“The temple has a room for questions. Ask, and the lady will answer or not, as she chooses.”

“She’ll answer in person?”

“Answers come in many forms.”

“Sounds like she’s leaning on heavily metaphor, too.”

Gabrielle gave Jason a confident smile.

“You will soon see for yourself,” she said.

She led Jason to a set of double doors. They were larger than the ones that were the entrance to the temple, but just as plain. They were carved from wood, aged and unadorned but for a simple handle on each. Jason had the strange feeling they were older than the building in which they were affixed. Gabrielle pulled open the heavy doors with an ease that belied her small frame.

“This is as far as I take you,” she said, gesturing for Jason to continue on. He passed through the doors and she pushed them closed behind him.

46. Blatant Manipulation

46

Blatant Manipulation

The chamber was large and circular, a single room rising up five storeys to a glass ceiling. Light spilled in from above, reflecting from crystal mosaics that lined the walls to bathe the room in rainbow colours. This innermost chamber was the exact opposite of the temple’s plain exterior.

“That is certainly impressive.”

Jason walked into the room as Gabrielle closed the doors behind him. He looked at his arms as the light played over them. In the centre of the room there was a life-sized statue of a woman holding an open book. Jason walked around it, looking it over.

“Ask, and she shall answer or not, was it?”

Jason meandered around the room, looking at the crystal mosaics than ran from the floor, up five storeys to the ceiling. They depicted what he took to be various knowledge keepers: scribes, teachers, librarians. Rendered in colourful crystal and washed with light, they looked vibrant and bathed with glory.

He remained silent as he examined the artwork on the walls. He had always been prone to talking to himself, but the idea of expecting an answer back was disconcerting. He wondered if it was a little too close to prayer for his liking, then realised it actually was prayer.

“The idea,” a female voice spoke from behind him, “is that I choose whether to answer your questions, not whether you choose to ask them.”

It was the same voice he had heard in the square. He didn’t turn from where he was looking at the wall mosaics.

“And you’re in charge?” he asked.

“Definitively,” the voice said. “It is my temple.”

Her voice was melodious, with a hint of amusement. There was an undercurrent within it, an aura with the force of a tidal wave. It was somehow distant at the same time, like a photograph of a wild storm.

“Your house, your rules,” Jason said. “My mother had a similar attitude.”

“And you left,” the voice said. “You have the same option here.”