Chapter 5

Zaidna

The Empire of Judath

The Temple of Marin

After slipping past the crowds in the temple’s sunlit foyer, Kirin found the sanctuary of one of its smaller chapels and breathed deeply, inhaling the sweet scent of burning incense.  The relative quiet of the chapel, bathed in the soft glow of candlelight, did much to calm her frazzled nerves.

Careful to avoid the long, rectangular pillows that lined the blue tiled floor, she kept to the center of the empty chapel as she shuffled to its front, hopping awkwardly as she tried to keep her overflowing bag of books from pulling her off balance.  Thank goodness she was still early.

Public religious lectures, which usually revolved around the goddess or the writings of previous Nassés, were held three times a week.  Kirin could only imagine how mad Batem would be if she ever missed one, since he and all the other priests seemed to think that the study of religion was just as important as the study of ormé.

Kirin shifted to her right and sidled past several meditation pillows before singling out a plush-looking one right next to the wall in the front row.  She gathered up her green skirts and spread them across her thighs as she knelt.  Once comfortable, she pulled out a tablet of paper from her bag, as well as a thin, spiraled seashell filled with ink.  Placing the tablet on her lap, she sighed.

These lectures hadn’t felt the same since Batem had used her to demonstrate the unquantifiable nature of shadow matter several weeks before.  He hadn’t revisited the subject, but she hadn’t forgotten one second of it.  Her dreams were steadily getting worse, too, and she could swear that shadow and the Goddess Forest were taking on larger roles night by night.

Kirin blinked, finding herself staring absentmindedly at her bare midriff.  She picked a small piece of lint from her navel and dropped it into her bag.  At least she could feel some peace here, in a quiet chapel of one of Naltena’s temples.  She could almost smell the spirituality emanating from every incensed corner.  And what other building boasted such fantastic works of art?  Take that filigree on the wall.  How was it that the artisan had managed to shape such thin gold wires into a depiction of the goddess giving life to the first of the high races?  Kirin found herself wanting to trace each little wire with her fingers.  Goodness, where did they all start?

“Ah, Kirin!  Good, you are early!”

Kirin yelped and looked up to see Batem’s turquoise eyes examining her from the front of the room.  She wasn’t sure when the old man had arrived; he had definitely not been standing on the dais when she came in.  Hopefully he hadn’t seen her fussing with her navel!

“Hello, Batem,” Kirin stammered, calming herself.  “Are you giving the lecture today?”  Batem hobbled across the dais and knelt, with much groaning and back cracking, behind the box-like altar that stood at the dais’s center.  The altar was made out of a solid block of white wood, with many glyphs and ornamental carvings of suns etched in its surface.

“Indeed, I am,” Batem replied.  “Although this isn’t my usual day to teach.  In any case, I am blessed to find you here.  My projectionist was not able to attend on such short notice, so I thought that I might have to give my lecture without the use of visual aids.”

Kirin nodded.  The work of the projectionists was the only reason she didn’t always fall asleep during these lectures.  Their vivid, creative interpretations of the texts using light manipulation made boring subjects much more interesting.

“I wonder,” Batem mused, setting down a thick leather tome on the altar.  “Might you be willing to fill in as my projectionist?”  He opened his book to a section that was marked with a yellow tassel.

Kirin gripped her writing shell so tightly that it scraped across her tablet and left a jagged trail of ink behind.  To project an image of light on a wall or screen would be simple; that only required a basic knowledge of ormé.  But to project a scene based on someone else’s thoughts—that was another matter entirely.  Kirin was totally unqualified.  First, a projectionist had to be an artist with an adequate knowledge of anatomy, proportions, and how light played across surfaces.  Second, a projectionist would need to be able to connect her thoughts to the lecturer to provide a direct and reliable link to the thoughts and images that he wanted her to convey.  This was a far less trivial task, as any thought-manipulating pattern was very advanced and was generally only known to and practiced by members of the clergy.

“But Batem, trained projectionists are able to create very impressive images!” Kirin mumbled.  “I can’t paint with ink and paper, let alone with light.  I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Nonsense!  With your talent, it should be simple to pick up.  After all, you are a daughter of the ninth house and are sure to be the Nassé one day.  As for your artistic abilities, I have no doubt they’ll be sufficient.”  Batem had obviously never seen Kirin’s crude doodles during class.

“All right,” Kirin sighed.

“Oh, good!  Now why don’t you come up here and stand beside me?  Worshipers will be arriving soon.”  Batem tapped his fingers on the open book as he saw Kirin hesitate.  “Come along now, we need a few moments to prepare.”  He withdrew a pair of spectacles from the folds of his dalmatic and positioned them on the bridge of his nose.

Frowning, Kirin stuffed her tablet back into her bag and rose from the cushion.  She adjusted her silk blouse and stepped up to the dais, looking back to make sure she’d be able to see her belongings on the pillow at all times.  As she moved to stand behind Batem, she realized that she’d never seen the chapel from this perspective before.  Each and every meditation cushion was visible, which meant that every person who attended the lecture would be able to see her looking like a fool.

Kirin cursed inwardly, causing her to curse again for the fact that she had sworn inside of the temple.  This was a big mistake.

“I want you to shift focus,” Batem instructed once Kirin ceased her fidgeting.  Kirin did as she was told and immediately saw the yellow-white sparkle of primal matter manifesting all around her.  “Now, what I’m going to ask you to do requires deep concentration, so pay attention. 

“We may not have needed to shift past the first degree of focus in your classes thus far, but the process to reach the second or third degrees is no more complex.  It simply requires a deeper focus.  Are you still able to see the primal matter in front of you?”

Kirin nodded in response.  She was still able to make out the shape of Batem’s body, even though his figure was blurred, and when she squinted, she could almost make out the thousands of configurations of primal matter that made up his skin, his robes, and even some of his internal organs.

“Now, relax your eyes and look a little deeper.”

Excited to have permission to go beyond the first degree of focus for the first time, Kirin exhaled and relaxed, feeling her eyelids grow heavy and vision become a little darker.  The colors bled out of Batem’s blurred form, replaced by a startling lack of clarity.  Amongst the black and white blobs, she began to see traces of an odd purple aura flowing in waves around Batem’s body.  “This is amazing!” she declared, nearly losing her newfound focus in her delight.

“Yes, spirit matter is lovely. It’s thought by some to be produced by the psyche, but we don’t understand its purpose and there is no way for us to manipulate it.  Now, shift your focus deeper and stare at my forehead.  Most of us priests use the third degree of focus to heal minds and share thoughts, but with skill, it can be used for so much more.  When you become the Nassé, you will be called upon to view and interpret the dreams of the three emperors using thought matter.  Let us see how you fare.”

Kirin concentrated on maintaining her focus in the second degree, and then sunk slowly into an even deeper focus.  She stared intently at Batem’s temples until they faded completely from view, replaced by silver threads flowing loosely out from where his head had been.

“Well?” Batem asked.  “Have you managed to switch focus?”

“Oh, Goddess!” Kirin whispered.  She felt like she was floating, even though her feet could still feel the ground beneath her.  The silver filaments of Batem’s thoughts danced before her like wriggling worms in water.  She was afraid to even blink, worried that she could lose focus at any point.

“Don’t panic!” she heard Batem mutter from somewhere in front of her.  “Just concentrate.  Now, I know you cannot view primal matter like this, but please reach up and feel for the threads of thought about my head.  I have released them for you to guide toward your own.”

Kirin swallowed nervously.  She desperately wanted to succeed at this, but knew she had to maintain her composure to do so.  She raised her hands and slowly began to use them to draw Batem’s thoughts toward her.  She couldn’t feel anything in her fingers, but the silvery threads drifted as she beckoned.

“Once you have them, lift them up and try to attach them to your forehead,” Batem instructed.

Kirin drew the threads up toward her face and did as she was told, placing the ends of them against her forehead.  Strangely, she could see them hanging over her eyes but couldn’t feel them against her brow.  “I think I’ve done it?”

“Good!  Let’s test it.”  Almost at once, the darkness lit up, and she was standing in a wide green field.  A large, wooly animal with long, white horns was lazily chomping on grass a few yards away from her.

Kirin gasped, shocked at this unbidden image.  “It’s a poji!”

“Ah, good, it worked.  I knew you’d be a natural.  If only you were this good at arithmetic.”  Kirin could hear Batem grinning.  “Now, you may relax and resume normal focus.”

Only too eager to stop seeing Batem’s thoughts in front of her, Kirin did as she was told.  Once again, she saw the old man, smiling sweetly up at her, but could still sense their mental connection.  “I, uh, don’t suppose you can read my thoughts now, can you?”  She blushed despite trying hard not to.

“Don’t be silly; a much more elaborate pattern is needed for that.  This pattern allows me to send you images of what to project for the worshipers.  That’s all.  And don’t worry about damaging my thought strands, my dear; they only go so far.  If you step off the dais they’ll come right back to me.  As long as you don’t tangle my thought matter up in yours, you don’t have to worry about a thing.  Now, when it’s time for you to project, just shift focus to view primal matter as you normally would and interpret my thoughts into images as you see fit.”

Kirin nodded, still uncertain.  People had begun to enter the chapel in small groups.  The farmers were dressed in plain, pressed linen, and the merchants wore their usual fine baubles and Chalei-imported silks.  Lingering toward the back of the chapel huddled a group of young women who were giggling and cooing loudly at something at their center.  Spoiled brats, Kirin thought, envious of their nice clothes.  As the young women were called back to their seats by their parents, they dispersed, revealing the objects of their adoration.

Kirin gawked.  There by the doors stood a young man and a young woman, with matching brown triangle crests tattooed on their foreheads.  She couldn’t exactly place which family the crest signified, but based on the nobles’ obvious unease, they weren’t used to worshiping in a public temple.

Kirin watched as the pair moved down the center aisle, eventually slipping into the second row behind where her bag sat unattended.  Their clothes were modest by noble standards, but easily rivalled the finest threads of any of the merchants in attendance.

“Oh my, what an honor!” Batem exclaimed as the nobles took their seats.  “Why, your crests indicate you must be the western prince and princess!  You are Javan and Anji Makivum, if I’m not mistaken?”

Oh, shit!  No wonder their crest was familiar.  Javan and Anji were the western king’s son and daughter, whose family, along with the eastern king’s, was second in power only to the emperor’s!  The Makivums had a summer estate a dozen miles away, but Kirin had never seen any of them in public, much less at a religious lecture at the temple.  What were they doing here?

Javan, the western prince, regarded Batem uncomfortably with bespectacled eyes.  “Oh, uh, yes.  We didn’t mean to make a scene.  We heard about these lectures and thought that we might—”

Anji muttered something loudly under her breath, which caused Javan to glare at her.

“Oh, fantastic!”  Batem clapped his hands.  “I’ve never had the privilege of presenting to a high noble before.  Your father must be here for the noble summit.  Am I correct?”  The western prince and princess nodded.  “How splendid!  Welcome, welcome!  You are in for a treat today.  Our little Kirin Toredath is filling in as the projectionist for my lecture.  You are probably unaware, but she is a daughter of the ninth house and is currently in training to fulfill her future role as the next Nassé!”  Anji and Javan looked at each other for a moment, then nodded back at Batem.

Oh, Batem, please shut up, Kirin thought.  She wasn’t the only candidate for Nassé, and considering the fact that she was likely about to ruin Batem’s lecture with her lack of projecting skills, her chances of being permanently barred from the seminary were just as good as her becoming Nassé.