* * *
Eromot had stumbled all night along the ravine that followed the highway east of Keshdesh. He constantly looked over his shoulder at the skies for any flying disks with lasers that might still be in pursuit. Eromot’s arm was broken and he cradled it with his good arm. He was dirty, bloody, and bruised from his last-second escape from the vehicle after finally getting the jammed door open, which had been wielded shut by the saucer’s laser beams. The other two passengers were not so fortunate. Eromot kept repeating the passenger’s name to himself after finally remembering it so he could commit it to memory. Was it Dolu … Doku, … no, the hitchhiker’s name was Dolka, mumbled Eromot as he stumbled along, a bloody, bruised, mumbling spectacle in the ravine below the highway.
By morning Eromot had been able to make it back up to the highway from the ravine below. He continued to stumble on his way in the direction of Gulfang since Keshdesh had been where the Aungtalli attack came from to begin with. Eromot hoped that maybe someone would eventually drive by so he could hitch a ride along the way. The pain in his arm seemed to constantly swell with each heartbeat, and he could tell it needed the shoulder set along with a cast or something for the fractured bone. The rocky terrain eventually gave way to plains of well-watered farmer fields. Farmland greeted the Sun that poked the horizon at a point where the light spread across the eastern sky. This had been a couple hours before the Sun would become a giant ball of light that filled a lot of the sky to create a Uranian day. The morning sky became blue mingled with the whites of clouds and the green of atmospheric plant life that looked like green veins in the clouds. Eromot wished that ripe plant life above him would rain him down something to eat.
Uranians tended to build their cities to the north near rivers as opposed to the southern ocean shores. The single ocean of Urania had been called Inunia, and shorelines were mostly rocky, and subject to violent weather and tides. To the north were rich farmlands and ideal weather. Even the Northern Sea of the planet had been much more calm, less rocky, and better for trips to beaches of golden sand than Inunia. Tens of thousands of rivers and lakes weaved across the planet, which also featured the one main ocean, one salt-water sea, and one major sized fresh water lake known as The Great Lake. Eromot stumbled along into the river-wrapped plateau landscape of fields and fields of some of the best farmland on the planet.
Eromot looked at the farm vegetation off the highway. The first fields were just the grasses used for waffs to graze upon, which Uranians don’t find editable. A waff looked up from the field with a look that dared Eromot to try grazing on his grass. It then looked like an editable crop of borchtag came up. Near that crop the house of a farmer passed Eromot by as he stumbled down the highway.
He thought about just going to the house and asking for help, but couldn’t seem to stop himself from just continuing on to his destination. Ever since surviving the attack last night, all Eromot had been able to think about was to continue to his destination in defiance of his Aungtalli attackers. Coming up the highway in the other direction a vehicle with a large flat bed, kind of like a pickup truck, drove towards him. Eromot suddenly realized that the attack had traumatized him, and he wanted to run off the road and hide between the rows of borchtag coming up, but the legs that had just moved on through the night kept walking on beyond his conscious control, like a robot. The truck slowed down and stopped by Eromot. The driver immediately got out and approached him. As Eromot looked at the farmer’s expression he realized what a bloody spectacle he must have looked like, limping down the highway like a hungry zombie. Eromot would only vaguely remember the farmer asking if he was ok. There would also be a vague memory of giving some kind of answer, but he will probably never remember what had been said.
Eromot’s memory began again waking up much later that day in a bed with all his clothes removed, and a blanket had been draped over his back. Uranians squat in fluffy beds on their stomachs to sleep, with their legs folded up like a bird in a nest. Eromot noticed his arm and shoulder felt much better. His shoulder had been set and the fractured bone wrapped in bandages with a sling. He found himself in a bedroom that could have belonged to a young man, judging from the musician posters on the walls along with female models. The door to the room had been slightly cracked, letting in the sound of a television device announcing breaking news.
He noticed some fresh clothes laid out on the bed and decided to try to get up. Hunger announced its presence as Eromot reached to put on the clothes. He slipped on a kilt and over-shirt. They were a bit small on him, and probably belonged to the young man whose room he must have awoke in. Outside the bedroom Eromot saw the farmer from that morning. The farmer’s eyes were glued to the television-like device. Eromot began to hear the television.
“ … We repeat again for who do not know
a daring prison break has dealt a blow
to Aungtalli attempts to overthrow
the institution of Science we know
as the Ministry of Science. Hanson
was to be put to death without a son.
Some scientists we believe however,
made a flying ship that was quite clever.
They attacked with paralyze devices.
Took Hanson where no one realizes.
Breaking news! We’re reporting what was done.
Ministry scientists rescued Hanson.”
Eromot experienced a giddy thrill from that news. Eromot had escaped Aungtalli murder, and now he just found out that Hanson had also eluded their punishment. The television repeated the same limited visual shots from the surveillance cameras on Hanson’s transport vehicle. Eromot studied images of the rescuers that looked like Eromot’s friends Nandor, and Silvanin who were carrying strange rifles and shooting at the guards that had been driving the transport vehicle, which evidently had been ran off the road. Hanson had been branded a heretic and would be returned to the prison for execution when from out of the sky came what looked like an Aungtalli flying vehicle, but regular Uranians were flying it. The perpetrators on the TV were Ministry scientists who Eromot had known for years. Eromot also saw a woman poking her head out of the flying saucer door in the grainy news footage of Nandor and Silvanin as they entered the flying vehicle dragging Hanson along. He thought she looked like Hanson’s girlfriend who Eromot had met.
The farmer then noticed Eromot and switched off the news. “Very amazing things are happening.
News didn’t just report the prison spring.
The news also introduced to my head
that you, Eromot have been pronounced dead.”
Eromot had not been surprised. “My car was under Aungtalli attack.
I lived, but two passengers won’t be back.
I’m a Ministry scientist who is
now in disfavor just like the news says.”
The farmer said, “No need to apologize, I’m with you.
Lot’s of us do believe in what you do.
My name is Oldo, a farmer by trade.
This is the farm and the home I have made.
I fixed your injuries. You should be well,
but now I must feed you with food I sell.”
Oldo fixed Eromot a delicious meal of borchtag salad with waff meat and waff milk, and fresh baked breads. For a good part of the meal, food had been all that Eromot noticed, and it must have been one of the best meals he ever had. He had been so hungry. Eventually Eromot noticed the strange books on the shelves. They looked like religion or maybe ancient books on philosophy. Toward the end of his meal he noticed a picture in the other room of the family. Oldo explained, “My wife has gone to Keshdesh for the day,
My son Dolka wanders so he’s away.”
After hearing the name Dolka, Eromot choked on his food, and struggled to clear his throat. Oldo became concerned. “Try to carefully chew the food in sight.
Your coughing isn’t good. Are you alright?”
Ero
mot sadly said, “Oh dear Oldo, I am thankful my friend
for saving my life and these clothes you lend.
It breaks my heart and I’m sorry, but I
Have to let you know why I did not die.
I gave Dolka a ride, which he did take.
He died and they think he’s me by mistake.”
Oldo’s face became suddenly pale, and fell into a sorrowful expression after before being full of such joyfulness. Oldo sat down slowly as if in shock before burying his head in his hands to cry over the son he just found out was now dead. Eromot felt awful and started crying also. Why had life turned into such a nightmare? Why can’t Uranians just be left alone? Soon Eromot got up and put his arms around Oldo who just continued to cry louder and louder from his seat until he no longer sounded like an adult. Eromot wished he had just kept on driving past the hitchhiker that waved his arm by the road last night. The regret became a whole new injury for Eromot to have to heal.
Oldo eventually calmed down a bit. He got hold of himself enough to call his wife in Keshdesh to tell her about the death of their son, which started the tears to flow again as before. Eromot just remained paralyzed by pain, sorrow, and regret. Oldo didn’t blame Eromot, and said, “Not your fault to survive one out of three.
My son was murdered by the Aungtalli.”
After Oldo got off the phone with his wife he announced that she would be back in the morning. Then he walked outside into the night. Eromot could see him through the open door, just standing in front of a field looking at the night sky. Eromot’s attention kept gravitating toward the very old looking books on the shelf in the other room. Eventually he got up to get a closer look, and walked over to the shelf.
The books were ancient, and had been bound by some foreign society it seemed. They all looked at least 10,000 years old, maybe 100,000. Eromot took one and opened it. The dialect was more complicated, written on extra stanza lines that were producing notes he wasn’t even sure he could chirp. As he began to figure out what it said, it occurred to him that it had been a lot like talking to Morgamor. Poor Morgamor, thought Eromot about the other innocent victim of the Ministry of Science controversy.
The book Eromot held had turned out to be about legends of Beataphoriah, the devil of the Aungtalli faith. Eromot recalled stories from his childhood church days that told him that Beataphoriah had been a hairy beast covered with fur who whispered in our ears, persuading us to do evil. He always considered the Beataphoriah bogeyman to be more of a metaphor than a real being. Eromot had now been introduced to a completely different Beataphoriah character in these legends. From what Eromot read, Beataphoriah had been more like a king of kings. He had been a flamboyantly well dressed immortal being who could work miracles. All kings of the planet bowed before Beataphoriah, and none could refuse his audience. Eromot thumbed through legend after legend of Beataphoriah the great wizard, worker or miracles, creator of all life, one who brings justice to the oppressed, and advisor of kings.
Eromot’s impression from the book had been that Beataphoriah mostly kept kings from waging war on each other, but when Beataphoriah talked people listened, and heeded his words. Another book on the shelf appeared full of verses of wisdom that were supposedly written by Beataphoriah himself. Eromot also made out another book to be pre-Dark Age uncensored history, which his collogues would find priceless if it turned out to be genuine. It had been like Eromot found himself in the home of a devil worshiper, but it also had been like stumbling upon precious artifacts he had never seen before. These books documented a time of great civilizations that existed long before there were any gods to appease, or any Aungtalli that the gods had evolved into existence. Morgamor had always said that Beataphoriah was real.
Eromot found another book that looked like an apocalyptic story of a final war, which Beataphoriah had been powerless to stop. Beataphoriah sought out help from the skies, and the planet then became invaded by strange beings from the stars who punished and imprisoned Beataphoriah, and established the present Age of the Three Kingdoms. The book’s end documented the lives of persecuted faithful believers in Beataphoriah who had retreated underground to gather in secret places from then on. The book said that true believers still gathered to hear the voice of Beataphoriah, which had been carried on the winds all over Urania when the last fragment of a day’s great sun became swallowed by the horizon, and darkness shrouds the sky.
Eromot pulled his head out of the books to see where Oldo was. He had not moved, still appearing as a silent silhouette visible through the open door. Eromot wondered if he was out there hearing the voice as the book instructed. He decided to go out to intrude on the farmer obviously still mourning his son. This all was such a coincidence, he thought. One day he treated a patient who could hear Beataphoriah in his head, and now he found himself possibly stumbling upon a “hearer,” as if led here by fate, or some divine influence that meddled with circumstance. Eromot felt like he had been on a long quest for truth, and now became close to fulfilling at least part of it.
First Eromot walked up to Oldo, but didn’t say anything. Oldo must have known he would be there, but he didn’t move at all to acknowledge Eromot. He did seem to be distracted by something he intently listened to. As if he just waited for someone else to finish speaking, Oldo suddenly moved his gaze away from the sky of stars that peeked through dark shadows of vegetable clouds in the sky. “Out of the city in the countryside
I’ve heard the voice from the first time I tried.
City folk don’t hear it on city nights,
the voice drowned out by energy and lights.
I’m of the secret hearers who are hid.
We all hear the voice as we always did.”
Eromot felt so overwhelmed by the coincidence he thought for a second that he dreamed, or maybe had been dead. Eromot responded. “I have studied the voice of which you say.
I know the voice is Beataphoriah.
Last night when we were attacked in the car
I drove a hearer as my passenger.
He could hear the voice, but not very plain.
The voice in his ears had drove him insane.”
Oldo sympathized. “That’s why there’s a place for hearers to go
if the location they could only know.
My people help those who can’t stand the strain.
We’d have helped your friend make sense of his brain.
Let’s remain silent now that it is night.
Try to hear the voice yourself. You just might.”
They both stood together for many minutes. Oldo seemed to be hearing something. Oldo evidently did this often, like praying, but with no petitioning, only listening. Eromot tricked himself into thinking he heard something a couple of times, but it wasn’t the case, he ended up admitting to himself. Eventually Eromot just had to admit. “Just the song that my memory will sing
is all that I hear, I don’t hear a thing.”
Oldo said, “Some don’t hear the voice, no sound, not a trace.
It’s faith you require, come I know a place.
I am a farmer. I watch each season.
I believe all things are for a reason.
Come to a building out beyond that fence.
Come help me make my son’s death make some sense.
Come I’ll show you what is a great secret,
the church I attend to help with regret.
Come to what looks like a barn in a park.
Many attend there to hear when it’s dark.”
Eromot had been led across a field to what looked like a typical barn on the outside. Light flashed from the door as Oldo swung it open to bring the dark barn suddenly to life. Inside, a guy watched the door and quickly inspected them. Oldo spoke to him, and obviously explained who Eromot was. Eromot could tell the conversation moved on to Dolka’s death as the doorman embraced Oldo and tears began again.
There were at least a dozen people that
were all sitting on padded benches in silence, listening to the voice, evidently. The benches faced a green door, kind of like the rectangular door on the Aungtalli temple. The inside did not look like a barn, and the walls were lined with more shelves of books that were similar to what Eromot saw earlier. Soon Eromot had been introduced to Arnoediad, the leader of the Hearers in that location. “Greetings Eromot, I hope you are fine.
I’ve been expecting this. You are a sign.”
Arnoediad turned to Oldo. “Oldo, sorry for your son’s tragic death.
We’re victims, and the one he was with.
None but the Aungtalli caused this by choice.
Your son died in the war against the voice.”
Slowly people on the benches began opening their eyes and getting up to talk to Oldo. The news of Dolka’s death soon became known by all in the room, and all took it as a personal attack on their way of life there. There had been some talk about finding the crash site and retrieving the body, which became dispelled by the group’s fears of drawing attention to themselves by the Aungtalli attackers. Dolka had been a victim of a persecution that they all seemed to be familiar with, and they assured Eromot that two “hearers” died in that car last night.
Eromot had become easily welcomed as an expected sign. The voice told them all last night that a hearer had died not far away. That had been all the voice said on the matter. They told Eromot that they were only able to listen to the voice, for Beataphoriah had no contact with the outside world from where he had been imprisoned, except for the messages he broadcasted to those who had an ear to hear.
They had met here since before many of them were children. Arnoediad had been the son of the previous leader of these Hearers who had passed away. Arnoediad appeared about Oldo’s age. One of the Hearers gave Oldo more bad news about his close friend of a nearby farm who was probably under arrest in Keshdesh for value fraud. He had been trying to buy a platform for the altar Beataphoriah instructed them all to build. There had been no concept of bail in the Uranian justice system, so the whole room was left helpless to help their arrested friend.
As Eromot had been allowed further into the confidence of the church of Beataphoriah they began to let him in on what Beataphoriah had been telling them all these years. Many had been listening to the voice in this barn most of their lives. It evidently had been a very clear and unmistakably audible voice, thought Eromot, but he swore he could not hear a thing himself. He had concluded from the Morgamor research that it had been caused by a chemical imbalance that he evidently didn’t have, or at least he knew the “voice” could be amplified by a chemical imbalance. Oldo’s friend had been on a mission to obtain some very expensive custom designed technology for their altar. They had resorted to value fraud to pay for the special custom designed parts since it cost more than the value of all their farms to build what they were building here. Eromot became amazed at such unquestionable loyalty to a voice in their heads.
They were so sure that they heard this voice correctly, and it told them that Eromot just had to see the altar they were building. After a hushed discussion amongst the members, they agreed to let Eromot see the most sacred secret of their barn-church. Arnoediad opened the green door that the benches were facing, and invited Eromot in.
Inside the room a rectangular platform about the size of a small room filled the larger room. The platform had been painted blue with edges that rose a few inches above the base. Inside the platform swirled a kaleidoscope of complicated technology and coaglium wiring. Eromot thought he identified a self-charging receiver technology power source. Eromot thought he recognized it from an experimental model of a concept they were working on back in his open Ministry of Science days. The whole contraption displayed arrays of delicate electronics and circuitry beyond Eromot’s medical school of science knowledge.
Arnoediad introduced this to Eromot as he entered the room. “It’s the altar we’re instructed to build,
the altar for which, Oldo’s son was killed.
You, a scientist, know complexity.
We need your knowledge, not just your pity.
One of us is in jail now just because
we make this, but we don’t know what it does.”
Eromot had actually primarily been a doctor of pharmacology so he couldn’t really help them much. Eromot did know others that could help them. So it became decided that the hearers would help Eromot get to Gulfang to enlist their help with this altar. Eromot learned that they were building the legendary altar of Saint Vongolath. They believed they had upon their shelves of books, a copy of the altar instructions by Saint Vongolath. The voice they heard filled in the blanks that were left obscure by their book, which had supposedly been written by the legendary Saint Vongolath himself. The voice told them to build this altar, and take it to the well-known holy altar site of Saint Vongolath where all would be revealed to those who sacrificed themselves by standing on the altar at nightfall.
Eromot had never interpreted the well known legend of this altar to be such a complicated electronic device. According to the popular modern day account, the altar had been covered with offensive anti-Aungtalli symbols on the altar that got Vongolath labeled a heretic, and so was put to death by the Aungtalli. Eromot had always been taught that Saint Vongolath had been a racist anti-Aungtallite. A lot of people however, insisted on his sainthood as a martyr because of the miracle of Saint Vongolath. Therefore the Aungtalli religion reluctantly allowed the Saint Vongolath blasphemy.
It had been a legend from the Dark Age before the Aungtalli really managed to get a grip on the recording of history. During one of many Dark Age plagues that were suffered by Uranians, which the Aungtalli species always seemed conspicuously immune to, Vongolath embraced the blasphemy of listening to Beataphoriah. The voice told Vongolath to build a special altar at a special location, and Beataphoriah would deliver the Uranians from the deadly plague that threatened them with extinction at the time. Vongolath spent many years of hearing, and wandered the entire planet to find the sacred location, which turned out to be about 500 miles south west of where the great Aungtalli temple of the sacred energy was located today.
Before Vongolath could build his demonic altar, the gods were offended, and instructed the Aungtalli to put him to death. Eromot’s understanding of the legend had been that because the evil Vongolath had been stopped in his attempt of devil worship that the gods therefore showed mercy on Uranians by creating the miracle of the holy light at the same location that Vongolath sought to defile. Others of Uranian decent have begged to differ with the history rewriting Aungtalli, and over the years the holy site has come to be known as the holy site to the altar of Saint Vongolath, near the city of Svervus.
It is a phenomenon that Ministry of Science members have never been able to explain, and the Aungtalli won’t offer an explanation other than miracle from the gods. At the holy site of Saint Vongolath, every night just after sunset, there is a flash of light that appears just for an instant and then is no more till it happens again the next day. It has happened every night, without fail, on Urania since the Dark Age days of Saint Vongolath. According to legend, this flash of light healed thousands of would-be plague victims when they stood in the location at the moment it happened. Modern day scientists conclude that there are no observable healing effects with exposure to this mysterious light. It appears to be a mostly harmless flash of light similar to the aurora borealis show that had often been observed above the great Glacier Mountain at the North Pole. Many theories had been put forward to explain the miracle; from it just being a reflection phenomenon all the way to it being a chemical reaction specific to the area where certain compounds release light when triggered by the sundown temperature drop.
Others prefer to embrace the miracle explanation, and every day there were still hundreds of pilgrims who went there to be healed by the miracle of Saint Vongolath. It remained a kind of ancient pagan ritual that had
been adapted by the modern Aungtalli religion so they could control its interpretation. This mysterious nightly flash of light really had been one side of a teleportation routine Beataphoriah, from its prison, eventually managed to program its star-door to do every night. This had been one of many escape probabilities it worked on for thousands of Earth years now. It just needed a teleportation platform in that location to anchor the other side of the wormhole sequence with a portal matrix when it occurred every night. The altar that Saint Vongolath had been trying to make actually had been a high tech teleportation platform. Anyone on a properly constructed teleportation platform located at the location of the moment of the miracle of Saint Vongolath would instantly be teleported to the inside of the Tze-Doldus star-door, which had been located deep beneath the great Glacial Mountain at the North Pole of Urania.