Chapter 2
Shortly after I turned two years old, some of our caretakers started packing for a journey, with them they took all those who just turned two or will turn before we reach our destination. It was a couple of weeks of journey and there where 10 of us five adults and five two-year-olds. If you are reading this and you do follow the teaching of the Holy Father and his Keepers you know what is happening. But for those that do not, this migration of children of two years old and their guardians to the capital of our kingdom Agrdis at this specific day must be confusing so let me explain before I continue. This day is called the Day of Creation, when the Holy Father created our world and everything in it, so to show our devotion we visit his church in Agrdis and those of us that do not have a patron Keeper – mainly children and some exceptions such as those that haven't been able to come before- learn who our patron is. We do not choose the patron the Keeper choses us. I will go into more details during the retelling of my own Day of Creation. After a couple of weeks being couped in a carriage with 9 other people all trying to get rid of my best friend, Murtok, while acting like they didn't care that he was constantly on my shoulder and that he didn't matter, while I in fact knew the truth as I could smell their fear, it felt like a blessing to finally arrive at our destination. I would describe to you what the city looked like, the feeling that I felt, but I cannot, because I do not remember much about my first time going there, so you will have to wait until the next time I come here to hear about those. We didn't even go into the city proper we stayed on the road to the church, we built our tents there, and then each guardian took their assigned child and went to the market that pops up whenever the Day of Creation comes around. Why? You might ask. Because one thing I didn't mention was that the Day of Creation is a masquerade, in order to protect the person's identity so that no one but your guardian and the Keeper's attendants knows who your patron is. If you show someone who your Keeper is, you would be showing vulnerability and a huge amount of trust in the person you honor. I go with Olive the only person that could tolerate me and my constant companion. We go from shop to shop never once settling on a set of masks to use in tomorrow's celebration, until we find this one shop manned by a 20 year old man named Darius, unlike all the other shops this wasn't exclusively for masks, it had everything you could imagine and more, it had food, ration, brooms, staffs, books, daggers, amulets, and much more besides. There we found the perfect pair of masks, they were simple things not elaborate and extravagant, they were wooden not golden or silver like those the rich wear, nor were they elaborately shaped, or painted. They were simple wooden masks, with only a coat of paint, but the color was like something I had never seen before, it seemed to be the sunshine mixed with darkness, it was the same darkest black like than my hair or Murtok's feathers, but in the same time it was also bright gold, it was as if the darkness of night and the sunshine of day were mixed together and crafted into those two perfect masks. Now with age by my side I look back to these masks and I find them even more confusing, now I describe them as death and life meeting, the supposed darkness of death and the brilliance of light, and I wonder how did he find them, how did this merchant find things that could have been from another world. So, we tried them on and they were a perfect fit as if someone has tailored them to the both of us, when we went to the counter to pay for our masks, we found Murtok there, the little traitor had left us before to go find food, and here I found him eating from the hands of Darius while having his feathers stroked focusing on him so closely that he didn't even notice when I saw him completely opposed to his nature of disliking anyone but me, however when he noticed me he flew straight to me and even brought me half of the biscuit he was eating for me to eat so, I may have been a little harsh when I called him a traitor.
I was so tired that I fell asleep on the way back and Olive had to carry me back to my little bed, and there I fell asleep the entire night, without interruption not even Murtok protecting me from the twisted, it was as if the twisted had decide that I don't deserve to be tormented on this night and that they would rather enjoy the festivities than come to me and prey on me. I thank them for this brief respite that allowed me to rest for the difficulties of the next day.
We woke before the sun rose from its sleep and the masses went to the church, we waited until before the closed doors. They are massive wooden doors covered in gold standing between columns of white marble, they are so big that a god had to have placed them here and left, I have no idea how they are opened, except by invisible giants. We waited until the sun rose in its majesty, once a year for ten minutes on this day the Day of Creation the sun is positioned perfectly to reflect on the mosaic at the top of the church that the lights become almost liquid flowing down the sides then being reflected by the gold coating of the doors and the white marble in many geometrically determined points so an illusion is created where the church is being bathed by all the colors known and unknown and the marble looks charged as if this light is giving it power. When one sees this I do not understand how they are able to deny the existence of a higher power. And as these colors are starting to die, the doors are thrown open and the gold on it reflects what is remaining of these lights upon us and showers us in warmth, and then we are ushered inside.
If the outside is impressive, I do not know how to describe the inside, it is as if a mountain of marble was hollowed out and we were entering it. Starting from our right wrapping all around are murals of what happened at the creation of the world. Then when I was looking at one of these murals, a bell rang so loud that everything else was silent and then the High Speaker went up onto the podium. He was glory personified, a robe of pure white with gold all around his robe so that he glowed and on his head he wore a crown of glass that when the light reached it, the same illusion that covered the entirety of the church was replicated on his own body. In his hands he carried two things, a book to read from -we don't have a gospel we have books written by certain people who the Speaker of each Keeper with the High Speaker legitimize into the teachings that we should follow in everyday life- and in his other hand he carried a staff with a heart at its top. Why a heart? Let me explain our religion through the murals present at the church. The first mural shows a person that is both man and woman, both human and something else, cutting his heart out of his chest and in the next moment it transforms to create a world. This depicts the start when there was no other being but the Holy Father, but even though he is timeless and ageless he was lonely, and so he reached a hand into his chest and pulled out his heart, and then he breathed life into it, and so our world was created with everything in it from the smallest ant to the biggest of mountains, but if only that was the end, everyone would be happy. In the next mural we a darkness that starts growing in the hole in the Father's chest and infecting his creation. This shows how after a time, a plague of evil started growing in his chest infecting his adored creation with evil and death trying to kill everything he had created with his sacrifice. These are pretty strait forward, the Father started fighting back but some of him was dying and falling apart, but they didn't die completely, they started to merge with parts of the plague that was dying and so he was born the First Keeper, later to be The Banished Lord of Death and Darkness. With his help the Father was able to hold on a little longer but the two of them where not enough. So, we come to the next mural where we see the Holy Father cutting of his fingers and breathing life into each of them, and each turning into a living being a Keeper, the Ten Keepers and they helped him and their older brother keep the plague at bay. To this day they keep the plague controlled but some damage was done to our world that was irreversible, and that was evil, and if for some reason they stop fighting everything we love and cherish will be destroyed. The next couple of murals show the first Keeper was banished but they do not help understand what happened so I will explain. Because he was not solely of him but, was a mix between The Father's love and the death that the plague brought, the Holy Father was afraid of him, afraid of what he could do, how he could wield the plague's death without a second thought, and what the effects of the divine blood and the plagues darkness mixed in something half-alive, half-dead will do. But he couldn't stop loving him and so he didn't end his existence, however he couldn't remain in this world, so the Holy Father created a realm of all that the plague claimed, a realm of death and darkness. And so he was banished to this realm and commanded to never come back to our world the realm of living, except to collect the souls of those would live in his domain. This day the day that the world was born and the Keepers triumphed on the plague, became the Day of Creation, where everyone came to the church and found who their patron would be. This ceremony is important, not because the patron would protect his chosen, but because if all else fails the Keepers could use the power from their wards to hold of the plague, but that is a last resort that no one had witnessed yet, because many would die.
The high speaker kept talking for a couple hours, all the while I was trying to drag Olive away with me, because the tug that I felt when I first saw Murtok has returned, but this time it wasn't urgent, the tug felt gentle, welcoming as if my patron had seen me here and could not wait to meet me, and I knew that Murtok felt it as well by the way he kept pacing on my shoulders, and looking in the direction of the tug, and we both felt it deep in our bones, the welcome that awaited us, the cold that I could only describe as the cold you feel when you finally enter your home after being gone for months, a cold that settled on our bones with safety and relaxation. And finally, after what felt like years he stopped talking and finally we started walking going down to the Doors.
The doors is the room that leads to the churches' of the Keepers and that is where we go to choose our patron, the Ten Keepers are The Keeper of Mercy and Peace Patron of The Clergy, The Keeper of Violence and War Patron of Gladiators, The Keeper Love and Light Patron of The Married, The Keeper of Courage and Strength Patron of Warriors, The Keeper of Truth and Honesty Patron of The Magistrate, The Keeper of Deceit and Dishonesty Patron of Criminals, The Keeper of Grace and Majesty Patron of Nobles, The Keeper of Strays and The Lost Patron of The Adrift, The Keeper of Wisdom and Knowledge Patron of Scholars, The Keeper of Luck and Fortune Patron of Merchants, and finally The Banished Lord of death and Darkness Patron of The Dead. Most children wander around for a while sometimes hours before finding their Keeper, but I already knew who my Keeper was, he was calling to me, tugging me to come to him. Unlike everyone else I didn't stop at the floor of the doors, I continued going down, unlike the other Keepers the Banished didn't have a door, you just continued going down until there is no light only darkness and only then will you have reached his church. With every step I took the smell of sweetness coming from Olive increased, until we reached total darkness where the light didn't dare reach, and then we continued going down, until we saw a faint blue light. When we reached the light we saw a cave so vast that its roof is nothing other than darkness materialized, and everywhere you look there are tombs and graves, perfectly preserved, worshipped. Wherever you look you see signs that you are in the domain of the dead, that here the living have no opinion, but at the end of a row of graves a door lays waiting, a door that the tug at my the core of my being would not let me avoid going through now that I saw it. Olive tried her best to drag me away but she is a living being, I am half dead, claimed by death before the day I was born, and here in the realm of my soon to be patron no one could stop me. So, I took the necessary steps and opened the door. Inside I found 5 people eating, and they looked shocked to see us. What a bizarre sight we were a child leading his guardian behind him both with masks that didn't belong in this world, and a raven on my shoulder. Then I spoke the first words I ever uttered, words that the tug compelled me to say, "I seek patronage".
The look of shock on their faces, I will never forget it, but then the oldest spoke, "I am Speaker Lux, my child" his voice was raspy as if it was being grinded before coming out of his mouth, "and these 4 are all the attending of the Banished, you must be mistaken, non have ever sought his patronage, no one alive at the very least, even us his servants, do not bare his mark".
It seemed that I had run out of words and so I just looked at him, Murtok mimicking me, and the he squawked, and the message was clear and it said, do we look alive to you.
Then the sweetness of fear was almost overpowering, and it came from everyone here. But alas he could not refuse me, once a child enters a Door for the first time they cannot leave without the mark of their patron. Which prompted him with a voice filled with resign to say, "then remove your mask my child, there is nothing you could hide from you patron, and follow us to get your mark". I did as he bid, removing my mask and letting my hair of pure darkness show and followed them into the next room over. When I entered I saw that the attendants had arranged themselves by the wall while the Speaker stood behind the chair waiting for me. So, I went to the seat, dragging behind me an ever more fearful Olive and a joyful Murtok. When I sat, Lux spoke again, " I do not know why you would want the patronage of the Banished, and there has never been anyone before you that has claimed his patronage that we know of, so if you are sure, take of your shirt and let us start," and while I took my shirt of Olive went to stand next to the attendants, Lux went to a cubby in the wall and retrieved something, and then he continued, "we had thought to throw this brand away, since we thought no one would ever come into this room, but alas we cannot break customs and do as we wish, so get ready this is going to take a bit and will hurt all the time it is connected to your skin." As he moved forward to put it I saw what it was a collection of small tanks of ink attached to a metal piece in the symbol of the Banished, but I didn't fear it, not the pain or what it symbolized this the tug I felt assured me is going to help me. So, I didn't scream when he approached me, I didn't scream as he put it on my shoulder, I didn't scream when he told me to get ready, I didn't scream as it started to bite into my flesh taking it apart, I didn't scream as the ink filled the cracks that the machine had left in my skin, I didn't scream when he came and took the machine away, after seeing the mark on my skin. But I did examine it closely, a dying tree about to fall beneath it a lake of complete black but in that lake we see the tree back in its prime. It is His most widespread symbol that shows that death is only a part of life and not the end that we will go on to another world, but he has many other symbols not all with this cheer behind them, a skull, a headstone, a decaying hand being pulled away from a healthy hand, a man screaming as he is pulled down into the ground by vines of darkness.
Then I looked into Murtok's eyes still at my other shoulder and I saw that he knew it was wrong and that this was not his true symbol, so I trusted him because deep down I also knew that it was wrong. And so we did what must be done to correct this error, I stroked him for a little while and then pulled out a feather, and he pulled a clump of my hair. I heard the confused gasps of everyone around but they didn't matter all that mattered was to correct the error that they had done and they could do nothing to stop us. I then laid the hair and feather on my still tender skin, and mentally told Murtok that I was ready so that he was to proceed and fix this error on my shoulder. He hopped on my other shoulder and he started tearing out my skin and the ink they already put in, mixing my hair and his feather into the new cracks in my skin. While he worked, I looked at the commotion all around me and I saw them all screaming and trying to come near us to stop Murtok from his job, but I couldn't allow them and here in the kingdom of my patron they had no power. So I commanded them to come no closer and they were physically incapable to intervene, until it was done. After an indeterminable amount of time, way longer than that machine took, Murtok was finally done and I was able to drop my command of the others, but when they saw my a blood soaking Murtok they were afraid to come closer, but when the saw the new symbol, the true symbol they would not come any closer, in fact they started backing away. I then looked at the symbol on my shoulder, a dark blob of darkness that when looked upon you see everything and nothing, you see all the symbols I talked about and many others, you see symbols that we didn't know existed, you see shapes that our minds could not comprehend, you see total darkness, you see light so bright that it could blind and in the same time you see nothing at all you see flesh of my skin.
As I examined it more closely and saw that Murtok had done a fantastic job, I felt something change inside of me. It was as if I had a raging storm living in my chest, and now when I looked inside of myself I only found gentle winds, that I could guide, that I could use to do anything once I learn to control them. But it didn't mean that these winds are weaker than the storm that had previously lived in me. These winds are far stronger, because I could use them, and I could guide them to be needles when needed and hurricanes that know nothing other than destruction when needed.
I didn't care to wait for them to retrieve their wits so I took back my shirt and mask from Olive's stunned fingers and put them back on and started going back up. Half way up the stairs Olive finally rejoined me and we completed our journey back into the tent we had constructed without a word spoken or a sound uttered.