#foretokenfang

“The doors were open to the home of the Maker” the priests had beckoned from one week to the next, eager to attract sheep from a flock following a different shepard: the unyielding throes of gold. The doctrine of the Maker was relegated to a role in antiquity in comparison to the holy books of business and finance, but there were those who still believed otherwise. 

Starving, lethargic, and ill-informed, Arion had stumbled into the church in curiosity one day, stopping a moment to gaze at the facade before proceeding. The people spoke some measure of proof in regards to age as the carefully chiseled stone of the structure and its stained glass murals positioned just so were the hallmarks of precision and planning long since abandoned in an age of functionality.

Though a giant bell would toll the hour by some unseen mechanism of a cleric’s hand, it rang ever so softly with the swaying ocean wind. The hum pervaded the cathedral, magnified and soothing within its walls as the boy stepped tepidly into the unfamiliar environment. Above the low hum was the preacher’s voice to the handful of men and women scattered amongst an equally modest number of pews. He sat himself in the back by the door and listened with all the mustered attention that a ten winter child could offer.

The preacher wove intricate stories like a child’s fairytales of holy men and the deeds of saints. Men who followed the Maker’s guidance to deliver “sinners” from themselves--curiously wondering how there were only men. Lofty parables floated above his head in words that he imagined were from some foreign tongue. Yet, he was enraptured. Scarcely able to separate reality from idyllic fantasy, Arion found truth in the good of man and his salvation.

The god was ominpotent and peaceful in nature, and his was the way of “peace eternal and everlasting.” He created the world they knew and all the worlds they would never behold. Because he created everything, the Maker he was known. In his infinite wisdom, he left this earth to his beloved children as they endeavored to create as he did. There were, however, daemons among his children that sought to undo what he had imagined. They tempted his children into sin, to destruction of soul and decay of the flesh. These maleficent creatures sowed dissent and mislead good children with false beliefs. Their ancestors did not heed the Maker then but embraced these daemons, ending the world with fire and brimstone. Those who survived had been chosen by the Maker to rebuild the world in his design and would have their reward after shedding their mortal coils to ashes. The Maker would build them a home befitting their eternal desires for peace.

As even the most steadfast of followers began to droop their heads like fishing bait on the waves, the boy opened both his ears. His feet were quicker to the altar than when he had entered, brimming with curiosity at the preacher he felt so close with after the hour had passed. The outside world was bound by the rules of society where his parents instructed he “must never venture alone,” “must guard his word and heart,” and “must watch out for his own” among other sayings. Here, the house of the Maker was open and accepting, so Arion felt at liberty to ask questions of his burning desires.

Arion assumed that the priest, with his ready answers about the origin of good and evil, could enlighten him about what happened to his father after his untimely demise and of what would be done for his family that remained bound in the mortal struggle of survival. Though stated less eloquently, Arion spoke and was answered simply, “Have faith and the Maker will deliver in ways incomprehensible to your young mind.” 

The boy believed as there was much that he did not know. Though he was supposed to be comforted, the gnawings of his stomach did not let his “soul” rest easy. Arion had thanked the man, but asked one more question before taking his leave in search for food. He asked about how the Maker, who had created all, could possibly be opposed by something that was his complete opposite? How could there be those that destroyed in his grand design? Not wanting to insult a god by calling such a paradox a mistake, Arion asked if that had been overlooked? The priest grew impatient at that moment, simply telling Arion that he was not a true believer of the Maker, that his faith was too weak to understand the reality of the world. Arion, dismissed with a wave, returned to the world wondering if that were true but never returned to that house of worship or any other.

To this day, Arion had found little reason to enter a holy structure, not because he despised the notion but because he had more pressing concerns. The life of his family had improved since those times, but not by the ways he had imagined in those blinder days. With blood, his own and that of many others, he had won his family’s independence and his own survival. He had bought his world with determination and his selfish desire for life. 

The accomplishment had not felt like divine deliverance as onlookers claimed. He felt too dirty for that. There was nothing holy and serendipitous about what need be done. What was needed now, in this country, was redemption. Arion sought some way to  make up for the wrongs he had done to ensure the righteous life of others dear to him. He thought magic would provide some spell, some ancient rune to right the wrongs of the world. He thought that a land filled with such power would create as the priest those years past had preached. Yet, all Arion found was the same rule of business and finance, that magic was simply a tool like all others. Where was divinity there? Was it simply the same power to destroy after all, cowing the weak and ignorant into belief?

Yet, perhaps he was wrong still about the nature of the Maker in his ambiguity. Perhaps the world ran as it should--and maybe--as it always had. Arion still felt too young to know. The toll of the towering, technological clock rang the evening hours with whirring gears to dispel evil thoughts even as night encroached. 

Fingers closed around the old sides of the box, and as she moved to stand and address the klutz who'd crashed into her, it lost all integrity as first the bottom fell from place, and then the sides collapsed in without the reinforcement. Clearly the owner of the box didn’t use the contents enough to think of them as very useful. 

Notebooks, textbooks. Ruler and protractor. Maps and a sextant - among other things. It left her speechless as the items tumbled onto the pavement. The whole event was almost graceful in how much failure it seemed to put forth.

Bewildered, she looked up at the boy -man, who had failed to pay any sort of due attention to his surroundings. Why was he mumbling? Did he not have the confidence to apologise to any degree of actual meaning? She huffed up at him, but her eyes flickered back downards, lingered upon the calamity in front of her. She spoke only as she was retrieving the items into a pile.