The Blight of Muirwood

The Aldermaston stood behind the stone table, his eyes warm and affectionate. “Do you have any Gifts?” he asked her.

She was not sure what to say, but the Medium whispered to her. She nodded her head. “I have the Gift of Xenoglossia and the Gift of Courage. I also have…the Gift of Wisdom, I believe.”

The Aldermaston nodded proudly. “You have other Gifts you did not name. The Gift of Firetaming and the Gift of Recollection. These are powerful Gifts. If you pass the maston test, you will earn more. Where much is given, much is required. Do you seek the rights of the mastons?”

She was about to answer more elaborately, but the Medium whispered for her to simply say, “Yes.” So she did.

“Before you pass the maston test, you will be given a Gift of Knowledge. It will help you to understand the test, for you must pass it alone. No one else will be with you. This is the lower dungeon of the Abbey. It represents the world where we live, not the world we came from. Deeper in the Abbey, behind a latticework called the Rood Screen, you will find the Apse Veil. The room beyond is a representation of the world of Idumea. To pass the maston test, you must do everything required to enter the Apse. Before you pass the Rood Screen, you will be given the chance to turn back. If you quit, you will lose your chance to become a maston. If you fail the test, you may try again in one year’s time. If you succeed, you will receive a shirt of chaen and another Gift.”

Lia waited patiently.

“Let me begin with the Gift of Knowledge. I will only speak it this once. You will not be allowed to ask questions, but you will be given the chance to ponder what you have heard after passing the Rood Screen. Listen carefully and let the Medium impress upon your thoughts the words that I will say. It is truth not to be engraved into tomes. You must engrave it in your feelings and in your thoughts.”

Lia listened with anticipation to every word. She was not expecting the truths the Aldermaston taught her. Some she already knew. Most of it was new and filled her with amazement. As the Aldermaston spoke, the power of the Medium surged, filling her mind with thoughts and images. She knew he was standing in front of her, but there was opened to her thoughts a new world that went beyond anything she imagined. As he spoke, she could see in her mind the events he described. Not just words, but she could see their representation.

The vision dazzled her.

All her life she had heard Idumea described as a world, as a person, as a benevolence in the aether that blessed everything with life and health and joy through the intervening power of the Medium. Now she learned that Idumea was a place, not a person. It was a world filled with a race called the Essaios. They were beautiful and graceful beings, perfect in delicacy and strength. They looked like men and women that surrounded her, only taller, more graceful and beautiful than anyone she had ever seen. Even more, their skin glowed with the power of the Medium, for it obeyed them. She saw their beautiful cities, their enormous gardened cities and wept with joy and wonder. To her, the Abbey grounds were the most beautiful place in the world, but the city-gardens of Idumea were a thousand times more beautiful, a hundred thousand times more grand. The enormity of them defied comparison. She realized that the finely sculpted grounds of Muirwood were merely a pathetic attempt to mimic the wonders of Idumea. The Essaios were wise and powerful and they could never die. From the world of Idumea, they reined as king-mastons and queen-mastons over millions of millions of worlds spread throughout a skein of interlocking worlds that was beyond Lia’s comprehension, vast beyond anything she could imagine. Millions of little worlds, like hers, spread throughout the infinite expanse. The Essaios used the Medium to craft worlds, to command the forces of fire and ice and sea and storm to create and to tame the wild elements into obedience. As she watched, she hungered to be like them, to wield the Medium in such a powerful way. Then she realized that she could, someday – that she was already a part of them, and that they had created her as well as their worlds.

Lia was amazed to learn she herself had come from Idumea. It was her home, the place of her first life. So many times she had heard of her existence as a “second life” – that she was born as wretched, but it was not her beginning. There was a place before that, a place where she lived among the Essaios. How could she describe herself? A spark? A floating ember? A spider’s web of immateriality that lived among the Essaios, so fragile, so delicate. An intelligence. An awareness clothed in a substance as faint as a shadow. To become an Essaios, she would have to leave Idumea. Her shadow-self would have to come to a fallen world with no memory of her former life. All were equally ignorant. None were given the advantage of remembering their life in Idumea. She was promised – they were all promised – that if they would be calm and listen carefully, they would hear the murmurs of the Medium guiding them back. The Medium would aid them and assist them if they allowed themselves to be tamed by it. In order to tame it, they must first be tamed by it. If they followed the whispers of the Medium, it would teach them how to craft buildings of sculpted stone that would become a link back to the world of Idumea and allow their return.