The Wizard’s Gamble – Chapter 5

IIII

The Temple of the Provider on Vamperstad stood atop a snow-covered hill, like all other temples in Zhedra. In its surroundings, the soil was not damped in white and grass grew steadily thanks to the heat of the deity.

The temple was also closed to everyone else but the priests and other members of the clergy, yet, on this very special morning, one villager was allowed entrance. More specifically, forced to accept the invitation to be reaped for the Provider.

Usually, this requires the use of force by the temple’s enforcers, since the offerings tend to try to run and hide from the most sacred of blessings, for there are ones who try to fight until the end to not become one with the Provider. For Sindha, it all went too smoothly. She left the house before daylight and by first light was at the temple entrance. The priests were dumbfounded by this event, even the one who had visited her house days ago had prepared a speech for a wailing girl and a begging mother so that she could be taken with the least rudeness possible was aghast with that visit.

They followed immediately with the preparations for the ritual, muttering between them the strangeness of what happened. High Priest Syl, who had been present in the very specific selection of the offering for this region, had a sense of restlessness about this whole scenario, and he had sacrificed dozens of young men and women for the Provider before.

But that was the way things were and that cannot be changed and the sorting of offerings for the reaping is made with the blessing of the Provider, for the holy priests are his limbs on the world. That way, there could be no wrong, even if the selection in this region is always made in a different way, so the King has secretly decreed. Even a mundane man like Old Man Bren can be used as a limb of the Provider, for strange and mysterious are his holy ways.

The first step of the ritual would be the cleansing. The offering would strip naked before the priests and they would read the holy scripture and draw the holy runes on the stone floor, surrounding the offering. This would remove all impurity of her soul and made her as pure as a newborn.

Sindha went through all this process without any constraint, without any embarrassment, as it usually happens. The priests were satisfied with such ease, they were so used to the resistance and the crying and the offensive behavior, and there was none of it. Just full compliance.

High Priest Syl’s sense of discomfort and restlessness was growing. It almost seemed to him that the very Provider was telling him to stop this. To dress back the girl and throw her out of the temple and back into her mother’s arms.

After a few more prayers, Sindha was dressed once again.

A silky long white dress, a gift from the Temple also known as the Offering’s Garment which is also the very last piece of clothing that an Offering uses in life.

They took her to the large gallery where luminous and warm finger-like structures rose from a pit: the appendages of the Provider. In each household there was a small one, a minor blessing, that brought warmth and comfort in a so merciless frozen world.

There was an extension of the ground that plummeted into the dense yellow light of the pit. Before that, a corridor of candles made a mandatory route to the predictable fall.

All was ready.

The temple’s guards circled Sindha and, gently, made her walk to the priests that awaited before the ceremonial path.

‘Young one,’ recited one that was holding a bowl filled with a dark liquid, ‘you are here to receive the most sacred of blessings…’

He kept going, words coming out of his mouth like leaves whistling in the wind.

Sindha stood there. Motionless. Emotionless.

Eventually, the prayer ended and the bowl was passed to Sindha, so that she would drink it and die of it.

She accepted it and began to take it to her mouth, yet, the High Priest ordered her to stop.

‘Child!’ she looked at him, once again completely devoid of anything. The priest, however, seemed pretty worried. In his heart, he didn’t want her to be offered to the Provider, but, things are how they are and cannot be changed.

‘You’ve shown a great acceptance of this gift that was bestowed upon you. Tell me, do you have any words for us to ever remember you?’

The girl lowered the bowl, not changing her expression, and spoke very clearly: ‘Your warmth will be gone. Disease and violence will come into your home and the dead will never sleep again.’

She drank the whole liquid in one sip, shoved the terrified priest aside and threw herself into the abyss.

Averon shifted uncomfortably while walking in circles on the room that he entered.

He knew that his guest’s curse was a powerful one, however, he could use it to give him power. Power that Hayden would use to accomplish Averon’s most dear designs.

Best of it, he was a simple man, whose only concern was the wellbeing of his daughter. Averon also knew that, according to the calendar, the Reaping was today and there could be no way to stop the ritualistic killing of the girl now.

If he would just come out of the room and tell Hayden that, the man would be heartbroken and would leave immediately. Not that he cared for him one bit, but Averon hated to waste a good opportunity. After all, to him, simple people and simple-minded were basically the same thing and that might be worth the risk.

He lunged for the door, grabbing the nob and, just before turning it, he stopped to allow a thought to sink in. ‘If this goes badly, he might discover the power I will give him.’ He allowed himself to mutter.

That was it. The moment when consciousness makes you stop just to give a word of caution. A piece of good advice.

Even so, it was only a peasant from the countryside. Who was that for a wizard who has manipulated the Kings of Zhedra throughout the ages? His greatest ambition would be achievable by the hands of a simpleton, and he would only have to turn a wheel. That was Averon’s favorite kind of game: one he had already won.

Hayden was starting to think that the Wizard had gone away, to forever lost interest in him and that they would never meet again. It was only later that he realized how lucky that would’ve been.

Averon came back differently. He had a renewed interest in Hayden, his dark green eyes were shining with enthusiasm and his lips almost twitched in a smile.

‘So?’ Asked poor and desperate Hayden, ‘can she be saved?’

‘Yes.’ He lied.

‘How? Please I…’

‘But I will require one thing from you.’ He cut in.

‘Tell me.’

‘You will go to Pilgrim’s Peak and enter a cave called The Heart. There, you will find a bronze wheel on a platform. Turn the wheel to your right side until it can be no longer turned. And that’s all. Clear?’

‘I’m sorry but I’ve never even heard about that place.’

‘I will provide you with a map. A very detailed one. Pilgrim’s Peak lies at the center of Zhedra, next to Great Mother and Orim’s Fall.’

‘You mean, it’s one of the Holy Mountains?’ Averon turned his eyes at that name.

‘Yes, I believe you call them that. I hope that you would be willing to cross the Law of the Scripture to finish this errand.’ The wizard crossed his arms and looked expectantly at him, awaiting a predictable answer.

‘And my daughter? How will she be rescued?’

‘Leave that to me. I will speak with the priests and make amends so she won’t be sacrificed.’ Then he warned: ‘But mind you that she will only be released at my command, after you completed my request.’

‘Of course.’ There was no other possible answer.

‘Excellent!’ The Wizard smiled for the first time since Hayden had met him. He didn’t manage to like that smile. ‘Come with me.’

Hayden followed him through corridors which he paid no attention whatsoever. His mind was too busy in trying to balance itself between the overjoy of the promise of saving Sindha and the brooding uncertainty of managing to complete the Wizard’s request.

He noticed however that the whole place was pleasantly warm and he saw no appendages of the Provider anywhere.

‘Where does the heat come from?’ he mumbled, however, Averon was able to hear it and promptly replied.

‘Boilerworks on the basement provide a complete internal heating system through the steel pipes’ he pointed at one that ran on one of the top corners of that corridor. Naturally, Hayden had no idea of what he was speaking about, but the visitor was beginning to get the idea that the Wizard was a very haughty and arrogant fellow.

He didn’t need to reply to that explanation since Averon changed the subject. ‘I’m going to give you something important, else I believe you won’t get to Pilgrim’s Peak alive.’

They arrived in a room filled with all kinds of tools, books, empty jars and opened boxes. Hayden had always imagined a wizard’s storeroom to be filled with the most impossible contraptions and items filled with glitter and opulence, however, the ones in there where all dusty, mundane looking and flavorless.

The Wizard searched in several boxes and cabinets, all filled with the most diverse and exotic kinds of items, take some time until finding what he was looking for, behind a big crate: a long shape covered by a purple cloth. No doubt that could only be a sword and when Averon revealed it, Hayden seemed to be pretty sure that he wouldn’t get any mystical weapon. Even though the sword was in perfect condition, he had seen many like those before.

‘It looks heavy but it adapts perfectly to you, even if you were a toddler you would be able to hold this blade.’ He explained and extended the sword to Hayden. ‘It will help you on this quest.’

When Hayden grabbed the sword by the hilt, he felt a shocking sensation within himself. It made him feel as if the weapon had “looked” at him.

‘What’s this for?’

The wizard didn’t thought of that question as redundant.

‘Self-defense, of course. Among other things.’

And so Hayden left the Wizard’s Keep after some hours. Averon had returned to his private study, a room filled with comfort and projects, some of them had the whimsical look that Hayden had been hoping to find during his short stay.

He was indeed satisfied, he could even consider himself as happy. His newly acquired minion, a very special one, left to perform Averon’s greatest ambition after being well fed, well equipped and, mostly, well taught.

The wizard threw himself into the huge fluffy couch with a triumphant smile. That poor man’s curse was the key to a door that has been shut to Averon for a very long time and he just had to wait.

Averon really did cherish that moment of happiness for it was brief. He looked sideways at his study, lost in endless thoughts and plans, until something caught his eye. A glass sphere that was on a gnarly pedestal located in one corner of the room, was devoid of its orange glow, a light that had been there for centuries.

Averon shifted and stiffed himself on the big couch, his brow got tense and his expression baffled.

‘How can it be?’ He whispered. ‘The Provider is dead?’

Hayden also came out of the Wizard’s island satisfied with the meeting. He had a quest to do, that he had no clear idea of how to do it, but his beloved Sindha was safe for the time being.

The map Averon gave him was as every bit detailed as the wizard promised it would be and he would surely use it to get to Pilgrim’s Peak.

He would just take the route that passed through Vamperstad to hold tight his daughter.