The Bestowing of Power

Charisma came off young Yesael in every line of him. A hero's appetite for adventure, a hero's passion, spilled unreserved out of his every word, and everyone around him could feel it.

He threw up an arm and shouted, and a thousand people fell in behind him at once. It set the blood of every one of them boiling.

"Follow me!"

"Together we shall conquer the sea, and we shall be its masters."

"We shall raise a new city to rival the God-Given City itself, a new paradise where our ambitions and our ideals may run free."

"Under God's gaze, we shall carve out our future!"

Young people in crowds broke into wild cheers, and they swept along around Prince Yesael all the way to his residence.

Adventure and enterprise burned in them all. They wanted to be Yesael's followers, to go down with him into the deep sea and open a new homeland there, to conquer the ocean and win power for themselves, to accomplish feats that would far surpass those of their fathers.

At that same moment, a man came storming into the palace of the King of Wisdom. The guards at the gate moved to stop him, and he brushed straight past them and did not halt until he stood before Redlichia.

He was Redlichia's eldest son, the same son Redlichia had once carried in joy before God, announcing that he now had offspring of his own.

He stood below the throne and glared at the tall, broad-shouldered trilobite man beside it, who kept his back turned to him. Then, half out of his mind, he roared.

"Father, why does it have to be Yesael? Why is it always him?"

"The priesthood went to him. The fusion monster went to him. And even the new city goes to him."

His teeth clenched hard, his pupils shrinking to points and trembling violently.

"Father, do you know how long I have been preparing to go down into the deep sea and open that new city?"

"Do you know that I have waited all this time for you to tell me I was the one you chose?"

"Do you know?"

"Ah!"

"Father!"

Redlichia turned slowly around. Where his son was frantic and full of wrath, he was all dignity and composure.

He looked his son over a moment, then said slowly, "Silence!"

"I am first your king, and only then your father."

"Is this the tone you take with your king?"

This time his eldest son was not himself at all. To be told to hold his tongue seemed to press straight on the rawest, most painful wound buried inside him.

In an instant he gave a laugh, harsh and ugly, a laugh that seemed to be mocking himself.

"Silence?"

"Silence! Silence! Silence!"

"Can you not even speak my name? You are never like this with Yesael."

"My Great King of Wisdom."

"I do have a name. You gave it to me yourself."

"My name is Ense!"

Ense, in truth, meant grace bestowed.

To Redlichia, this eldest son was a gift bestowed on him by the divine, and at that time Ense's birth had been the most joyful thing in his life.

Back in those days Redlichia had set high hopes on his eldest son, certain that here was his heir one day, the companion who would carry forward his will and his ideals.

But the higher the hope, the deeper the disappointment that followed.

Redlichia's eldest son lifted his eyes to his father. "Since the day I was born, you have never once spoken my name. But ever since Yesael was born, you call to him so warmly, always. Yesael, Yesael."

"I am your son too. Your eldest son."

"Father, what favor God has shown him. What favor you have shown him. You have given Yesael everything."

"You gave your power to Yesael. The authority God granted you, you bestowed on him alone. Even the fusion monster God gave you, you handed to him."

"Why can the rest of us have none of it? Why not me?"

Hearing his son invoke God, Redlichia's gaze turned in an instant from calm to razor-sharp, and it fell on Ense like a blade.

"Oh?"

"Are you questioning me, or are you questioning God?"

Ense shook his head. "I would not dare."

He did not dare say it. That did not mean he did not think it.

The air went still. Redlichia's stare stayed fixed on his son Ense, and Ense held his ground, stubborn and unmoving.

In the end, for all Ense's insolence, Redlichia forgave him.

Holding on to the dignity of a king, he told Ense in a lofty, commanding tone, "I have shown Yesael no favor. I shall give you all the same chance."

Ense looked at his father with eyes full of distrust.

But he said nothing more in the end. He only turned and walked away.

The bitter quarrel with his eldest son left Redlichia disappointed, and the things that had been said had wounded him.

It made him resolve to set his plan in motion ahead of schedule.

His eldest son Ense's words had also set him wondering whether he had leaned too far toward Yesael, and never given his other sons so much as a single chance.

"It is nearly time to begin!"

Once again Redlichia climbed the steps of the temple. This time, though, he had not come to beg for God's guidance.

"God, I ask for Your help. Grant a portion of my Blood of Myth to my children."

He was begging Yin Shen to bestow upon his children too the authority that was rightfully his, so that they might become priests of God and wield mythical power of their own.

Redlichia might speak as though he thought little of his other children, but in his heart he had always held them close, and he wanted them to become more than they were.

From atop the altar, the divine being looked down upon Redlichia, this King of Wisdom who was growing old by slow degrees and had begun to lose his old confidence.

"Redlichia, the chasm of desire is never filled, however much you pour into it. The mountain of resentment never wears away, however much kindness you show it."

The warning buried in God's words seemed to pass Redlichia by. He raised his head and smiled up at him.

"I trust my children. They will surely become Your most faithful servants, God."

"They will be the gifted ones who open new God-Given Land, and they will lead the trilobite men to mastery over sea and land alike."

Yin Shen gave a soft laugh and said nothing further.

"Your authority, too, is a fixed measure. Strip the power out of it, and that part of your authority will weaken. It may even vanish altogether."

"You must be ready for that."

"The authority of the King of Wisdom above all else. It is the supreme authority of your path, the one divine right you hold. Once you let it go, you will never take it back."

Redlichia knelt on the ground. "I thank You, God, for indulging Redlichia's willfulness. Tomorrow I shall bring my children to the temple."

Yin Shen shook his head. He had no wish to see them at all.

"There is no need!"

"This is your own strength and your own authority. Who receives it is yours alone to decide."

God laid a hand upon Redlichia's head, and in that instant everything hidden deep within Redlichia's consciousness lay open to him.

Every memory Redlichia held, every scene of his whole life, every fragment of knowledge in his mind, all of it lay bare before Yin Shen and kept nothing back. Into that consciousness Yin Shen poured the knowledge and the method he meant to give.

A god who could make the fusion monster race itself naturally possessed a method for splitting off blood of myth and passing it on.

To Yin Shen, though, the method meant little.

Blood of myth grew through the bearing of new life, and that was what Yin Shen needed.

A transfer like this only broke three shares into three portions of one apiece. It came to three shares still, and nothing had truly changed.

White light blazed in the King of Wisdom's eyes. "Bestowing of Power!"

Redlichia had taken in the divine technique God taught him, the very first divine technique this world had ever known.

In the ages to come it would also become the supreme secret art of the trilobite men's royal line.