Destiny.
One likes to believe that the only actor in one's life is oneself. But doesn't the very concept of one's destiny denote that there is something greater beyond them? Something guiding each step; each breath? Was his life his own, or was it held captive by some being that constantly pressed its thumb on the scales of fate? That was something that The Boy wondered as he stood there in the nave of the Cathedral of Aelior, the Father that stood on the outskirts of the frontier city of Astaire, waiting for his turn to have his destiny determined by the Father.
The heavy doors of the inner chambers of the cathedral swung outwards, and a young girl emerged from within: a towel draped around her bare, trembling shoulders. She was flanked on either side by men bearing the crest of the House of Bauder — a compass rose being pierced by an arrow and a spear, and an elderly man who carried her clothes. Red droplets trickled behind her as she was led from the Ceremonial Hall.
"Next."
The order came from an unseen priest hidden high in the shadowed alcoves above the stained-glass windows with images of the Father on them. The Boy stepped forward.
"Name?"
The question rolled off the vaunted marble ceiling.
"Jein." The Boy answered.
He was the last in line for the day. Two days since his 13th birthday; the first day of the month of Frost's Thaw. The priest in front of him towered over the young boy as he held the crystalline plate in front of him.
"Surname?" The man asked.
"No surname."
The man looked over the boy. Rags that loosely held over his thin form, a pair of pants held up by a single leather strand wrapped around his waist, and a fistful of cloth gripped in his hands. The reddish freckles stretching from ear to ear, over his small, crooked nose, were hidden on his left cheek by deep blue and purple splotches that stained his milky, pale face, and straw threaded its way into his auburn curls. Another slum-dweller.
"Choose one."
"I don't want to."
The priest sighed and tapped the stylus against the glassy slate.
"Jein Slumkid."
"No!"
The man glanced at the nearby window. Evening loomed in the orange horizon, beginning to crawl in through the windows. It had been a long day: over 300 children had come through who had their 13th birthdays the month before. His feet ached, and he hadn't eaten a single thing since
"Fine. Jein Unnamed."
Jein thought about it for a second.
"Okay."
The straight stylus scratched his name upon the obsidian surface of the slate.
"Do you know what you're supposed to do?"
Jein nodded.
"Take this," he said. "And hand it to the Acolyte within." The Man held the slate over to Jein.
Jein took it. Though it appeared to have a glossy surface and to be as hard as stone, he found his fingers sticking to its surface and quite pliable. He was able to bend and morph it as if it were composed of some sort of gel.
"Hurry and get in there." The priest barked.
Jein jumped and nearly dropped the Slate, and the priest sighed.
"And don't twist it too much. You don't want to warp it."
Jein hurried in, averting his eyes from the man's annoyed gaze, as he grabbed hold of the heavy bronze handles of the black marble doors. They gave way with the slightest push. As the pair of them cracked open, a wind rushed out of the room. In the middle of the room was a large amphitheater that he had to step down into. Evening light bled down in fractal shafts through a domed oubliette above. Jein walked from the door to the first step down. One of the priests who stood there stopped The Boy in his tracks.
"The Slate." He said as he held out his hand.
Jein handed the strange thing over to him, and this new Man bowed and left for some dark corner of the room.
Golden basins burned beside the steps, casting a heatless aromatic smoke into the air. Frankincense, Sandalwood, and myrrh vied for control of the odiferous domains in a hazy fog that hung above the air and shrouded the dozens of hooded priests that stood along the amphitheater's seating as he stepped down, step by step, into the basin.
As he neared the end of the staircase, about three steps before it terminated within the basin, a triad of priests stood by each. Jein stepped by the first.
"Since the dawn of the universe, the Gods have carved a destiny for you: today it will be revealed what that destiny might entail. Do you understand?"
Jein nodded and stepped down to the next.
"Live up to your Destiny and embrace the strengths that the Gods have set out for you. Live a meaningful life based on what is revealed, be it as a farmer or a knight. To disobey the gods, one becomes no better than the Demons who twist and form nature to their perverse ends. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
He stepped down to the next.
"Bare your back before you step beneath the Eye of the Father." The last demanded.
Jein pulled his shirt from his thin frame. Even within the shaded cover of the hood drawn around his head, the scant light that bled through, the boy couldn't help but notice the man's nose scrunch up as he tossed the shirt into one of the braziers nearby.
He looked up at the fractured light that bled through. Within the oubliette of the domed roof was a stained glass window. Lapis, turquoise, quartz, and topaz were arranged in the shape of a blue, pupilless eye bearing down upon him. As he stopped in the middle of the basin, there came a clicking sound from above. The Slate that he had given to the acolyte by the door was hung by some unseen mechanism that clicked and clacked with every movement that brought it into view. It came to rest in the middle of the eye, so that it was complete.
As the last clicks died down, the room was cast in an unbearable darkness, as the flame of every single candle was snuffed out instantly, and the light that came through the oubliette was suppressed by the black Slate that he had brought in. Jein's heart seized in his chest, and from all around him the voices of the priests that stood upon the seating rose in unison in a low, rumbling tone.
"In the beginning was Void."
A voice echoed from everywhere all at once.
"A Deep and Impenetrable Darkness that covered everything."
It was Jein's turn. He held his breath as the humming continued over the darkness.
"Lo," he called to the Darkness that crowded around his feet as he bore his back to the stained-glass eye, "There was light!"
For the last year, he was taught what he had to respond with at every moment of lingering silence.
Another click from above, and a pillar of white light fell upon him.
"It was the Father!" The priest continued. "The Source of All!"
Half the voices broke the monotony into a higher note that blended well.
"But the Father hated the stagnant Darkness."
There came another lingering moment of silence.
"Lo! He brought forth the Flow of Time!" Jein called in response.
The Light narrowed into a beam of light. He hissed as the light began to sear his flesh. He counted. One. Two. Three...and it was finished. Once it was finished, the beam widened back into the white pillar that shone all around him, and the Speaker began again.
"And thus movement was born!"
Another portion of the chorus rose in tone until a harmonic chord held in the air.
"The Father then grabbed hold of the Void as if it were clay, and morphed it into the World. He formed the tallest mountains and the deepest chasms. He brought forth the first rains to form the oceans. He brought forth the first of the trees, and all the animals of the world, and formed, from his light, the sun, the moon, and every star. He stood above his creation and saw that it was good."
The voices of the monks once more fell into unison, and the priest continued.
"The Father wished to experience his creation, so he descended upon his newly created realm, and gathered water and cast it into the dust."
A lingering silence stood still once more, and Jein called out his response.
"And from the mud he formed his Body."
The chorus broke apart into the harmonic chord just as the pillar of light narrowed again, and danced across his back. Ruby droplets of blood fell to the stone floor. One. Two. Three. Four….the beam retreated back into a pillar, and the chorus fell back into sync, and the priest began again.
"He walked among the animals, and saw that they were goods. He loved them greatly. He strode among the mountains, where the great stones spiraled into the blue skies, and he loved them greatly. He traveled across the oceans, saw the waves move, and the fish swim, and he loved them all greatly. But he had no one to share his love with. For what if love is never spoken? So he took the waters of the world, and mixed them with the clay, and formed Man of his own image, and into each of these forms, he gave them life."
"Lo, man awoke at The Father's breath, and at first felt his Presence."
The pillar of light narrowed again, and scarred his back: embedding his destiny upon his skin. One second. Two. Three seconds. Four. Five...it was over. For now. The lingering silence remained. He still had one more sentence to say.
"And thus first beating of the Human Heart." Jein managed to whimper out.
The laser intensified and scorched his skin. Blood droplets loudly collided against the floor, but he held firm. Eight whole seconds the beam remained upon him. Eight whole seconds of feeling his flesh sear and burn. He endured. He had to. An errant line, he was told, would radically alter his fate. The chorus rejoined together in their low tone until the beam of light expanded back into a pillar, and the harmonic chord was resung.
"Man and woman from the clay he made them. From the dust, he formed each one." The voice of the head priest rose up again. "And he lived among them, and he loved them greatly."
"But the Void That Had Been was unhappy. It longed for complete darkness once more, but it couldn't manifest within the Light of the Father. So, instead, he formed his own world. Beneath The Father's."
Jein took a deep breath. His back still stung from the eight seconds of torture. Was it already time for the next? He whimpered.
"Lo, the Void formed Demons hidden from Sight."
The pillar joined together in a beam again, and the harmonic chord rose once. One. Two. Three. And it separated back into the white pillar. His shoulders trembled, and tears stung in his eyes. There was still one more. One more phrase.
"And, Lo…" He hesitated for a moment, "They poured out from that formless Depth."
He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself. The pillar narrowed and slammed against his back. One. It burned...though not like the burning of one sticking their hand in fire. It burned like the point of a knife sliding against flesh. Two. Each second that passed seemed endless. Three. His legs wobbled, yet he stood firm. Four. Five. He stopped his body from shaking. Six. Seven. Eight. When was it going to stop? Nine. Ten.
At this point, the priests began to mutter among themselves before a slam of something hard against the marble floors silenced them. A door opened somewhere in that room, and the sound of several feet scuffling away, before another loud bang on the ground resounded across the room, signaling that the ceremony must go on.
Eleven.
The beam circled his back and etched into his flesh.
Twelve.
And then it was over. Jein's legs wobbled, and he fell to the ground. A whimper broke from his quivering lips.
"And then the Demons poured out from the Void. They warred with Man, and that war has continued since the beginning of time. The Father, upon seeing this, despaired. So he gave himself to the World so that it might resist the Void."
The chorus began to die down.
"From them, every man is born with a Destiny, and the ability to cultivate that Destiny to best help all of Creation resist the Demonic Hordes. Thanks to the Father's benevolence, today you have been marked and your natural abilities enumerated, and your destiny laid out before you. Give praise!"
"Praise the Father!" Jein responded as he knelt in the middle of the amphitheater's basin. His shoulders shook, and his back quivered.
"Take your Slate, and embrace your destiny."
Destiny. One likes to think they're the author of their own lives. That each action they make is made by them alone. But what good is that line of thought, when one's whole life was dictated by this Ceremony? Whatever the Slate revealed was what you had to follow. It was your Destiny.
The Slate lowered from the ceiling in subsequent clicks and clacks of that unseen mechanical device until it was right above him. He knew to keep still. The Ceremony was not over. There was still the manner of the Acceptance. He held his breath as the Slate, burned by the Father's light, melted and dripped over his scarred back. It burned and absorbed into his skin. Flashes of white robbed his vision, and the world spun as the black gel bled into him.
A window; The Window of the World, he had heard the adults call it, flashed before his eyes as the final droplets fell upon him.
Name:
Jein Unnamed
Flow
3
Body
4
Presence
5
Heart
8
Sight
3
Depth
12
Potential Destiny
Great Archmage
Current Destiny
Novice Mage Lvl. 1 (0/500)
Jein looked over his Slate in mild disbelief before being ushered out of the ceremonial chamber by the priests and acolytes. He struggled going up the steps towards the door: both because he was staring at his potential, and the pain radiating out of his back. The priests all stared upon that scar: blood droplets trailing behind him as he walked. He had heard each one was unique to each person, and he wondered briefly how his looked like as he was ushered into the cold, waiting evening.