"Do you know what will happen if the Box relic was discovered?"
"Yes. A war would happen," Tang said. Silence held them for a moment. "More importantly, Xan would be forced to rebuild the Temple to house it. Our faith would demand it."
The old priest nodded. "And that would prepare the way for the change yet come come." Their breathing sounded inordinately loud in the stillness. "I once heard you say that if Xan had not been attacked by the Wen millenniums ago after the thirty-day war, this change would have come. Do you still believe?"
"Yes," Tang said. "The fact is there in the books of Yokes's history."
"What fact?" Mi asked, looking confusedly from her dad to the old priest.
The old priest had gotten her father's attention now. Very few knew that the Temple advocates had shifted their emphasis from protests and legal actions to an all-out effort to find the Box relic.
"It's written in prophecy, hence in history," Tang continued, as well as clearing his daughter's confusion. "The change we seek will come to the Temple. So, there must be a Temple for it to come. How do you know about our efforts to find the relic?"
"It is my business to know the box relic," the priest said. "It was my father's business to know about the relic, and his father's."
"We have researched the claims of your society, the Forbidden Yokas and concluded that—"
"You have wasted your time. You have not spoken to me. And if it was not for your daughter, Mi, you would have lost your chance tonight. I suggest you listen, Xan Tang."
Xan Mi caught her father's side glance and raised an amused brow. Not too many men spoke to Tang so directly.
The priest drew a deep breath through his nostrils. "The relic—the box relic—in which the power of civilization lies, was brought to the Forbidden Society by Forb Tasha 2,000 years before...how do you say it in Xan language?"
"No time for that," Tang said. "Continue."
"Alright," the priest said. "You probably believe, as do most Yokas, that the relic was taken by the Wen society during the war, when they destroyed the Temple. But that is your first mistake."
The Forbidden priest drew a hand across his lips, wiping some saliva away. "In truth, it was removed from the temple during the reign of Xan San by a group of priests 1,500 years ago."
"No Wen would have ever removed the box relic from the Temple without returning it," Mi said without a slight smile. "Not by choice. I mean, it is conceivable."
"Yes, it is inconceivable. Unless it was the only option. You will recall that Xan San defiled the Temple by placing an idol in the most holy place. What priest do you know that would allow a pagan idol to stand next to the box relic in the holy place?"
"So, are you trying to say that the relic was taken out but for a short time," Mi asked.
"The idols were not destroyed until many years later," the priest answered.
"So, it literally means the box relic was not there when the Wen came for it?" Tang asked. "And, why does your record not tell us what happened to the relic during this time? There is no definitive record of the relic being placed back in the Temple. It simply disappears from your history?"
"Yes, but the Wen, according to history, made away with—"
"Leader Xan of then age ordered the box be returned, but there is no record of it being returned." The old priest's suddenly strong voice belied his frail stature.
"The Box relic was never returned. The Forb priests, fearing that it might be defiled again, kept it hidden. It was a dangerous time. Their decision was justified when the Temple was destroyed by the Wen a short time after the war. But the box was not there. It had been taken already."
"Is this possible?" Tang asked the old priest.
"Unlikely," the priest replied.
"And even if a group of Forb priests had taken the box, they would have left a record of it. That's how they operate. They certainly wouldn't have taken the box relic beyond the borders of..." Mi reasoned and turned to the old priest. "Where do you say they took it?"
"No area in Xan Society was safe. The priests took it south, down the desert that shared boundaries with the Forbs."
"Desert?"
"Has it never puzzled you that very shortly after Xan San's reign, a Temple was built in the desert coast, short distance away from the oasis in the desert? The only temple outside of Yoke City ever constructed with the exact dimensions of Xan's temple?"
Tang hesitated. "Yes. It is... strange."
"Yes, strange. Unless you know why it existed. It was built by the priests for the same purpose as the only other temple like it in history—to hold the Box Relic. The Xan as well as the Wen society ceased one of the traditions upholded due to the presence of the relic at this time. But not at the Temple at that desert. But not in Forb society." The old priest explained.
"So, this only explains why the Forbidden Society still practiced the long foretold tradition," Tang realizes.
"I have never heard or read that," Mi said, glancing at her father. There was no scholar as well versed in Yoke City's history as her father, Xan Tang, and in her younger years with him, he had never spoken of the Temple at the desert.
The old priest looked at her with blind eyes. "If you had spent as much time with books as you have with cultivating you magical prowess, you might have."
Mi's reputation as the youngest ever to have been able to produce magical energies, and control her staff, had obviously made an impression on the priest. In many Yokas mind, Xan Mi, daughter of Xan Tang, was at fourteen nearly as much a hero as the old-day Xan San.
Not that she has won many wars, like San had, but in the covert war with the Wen society, she had made her mark. Producing and controlling a magical energy that was able to defeat the then general of the Wen society tended to make a statement. Doing it twice left a permanent mark.
Mi felt divided over her reputation. On one hand, satisfied that she had personally extracted revenge for her mother's and sister's life lost during the war. On the other hand, sickened by taking of someone's life. Underneath her skin, she wasn't that sort of person. She had been a young little girl who wanted to have the kind of power other had, who wanted to discover love and life without terror that had always stalked her.
But that was not her fate. She was destined to use that power she wished to have, in one way or the other.
"But, the box relic moved from that location," Mongrel continued. "The Forb priests then, afraid that the relic's location will be found sooner enough, changed its location to the same desert, but further east from the oasis."
"If you have the box relic, why would you hide it?" Mi asked. "Why not just bring it back?"
"Did I say I have it?" The old priest commented. "We have guarded the knowledge, not the box. And if the relic's location were known, how many would want to defile it?"
"So, according to your story, where is the box?" Mi asked.
"Today? Yes, I will come to that. For many centuries, the relic remained in obscurity on the remote desert. If you go today, you will see many signs of its history. But then, the relic was removed once again 1,100 year back?"