The Prophecy of Water | ✔️ 🎖 [2018 Wattys Shortlister]

CHAPTER 7-The Descent

Somewhere deep down in the chasm of memories, there is still old me left. One who craved knowledge and felt pain for every injustice. I just got tired.

LoG, 99

"You want to bury The Weller, The Unbeliever, in The Glass Dome? The Cemetery of The House of Credo?" Liton was stunned. "Why?"

So, the corpse is really there, under the ground, pondered Drian. That's what I thought. He didn't hesitate to answer. "I think he deserves it. In this way, we can preserve his body forever."

Liton twisted his lips. "The Glass Dome is a tomb that conserves the deceased followers of The Mind and the ones that respect The Fount. A Weller isn't welcome there. We are what we are. We follow neither The House of Credo nor The Men of Cloth. You know that," The Mole Man added more softly, still with a hint of surprise.

Somehow, while there are only ideas in my head, seeds of thoughts that wander here and there like a lost flock of sheep, they don't seem tangible. If I say them out loud as words, they gain shape. Become a sound, an echo in someone's ear. They'll be real. Maybe it doesn't matter. As long as the ear that receives the words is the ear I trust. Liton is my friend. He will understand.

Drian folded his hands and babbled, looking at his feet. "Just some hours ago, at The Desiccation Ceremony ... I almost got sick. That Weller in the cage ... Crucified in front of the crowd. Imprisoned. Convicted ... You could have been that man, on one side of the bars, and me, on the other. And Kamil would have forced me to kill you."

"Your first ceremony?" Liton laughed knowingly. "Listen, kid," he used the patronising tone, although he was only one Big One older than Drian. "We all have to play our role in this society when the time comes. We were kids; we were friends. We are now adults. You are The Man of Cloth. I am The Weller. And we are enemies."

"I won't accept that. You're still my friend. You'll always be my friend." Drian looked up and met Liton's scornful eyes.

"And you mine. Right now, yes. Off-duty," Liton specified. "When we don't carry the mask of our trades, the disguises that society expects us to put on our faces. Drian, a Junior Abbot, the young hope of The House of Credo. Liton, the leader of the Wellers, who is either not interested in The Mind or who belongs to The Sceptagogs."

"It doesn't have to be that way," Drian reiterated without flinching.

"And how will you change that? Alone against all? You know fully well that the rules of The House of Credo are such. They condemn to The Desiccation anyone who doesn't respect and doesn't bow to The Mind. It seems that here, in our village of Bronze Cliff, Kamil has already figured out which group of people doesn't care for The House of Credo," Liton said.

"I'm not Kamil. I ... I believe in The Mind, and I admire Him, just as I admire The Fount. But most of all, I appreciate goodness and a person's life. If someone is honourable and moral, and he or she doesn't care much about The Mind and The Fount, I ... I would try to convince them they are wrong. But if I didn't succeed, I could never punish them with death. Everyone has the right to believe in what he or she wants."

"You say you aren't Kamil," Liton retorted, "and yet you do everything that Kamil tells you to."

Drian sighed. He's right.

"I can't avoid it. I mean ... My hands are tied. The order is like that. I was his Apprentice since I was twelve Big Ones old; since my father sent me to him. And before that, I was my father's Apprentice, during my entire life, in a way. I still am."

"Your father. Holy Nalon," Liton snorted cynically. "Although I must admit that while Nalon was serving as a Senior Abbot, there were no public Desiccations. Who would have thought I would wish for those times to return?"