Mountain of The Moons • Book 1

Chapter 8

"Just in here." Uba said after she walked us through the rain.

I didn't understand how but as we walked through the rain not a drop touched me. I didn't know if it was Uba, Jun, or something here at the temple that made this possible, but I didn't question it. In due times things would surely make sense, I think taking in too much all at once would just make my head spin.

She directed us to a small room within the building from earlier that I hadn't recognized. It was some sort of classroom, but clearly no one was here taking classes in this moment. She locked the door behind us despite no one else being here. She sat down at the mat in the front of the room and gestured for us to sit on the small mats in front of her.

"Before I explain anything I have to ask that you both keep this information to yourselves. Something like this could cause a lot of unrest among the others and we'd like to keep as much of a control on the situation as possible." She said looking at us both.

"What do you mean something like this?" I asked already not feeling right about this.

"News like this doesn't come often and as I'm sure you can tell." She said and her normally soft and kind expression was gone. "We have a reason to believe someone here in the temple could be a spy."

"That can't be." Jun said looking confused.

"It is Jun. We are just as shocked as you are." She said as her head hung low.

"I won't talk to anyone else about this, but you have to explain what is going on. I am beyond confused here." I said shaking my head. "How do you know there's a spy?"

"Worry not. We here at Yabune and the other temples, as I know Jun has mentioned, study a scripture called The Umanti. It a sacred text of stories and events of our history and future as protectors." She explained.

"Future?" I asked because that didn't make sense.

"Yes, the scripture describes events that have taken place in our past and future. For example we had a large war four thousand years ago where human kind who we refer to as Temporal's turned against us Ethereal's, it's protectors, and tried to eradicate our kind because they saw us as dictators and devils. They don't remember this war because we've gone to great lengths to remove it from their history and minds. Nonetheless long ago we were not the higher beings we are today.

Though, as you'll come to learn we are simply the middle men and protectors for them, we only serve mankind as we are instructed. Man saw us as killers in a time where evil was growing and we were the sole defenders. They saw bloodshed and murder when we simply were protecting their futures." She explained in detail.

"What evil was growing?" I asked not sure what that all meant.

"Have you ever heard of a king that resided over the southern kingdoms around four thousand years ago who wiped out the entirety of the immigrant population here in this country?" She asked and it rung no bells.

"No." I said shaking my head.

"Exactly. A small and seemingly innocent baby could grow into an brutal dictator and kill millions, we knew from scriptures of his birth and when different parts of the story started to play out we were able to use the story's information to find that small child who would have grown to be a tyrant. He would escalated that war past anything we could have ever handled.

We slit his throat in his sleep as a child and saved what would have been 750,000 deaths because of our neglect had we chosen to not act. But to his mother, we were murders who killed her son senselessly." She said and I now understood what she had meant. "We sometimes have to commit horrible acts for everyone else's well being. Even sometimes neglect those who ask for help because we cannot intervene."