Elaina's Writing World: May 2013

Monday, May 13, 2013

Round House = Round Temple

Came across this post and it put me in mind of the Round Temple of Rees in The Kinfire Tree, a sacred site about truth and belief. Thought I'd share!

The post:

An excerpt from Chapter Seventeen:

They sat on the low stonewall that formed the boundary around Rees’ Temple, eating fruit from the orchard at their backs. The orchard was ancient, with gnarled trees. Apples, pears, early oranges, or maybe it was the other way around, and the apples were early. The trees did not quite follow the seasons; being so old they did what was necessary for survival. Vannis had greeted them like old friends, which was astonishing when one thought about it; the orchard was then more than nine millennia old, impossible for fruit-bearing trees, but Vannis murmured something about the consecrations.

The Temple was small and circular, five feet in diameter and built of blue stone. It stood six feet high, with a peaked and thatched roof, and was windowless. A flap of rawhide covered an arched entrance three feet high; an adult would have to crawl to enter. The boundary wall was circular as well, without an opening for a gate, and the area between boundary and building was intricately paved in blue and yellow glazed pebbles.

‘An odd enough place,’ Glint muttered on seeing it.

‘What is stranger still is how this Temple has been designed to closely mirror the real one,’ Vannis said. ‘Other than the thatch…you’ll see what I mean.’ He paused, a deep frown furrowing his forehead. ‘Father Rees was either a sorcerer or a man with extraordinary psychic ability.’

‘History tells he came across an orchard and in the midst of the trees there was a ruined foundation, and when he stood upon the broken stones he had a vision from his God. Apparently he built this with his own hands, and let it be widely known it was for private prayer and personal contemplation, one adherent at a time, to commune with his or her Maker away from the influences of the world,’ Rayne explained.

‘Astounding,’ Vannis murmured and began to pace around the small building, lost in thought, while the others sat down to catch up on news.

Just before Taranis began speaking of Infinity, Vannis rounded the Temple from the right and asked whether it had been destroyed since Rees erected it. Rayne said no, not even Drasso was able to level it. And Vannis was off again, rounding the building to the left.