The bartender looked down at the significant overpayment, and with one eyebrow raised he asked, “Is that the smallest you’ve got?”
“Consider it a tip,” she said with a smile.
“For what?” he asked, his eyebrow still raised.
“I seek only counsel, to get my affairs in order.”
The bartender looked her over, lingering longer than necessary on her cleavage before responding. “I’ll see what I can do.” He picked up the credit chip and left the bar, disappearing through a doorway at one end.
Jalea picked up her mug of ale and took a sip. She had never truly acquired a taste for such intoxicants, but had learned to tolerate it as operations often called for their use. She was sure that the bartender had gone to confer with others who were probably watching her through a hidden video monitoring device at this very moment.
A few minutes later, the bartender returned, placing her change on the counter. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Down the hall, third door, downstairs. Now, slap me like I just propositioned you.”
Without hesitation, Jalea leaned back and slapped him hard with her open hand, followed by tossing the remainder of her ale in his face. “Pig!” she yelled as she rose from her barstool and stormed off down the hallway.
The bartender laughed in the face of the onlookers. “Worth it,” he chuckled.
Jalea strode indignantly into the hallway, going right past both the men’s and then the women’s restrooms, instead entering the third door just as instructed. The room was dark, lit only by a bit of light coming through a crack in the curtain that covered the small, high window. She found a light control by the door and activated the overhead light panel. The room was small with many storage shelves on one wall and a large wash basin on the other. She felt around the storage shelves until she found what she was looking for. On the side of the shelving unit was a small catch. She grabbed it and pulled, causing the shelving unit to swing forward slightly. She pulled harder and swung the unit open to reveal a staircase that led down to a lower level.
Jalea carefully stepped into the dim staircase, pulling the shelving unit back behind her until she felt it lock back into place. She descended the staircase slowly, her footsteps echoing down the long corridor at the bottom of the stairs.
Once at the bottom of the stairs, she followed the long hallway. She was sure it was going under the pedestrian walkway outside, possibly even over to another building on the opposite side. At the end of the hall, she reached a door, which she opened.
The next room was only a few meters square and was decorated with tapestries depicting the Legend of Origin. She had seen such artworks many times as a child, her father having served as a priest of the Order. His service to the Order had been the inadvertent cause of her mother’s death when she was still young, and it had been the direct cause of his own death much later. But despite these tragic memories, she had made herself remember all the trappings and rituals involved in the Order, knowing that the knowledge would someday come in handy.
To her left, there was a table full of candles and artifacts. In front of the table was a kneeling pillow. She stepped up to the pillow and knelt down. She picked up one of the unlit candles and held the tip to the flame of the main candle in the middle of the table. Once lit, she placed her burning candle on the table at the end of the row of already burning candles that had been placed by previous visitors that day. She crossed her hands in front of her chest, bowed her head down, and began to mumble an almost inaudible prayer. When she was finished, she drew a cross over her chest and rose. To her right were two small doors, each decorated in much the same fashion, although the symbols on the doors were obviously different. There was another door in the wall behind her directly adjacent to the table full of candles, but she already knew that the purpose of that door held no interest for her.
She entered one of the two doors and stepped into a small confessional booth. After closing the door, she turned, sat down, and waited for someone to come. After waiting for several minutes, a bright blue beam of light washed across her, traveling from her head to her toes in less than a minute. She knew instantly that she had been scanned. It was not an uncommon precaution, considering how deep into the Ta’Akar controlled Pentaurus cluster the Darvano system was located. The Legend of Origins was still a forbidden practice under the order of Caius, and all caught in its practice were summarily executed.
Once the scan completed, she heard the sound of the third door in the room as it opened and closed, followed by the sounds of footsteps as someone-a man by the weight of his footfalls-made his way across the small outer room, opened the door to the adjacent booth, and closed it behind him.
A moment later, the opaque screen on the wall between them began to glow, the silhouette of the occupant in the next booth showing on its surface.
“Why do you seek counsel?” a benevolent male voice came from the adjacent booth. The screen was nothing more than a piece of cloth casting a shadow of the occupant; hence the man’s voice came through quite clearly.
“I’ve had a dream,” she began.
“We all have dreams, child.”
“Perhaps dream is not the right word.”
“What word might better describe what you experienced?”
Jalea paused for a moment, feigning hesitation for an unknown emotional reason. “I’m not sure,” she lied.
“Are you unsure, or unwilling to admit the truth?” the man prompted.
“A bit of both, I suppose.”
“Do not worry, for you are not judged, at least not by me.”
“It was not a dream, really. I want to call it… a vision, but I’ve never had such and have no way to tell if that description might be any more accurate.”
“What makes you think it was not a dream?”
“I was not asleep at the time,” she admitted softly.
“I see,” the man said. “Perhaps, if you tell me of this experience, I might be better able to help you identify it, to understand its meaning.”
“It was a voice,” she told him, “a man’s voice. An old man, I believe. I’m not sure.”
“And what did this voice say to you?”
“He told me to look to the sky on this night. To the level of the first moon, but a quarter rotation to the north. At twenty-eight thirty, on this night,” she told him. Jalea was pouring all her emotion into her performance, playing the tortured and confused soul for all she could muster.
“What is it that you are supposed to see?” the man asked.
Jalea could tell that the priest’s curiosity was peaked. “He said a sign would be given. And that on the next day, a gift would be bestowed upon us all, a gift that would save us all from evil,” she told him, almost in tears. “Oh, father, do you think me insane?”
“Of course not, child.”
“But father. I think the voice… I think it was God, father.” There was no response from the man after that, and for a moment, Jalea feared she had overplayed her hand.
“I’m curious,” the man asked. Jalea could hear the doubt in his voice. She was probably not the first person to tell him that God had spoken to them. “Why do you tell this to me?”
“I do not wish this burden,” Jalea told him as she sniffed. “I am not a strong woman. I am a nobody. I fear persecution. Someone else must deliver the message.”
“Deliver it to whom?”
Jalea pretended to think for a moment, as if she had not considered that possible question until now. “I’m not sure,” she told him, making it sound like an admission. “Other believers, maybe? People who believe in the Legend of Origin?”
“And to what end?” he challenged.
“If something bad is about to happen, or something good for that matter, shouldn’t the people know?”
“Perhaps,” he agreed.
After another moment of silence, interrupted only by her occasional sniffle, Jalea spoke up once more. “Father? Do you think me insane?”
