Rian was assigned to meet the General Manager of the manufacturing plant in the outskirts as arranged by Mr Noi. The plant produces XY solution, a core active ingredient that is used in many pharmaceutical products. The company has a sizeable market share in the region but has strangely been unprofitable despite having a pipeline of orders.
Mr Sang, the General Manager was hired at the insistence of Mr Noi even though the Human Resource Director was opposed to it. It was clear that Sang would be spying on the nefarious activities within the plant, and this was one battle that was won at quite a great cost. Sang was pacing the floor and throwing up his arms in despair as he recounted the wayward schemes and corruption at every level to Rian. On the other hand, Rian was not too perturbed by what he had heard, it was more or less expected. He was taking some notes, and fiddling absent mindedly on a new tetra pyramid puzzle he bought off the street on the way to this meeting.
What I can’t figure out is the shortfall in the inventory Rian… Mr Sang explained. There is a great disparity in the production volumes in both our plants. Based on our capacity, I estimate that about 30% of the products have gone missing. It is as though there is some tacit agreement by both plant managers and each plant is siphoning 15% of the stock but on record both XY solution production seemed to tally up. As the frustrated Mr Sang continued to describe how he had installed surveillance cameras, check staff bags as they leave the plant amongst other measures without success, Rian completed the puzzle.
Mr Sang, Rian began. The theft problem cannot be tackled this way because the corruption is at every level and you would not be able to check it from the reports or logs because these have been doctored.
Mr Sang slumped onto his seat, and threw up his hands in despair. So what would you have me do, Rian? The middle-aged be-spectacled Mr Sang in white long sleeve shirts and white pants folded his arms and waited. Rian got up from his chair, walked over to Mr Sang and handed him the completed pyramid puzzle. Whispering into his ears, for fear they were being watched, Rian told Mr Sang his plan. The puzzle fell from his hands as Mr Sang tensed, his eyes opening wide and the spectacles sagged to the roof of his nostrils. He grinned.
Now, why didn’t I think of that?
* * *
Riadok’s portal opened at the outskirts of Basir-Kas and he had to procure his way to the Flying Tower. It was a chore to the mage but he grudgingly allowed himself to be ‘swindled’ into paying more than what the locals would have paid as he has no leverage here. Afterall, only a Pegasus could get him to the tower! Once the transaction was done, Riadok was in the air. The movement of the Pegasus’ flight was soothing; a smooth, cradling motion as her shoulder muscles brought the huge wings up and down in a graceful arc. The wings spanned more than four times the creature’s own body-length, and the largest feathers were as long as Riadok’s height. Folded, the wings may appear somewhat ugly and disproportionate; but in flight, the beautiful creature was splendid.
On the opposite bank a conifer forest began; her hooves brushed past the tallest of them and set them shivering. The ground here sloped gradually uphill until it curved sharply up into an escarpment, a naked, cruelly steep face of yellow rock. From the escarpment wound, the mountain pass here was very narrow, a mere thread winding its way through the mountain range. Before long, the Flying Tower came into view, with the tip of the tower hidden in the clouds, it was a beautiful sight to behold, the lofty tower sharing a snowy cap with the mountain peaks.
Upon securing the Pegasus to a tree and pacifying her with an apple, Riadok set off in the direction of the tower. Before long, he was standing at the tower’s entrance, and the smooth curving sides of the tower were all he saw, going up, up until it was engulfed in shadow. There were no stairs, nothing! The floor was a perfect circle some thirty feet across, totally featureless. The top of the tower reached into the clouds, and if Riadok were to name it – he would call it The Tower of Clouds.
Riadok chuckled. There’s no way in… he thought to himself, and began complaining to Sheja.
“No luck Sheja, this is fruitless.”
A voice within medallion chimed, “The Girdle is here, Brother Riadok. You must not lose heart. Remember all that Master Merlin taught us.”
Riadok was about to protest when another voice boomed.
“You there, halt!”
That single word was fired with the force of an arrow from a crossbow. Riadok whirled around to find an ‘entrance’, and there stood a creature he had thought long extinct, the creature who was human waist-up and horse waist-down.
A centaur.
It was not a full-grown centaur; in fact, it had features of a child who had not yet reached adolescence, a girl with a wild abundance of fire-coloured hair and narrow-set black eyes full of fury. Her human torso was unclothed; in one hand she carried a mage’s wooden staff, gnarled and aged and full of sizzling magic. Her horse’s body was a glossy chestnut; stringy whipcord muscles twitched under her skin. Riadok backed away when he saw her hooves. They were edged with metal shoes that had been sharpened to a knife-edge, and Riadok could smell the poison on them as well. An assassin’s poison, distilled from the already deadly venom of the whippet snake.
The long brown tail whipped haughtily at the air. “What right have you to enter my tower?” she demanded with a voice and manner far beyond her age.
Riadok stumbled, uttering, “ermm… I’m here in the name of Qua-Seth on the Knight of Light armour quest.”
Did I just say that? Riadok was never too confident in matters of decorum or import. He saw himself as a ‘happy go lucky’ guy who thinks he got lucky by being chosen as Merlin’s apprentice. Deep down, he had always been haunted by a fiend that trolled him and snarled at him, saying “boy, you are not good enough!”
“Ah… you are part of the prophesied hero party…” as the centaur curiously examined the specimen before her. Somewhat satisfied after trotting around the uncomfortable mage, she snorted and said “This quest prevents those who have falsehood and deceit in their hearts from entering. I am Lyiia the centaur, Guardian of the Flying Tower and I presume you have come for the Girdle. The quest may be opened to you, but even so – there is only one way up the tower,” and this saying, Lyiia struck the wall with her staff – and a narrow stone block slid out from it a little way. “The magic protecting this tower is simple – this is the first step. The second step will emerge only when you speak a truth. If you have spoken false, the step before will retract into the wall. And this is the test is with all the steps.”
“All right.” He straightened, looked at the first step, then turning upwards at the seemingly endless tower. “A truth, eh?” Lyiia nodded. “Any truth?”
“Aye. Speak the truth, young mage. Nothing but the truth.”
Riadok stood on the first step. “I have black hair,” he proclaimed. The second step slid neatly out from the wall. “I have black eyes.” The third step appeared.
This is ridiculous, he thought. But he had no other choice. Slowly he progressed, talking about himself like the world’s greatest egotist.
“My name is Riadok! I’m taller than Sheja! I have two hands! I have two feet! I have two eyes! I have ten toes!” Upwards he went; the staircase wound on.
“You will run out of petty truths soon enough!” shouted Lyiia. “You’ll have to find better things to say then… god speed to you! Don’t plan on completing your quest any time soon…”
“Thank you,” Riadok sighed. This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever had to do.
He went on, climbing the curving Staircase of Truths, up the Flying Tower.
* * *
“Six hundred…thirty…two,” mumbled Riadok sleepily, grasping the next step and pulling himself up. “The…the leaves are green. Ow! Hey!” Riadok leapt back as the step quickly drew itself back into the wall. From the bottom of the Flying Tower, Lyiia shouted, her voice echoing faintly up,
“Not all leaves are green, little mage!”
Riadok said something decidedly ungentle and racked his brains. “My hair is black?” he tried.
“No repeating yourself, mage.” Riadok swore again. I’d like to throttle the person who built this accursed tower.. very, very slowly, he thought vehemently.
Riadok had been climbing the staircase of truths for almost a full day now, and he was getting tired. He was also cold, hungry and thirsty and wanted to curl up in bed and sleep like all sane people were doing right now. But he had to climb up the tower. He had to get the Girdle and he had to do it now. If he left or fell asleep, he would have to start all over again, as Lyiia had so graciously informed him.
As Lyiia had warned him, Riadok had run out of `petty truths’ to tell. He had gone through all the shapes, colours and functions of his body and the shapes, sounds, smells, colours and functions of every bit of flora and fauna he could remember, as well as risking a few he didn’t. He had expounded on history, theology and religion, and discovered several surprising things; he had described all the people he had ever met and ever known in every detail he could possibly remember. He had counted the cracks in every stone he passed until the stones became completey smooth; he had described geological events step by step and had gone through every capital city, land-use capability and precipitation level in the world. In short, he had emptied all the knowledge he had collected in his short life out upon these seemingly endless steps, and he could no longer think of anything to say. He had even said `I’m hungry! I’m thristy! I’m tired!” He had said everything.
“Lyiia!” he moaned. “I can’t think of anything else! Isn’t there any other way to get the Girdle?”
“No. If you do not go up the steps to the top, you do not get the Girdle.”
Riadok began to bang his head against the wall.
“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”
“That’s the idea.” He turned from the wall and bellowed, “My head hurts!” The next step slid out again, and up he went. “Six hundred…and thirty-three.”
Lyiia sighed. “Told you not to think of discrete truth statements but instead of universal Truth precepts. That way, all these steps will appear. Here – I’ll give you a clue: Think Good and Evil.”
Riadok was having a headache and will try anything to finish this part of the quest. “Ok – “Good and evil are divine concepts,” sniffed Riadok. The next step slipped out. “I can’t make judgements about them.” The step went back in again.
“Hmm… Divine truths about good and evil can be accessed by humans, created in the likeness of God.” A step appeared.
“Um…even if there was no good or evil, the world would still not be in total peace – ” another step – “because there are forces which are neither good nor evil…like geological forces -” another step – “thus good and evil can only be understood within the theology of the Elohimic scriptures.” – out sprung another step!
Nervous, Riadok exclaimed – “ok I got this. “Good and evil…are…prevalent in this world.” Another step. Riadok was thinking very hard now. “If there was only good… no-one would see it as good…” another step ” and if there was only evil, no-one would know it as evil….”another step “and if there was neither, then we would all be animals- figuratively speaking, I mean.” Another step.
“If there were no villians, there would be no heroes. If there were no laws, there would be no outlaws. If one had only known darkness, one would not understand light.” More steps, and Riadok was growing excited.
“Human good and evil spring from each other…they are a matter of comparison and conditioning. If we think of one action as good, we think of the antagonistic action as bad or evil. If we grow up emulating a villian, we would think the hero is bad.” Riadok pondered deliriously. He was not sure where this good and evil hypothesis would go. Surely there must be a logical conclusion to all this …”
Purposefully, he took another step. “If good and evil are relative, then there’s no correct human yardstick to measure by.” A series of steps slammed quickly to verify the authenticity in this insightful truth. Riadok’s pulse raced. He was getting very close to the key to this puzzle quest. “As no human yardstick of good and evil are necessary correct, there needs to exist an absolute scale beyond,” the mage screeched excitedly, “and since the root-word of Good comes from the word God, less the ‘o’, absolute Goodness must necessarily derive from God, for such is the Elohim’s essence and nature!”
Riadok stopped, his eyes wide. “Goodness is a nature of God..” he ventured, wondering if he dared, “then… there’s nothing Good apart from God alone!”
There was an ominous rumbling sound from somewhere up the tower, and several pebbles came cascading down in a light patter. Riadok ducked and sprawled himself over the top step, half-afraid the entire tower would come crashing down. From the foot of the tower he heard Lyiia laughing delightedly in a manner totally unlike that of so young a girl – it sounded more like the triumphant shout of a war-general after leading a successful charge.
Then the steps began to grind out of the walls in an inexorable rumble, one by one in a long winding stream. Riadok stared at the stone slabs as they pulled themselves free of the walls and swirled upwards in a long, long spiral up the tower. The rumbling continued up into the black shadow that cloaked the higher parts of the tower.
Riadok got to his feet in disbelief. “I got it,” he exclaimed in delight. “I got it! I got it!” Then he laughed and began to do a sort of wild jig up the stairs, shouting “I got it! I got it!” repeatedly. Bits of rock pattered down all around him as the highest stairs emerged.
Lyiia rose up again like some fiery angel with her shock of red hair, shaking dirt from her glossy flanks and grinning. “I knew my instincts were too sharp to be wrong,” she said matter-of-factly. Riadok, far from backing away from the magnificent centaur, hugged the centaur in sheer exuberance… and was immediately flung back into the wall like a rag doll. He extracted himself from the stone steps, rubbing several parts of his back which had already turned a rather interesting shade of purple.
Lyiia was rubbing at her face with one hand, looking disgusted. “Don’t you ever try that again,” she warned, swiping her staff back and forth in a dangerously low arc.
“I won’t,” promised Riadok revertly, tenderly feeling the sore spots on his back.
Riadok bounced up the stairs that spiraled up to a top floor that led to a small room. The top of the Tower was not much different from the bottom, except for the heavy iron-hinged door recessed into one of the yellow stone walls. With a touch gentler than Riadok would have imagined her to be capable of, Lyiia tapped the door with her gnarled wooden staff and spoke in a low voice, in a tone totally unlike her usual imperious manner.
“This is the second thing you must learn before I give you the Girdle,” she said. “By climbing the Steps of Truths you learnt the difference between a fact and a truth; by entering this door you will learn to trust.”
“Trust whom?”
“You will see what I mean soon enough,” she continued at seeing Riadok’s puzzled expression.
“What’s in there anyway?” he asked suspiciously. “Or is that something else you can’t tell me?”
“This is something I have to tell you, though you might well prefer not to know,” she said.
Riadok froze. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Lyiia leaned closer to Riadok and whispered, “You will battle the Medusa.”
Workplace Coaching Inquiry by Coach Tom: You’ve uncovered your lifetime mission. Who would you choose and how will you persuade them to join you?
Follow Coach Tom on Linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaslcl/
Follow us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CovenantRhapsody
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/camelothobbies
Get the full medieval story right here: https://www.amazon.com/Camelot-Prophecies-Compendium-Vol-1-ebook/dp/B007F540H2
