by M C Ashley
“Correct,” Nathan-Prime said. “The Forum accepted many people, for good or ill, who simply didn’t understand the principles it was founded upon because they didn’t believe in what unites all who are Christened.”
I flinched. “Are you implying that because we accepted unbelievers that the Grey Forum deserved to be wiped out?”
Nathan-Prime scoffed. “Wrong conclusion. Of course, nonbelievers should be welcomed into the Forum. What better way to emulate our Lord than to show others how much He means to us by sacrificing our very lives to keep His creations safe? Do you know how many unbelieving Christeners came into the Forum with no idea of their role in life, only to find it once they realized why their work was so important? Many souls will be in Heaven at the end thanks to the core of the Forum’s teachings. But the Forum did not do these things—it was always Him working through you. But when you turned your backs on Him in the name of safety, He turned His back on you. Even after all they had learned, members of the council didn’t believe in God, instead choosing to follow their own selfish paths. In their blindness they saw only tragedy should Forum members die fighting their foes, especially since they were so strong and had organized plans over the years designed to stop what they saw as a never-ending war.”
I paused to think. Zvi had once told me in confidence that even though he had come from a Jewish background he had misgivings about following a God that had allowed His people to suffer in the Holocaust. He had come from a family that had been expelled from Spain in 1492 and had always been bitter about that. He had gotten angrier because of the Forum’s inaction against the Nazis, resigning his post (in actuality using his role as Joab) to fight back.
But he wasn’t the only one. Inji was a renowned Marxist, having spoken against some of the more conservative elements of the Forum. She and I had never seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but I had still respected her. She had earned her spot on the council, hadn’t she?
The evidence was piling up.
“But wait—there’s more!” Nathan-Prime exclaimed. “Some of these people were responsible for some of the edicts that changed the Forum from what it was supposed to be into a frail remnant of what should’ve been. Your father was one of the few who felt it should remain as it always had. I quite admire him. He’s a man of deep conviction. Even though he could see the logic behind the Joab, he still never really supported its use.”
“But he wanted to make me the Joab,” I said.
“He wanted you to make your own decisions. He was your father; he loved you. It’s a wonderful parental paradox. You’ll understand when you have kids too. But your father knew exactly why the position of the Joab shouldn’t have existed in the first place: the Forum was supposed to be doing what they did anyways. They were supposed to infiltrate the darkness of the world and expose it for what it was. They were supposed to eradicate evil wherever it dwelled, not hide in the safety of a Fortress built on the hubris of over a thousand years of decadence. Really you should’ve seen what it was like during the Enlightenment! Rarely have I had to intervene so harshly.”
“I see your point,” I said, weakly.
We were all so proud of ourselves, sitting there in our sparkling tower of pure good that we never once deigned to think it had any flaws. We were in the right because we said we were. The mundanes should be grateful that we cared so deeply in our hearts to grace the world with our presence; otherwise they would be servants to all the bad things out there. But had we ever cared about them? How many mundanes had I ever talked to while I was in training? In the field? Sure, there had been the rule to never let them know about our presence, but did we understand why that had been implemented? Had the rule itself made us feel superior or was that perhaps misplaced blame meant to make us feel better about our lack of knowledge of the people we needed to protect?
We had a lot to make up for.
“You’re taking this rather well,” Nathan-Prime said, sympathetically.
“I’d never given any of this much thought before,” I admitted. “I can’t even begin to feel bad for this. Was that what my father was trying to teach me when he brought me forward for the position of the Joab? Did I pass?”
“I think the better question is: What are you going to do with this information?”
“Get back to the roots. Dependence on God. We wouldn’t be here without Him allowing you to help form the Gray Forum in the first place.”
“Excellent. I knew He chose the right man for the job.”
“No, you didn’t. I wasn’t even your first choice!”
He shrugged. “Details.”
I laughed and he laughed with me.
“I’ve got some good news,” Nathan-Prime said, “but you already know it.”
“Then it isn’t news, is it?” I asked.
“The Sanguine Collective failed to sacrifice a single human being tonight,” he said with a prideful gusto. “You didn’t even stop to think about that, did you? That your actions could stop that? How could you know? I’ve helped withhold the truth from you. But you will relearn it one day when the time is right.”
“What did I stop?” I asked, ignoring the bait.
“I can’t reveal everything yet. Suffice to say that the Sanguine Collective is in major supernatural debt right now because of you. The ritual that they have performed every twenty-five years since the fall of the Gray Forum had an immense cosmological significance that you could barely fathom. By failing to uphold their bargain with their benefactors, the Collective should be wary of their next step. Sacrificing even a single human being would be a grave insult, so they wouldn’t dare attempt it. Not bad for an idiot with no real plan in mind.”
“Hey! I had a plan! I just didn’t think about the consequences!”
“That’s not a plan,” he said, dryly. “That’s the semblance of a really bad idea, but God protects the fool and the wise alike. Consider yourself blessed, kid.”
I offered a smile. “All things considered, I got off much easier than I should’ve. But then again, you knew all this would happen when you selected me to do this as a part of your plan, didn’t you, Nathan-Prime?”
It was his turn to smile now. “Plan? As if my designs for this world could be so easily disassembled into such a tiny word. I have counteracted the forces of darkness for eons in this reality, bending the fabric of space and time to collect the proper elements necessary for the culminations of my natural predilection for concocting situations that require the genius mind that only I could possess to come to fruition!”
“So, you have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan!”
We laughed. It was nice to have someone who understood my humor for once.
“The worst is yet to come,” Nathan-Prime said, standing up and stretching. “Be prepared for reprisal. The whole world knows that Sentinels and Psionics are back.”
“Good,” I said, standing with him and grinning. “Then that means they know we’re coming for them.”
Nathan-Prime laughed. “Excellent! That’s the spirit!”
“I aim to impress.”
Nathan-Prime smiled. “I wasn’t intending to do this, but since you made me laugh again, I’m going to offer you some advice: Leave to find yourself when you need to leave, but return to yourself when you need to return.”
I furrowed an eyebrow. “How needlessly cryptic.”
He laughed again. “I said it’d be advice. I never told you how to interpret it.”
“You get off on this, don’t you?”
“Oh, trust me, you are not the first person I’ve had the pleasure of forcing to endure these koans of mine. Nor will you be the last. It’s for your own good.”
“Thank you.”
Nathan-Prime tipped his hat to me. “Pleasant dreams for now, Blake. You’ll need all the rest you can get in the days to come.”
Nathan-Prime left me behind in a flash of light. The sun continued to rise in the horizon. I sat back on the sand and crafted an orb of l
ight in my hand that I tossed up and down.
For the first time since I had come into this world, I was at peace.
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Check out M.C. Ashley's other works at
www.starvingwritersguild.com/mcashley
