Chapter 14

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this, at least at such a scale,” Kanner remarked as he walked around the long dining table. The model was huge, taking up most of the wooden surface. The first floor and the third floor had many twists and turns of many short hallways. The second floor was nearly blank.

“Fathers make dollhouses for their daughters and architects build models of their plans for patrons,” Borner said. “Why not combine the two? Go ahead, lift off the roof and peer inside.”

Kanner let out a long, soft whistle as he peered into the heart of the model. Borner and two nimble fingered apprentice pickpockets had spent two solid days building the model of the palace and its approaches. Paper drawings were simply too limited for an expedition so complicated. In some ways the palace was a fortress and in other ways, it was a maze. Eyeing the layout as he fiddled with the paper walls, Borner had long since decided that the layout was deliberate, giving insiders an incredible advantage in case of attack, especially an assassin’s attack.

The princess had an deficient memory for the building and every question of the model builders was met with displays of annoyance and ill-masked disdain. The petulant child had returned. Borner recognized that she wanted to help but her days of being waited upon hand and foot, of being praised and coddled without rebuke, were formidable obstacles. Resentment and tension grew.

As the days progressed, she shied away from Borner, withdrawing from him when he stood in the same room. For his own reasons, he treated her as he would treat any other acolyte. He gave her enough respect to hold her own while demanding performance without respite. Her vacillation between childish restlessness and eager participation fed Borner’s impatience. He was somewhat confident he held his tongue, but he was not certain.

In a similar vein, Timmaus would take her for hours at a time for his own version of lessons, of which Borner knew little nor did he care to know. Dal would practice short sword fighting with her in the lower wings of the house. At least one cook had conked the princess on the head with a pot when she got too close with a swinging blade. The incident was a small moment of laughter during the long days of planning. There was also a rumor that Dal gave Salomet other lessons in private, but Borner dismissed such talk as less than useful. Even so, it would be a good foray into the peasant class for a princess, he mused more than once. Let Andela’s goddess sort it out.

At odd moments, his hands would shake and his eyes would water, marring his vision. The sound of screaming fireballs crashing into the temple courtyard would cause him to jerk. In those moments, he would hold on to the edge of the table as he would have held the great altar in prayer. He would pray in one long gasp for release from torment. Then he would look up and return to his prior task.

Finally, Timmaus reported that the city was shutting down in some ways. The guards at the four gates of the city were much more scrupulous in their searches both in and out of the city, harsher and less understanding. Guild Halls had posted private guards at their doors and placed lookouts on their rooftops. The markets were smaller and quieter. Something was happening on the Avenue of the Gods, but Borner knew little, and the Left Hand had less to say on the matter because profit was involved. Borner restricted his curiosity to conform with his confinement in the manor house. The days passed.

The nightmares had returned as had the burning in his bones. One night, Borner tried fortifying himself with enough drink to anesthetize himself, but the effort had failed miserably. Dream images were more grotesque. Grossly obese men with red drooping eyes bellowed in pain as they fled through the streets, trampling children and babies as death pursued them. None could save them as Borner stood in the doorway, screaming and waving his arms for them to stop. Blood red burbles of jelly were the only remnants in the streets, slowly seeping into the drains as the quiet rain fell.

Borner had stumbled out of bed and retched until his sides hurt. As he nursed his hangover with light medications and tea, he vowed that he would endure the regular nightmares over the alcohol fueled ones every time.

He knew that he had a haunted look in his eyes every morning because people stopped looking at his face when he entered a room. Yet each day, the deep need to continue planning a revolution spurred him to overcome fatigue and self-pity. Borner understood the demand to meticulously plan in an academic manner, although his dreams were not cooperating. He wanted, he needed, to act.

Borner was feeling a little punchy as he watched the Sojourner play with his model. “So, my dear sojourner, what will the mythmakers transcribe this little model into when they are done?”

“You can see through walls,” Kanner said as he continued to peer into nooks and corners of the model. “Obviously. Are you still having the bad dreams?”

“Obviously,” Borner replied. “I’ve noticed a pattern. When I give an oracle, or at least what every one of you ignorants call an oracle, my sleep is undisturbed for several nights. My bones ache like an old man complaining about the winter in his bones. I proclaim from on high and the burning dissipates.”

“Hmm, the best approach, as far as I can see, is to wind your way through the main kitchen, here on the west side,” Kanner said. “If your model is to scale, these two corridors are narrower but there are fewer opportunities to take a wrong turn.”

Borner was not listening. He had just made a confession that he had debated for days whether to reveal. Instead of confirmation or denial, he was completely ignored. He was annoyed with himself because once the confession slipped through his lips, he recognized he was fishing for sympathy. Was he that desperate that he was begging for sympathy from priests? He grasped the sun on his forearm and the crescent moon on the other, tracing the lines with his fingers. He was better than this.

“Are you a prophet giving oracles who does not believe in his own words?” Kanner asked. The words were delivered kindly, but Borner tensed.

“As I said before, I know the books, the sermons, the benedictions and the traditions from which I pull the words of these oracles. All of them are a human creation.”

Kanner sighed. “Did you ever stop to consider that the message is divine, but you are left to your own skills to translate it into the human world. The translation may require years of study and practice as a poet and a wordsmith, or as a scholar and a preacher. You bring forth the words to match the message that burns in your bones. In some circles that would be considered an honest day’s work.”

“Then why do I feel guilty like I am manipulating people to do my will?” Borner finally asked, not expecting an answer. “My god died at Andamathea and still I persist acting as if I still believe. Even more, I feel like a farmer yelling at the chickens in the henhouse. I cannot dumb it down enough for them to understand, and that fact infuriates me. A prophet should not be a snob, looking down his nose at the stupid. Loads of stupid.”

“Some are willfully stupid,” Kanner said. “Yet most are apathetic, unable to pay attention. The daily struggle to make it to the end of the day or even better, to the end of the day with something in the belly, is overwhelming for many. Where is your sympathy?”

“Lost in my anger for people who refuse to see, to hear, to help themselves. Disaster is pouring down, and no one gets out of the way? The signs are blatant and there should be no need for an oracle.”

“You need to get laid,” Kanner said, looking up. “You look like shit, like you are eating yourself up from the inside out. You probably are.”

Borner gave him a look of contempt that he had copied from the princess. He was about to go ‘high and mighty’ on his friend and even considered “hell and its fire” for an instant and dismissed it all. “I’m surrounded by whores and others with easy mores; none of them interest me in the least. In this healthy body that should be walking around with a throbbing erection hour by hour, nothing. I think the Lady Andela put a spell on me.”