Merril served in the capacity of the high priest in the temple of Arkus, god of the seasons and the passage of time. The cult symbol was an arrow, showing the inevitable direction in which all things and processes must flow. As a deity that parceled out the day into portions suitable for all necessary human activities and safeguarded the calendar, it should not be surprising to find out that daily life at his temple was strictly regulated. The oft-repeated credo of the faith was “everything at its proper time,“ and “each act within its season”. Those devoted to the service of Arkus favored casting auguries and gazing at the firmament, and worshippers relied on them to see if a certain prospective task would be performed at a propitious or unfortunate time, and the clerics there did the best to oblige their many supplicants.

  The temple was set a mere block from the Grand Boulevard that emphatically sliced through the heart of the lower portion of the city. From a distance, it had the appearance of a many-lobed rock-cut edifice, as if it was hewn from a curiously repetitious extrusion of basalt that had been squeezed upward through the urban surroundings by great pressure. A small outer courtyard hemmed in by a wall capped with identical spires at regular intervals led to some monumental stairs terminating at the great doors of the main sanctuary, faced with plates of hammered silver upon which were embossed scenes that corresponded to the seasons and conveyed the passage of an entire year. From this large chamber radiated smaller lobes of similar design, as architectural fractals propagating according to dimly understood but recognizable principles. These contained the cells of the acolytes, adepts, curates, priests and other on-site staff, the eating and studying chambers, and emerging from the top of the sanctuary, sporting a great profusion of finials of dazzling ornateness and crowning it all were the apartments of the high priest on one side, the temple mother on the other and between them the Most Sacred altar, where he spent many an appointed hour lost in incense-infused reverie pondering on the dictates of Arkus, receiving the blessings of power that he in turn doled out to those who needed help and demonstrated their worth. Though it was immersed in the predictable rhythms of city life, the temple also somehow felt apart and insulated from it, as was proper for a place that offered respite and a suitable setting for contemplation of the uncertainties of the future.

  Merril was on schedule. He had just donned the morning vestments embroidered with the Most Holy Device of the Strange that signified he was ready to greet adherents of the faith and minister to the uncertain. Out of habit, he ran one hand over his bald head and then lightly tugged his beard, its salt and pepper coarseness a stark contrast to the shimmering green silk upon which it lay. The sunrise ritual had long been completed (of course), he had broken his fast while in the company of Temple Mother Nardra and Adept Lanthen, where they had discussed various liturgical matters mundane, mystical, and logistical. Afterward, he had assigned various tasks and responsibilities to several underlings and dictated two epistles to be sent to temples of his brethren in the Western Realm.

  It was at this moment that he was approached by acolyte Farl, whose head with its unkempt dark brown locks was bowed.

  Farl was a lad of fifteen summers, taken in by Merril after he was discovered as a mewling infant in a village at the foothills of the Hornrim Mountains that had been sacked by raiding eotens. His parents and all known relatives slain, he was taken into the temple and had been raised within it ever since. Having been instructed and ensconced within the faith his entire life, Merril had high hopes for him. But lately, there had been some growing pains…

  “Now what’s this all about, acolyte?”

  Farl raised his head and almost mumbled. “Prefect Vander bid me come see you, Holy One. I failed to promptly turn over the entry hourglass last night.” The prefect had the duty to enforce discipline in the temple to maintain the purity of the daily regimen but was probably exasperated beyond all measure at this point and thought the direct intervention of the High Priest himself would prove more efficacious.

  Merril raised his eyebrows. “Again? That’s the third time this fortnight.”

  Farl looked sheepish, though not exactly penitent.

  “Please tell me, my boy, that this behavior is due to something other than mere shiftlessness.”

  The acolyte started to speak, then stopped. After Merril impatiently gestured for him to continue, he said, “the last several lunar cycles I have had these…dreams, and when I have them I feel like I am awake but they take hold of me somehow and I cannot be roused. That’s why I have been remiss in my duties. They are so vibrant, and everything in them seems so…important somehow. There’s a voice. It is strong and noble-sounding. It – it speaks to me, tells me to ‘get ready’ and to ‘play my part’. Sometimes the voice shows me things, but I don’t know why. People suffering, in distress, who need help. Last night I dreamed there was this rushing darkness that ate away at the edges of the city like floodwaters eroding the embankment down by the docks until nothing could be seen and I was all alone in a void of nothingness!”

  Merril was no longer impatient. He listened intently, sifting through the recollections for clues to hidden meanings, for in his experience dreams such as these sometimes contained them.

  “But then, when I was crying out in despair, there was this flash of light that was so dazzling it hurt my eyes, and it ebbed and flowed out and around me, expanding to the farthest reaches of the world and I was filled with this sense of peace. I just felt that everything was going to be all right despite the darkness and what it had taken.”

  Relieved to be finally telling someone about this, Farl went on for several minutes more and Merril considered what he was told about these dreams – or perhaps visions? – of power with strong hints of holiness. Were they the product of a restless yearning young mind, or more – an obscure communique from a god complex and subtle, not given to dispensing straightforward guidance even to his most seasoned followers?

  As he spoke, Merril could see Farl wrestling with different emotions. He was contrite, but more because he felt he had displeased his mentor rather than been lackluster in service to his god. But there was also wonder and a bit of anxiety and confusion in him, too. As well there might be.

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  “Come walk with me. Soon it shall be time to soothe the ailments of the body,” and with that Merril began to walk with purpose, to maintain the day’s agenda. Farl hastened to follow him.

  “Perhaps you are just tiring of the monotony in this insular world of ours. Is it that you want to spend more time out in the city? You aren’t looking to arrange an encounter with any of the Tamaskean temple harlots, are you?” he asked accusingly, though with a knowing twinkle in his eyes that belied his severe tone.

  “No, Father!” Farl gasped, and continued to sputter, “I – I would, n-never…” And here he trailed off as he became aware the High Priest was gently teasing him.

  As they strode, they passed a large mechanism of shifting levers, rods, and toothed wheels powering an engraved globe surrounded by miniature orbiting celestial bodies - a gift from a grateful merchant who had acquired it abroad and had it disassembled and carefully transported by the craftsman who had devised it (at doubtless great expense) and had it reassembled and installed in the temple antechamber. But though unique, it was hardly alone. Indeed, timepieces of various sorts proliferated within the temple - hourglasses, a sundial in the courtyard, water clocks, and in the sanctuary a large pendulum that slowly rotated about its attachment as it swept throughout the day, slowly toppling alabaster pins – one present for each quarter-hour of the day - set in a wide circle, the circumference of which was exactly traversed by the pendulum in one day. Traditionally the priests claimed that the pendulum was not rotating, but in fact, the entire world was rotating about the axis of the pendulum (and hence the very Temple), but no one but the most devoted adherents believed them.

  “I will try to make sure it won’t happen again. But is the turning of the hourglass really so important, Father? I mean, there are so many other ways of measuring the time, surely –“

  It was clear that a bit of rebuke and instruction was in order. Merril adopted a professorial tone, one he had employed more than any other in the last several years.

  “It is implicit in the creed of Arkus that Order is an inherent good, and that very order is safeguarded with the imposition of routine and predictability. After all, without predictability, nothing can make sense. Chaos is unpredictable. It is senseless. And therefore, it is fundamentally unjust and an affront to the god.”

  The acolyte nodded; he had heard this before. But it was complex enough that he didn’t find its repetition chafing.

  “But how is this order safeguarded? Most fundamentally, by keeping the time. And while, yes, there are many other timepieces about, we can only be sure of their veracity if there is an overwhelming preponderance of uniformity in their readings, like a chorus where all the singers are in tune. Plus, the act of maintaining them – even if that is only the act of resetting an hourglass by turning it back on its head – is an act of devotion in and of itself. It demonstrates that you care enough to make it part of your daily routine to serve Lord Arkus with the offering of your own time and serve his adherents by providing them this reliable boon.”

  “I guess I haven’t been seeing it in quite that light, Father,” Farl replied. “But I wish I could do more – like bigger things than chores around the temple, help people directly and take the fight to Chaos’s door!” And the light of zeal – which Merril had seen often enough over the years to immediately recognize - began to burn in the young man’s eyes. Best to temper it a bit, he thought.

  “That wish has the whiff of pride about it, does it not? You must learn to be a willing instrument of the Lord Arkus, but nothing more. If you are to do great things, then never fear, the call will issue forth and the opportunity will present itself. But your own desires – however noble,” and here he sternly fixed his eyes onto Farl’s own, “- should not enter into it.”

  “Simply put,” he concluded, “you must be more diligent in discharging your duties.”

  As he said this the two of them had entered the courtyard.

  It was already almost full, though not every person admitted was injured or had an ailment – often those in need were accompanied – even carried – by family members. Indeed, there were two occupied stretchers, one carrying a man who had fallen from a scaffold while working on some repairs to the city’s fortifications. Merril had long observed that it was not uncommon for masons and carpenters and others who build to be staunch believers in Arkus. It is often the case that like cleaves to like.

  Merrill and his underlings did what they could for the injured and ill, which often was a great deal. There were consultations and examinations, and the occasional diagnosis. Some received balms, poultices, unguents, and ointments, others had broken bones reset, wounds were cleansed and stitched shut. Difficult decisions were made: a few precious potions of healing were administered for certain acute cases. Some individuals deemed particularly worthy were healed directly, a task that even Merril himself could only perform a select few times a day, as channeling the power granted by Arkus proved taxing to the flesh and might prevent him from fulfilling other commitments.

  After seeing a woman afflicted with fever and a girl who had an infected eye, Merril noticed that Farl had come to the side of the stretcher with the injured artisan. Merril approached to join them, as interested in seeing what comfort Farl might render as in ascertaining the severity of the injury.

  Farl knelt by the side of the man, who groaned pitiably. Having tumbled from a scaffold, a pallet of stone blocks had also fallen, its contents partially landing on the unfortunate man’s right arm, crushing it in addition to his other injuries. The arm was in a horribly mangled state. It would certainly have to be amputated, which was beyond the services offered by the temple. Regrettably, the man would have to be taken to a barber-surgeon, although the temple could still provide a strong analgesic to help him cope with the great pain that the procedure would necessarily entail.

  As if in a trance Farl reached out his hands and laid them upon the afflicted limb that was oozing blood and clear fluids. He bowed his head, and Merril could discern him muttering a prayer of intercession. Just then his fingertips began to luminesce, and the glow quickly spread to his hands, and from there to the injured arm. A swelling note of sound reverberating with ethereal grace filled the air; Merril recognized it as unquestionably divine in nature. As he marveled at the display, he could see the crushed and battered flesh mending, the vitality of the limb being restored before his very eyes, even the lacerations of the skin and ugly bruising efface and completely vanish, leaving in its wake the arm whole and healthy.

  It was a textbook case of successful regeneration, the likes of which was rarely granted by the gods - and which heretofore had only been achieved by venerated clerics of high standing. This was a remarkable, even miraculous development.

  Merril overcame his astonishment and turned to regard Farl, who looked almost as awed himself and was staring at his own hands. The man partially sat up in stunned silence, flexing his now unhurt joints and curling his fingers. Tears of joy streamed down his cheeks.

  “Tell me, Farl,” the high priest said gravely, “again, and in greater detail about these dreams of yours.”