Ancient Thought by Viola Grace (literature books to read txt) 📗

Two months since she had dropped onto the plain, and she had been tripped, shoved, prodded, peeped on, and found out that her outfit was stain-resistant every breakfast.

This place was miserable, and the prior was a pervert. She had to use an unladylike shriek that caused him to lose his grip on her breasts, and the avatar dismissed Libby to have a quiet talk with the prior. He now ran in the opposite direction when he saw her.

She stared out at the mountains and let her focus float and mix with the energy surrounding her. She let her memories scatter and float through her thoughts. The techniques she had learned over the last few weeks had definitely been enlightening.

She remained sitting with her hood up and her focus on the mountains. After a few hours, a familiar energy settled beside her.

“Greetings, Your Eminence.”

“So, it seems you have completed a year’s worth of training in a few months. Well done. We are sending the invitations out to the ancients today. After this, it is a waiting game.”

Libby kept her focus out toward the mountains. “Do I have to wear the stupid outfits?”

Mathla laughed. “Yes. They jog the memories of the ancients.”

“Could I try it wearing my robe over it?”

“I don’t see why not. That way, you can always strip if you need to.”

Libby turned her head to the avatar. Mathla smiled brightly.

“Oh, come on, Novice Libby. If they request you wear a specific outfit, where is the harm?”

Libby pinched the bridge of her nose. “So, you want to lock their recall into a five-hundred-year span at the most?”

“What do you mean?”

“Fashion. The fashion that they request is related to a specific period of time that they like. You won’t get any of the other stuff if they are dictating what the novice wears. Whose rule was that?”

Mathla blushed. “I thought it would set the ancients at ease. I didn’t think about the span of time it would suggest to them.”

“How long have you been an avatar?”

“Five hundred years. I started collecting the ancients immediately after. I had met one while I was still mortal, and I thought that this would be a nice place for them to retire.”

“And providing their memories to other worlds was also a means to create support for the survival of your people.”

She grimaced. “I banished Luon’s people.”

“There is a story there.”

“Oh. There is.” Mathla looked up. “Master Kiol, what do you think of her imaging?”

“Astonishingly clear, Your Eminence. There is one final test that the prior has requested.”

Mathla raised her brows. “Yes?”

“He wishes to see how she handles your acceptance of Luon.”

Mathla scowled. “No. She isn’t up for that. The prior could barely handle that.”

“If you wish her to eventually ascend to master, he does require it.”

“Why did I give him so much power over this place?”

Libby smiled. “We can look at that memory later.”

Libby looked at Master Kiol. “Do you have crystals?”

“Why plural?”

“Humour me.”

He pulled out two crystals and handed them to Libby. She turned to Mathla. “Did you want to just do this?”

“It drives novices catatonic.”

“In that case, while I am out, don’t let the prior grope me.”

The avatar blinked and slowly smiled. “I promise. You can sit and rock in my quarters.”

“Stop flirting.” Libby smiled and turned to her. “Okay, bring the memory up. Don’t force it, just remember the first thing you were doing that day, and let it come.”

Mathla blinked, and her eyes went vague.

Libby touched her mind to Mathla’s, and it was like grabbing a shorting wire.

“Let me go! I don’t volunteer. I don’t want to be an avatar. Luon can choose someone else!” She struggled against the priests holding her.

She was hauled through the streets, and her friends and relatives turned their backs to her as the priests pulled her toward the temple of Luon.

Her clothing was stained and ragged, her feet were bloody from being dragged, and the priests were digging their nails into her arms as they hauled her along. She cried, she screamed, she cursed, it did nothing.

They hauled her to the altar and strapped her to it. The men who had brought her bowed to a figure in the corner and left her.

She was sobbing softly until she heard it. There was a scraping shuffle. It happened again from behind her. It was coming from the shadows that the priests had shown deference to.

The shuffle came closer, and she craned her neck to see, and then, she wished she hadn’t. A man, or it had been a man, was cracking apart, and light was seeping from him. He looked like he was going to explode.

His hair was burned off him, the skin was blistered, and he smelled like scorched meat.

Mathla leaned back as he leaned in toward her, and to her horror, he grabbed her head and held her still for a kiss from lips that had been scorched to the teeth. She started screaming, but energy began to flow from him into her, and soon, the screaming stopped.

She had no breath to scream; she was on fire from the inside out. Pain was tearing her apart, and a voice was coming to her.

“Easy Mathla, what did Luon show you?”

The pain ripped along her nerves and finally subsided. A man walked toward her with the sun at his back.

“I apologize for the method of your ascension to avatar, but I needed you. Urak was not a good selection. He could not manage to contain me. I needed someone suitable, and he was able to locate you.” The figure of Luon was a handsome man, and he took her by the hands.

“Come with me, Mathla. I will show you amazing things, worlds born and dying. Magic and evolution and wonder. They are all yours to see.”

Mathla’s nerves were still jangling, and she asked Luon, “Can I punish those who gave me pain?”

Libby cut it there and held her breath as she spooled off the memory, and then,