching the surface of some unknown water and, just for a second, touching something on the other side. Those brief touches always filled me with peace, and a kind of stillness that was rare for me – I was always felt driven to fidgeting and squirming whenever I had to sit quietly for any amount of time, as though the act of not acting made me itch. But those moments didn’t happen often and, however much I tried, I couldn’t force them to come to me any more than I could force the rains to fall. So unfortunately, more often than not the sight of the shimmering flames just lulled me into a rhythm of ritual. Even as my mouth recited the words and my hands made the offering of Elixir, my mind was elsewhere.
The Season Meet for Spring was only a month away, and I couldn’t put it out of my head no matter how hard I tried. While I was sweeping, scribing, cooking, cataloguing, praying, and especially while trying to sleep, the thought of it would pounce on me. The four Season Meets were gatherings where we would join the Ankorinas, our sister order, for three days and nights of celebration. There was food, nothing extravagant, but a feast by monastic standards; singing and music, dancing around the consecrated bonfires, and most importantly the chance to talk to someone other than the same two-dozen Ankorite brothers that I saw day-in, day-out at the monastery. It was a time of rejoicing and happiness, and the Spring Meets, with new plants sprouting and blooming all around and the scent of fresh, warming earth, made everyone particularly light-hearted.
I always loved the Meets and looked forward to them anxiously every season, but this time was to be different. I had just passed my seventeenth winter, which meant that this was the first Season Meet where I would be allowed to participate in the Pairing Ceremony. On the first evening of each Meet, Ankorites and Ankorinas who were of age could choose a partner from the opposite order. Then all the pairs gathered together around the fire, and the Ankigos and Ankigana, head of the Ankorinas, performed a special marriage ceremony, binding each pair as husband and wife for the three days of the festival. The three days, and the nights that followed.
The idea filled me with…anticipation? Nervousness? Curiosity? I couldn’t say for certain, but without a doubt I was filled to overflowing with a bubbling concoction of emotions. For what must have been the thousand-thousandth time, I gave a quick but deeply sincere prayer of thanks that I was a member of the Ankorites and not one of the Ekklesia proper, whose clergy all practiced celibacy. Part of the Ankorite doctrine was that the All-Light did not bring both men and women into being so they could spurn each other’s company for a whole lifetime, and even ancient Brother Javeed, whose age put him far beyond physical interest in women, insisted that it was good for the soul for men and women to spend time in each other’s company. He always took the Pairing Ceremony with Sister Lida, who was every bit as elderly as he was, and still seemed every bit as happy to share the time with him.
I was fervently hoping and praying to the All-Light that Sister Bareh might favor me for the Pairing. I had been spending most of my time with her at the last year’s worth of Meets, and even in the simple undyed robes of an Ankorina, she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen – not to mention the only one I had talked to at any great length. The Ankorites were often called on as healers, and so the Monastery scriptorium contained a fair wealth of scrolls and bound parchments on the workings of the physical body. Through a lot of reading – and some subtle advice from a few of the older Brothers – I was convinced that I wouldn’t make an utter fool of myself if she said yes, and it was a simple, enjoyable thought that I had probably pored over more than was entirely proper. But then other thoughts would come in and complicate the whole matter. There were several Brothers like Javeed, who met up with and Paired the same Sister at every Meet. But then there were some who might have the same partner for just a single year, or even for one Meet only. Was that what I wanted? And what was I supposed to say if Sister Bareh asked to know my feelings on the matter before she would agree to go through the Pairing Ceremony with me? Or, maybe even worse, what if she asked me after we were Paired, and I gave the wrong answer and upset her? What if I wanted to see her again, but she didn’t? Or the other way around? I was sailing straight into uncharted waters here and thinking about it made my chest feel tight. I knew Touraj used to have a regular partner, Sister Aleena, but when he became Ankigos tradition dictated that he take the Ankigana as his partner. Was he happy with her? Did he miss Aleena? Was he pleased at the change of pace? I didn’t know. He’d never mentioned and I was too uncomfortable over the whole thing to ask. I couldn’t even take direction from him, which was my usual recourse when I found myself in an uncertain situation.
I couldn’t help but understand, just a little, why the rest of the Ekklesia chose a path of celibacy. I had never in my young life come up against something so complicated.
The sound of someone clearing their throat yanked me out of my thoughts. It was probably intended to be quiet, but in the near-silent space of the Kadeshan it sounded as loud as someone splitting cordwood on the chopping block. I snapped to attention.
Touraj was looking at me. “Acolyte Dhavalos,” he said quietly, “that’s your third recitation of the Canticle of Dusk in row.”
My face burned, and not from the heat of the Sacred Fire. “I’m sorry Ankigos. I will say a prayer of Penance after my Cycles.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Since you can’t keep your mind on the prayers you already have, I’m somewhat skeptical that adding more prayers will help.”
“I will be more dutiful, I promise,” I murmured, glad that no one else was here to witness this exchange. I knew that in the old days, disobedient young monks were flogged for failing in their duties. Ankigos Touraj had no need of a switch though, when his gentle chiding was twice as effective for half the work. Sometimes, when I’d particularly embarrassed myself, I’d wondered if I might just prefer to take my stripes.
Touraj sighed. “Your problem is not being undutiful, Dhavi,” he said. “You are as loyal and committed to the order as one could wish for. No, your problem is that your mind is just as unable to be still as your body. Proper prayer requires your thoughts be like a mountain pool on a windless day. But the inside of your head is like a spring waterfall, always rushing over itself.”
“I do try,” I insisted. “It’s just…I don’t know. My thoughts get all tangled up, and I pick at them like a loose thread.”
“And pulling at lose threads like that would soon leave us all in threadbare rags,” he scolded.
I felt rightly chastised – it wasn’t the first time we’d had this talk. Unable to look him in the eye, I opted to just gaze into the Sacred Fire instead. The Fire leapt and twined about itself, but unfortunately the Great Fire of Creation didn’t choose that moment to bless me with a still mind. I bit my lip, ashamed.
Touraj’s face softened. “Still, I forget that you are young. And I don’t see any point in punishing youth for being youth. If you’re not able to be mindful of your prayers, I might as well give you something useful to do.”
I looked at him with hope rising in my chest. “Ankigos?”
“Brother Cyrus said that he wants more fennel for the kitchen,” he said, nodding his head toward the door. Take a bag, and go collect some. There’s a big patch of it on the north side of the hill, if I’m not mistaken.”
“No, Ankigos. I mean, yes Ankigos! I mean, you aren’t, and I will!” I nearly tripped on the hem of my robes as I scrambled up to my feet.
Touraj shook his head, but I could see there was a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Try to show a bit more reserve, Dhavi,” he chastened, holding up a hand. “Although I suppose it’s better that you be outside immersed in the works of the Great Fire than kneeling in here and thinking about the outside.” He waved me toward the door. “Go on. Maybe some time outdoors will let you work through all those thoughts of yours.”
I sketched a quick bow. “I’ll make sure of it, Ankigos.” I nearly bolted across the room, but halfway out the door I stopped and leaned back into the Kadeshan. “Touraj?”
He looked up, a bit surprised to hear his name without a title attached.
“Thanks.”
He smiled, the way I remembered my father smiling when I was very small. “You’re welcome Dhavi.” He gestured to the flames. “The Sacred Fire is eternal, ever-burning. It will still be here for your prayers when you get back.”
*****
Crook in hand, I strode over the side of the hill. “Hill” was what we all called it at the monastery, but that wasn’t really the right word. It was a massive mound of rocky escarpments, like a wrinkle in the earth itself. It would take me most of an hour just to get around to the north face. I didn’t care; in fact I couldn’t have been happier. The monastery was where I lived, but it was the half-wild open lands surrounding it where I really felt at home, especially now with the new green life of spring blooming all around me. It was early yet, and most people would only have seen the dead, brown carpet of last year, but I knew better. Everywhere I looked, little spears of green peaked out from under the litter, and the branches of all the bushes were covered with velvety silver-grey buds. Life was taking her first deep breath and waking up from the winter.
I whistled to myself as I walked all alone under the sky. It wasn’t that I disliked the monastery; quite the opposite. The Brothers had become like my family in the decade since I’d come here, and I was actually very happy. I’d been placed under Brother Gasad almost immediately, learning herbalism. I was delighted to find that the Ankorites had volumes of plant lore and guides to what I imagined were every plant to ever grow under the most blessed sun. I learned to read and write just to satisfy my appetite for those books, and luckily for me I showed a great deal of aptitude for the trade. Brother Gasad was a good mentor, fair and slow to anger, and he loved plants as much as I did. However, his joints often troubled him in the cool weather, even with regular application of salves, so this time of year I was often sent out alone. It was for the best, as I was always at my most fidgety after being cooped up for the winter months. I knew that today wasn’t the first time Touraj had used a partial-truth as an excuse to send me outside on a harvesting excursion, not by a long shot. And I was grateful to him. He had been as kind to me as anyone could ask for, and more. I was glad he became the Ankigos…not just because I knew he would do a good job of it, but because he was my friend. When I couldn’t explain how I felt, why I sometimes needed to get out of the walls of the monastery and be out with blue vault of sky and my beloved greenery, he always just seemed to know. It was because of him that I had come to love my life here at Parzin.
Still, I thought as I clambered up a steep spot in the path, it does get a bit boring around here. The Meets were the most exciting thing to look forward to each year, and as my seasons in the monastery rolled by, I sometimes thought that they were the only exciting thing that would ever happen to me. Life as an Ankorite was stable, much more so than my life before had been, but sometimes I wished for more, something other than prayer and chores and even my simple gathering expeditions. I wanted…I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I suppose I just wanted something exciting to happen.
When I reached the top of the crest, my lungs were stitching, aching in the cold air. I heard the hint of wheezing in my breath, and sat down on a boulder that jutted from the hillside. I had stopped at this boulder many times before, and it was one of my favorite spots. From here, I could see the great rolling folds of the hill country stretching away to the north. I knew that eventually they rose and lifted until they became the Kalasian Mountains. Though I had seen engravings and images scratched on scrolls in faded brown ink, I couldn’t picture mountains, a great spine of stone so high that it jutted up into the sky itself. I didn’t know how, but one day, I hoped to see them for myself.
Breathing hard, I dug in my ever-present pouch of Ephedra, taking a few stems and chewing on them. They were tough, dried reserves from last year’s harvest, but even so their sharp taste filled my mouth and I felt my chest unclench a bit. I had to be careful not to rely on the plant too much, or my body would grow used to it and it would lose its effectiveness, but I figured warmer weather was almost here and I wouldn’t need it much then. Besides, the wheezing wasn’t as bad now as when I was a child, now that I had medicines and regular treatment from Brother Gasad. I would never be rid of it – that much I knew, though Gasad didn’t like to come out and say so – but at least now it didn’t impede me.
As I sat chewing, feeling my lungs open and let me breathe, I gradually became aware of something, a noise. No…that wasn’t right. Not a noise. A lack of noise. And that was what had drawn my attention; it was never, never silent up in these hills. Even in the middle of winter there were birds, the skittering, scratching noise of small animals. I frowned, looking around. Perhaps twenty paces away I spied half a dozen wrens in a bush, perched on the bare branches. None of them was making a sound.
I got to my feet, my spine prickling and my chest closing back up despite the Ephedra. This wasn’t right; something was deeply out of place here. Wrens were never silent; they chattered away non-stop like a group of little old grandmothers talking about their in-laws. I looked around in earnest now, worried that there might be a bear or some other danger, but they didn’t seem spooked. Just quiet. Even when I took a few steps toward them, they didn’t move or so much a twitter. As if they were doing it on purpose. As if they were waiting for something.
That’s when the air started to crackle. It was as if the entire hillside was suddenly cloaked in static. My throat drew tight and I knew I should take another piece of Ephedra, but the thought was distant, pushed away by the sparkling, crinkling noise in my ears. When I looked down, I saw tiny, bright sparks snap in and out of existence where my hand brushed the rough cloth of my robe. There were even flecks of light shooting along the feathers of the wrens, who remained as still as stone. The air was alive as if in the moments before lightning struck, but the only clouds were high and scattered. A desperate prayer leaped into my head, one of the first I had learned. Holy Creator, shine your light on me in darkness…
And then the sky folded in on itself.
I stared, breathless, as a piece of the sky to the north twisted, curved, and folded inward, then erupted outward. No, not erupted, blossomed outward like a flower bursting open, but a flower of pure, golden-white light. For a heartbeat, I wondered if the All-Light had heard my prayer and shone on me – if that was true, I was surely about to die. But the light did not come for me. Instead, the great curving planes of light drew together in on themselves, intensifying until they blazed brighter than the sun. I shielded my eyes, but I didn’t look away. I wouldn’t. I knew that the most important thing I would ever see was happening right now, and that if I looked away, I would regret it forever. So I saw it when single incandescent beam shot down from the hole in the sky, straight as a blade. A high-pitched scream of sound rent the air as the light streaked toward the earth faster than a diving falcon, faster than anything on or of this world. It was going to strike the ground, and I think I cried out then, but the sound was lost in a burst of brilliance and a sound like the peal of a great bell that washed over me in a wave, slamming me to the ground.
I lay there unable to move, staring up at the light that had burst through the sky. As I watched, there was a rumble like distant thunder. The light dimmed, pulling away. Receding back into the sky. One heartbeat. Two. And it was gone.
I lay on my back, gasping for breath, staring up at a clear, cloudless dome of blue. It was gone. The light was gone.
But not all of it…
The light… I scrambled to my feet, clutching my chest. From the corner of my eye, I saw the wrens explode into flight. I have to go to it! I have to go to the light! I didn’t know what I was thinking, or where the thoughts had come from, but they screamed inside my head and drove me up. I took off running down the path, jamming my hand into my pouch as I went. I was scrambling over rocks and roots, tripping on tussocks of grass, fighting for breath and fumbling at the plants I needed to keep going. Most of my Ephedra ended up scattered over the ground, but I managed to get a handful and stuffed it in my mouth, clenching it between my teeth. I couldn’t even slow down and allow it to work. The light had struck the earth, I had seen it. Something was there, I knew it down to my bones, and I had to reach it.
I was heading down the hillside now, half-climbing, half-falling. I felt a thousand tiny cuts and scratches open on the palms of my hands, on my legs, but they didn’t matter. Normally, it would have taken me over a quarter hour to reach the north slope. Now I covered that time in minutes, tumbling down through a sea of brambles. It seemed only by sheer luck that I didn’t bash my head open on a rock, but it wasn’t luck, I knew it wasn’t. I was meant to be here. Whatever had come from the light, whatever the light had given us, I was meant to go to it. And no rock was about to stop me.
I was wheezing loudly now, as loudly as I ever did as a child, but it did matter. The lump of Ephedra crammed in my mouth was enough to keep me breathing and on my feet. And I was nearly there, I could feel it. A tumble of boulders formed a wall in front of me. I raced around them, searching, until I found one I could scale. It was hot, as hot as a stone heated for a steam room. Despite the sharp pain that shot through my already-shredded hands, I dug my fingers against the rough grain and pulled myself up, dragging my body over the stone. I reached the top and struggled to my feet. And stopped.
The boulders didn’t form a wall by chance. There was a ring of them at least a hundred paces across, maybe more, blown outward in a crater. The inner surfaces of the stones were blackened to the color of ash. But that wasn’t surprising. After all, I had seen the beam of light plunging through the sky, had seen and heard and felt it slam into the earth. I was actually more surprised that it hadn’t blown half the mountain apart with the force of the impact.
What I wasn’t expecting was the flowers. Every inch of the crater was filled with flowers. Not just flowers either, but thick bushes and even sapling trees – all in full bloom as if it were the height of summer. The crater was a riot of green, dotted with crimson and gold and blue. It was a bowl full of nature, more wild and vibrant than I had ever seen before. And yet, that was impossible… I looked down again at the charred stones, their heat seeping up through my simple footwear. There shouldn’t be anything here; it should have been a bowl of dirt and stone and smoking tinder.
Staring, I slowly slipped down the face of the boulder and into this strange, inexplicable patch of green life.
The air was hot, and heavy with the perfume of flowers and the sap of trees. Plants closed around me like a veil, enveloping me so that I had to walk with my hands outstretched like a man feeling his way through an unfamiliar room in the dark. The plants rustled against each other, although there was no wind that I could feel. But I was unafraid, beyond even amazement. I was almost there. Up ahead I could see a brightness, a thinning of the close fold of leaves and flowers that surrounded me. Like a swimmer heading for the surface, I struck out for it. I drew closer, the plants seeming to part as I found the right path, moving from the dark green folds toward the open brightness. Toward the light…
Almost without warning, I stood in a clearing. Everything seemed hushed – even the air itself was motionless. The clearing was blanketed with green, not grass, but some kind of soft moss so thick that my feet sank down into it. I barely noticed.
Lying on the moss, in the very center of the clearing, was a sleeping girl.