If only Jonas were not so reckless. So quick to offer his unwavering obedience.
He could have stayed at home. He could have stayed safe and warm.
But he had opened his heart, which led to him opening his mouth, and saying things. Requests and promises… both ill-informed.
So now here he was, almost at the viper’s nest itself.
The sky was clear and the sun bright, but there was little warmth to the day. Jonas halted, looking ahead with squinting eyes, shading them with a hand to his brow. He wondered if he was truly reaching the end of the immense jutting plateau he’d been trying to skirt for the last hour. The scree-strewn slope to his right seemed to be diminishing, giving up its advance out across the open plain in a last massive gasp of tumbled and splintered rock. But the young prophet didn’t count on it; this wide land had a way of taunting you with false hopes about the distances ahead.
He pushed on. Before another hour had passed, he discovered on this occasion there had been no deception. The view across the plain opened up, and there it stood: the Hall of Brysgar.
Set high on the slope of a vast hill, the recently completed building of colossal grey stones and huge timbers glowered down over the surrounding land, like a newly crowned king surveying his fiefdom.
Jonas chastened himself yet again. Should have kept my mouth shut! Kept quiet.
But the lad had never been one for half measures, especially so where the Everlight was concerned. Jonas had meant his words. He’d truly offered himself in whole-hearted service, and the Everlight had accepted the offer. The Maker of All had spoken to him. Once the revelations had come, his path was set.
There was a choice, of course. He would have been forgiven for ignoring the reply and refusing the call. Forgiveness was not in short supply with the Everlight, and it was a greater task than he could have ever imagined would come his way. There had to be plenty of more suitable candidates for it. Wiser, stronger. More virtuous, for sure. But how can you say no to Him, really?
Jonas had been willing and obedient. Though now he could see his own naivety in those prayers he’d whispered for so long: to serve a higher purpose. Pride too, swirling like a fleck of ink in clear water. Polluting black ribbons bleeding into his genuine desire to do some good in the world; to bring honour to the Everlight.
The journey had stretched him beyond any reasonable test, and its end was getting close, which was not something to celebrate. Jonas increasingly wrestled with the thought that he’d likely be skewered upon that end point, the nearer it pressed in on him.
His obedience had held, but it had been far from unwavering lately. Yet Jonas’ master did not appear to be faltering in the least. No revised instructions issued, no summoning back home. The Everlight seemed to be overlooking his servant’s ebbing enthusiasm. Any hope of a cancellation of orders was quite dead now, at journey’s end.
Could have stayed at home. Not sent here. To this… God-forsaken land. Agros. Damn harsh land for the harshest of people. People? Barely.
“If only Agros were forsaken. But He has not given up on them just yet,” muttered Jonas to himself. The Everlight is slow to anger. Too slow, maybe.
Jonas shook his head, partly reprimanding himself for indulging in his self-pitying brooding yet again, partly at his prospects for the rest of the day. Those were not so good, he thought, now that the grim bastion of the Agyr High Chieftain loomed so close.
Until now, he had never stepped foot in Agros. It was not the sort of land in which outsiders ventured; at least not wise ones with an interest in life and freedom. The young prophet possessed both those interests in abundance, even if he made no great claim to much wisdom. But obedience and trust counted more. It had to, otherwise it was all just a pious game. Life and freedom were not his to cling to.
Jonas may have not been here before, but the Hall of Brysgar was familiar. He recognised the hill; the citadel scattered upon its slopes, and especially the lofty hall. That edifice had loomed before his mind’s eye in visions granted in response to his all-too-eager prayers. Months ago… hundreds of miles ago.
Both buildings–the visions and the actual–were essentially the same. But the prophetic glimpses that had shimmered before his eyes had no sense of scale, no true depth. It could not have prepared Jonas for the monolithic reality before him now.
He gazed at the huge fort-like hall, its blocky lines cut into stark relief by sunlight and shadow. A sigh escaped him before he could stifle it. His own recklessness had conspired to eject him from a perfectly agreeable–if somewhat austere–life, hauling him to the front gates of Goruz himself: the war-chief who had somehow rallied his quarrelsome people into a unified entity, bent them to a single shared purpose. An ambitious and altogether destructive purpose. The young prophet knew it was so.
The kings and generals of the foremost realms of Tyros grasped little of this momentous shift behind Agros’ borders, even less about the true extent of the threat it posed. But Jonas had been given insight.
More than insight. An appointment… sent to confront the High Chieftain himself.
Goruz has his purpose, and works at it with all his strength. What about my purpose? Did I not ask for one? Now I complain. Not quite what I had in mind though, coming here. He walked on, frequently glancing at the citadel, the gnawing apprehension matching his every step.
He tried to let his mind rest but within a hundred strides it was invaded once more by thoughts of the Agyr warlord, as it had been increasingly so these last few days.
Goruz’ ascendancy to High Chieftain clashed with convention. Even taking into account the Agyran readiness to recognise personal merit and not lineage alone, his rise to power had been unlikely.