Tokus Numas (16 page)

An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are in line, but the size of the moon is smaller than the Sun. This gives the appearance of a ring, or annulus, surrounding the dark disk of the moon.

—From
The Spearca Dictionary
, by the Vernacular

W
hen the lid popped open, a bright light shown down through the hole. Kad pulled himself all the way out onto his belly and turned to help Petro up the rest of the way. When the two of them were out, they looked around the empty room. Kad tapped Petro’s shoulder, but Petro ignored him. There was another tap, and he continued to ignore him. Then Petro felt a jab in his ribs.

“Hey!” Petro said as he turned around to Kad. There stood Vetus Sepher with two other Numas. One was tall and lanky with a long face. His hair was midlength and flowed straight down. Next to him was another man, probably in his early twenties. His face was round, like that of a baby, and his eyebrows were dark and went up in a funny way when he looked at the wayward recruits. Vetus Sepher motioned the two to come closer, and they did.

“You two are a curious kind; that’s good. We need that in our ranks,” Vetus Sepher said. “Follow me.”

Petro spoke up. “Where to?”

“Always questions,” Vetus Sepher said in a cool, mellow voice. “To start your training.” His eyes were dark and pierced right through Petro.

Petro kept his focus on Vetus Sepher. “We need to be assigned, don’t we? To a specific field to be trained? Is that where the others went?”

Vetus Sepher glanced at the other men with him. The men glanced back and at each other. “No, you aren’t going with the others. You’re coming with us. What we do is different than the others. All those recruits went to bed and will be up at the crack of dawn, taking hot showers and eating their breakfast. After that, they’ll do some chores and come back here to get assigned to a group. After that, they’ll start their training.”

Kad looked very concerned. “And what about us? Do we get to go to sleep, take a hot shower, and eat?”

Vetus Sepher looked Kad up and down and then leaned toward him. “Is that what you want?”

Kad fidgeted with his fingers. His eyes looked to Petro and then back to Vetus Sepher.

Vetus Sepher said to Petro. “Is that what you want?” His eyes were ever so still, as though there were nothing that could lure them away.

Petro knew the answer. He knew that if he said yes, he’d be allowed to join the other recruits. He’d get a nice hot shower and a good breakfast. Then he’d be off to learn what classes he’d take; then he’d be in class, learning from an Agogos. He could see in Vetus Sepher’s eyes that where he was going was far from a classroom, far from the luxuries of life, and somewhere hard, somewhere his entire being would be tested. “No, I want to go where you are going.”

Kad dared not speak one word. He was in for whatever was ahead. Petro looked over at him and nodded.

“Good. I was starting to wonder if you two were like those others.” He paused a moment. “Nothing wrong with the others, mind you. It’s just that what we do is much different, and only a few can do it. This way,” Vetus Sepher said. He led the recruits and the two other Numas out of the auditorium and down a hall, up a stairwell, and outside. There was light high above in the distance, and it lit up the entire village. It was like being outside with the streetlights on in Dugual, but there were no streetlamps here.

“Why’s the moon so bright?” Kad asked. “Oh, there is no moon.”

“It’s not the moon,” the long-faced Numa said. “It’s called the white nights. We are far north, farther than anyone else; and this time of year, we see the midnight sun. We are so close here the light continues to shine upon us even when the sun has set for others.”

Petro looked out to the mountains and wondered why he’d not seen it on the viewer below. Actually, he had, he realized, and he’d thought it was streetlamps or the moon. This was truly a wonder, like nothing he’d ever seen before in Dugual. The only thing that might have come close was the bright moon high up in the sky, but it still was not this bright. It was almost like day yet night at the same time.

“Come on. We’ve got to put some tracks behind us and meet up with the others,” Vetus Sepher said. He quickly put one foot in front of the other, and they were off on a good brisk walk.

Petro still was thinking about where they were headed and why they had picked them. If it was just him, he might have thought it was because of what the Father had said about him. However, all this time, none of the Numas had asked him if he had experienced anything out of the ordinary or told him that they’d been waiting for him as the prophecy had said. It was as if they didn’t care, but that wasn’t true either. Maybe they just weren’t ready to talk to him. Maybe there was nothing to this prophecy; it was made up. Oh, he did see the future on the occasion, but it didn’t help him with anything important, just the one time with Dia and the fallen branch. He’d heard of others with sight, the ability to see something in the future, fortune-tellers they were called.

The night air was cool on his lips and skin. It breathed over his body like an autumn breeze just before winter. Goose bumps rose up, and he shook the chill off. They were moving at a quick pace, making their way up a narrow path higher into the mountains, away from the village. Petro couldn’t see anything ahead of him, just the men in front, but what he did see was beautiful. The landscape glowed in the white night. It all came to life yet seemed asleep, like what he imagined it would be like if he were passing through a gateway to another world. He felt the energy around him, the absence of time, and the thought of drifting through a majestic land.

A fair amount of time had passed, and the climb was getting harder. Petro’s eyes were closing slightly, and his legs felt weighted down to the point where he barely was able to lift them and then set them back down. They had crested the path up to a plateau, and he looked at the entire open area. There were shrubs and then trees beyond that, and a boulder with a large depression in front of it. That’s where they stopped.

Vetus Sepher reached down in front of the boulder and took hold of something in the dirt. He lifted it, and the ground came free. It was another hatch hidden next to the boulder, covered in dirt. He held the door and motioned to everyone inside. They all climbed down the ladder and into an open space lit by low burning torches. It struck Petro as odd that the light outside was much brighter than the torches in this room. He scanned the area only to see a table and four chairs around it. One of the Numas motioned Petro and Kad to move toward it. They went, took a chair, and sat down across from each other. Vetus Sepher joined them at the table, while the two other Numas stood a moment and then departed, going in different directions. One went down a dark hall, and the other went through a door on the far end. Petro wanted to learn more about what they were doing here, but there was a fog in his mind, and his eyes drooped down until they shut.

Vetus Sepher smacked Petro in the back of the head.

Petro gave him an incredulous looked. “Hey!” He rubbed the back of his head.

“Wake up; your time to sleep will come. I want you to focus. You remember that object? The one I told you to find?” Vetus Sepher said as he stared with his cool, dark eyes.

Petro nodded his head and looked over to Kad, who seemed very much awake. His eyes were wide, and a strange sort of grin ran across his face. Petro looked back to Vetus Sepher. “Yes, I remember, Agogos,” Petro said.

“You don’t need to call me Agogos. Not here. We all take names, each of us. Our given name, one we receive to begin our new life, but for now call me Vetus Sepher.” He scanned the room, giving it a quick inspection. Petro thought maybe it was something Vetus Sepher picked up that was second nature to him now. “The object, what did it look like?”

Petro went back in his memory to the room, back in front of the viewers, recalling the different images, and then he recalled the spark of light. Was that it? No way to tell, so he gave it a try. “It was some sort of spark,” he said.

Vetus Sepher frowned. “Oh.” He looked over to Kad. “And what did you see?”

Kad stared on; he didn’t even blink. Vetus Sepher waved his hand in front of him and then smacked him on the back of head. Kad fell forward, and his forehead cracked against the wooden table. He quickly jerked back up and rubbed the painful spot. “Owww, what happened?” He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids hung low, giving in to his exhaustion.

“You fell asleep, and your head hit the table,” Vetus Sepher said and glanced over to Petro. Petro’s head bobbed; the exhaustion was catching up with him as well.

Vetus Sepher looked at the two, summed them up in an instant, pushed away from the table, and got up. He stepped away, looking at them and keeping his eyes mostly on Petro. “You two get some rest. We’ll see you in the morning,” he said and left the room.

Petro was too tired to ask where they were to sleep, and Kad’s face was already planted back on the table, and low snores spilled out of his mouth. This was not what Petro thought it was going to be like. He hadn’t been sure what it would be like exactly, but here he was under a boulder on the top of a mountain plateau, sitting at a table, and listening to a fellow recruit snore away the white night. Petro laid his head down, and soon he was fast asleep.

Those who strive for greatness will fail, and those who strive for nothing will fail, and those who strive for failure will succeed, and greatness will follow.

—From
The Universal Teachings
, by Dr. Setner

P
etro and Kad awoke; their bodies ached, and they were still light-headed. On the table in front of them were two glasses of water. Petro readily took one and drank, gulping it down as quickly as he could, quenching his thirst. Kad took the other and drank it down, too.

Petro’s eyes swept the room. It was an empty place.
Where will we eat?
he wondered. Petro grew tired of this game, and he knew it was a game. They were testing him and Kad—for what he didn’t know. It had been a test from the beginning; he was certain of that now. The two had come this far, but what was next? That was the question. Being here inside a mountain, there were few choices. He could go back up on top and see what was out there.
It’s probably morning
, he thought;
maybe later
. Or he could venture down the hall and see where it led or go through the door at the far end of the room. There was the possibility of going back down to the village and being with everyone else or just letting the Numas know he was done and he wanted to go back to Dugual. Would they let him go? Did it matter? If he wanted, he’d set out on foot if it came to it. No. He shook his head lightly; no, that was not what he was going to do. He was here, and he wanted to know where it would all go. Was there more here for him? Yes, there was; he felt it, and going back would only cause issues at home. It was funny how he’d gone from not wanting to be here at all, to coming here and thinking of leaving, to now having made up his mind to stay. Would his decision waver after being here at Tokus Numas for longer? He wasn’t sure about it; time would tell. Maybe something else would change it. Maybe he’d find out that the Numas were really enemies of Dugual and that they had been using King Amerstall as their puppet all these years to gain access to information and coin for their own guilty pleasures that they hid from the rest of world. He grinned. Yes, that would drive him away from here, no doubt, and he’d be glad of it, but that was not what he truly suspected. He did perceive that Vetus Sepher was a man of conviction. What he said he would do, he did, and he meant what he said. He was not a man who was without resolve, and he reserved his thoughts for the proper time, except for peeing off the side of the wagon. There was no reservation there. He also noticed that Vetus Sepher was a man of few words, and when he did speak, it was best to listen to what he was saying.

Kad was over at the door across the room with his ear against it. Petro came up next to him. “You hear anything?” Kad shook his head. “Come away from there. We should not venture out anywhere at the moment. I think we are meant to stay here for a while.”

The stout young man turned and faced Petro. “And do what?” His face screwed up. “I haven’t eaten in two days. I haven’t had but a few drops of rain on my tongue when they brought me here. They should be taking care of us, and they aren’t. I didn’t sign up for this,” he said.

Petro walked over to the table, pulled the chair to the side of it, sat down, and crossed his legs. “You are being tested, Kad. You and me both. I don’t know how long it will last, but it is a test.”

Kad waltzed over. “A test, eh? I’ve got a test for them right here.” He put his hand into his armpit and made a fart sound.

Petro’s stomach jiggled from the laughter, and he tried desperately to muffle the sound by covering up his mouth. Kad just stared at him blankly, as if whatever he was doing was completely normal. He propped up his head with his hands, and his elbows were on the wooden surface. “So, did your father make you join?”

Petro didn’t think anyone was made to join, that each one of them had a choice, regardless of the consequences. “No, I don’t know my father. I’m staying with a family out in Dugual. I was sent an invitation to join, so I joined.”

Kad sat back, putting his hands behind his head. “Oh, yeah. I don’t know my father either. My mother, I do know. We’re from Clen, a village north of Morella, but not as far north as this place. I’d never seen the white nights until I came here.”

“Me neither.” Petro adjusted his boot. “I don’t know my mother, either. I was brought to my family in Dugual when I was maybe a few weeks old. I don’t remember, of course. The family I stayed with had two other children, younger than me,” Petro said and looked away. He didn’t feel comfortable talking about his royal family. He wasn’t ashamed, but he knew that Kad would probably not be able to relate to a ward from Dugual.

“Oh, well, I’m sure they miss you. My mom misses me, always did when I went off. Didn’t matter if I was gone a day or an hour. She’d get a little upset with me for spending too much time down at a water hole on Mr. Putt’s farm. Mr. Putt grew apples, lots of them. He had a younger daughter, maybe a year or two younger than me. She used to go down to the water hole, too, and just stare at me. I thought she had a crush on me, but each time I went down, she’d be there waiting for me. I never spoke. I was afraid to say anything to her. It was sort of weird. After a while, I started to get the feeling she was planning to kill me,” Kad said with a grin.

Petro’s mouth stretched over his face. His eyes softened, and he relaxed, sliding down in his chair.

“But then one day she came over to me and brought me a basket of apples. I thanked her, and she just stood there, not saying anything. And without any notice, she ran off. The way her eyes went wide just before she fled, I thought maybe I had mud or something on my face or leftovers hanging on my chin,” Kad said.

Petro shook his head. He was still tired, and hungry, but the company was good.

“The next day she came back and brought me an apple strudel. It was still warm when she handed it to me. I thanked her again. She said nothing, so I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth just to see what she would say. She just stared at me, never taking her eyes off me, and then without a word, she ran off again. I started to think to myself,
Is this girl nuts?
Maybe she was trying to kill me, and I’d just ingested poison.” His mouth opened wide and hung there.

Petro chuckled, waiting to hear what was next. He leaned a little forward now but was still relaxed.

“So, I’m still alive, you know.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Petro said and smirked.

“Yeah, I know. So I’m still alive, and the next day she came back and handed me a box. I wasn’t sure what was in the box, and I was hesitant to open it. She stared at me, waiting and waiting and waiting until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, this girl could stare,” Kad said with his hands up in the air.

Petro chuckled, and his stomach rose and fell; he was enjoying the moment.

“So, I opened the box and inside was a ring made of apple stems. It was rather neat looking, sort of like a wreath, but smaller. The stems were intertwined, and you couldn’t tell where one stem started or ended. I took it out, watching her. And I put the ring on my finger; it fit perfectly. Then she smiled and ran off,” Kad said. Dark circles were still present under his eyes; the exhaustion lingered. “I never saw her after that, but you know what?”

Petro sat up. He looked dead into Kad’s eyes. “What?”

“I think that girl means to marry me,” Kad said. He broke out into laughter. Petro joined him, and the two got along quite well.

Footsteps came from the ladder, and Petro looked over to see new recruits, he guessed, who dropped down and filed into the room. The first one was tall, skinny, and without much meat to the bone. He looked a bit crazed in his bright blue eyes, and his hair was reddish fuzz that stuck out on his head. He approached the two, measuring them with his eyes, and then he thrust out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jon.”

Kad shook Jon’s hand, and Petro did the same.

“I’m Petro, and this is Kad.”

Jon nodded.

The next recruit came down. He was about as tall as Petro and nearly the same age, but his skin and eye color were a little darker. He introduced himself as Bran. Kad and Petro introduced themselves. The next young man had a good build and was light skinned, with green eyes and blond fuzz on his head. He was Nalum. Petro and Kad introduced themselves to him. The last one who entered dropped down and hit the floor with a heavy thud. He was stocky like Kad but shorter and had brownish fuzz on top of his head. His eyes were brown as well, and he walked away and went to the other side of the room, not saying a word to any of them. He sat down with his back against the wall and let out a huff of air.

Petro tapped Jon on the shoulder. “Who’s that?”

Jon shrugged. “Don’t know; I think his name is Sha or Shada. When did you arrive?” he said and examined the room.

Petro glanced over his shoulder, looking at the guy against the wall. He seemed familiar, and then he realized it was Sha from Dugual. It was his hair—he looked different; less shaggy was the best he could put it. He thought about going over but decided against it. Now wasn’t the time. All he could do now was hope Sha would just keep his mouth shut about him.

“So how’d you guys end up in here?” Kad asked.

Jon stepped forward, out of the group. “Well, we were sort of not where we were supposed to be. We were looking around in the steeple, just checking it out.”

“He means stealing,” Sha said from across the room.

Everyone glanced at him then back to Jon.

“No, we weren’t stealing. We were just looking around, and there wasn’t anything of value anyway,” Jon said. “What about you?” His question directed to Sha.

“Don’t worry about me. You should worry about the ward,” Sha said, looking at Petro.

Jon, Nalum, Bran, and even Kad slowly looked over to Petro.

“Ward? Should we bow?” Bran said.

“No, wards are clingers,” Nalum said.

“Clingers? What’s that?” Kad said.

Petro was getting upset, very upset; he could feel his face flush and his pulse quicken.

“So, wardo. What should we call you? Clinger, pat—not sure you heard that one, it’s like when you pat someone down for money. Maybe wardo, I just said that, or…” Jon stopped.

It was a good thing, too, that he stopped. Petro thought about knocking Jon right over.

Vetus Sepher shimmied down the ladder, and he headed straight across the room without a word to anyone. He opened a door, went through the doorway, and left the door open. Petro and Kad looked at each other. There was a brief nonverbal exchange of sorry, I’m angry, can I trust you, and all sorts of things between them, and then they quickly followed; the rest of recruits filed in behind the two and headed off into a shadowy corridor.

They entered a new chamber, passing through a doorway into what felt like an open area. It was dark, yet they could see a path before them lit by miniature gas torches. They went forward in single file, their boots shuffling over the dirt terrain. The torches spanned out in an oval room several meters across. If all the recruits stood side by side with their arms outstretched, they might be able to touch the sides. In the center was a dark pool of water, which reflected the surrounding light. Vetus Sepher had them move and encircle the pool, and then he had them turn so their backs faced it. More tiny torches lit up all around them and across the entire chamber to reveal its true dimensions and that it was full of Numas wearing black robes with their hoods drawn up. Their faces were hidden by the overlaying fabric, along with shadows cast by the torch lights. Petro drew in a breath, his brow raised and curved, and he widened his eyes.

“You will never see their faces. They will come in the night when you are asleep or in the daylight when your eyes are wide open, and you will still not see them,” Vetus Sepher said.

Out in the columns of men on the stadium steps, the men echoed. “All be the same, night or day,” the voices chanted.

“And for You who are with us, be still and listen to our brothers speak. They come to us from the grave and spread their wisdom,” Vetus Sepher said.

Again the men chanted, “And for our brothers we are forever grateful.”

“And hear us, O Lord, for we live in You as You live in us. We are Your vessels, and You are our will,” Vetus Sepher said.

The men chanted, “And as we are in You and You are in us, our lives are eternal.”

Petro didn’t know how to feel, how to even be. It was too sudden. The voices carried through the chamber, permeating everything in its path. The moment he saw them, he knew it was just for show, but he was also taken aback by the sheer number of men who stood so quietly and still to be unnoticed until the torches revealed their presence. Their voices gave off a deep low, and the combination of many voices produced an emotion within Petro that was hard to express, to even understand. He was experiencing a feeling he’d never felt before, not once, at any time, yet here it was, and in this place, in Tokus Numas. Petro was bewildered, feeling as if he’d stepped into a world he’d never known to exist. There was power here, and it flowed through him like a current of electricity. Inside he felt his spirit lift and his heart soar, and he felt a belonging. If there was any doubt before, it was all washed away at this moment. His eyes watered, and he found that his emotions were taking control of him as though he were not himself. He felt a tear form and fall to the ground. What was happening to him he could not explain. There was something moving within him, the men’s energy and their presence; and there was meaning beyond meaning here.