The Festival of the Many Fires

Once every generation, the kingdoms gathered upon the mountain for the Festival of the Many Fires.

From every land they carried their finest companions.

Candles that burned with remarkable steadiness.

Pendulums that scarcely faltered.

Crystals that sang without rest.

Hidden hearts that beat with astonishing constancy.

Each village believed its own companion the most faithful.

Yet every Festival began the same way.

The Keeper invited them to compare.

A candle beside a pendulum.

A pendulum beside a crystal.

A crystal beside a hidden heart.

Again and again the companions agreed.

When one counted a hundred songs, another completed its hundred swings.

When one flame died, another companion marked the same ending in its own fashion.

The agreement delighted everyone.

"See!" cried the visitors.

"Our companions all recognise the same Master."

The Keeper asked quietly,

"Which Master?"

The visitors pointed toward the circle of companions.

"The Master they all measure."

The Keeper looked around the gathering.

"I see only companions keeping faith with one another."

The people smiled politely.

The old man had always enjoyed asking strange questions.

Years became generations.

Each Festival brought companions of ever greater faithfulness.

The agreements became so precise that merchants crossed oceans by them.

Builders raised towers by them.

Healers mixed medicines by them.

Sailors trusted them with their lives.

No one doubted the companions.

Nor should they have.

They had earned that trust.

Then something curious happened.

Children who had never known a world without the Festival began telling a different story.

The companions, they said, were not merely agreeing with one another.

They were all listening to an invisible King.

The King was called Time.

The companions simply revealed His commands.

The story spread quickly.

It was beautiful.

It explained why every faithful companion agreed.

Soon the children became elders.

The story became tradition.

One evening a young apprentice climbed the mountain carrying the newest of all companions.

Its hidden heart scarcely wandered by the smallest whisper.

"I have brought the truest companion ever made."

The Keeper examined it with admiration.

"It is magnificent."

"It hears the King's voice more clearly than any companion before it."

The Keeper placed it beside the oldest candle still burning from the first Festivals.

One flickered.

The other pulsed with flawless precision.

Together they faithfully marked the changing of the night.

After a long silence the Keeper asked,

"Which one heard the King?"

The apprentice pointed to the newer companion.

"It is more accurate."

"More accurate than what?"

"The King's voice."

The Keeper smiled.

"Or the older companion?"

The apprentice frowned.

The question had never occurred to her.

The Keeper lit another candle.

Then another.

Soon the mountain glowed once more with countless faithful companions.

Some were crude.

Some were exquisite.

Some wandered slightly.

Others scarcely wandered at all.

Yet every one had been built for the same purpose.

Not to discover an unseen sovereign.

But to keep company with every changing thing.

The Keeper looked over the sea of gentle lights.

"When companions become faithful enough," he said, "people often begin to imagine that faithfulness must belong to someone."

The apprentice considered this.

"So the King does not exist?"

The Keeper laughed.

"I did not say that."

He gazed beyond the fires toward the stars.

"I only asked how the companions could possibly know."

The apprentice watched the companions through the night.

Not once did they cease agreeing.

Their agreement was real.

Their usefulness beyond question.

Ships would still find their harbours.

Harvests would still be gathered.

Children would still be born beneath their steady keeping.

Nothing had been lost.

Only a single certainty had loosened its grip.

As dawn approached, the Keeper extinguished the oldest candle.

The newest companion continued faithfully singing.

The mountain remained filled with changing things keeping company with one another.

And the apprentice understood at last why the Keeper had never objected to the story of the King.

Stories, after all, were faithful companions too.

They helped people find their way.

The only danger came when one quietly forgot the difference between following a faithful companion and meeting the one it was said to serve.