It was hard to put into words just how good it felt slipping my filthy body into the steaming water of the tub. I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of satisfaction. I scrubbed probably longer than I should of as there was a knock at the door.
“Bakus, it’s Rycan. Please finish up shortly and get dressed, my master wishes to speak with you and it isn’t good to keep him waiting too long.”
Looking at my hands, I realized they had shriveled up and turned into raisins. I sighed, “I’ll be out in a few minutes,” I replied as I stood up and grabbed the towel.
In my room, there had been a rough smock and underclothes. One sized to easily fit most people. I slipped the clothing on and tied the provided ‘belt’ around my waist. The outfit made me feel like I was ten again and wearing my father’s clothing. The smock ended just above my knees as it wasn’t meant for someone as tall as I was. The bulk of the cloth was bunched up making me look twice as large as my scrawny frame normally showed. There was no mirror in the simple room but I could imagine how ridiculous I looked in the outfit.
When I opened the door, Rycan was standing there looking impatient. I saw the beginning of a smirk as he saw my outfit before he suppressed it. “Come on, Master is quite busy and not the youngest of men.”
I followed the man as he took quick strides down the hall. If it wasn’t for my tall frame and fit physique, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with his rapid stride.
Rycan led me to the far end of the building and knocked on a thick wooden door before popping his head inside. “Master, I brought the initiate.”
“Show him in,” a deep baritone voice spoke from beyond the door.
“Alright, head on in, Bakus.” He pushed the door open and stepped to the side.
“You aren’t coming in with me?” I asked, a bit of trepidation in my voice.
“Naw, no need, this is a conversation between you and Master. I’ll catch you at dinner.”
“Oh… alright,” I replied as I stepped into the room.
The first thing that caught my eye was the books. The entire room was filled with walls of books. I realized it was a library, I had never seen one before but my father had described places like it to me.
“A reader, eh,” the same voice from before spoke.
When I turned my head to take in the speaker, I got my second shock. In front of me was the most wizened man I had ever seen. He was more wrinkle than man and reminded me of a dried-up piece of fruit. With skin so dark it was almost pitch black and a cane of knarled wood, he stared at me. While his body had weathered the passage of time rather poorly, his eyes were crystal clear flakes of topaz. You could feel the weight of the man behind that stare. I couldn’t help but shiver.
“Uh… yes. I mean, I read a few books but they are hard to come by.”
The man simply nodded and motioned for me to sit in a pair of chairs near a fireplace.
After I took my seat – I noticed the man hadn’t sat despite his age – he spoke. “Rycan has told me your story but I would like to hear it from you. That boy tends to dramatize stuff a bit too much.”
It took around an hour to go through my story but the man just nodded after I finished. “It mostly matches up, I will have to smooth some ruffled feathers in the Order of the Purifying Flame but Gabrielle is a reasonable woman. Where are my manners? I forgot to give you my name. Rycan and the others call me Master but they are sticklers for rules. I would prefer if you just called me Mgumba.”
“Um… I don’t know if I should, if the others call you Master, it may make me look bad or stand out if I don’t as well.”
“Bah, the man waved, and I swear I felt the entire room shift. Fine, call me by my first name when we are alone and by Master where others can hear. Kids these days, no respect for their elderly.”
I quickly nodded, not wanting to anger the ancient Chosen.
“What do you know of the Order?” Mgumba asked, changing the subject as he finally took a seat across from me.
“Just what I read in books and what the other three told me on our way here. Mostly they covered some of the politics of the Order, but didn’t go into a lot of detail.” Mgumba grunted in distaste when I mentioned politics.
“An unfortunate part of our lives. As for the books, I assume you mean the story of the first chosen? Useless drivel, written by a failed initiate that was driven from the Order due to his less than savory proclivities. I would have preferred to just have killed the man myself but back then I wasn’t in charge.”
“Back then?” I asked, thinking the man was a bit confused. “Haven’t those stories been around for hundreds of years?”
The man let out a deep chuckle. “Let this be your first lesson. Gaining a gift, blessing, or calling, however, you wish to name it, grants more than just our mastery over the Mother’s elements. How old do you think I am? Don’t be shy, I won’t be mad if you guess wrong.”
“Uh, Ninety?”
The man let out a deep rumbling laugh. “If only. No, my fine man, I am three hundred and twenty-two years old.”
My jaw dropped. “But, how!”
“The gift imparts extended life and slows aging.”
I collapsed back into the highback chair in stunned silence. It took a minute for my mind to process. The old Master seemed content to sit and wait while I procced what he told me. After a few minutes, I managed to ask another question. “How does nobody know this?”
“Most people are content to be ignorant of this fact. The few that do find out and test their luck in the cursed cities either manage to join the ranks of the Chosen or…” he shrugged.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I nodded, knowing exactly what he left out.
There were some more questions that I wanted to have answered but as soon as I opened my mouth to ask, he held up his hand. “This will go faster if I just tell you what’s what. While some Order’s keep their members in the dark, I find that to be deceitful. As Chosen, we have a duty and should go about it armed with as much knowledge as we can, hence the books you see here. The first thing you should know is how the order came about.”
“Didn’t it start in response to protecting people from the Father’s monsters?”
“No. It has been around far longer than most people realize in one form or another. After the fall of the ancestors, humanity faced a crisis of faith. What that crisis was, even I don’t know. The knowledge of those times was mostly scoured from the world. That much we know because it was the Order that scoured that knowledge and removed any remnants of the ancestors that we could find. Well, technically it was the precursor organization that came before the Order. It was a rather draconian measure to prevent further loss of life. You have to understand that back then humanity had been whittled down to a mere million or so people. This group ruled the world and ruthlessly suppressed humanity's growth for fear of repeating the same mistakes that the ancestors made. I can’t say I agree with their methods but perhaps their goal.”
“But it's been so many generations, surely everything of the ancestors that could cause problems are gone and there was no longer a need to stay so vigilant.”
Mgumba chuckled. “If that were so, you and I wouldn’t be here.”
“The fallen cities!”
Mgumba nodded. “Before the order, they were considered cursed land and nobody ever went near them. Back towards the end of the Order’s precursor organization, they were more bureaucrat than a faith-based organization by that point. Someone in charge got it in their head that they could take on the cursed cities and remove them as a threat to the world and they convinced their legions of followers to make the attempt.” I winced at that which earned a knowing nod from Mgumba.
“Out of the thousands of faithful that entered these cities, only two survived. Care to guess who they were?”
There were two names that came to mind. “Lou Shin and Amy Pond? …Wait, then are you Mgumba Duwun!” How had I not made the connection?
The small raisin of a man chuckled. “No, although I share the same name. He was my great grandfather. I actually met both Lou Shin and Amy Pond in my youth. The Pyron blessed man was an ass. I doubt anyone would have dealt with him if it wasn’t for his wife Amy reigning in his angry temper. Those two founded the Order, specifically the chapter of the Purifying Flame. A pompous name for a self-important man. My great grandfather didn’t see eye to eye with the couple and started our chapter. But that’s how the Order came about. Since then we have kept the world from sliding back into the dark times and the times of the ancestors by keeping dangerous items out of dangerous people's hands.”
“The occultists?”
“Some are, but most of them aren’t a true threat. Take your former neighbors. While they may be occultists, there was no evidence of them producing dangerous items. Even though they revere the ancestors, we let them be. That was the main point of contention for my great grandfather and the Purifying Flame chapter of the Order. He believed that people should be allowed to think and do what they wanted so long as it didn’t bring harm to the populous at large. His opinions were seen as heretical back in the early days and the two chapters warred with each other for a few decades before coming to a truce. It's why you see these old buildings built like fortresses. But enough history for today. Go get yourself fitted for a proper tunic and pants and get some food. Tomorrow I will have Rycan or one of the others bring you to the tower. If you chose to stay, your training will begin then.”
I took his words as a dismissal and did as he told me to. The tailor fussed over my body, making me feel awkward as he measured everything before excusing me. I had plenty to think about and most of the time spent before dinner went by in a blur as my mind processed everything.
The biggest takeaway was the fact that I might live for a few hundred years or more. Mgumba hadn’t said how old he was when he gained his calling. The other thing was that he had actually met the first three chosen and one was even his great grandfather. I was a bit overwhelmed but I was leaning on staying for a few reasons. The man was a font of knowledge and I would be ignorant to not take advantage of this fact.
Maybe he could also help me locate my father or clues to where he may have gone. I had the map but I suspected that was only going to lead me to more places the occultists gather at. It felt wrong to delay the search for my father but on the other hand, the man had lied to me my entire life, then when things got tough he up and vanished without even a warning to me. I wanted answers from him more than an apology.
After getting dressed again in the overly large outfit, I quickly located the dining room. There was a long rectangular wooden table large enough to seat thirty people. Master Mgumba was already seated at the head of the table near a fireplace with about eight other people moving to take up seats. Going by their dress, at least four were initiates like me. Although none were as young as me. That left one more Master that I hadn’t met.
The man didn’t look up when I entered, his head bent over in prayer. Or I assumed that was what he was doing with his hands locked together and his lips wordlessly reciting something.
Rycan waved to me and I made my way over to the table. My seat was on the opposite side as I assumed by the current seating arrangement that Masters sat on one side and initiates on the other. There was no time for small talk as Master Mgumba tapped his cane on the floor causing everyone to instantly turn his way.
“We have a new arrival, please, everyone, take a moment to welcome Bakus.”
There was polite clapping from the initiates and the three I had come in with, but the praying man looked at me with annoyance at being interrupted as he half-heartedly joined in.
The meal went by quietly as everyone ate and then left to go about their tasks. I managed to get Rycan to wait a moment after the meal so I could ask him something. “Rycan, a moment of your time, please.”
“Um, oh, sure… what’s up?”
“Well, a lot of things but mainly it's about my father.” I had decided during dinner to ask Rycan or one of the others if they could check those other locations on the map for my father while they were out on duties. “You remember I was looking for him, right?”
“Sure, but what does this have to do with me?” he asked in confusion.
“Well, if I stay here at the tower I might miss him if he is at these other locations I found marked on my map before I can search them. I know it’s a lot to ask but could you and your team check these out if you are in the area?” I handed him the rolled-up map. I was trusting him and his team to do this for me but I had still made a rough sketch of the map on separate paper, along with the numbers just in case.
He took the rolled-up map and looked at it strangely. “Odd, where did you get this map from? No, never mind, doesn’t matter. I guess we could check them out. This one led you to those occultists, right?” He was pointing at the circled mark.
I nodded.
“Alright, I can’t guarantee we will check them out right away but if one led to an occult location, I’m guessing the others do as well, so we should probably look into them anyway. I will let you know what we find when we next return.” He waved me off and hurried out of the room.
My father needed to answer some questions. Like why he lied to me for most of my life. I also put partial blame on him for Gan’s death. If he had told me the truth, it may have changed my decision to become a Chosen. Even if it hadn’t changed my decision, I wouldn’t have returned to the town looking for him like some ignorant fool.
The rest of the blame for my friend's death fell squarely on my shoulders and I would never forgive myself. Sure Gan attacked me but he only attacked me to defend his family, it isn’t anything less than what I would have done so I didn’t hold the attack against him. Although I did wish he would have tried to speak with me first, I understand why he didn’t. Giving up his only advantage which was stealth to have a chat with someone that might have god-given powers wasn’t a smart idea.