Alluvion

[Patricus I]

Philip’s contemplation soon smoothed to passive absorption. He was never one to act on his dreams, despite the furor with which they enveloped his consciousness. He noted their meaning in a journal and moved on with his life undisturbed. He always knew he would bear the mantle of first among Bishops, but not because he dreamed himself standing triumphant atop Saint Peter’s. It was certainty as sure as the truth Nimeda sought in between soul and flesh. Destiny just was. The momentarily glimpse of the beyond faded, and Philip oriented himself to the present. Nimeda prodded he act. When Philip glanced at her, he winked. He felt more secure in himself now than the entire dream’s experience.

“Tuuru the Arboreal,” he spoke as though issuing sovereign decrees intended to be followed to the letter of his law, “I have seen a refuge crafted from the vines of your very bark. A smog surrounded the cage. You are the keeper of something that I need. Tell me what you know of these things,” he said. As he described the vision within a dream, if such a thing existed, he’d come to a contemplative stance. His hands were perched at his mouth, palms pressed together as though in supplicant prayer. Yet he paced unknowingly, a habit of many years. When his gaze snapped upward, it was to drink in the nuances of this creature from the wave of each grassy eyelid to the crinkle in his barky cheeks. Philip’s chin tilted high, expectant.

He wasn’t sure if the speech summoned some sort of authority to speak or if Tuuru would have shared the answer to anyone to stroll into his neck of the woods. Nimeda said she’d never been here before, implying its remote isolation or perhaps sheer hidden nature. This suggested few others, if none, would confront the creature as he had. When he reached out with the verbalized demand to be shown what he needed, it was with full confidence that he would be answered. The Arboreal did not disappoint.

There was intelligence in Tuuru’s eyes as he beheld first Philip followed by Nimeda. The intelligence was calculating, as if considering whether or not they were the ones he needed.
“The Great Wheel knows there are no beginnings and no endings, but an ending comes. The Four-Way Pillar summons the Book. The Book has four keys,” he said. With a great groan, Tuuru lifted his hands high overhead. From his fingers extended branches that split and formed new ones. Within moments a sphere swallowed them whole, the branches blocked out all but a few dim specks of sunlight. Although he knew they were inside the very cage he beheld in the darkness, it wasn’t confining. Rather, the seclusion was comforting as though they were nestled in the womb of the Virgin herself.

The dim cocoon darkened until he found himself drifting. He could see people standing around the Four-Way Pillar, each with their palms pressed to a different symbol carved therein. They were indistinguishable except for a young blonde woman. She was barefoot and wore a black dress and veil. Beneath her palms, the symbols on the pillar began to glow an eerie blue until the light grew so painfully bright, Philip put a hand to shield his eyes. She screamed silently before the light winked away with one brilliant flash. In an instant, Philip found himself standing on the ground near her. She turned away from the Pillar and lifted the veil from her face. Beneath was one empty eye-socket, blackened and charred.  The other eye was bright green and roamed freely about the socket, swiveling as though always in motion within the orbit. It never stopped moving despite her fixation upon himself. He wondered if the Pillar did that, but the injury seemed old, nor did she move as if in pain. Perhaps she was oblivious to the disfigurement. She offered what was in her hands to him, and he accepted it without hesitation. The moment he did, the dream yanked him from Arboreal’s vision.

When he opened his eyes, he was laying in plush grass soft as downy fur. The Four-Way Pillar was nearby, untouched as before. Tuuru was alongside it. A dizziness swarmed his mind that passed in a few moments. When he sat up, the gift from the veiled woman was nestled alongside his leg.

A sense of peace settled again as he held it aloft. It was about the length of a fork, slender and elegant. One end was honed to a blunt point. Strikingly, it was made of crystal or perhaps of glass. There was a weightlessness to the stake that defied its appearance. When he held it up, the sunlight caught the prism of its edges and a rainbow of colors were scattered about the garden.

This was the key that Tuuru described, or at least it was one of them.

He carried it with him as he returned. Tuuru nodded with approval. “You have the key,” he said. Philip agreed, obviously he had the key. Tuuru gave it to him. “Yours is the key of cunning,” he continued, voice booming through its wooden chest. Philip turned the stake over in his hands before interrupting.
“The keys of strength, speed, and flight remain,” he said, gaze shifting to the Pillar and the heads perched atop. Writings were marked into the column that Philip did not comprehend yet the meaning permeated his mind none the less. In the vision, the woman with one eye seemed to know the words. Philip, with all his knowledge, who spoke the language of ancients, didn’t so much as recognize the script. 

Tuuru was quiet. They needed these keys to work the Four-Way Pillar, the power of which flowed through a book that would save them all.

This was not the action he wanted. The Pope was the Bishop of Rome, not the hero of Rome. He was a watcher of prophecy, not a diviner of it. Most importantly, salvation was once laid at the feet of mankind and it was rejected - no, slaughtered; sacrificed. Destiny faltered. He was chosen by God just as he chose a life of service.

He understood what to do next, and in evidence, showed the stake to Nimeda. ”The key of cunning,” he said with a smirk.