Grasping at Faith

Nobody wore shoes in the desert. As hot sand burned the pale bottoms of his feet, Kai wondered why that was. He had been walking for three days already, with many more ahead until he would reach the fabled Cloudwell: the bridge between the physical world and the metaphysical world, which he intended to cross. Long had he prayed to the Lajsia Bujrai, and long had his prayers gone unanswered. Through war, famine, plague, and drought he had sent his words to the skies, yet the struggles of his people had not ceased. He hoped to commune with the Bujrai directly that they might take notice of his plight and at last shower the earth with their grace, but a part of Kai knew that it could never happen. The gods were not so direct, and besides, he must have done something to deserve his ill fortune, perhaps in one of his past lives. What it was he could not say, but he doubted that he could change the minds of the divines when he could not even get their attention. Still, he pressed on, compelled by his grief, and his bare feet trudged through the endless sands of the Great Desert.   As the sun neared its apex, Kai found a rocky outcropping to take shelter in for the hottest part of the day. To sleep during the middle of the day was difficult, and his body was far too stubborn to abandon its natural rhythm so easily. As he laid there in the small, temporary shade created by an unstable meldstone boulder, he did his best to lull himself to sleep, but hardly managed to shut his eyes. Each time Kai began to drift off slightly, he was pulled into an awful fugue state, somewhere between awake and asleep, where his greatest fears seemed to come to life before him, inevitably shocking his psyche and returning him to total, alarmed consciousness. In the in-between, he saw visions of tempests and floods spilling out across the cracked desert earth; he saw lightning reaching down from the heavens to strike him; he saw black clouds that passed over the sun, stealing its warmth and freezing the earth solid. He saw himself, trapped at the bottom of a pit, with no way to climb out.   He could not help his anxiety. No-one had seen the Cloudwell for many of the seasons' dances, and he could not be certain that he would even find it. The wisest naturalists estimated that the Desert was at least 40 days across, based on the composition of the Westerly winds and what little remained of the original explorers' field notes, now nearly 900 dances old. Most of the La Tsia people never ventured beyond the jungles, and even those who traveled to the Northern Horn earned a sort of reverence and awe from the commonfolk in his society. To be selected for a journey as important as this was honor immeasurable, and his failure might mean the demise of his entire culture. Even as his prayers seemed to go unheard, he had not lost his clerical powers, and he was sure that, if nothing else, that meant his gods had not yet abandoned him. Through his continued use of healing and augury spells, he kept himself well as he traveled through the Great Desert, and guided himself to every available oasis and source of food, drawn to sustenance by the divine clairvoyance his devotion had earned him.   Yes, he had to remind himself, he had been chosen for a reason. None of the acolytes would have survived this trek. He was a fully endowed priest of the Helial Order, and he alone could survive this journey. Would survive. He only hoped that his burning feet would carry him swiftly, and that he could cross the hot sands unbothered by whoever else may be traveling through them.   His travels continued as such for 35 more days, the priest trapped in and endless cycle of doubt and self-reassurance, until at last he saw the shadows of great mountains towering on the Western horizon. Great mountains which lifted earth to the heavens, which contained the bridge to the metaphysical somewhere in their vast raggedness. Great mountains which held the answers he had been seeking all his life. As he saw them for the first time, Kai realized that his task had only just begun. Crossing a flat desert and traveling in one direction was one thing, but searching an entire mountain range for a single location... No matter. He would do whatever it took.   Kai gathered his resolve and continued his walk towards the mountains, his feet slipping as he crested a dune of fine amber sand. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and just as he drew air into his lungs, he heard a voice in the distance.