The Priesthood

Since the day that Ignar had entered the cadet’s school, he had not seen his father. Not even on the day of graduation did his father grace him with his presence. Instead, he was called to the palace because Kalma wanted to see a boy who had grown into a man.

He felt like just another sheep that was led here; from the very beginning of everything, he was being led here. He and the rest of the herd now bowing before a man—no, a god.

The first time Ignar entered the court of the almighty, he didn't fear the creature that stood before them, looking at them and barely noticing the people who had gathered around him to speak to him and beg of him things that he could easily give them but rarely would.

But now it was different. Ignar’s thoughts about him had changed somehow.

He knew that Kalma was just a man and not a god, but why did he then fear him so much? Why did he tremble? Why was he now so afraid to look up and face the judgmental gaze of a king?

If meeting another man was a duel, then he had lost this one the moment he accepted the invitation. Now the man covered by scales, a man who on his back carried wings of gold, spoke to him, and his tone was not dismissive but instead observant.

“Ignar… Your equals and your teachers speak highly of you. They see promise in not only your abilities but your talent and your character as well.”

“They say that you're going to do great things.” He said this while tapping the armrest of his obsidian throne.

“Yet… I cannot recognize you as my direct descendant.” His voice was now mournful as he declared something no one in attendance knew anything about. This caused a shock to go through the audience in the court.

None dared to even whisper to another soul, but from their eyes, it could be seen that they now carefully observed the young man.

“So I ask you, Ignar, how are you to prove to me that you’re my kin and that you are worthy to carry my name? If questioned by others about the very origin of your blood, how will you defend it? What are you willing to do for your own blood?”

Ignar’s mind raced to first understand the question and then to question the question itself. He raised his gaze from the ground and up toward the eyes that so keenly watched him. “Lord, if I may ask a question in exchange, one which is perhaps an answer to your question itself.”

Ignar could see how Kalma’s expression changed ever so slightly; their eyes somehow became as if they saw more now than before, as if they saw things more clearly than a moment ago as if they had given their full attention to the man before them. “Then ask your question.”

Ignar could feel his heartbeat, and he couldn’t remember when the last time was that he felt so nervous. Why did a conversation like this feel so much like a duel?

“My Lord, the question I wish to ask is this: What would I not do for my own blood?” He declared himself as confidently as he could and met the gaze of God.

And the answer that was given brought slowly a smile to the terrible face of that terrible creature, a smile that knew that this person before them was loyal to him and to him only.

“Now I can see for myself where this high praise comes from... Ignar, your words are wise, and they are more from you than I had hoped; thus, I will give you a chance to become my kin. For your blood, I cannot question it, but for your loyalty, I will.”

“Among my most trusted men, there is a place for you, for I need eyes and ears even among those I trust the most; thus, I’ll appoint you to work directly under my son, Kalla, and his soldiers,” Kalma announced as he spoke not only to him but directly to the court as well, knowing well that his word would be spread around and that there would be many rumors born from this.

“Arise, Ignar, a Knight of the Order of the Dragon.” Kalma then announced, and not even the fear that most felt when in the presence of the Almighty could stop people from gasping aloud, for it had been centuries since anyone had been given such honor. Especially for someone as unknown as Ignar, surely they now knew that Ignar was the son of Kalla and thus the grandson of Kalma. But even Kalla had to do many heroic deeds to become one of the knights.

The moment was most shocking for Ignar himself, for he had not thought of such a possibility. The Knights of the Order of the Dragon were just so legendary; they were something out of myth and stories of old, things that children would pretend to be during play and such. And they had a history that Ignar knew far too well.

Surely, the stories told to children named them as heroes who did mostly heroic deeds, and that was partly correct, but history tells a different story. For the Order of the Dragon was most known as the hand of execution, the left hand of God, the hand always behind your back, the one that always wielded a dagger, which would always be ready to take action when needed.

Assassinations, subterfuge, intrigue, and war. These were the creeds that all the members of the Order of the Dragon participated in.

If there was a member of society deemed untrustworthy or revolutionary, then it would fall upon these knights to follow and collect information about this individual, and if enough proof or reason was given, then they would promptly remove them from society by either imprisonment, death, or other means of removal.

In times of war, they were the ones to hunt down the commanders of the enemies of the Emperor. These knights, men, and women were talented in both magic and nonmagical combat; they were masters of different crafts, and together they formed a collective that could deal with most if not all, things that Kalma himself saw as a waste of his own time. Why would a god infringe himself with the deeds of lesser men? Was a god not supposed to be the hand that fed and the devil the one who punished the unbelievers and heretics?

Kalma was both, and he, too, knew this to be true, but even in his omnipotency, he thought it to be a waste of time to stretch himself to deal with things that barely affected him in any way.

Why would the great shepherd care for the opinions of his sheep? All he did was lead, and the way he led wasn’t always so benevolent. And even though the world was run by him and all decisions would reflect his wishes, even then, the world hardly knew to blame him.

The people saw him as someone so far above that nothing could touch him. He was the Great Shepherd, the Dragon that herds the sheep from far above, from atop a mountain, and sees things only through the clouds.

And if he did come down from the heavens and feast upon one of his own herds, who were the sheep then to blame him? Does a god not get hungry? Shouldn’t the people be willing to give as much as they could for a creature much higher than all of them? Shame on the herd for not feeding their Great Shepherd.

He could feel the pressure when he had entered the court of the almighty, and he still felt it even when he had long left his presence, but his presence was felt everywhere. It was as if there wasn’t a place in the world, or at least in this city, where he could not see. His will would bend the very world around him. And there wouldn’t be a place where things wouldn’t get distorted by his sight and by his wishes.

It was interesting how different Kalma and Kalla were in the end. The father Ignar knew was never truly gentle, nor would he give his son the freedom to do things other than those he wished his son to do. Yet, it felt like you were allowed to fail, you were allowed to disappoint him, and he would forgive you in the end.

Kalma, on the other hand, was the opposite. You weren’t allowed to fail him, and his disappointment would be eternal, for he might not see you or recognize you if you ended up failing him. He would forever remember the failure that you are—the useless creature that could not satisfy the simple wishes of a god. To displease Kalma was to be damned in eternal flames, in a hellish landscape from which you would never be able to leave. He demands perfection, as anything but perfection is not enough.

Knowing this, Ignar knew that he would end up disappointing one of them in the future. He just didn’t quite know which way.

The day had just barely begun, and he was more tired than on any other day during his studies. This pressure just wouldn’t leave so easily, so he retired for the day. There were many things for him to think about and many emotions to explore and understand. And to prepare for the inevitable disappointments he would cause to his father, or worse, to his God.

The nightmare began as a dream: a young boy running down a hallway, then dancing with a lady to the rhythm of a beating heart. They dance slowly, with time not being there as if it meant nothing in that moment. But then the boy fell, all of a sudden, and he waited for the pain of hitting the floor beneath, but the hand of the woman who was there a moment ago drifted further away as he fell through the floor, as he falls through the dark.

Around him are voices and faces; from the darkness, they emerge and give meaning to it all. They were faces without scales of things he thought he might have once seen before. In their eyes, there was love, torment, and even hatred for the child that they saw fall.

Who are those many faces, who is that woman with whom he danced so freely, and why has the fall refused to end? It was as if he had been falling ever since the beginning of his time and of his life as if there were no end to a fall as such. It was as if we all fell, but we thought that we lived normally, without it ever happening, without there being something worse that might come after.

Oh, and this thirst... Oh, how it refused to leave his mind, his famished corpse that tried to sustain this broken mind...

And then he would wake up. He was still feeling as if he were falling. As if the ceiling above were drifting away, only for him to truly open his eyes and see the somewhat familiar ceiling of the inn he had spent his night in.

It all felt so terribly wrong. Everything was wrong. Everything was incorrect. This man, whoever he was, was incorrect. Aren’t we supposed to find solace in dreams? Why was there this... absence? In dreams, he found horrors. In dreams, he found a boy, a child, and a man he could not recognize. A monster that shares this body and this mind, which he thought to be only his.

In dreams, he sees murder; he sees a murderer who has committed the most foul crimes. Who burns another man to death? Who pierces others with ice darker than the night? A man who has no other emotions than the deep regret that dictates every hour he is awake. How does one live a life as such?

And he wondered if he was who he was and if he was who he was supposed to be. If he is becoming what is true for him, or if that which is now happening, becoming reality, is out of the will of someone else, another him. Someone who was like him but not quite.

Someone who has seen more things than he has. Someone more broken than he was, someone with less of a future than he would have.

In dreams, he finds this man, and in dreams, that is the greatest horror of them all.

To be someone you think you are not, perhaps even forgetting who you once were and then slowly remembering. That man that he was, would he then become it once more? Would he want to remember who he was? If that person he remembers might not be just and righteous like who he is now? Who wants to turn from a man into a monster?

So he wondered... Which is worse? Forgetting who you are or remembering who you really were?

He got up from the bed and went to wash his face. The cold water would wash away the tired look on his face, and maybe the water would cleanse away the memory of another face that he could at times see beneath.

Not giving it more thought, he forced himself out of this room and out of this inn, into the streets of Anavasii, the city of God. It was early morning, and the cobblestone streets of the city held no memory of yesterday, no signs of people roaming them, not drinking and passing out near the corners of buildings; there wasn’t even the smell of piss that should most definitely be there to greet him on this beautiful morning of another day in paradise.

But it was no surprise. Kalma found many things disgusting, and one of those things was uncleanliness. Thus, before the first light of dawn, mages were sent to the streets to clean and remove people who might have fallen asleep in alleyways or on the roads.

Those people would then be placed in holding cells from where they were allowed to leave the next morning, as long as they managed to pay a fine for polluting the streets. It was a great system and one of the many reasons why you wouldn’t find any homeless here, at least on the streets. Such things just weren’t allowed, and they were instead placed in prisons.

But at least there they would receive food and shelter for the time being.

It felt normal; it was how the world was supposed to work. Yet there was something wrong about it; there was something that he knew that he knew about it, and that was wrong. There was a memory that he could not find but that he thought he remembered, or should at least remember. But he could not.

So even if it felt normal, he knew that there was something wrong with it; he just couldn’t find the reason for it. And so he had to question himself and his own sanity. If there was something wrong with him, something was wrong about him, as such a system was clearly just and did good for the city. It kept the streets more or less safe; it kept people who had nothing away from the streets, and they were then provided with something, even if that something was through imprisonment.

The area where his inn was located was near the palace, or as near as he could afford. The closer you wanted to stay to the palace, the more expensive it was, as the living standards were obviously better, and most people wanted to live closer to the god they worshipped. As if that somehow made them more pious.

There was that around a lot. Everyone tried to somehow one-up another about how much they believed in their god, how much they worshipped him, how much they donated to the temples that pray to his name, and to other causes that they knew their god was involved in.

Such as the building of a new temple. One greater than all of the other temples combined, and one that would truly show the world how supreme and perfect their god was. One that would elevate not only him but all the faithful and all the pious above the unbelievers and those who deny his legacy, one that would make them all believe that their god is truer than all the other gods that were before him. Kalma was the final god.

But would they be willing to pay the tithe? Would they be willing to pay for such a construct? Ignar wondered, yet he stopped suddenly, not only in his own thoughts but also from walking. Why did he wonder about such a thing? A great temple would obviously be constructed from the finest marble, with the finest gold, and by the hands of the most faithful of his herd. So why worry, and why ever wonder about such things?

He continued walking, and after a long walk, he found his way past the gates into the palace grounds and from there to a castle on the other side of the palace itself. A monolith of a construction only dwarfed by the palace itself. Built from gray brick and garnished with tall towers on each corner, the castle connected to the walls that guard the palace grounds, an area as large as some cities, but where lived only Kalma and his most trusted advisors, followers, and soldiers.

And this castle was for those soldiers, and then, at the highest levels of the castle, for the Order of the Dragon and Ignar’s father. What would he even say to his father? What questions might he ask, and what questions might be left unasked?

He entered through another gate into the castle yard, and from there he soon found himself in the main castle itself, taking steps on old stone stairs that would lead him to the top. He walked past many people, all soldiers who either stood guard, some of whom were training in the castle yard and some who were on their way somewhere.

He was stopped only once during his visit, and that was at the castle gates. There, they only asked for his name and business, and when they found that out, they asked for forgiveness, for they had wasted his time.

They knew who he was. They all knew. Words travel fast, especially the words of a god, repeated by the many mouths that had heard the voice of God just a day before.

The guards who had stopped him advised him where to find Kalla and again asked for his forgiveness.

Ignar was stunned and wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he just smiled and entered the castle.

Life was complicated all of a sudden. And so much pressure had been thrown his way from people who were far above his status, understanding, and skill level. Even if he almost carried the name of a god, he was nothing before the two great men that he was now supposed to work for.

And the eyes of others—how they studied his face and eyes, how they talked about him behind his back, how in their eyes, Ignar could see many things. Some would blindly look at him as if he himself were practically a god; some were far more cynical, perhaps wondering if he actually was related to the god; and some disregarded him the moment they saw him, as in their eyes, his relation to a god was not enough, as he himself was unproven in their eyes, and even in the eyes of Kalma.

He climbed to the highest levels of the castle and entered through a double door. What he had entered was a war room. And this place was truly something for which he was unfit. Unproven for.

In the middle of the room, there was a large table surrounded by multiple chairs; on each chair, someone sat, women and men, only two of whom Ignar recognized. He was there and then faced with all of those eyes.

The blind, the cynical, and then those who disregarded him.

He met the eyes of his father. The disappointed expression that he wore on his face and the eyes of a father who had not seen his son for many years. A man who had tried making his son into someone wise and just, into someone who would never bow to a god or a man. But what now had walked before him and had entered his war room was someone who had bowed to both.

The eyes of the rest meant nothing. It was as if a cold hand gripped him by the heart.

Kalla carefully eyed him from head to toe and then proceeded with whatever he was doing: “We will raid twelve establishments tonight, all of which are somehow connected to the revolution and the leaders of the revolution. We will end it tonight.”

Kalla then stood from his chair at the end of the table. He looked down at his son, “After you’ve reported my exact words to my father, you are to join me in my office... We will talk then.” He said and dismissed Ignar and the rest.

People pushed past him as he stared at his father, swallowing down a piece that refused to go down, swallowing down words that wanted to be voiced out. He wanted to flare his anger; he wanted to cause a scene; he wanted to cause an outrage. But he held his tongue, and among the last who were leaving, he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

Outside, leaning against a doorway that would lead back down, a familiar woman observed Ignar.

“You’ve grown taller,” she said, coming a little closer and raising Ignar’s face to meet her own. “A frown doesn’t really suit your face—be a brave, young man, and you will overcome even his disappointment; after all, it isn’t really your fault, now is it?” Erjen said, and then let her hand fall down as she smiled slightly. “Now do as you are told, and be the man that I know you to be.”

Her words of encouragement, her soft smile, and the look in her eyes—she knew him far better than he knew her. To him, Erjen was an acquaintance, someone to whom he had talked only briefly and only a few times. Yet her eyes told a different story as if she knew it all. Similar, but not quite, to the expression that was on Kalla’s face the day that he awoke in his cottage.

Ignar pulled himself together, saluted his senior officer, and marched on, to do as his father wished of him.