The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (132 page)

The darkness was silent. He let the silence take him in, like a current leading him into a river to drown. He did not resist it. Perhaps, then, this was the God's mercy: the Mystery would take him into the unquenchable fire, so that he might feel the Mystery's peace in the moment before his pain began, never to end.
He was thinking again; he could feel the thoughts dragging him back toward the shore. With a sigh, he released his hold on himself, and on his life, as he awaited the God's response.
When he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness, and he could feel his body falling. Falling, and falling.
 
CHAPTER FIVE
He awoke to the sound of fire. It crackled close by his head, and it took him a moment to garner the courage to open his eyes in order to see what it would be like, this fire that would be with him for eternity.
He found himself lying in a bed. Next to him flickered a prayer-light, quite ordinary in appearance. Then Prosper turned his head and realized where he was.
Huard, seeing his movement, turned away from the basin where he had been wringing out a rag. He walked over and placed the rag upon Prosper's head. The coolness washed over Prosper as if he had been dipped in a river.
As though no pause had taken place in their conversation, Huard asked, "Did the God speak to you?"
Prosper stared at Huard for a moment; then his breath caught in his throat. "Yes," he whispered, feeling wonder tremble through his body as he remembered. "He told me not to fear. He told me that he loved me." Prosper stared a moment longer at the priest, then turned his gaze toward the prayer-light near his head. He said softly, "How can the God love one such as myself?"
"Are you ready to listen to the answer?" Huard's voice was no longer hard, merely inquisitive.
Prosper looked back at the priest. His own body seemed light, as though it could have lifted into the air had not the blankets been holding him down. He felt more like a God-loving spirit than a temporal creature. "Yes," he said, "I am ready to listen."
"Prosper, you are not twisted."
Prosper tried to understand this, failed, and gave up the struggle to master the matter without further instruction. "I am not twisted," he agreed, like a pupil reciting a text he is not yet mature enough to understand.
Huard smiled. He nudged Prosper over in the bed and then sat down next to him, his large body pressing against Prosper's. Prosper lay where he was, feeling Huard's hip against his own, feeling too Huard's palm as the priest laid his hand upon Prosper's. The priest said nothing, and after a moment it occurred to Prosper to wonder why, if he had lusted after all of his priest-pupils, he had not noticed any desire for Huard during these weeks of close living – did not feel any desire even now whilst Huard's body was so close to his.
He said slowly, "I had not felt twisted desires before tonight, had I?"
"It may be that you felt them momentarily," Huard responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Prosper, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when you told me that you had never felt lustful desires during your time as a priest. If that had been true, you would have been a bodiless spirit rather than a living creature. More likely you felt momentary desires, either for your pupils or for other priests or for the temporal women and men to whom you served as confessor. But you were so convinced that a godly person like you could not feel such desires that you thrust the knowledge from your mind. It was part of the demonism in you – not the brief desires, which are a normal occurrence, especially in times of hardship such as you are undergoing at present. The demonism came from believing that you were immune from the temptations that normal men experience. Do you remember the first words you spoke to me when I came to your training school?"
"Yes," said Prosper, again speaking slowly, for his mind seemed to be gradually rising out of darkness. "I speak it to all of my priest-pupils. 'You must not believe that you are in any way superior to the men and women whom you will serve for the God, for you are filled with as many demon-temptations as they are.'"
"Some teachers," said Huard, still holding Prosper's hand, "are better teachers than they are pupils. They speak words of wisdom that they themselves do not heed – or so a teacher once told me." He smiled.
"Then the fact that I recognized my desire for Orel—"
"Is a sign of returning godliness, rather than the opposite. Yes." Huard reached forward and pulled the cloth from Prosper's forehead. "Mind you, the fault in what happened tonight is as much mine as yours. I knew that it was likely that your awakening awareness of the evil impulses within you would cause you to confront demons that you had not previously recognized, though they had always pulled at you. If you had had true twistedness – a lifelong desire to lie with men or boys – then I would certainly have addressed the matter through your discipline before this, and would have trained you to turn your desires toward women or toward celibacy, whichever the case seemed to merit. Cursing twisted persons is almost never necessary, I have found. But precisely because I knew that you had no more twisted desires than the normal man does, I didn't think to forewarn you about how to react when you were tempted to act on erotic desires whose action would cause you to break the God's Law. It is easy enough to discipline oneself in such matters, if you are prepared beforehand."
"Yes," said Prosper. "I taught you that as well." He gave a sigh as he wiped the dampness from his forehead. "What a fool I was to think that I could live without the demon-temptations of an ordinary man. I had convinced myself that I had only two choices: to live a life as demon-free as the God's life or to be demon-filled beyond saving. And that allowed my native demon a new way to attack me: I cast judgment upon myself tonight, rather than trust you and the Unknowable God to care for my spirit." He looked up at Huard, his gaze now steady upon the priest's. "I'll never be entirely free of my demon of judgment, will I?"
"No more than I will ever be entirely free of my native demon," his teacher replied. "Though I am no longer the prisoner of gluttony, I must do battle with it for the rest of my life." Then, seeing Prosper's forehead crease, he added quietly, "You have the strength to do battle with your demons, Prosper. Believe that when I say it now, as you would not have believed it if I had told you earlier. You had to come by that knowledge yourself, in a moment when it seemed you could go no further—"
"And I felt myself too tired to go on." Prosper gave a short laugh as he raised himself into a sitting position on the bed. The lightness had gone, but the weariness he felt now was like the weariness he always felt at the end of a long and profitable lesson with a pupil: the weariness of shining success.
Huard, who had been smiling, turned suddenly sober in expression. He cocked his head at his former teacher and said, "One question you have not asked me which you should have asked when I entered the sanctuary – should have asked before you ever fled from this chamber."
The pain, coming as it did at a time when he was so open to new sensations, cut into Prosper like the blade of a new sword, but he did not allow himself to flinch. "Orel," he said in a hushed voice. "Is he hurt?"
"He was greatly troubled when he found me, but I was able to calm him. I explained to him that you were afflicted by a demon of fear that came upon you in moments of heightened emotion, such as you had undoubtedly felt upon learning of Orel's affection for you. I assured Orel that your fear in no way arose from a belief that he was twisted."
"A demon of fear," said Prosper softly. "Yes, you warned me against that as well, just as I have warned pupils over the years not to allow fear to overcome their battles with learning. If I had only listened to the advice I gave to you and my other pupils, I would have known that fleeing this chamber was the worst possible action I could take – it leads to greater demons entering into one, such as—" He hesitated.
"Such as the temptation to commit the crime of slaying oneself," said Huard solemnly. "I trust that you realize now what a grave crime you were about to commit – not only against the God, who gave you the body that you were about to desecrate, but also against Orel, who would surely have blamed himself for your death, no matter what I told him."
"Yes," whispered Prosper, and was silent for a long while afterwards.
The priest's door was open to the evening. Prosper could hear the chatter of the tribe's men, women, and children as they passed nearby, on their way to the midnight service. Huard, hearing the same noise, rose and began to disgown in preparation for placing the black robe of the Mystery upon himself.
Prosper settled back into the cushions of the soft bed. The silence that was upon him now seemed too precious to break by attending the service and listening to words. He could not help thinking, though, of the boys whose voices he had heard amidst the crowd. "Huard," he said, "you told me once that I had a gift for teaching."
"You are the best teacher I have ever had the honor to meet," Huard replied quietly. "I know that my judgment on this is shared by others. If you don't trust me, ask one of your priest-pupils when you return to your training school."
"I will not be returning to the training school." Prosper's voice seemed to echo through the stillness of the chamber. He felt oddly calm as he raised his gaze to be level with Huard's. "I can never be a priest again. I see that now."
The morning sun rippled sparks of light upon the river passing Huard's doorway. Huard leaned forward and splashed the coolness of the water upon his face, drying away the sweat of the morning. A breeze teased at his hair, cooling the water further.
An arm touched his as Prosper bent forward and joined him, splashing water into his eyes to take away the dryness of the night. Huard smiled at him, saying, "I was beginning to wonder whether you would sleep through the noonday service."
"The rest did me good." Prosper leaned back, staring up at the branches against the sky, wondering why he had never noticed the beauty of their interlacing curves, like a fine scribe's hand in a manuscript. "Was that voice of Orel's father that woke me?"
Huard nodded. "Orel told him last night that you had been training him. Botolf was much bewildered – he said that what Orel told him made no sense, for during the past three months the boy's swordsmanship had improved fourfold. Botolf was sure that the godliness Orel had received from learning his catechism was the cause. Botolf was even more bewildered when I explained to him that your training was the cause of his son's increased discipline." The plump priest sat back on his haunches, looking for all the world like a tamed wolf sitting contentedly beside a hearthfire. "Botolf tells me that he wishes Orel's brothers to attend your school for temporal boys when it is opened next spring."
Prosper was still a moment, feeling the cool breeze tickle his face. Then he suddenly ducked his head and plunged it into the water.
He surfaced shaking his hair as a wolf-dog shakes his fur after a bath, sending water splattering onto Huard. The priest laughed. "You look like a boy."
"I feel like a boy. Like a thirteen-year-old boy. Do you understand why?" Smiling, Prosper turned his head toward the priest.
"Indeed," Huard replied. "A new beginning." The priest lifted his head, scenting the air, then said, "Botolf left us a gift-offering for our trouble. Shall we indulge our stomachs in a most unpriestly fashion?"
Laughing, Prosper helped Huard to rise from the sun-bright grass. They passed back into the coolness of the hut. There, on the table, were two bags, neatly labelled in Orel's careful scribe-hand, "To Huard, with love," and "To Prosper, with love." Huard opened the bag, inspected it, and sighed before pouring its contents into Prosper's bag. Prosper caught a glimpse of the sweets within.
"Some disciplines," said the priest mournfully, "require greater sacrifice than others." He turned aside, poured wine into two cups, then turned back to Prosper, who was still staring down at the lettering on the bag, touching the word "love."
"Did you hear what I said?" Huard asked.
Without looking up, Prosper replied, "Quite. Quiet. Quench. Quiescent. Does that answer your question?" Then, as Huard laughed and handed him his cup, Prosper said, "I was listening, but your words touched off a thought in my mind. I was trying to decide whether it was a blessing or a tragedy that I became a priest."
Huard, turning aside to check the sacred instruments that had been polished overnight, said, "And what have you decided?"
"It is difficult to tell. If I had become a priest later in my life, after I had been trained in the discipline as you have been training me, would I have had the strength to control my native demon? One thing I do know: my decision to become a priest at thirteen destroyed that path as a vocation for me. I was too young, too undisciplined, sought out too little spiritual oversight in my formative years. Under those conditions, my demon grew too strong, and though I believe that I now have control enough over it to lead the life of a man of temporal affairs, I do not believe that it would ever be wise for me to have spiritual supervision over anyone again."
Huard opened the purification lamp, cleaned out the ashes from the previous fire, and touched the prayer-light that had been flickering in his hut for six months. "That is reason enough for you to regret having become a priest. Why do you think you may have been blessed by your life's work?"
"Because, though it was not the right vocation for me, somehow, through the God's blessing, I found through it the path to my true vocation. All those years I spent teaching priest-pupils, thinking of teaching as no more than a means to the higher end of supervising the spiritual lives of priests in making, were years when I developed my native gift – a gift which, if I had not become a priest, I might never have recognized. It is odd," he reflected, looking over at Huard, who was lifting the top half of the purification lamp. "It now seems to me that all the happenings I underwent during those years – even the terrible destruction I caused upon the bodies and spirits of those who were under my care – were only preparations for this moment when I would begin my true service to the God."
"Even so," said Huard, turning again toward the shelf of sacred objects, "it must have been a difficult decision for you to make."
"It was," said Prosper, his eye following the path of the tiny, shining prayer-light as Huard used it to light the lamp. "That was why your use of the word 'sacrifice' triggered this thought. I would not have believed, three months ago, that I would have the strength to make such a decision – to give up the work to which I have devoted forty-four years and in which I have found my deepest devotion to the God. Yet oddly enough, that seems part of the preparation. It is necessary to make that sacrifice so that—"