The Priesthood

He was transported through corridors and rooms, large and small ones, to a higher part of the Blue-Stone Village, one that was somewhat guarded with gray men; they wielded no weapons, it seemed, but their presence was unnerving, and their eyes, as they touched Kanrel, felt dismissive about his threat to them or anyone in this place, but at most, there lied a speck of curiosity, even in them, even when they tried to remain faceless before the one that seemed like their master.

A’Trou’n A’Kau’Tou’n, the master of this village, was "One of Wealth," as the other Atheians seemed to address them. And as A’Trou’n walked past guards and commoners alike, it gave them no regard—for it, they did exist. They were beneath its stature.

At last, they entered through a set of massive doors that had to be unsealed before they might enter, and as the doors opened, on the other side, Kanrel could see what it meant to be wealthy in this society.

Gems, gold, and silk-like cloth everywhere; engravings instead of paintings on the walls of the hall they had entered; servants that had knelt the very moment that A’Trou’n had entered, their hands toward their master, showing that they were inferior, that their hands were rough and spoiled by hard labor...

The doors were closed behind them, and they walked to the center of the room, servants making way for them, always keeping their hands toward their master. They came to a halt, and Kanrel was dropped to the ground.

A’Trou’n peered at him for a moment, then snapped its fingers. Instantaneously, two servants rose from the ground and came closer, kneeling again, as they reached their master. “Clean it, clothe it... It stinks; its clothes are improper for its status."

The servants went to grab Kanrel, and as they were taking him away, A’Trou’n added, “It can understand you, but not a word can be understood from its lips... Keep this in mind."

“Now go! Make haste; I must speak to it soon.”

All of the servants sparked into action in that very moment, not just the two that would take him somewhere, but the others as well, as if they all now knew what they ought to do.

The servants who took him with them dared not speak; they just did as they wished, even when Kanrel would protest against their treatment. They stripped him without his consent; they washed him without his consent; they touched him without his consent. All the while, he could do nothing. They scrubbed him so carefully, with soaps and water and cloths of different textures, burning his skin, making it first red with pain but soon healing it with salves and things that he couldn’t even name.

He was treated like a child—or worse, he was treated like an animal.

They dried him with five different towels: one for his face, one for his upper body, one for his genitals, one for his legs, and one for his feet. He had never been washed so thoroughly, and at the same time, he had never felt so violated.

They even dressed him, and what he was to wear was nothing like the priest's robes that he had worn before. Instead, he was presented with clothing that was akin to the clothing that the servants wore. Skin-tight pants that were flexible and durable yet light. But they were very plain; that was the only thing that these clothes and his former clothes had in common. And the shirt they had him wear covered everything else but his elbows and hands. They even made him wear slippers instead of the shoes that he had worn before.

The servants wore dark clothes, gray and black, but the clothes that he now wore were all white. As if showcasing how different he was in comparison to the servants, the guards, the serfs, and even the master of this village.

Now, he was clean. More clean than he had ever been before.

The two servants then escorted him back to the hall, which was now very different from what it had been before. The very furniture of the room had been moved around, and there was a collection of pillows in the middle where A’Trou’n sat, its eyes closed as one servant massaged its master's shoulders and another its hands.

Now that he was allowed to be without interference for a moment, he could finally notice one thing that seemed to be common with the Atheians. They all lacked hair. They didn’t even have eyelashes. So to them, his hairy nature must’ve been shocking.

The two servants released him and stepped aside, kneeling and waiting to hear what their master would say to them. It was as if they would never address their master unless it first spoke to them.

It felt like the best thing to do. Thus, he remained where he stood and kept his mouth closed. He would not speak unless asked a question.

A long silence ensued. A’Trou’n sat comfortably in the middle of the many pillows that were scattered on the floor. The servants kept their massage going; the other servants remained either kneeled or silently went by to do whatever work they were supposed to do. There were no words uttered. Not a cough, not a sneeze, not even a yawn to break this silence.

All the while, Kanrel stood still, his eyes inspecting the creatures around him and the engravings on the walls; even they must’ve told a story, a piece of history from which he could learn a thing or two. But he dared not go closer; he dared not take the step that might break this silence.

“You may sit.” A smooth voice suddenly broke through the thickness of that silence. Kanrel’s gaze shifted back to the Atheian in the middle; its eyes were now open, and they observed the human. Kanrel wasn’t sure how long they might’ve done so.

He chose to sit where he stood, but as he was sitting down, he heard a snort: “On the pillows; you are, after all, a guest in my house. Even if you are not one of us, it would still bring great dishonor to me and my kin if I were to mistreat you without a cause or a good reason."

Kanrel did as he was told, though he was quite hesitant as he approached the pillows, and he was even more hesitant as he sat down on one of them, his eyes solemnly kept on his host.

The Atheian just peered at him as it enjoyed the massage it was receiving: “You are quite hairy; like a rat, are all humans so hairy?” It asked all of a sudden.

“Some are, and men are often hairier than women, but many men choose to shave their beards so as to be less hairy; when we are children, we aren’t that hairy, but as we grow older, all humans get hairier, just some less so than others,” Kanrel explained.

“Then you are a man. I would hope so; you are far too ugly to be a woman.”

“Well yes, I haven’t had the chance to shave my beard nor cut my hair, so I must look rather unkept, unruly, even.” Kanrel couldn't help but defend himself a little; even if he didn’t care that much, these were still the facts of the matter.

“And are all humans so skinny as well? You look like a serf, but worse, there doesn’t seem to be even a little muscle on your body."

“They aren’t. I just haven’t eaten anything for a long time. Well, other than the goo that Y’Kraun fed me.”

A’Trou’n seemed to ponder for a moment, then it said, “Bring our guest food! Anything will do... It seems hungry.”

And in that moment, multiple servants got up from where they were kneeling and got to work, running off to who knows where to do their master's bidding. Yet even then, A’Trou’n was massaged.

“Soon, you will be examined, so that we might know for a fact that if you are or if you aren’t a human, as you adamantly claimed to be... We do have, after all, some knowledge of your existence, although they are from a time so long ago.” A’Trou’n spoke, slightly leaning closer. “I wonder how much your people have changed; perhaps not much in terms of your biology.”

“So tell me, tell me of your people.” It commanded.

For a moment, Kanrel had to think: What could he tell? But in the end, the answer was obvious: history. He could tell the Atheian the very history of humankind, from as far as was known.

So he began...

“The first men were uncivilized people. It is said that our origin was somewhere in the islands to the south of the continent; we do not know where these islands exactly are, but there still remains a memory of them in our oral tradition.”

“We reached the continent, perhaps thousands of years ago, and settled on its coasts. Forming tribes that soon blossomed into petty kingdoms with not much unity until the first city-states came to be, with rules of law and higher forms of culture. With much more people, a greater understanding of farming, and many other things."

“Among them, of course, is warfare,” Kanrel explained, not giving too many details, so that the Atheian might later want to ask more about them and so that Kanrel could extend his usefulness to these alien people.

With a slight smile, the Atheian seemed like it had to comment: “I am not too familiar with the origin of your people, but at least, what we used to call you once was the ‘Darshi’, although it has become nigh impossible to pronounce it; language evolves, you see, and many useless letters and sounds have become null and void, only to be used by scholars in their search of knowledge and forgotten lore.”

“You may continue.”

Kanrel cleared his throat. “This period of warfare lasted a long time; most historians aren’t certain just for how long, but it did last until the arrival of the Wildkin, the creatures that your people fought against many times before.”

“During these times of war, many kingdoms and city-states came and went by, and there seemed to be no reason to end such wars until there’d be only one kingdom left to rule them all; before the arrival of the Wildkin, there hadn’t been a moment in history during which all of humanity had a reason to unite.”

“They came somewhere from the south, in great hordes; no one had seen one before; they seemed like beasts to us, less civilized than what we were, but it was certain that they seemed to have an objective.”

“But many have come to the conclusion that their sole objective was some sort of unholy mission to devour all living things on this earth and leave nothing behind. Or, perhaps, their numbers had grown too many in the south, and they had to traverse north in search of food.”

And in that moment, the servants returned, bringing with them what could only be described as a feast. He had no idea what these many foods were made out of, but at least he could argue that some of them looked normal and perhaps even appetizing. But, in the end, that would not matter; his stomach growled either way as the smell of what was brought to them entered his nose.

A’Trou’n snorted, “Bring forth the food.” It commanded and then gazed at Kanrel for a while, “You may eat; then, we will continue where we left off.”

The servants came closer and placed the many trays and plates that they had brought with them on the floor before their master and the hairy creature they too had to serve.

Now, he could examine more closely what the things were that he might have to eat from now on. The sight wasn’t unpleasant, per se. It was just different. Something you didn’t know, so just something unfamiliar. It made him wonder what they would truly taste like, but he already knew what he’d taste.

So he went ahead; no one offered him any cutlery, not even a knife; thus, he went in with his hands and grabbed what looked like a meatball but was just colored wrong. It was firm but not warm, and its smell he couldn’t quite make out; it wasn’t something that he had smelled so far. Then he took a bite, and as if it were an apple, the flesh of what was a fruit came off. It was like an apple; it felt like an apple, yet it looked like an off-colored meatball. Surely, it would then taste like an apple?

But to him, everything tasted the same. Then it must be an apple or something related to an apple.

A’Trou’n observed its guest with an amused smile on its lips: “Have you never had an apple?” The Atheian asked outright, which made Kanrel come to a stop, the so-called apple still in his mouth. Its size was wrong, its color was wrong, but everything else still matched that, which might've been an apple.

But could an apple be so gray and dark?

Kanrel swallowed the piece he had chomped down on and said, “Of course I have; our apples are just very different, maybe not even the same at all, but instead just happen to have similar properties to this fruit.”

A’Trou’n tilted its head like a bird. “Who knows, but to us, this is an apple.” It said, and this was not to be argued with. From now on, to even Kanrel, this dark and gray thing was an apple. Perhaps it would’ve felt funny, maybe bitter, but it definitely felt sad. He’d have to come to terms with such a fact, or rather, a new definition of a thing.

But then again, is an apple an apple? And what is that that makes an apple an apple? And does it have to be red, green, or yellow? Does it even have to be round? Can it be square? He wondered for a fleeting moment as he went for a second bite.

All in all, he was left unsatisfied. His hunger was sated, or rather, his stomach was filled. The leftovers were taken away by hurried servants. He was then brought a vase, one decorated with a painting of dark figures pointing their spears in a column toward the heavens, where a winged creature holding a sword loomed over them, an angel whose face was as horrifying as the painting of the angel that hung on the wall of the temple that he had called home.

He missed that home as well. It had been a simpler life, but a welcome one. The complex emotions and the way he had observed the vase didn’t go unnoticed, as it was apparent that his host had many new questions that it wanted to ask but didn’t, perhaps out of courtesy or simply because it saw Kanrel lift the vase and take a long sip out of it.

At least this one thing would always be the same. This was water. All living things need it. Even this race of gray creatures exiled beneath the ground needed water. Even they understood that all life needed it and could never live without it. And as Kanrel stopped drinking and placed the vase on the floor, a servant came and took it away, as if it had never been there.

Kanrel lifted his gaze from the floor and met the eyes of his gracious host, who slightly lifted its hairless brow as a simple sign, “Continue.”

“So,” he began, “the Wildkin and my kind fought many battles, and the Wildkin devoured many kingdoms, almost bringing an end to the nascent human civilization that had begun to blossom on the Coasts of Zuria.”

“There are recollections of those white coasts painted with the blood of the devoured, as the brutality and the hunger of the Wildkin seemed to have no bounds.”

“We could never win against that horde. Humanity hadn’t yet reached a point of technology that could ever rival the innumerable beasts that had come to its doorstep. People began to leave further north, but all knew that it could never be a suitable solution; we’d be all hunted to the last child until there’d be no one left to bury our dead.”

“Many prepared for a final confrontation; the city-state of Lo’Gran forged alliances with the other nearby kingdoms and city-states; they mustered their armies to give at least a chance to those that wished to flee, but before such a battle...”

“In our direst moments, an angel appeared before a woman who had lost her family to the horde that had wished to devour her as well,” Kanrel said, observing the expressions on A’Trou’n’s face; he could see how its eyes slightly widened as the angel was mentioned.

And he could feel the question that was about to come, but before A’Trou’n could ask the question it had on its mind, or before Kanrel could even muster an explanation to that potential question, the very doors they had earlier entered through opened, and a tall, disgruntled Atheian walked in.

Kanrel and his host alike couldn’t help but face the person who had come in. This new Atheian wasn’t only disgruntled; they seemed aggravated, which was made clear by the first words that they uttered: “Where is this human of yours? Bring it to me so that I can return to matters much more important than mythical creatures from a foregone era whose memory is only kept alive by bored housewives who tell their children tales of hairy little beasts no better than rats!” One could see spit fly as it practically spat its words out.

Its eyes were only on A’Trou’n at first, then its gaze shifted toward Kanrel, its disgruntled demeanor dissipated, and a mild form of shock could be easily seen in its wide eyes. It smacked its lips, now rather excited. “Well, well, well... What do we have here? A new species of rat? Perhaps what the ancients called a monkey? Or… one of the Darshi?”