#prophet king

the War Council meeting was held in the conference room at Town Hall.

i stood at the podium, fussing with the laptop on the card table next to me. i had hooked it up to the projector with an HDMI, but for some reason, the connection wouldn't take.

"o Holy Mayor, i just don't understand," said one of my advisors, Stradivarius, from his folding chair in the middle row. "what's your plan for taking out the Goblin Kingdom, exactly? i get that you're going to use the Thermos, and that you're being guided by the righteous will of God and all that. it would just be nice to know the plan, is all."

"agreed," said Rogelio, a member of the Priesthood. "we must make sure the interests of the Church are adequately represented."

"does the Church dare to question the Messiah?" sneered Apocryphina, who represented the Council of Elders. "you of the cloth have gone astray of the ancient way and diverged from the Path of God. soon you will have your reckoning. so saith the Prophet!"

"can someone help me with this?" i asked. "i can't get my laptop to connect to the projector."

"is the projector turned on?" ventured Paprika, the Town Council representative, from the front row.

i looked and saw that it was not.

hiding my utter mortification beneath a brittle veneer of keeping-it-together, i chuckled, and said, "oh, i guess it wasn't. my bad. sorry, everyone."

but no one cared. they were too busy arguing.

"hey! come on, guys. it's meeting time," i said.

begrudgingly, they quieted.

"i made a PowerPoint," i said. "i hope you find it sufficient. it's, uh—well, you'll see what it is."

featuring my friend Cornelius

and the signs from God were clear and they signaled to us that it was time to return to the Ancient Ways

"we will hold a Choosing," Apocryphina had announced. as the eldest Elder of the village, her word was as good as law. "we will do it in the Ancient Way. if the Soup accepts Rodrigo, we will consecrate him, and he will be Holy Chieftain."

the villagers, overall, seemed thrilled at the prospect. some so much so that they were driven to the point of a rambling, religious hysteria. (i think they are still a little "drunk on the wine of God," if you know what i mean.) even Stradivarius seemed pleased, having come around once the bureaucratic complications that arose from the addition of my seat of office were sorted out (complicated and boring, but will explain later if anyone is interested.)

in contrast, i felt myself coming to resent the idea more and more as the day of the Choosing approached. i did not want to be Holy Chieftain. i did not want to be in charge of the village, responsible for the lives of everyone in it! and anyway, the job was a real bureaucratic nightmare, so there was that too.

"but what if the Soup doesn't... accept you?" asked my friend Cornelius one day while we were hanging out. "what if it rejects you or whatever? does that mean... you're not gonna, like, die, are you?"

and i heard real concern in his voice, for he was my true friend, and dear to me. but the truth was, i did not know what would happen if the Soup did not accept me. if i would die, or... something worse.

or something better, the optimistic part of my brain feebly chimed in. maybe nothing will happen at all, and this Holy Chieftain thing will be over, and everything will go back to the way it was before.

but Cornelius—poor Cornelius; dear, sweet Cornelius—interpreted my silence as confirmation of that which he most feared. and he exclaimed a great exclamation of sorrow, and said: "Rodrigo, you must not do this thing!"

and, with sorrow of my own, i said, "ah, but you are wrong, Cornelius. i must do this thing. above all other things, i must do this thing."

"but why?" Cornelius demanded. "why would you risk your life for—?"

"Cornelius," i cut him off. "this is not the first time i have risked my life in the name of Soup. and i do not think it will be the last."

i looked into Cornelius' eyes, hoping to find some connection there. but all i saw was hurt and anger. and Cornelius looked away from me. and in that moment i felt my heart shatter.

this wretched mission of the Soup God's had already cost me so much. and now it was costing me Cornelius, too.

turning away from him, i said, "you do not understand, Cornelius. you are just a wizard. a god is nothing more than a rune on a rock-face to you. a page in a theurgy text. an item in a list. but my God means something to me, Cornelius. you never have been able to understand that. or maybe you do understand and you just won't accept it. i'm not sure. but i guess the distinction doesn't really matter. the barrier it puts between us is the same either way."

Cornelius looked at me, and i saw by the tightening of the dorsal muscles around his murine snout that he was angry. "you think i'm the reason there's a barrier between us? like it's got nothing to do with your emotional unavailability, or your weird codependent relationship with God, or your stupid obsession with soup!"

a look of regret crossed Cornelius' face the moment the words left his mouth. but he did not backpedal or apologize. he adopted a resigned expression, and maintained his silence.

after a moment i rose from the couch and walked over to the window. i stood with my back to Cornelius, looking out at my yard and the dirt road beyond it, the lemon and olive trees of the village orchards visible in the distance, the outer wall repaired and standing high behind the tree line.

"they would make an Atlas of me, Cornelius," i said. "they would place the world upon my shoulders. and when i cannot bear the weight of it, when it all inevitably comes crashing down, they will point at me and say, 'there is him who failed his charge! everything's wrecked and it's all his fault!'"

"who?" Cornelius asked quietly. "who will say that? who is doing all of this stuff to you, Rodrigo?"

red moon, dark horse hiding, sight unseen amorphous, insidious undermining

infecting with it's deadly breath the lungs of civilizations

bad moon, dark force leering in a dream dissembling, perfidious hypnotizing

"all hail Rodrigo!" Apocryphina cried to the mass of cheering people in the temple.

the roar of the crowd was deafening. they clapped their hands, and stomped their feet, and screamed and screamed and screamed.

i decoupled my hand from Apocryphina's and crossed to the front of the stage, looking out at the roiling sea of hysteria and chaos that had become of my people, my temple, my home. i reflected that i had undergone a kind of transformation during my time in that spiritual liminal space. that there was something about me that was no longer quite me.

looking out at the crowd, i realized that the deep sense of fear and apprehension that i was so used to carrying with me all the time was gone. evaporated, like broth left simmering on the stove too long. in its place was something else. not faith, that slapdash skiff with its damaged hull through which doubt flooded in and in and in until the whole thing was waterlogged and sunk. no. this was something else—something solid, something secure. something which the very terms of it's own existence rendered utterly, fundamentally unshakable.

certainty.

i raised a hand for quiet. the crowd obeyed. the sudden cessation of the din sent a jarring silence echoing through the sanctum, reverberating off stone and marble, amplified by the shell of the high, curved ceiling.

"people of Ursanuma," i said, naming my modest village. "you want to hear that your time has come. that i am the Bouillon al-Gaib, the foretold messiah-prophet, come to lead your people out of the darkness and into the light. to free you from oppression at the hands of goblins and governments and usher in a new era of prosperity."

darkness subsumed me.

it was the darkest darkness i had ever experienced. not just the absence of light, but of all things. a palpable, viscous nothing which neither light nor sound could permeate.

and i thought, am i dead? is this what death is?

my thoughts seemed to echo as though i had spoken them aloud, shattering the illusion of all-encompassing silence. and i realized that my previous assessment of my circumstances had been incorrect. i was not surrounded by nothing—i was surrounded by myself. my own thoughts, made substantive in this strange null-space.

and i knew in my heart that this was not death. it was something else. the space between life and death, not quite either but somehow also both. and somehow, also, it's own thing entirely. a special third thing that thwarted the false dichotomy.

a speck of light winked into life in the distance. it looked like a star, a tiny dot shining with the suggestion of a much greater magnificence. i started to move toward it. and soon the speck grew into a penny-sized circle of light, and eventually took the shape of a threshold, a distant doorway. as i got closer to it i realized that i could feel stone beneath my feet, hear the sound of my footsteps reverberating off walls hidden by darkness.

that darkness soon began to abate. gradually, my surroundings were revealed: a gray flagstone floor, veined marble pillars supporting a high, arched ceiling.

i seemed to be in a kind of hall. it reminded me of the hall in the Temple: narrow but airy, with pillars in place of solid walls, the night air beyond them cool.

the doorway was ahead of me, just the hall's length away. but the hall was long. and as i got closer i saw that the doorway's light threw one side of the hall into bright relief, while the other—the side that i had entered from—was bathed in a graduating totality of darkness.

it reminded me of a black-and-white cookie.

in the center of the hall, right on the dividing line where the brightness touched the shadow, there sat a great brazier that burned with golden fire. and above that brazier, mounted upon a great gilded campfire tripod, sat a great, golden, glowing, glimmering, bubbling, boiling, roiling, simmering stockpot.

it was... the Stockpot. the Stockpot of Eternity. the one that i had astral-Soup-projected myself into just a few months ago. but this time i wasn't projecting. i had entered its realm, its plane. and i saw the Stockpot before me now in its divine physical form, its full, Holy, beatific glory.

the ceiling of the hall was gone. when i looked up i saw the open sky above me, a canopy of stars on black, ornamented with supernovic swirls of celestial pinks and yellows and greens. a full moon hung in the apex of the sky, deep-blue and ominous. beautiful and foreboding.

i fell to my knees before the awesome Stockpot, and prostrated myself in supplication. i tried to speak, but found that words could not leave my mouth. instead, they came out as thoughts, projected aloud through the space like a psychic echo.

o Stockpot, i thought/said. please... help me.

even internally, i could not articulate the specifics of my need. the demand of such a task was too great. i could feel myself fading, weakening. i didn't know how much longer i had left.

but the Stockpot was all-knowing, and said:

"this is the poison of the Enemy, Rodrigo," Apocryphina said, looking down at me as i writhed on the cold stone dais. "it is the essence of Evil. the one who leads us must be strong enough to endure it, or they shall be no leader at all."

my vision was fading, but i tried to fight it, to move my head and look around, to stay alert. stay alive.

but my vision was fading.

there had to be something i could do. this was supposed to be a trial, wasn't it? the Soup God had said so Itself. so there had to be something i could do.

but what?

i thought of what the Soup God had told me.

"it is a lesson you have already learned."

the poison from the Evil Stew burned as it coursed through my body, its deadly acids eating through membrane and organ tissue. dissolving my insides. killing me.

i thought back to my time in the Holy Stockpot. the Broth dissolving me, how unspeakably painful it had been. how it felt just like what i was experiencing now.

and suddenly i understood what i was supposed to do.

the temple echoed with the chanting of the congregation. "Pulundi seva novati! Pulundi Asmis narrathat! Pulundi seva novati! Pulundi Asmis narrathat!"

they were vicious words. bloodthirsty. words with death inscribed upon the pillars of their ancient genesis.

the people wanted death, fine. i would give them what they wanted. the people in the temple, the Soup God, even the Evil Stew Goblin. i would give them all what they wanted.

i stopped fighting. i let my body go limp against the cold stone surface of the dais. my breathing slowed. the chanting around me began to fade until it was gone, leaving nothing in my ears but the sound of my own pulse. that rhythm, which i had thought of as inexorable, a relentless and tormenting force—it wasn't, after all. it was a candle's flame in the wind. ephemeral. liable to cease without warning in an instant. and each second of its continued existence was utterly and unimaginably precious.

i counted the seconds as heartbeats.

they slowed, and slowed.

on the night before the Choosing, i filled my stockpot with the Soup of Prayer, and prostrated myself before it.

"help me, Lord," i said to the Soup God. "help me find the strength to accept the future i see laid out before me. help me find the strength to bear the weight that You would place upon my shoulders. that feeling that i was filled with when i opened those Holy Seals... that love... where has it gone? let me be filled with it again, o Lord."

as i uttered these words i felt the all-too-familiar pang in the space just behind my sternum—the pain of loneliness, disconnectedness. i longed for connection. but i was so isolated now that only one avenue remained to me: the Tiluqsui. the Broth-Dao.

and the Lord said, "if you wish to proceed, to fulfill the destiny that I have Proscribed for you, you must find within yourself a source of strength."

"i know that, o Lord," i said, unable to keep the edge of irritation out of my tone. "that is what You are supposed to be for, isn't it?"

and the Lord said, "any person may be lead to the Pot of God, but none can be made to lift the ladle and serve themselves from it. that, they must do of their own accord, in their own time."

"but i have served myself from it, have i not, o Lord?" i demanded. "yes, i have served myself from it. time and time again i have served myself from it. and time and time again my bowl was filled with naught but sorrow and pain! sorrow and pain and... and..."

and the Tiluqsui.

"and sweetness," i said. "a precious sweetness, rare but so exceedingly rich. i do not deny that sweetness, Lord. i ask only to taste it again."

and the Lord said, "when a general conscripts her infantry, she gives unto them not arms alone. but also gives unto them blankets that they may keep warm in the night; and food, that they may be sustained on their long marches. so too have I given these alms in their equivalent unto you, Rodrigo."

"then show me where they are," i pleaded. "show me how to use them!"

and the Lord said, "I have."

upon hearing the Lord's Words, i was struck with a sudden gestalten understanding. i was filled with awe. and all i could manage to say in response was: