Chapter 52: Ch52 Elders In Doughts
The council room of the temple was a magnificent and ancient room. Its domed ceiling reached far above, covered in faded murals of Asmethan’s birth into the world, surrounded by marble-sculpted doves that seemed to stare down in judgment. Incense hung in the air, curling up into the beams of light from braziers down the walls. Lines of white-robed people sat in a circle around a great obsidian table, the temple elders, each face determined by years of duty and dense faith.
High Father Seraphon sat at the head of the table, his position relaxed but firm. His staff rested against the chair to his right—a simple wooden staff, only with cursory etchings to adorn it. The true Holy Staff, generations of Fathers’ heirloom, was no longer in his possession. It was already in the boy’s possession.
That alone was enough to be unsettling.
The whispers had begun softly, murmurs, but they grew into burning words.
"He is just a boy," remarked one of the senior women, her voice as sharp as a knife in the incense-scented air. "A boy found in a burning town, brought to us by accident, and you ask us to bow down before him as the Saint of prophecy?"
Her words cut like flint on dry wood. The room stirred.
"Brought here by chance?" another elder snarled, pounding his fist on the obsidian slab. "Wake up, woman! Do you have the audacity to ignore omens? Did you not see the boy fixing the polluted wounds with his bare hands? Our magic, our prayers, our crystals did nothing for us. But he, a child, did. No human person can do that unless chosen."
The wails clashed, screaming, jeering, the air heavy with tension that seemed to suffocate by being breathed.
"Yes, yes!" a robed man screamed, half-rising from his seat. His eyes blazed with the desperate power of one clinging to what must be held. "And what of the mark on his ear? Do you not confess what you saw? The very crest of Asmethan branded onto his skin since birth! That is no accident, but will of the gods!
Some of the elderly nodded, muttering prayers under their breath. Others frowned intensely.
"Divine will?" another one spoke up, low and glacial. "Or convenient signs for desperate eyes to cling to?"
Gasps reverberated. The man who had spoken—a silver-bearded elder known for his caution—rested his hands on the table. "We rush so to make him Saint that we forget there is such a thing as fraud. Power breeds plots. What if the boy is simply a vessel for some more malevolent entity? What if we are being duped?"
The room fell into uncomfortable silence, broken only by the hissing of braziers.
"Blasphemy, you claim?" an elder replied, his face red with anger. "Does our god so easily fall prey to this? Would Asmethan allow unholiness to pour in with healing greater than that which arose from crystal magic? Tell me—would you have cleansed corruption with your own hands? Could any of you?!!!"
The elder with the silver hair didn’t answer, but the doubt lingered there.
A second voice cut in, quivering with rage and with belief. "When our crystals failed, when our prayers were answered with deaf ears, this boy alone, on his own brought healing. That is not lying. That is Asmethan’s mercy manifesting. You are sitting here questioning while the stamp of our god is on his body!"
But even as the words are not yet out of her lips, a second argument breaks out: "Faith is not evidence! A mark may be written in, wounds may be feigned, fictions may be invented! What you call miracles may be tricks. Do we leave our temple’s, our people’s fate on the word of blind believers?"
The elders erupted in bellowing, voices crashing into each other like surf against the shore during a storm. Some pounded the table, demanding that Luther’s divinity be recognized. Others scoffed at the idea, terming it dangerous. A few murmured softly, heads bent, too wishy-washy to commit to one side or the other.
The room balanced precariously.
Then—thud.
The tip of Seraphon’s staff slammed onto the stone floor. Once. The sound reverberated like a bell tolling in the room. Then, there was silence.
Slowly, Seraphon rose. His golden-white robes draped about him with the motion, and though his staff was plain wood, when he stood upright, the room acquiesced to his authority. His hawk eyes swept across the room, and all the elders lowered their eye before the weight of his silence.
"Enough," he told them, his voice rough but loud, hard as a mountain. "You talk in circles. Faith without reason is blindness. Doubt without discipline is poison. Either path won’t be good for us."
Some of the elders shifted uneasily, shame flickering across their faces.
Seraphon’s eyes grew cold. "I gave the boy the Holy Staff. Do you believe I did it on impulse? Believe me to be careless with a relic that has passed from centuries? You question me, as is your right. You question him, as is logical. But faith cannot be constructed upon disputes. Evidence must end the dispute."
The words provoked murmurs once more, but this time restrained.
"Evidence?" one of the elders inquired warily. "What evidence could there be, when even the Holy Staff is now in his possession?"
Seraphon leaned his head back, his voice taking on a seriousness that pressed upon their bones. "There is an experiment. One older even than any of us, one in which none here have ever succeeded."
All eyes were on him. Braziers flared, shadows casting upon the carved doves floating over them.
"You all know the prayer hall," Seraphon continued. "The great chamber where our rituals are conducted, where sacrifices are made. But that hall is only ceremonial floor space. A place for human worship. Not the true shrine."
There was a whispered horror across the room.
"Beyond doubt, the true shrine of Asmethan," Seraphon went on, his tone deepening, "is in the Healing Grounds. Hidden behind walls which no mortal hand can unlock. Within is the true statue of Asmethan, fashioned by the first Father’s own hands when our god descended. Its chamber has been sealed for millennia. No key, no charm, no power has ever opened its gate. Only the true claimant of Asmethan’s light may gain admission."
The words remained suspended in the silence that followed. Elders jutted out from incredulity. Others clasped their robes more tightly.
"Meaning to carry the boy there?" one questioned, voice trembling.
"Yes," Seraphon responded without flinching. "If he is the Saint, Asmethan will unlock the door to him. If not. the door will not be opened, and your doubts will be resolved."
The council chamber seethed with unease. Some of the elders whispered fervent prayers, others squirmed restlessly, and some exchanged nervous, frightened looks.
"What if the door creaks open?" an elder finally had to whisper.
Seraphon’s gaze swept over them all, unyielding, his face chiseled from stone. "Then you shall bow your heads and never voice your doubts again. For in that moment, Asmethan himself shall have spoken."
The room fell silent, so silent that even the braziers hissed softly.
At last, one of the elders—once in doubt, now uncertain—rose to his feet and said softly, "Then... let us test him."
Consent filtered slowly, from one to another, until at last the majority nodded their heads. The decision was reached.
Seraphon slammed his staff against the floor once more, bringing the meeting to an end. "So be it. At dawn, the boy will be taken to the Healing Grounds."
The elders dispersed, one by one, their robes swishing against the stone, their faces furrowed with a mixture of fear, curiosity, and hope of revelation.
As the room was left vacant, Seraphon sat, his hand across the humble staff on the ground to his right. The fire danced upon his wrinkled face, and for the first time that night, a flutter of doubt stirred in his eyes.
Quietly, barely a voice, he addressed the emptiness:
"May Asmethan forgive me... if I bring this boy to a destiny he cannot endure."