Seeking the Temple of God

The poet Tito made his final preparations for the long journey ahead, packing his belongings into a woven oval knapsack that sealed shut at the mouth and rode on his shoulder once he slipped an arm through the strap.

Tito packed with meticulous care. Out came his family's treasured heirloom, an ancient stone tablet carved with the Yesael Route, and into the bag it went. Of everything he would carry on this journey, it was the one guide that mattered most.

With it, Tito could steer wide of the dangerous places and never lose his way.

He meant to walk in the footsteps of the ancients and set out once more on the road home.

He packed a sword as well, a gift from the queen, forged from the shed carapace of a Ruhe Beast. Should he cross paths with the People of the Abyss, he had already resigned himself to fighting them.

"There!"

Tito let out a long breath. He had been strung tight for so long, and yet now, at the very moment of leaving, a perfect calm came over him.

"Time to set out."

A shadow fell across the doorway of the room, and the light inside dimmed a little.

Tito's hands went still. He did not need to turn around to know who had come.

"Father!"

His father called his name in a hard, stern voice. "Tito, there is still time to turn back."

Tito answered, "I have never been one to regret."

But his father said, "When you have fallen into the abyss. When you stand before death. When you have lost everything."

"Then you will see just how laughable those words of yours are."

"And the moment you set out in search of the God-Given Land, every one of these things will surely find you."

"Stop this!"

"You have already surpassed me, and your grandfather too. What more do you want?"

Tito set down the woven basket in his arms and stood still a moment.

To his father's eyes he looked like a man fallen into hesitation, torn between two minds.

His father's voice softened, and he tried reasoning with him instead.

"The Yesael Route was abandoned and left to ruin long ago. That antique route stone of yours has not been of any use for years. The sea now belongs to the People of the Abyss, and those monsters bar every path to the God-Given Land."

"And that is to say nothing of the curse the divine once laid upon us. Never again can we return to the paradise God had promised."

"You will never cross one chasm after another and reach the hall of the divine."

The words did not stop Tito. He lifted the woven pack instead, and settled it slowly onto his own back.

The motion was slow, and it was steady, as steady as his resolve was now.

"A thing is great precisely because it is dangerous, precisely because no ordinary person can do it."

"Some are born to be kings. Some are born to be priests of God. Some are born holding a wisdom beyond all other men."

"And I was born to write the greatest chapter this world has ever known."

"This is my calling, and it is my destiny."

His father's voice went flat. "You will die."

Tito replied, "I have already prepared myself for that. Someone must give his life to a great cause, must he not?"

At that his father's fury broke loose. He leveled a finger at Tito and spoke.

"You are far too arrogant. Do you believe yourself greater than King Yesael?"

"King Yesael died searching for the God-Given Land, died on the very road back to it. By what right do you imagine you can do what even King Yesael could not?"

Tito looked his father in the eye and shook his head. "No. It is the people of Yinsai who have grown too forgetful. It is the descendants of King Redlichia who have long since lost their faith."

"We forgot our own past long ago. We forgot our own ancestors."

"I am not trying to do a greater thing than King Yesael did. I am going only to find our past and all that we once were, our origin and our birth."

"And then, to carve it into memory forever."

Tito walked past his father and stepped out onto the street.

Word that Tito meant to set out in search of the God-Given Land had already run through the city, and people came in droves to see him off.

They packed both sides of the street, watching as Tito came out from his family's estate.

The crowd broke into one great roar of cheering and pressed in all around him.

"Lord Tito, is it really true you're going to go looking for the God-Given Land?"

"They say a messenger of God guided you, that he opened the gate to the kingdom of God! Is it true?"

"Lord Tito..."

"Lord Tito..."

Tito made his way through them. Excitement had them all near bursting, and they pressed forward again and again with their questions.

Tito gave no answer. He only smiled and looked at them.

By the time he reached the gates of the God-Servant City, thousands upon thousands had gathered behind him.

"Lord Tito, come home safe!"

Tito raised a hand and waved, then started down the steep mountain road of the Sacred Mountain.

The road out of the God-Servant City would carry Tito through every town and city of the Star Luo Kingdom, great and small, before it brought him to the coastal God-Descended City and the start of the Yesael Route.

Everywhere he went, word of his coming threw the place into commotion.

Everyone had heard his name and knew his story, and no small number had also heard that he meant to go searching for the God-Given Land.

Some mocked him for overreaching. Others admired the courage it took to challenge so great a goal.

The God-Descended City

The city was fading into decline, no longer the seat of any throne. Beyond what it still meant as a symbol, it had lost everything, exactly as the Yinsai Kingdom of old had.

At a banquet, the lord of the God-Descended City turned to Tito with a question.

"I know your story. And I hear you mean to set out on an even greater journey?"

Tito nodded. "I mean to go in search of the God-Given Land."

Laughter went up all through the hall. Not one of them believed Tito capable of such a thing. Every one of them was certain he was only going to his death.

They looked at him with pity and mockery both, the way one looks at a frog at the bottom of a well, blind to how vast the sky truly is.

Through all of it Tito's expression never changed.

His gaze swept across the crowd, and when he spoke, his voice carried clear and strong.

"Is it a thing to be proud of, to forget the past, to forget your own ancestors?"

"We were once the masters of land and sea, the firstborn of God."

"Now we have lost the sea, and land alone remains to us."

"And in the end, we forgot even the glory and the memory that were once ours."

Step by step, Tito climbed to the highest point of the hall, and his call rang out.

"This time, I go to reclaim everything we have lost."

"To carve the glory that is ours, our faith and our origin, forever onto the stone tablets and forever into our memory."

"Let every generation after us remember. We came from the land God had promised. We were once the glorious firstborn of God."

The words struck the whole hall to silence.

The lord of the God-Descended City rose to his feet and bowed to Tito.

"My blessing on you, great poet."

"May the power of Yinsai shield you always, and may you..."

"...have fair winds the whole way."

Tito came at last to the place where Polo and Star had once lived in seclusion, and there he stood, looking out over the sea.

Night fell, the stars came out, and the Divine Cup in the pack on his back blazed suddenly with light. Within that glow, as though some hidden hand were guiding him, he made out a single beam racing off into the distance to point him the way forward.

"Lord Polo, Messenger of God."

"At the far end of that light, is that the hall of God?"

He leapt into the sea and felt not the slightest discomfort. Long ago his own people had been part of the life that filled that ocean.

He swam farther and farther out, until at last, somewhere in the darkness, he turned to look back once more toward the shore.

The glow of the God-Descended City's lighthouse stone had melted into the light of the stars above, blazing beyond compare.