Guardian :02
Stairway to heaven...
"There must be some mistake," he repeated for the millionth time. "I belong *down there,* not *up here.*" This part he phrased very slowly for the ferrygirl, who was still ignoring him.
"It's not so bad once you get used to it!" she exclaimed, dipping the oar into the mist, propelling the small boat quickly across the cloudy river. "And depending how you did, you get a job. I bet they make you herald, that's usually where they put the pretty ones. It makes the Realm look good. Heavenly and all that." Abruptly the boat stopped, pitching Joren forward.
"All ashore!" exclaimed Charon with a broad sweep of her hand. The 'shore' was in reality a small marble landing, surrounded on all sides by the lapping clouds of the river Acheron. Extending from the ground was a long, spiraling staircase of white ivory with golden railing, ascending skyward. Even craning his neck Joren couldn't see where it ended.
"Up you go!" Charon pointed at the staircase.
"What?! You expect me to walk up that thing?!" The girl grinned and pointed out the sign posted to the bottom of the railing:
ELEVATOR OUT OF ORDER.
PLEASE USE STAIRS.
"What's an elevator?" asked Joren. Charon ignored the question.
"Be glad there is one. In Hell, there are none at all, only stairs."
"Why?"
"In case of fire." She grinned wickedly. "Well, I'm off!" She pushed the oar against the landing and the ferry began to float away.
"Wait!" called Joren. "What happens when I get to the top?" *If I get to the top,* he added silently. Charon was drifting farther and farther away. He couldn't hear her reply. "What?"
"Trial!" came the distant, cheerful reply. "And watch out, the gods have a bad sense of..." the words trailed away as girl and ferry disappeared completely into the fog. Joren turned back to face the staircase. He could just picture Lord Wyldon ordering the pages to job up and down it three times...With a sudden pang, he wondered if Lord Wyldon--or anyone, for that matter--would miss him.
"Great," he muttered, bringing his thoughts back to the present. He was looking down at his clothes, the same he had worn at the Ordeal. This meant nothing but a thin, undyed tunic and bare feet. "I hope it brings me more luck at this 'trial' than it did in the Chamber," the boy muttered, pushing his hair back and beginning his ascent.
***
"Five-hundred-fortynine-thousand, six-hundred eightyone, five-hundred-fortynine-thousand, six-hundred eightytwo, five-hundred-for--" He was still climbing. Idly Joren wondered what would happen if her were to jump over the railing. Would he fall in the River Acheron? If so, would he drown? If that happened, would Charon pull him out and bring him to the bottom of the stairs again, or would he be taken by a different ferryman to a different Realm of the Dead? Was there a Realm of the Dead to the Realm of the Dead? Or maybe it really did just stop, as Joren had always supposed happened at death. The possibility of an afterlife hadn't occurred to him, and he had laughed off Lord Turomot's predictions of the following trial.
The trial he was about to attend.
If he ever got UP these god-damned stairs!
Well, they probably weren't really damned by the gods, since here they were right in the middle of--wherever this was. And he really, really, really hoped Lord Turomot's predictions didn't come true.
"--tynine-thousand, six hundred...wait, where was I? Crap!" He stopped midstep and looked down. It was a long way to the bottom. He looked up. The top was still out of sight. "You know what? I quit. You hear that?! I QUIT!"
"Don't quit now!" exclaimed a deep, burly voice next to Joren's ear. "Your thoughts were just getting interesting."
"Besides," whispered a sweeter, smoother voice in Joren's other ear, "we're ready for you now."
"May the trial begin!"
***
As those words were spoken, Joren found himself in the center of a large courtroom. At the judge's stand was a great, barrel-chested man with bright blonde hair and a short beard, clad in judges' robes and clutching a gavel. *Mithros,* thought Joren. *Literally.* To his right was a tall, slender woman with long, ebony hair and large crimson lips curled into a smile. Her dress, of gold and black velvet and lace, would have made the wealthiest of queens curdle with envy. This woman was the Great Mother, or so Joren assumed. To either side of the God and Goddess were the lesser deities, some of whom Joren could recognize from Sunday-school descriptions. They lined the walls of the courtroom, surrounding Joren on all sides. The room was alive with chatter, which died down to a hush at the moment of the descent of Mithros' gavel.
"Order!" commanded Mithros. "Beginning the trial of Joren of Stone Mountain!
"Now?!" exclaimed Joren. "Hold on, don't tell me walking up all those stairs was just busy work!" The deities exchanged glances.
"Would you prefer it remained a secret?" the Goddess asked patronizingly.
"What the hell is the purpose of having me walk up all those damned stairs when I could have just stayed still and saved my energy?" Mithros clucked and shook his head laughingly.
"Ahh, you mortals," he chuckled fondly. "First of all, we are in Heaven, not Hell. Second of all, there's not that many stairs, only three. You just thought there were more. In actuality you were walking on the middle stair the whole time. It's an optical illusion," he added boastfully, drawing the term out so Joren could understand.
"He made it himself," the Goddess explained with a fond look at her husband. "He's very proud of it."
"Nice," replied Joren sourly.
"Third of all," continued Mithros, "you're dead, so what does it matter if you waste your energy? You don't need it anyway. And fourth, you were only climbing it for a couple of minutes. What are you complaining for?"
"A couple of *minutes*?! More like a couple of DAYS!"
"No, I believe it was about three hours," corrected the Goddess.
"Four weeks!" called one of the deities in the crowd.
"Ten years!" disagreed another.
"Not at all," shouted a third. "It was a century!" The crowd fell into a tumult of shouting and arguing, judge and all. *Time. Bad perception of time.* decided Joren, stifling a yawn.
"Order!" called Mithros finally, pounding his gavel. "I have decided the amount of time the defendant spent on the stair is irrelevant to the case. Time to get on with the trial!" His words were met with a murmur of agreement. "Now commencing with the trial of Joren of--"
"Hold on a moment," Joren interrupted. *Or a year, a second, an hour...* Mithros looked affronted.
"You can't interrupt me!" he protested. "I am the King of the Gods."
"Sure, fine. Anyway, I have a complaint." The jury buzzed in confusion until Mithros sulkily gestured with a mighty hand for the boy to continue.
"I think," the squire began, straightening his tunic and standing tall in his white, bare feet, "that you have made a gross miscalculation in bringing about my death."
The Goddess, whom Joren deemed remarkably like Queen Thayet, arched a slender eyebrow. "Go on," she commanded.
"The Chamber of the Ordeal destroys or punishes those who aren't worthy in spirit to become knights. For example, when Vinson of Genlith, a rapist and murderer, had his Ordeal, it released him and caused him to suffer through every wound he'd inflicted upon his victims."
"A fitting punishment," interjected the Goddess. Joren inclined his head.
"I, on the other hand, have never raped or murdered. It is true I was a bully for three years, but my worst crime consisted of kidnapping a girl and putting her on a tower for half a day. Half a day! With no other harm done to her. And I was but fifteen. Yet in the Chamber *I* was condemned to death. How is it fair that my crime is nowhere near as bad as Vinson's yet my punishment was so much worse? And in what way am I unworthy to be a knight? I was the best student Lord Wyldon ever had! It's true that I don't approve of ladies becoming knights, but there are a lot of knights who don't. And there are many knights just as stuck-up and arrogant as me!"
"You say that, yet in all of history you are the only mortal who has ever dared argue with the Court of Gods at his own trial," mused Mithros.
"You can't say it's because my resistance posed a threat to the Tortallan Crown," continued Joren. "Alexander of Tirragen and Roger of Conte both passed the Ordeal, yet they tried and succeeded in killing off half the Royal Family and bringing the country to its knees. I come from a rich, completely loyal family and live life--or lived it, anyhow--in luxury. I had no such ambitions as they. So how can you possibly justify killing me at the Ordeal?"
His speech was met with silence all around. The God and Goddess exchanged grave glances and the queen nodded slightly.
"The trial of Joren of Stone Mountain is concluded," the God King announced quietly, and the courtroom around Joren disappeared.
***
to be continued...
Sorry it's so late, guys! I was planning to upload everyday, but Calculus and writer's block have gotten the better of me. I was able to churn this out, finally. This is part one of two, so next update you'll get to see what's actually going on. This is a flashback, if you couldn't tell. And Charon is the ferryman in Greek mythology, but I thought a ferrygirl like Botan from Yu Yu Hakusho would be cool. Please review : ) Love, me 3