(Colin) Part Deux

Part two of my apocalypse story is up. As a forewarning, I’m going to alternate between this and another piece of fiction I plan on writing—it’s based on Star Wars. I know, I know...please refrain from the throwing of full wine bottles and rotten tomatoes until next meeting.

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Nights of Blackened Winter: Part 2 – Words of The Heretic

The cluster of Order guards stood in mixed fascination and contempt at the young man who stood in the temple square. Unlike the guards, who were dressed in polished armour with red shoulder pads and carried mean-looking pikes, the man was dressed only in simple brown robes, and instead of a pike he carried a book.

Among the village he was branded “The Heretic”, and it was considered that it fit him perfectly. No one knew what his true name was, but then again no one, least of all the Order, really wanted to know.

What they were interested in was what he was saying.

He stood in front of the fountain, which had been decorated with a stone figure made to look like The Preacher, the leader of the fanatical Order. The fountain itself was made to look like a masked and robed figure with outspread arms. Water poured from the fingertips to the pool below.

In the perpetual twilight of Earth, the only things that made it possible to see in the temple square were the four massive lamps hung on the front of the Temple of the Order, which lay on the opposite side of the square.

The small crowd of people listened with rapt attention. The entire group was dressed in nothing but rags. They paid no attention to the guards, or the fountain. The lights were bright, and yet…

Yet, there was something about The Heretic’s blue eyes that made them seem as if they outshone the lamps themselves. Those who read the Book of the Shimmering Path believed only that the heretics were evil, dull creatures who deserved to be killed and made examples of.

There was nothing dull in the eyes of The Heretic. When he spoke, others listened. The guards themselves, who normally would have beaten one such as him aside without a second thought, could not help but stop and listen…if only for a little while.

“The Preacher and his Student, the Scion, have claimed that if we give of ourselves selflessly, we will be rewarded one day with both salvation and riches beyond our dreams,” The Heretic was saying. “Yet, I look around myself and cannot help but notice that such a promise has been a long time in coming. There are riches, yes, but not for the people who have given all of themselves for what has been called the ‘Ultimate Goal’. Where, then, is the wealth that is promised to those who walk the Shimmering Path?”

The barest of pauses. A few of the guards were starting to look slightly less at ease.

“The only wealth I see is heaped at the feet of the Preacher and the Scion. Why should they reap the benefits of your labour? The priests at the temple can preach all they want about selflessness and the virtues of giving without thought to ourselves. You give nearly your entire day to the Order. Do you not deserve more than a mere pittance?”

“What good is money in these dark times?” One of the guards spoke up. “The sky is scorched. The world is covered in darkness. Perhaps you’d like to try buying items off of a Reaver?”

The other guards laughed uproariously at the images this brought to their minds.

The Heretic merely smiled. “Not all wealth is in silver and gold,” he responded. “There are other forms of wealth. Food and water, for instance.”

The villagers began to murmur among themselves.

“Yet, though you claim to have no need of money, you still carry it with you. You do not call it money, though…you call it ‘honour’. You put a price on the wealth of an individual person.”

This made the guards look even more uneasy.

“The world humankind once had the pleasure of knowing has crumbled. Naturally, this means that we must work for the survival of all, not just an un-chosen few. What good is there in a leader who hordes everything for himself and leaves his own disciples to starve?”

A few of the villagers closed their eyes. Many of them had friends and family who had succumbed to starvation.

“Every day, you get up and work your hammers and axes until you’re ready to fall down from exhaustion. And when you go to sleep, you are cold and have no food to eat.”

One of the villagers, a balding man of fifty, spoke up hesitantly. “But…is that not as it should be? The Shimmering Path says, ‘Until you have truly earned the right to open the gates to eternal reward, you must be pure, in body and soul. Therefore, you are commanded to pick up your hammer—with every swing, you grow ever closer to eternal richness.’”

This caused another bout of murmuring among the villagers.

The Heretic narrowed his eyes. “Ah, yes. You. I believe I know you. Ulric?”

The man nodded hesitantly.

“Has it ever crossed your mind, Ulric, that the way things are does not necessarily mean that is how they should be, or what they could be? How many of you have wished you had more than squalor and hunger?”

The villagers looked at their feet.

The face of the guard who had spoken earlier turned red. “Such thoughts are taboo! We were born into this world, and all that we can hope for in it is what we see around us!”

“So the Shimmering Path reads,” The Heretic said dryly. “But the world can be made better. Do not be deceived by blackened sky and a world of ash. Humanity has triumphed over the world around it countless times before, from when we first started to look at the stars in the sky—as much as myth that may sound—to when we started to master and refine the Earth.

“Our 'fearless leader' tells us that we must work for our reward. Is it right to have it torn away from us? When we work for our ‘reward’, why does it go to the Preacher? Don’t you see? You do not work to better yourselves. You work only for the benefit of the Preacher.”

“But look at what he has given us!” A second guard piped up. “Homes, a purpose, light—”

“—hunger, thirst, despair, and disease. The only ‘purpose’ the Preacher has for you is to use you to achieve his own ends. Where is your fearless leader in your time of greatest need? How can you so blindly serve a man who none of you have ever even seen?”

“You try my patience, Heretic,” the first guard said. His face was now flushed a deep crimson. He hefted his pike in a suggestive matter. “A pike in the throat ought to shut you up—”

“You can easily do that,” The Heretic said. He smiled once more. “Tell me, guard, do you know what the definition of a ‘martyr’ is?”

The guard’s face went from crimson to pale in an instant. He ground his teeth together and gave a menacing growl. “You may have escaped judgement this time, Heretic, but be wary…you tread in dangerous waters.”

The look of contempt on the guards’ faces changed briefly to one of surprise when they heard The Heretic laugh. “I have been treading in ‘dangerous waters’ for quite a while now, guard. I am knowledgeable enough to know how to survive in them.”

He turned to the crowd. “Think on what I have said. If you harbour doubts, remember…you always have a choice. You can choose to let your reward be squandered by others who have not earned it…or, you can fight for it.”