The Priesthood

The smell of what seemed like a soup forced his belly to react. With a deep growl heard by his company across the table, the smiling Atheian, who had brought him here, was forced to sit down, to eat what he was offered, to survive, even when he wanted to give up.

It was a small restaurant, with not too many people inside, only the two and another table of not too wealthy-looking Atheians. The other table kept on eyeing Kanrel, their gazes at times lingering for a few moments longer than necessary, but it was no surprise and nothing he hadn’t begun getting used to. The owner of the small restaurant had only for a moment looked at Kanrel with surprise before taking in their order and soon enough, bringing out said soup with its dubious contents.

The taste was already familiar to Kanrel. But he barely noticed it; he just ate to subside the hunger that had gone unnoticed for far too long. The warmth each spoonful brought him was a much-needed sensation; perhaps he’d find the strength to start a conversation with his company, or at least meet his gaze, and at least seem a little ashamed of what he had almost let happen.

The only sounds to fill the air were the sounds of eating; his and Y’Kraun’s spoons scooping soup; a menial conversation heard from a table not too far away; and the sound of turning a page at the counter.

It was peaceful. Normal. Something dearly missed that he could recognize; that he could feel as something he missed but not as something he could enjoy, even if he wanted to revel in such an environment. To truly feel at peace with the world around the one within.

But silence must come to an end, that he knew as he placed the spoon on the table, the bowl before him empty, as if licked clean, and the awaiting expression across from him—a hint of curiosity and perhaps worry hidden in those eyes that observed him.

“Were you going to just wither away?” A direct question came. One that didn’t care to be considerate, from the lips of someone who deserved to know.

Kanrel averted his own gaze and studied the empty bowl instead, forcing an awkward silence, where he wondered if silence was enough as an answer, and perhaps it was; but even then, he told the truth: “Yes.”

A long sigh forced itself out of Y'Kraun. “I see. And for what reason?”

Another short-lived silence ensued, as Kanrel sought to find the courage to be truthful and to let words come out that felt like they might remain stuck in his throat forever. “It just feels too heavy, an unbearably laborious burden to carry—to never resolve.”

“I am stuck, not just here but in my own head. I am stuck, and I can’t seem to find a way out of here—not from this prison of yours, nor from this cycle of thoughts.”

Y’Kraun scoffed, “Well, you did seem to find a way out, one that I cannot understand, for I see nothing more wasteful than the route you were so ready to take.”

“I’ve seen others burdened by their own melancholy, their own sense of stillness, and many of them took the same route as you did; many of them chose to waste time itself, the very time they were given to live.” Y’Kraun’s words brought silence to the small restaurant; even the group of Atheians at the other table seemed to enter this silence; even the restaurant owner behind the counter seemed to accept this silence, to wait for it to resolve by the words that were to follow.

“Kanrel, are you so weak-willed that you would give up without even trying? For about a month you’ve been allowed to live in this city; you’ve been allowed to roam its streets to meet its people... Yet you’ve not taken any steps to connect with it.”

“I can’t say that I know what you’ve gone through; not what kind of suffering you must’ve experienced to reach our lands, but even then I never thought you to be a coward, nor someone who would give up so easily.”

“I found you in that chamber, unable to move, malnourished, and desperate to live, yet now that you’ve been given the right to live, even among a land that has been somewhat hostile to you, you give up without even trying," Y’Kraun said, each sentence drenched in disappointment; each word another long nail struck to his head; all of it a truth he knew all too well but had refused to see as such.

He didn’t entirely agree with everything the Atheian had said, but he agreed with enough of it. One can blame the world only so much until it becomes an excuse for a pathetic man who refuses to take action to make his life better and to make do with the cards he has been given. He had wallowed in the waters, waiting for change or the moment in which he'd drown, yet he had not tried to swim or even tried to find a shore where he’d be safe from the coming storm—from the storm that had almost drowned him.

At this moment, he was a child scolded by a wiser adult. This feeling was one he hadn’t experienced in perhaps decades, at least not as himself, not as Kanrel.

If what he wanted was change, then he ought to make an effort for it. If he wanted to metamorphosize, to become a different man than the one he had become, then he ought to get up from the depths of his own self-pity and face the world that seemed so cold and heartless. Maybe then there might be change, and if there was none to come, if all would remain the same, then he could at least face his own shadow, his of reflection, and not feel so bitter nor defeated. At least then, in the eyes of other men, he wouldn’t seem so weak-willed and pathetic.

Kanrel raised his gaze from the bowl and met the inquiring expression of Y’Kraun, “I have been foolish, haven’t I?” He simply asked, his despair seeping into every word, forming a question that wished to be condemned, that wished to be confirmed.

“Yes. Now live, so that the Council might let my family live as well." Y’Kraun answered, and from the pockets of his pants he brought out a square coin that he placed on the table and then got up, tapping Kanrel on the shoulder and adding, “You might want to think of those around you; even if they might seem like strangers, some of them might care about you—some of them might understand your despair, and some would enter that despair when you choose to depart so suddenly.”

Y’Kraun left the restaurant, stretching his long limbs as he went, leaving Kanrel with his own thoughts: Perhaps he had been far too selfish. A fool, in more ways than he had thought possible.

Kanrel was indeed an apparent fool.

The rest of the day, Y’Kraun once more led Kanrel around the city, showing places that might interest him, but now Kanrel looked at the world with different eyes. Eyes that were desperate to find something to give him a sense of purpose—anything at all that might give him meaning.

The outlandish architecture of these lands was something he had grown mostly accustomed to; there seemed to be benefits in terms of space to build higher instead of wider, making the city more concise, even when the city seemed to have no end when one walked its streets. The many towers that filled with apartments like his own, and what he imagined to be some sort of working space for the many different businesses in the city. These towers, by now, had become more or less ordinary. Just another building, another house of sorts, that he wouldn’t give too much attention to.

But there were times when something did sway his eyes to give it a second look, and a few more. One of such things was massive, by all means, a spire that had four towers all of different heights that reached toward the cave ceiling above and its faux-sun, none of the tips of those towers touching it, and it was hard to tell from below if they were even close to that ceiling or not.

They had come to a stop near this massive construct, as Y’Kraun then began to explain the very thing Kanrel so intently observed: “The Grand Library, the university of everyone's dreams, the bank of most known knowledge, and the seat of power for the scholars and other members of the Grand Library.”

“Someone as poor as I could ever only dream of entering its abode and taking courses by their most famous professors; to have an education from such an esteemed establishment is a privilege most can’t afford; even those who can afford it might never get to enter it if they lack in talent or intelligence, or if they don’t know the correct people to enter as a student.”

“Personally, I’ve never been so close to it. And now, I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to spend even a day inside... And even if I might never get the chance to do so, at this moment I can’t help but be thankful to you, Kanrel... Because of you, I might marvel at its existence from so close to it... Not to mention the great honor—and dread—that was to kneel before the Council of Many Faces, or to even enter the very same building they inhabit.”

“The Forum is not for serfs and the poor. Our issues and worries don’t matter; only those of our masters have any importance, and often we are the ones to pay for those issues in one way or another.” Y’Kraun explained, then he looked at Kanrel, “Thank you.” He said with a slight smile curled on his lips.

Kanrel remained silent, and silence was enough to accept such words. And those very words are what made him wonder about the things that he should be thankful for. There were so many, and in recent times, much of that should be directed toward Y'Kraun... Kanrel wouldn’t be alive without him. He would’ve perished months ago in that chamber. If the Atheian had come any later, then he would’ve instead found the rotting corpse of a strange creature it could not even name.

Such an image was macabre, and it mirrored the sight he could’ve found in Kanrel’s apartment. Would the kind Atheian deserve to see such a sight? Had he not seen enough? He too had been there on that day when blood rained down from the ceiling…

Bothered by his own actions and lack of gratitude, Kanrel let Y’Kraun take the lead again as they continued their tour around the city. He tried to pay more attention to the things the Atheian would tell him, as well as look around more, to see if there might be more buildings like the Grand Library that might catch his eye. Sadly, on that day there were none as magnificent as it.

He returned to his apartment, now with a different feeling than a few days prior. He opened the door once more, and his eyes met with darkness. He let his gaze scry that darkness, the floor and spot upon which he had collapsed, or just laid down; he could barely remember how he had found himself on that floor. He only remembered why; he remembered the man he had been in that moment; he had been so ashamed of himself, and now he was even more so, but for a different reason. He was ashamed of that very action, that course of thoughts that had brought him onto that floor; that had nearly drowned him; that had almost made him become a corpse to be found by someone more innocent than him. He didn’t wish to commit another crime toward another creature, not in such a way. He had no right to soil someone else's mind in such a way.

Kanrel lit the crystal of that room that shone its blue light and filled the room with it. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. His gaze again met the shadow that cast itself on the wall. Now, a familiar figure, that was nothing more than himself: an ashamed existence that now feared the way it might pointlessly hurt another being.

Tonight, he ignored the shadow; he ignored the bed and the sight of the ceiling it might provide him. Instead, he sat down on the sole chair in his apartment, upon the table on which lay his notebook, many pieces of paper, and a pen.

A pen that had sat idle for weeks, and a notebook that yearned to be baptized by ink once more.

Tonight, he would make an effort to become, not someone else, but someone who he could one day be proud of. He grabbed the pen and opened the notebook; he baptized the pen in the strange ink of the Atheian people and began to write a list of things he ought to do. Goals that he needed to achieve:

Study the culture and the ways of the Atheian people; through this, I might become less of an outsider to these people, but mostly so that I might feel that I belong, or at least, I might understand their strange ways.

Explore the walls and the meaning behind the threats that the Council of Many Faces had made toward A’Trou’n and A’Daur’Kra.

Further develop my magical abilities. Perhaps, through the point of view of the Atheians, their magic, although slightly different, could give me insight that I need to make a new breakthrough in both theory and the practice of magic.

Gather more information about the shadows and how they got here; perhaps there are others who have survived their touch, like A’Daur’Kra, who might have more insight and memories of the whispers they heard from them, as well as dreams they might’ve seen.

Who was the madman who claimed that they could kill a god?

Things that seemed simple and achievable, things that weren’t impossible to him, and perhaps something that he might be able to achieve soon; some things that he would surely learn as days went by, or even months; one does not learn the quirks and details of another culture in a short time; such would take years, or perhaps even decades; even still, he ought to be prepared for such a span of time.

Then there was the impossible—the one thing he knew he wanted the most. Something he would desire, something that would give him a great amount of hope and happiness if he would ever reach it, and if he were able to feel such feelings:

Find a way home.

And others, perhaps even more impossible things to achieve for someone like him:

Find within the ability to dream again.

Forgive yourself, or find someone who can forgive you.

Find again what it felt to love—not the despair of it, not the loneliness of it, but the happiness of it, the warmth of it.

Try to live, not for yesterday or for tomorrow, but for today; no in the regret of past deeds or the worry of those to come, but in the present. There will be time to regret and worry either way.

He felt a piece in his throat and tears that forced themselves down his cheeks; his shoulders shook as he wrote these simple words, these things that he had hoped for but never tried to reach; that he thought not possible; that he thought to be something he had no right for.

Surely he was to be blamed for all that had happened to him, or at least a large amount of those things; but couldn’t he, just this one time, blame someone else than just himself? Was the Priesthood not the greatest reason that had caused him to become so cynical and so hurt? So filled with despair and regret? Should he not blame that organization and the lies they had fed him—the way they had conditioned him to become who he was now?

His mother had warned him not to take this path; she had known what awaited at the end of it. After a fall, he’d find himself down at the bottom—one so deep it was near impossible to climb out of. But now he had to try, and he would damn the Priesthood as he did it. He would damn twice the Angels that had taken something so precious from him and from so many priests before him.

For what is a man without the ability to appreciate love or the many other things that truly make life worth living? That makes men have the will to move mountains and make seas come apart. Their gift might make these men unable to have the desire to use their powers in the pursuit of greed, but this curse did make it so that those very same men barely wished to live another day.

They all, and not just Kanrel, desired to enter the void that met their gaze so intently, alluring them to take one step to seal their faith. The end to the Ritual and the fall within it would be another fall; this fall would just be without the faux life they would be given to serve the Angels and their grotesque history that would make any man question if they had ever known such things as justice or righteousness.

Kanrel damned all of them and more; he damned all the things that had brought him here, himself included as he wrote down his list. He bawled like a child lost, one without the embrace of a mother, without the guidance of a father. He cried and promised himself that he would change; he would regain himself; he would find that child that he had been so long ago, that awkward kid who barely knew how to smile; he would embrace that child and tell him that it wasn’t his fault that he had been led astray.

His hands shook as he dropped the pen. For a moment, he looked at what he had written. All these things that he knew that he wanted, that he needed. He used the sleeve of his shirt to dry his tears. He hadn’t felt so normal in such a long time.