Chapter 18

The glass of hot tea was hours ago and Borner regretted not drinking more of it at the time. Skulking turny-twisty routes through the city, Kanner had led a small retinue to an alley on the opposite side of the avenue. Borner could hear the milling crowd of hundreds, maybe even a few thousand, as he stood in the shadows between the tall buildings. Throwing the hood of his riding cloak over his head, the armed group walked with due deliberation across the avenue and cut up to meet the path to the Temple of the Sojourner. He did not relax until he was inside the double doors of the temple, staring up at the sun and the star.

Andela had split from them an hour ago, heading down to the crowd with two bodyguards covering her back. The snake god was at the top of the avenue after all, behind her. Apparently, each temple now had an armed contingent protecting their entrances and only the initiated were permitted to enter.

Borner’s limbs were burning again. He was agitated and unable to sit still for any length of time. He had neither an outline nor a list of what he would preach in only an hour. Reading a speech from a written text lacked all the fire and spontaneity that his task demanded, however “winging it” felt like an act of abdication of the mortal seriousness of the moment. Neither course seemed to assuage the burning.

Part of the problem was that his own tradition was one of peace and reconciliation; he needed a different source, one that had experienced suffering and oppression, turning it into violent retribution and onto justified revolution. The slave clans of the Abastin Plain had arisen to overthrow their taskmasters but their gods were grim, violent, and fatalistic. Zaytung overthrew their third-generation tyrant and rejoiced with a mighty song as they danced on his bones and the bones of his family – bleech, but their revenge was a great frenzied dance.

His pacing only increased his anxiety as he stretched his memory for any scrap of text. He sat. Kanner was keeping him company, but the man was just as perturbed, not knowing where to put his hands or his eyes. Borner had to stop himself from looking in the sojourner’s direction because the man’s hand rubbing and leg bouncing was unnerving. Finally, Borner stood up straight and let his head rest calmly, gently on his shoulders. With deep breaths he calmed himself.

How many times had he stood at the altar and just let the words flow without preparation? Dozens or hundreds? The intent of what he needed to do was clear and the only matter at hand was the words. If he was the prophet, then the words would come. If he were not the prophet - eh. No wonder Kanner was sweating in the cool, near chill of the room.

More voices were rising with shouts and cheers. The noise was travelling down the alley and into the Garden of Repose, telling Borner that many, many more had gathered. A horn sounded. Kanner hesitated a moment and rose with a nod of his head.

The waiting was over. Mid-afternoon was giving way to the early evening. The crowd had been worked up to as much a frenzy by preachers as they dared to try at this point. Now they were expecting the prophet to throw the flaming faggot onto the great pile of brittle tender.

“Are you ready to go?” Borner said to his friend with a wry smile. “We’ve got a little bit of work to do and then we might have an evening cup of tea.”

“After weeks of doubt and handwringing, now you’re cocky bastard?” Kanner said.

“The time of reckoning is upon us, friend,” Borner said. “My doubt of the truth is always my reliable companion and with it at my breast, I have little to fear. Let us go forth and call down the divine wrath of the spurned gods upon the heretics.”

“Cocky bastard and a flowery chamber pot too,” Kanner said with a shake of his head. “Promise me that at least you will not be boring.”

“I am going to have you running up that hill with a full-throated war cry and you will not even realize it until it’s too late.” With that statement Borner picked up his juntu staff and gave it half a whirl just to show his impertinence.

“Besides,” he said turning back to Kanner, “The quicker we get this business done, the quicker I can return to Andela.”

“Incorrigible, irreverent and a cocky bastard,” Kanner said. “Now I feel that all is aligned in the world again. Shall we?”

“We shall,” Borner said, straightening his tunic. With a touch more confidence than he felt, Borner walked through the garden with his staff, holding his head high. Through the alley he marched with a growing number of bodyguards, six in all by the time he reached the avenue. He gave a look up the avenue, thinking that if the snakes had any forethought, they should be running down the street in force at this moment. Instead, all was quiet.

In an instant, the rebellion could be snuffed out, yet the enemy was waiting within their walls instead of walking the avenue that they had claimed as their own. How much of ownership was perception and how much was reality? His throat was suddenly dry, and he longed for another long pull of that living water from the stone cup. He had ascended from the depths only to willingly immerse himself in the human muck again. He was an idiot. With that little thought, a little tune came to mind, a lively little ditty that the children would sing at the river docks. He started humming, quietly to himself, gently conducting his tune with his staff by small flicks of his wrist.

Walking down the avenue, he could see a crowd, thick and deep. The closer he came, the more faces that came into view. The square at the foot of the avenue was overflowing. The streets feeding the square were clogged and impassable. Borner saw no empty space wherever he looked.

At the foot of the avenue a platform rose, made of wooden boxes stacked two high that looked out over the crowd. A shout of hundreds and then thousands began to roar as the gathered began to realize that the never-before-seen prophet was approaching. Kanner seemed to quell, hunching his shoulders and drawing down his head amid the din.