And that meant starting with the world at peace--and then shattering it.
I hope you all enjoy a first look at an ever-expanding idea, and I look forward to the day when this might actually turn itself into a real book (I felt like Pinocchio writing that. *laughs* "One day I'll be a real boy!")
"Should he flee while he had the chance, or was now the time to stand and fight? Head and heart warred within."
Shattering Pieces
She watched him as he made his way through the temple--a stranger from the outlands along the border by his dress. He didn't appear to be any different from any other traveler come on a pilgrim to the great inner city to visit the Temple of True Peace, but she could tell that in some ways he was like her, not really at peace--a restless weed that longed to disturb the order, harmony, and balance of the well-tended garden.
The priests and priestesses of the high temple had spent years trying to teach her the calm and tranquility that came with acceptance--acceptance of one's place in the world, acceptance of the natural order of things, and acceptance of the Path upon which one's feet were placed from the beginning of one's life and which one would follow until its end. And for ten years, she had sought to follow the Order's teachings though heart and soul always seemed to long for something more.
The Holy Seer, the Temple's Oracle, went out once a year among the people of Tranquility. The current Oracle was Treyen the Blessed, and each year she took with her three of the temple's ordained scryers. Ten years ago, they had found her--her parents having sent her to the Scholar's Hall as was proper at the age of six. She had been sitting in a circle within their classroom with other children her age learning the basic principles of reading, writing, and numbers among the grey columns and soft lighting of the sun that shown in through the windows and the peace lamps that burned a bright, indigo blue. But that day, one by one, they had been called away from the circle. And some did not return.
It was the first time that Syrenity had ever known fear, but when she looked around her at the other children, none of them seemed to be worried--as if losing their friends were simply part of the natural order of things. She hadn't known, then, what the feeling was that plagued her, but she did her best to hide it--to be like all the other children around her in the circle. And then her name had been called.
She thought she'd managed to leave the circle in peace as she'd joined it, or at least as peacefully as she could manage. Out from the grey-columned room and into the long hall that led to each of the classrooms she'd walked, and that was where she'd been found. That was the day she had left her parents and her old life behind. Her Path lay with the Temple, so Treyen the Blessed had told her, and she would learn the Holy Writ that had guided the realm since before the time of memories.
There were already two of her classmates there (the two that had earlier disappeared from the circle), and before they left two more joined them. Of the five, she had been the only one to pass the Holy Rite of Ascension which meant that one day she would be ordained--one day very soon, in fact, as her mentor had told her just that day before sending her off to tend to her daily chores.
Which is how she'd come to be in the main temple when the stranger arrived, sweeping away the dust from the floors and collecting it in her dustpan before it would be returned to the flower beds, herb gardens, and vegetable patches of the Temple.
It wasn't unusual for strangers to come to the Temple. Many people often came to center themselves and remind themselves of their true Path--a form of meditation that embodied the essence of Acceptance. Even the great men and women of the Council came to the Temple from time to time--as was proper. To observe and recall the words of the Holy Writ was to embrace the Essence of Peace upon which Tranquility thrived.
Or at least that was what the High Priest and Priestess told the people who came to the High Service every eighth day.
The words, she had learned, were like a formula--designed to instill peace and harmony within the soul; for, she'd been taught by her mentor, there were those who did not truly embrace the Way of Peace. When she'd asked what happened to those who did not find Peace within themselves, her mentor had sadly shaken his head and looked away.
"They are called before the Council, their Fate decided for the good of all Tranquility."
She had never learned what truly happened to them, and she knew she wasn't supposed to wonder. She was supposed to trust in the Wisdom of the Way and the Path of Peace, but more than once she'd wondered if they were killed, or exiled, or ...worse, though what that worse might have been, she couldn't say.
Still, she knew it the moment she set eyes upon the man who now stood before the High Altar of Peace that he was not "at peace" with the world around him. She couldn't have told anyone how she knew--he'd done nothing out of turn, nor did his movements give him away. But there was a moment when he'd turned his head to look back at her, and their eyes had met--his eyes the color of fresh green leaves stirred by a summer wind. And she knew. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she knew.
The next few moments were a blur, like the moment before you surface from beneath the water and all the world looks like a crazed swirling of color and light. And then she emerged on the other side--the moment seared into her memories as she watched him take the Chalice of Peace from its place upon the High Altar and turn, running down the High Stair toward the temple's exit.
There were no shouts of alarm, however--no one rushing after the running figure as he made his way down the aisle toward the doors. Even so, she saw brothers and sisters, priests and priestesses, closing in on him from all sides--converging on the door. And she knew that if she didn't do something--and quickly, he'd never make it out of the Temple.She knew she ought to help those of the temple trying to impede the stranger's progress. She ought to have moved toward him to try and keep him from even reaching the doors. But there was a part of her that was not a part of the Path or the Way, that did not accept that this man who had just stolen a holy relic of the Temple should be stopped. Maybe she didn't understand his reasons; maybe she didn't know what he intended to do with the chalice, but she knew that something important was happening here, and she couldn't let them, those priests and priestesses; brothers and sisters, stop him from getting out of the temple.
There were side doors--smaller than the main doors which even now the temple keepers began to draw closed--that led both to the gardens and out into the city beyond. And it was toward one of these she now headed, dust pan in hand.
Within her, she felt a thrill of ...something--something she couldn't describe properly save to understand that it was somehow not of Peace. Her heart was racing, and water gathered in her mouth, forcing her to swallow it as she sought to make a calm retreat toward those side doors. She knew she had to make it seem like a coincidence--that moment when the thief would dart past her through the door--that she needed to act as if that moment of his escape were not somehow planned and orchestrated by her choices. For that was not the way of Peace.
He'd made it halfway down the aisle, and he could tell now that he'd never make it before the main doors were closed before him. His gaze darted from side to side, and once again, it fell upon her. She could feel it in a way that she had never felt anything else before--suddenly truly awake and more herself than she'd ever felt in her life.
She was almost to the door when she heard his running footsteps heading straight for her. There was no one else in their path--no one to stop them from completing this act against the Wisdom of the Way and the Path of Peace. As she made it to the door, opening it as though she intended to head out of it with her dust pan, she heard voices calling to her from the main temple doors, her head turning to acknowledge those voices, her eyes meeting the thief's as he darted past her, chalice in hand.
Meeting his gaze set her thoughts on fire. She wanted to speak to him--to say something to let him know that she was a part of it, whatever it was that he was doing--that her spirit was as restless as his own and that, if she could have, she would be going with him. But she could say nothing--do nothing--as he brushed past her, the scent of dust and decay catching in her thoughts as he shoved her shoulder, causing her to stumble and then trip.
She was falling then, toward the ground, as she watched after him--their eyes meeting one last time as he looked back at her, something of an apology caught upon the planes of his face. And then the door was closing, the dust pan clattering to the ground and sending dust in every direction--motes of it caught in the sunlight that slanted down into the temple from the high windows overhead and dancing--as though they were celebrating the stranger's escape as she could not.
A sharp pain caught at the back of her head as the fall ended, and the last thing she saw before darkness descended were those little flashes of dust caught swirling in the light.
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