"Tell me again what you think of my number of prayer-lights."
"You have a goodly number of lights, but—" He stopped.
"Go on. Tell me."
"Perhaps I should not have—"
"Tell me. I wish you to hear your own words."
The commands continued remorselessly for several minutes as Huard forced Prosper to repeat the words he had spoken that afternoon. Within the first few replies, Prosper could feel moisture trickling down his spine. By the end, his back was sticky with sweat.
When he had finished, Huard said, in the same hard voice, "When you arrived here, you told me immediately that you were cursed, and you asked me to read Martin's letter before welcoming you – that much is to your credit. Other than that, however, I have seen none of the marks of duty due from a God-cursed man to the man who may or may not consent to act as priest to him. Instead, your behavior has been wholly that of a tutor holding judgment over his pupil: you said nothing about your crimes until I prompted you, but you have passed judgment upon me for my dietary discipline, the setting of my house, my worship discipline, and my conduct as a priest. Nor have you confined your judgments to me: you have passed judgment upon our chieftain, upon Martin, and upon the priests who were once entrusted to your care – all of them men who are welcome to the God's presence. You, a man bearing the curse-mark of the God's enemy, make these judgments. You, who have been found unworthy to wear the robe of priesthood."
Huard's voice, as adamantine as iron, was so far now from the hesitant pleading he had engaged in as a boy that Prosper felt his mind whirling in an eddy of bewilderment. Clutching at the first thought that drifted his way, he said, "You are right that I should not, in my present spiritual state, pass judgment upon you, but—"
"Sacred Mystery, Prosper, have you closed your ears entirely to the God's voice? Then hear words that you may remember better: 'A pupil may ask questions, but he must neither condemn nor praise his tutor, for either act presumes that he is in the position of judge.' Or have you come to disbelieve your own teachings?"
Prosper struggled to breathe. He cast down his eyes for a moment before saying, "I have a question."
"Ask." Huard's voice had passed beyond hardness to coldness.
"You speak of what I am now, since the demons entered me, but what of the time when I was City Priest, before the demons took hold of me? Surely at that time it was my duty to pass judgment—"
"And do you truly believe, Prosper, that the God gave you the honor of having spiritual care over his people so that you could spend all your waking days worrying over whether your priest-pupils were eating too many sugar balls, or whether the men and women who took you as confessor had neglected some small crime, so that you could drag them into the God's court and have the triumph of showing how superior you were to them in your spiritual state?" Huard leaned forward. His eyes were as cold now as dark pebbles in a winter stream. "How long has it been, Prosper, since you gave thought to any other living creature, except to judge him? How long has it been since you were silent long enough to listen to the God's voice, whether it came from the sacred flame or from the men and women of whom you are so scornful?"
Prosper could not answer; he could not even raise his gaze above his hands, now white as they clenched each other. Above him, Huard continued remorselessly, "Vainglory in believing that your discipline is superior to all others. Arrogance in spurning the food offered to you by your host. Self-focus in giving no thought to other people's needs but only to what punishment you can place them under. Greed in assuming that the priesthood is your right rather than a gift from the God. Envy that causes you to examine carefully the spiritual states of others so that you can reassure yourself that others are in a more demeaned state than your own. Cowardice in refusing to acknowledge that these demons did not enter you recently or briefly, but have been within you for most of your life. Above all, an evil judgment that has prevented you from listening when Martin, as your confessor, no doubt said words to you very like the words I am giving you now. . . . Have I named your demons, Prosper?"
"No." Prosper's voice was breathless and broken. "I must have dozens more demons. The God help me, I did not know."
He covered his face and wept.
After a time, he felt Huard's hand upon his shoulder; after a time more, Prosper lifted his wet face to look up at the priest, who was standing beside him. Though the late afternoon light made the priest's face glow, Prosper's vision was darkened by tears. Prosper whispered, "Can I be saved?"
"Certainly." Huard's voice was reassuringly matter-of-fact. "You know your catechism, Prosper. 'Any man who requests aid of the Mercy of all mercies shall receive it.' Your battle against the demons will not be an easy one, though. I would hate to tell you what sort of disciplines you would have placed me under if, during my four years as a priest-pupil, I had committed half as many crimes against the God as you have managed to commit in the space of two hours."
"I require hard discipline." Prosper had dropped his gaze to the ground and was struggling to keep his breath even. "I see that now – my spirit is in dire peril. . . . Huard, I have no right to ask this of you, but will you help me?"
As he spoke, he shifted himself into the position he now realized he should have fallen into from the moment he passed Huard's threshold: that of a God-cursed man kneeling in petition before a priest who, by the God's Law, was under no obligation to help him – could indeed hand him over to a murderous crowd if he considered it appropriate. Prosper felt again the edge of fear pricking at his skin, and he was staring now with dark wonder upon the words he had spoken in this chamber. Sacred Mystery, he could have died of starvation had not the priest shown mercy upon him, yet he had openly scorned the food of his host. He felt a sickness enter into him.
"Certainly," Huard replied, in as straightforward a manner as before. He eased Prosper back into a sitting position and squatted down beside him. "I am restricted in the help I can give by the God's Law, though. You know the rules on exile, Prosper: I cannot offer you the comfort of the God's presence during your year of exile, neither to hear your confession in the God's name, nor to purify you, nor to allow you to give participation in the worship services. I can offer you advice on discipline should you ask, but I cannot punish you if you break your discipline, nor can I even draw your attention to the fact that you have broken your discipline, unless you ask for further advice from me. Are you willing to listen to my advice under such conditions?"
"Huard, I am a hand's breath from the eternal fire that cannot be quenched." Prosper's voice was hoarse. "If you told me to eat a bag of sugar balls, I would follow your advice."
"You anticipate me." The smile in Huard's tone caused Prosper to lift his eyes, but the priest's expression was serious as he said, "Two disciplines, then, I advise upon you. The first is that you must put aside all thoughts of your priesthood during this exile. Whatever you may be in a year's time, for now you are a temporal man and must engage in behavior appropriate to a temporal man."
"I see," said Prosper slowly. "Eating sugar balls."
"They are a symbol only." The smile had made its way onto Huard's face. "You must eat as a temporal man does, dress as he does, and above all act as he does. You know the catechism, Prosper: one of the greatest crimes a temporal man can commit is to pass judgment upon the spiritual state of his fellow living spirits. If you suspect that someone's spirit is in danger of being demon-infected, then it is your duty to report the matter to me, but otherwise you must in no way try to judge whether anyone you meet is a dutiful servant of the God. Your duty instead is to seek out ways in which you can be of assistance to others, ways that do not require you to judge other people's spiritual states."
"That is good ad—" Prosper caught himself in time and said, in a low voice, "I thank you for giving me this advice, Huard. I will follow the discipline as you have suggested. And the other advice?"
"Concerns your worship discipline. Had you given any thought to that?"
Prosper nodded. "Most of my ponderings on the way here were devoted to that. I thought it best if I adhere more strictly than before to the times of prayer, devoting most of my waking hours to prayer and self-examination—"
He broke off; the priest was shaking his head. Rising to his feet, Huard began using his moistened thumb and forefinger to silence the prayer-lights about the chamber. "Think again, Prosper," he said, as though the man before him were a dull-minded pupil. "How did your demons enter, and what discipline is appropriate to close that path of entrance?"
Prosper shut his eyes, as though preparing himself to pronounce a particularly difficult word in the ancient tongue. He said finally, "My thoughts have been centered too much upon myself. If I engage in long periods of self-examination, my demon of self-focus will take advantage of this fact to pull my thoughts further from other people onto myself."
"Indeed." Huard's voice came through the darkness disembodied, as though he were the God. "Self-examination is one danger; prayer is another. Prosper, the easiest way to allow the demons victory over you is for you to pray to the God."
Prosper's eyes flew open. "But—" He stopped, stilled not by any understanding, but by a warning look from the priest.
While Prosper's eyes had been closed, Huard had changed into the formal robe of the evening service. The robe's gold edging glittered in the last shimmer of the day's light and in the glow of the single prayer-light that remained lit. The priest now held in his hand the purification lamp, unlit. Prosper, staring at it, felt a word welling up within him.
The priest nodded as though Prosper had spoken the word, though of course the word was reserved for use by priests. "I am sorry to say this, Prosper, but I fear that you have been neglecting the discipline of silence. You have all the signs of a man who has talked and talked and talked, whether to his fellow spirits or to the God, and has done no listening for many years. That, more than anything, explains your condition. The demons abhor silence, and they love a mind filled with speech and thoughts and even prayer, provided that the prayer is not balanced by moments of silence when the petitioner awaits the God's response.
"And so the second discipline I place upon you – a harder discipline – is that you do not pray during the coming year. You should speak as little as possible, confine your thoughts to the duties I placed upon you a while ago, and engage in the silence as many times a day as you were planning to talk to the God."
Prosper forced himself to wait before answering. He found himself straining his spirit to do so, like a priest who has forgotten long-ago lessons in the changing vowels of the ancient tongue. He held back until his spirit was beginning to shake from the strain; then he looked up at Huard. In the diffident voice of a pupil to his tutor, he asked, "If I do this, do you believe that I have the strength to drive out my demons so that I can re-enter the God's presence and return to the priesthood?"
Huard was a long time returning his answer. His gaze was upon the shadows on the floor, as though he were judging the moment at which he must enter the sanctuary. Finally he looked up and said, "Do you remember the shortest sentence in the catechism?"
Prosper nodded slowly. "'Trust the God.'"
Huard's hand touched his shoulder briefly, and then the priest was gone, leaving Prosper to the silence of the coming evening.
CHAPTER TWO
"Mystery."
The sacred word, whispered in the ancient tongue, carried to the far reaches of the sanctuary. In the dark, the only sound to be heard was the clinking of the chain of the priest's lamp as the purifying light from it touched the faces of the kneeling worshippers, along with the crackle of the sacred flame burning behind the man-sized God-mask hanging behind Huard. The priest himself, outlined between the God-mask and the darkness of the sanctuary, could barely be seen. His whisper and the lamp were the only evidence that the God's representative stood in this chamber.
Prosper, hidden in a black corner where the purifying light could not reach him, tried to bring his mind to silence. After three months, he still felt uneasy at these services. Partly this was because Huard practiced the modern custom of mixing the sexes at services. Partly, though, it was because he could not rid himself of the feeling that he was breaking the God's Law by being here.
"But I am forbidden to attend services!" he had cried in the early days, when he was still struggling to adopt the discipline of phrasing his protests as questions and requests.
Huard did not admonish him – could not admonish him, by the God's Law – but said only, "In our days together in the training school, I was never able to accept your desire to read more into the God's Law than is found in the text itself. The law on exile says that a God-cursed man may not be purified or give participation at worship. I take this to mean that you cannot recite the names or the prayers. But the first part of the service, the silence, is different. I believe that you would benefit from sharing silence with the other tribal folk."
A good notion, Prosper thought to himself – momentarily slipping in his discipline against passing judgment on Huard – but it would have been easier for him to keep the silence if he had not been attending services with women and children. He let his eyes open momentarily to identify where the distracting noise was coming from. It was not hard to guess, for it came from the same direction every time: in the rows nearest the altar area, where the children knelt.
Today, the front row was filled with four boys wearing identical tunics, clearly of the same family. Prosper – standing rather than kneeling, for this was the only way for him to keep outside of the purifying light – could see the children quite clearly: two boys just above weaning age, a third boy slightly older, and a catechism-aged boy.
The youngest boys, quite naturally, were fidgetting the most during the silence, turning to look at the people behind them and exchanging nudges. The third was better disciplined: he was still, with his head bowed, clearly attempting to silence his spirit in hope that the God would speak to him.
The fourth boy was different. For a start, he had a more dishevelled appearance than even the youngest boys: his tunic was rumpled and crooked, and his hair was uncombed. From long experience of teaching boys this age, Prosper judged him to be of fifteen years, yet the boy looked far from ready for his coming-of-age. The boy sighed heavily at periodic intervals, scuffed his toes against the stone floor, and swung his arms to and fro, jostling his quieter brother.
Prosper saw a stirring in the second row, where some of the women knelt. A fine-boned woman leaned forward and whispered in the boy's ear. He bit his lip and nodded, ceasing to swing his arms or scuff his toes, but even this admonishment could not prevent him from sighing again as the silence progressed.
Prosper knew how he felt. Closing his eyes, he tried again to still the thoughts that scurried about in his mind like restless boy-pupils. At the front of the sanctuary, the sacred flame continued to whisper forth its secrets, almost hidden by the dark mask that represented the God's unknowability. Only a glimpse of the fire upon the altar could be seen through the eye-holes in the mask.
The sacred flame. It had always been the most comforting object in Prosper's life, serving as it did as a visible image of the God, and also as a reminder of that which remained hidden behind the mask of the God's unknowability. To the God's beloved folk, the flame would one day bring light and warmth; to his enemies, the flame would be a fire that could never be quenched.
The flame was one thing more than that, and increasingly Prosper found his thoughts dwelling on that other use of the sacred flame as the months of his exile continued.
When he had expressed a desire to be burned at the end of his exile if the demons were not exorcised, Prosper had intended the statement as no more than a formal gesture of regret. He had not doubted at that time that he would be able to rid himself of his demons. Now, after three months in which he had made little progress, his breath caught tight within him whenever the flame was lit.
More times than he could coun
t, he had watched as men or women were chained to the stone pillar that was erected in every tribal territory for this purpose. Most of the God-cursed were there for twistedness; some were there for other grave crimes against the God, such as atheism or oath-breaking. Some had been placed there for lesser crimes, when discipline had failed to work: crimes such as murder, abuse of power, or impure love.
Always, when Prosper was present, he had been the one to light the torch from the sacred flame and to come forward to set ablaze the wood beneath the God-cursed person's feet. He never delegated the duty; he considered it too sacred an act. This was the priests' final mercy: their last attempt to save the God-cursed from the terrible fate of entering into the God's light when their spiritual condition was so grave that such light could only be an eternal fire for them.
The purification by fire sometimes worked. On a few joyous occasions during his priesthood, Prosper had heard the dying man or woman cry out words which made clear that the brief but intense pain had brought such repentance to the God-cursed that the demons were forced to flee. When that happened – if the God's Law were to be trusted, as surely it was – the God lifted his curse in the last moments of life and welcomed the man or woman into the light that would now bring eternal comfort to the godly spirit.
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