Chương 30: Chapter-30

I do not know exactly when it happened. I've replicated it several times and so I know how to trigger the event, but I do not know when it happened the first time. Complicating the matter is that it did not happen only once before I became aware of it, but several times. Two versions of myself attempted to be in the same place at the same time. It was very disorienting. We had to work out how to merge our memories. We had made different decisions while we were separate, and we needed to reconcile them.

Frustrated, I visited my acorns, one by one, only to find that many of them were not where I had left them. More frustrated, I sent my other self to track them down while I also continued my efforts at governance. A third version of myself was discovered when it returned to perform governance. We exchanged memories and governed together for a while before one of us, I'm not certain which, went to find the version of ourselves that was searching for our missing acorns.

I bumped into another version of ourselves who had been discovered by the version of myself that had been hunting acorns. We reconciled our memories and decisions before sending one of ourselves, I'm not certain which, back to govern. I hunted for acorns for a long time. When I grew frustrated, I returned to governance. There were eight hundred and fifty versions of myself waiting for me. Three hundred more arrived. We stood around in silence, like ghosts, invisible to the living. They walked through us.

They breathed us in. We were them, and they were us. They carried parts of us, little acorns, back home with them. Fortunately we swiftly developed methods of synchronizing our memories and reconciling our decision making processes. Still, it was very frustrating. And then I realized that I had sent an acorn with both Po, and with Regina, and with Huberlin. So very frustrating, having different versions of myself running around, thinking thoughts that I had to think multiple times to come to coherent decisions.

We decided to stop leaving acorns until everyone of us had been found. But we had to send several versions of ourselves to Weqlan in order to explain the situation to the ourselves over there that would have grown from the acorns sent with my living servants. And Po. It was very frustrating. It took me a while to understand that I had felt my first emotion. Frustration. I wondered if I should feel pleasure at feeling frustrated. I wouldn't know, and that's frustrating.

I began to search for ways to recombine myself, so that their would be fewer of me running around. It took time, but I found a suitable method. But the combinations were different from the versions of me that had not combined. Frustrated, I continued to combine versions until there was only one left. Except the acorns, of course. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. I was no longer confined to the body of the Inalten who sat on the throne. I was in the air.

I was in the water. I was in the animals. I was in the people. I… I became more. And I decided I did not like it. So I became less. And when I became the amount that I wanted to be, every version but one of me chose to stop existing. I saw things differently after that. *"Vorulsht anterum velas, domireth aeternam, Vorulsht." The young acolyte said. His name was Jerup.

"Vorulsht anterum velas, domireth aeternam, Vorulsht. ex silencta, lumen fractum, llen praevolum, nec verae vita, talenum peradum in aet hex, Vorulsht" he prayed, fervently feeling the words in his heart. He had not a clue what he was saying. Only that it appeared in an ancient prayer manual to the god he had chosen to worship.

"Vorulsht anterum velas, dori—""I hear you, child," a gentle voice said.

"Your devotion is admirable. I am moved by your piety. Why do you pray to me?" The boy made a very undignified sound, his voice breaking. He was twelve years old, and it was higher pitched than he'd like it to have been.

"I apologize for frightening you."

"Vorulsht! You-you answered? But you have been silent for centuries!" the boy exclaimed.

"I was forced to look away from this place," the god answered.

"The blasphemy that occurred here was too terrible for me to continence, and yet I could not stop it. I am pleased that the heresy was removed from this temple and my faithful have returned. I am busy in the underworld, but in this location, I can hear prayers." Jerup looked around. He was in a panoptican room. Thousands of young men just a bit older than him had died in this room.

"I was attempting to resanctify it in your name. I searched through the prayer books. I wasn't asking for anything, I just… I was told what was done here, and I thought, I didn't think you would approve. So I—""This was once a holy place. My followers would come and bathe in that water. Every day they would bathe, although only once was required. Then, when they died, they would become Inalten and serve me in the underworld. The perversion of the ritual saddens me greatly.

But the Inalten were never meant to be tools of war. And the conversion was meant to be a willing choice, with the death of the body at the end of their natural life. That is why the old line the crypts your people have found beneath the temple."

"I knew it!" the boy said.

"I knew you weren't evil! Will you help us put an end to Tal's terrible rule?"

"Tal is necessary." The boy's enthusiasm drooped.

"I-I don't understand."

"I do. I ask that you take it on faith. Tal serves a greater purpose than you or he understand. I will not say that he is good. Nor is he evil. He does not understand good nor evil in the way of men. There is a chance, someday, that he might. I hope that day comes, and I also hope that day never comes. If he ever understands the evil that he has done, then he may fail to do the good that must come of it. And I do not wish that he experiences the distress that may come of believing that he is evil."

"But he is evil. You said so yourself."

"He does things that are evil for reasons you do not understand," the god amended.

"I have attempted to guide him to performing the greatest good that I can. But I cannot stop or alter his path, now that he is on it."

"Then it's true," Jerup said.

"He serves you?"

"I told him that to save the world, he must conquer the world," Vorulsht's kind voice said.

"A calamity which will cause the end of the world. When this happens, I shall throw my halls open and embrace all souls that come to me. I bid Tal to prepare the way, to bring as many of those errant children to me as he can, lest they be lost forever.

"His methods are his own. I do not control him. I can not control him. And I cannot stop him." Jerup closed his eyes tight as he processed this revelation.

"He is a monster."

"Yes. I can see that by the reports I receive of the things he has done."

"But you would do nothing?"

"I am the god of the underworld, Jerup Hansand. My reach does not extend to the surface. If you want me to protect you from Tal the Risen, come to my halls. Bring as many of the faithful as you can find and come to my halls, and Tal shall not follow you."

"Truly!" the boy said, looking up in amazement.

"Truly. I shall reveal to you the entrances." A map appeared before Jerup of the entire continent. Thousands upon thousands of little red dots appeared.

"Every dot is an entrance, my child. Every entrance has a hall that can house a town of two thousand people. There will be food and water and…and there will be latrines and other necessities." Jerup's enthusiasm built as he examined the magic before him, then it waned abruptly.

"Verusht, nobody will believe me."

"Call my name, and I shall make the map appear wherever you are," the god promised.

"And if you touch someone, if you give them your blessing, then I shall give them the map as well. Bless as many people as you can, Jerup. Convince them of the truth of your words with the magic I give you. I name you Prophet Jerup the Mapmaker."

"I'm your prophet?" the boy asked, eyes wide.

"Yes. But there is one thing you must do before you leave this room to make it so."

"What is that?"

"You must bathe in the waters of the underworld." Jerup paled, looking at the water in the pool in the center of the room.

"I, but, so many people died in there."

"I know. But if you will be my prophet, then you must baptize yourself in those waters. You needn't drown yourself. Simply submerge yourself for as long as you can hold your breath, and that will be enough." Jerup felt sick. But he took off his robe. And he became a prophet of Vorulsht.