The Priesthood

But no matter how Kanrel searched his new-found memories—the visions of torture shown to him again and again—never could he see the face of the person who, in a way, worked as the jury, the judge, and the executioner.

The situation in itself was frustrating; all he had was that room with its couch and the window, or a screen, with its constant snowfall and the crackling sound that it produced.

He was asked to wait, but for how long? And what was he meant to see? Surely another set of visions, most of them things that would not make sense to him or to anyone. They would only ever form a feeling or would try to do so, while cryptically sharing pieces of things that were truly useful, yet somehow gave him only more questions to ask. There would always be more questions to ask, as if there were ever a moment in which he or anyone else, for that matter, would find that their desire for knowledge was fulfilled. It could only ever be partly fulfilled. Such was life, he supposed.

“Bling!” A familiar sound came from behind him. He turned his head, only to see that the doors had returned and even opened up from him, showcasing the elevator as if it had always been there.

He got up and almost rushed to the doors before they would close or disappear again. The moment he took a step in, the doors closed behind him, and as he scanned the walls of the elevator, there were fewer buttons than there had been before. There were none that started with a minus; instead, there were only three buttons present—three floors for him to access.

As he went to press the button for the first floor, the doors already opened, and on the other side, there stood three figures, three Sharans, and the room behind them was very different from the one that he had just left behind.

A great, round room. One that was filled with tables and bookshelves; on almost every table, there was someone already. Kanrel stepped past the three Sharans, who gave him no regard and entered the elevator.

But this room was something that called for Kanrel.

In the middle of the round room, there was a person surrounded by a circular table filled with books, each of them open, each page filled to the brim with text. The room itself seemed like something inserted into this reality from another, and the people there cared only about the books they wrote on and then passed to the middle, soon taking another book and going to work with that one.

Why was there a need for such a thing if one could print? Kanrel pondered and went closer to the middle; soon he could see what things were written in the open books: names, numbers, and locations. Information about people, all of it organized neatly.

Level of education, a presumed level of magical ability, family members, height, weight, age, and birthdate—everything there was to know about a person. It all ended on the table of this one person, who went to each and, with a wave of a hand, brought before him pictures, ones formed with magic.

In these pictures, there was more information, and one could see as the letters and numbers themselves began floating from the books before them, approaching the picture formed with magic, then entering it, and soon becoming one with it. Just another line of text in a larger collection.

How magnificent it was to have such magic! To have it stored with you at all times, even. All those books and all that information. How valuable must it be? How powerful such a code had to be—such magic!

What was this place where he found himself?

The Office of Order and Chaos, one whose primary mission is to organize people by their talents and their education, by their wealth and their ability to use magic, is an organization that, in a way, governs much of the city, if not at least, plans and molds the future of it, and all that with just allocating the valuable resource that is a person to the correct place where they might be most useful.

Such a clever organization, one quite different from the Office of Peace and War, which mainly took care of the defense of the city, or the Office of Lies and Truths, which was more or less a glorified term for an organization that runs the Times of N’Sharan.

The person who sat in the middle had almost all of their face covered with scales; their hands, though, were no different from the hands of another. Their eyes were bright yellow, and for some reason, they had a lot of weight in them. A gaze that would make you stop and wonder, 'What had you done to deserve the scorn of another?'

Those eyes made him squirm as if he were standing in front of his mother again, up for another round of scolding. Those very eyes now stared at him; the Sharan in the middle had stopped doing whatever it was that he was doing. They just stared at Kanrel with a scornful expression.

Kanrel swallowed a piece and said, "Good evening; my name is Kanrel Iduldian; I work for the Times of N’Sharan.”

The Sharan raised their scaley eyebrows. “It is seven a.m.; the last time I checked, that means it is the morning." The Sharan eyed Kanrel from head to toe and seemed not to be pleased with what they saw. “I am Trav, and I don’t work for the Times of N’Sharan, nor are these the offices for the Times of N'Sharan."

“Ah yes, the morning... And yes, these are not my offices, but the work that I am to do is most certainly here!” Kanrel spoke the first words that came to his mind: “You see, Trav, I am to write an article about the great work you do here at the Office of Order and Chaos!”

Trav scoffed, “How wonderful. Now get out.”

Now what? Instead of giving up, Kanrel forced a smile on his face: “No, I won’t get out; in fact, you’re going to personally show me around the place and give me an idea of what you really do here.”

Trav blinked, “No, I won’t give you a tour of the place. Why? Because I refuse to work with people like you."

“People like me? A journalist?”

"No, you buffoon; I meant people who lack magical ability."

“Ah… Very discriminatory of you; it seems that I’ll have to write a very different article from the one that I was planning to write.” Kanrel cleared his throat loudly and continued, “How does this sound for a headline: the Office of Order and Chaos, a place of corruption and a waste of taxpayer money?"

Trav blinked again; they seemed to ponder for a moment before giving a reply, “Very cute.”

They sighed and got up from their chair, “Very well, you leave someone more than busy with no say in their own matters and give them unreasonable demands... Follow me; let me show another dimwit what happens here... It is not like you could actually understand any of it.

Bemused by the fact that such a weak threat would make someone clearly more powerful than he budge, he followed Trav without much argumentation all the way to the other side of the room, where there was a door in the spherical wall.

“This is a door; it is most often used as an entrance or as an exit. Like a wall, it divides two rooms, or two physical places, from each other. Look at this." Trav explained and opened the door: “If you open it, you can clearly see that the things that I have said are all true.”

On the other side of the door, there was another room; this one had a few lockers, a table, and a kitchenette.

“As your eyes might be able to see, behind the door, there is a room, and this room is for me and my co-workers; it is our breakroom, our locker room, and our dining room made into one.”

“There are many different types of rooms; as one can easily tell, this one is one with multiple purposes... Would you like me to explain such words as ‘breakroom’, ‘locker room', and ‘diner’?” Trav kept explaining; their voice was perky and upbeat, very different from the rather monotone way of speaking they had used earlier.

“It might surprise you, but I do know what a room is, and I don’t need you to explain such things to me.”

Trav chuckled. “Are you quite sure? Anyway, let's move along.” They closed the door and hurried Kanrel to come with them as they walked to the nearest workstation, a simple table filled with books, paper, and pens. Three people hurriedly copied things from the papers into the books; the function of the books was again to hold data about people.

“Here we have a table; on it, there are books and paper, as you might see, and the two people working around the table are some of my co-workers; their names don’t matter, neither to me nor to you, and they barely matter to them as well. Here we read through enough names; what is another to pollute our minds, right?”

“What are they exactly doing? Who cares? The system is either way ancient, as we still have to use our own hands in the process of copying, and I am the only one who is powerful enough to actively use magic in my work. I can’t wait to be fully sucked out of it; there is just one way for a retirement for us here, you see."

“Kanrel, journalist, or whatever you claim to be, do you know how much work we have to do here, daily?” They asked.

“I haven’t the slightest clue."

“We start at six in the morning, and we work until nine in the evening; well, at least we are supposed to, but you see, our little establishment has been understaffed for decades now; there just aren’t enough people who are educated enough or powerful enough to work here... And those that have the required education or the required magical ability are already rich, and who the fuck would like to spend their lives at a dead-end job? One that will either way claim your life in the process..."

“Here, we don’t have lives; here we work until there is nothing of us to give... Do you know how the previous person who worked at my station died?” They asked and soon pointed at the middle, at the round table, which was filled with books and such. “Right over there... at the very spot where I spent all of my days, toiling away, using—no—wasting my magic to do something that should have been mechanized centuries ago."

Kanrel just stared at Trav, who by the minute seemed more and more agitated; their voice was bitter, their words were bitter and so tired, and their face was furrowed. “I see.”

Trav turned toward him and said, “You see? How wonderful! Now fuck off.” They exclaimed and stormed back to their workstation, back to the middle, and back to the place where they believed that they would die.

Kanrel was left where he now stood, baffled, and with no words to give or no idea what to think other than that which was quite obvious: who, indeed, would like to work here?

The two people working at the workstation had not raised their eyes, and their postures told a tale of long hours spent sitting at one singular place, each and every single day of the week, perhaps of the year. Tiredness was visible on their faces; the skin under their eyes was much darker; and even their movement was often dull. At times, one of the workers would leave their pencil on the table and stretch their fingers, even twisting them, and they would rotate their wrists at the same time. During those actions, pain could be seen on a face where only tiredness resides.

The Office of Order and Chaos was one of the most important and useful things that had ever been created in N’Sharan, to oversee and place people where they belonged and to make the city as efficient and productive as possible. Something so important had become mismanaged, corrupt, and behind its time. Technology, which could make everything work quicker and become more productive within the office, was not there for them to use.

Instead, work, which used to be important, had become forgotten. And who even oversaw this process? Who worked above Trav and the others in this room? Kanrel’s gaze found its way toward the elevator. There are two floors to go through to find whoever led this place.

In the room, there was only one other door to open, but an exit sign that flashed green above the door clearly indicated what the door was used for. Thus, he walked his way to the elevator and soon found himself within it. After pressing the button for the second floor, he began ascending.