in the silence of the desert, in the bellows of the sea (part XV)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part XIV.)

Hiram Abriff sat in the temple. He didn't look as imposing as Hiro expected he intended. The stonemason was a small framed man, not at all imposing, seated between the two pillars, like the Tarot card of the high priestess--the traditional placing framed by Boaz and Jocham.

"Were you summoned and sent?"

"Neither."

"No one 'chooses' to come here. I did not, she did not. I would wager the Crawling Darkness himself was sent by someone else."

The torches lit the half built chamber. Two workers high up on a parapet seemed to be stacking bricks that appeared from nowhere on a floating wooden platform. The workers from a distance looked like they were wearing olive-colored reptile skins.

Hiro shifted uncomfortably in the wooden cage. "I need to stand up. Stretch a bit--"

Hiram laughed. "No, Cat Man. Not happening. I want to be back in Brooklyn. Ya know? Cool Brooklyn, post vaccine in a 21st Century civil war timeline, or maybe in one of the Masonic Imperial time lines..."

Hiro listened. Involuntarily flexing his claws. Staring at the throat of who he thought would soon be a victim.

Hiram was wearing a silk tunic. On his hands, several large rings with arcane symbols.

Hiro heard foot steps on the stone floor, he looked to see Bilqis. Alone. Approaching.

"Ah, hello, love," Hiram called out. "He finally gave you a pass? Or with one of his other toys?"

“Ambien in the wine. Worked. I don’t know what we will do when we run out." Bilqis sat on a cushion facing Hiro's cage. She looked over her shoulder at Hiram. "Why is he still in the cage? Is this your idea of befriending him?"

"Uh...well, we were..."

She turned to look at Hiro. She smiled. She looked ethnically Latina or maybe mixed race. In the throne room she had a distinctly more exotic and at the same time regal look. Now her demeanor was less constrained.

"Kitty, what has my boyfriend told you about this mess we are in?"

"Not much, he..."

Hiram interrupted "Ha, the Queen is renowned for her humor, the only mess is what to do with this vile..."

Bilqis rolled her eyes so that only Hiro could see.

"So, not much."

He shook his head.

"Well, I'll do it. After you understand the facts, I will unlock you. Like you, we came from somewhere and when. Also, like you, something pulled you to this place and you can't get out of the 'well'."

Hiro nodded. "A gravity well?"

Hiram spoke up. "More like a probability well."

"Events, timelines, magic, accidents, etc., all pull back to this general point. Actually, goes a few hundred years back."

"We are hoping your Tardis would be functional..."

Hiro shakes his head. "I am not Gallifreyan. Nor would I have access to that technology."

"Nevertheless, you had access to something, but maybe you didn’t understand it? The signs and sigils were right in front of you all the time?"

Hiro tried to hide his confusion. "I...don't..."

The woman leaned in. "Kitty...we need to run some tests. You shouldn't have been able to come here with the counter measures. We don't know how it happened. But if you can do it, maybe others can. We need to know before HE blocks your magic, or tech--or both."

Hiro bumped his head on the top of the cage.

"Ouch. Get me out of this. Give me my clothes back and can we talk like civilized beings?"

Bilqis glanced at Hiram. "Banish the workers. I think it will be okay."

"But if it isn't? You cannot trust them, I have told you."

Hiram stood up and walked out of Hiro's line of sight. Hiro could smell a burning of some incense.

Bilqis unlocked the cage. The leopard man crawled out. He looked around the large room. Behind the pillars was a smaller room, it would have been the Holy of Holies--the inner sanctum. Hiram emerged from within it holding a scroll.

"Bil--we have a shift."

"Oh?"

"Yes, an obvious one. A big change. Here, look--"

He opened the scroll for Bilqis to read. "We have never seen this blatant of a shift."

"Okay, let’s send word--"

"What is the planned medium?" Hiram asked.

"Wait--what are you talking about?" Hiro looked from the queen to the stonemason.

"Here, she'll read it, and we will explain. But get dressed first." Hiram tossed Hiro his uniform. "Put this on, mate."

Bilqis read:

This is from Genesis, what you
you may have called the Bible or Torah:

Now the leopard was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the man, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The man said to the leopard, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
"You will not certainly die," the leopard said to the man. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the man saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, he took some and ate it. He also gave some to his wife, who was with him, and she ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Bilqis looked up at Hiro.

"This is different than I learned it."

Bilqis nodded. "Yes, it means HE is worried about you. Enough to alter scripture."

"Who are you talking about, and how..."

"There isn't time, we need to get word out and ask some questions of our teammates in the future."

"You can talk to the future? Sign me up, I need to get word out."

"Hiro, it isn’t that easy. Let us explain..."

(Continued in part XVI.)