The Priesthood

Rumors of a small village are mostly mundane. Though, of course, things like drama between lovers, friends, and family can happen quite often. Talks about who spends the night with whom, whose child is the least dumb, and which family “stole” another’s sheep.

Things like “the Otherkind”, “true magic,", or "true God”, weren’t points of conversation. The information he had gathered thus far was mostly about things that were useless to his mission but very useful to his job as a priest.

A trend of rumors about priests was quite common recently, thus giving him information about the previous priest of the village. Although it was difficult to really say what was true and what was not, who had even met the priest when he was still here? Who remembered him? Over a decade had gone by, and only a select few could remember more objective things about him.

Boran Walden was already in his fifties when he came to the village of Jersten. He spoke like an old man and behaved like such; his interests and wide collection of information also spoke of experience. Years of service to the Priesthood, yet he had spent his last days in a small village.

Many would argue that such a thing was beneath his status. But a priest goes where he is willed to go; orders of the Priesthood are like a mandate from the Heavens. One does not simply say “no” when they are commanded to a place far away from civilization.

Maybe his scholarly nature and his wish to collect stories from different parts of the kingdom might have been the reason why he was sent here. Maybe through those stories he had found something out—something that led him to his disappearance or death.

This and more were some of the things Kanrel learned during the next month or so. He went around the town during the day, meeting new people and conversing with them about anything that might come to their minds. He was more or less there to accompany and listen to what the people had to say.

He would also help with minor tasks when he saw fit to do so or when he was asked to help. Mostly, this meant that he had to remove snow—either melt it away or just move it with his magic. Neither was an issue and depending on the situation and the position of the snow, he would choose the option that would suit it the best. It wasn’t always best to melt the snow. Creating dangerously slippery areas of ice didn’t sound too safe.

And when the evening came, he would return to Vein’s tavern, where he would once a week hold a great showcase of his magical abilities, using codes that produced mostly harmless little tricks that might excite the audience.

After every such night, Kanrel could observe how visibly Vein experienced joy, how she calculated the money received, and shared how pleased she was with the deal they had made.

Kanrel had nothing to complain about, not really. He was well provided for; there was never a moment when he felt hungry, thirsty, or too cold. It was a complete reverse of the time he had to march his way here.

Life, again, seemed to be mostly the same each day—a mundane routine of doing the same things each day of the week. Life was easy. Yet no joy was granted. Only the plaintive thoughts that he would have as he observed those around him. After all, they were all capable of something that he had not felt for such a long time. Their varied emotions were probably beautiful and filled with life. Something that would feed their will for years to come.

Of course, not all were happy. Not everyone experiences such joy every day. The lonely few of the village—those that had lost someone dear to them—some of them perhaps not too long ago. In a way, he felt himself at home with them; it was something more familiar, something similar to the academy and the many novices who shared his suffering.

Dar quickly became someone he spoke to every day; he was always present at the tavern, as he had no work to do during the winter, so he would drink away the money he had earned during seasons much more suited for farming.

He worked as a farmhand, so he himself didn’t own any land, but there were many who would happily pay him to work on theirs. And oh, he got paid well, even if the treatment at times was cold and even incredulous. After all, Dar was not from here; he had moved here roughly six years ago to get away from the unfair treatment of greater cities.

The life of the nameless was seldom easy; discrimination was apparently well and alive in the kingdom. So it was often best not to even mention the lack of a name, and sometimes one should make one up.

At least here, mostly, the villagers didn't really care if Dar had a name or not. Maybe in the beginning they might’ve cared a little bit more, but now, as he had lived there for quite a while, even as an outsider, there was some trust they had for him.

This begs the question: If six years is not enough to no longer be an “outsider”, then at what point would one’s status change? How many years? If ever.

The end of winter was nearing. The sun no longer sets so early or rose so late; the wind’s bite wasn’t as cold, nor was the weather. And on the sunniest of days, the snow would slowly start melting away.

This was one of those last days of winter, a sunny day during which Kanrel was finally allowed to enter the local temple and go through the things that the previous priest had left behind. The temple had living quarters, which would become Kanrel’s during the spring, but the old building had some things that needed slight repairs, so before that day, he was allowed to at least remove things that had lost their usability, become broken, or been ruined by years of neglect.

Apparently, no one had really entered the old temple in a few years, though there had already been talks of renovating it. Kanrel chose not to question the level of religiousness in the village; the villagers weren’t to be blamed if they weren’t aware of the scriptures or even if they had not prayed to the angels in recent times. After all, the villagers had multiple times during the decade requested a new priest be sent here, but the Priesthood had not sent a new one for one reason or another.

The backdoor that led into the temple's living quarters was barred with planks that were nailed to the door. The planks seemed like they had been there for years now. Without much hesitation, Kanrel formed a code to pull the planks with the nails from the doorway.

Soon two planks fell on the ground; he moved them from his way and opened the unlocked door. He was greeted with damp air that had not left the room before him in many years; it smelled of old, unused things. The smell was similar to the academy cellars but not nearly as potent.

He didn’t mind it and just walked in, soaking in the interior of his new home—or home to become: It wasn’t large by any means, and surely it wasn’t small either. Calling it medium-sized was sufficient and much more than what Kanrel was used to having.

The first room mainly held things like the kitchen with its brick oven, a table that seemed to suffer from old age and from lack of use as each surface was covered with dust and webs; sometimes he could see a brave plant that had withered possibly during the winter.

There were just two doors; he chose the one that led north, and he opened it, causing a loud protest by the hinges of the door to fill the quiet air around him. On the other side was what could be called a bedroom, an office, and a library at the same time.

A bed with moldy, frozen bed sheets was on the western side of the room, with a table sat right next to it. A fragile-looking chair inhabited the space before the table, and a window, which was covered with more planks, was placed above the table and the bed.

It would be cold during the winter to have the bed placed there, so he would probably move it closer to the furnace that was on the southern wall of the room when he actually moved in.

The northern wall was completely filled with shelves, and many books of varying levels of wellness were placed on them. On the lower levels of the shelves, there were containers, jars, and other miscellaneous things, which suggested that it wasn’t only a bedroom-office-library but also a storage room.

He didn’t mind that at all; it was just a curious decision made by either the previous resident of the building or someone else who had lived here a much longer time ago.

The books… He felt saddened to see their condition. The neglect that they had gone through Tens of books were just left here at the mercy of time, weather, insects, and possibly rodents. But then again, he believed that with time, he could salvage most of the books. During the years that he would end up spending in this village, he would go through all of them, try his utmost to restore them, or just copy them into another book.

There must’ve been so much important information that those books held. Things like the dates of birth for most of the people that had lived here a decade ago, not to mention similar records of the people that had lived here since the founding of this temple.

But more importantly, the records—the books—were written by Boran Walden. They could make his mission here so much easier. It would also help in confirming or denying some of the rumors that were about him, or even things about the history of the village. He would find out for certain when the man had first arrived in this village, and perhaps even the day when he disappeared.

There was so much reading to be done. There are so many books that he would have to possibly restore that one of the books in worse condition might hold all the vital information that he needed. But first, he would explore the rest of the temple.

He left the room behind and opened the door that led east. After opening it, it soon became clear that there were a lot of repairs that needed to be done to the temple itself. The living quarters were mostly fine, but the temple... The holiest place in this village was in near ruins.

Kanrel just stared at the mess that he would have to clean up; a chandelier that was once hung from the ceiling had fallen on the floor, crushing under multiple long benches.

The door from which he came in was located in the middle of the temple itself. At the southern end, there would be the main doors, and at the northern end, there’d be the altar. The interior was mostly plain; there was only one Angel seen. Right above the altar, right above all living things in this village.

Its stare, pierced through him, even after a decade of negligence. A sensation found its way into his chest. How it looked at him; how it critiqued with its eyes; its stare that looked through everyone and all. The gaze that pierced through his very soul, his essence, his useless existence.

“Forgive me.” He whispered to the motionless creature with its grotesque facial features and wings of scales. The armor it wore, made from gold, and the sword it held were wide and great. It disregarded him and his plea for forgiveness.

This was the first time he saw such a painting of an Angel; even in this temple left to ruins, the painting remained like it was untouched. Even insects and rodents, like mold and the cold, refused to touch it; they refused to corrupt its pristine condition.

It was horrible in all of its magnificence. He dared not spend another moment under a gaze that gave him no regard; he was so worthless, so useless. Again, he was nothing. And he, who was nothing, returned to the living quarters, shutting the door behind him.

The books. He had to go through the books. He had to follow his duty.

The books held information that he had expected, but also many things he did not. Many of them were diaries, collections of stories, rumors, and things about the people who lived in the village; some were still alive, and some were dead. There were names he had heard during the past few months—family names that were familiar, but not the people holding them.

Life is tragic. This was made clear by some texts. How a child lost its life on the day of birth, and with him, her mother as well. How a young man died because of a fever left untreated. How another was lost in the woods, never to be seen again.

But where there is death, there has to be life—new life. Those many that were born during the times that Boran had lived here. He was, after all, there at each and every single birth. He wrote down the approximate date of birth, the year, and the circumstances of his or her birth. He wrote down the name given to this newborn and the names of the child's parents.

The records the man had written were meticulous, something Kanrel believed to be the way he should do things. Even the most mundane of things, like a report about how a child threw a rock at a window, shattering it. The child then had to apologize and personally go ask for Boran’s help in fixing the broken window.

This information was precious. It told the story of a village and its people. Although the records mostly lacked color, they still gave a sense of history to a place so small.

There were other books as well, those written by priests who had lived here a long time ago, much before the time of Boran Walden; these writings held similar information, only the choice of words and handwriting would differ.

Sadly, there were a few books that were in such bad condition that he dared not touch them too much, for he would have to be extremely careful with them. He would have to create intricate codes as he feared that his own hands were too clumsy for normal repairs.

It didn’t take long to read or to at least figure out the contents of most of the books. All the information regarding the people and the history of the village was invaluable, so he wasn’t disheartened by the lack of information about the man who had written them.

In between reading, helping at the village, and performing magic shows at the tavern, he spent his free time in the temple, mostly cleaning rubble and other rubbish out and fixing the chandelier and the benches that had busted beneath it.

He got rid of furniture that was too old or too fragile for him to actually use and placed orders for anything that could replace them. After each day, it was made clear that there were many things a “homeowner” needed before one could move in.

Such a thought had never even crossed his mind; prior to this, he had never had to really consider things like bed sheets and furniture—give or take a couch.

And when spring would finally come, things like exterior repairs and such could be done; then it wouldn’t take long until Kanrel could move in. It wouldn't take much longer for him to live under one roof all alone.

Such a thought was… curious. It didn’t bother him, per se. It really didn’t give him any feeling, for now at least. His emotional experience regarding living alone versus living with someone didn’t fluctuate at all as he thought about it.

Time would tell, but Kanrel could already guess how he would feel, even if he at this moment felt as he usually did. He would feel lonely. He would feel so alone. He would feel disgusted by himself and the Angel he compared himself to. That Angel—why did there have to be an Angel?

Thus he knew there’d only be despair—a continuation of familiar suffering. It would never end.

When was it allowed to end?