Read Online Temple of the Traveler: Book 02 - Dreams of the Fallen by Scott Rhine - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Scott Rhine
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brilliant flash burst into his mind.
“ Calligrose has already told you everything he wishes you to know. ”
This was what the Traveler had wanted since he founded the Way. It was like the way the Brotherhood hid the higher secrets, in pieces that had to be dovetailed together. Each of the Six Paths held a single piece of the mystery. A single human had to master each of the paths and hold the fragments in his mind. Only then would the true secret be revealed, a secret even gods and archfiends could not speak of.
The moment passed. Uncontrollable shaking overcame the sheriff as the landslide of thoughts buried him. His second question answered, another day passed in the world beyond the City of the Gods.
Chapter 8 – The Walls of Sleep
The group of Kiaterans who Tashi had freed from the dungeons called themselves the Stone Monkeys. They were slightly shorter and wider than most people on the shore of the Inner Sea and had to remain hidden to avoid re-imprisonment. Their names also spoke of their northern heritage: Sven, Olaf, Bjorn, and Ekvar. Taking turns watching the Temple of Sleep from the hills, they used a linen cloak as a giant drawing board to record their observations. Artisans and artificers by trade, they first sketched the round temple that resembled a sports arena or theater. The temple was almost three stories tall at the peak of the dome, the tallest structure in the ramshackle town. All main roads were spokes off of this central hub of the temple. All buildings ringed around them like the layers of a giant onion, with the most important and best-constructed ones closest to the center. The huts on the outermost rings looked more like wood mushrooms attached to the sides of existing structures than buildings in their own right.
“We go in through the dead quarter, north of the temple,” Bjorn ordered the scouts.
“See. There are no patrols through here,” he bragged after they belly-crawled over the last hill.
“That’s because there are no roads,” complained Sven, wading through a rice field. “I have to take off my boots, and the cuffs of my pants reek of animal manure.”
“It’s not all from animals,” Olaf pointed out.
“Thanks,” replied Sven trying not to step in the thicker mud.
“The smell will get better once we get closer to town,” promised Bjorn.
It didn’t.
Immediately to the north of the temple lay the extensive and still-growing city dump. The mounds of waste weren’t well-organized or even covered with dirt in most cases, so the intense odor kept the entire wedge of the onion depopulated.
height="0" width="29">They discovered that guards inside the city worked in twelve-hour shifts, changing at sunup and sundown. After listening to all their reports before the tiny peat fire that night, Jotham the Tenor commented in his high, lilting voice, “We know about the sentries and daily work schedules but nothing about what goes on inside . Several times, I’ve noticed that the handmaidens of Zariah walk among the people without being seen.”
“But we see them just fine,” countered Bjorn, the thin-bearded spokesman for the Stone Monkeys.
“You’ve never been guided through sleep by one of the handmaidens,” explained Jotham. “It’d be a simple suggestion to plant. They’re not invisible, merely ignored. Think of how nobles fail to notice servants in their bathhouse or beggars in the street.”
The Monkeys grudgingly admitted that this was the sort of trickery that the crone Zariah often practiced. “It’d make spying on her own followers easier. But sometimes the people do see the handmaidens at the entrance to the Temple.”
As the High Priest of the Traveler, Jotham was the accepted expert on mysteries. He had one brown eye from his Mandibosian side and one blue from his Imperial. His hair had also been turned prematurely white from passing through one of the Doorways, making him look twice his age. “Sometimes the trigger for a suggestion
“ Calligrose has already told you everything he wishes you to know. ”
This was what the Traveler had wanted since he founded the Way. It was like the way the Brotherhood hid the higher secrets, in pieces that had to be dovetailed together. Each of the Six Paths held a single piece of the mystery. A single human had to master each of the paths and hold the fragments in his mind. Only then would the true secret be revealed, a secret even gods and archfiends could not speak of.
The moment passed. Uncontrollable shaking overcame the sheriff as the landslide of thoughts buried him. His second question answered, another day passed in the world beyond the City of the Gods.
Chapter 8 – The Walls of Sleep
The group of Kiaterans who Tashi had freed from the dungeons called themselves the Stone Monkeys. They were slightly shorter and wider than most people on the shore of the Inner Sea and had to remain hidden to avoid re-imprisonment. Their names also spoke of their northern heritage: Sven, Olaf, Bjorn, and Ekvar. Taking turns watching the Temple of Sleep from the hills, they used a linen cloak as a giant drawing board to record their observations. Artisans and artificers by trade, they first sketched the round temple that resembled a sports arena or theater. The temple was almost three stories tall at the peak of the dome, the tallest structure in the ramshackle town. All main roads were spokes off of this central hub of the temple. All buildings ringed around them like the layers of a giant onion, with the most important and best-constructed ones closest to the center. The huts on the outermost rings looked more like wood mushrooms attached to the sides of existing structures than buildings in their own right.
“We go in through the dead quarter, north of the temple,” Bjorn ordered the scouts.
“See. There are no patrols through here,” he bragged after they belly-crawled over the last hill.
“That’s because there are no roads,” complained Sven, wading through a rice field. “I have to take off my boots, and the cuffs of my pants reek of animal manure.”
“It’s not all from animals,” Olaf pointed out.
“Thanks,” replied Sven trying not to step in the thicker mud.
“The smell will get better once we get closer to town,” promised Bjorn.
It didn’t.
Immediately to the north of the temple lay the extensive and still-growing city dump. The mounds of waste weren’t well-organized or even covered with dirt in most cases, so the intense odor kept the entire wedge of the onion depopulated.
height="0" width="29">They discovered that guards inside the city worked in twelve-hour shifts, changing at sunup and sundown. After listening to all their reports before the tiny peat fire that night, Jotham the Tenor commented in his high, lilting voice, “We know about the sentries and daily work schedules but nothing about what goes on inside . Several times, I’ve noticed that the handmaidens of Zariah walk among the people without being seen.”
“But we see them just fine,” countered Bjorn, the thin-bearded spokesman for the Stone Monkeys.
“You’ve never been guided through sleep by one of the handmaidens,” explained Jotham. “It’d be a simple suggestion to plant. They’re not invisible, merely ignored. Think of how nobles fail to notice servants in their bathhouse or beggars in the street.”
The Monkeys grudgingly admitted that this was the sort of trickery that the crone Zariah often practiced. “It’d make spying on her own followers easier. But sometimes the people do see the handmaidens at the entrance to the Temple.”
As the High Priest of the Traveler, Jotham was the accepted expert on mysteries. He had one brown eye from his Mandibosian side and one blue from his Imperial. His hair had also been turned prematurely white from passing through one of the Doorways, making him look twice his age. “Sometimes the trigger for a suggestion
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