Chapter 109: Parula’s Acknowledgement
A flicker of light returned to Jared’s eyes, banishing the shadows of his dejection. My words had found their mark. We were creatures of the gutter, born of the city’s filth and forgotten corners. We had only each other, and in that, there was a strength that needed no approval from the sunlit world.
As I held him, a strange and profound sensation washed over me—a moment of perfect, spiritual harmony. The wall in my mind that had held Parula’s memories captive crumbled into dust. They flooded in, not as the blurry, broken shards I had grown used to, but as a clear and steady stream. They were simple things, the small, mundane details of a short, hard life, but they were whole. It was infinitely better than the blind guesswork I’d been forced to rely on, like trying to divine the shape of flowers through a thick, grimy fog.
Was this it? Was this Parula’s final acknowledgement of me? In comforting Jared, had my actions finally aligned with the deepest currents of her own will? Perhaps this was her last wish, a silent inheritance passed from her soul to mine: to watch over the boy she had left behind.
“You’re right,” Jared whispered, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. He rarely cried, but the failure, the public mockery from those preening priests, had been a wound too deep to bear in silence.
“It’s alright, Brother Jared,” I said, my voice soft. “Those priests are just snobs with hearts as cold as their collection plates. We can always find another church. Someone, somewhere, will take us in.”
The new flood of memories gave me a map. I now knew that Parula had often begged near the city’s many churches. Most doctrines did encourage their believers to be charitable, to share their wealth with the unfortunate. And the gentry, after all, were fond of making a public spectacle of their piety, tossing a coin to a street urchin for the benefit of a watching clergyman. And among those churches, her memory held the image of several whose stone steps were frequented by men in gleaming silver armor—Paladins, perhaps. Jared could try his luck there.
But hearing my words, Jared’s face hardened with resistance. The raw wound of his humiliation was still too fresh, and his impression of the Church had dropped to the bottom of the scale. His every instinct now screamed at him to turn his back on the Church forever. Then, his gaze softened. I could see the conflict in his eyes as he thought of the future I had painted for him—a respectable man, free from the gnawing anxieties of hunger and the constant, skulking fear of a thief. A man who could provide for me without risk. I watched his expression shift from resistance, to hesitation, and finally, to a grim, unwavering resolve. He had made his choice. My heart ached for the ordeal he had yet to face, but this path, for all its thorns, was still a world away from the gallows that awaited every thief.
“Ahem. Forgive me for interrupting such a touching display.”
The voice, a dry rasp from the shadows beside us, made me jump. I spun around. It was the old man in the white robe.
Damn it. I had completely forgotten about him, forgotten that he had followed Jared from the church steps. I had been wary of him from the start, a prickling sense of unease that I couldn't shake. But in that moment of connection with Jared, in the flood of Parula’s own instincts, the mysterious stranger had faded from my mind.
“I would advise you to abandon that notion,” the old man warned, his voice a low rustle of dry leaves. “Do not try to join the Church again. It will bring you nothing but ruin.”
“Why?” Jared’s defiance flared anew. “I really can summon the holy light.” The insult he had suffered still stung, a fresh and bitter memory.
“I know,” the old man said, and the simple affirmation seemed to surprise Jared more than any argument. “I know you are a true clergyman. But what good is it? They do not believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter if you… wait. You believe me?” Jared asked, a note of shock in his voice. This was the first person, other than myself, to acknowledge his power.
“It is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of knowledge,” the old man corrected. “A child like you, with such unnatural physical strength, with a torrent of holy power surging within your very soul… of course those common fools cannot perceive it. In their hearts, they do not even entertain the possibility that you could be a clergyman, let alone seek to verify it. Those idiots merely wished to see you make a fool of yourself.”
Hmm? The old man’s attitude was a strange puzzle. He had made the sign of the cross, a gesture of faith, yet he spoke of the priests with a contempt that bordered on hatred. And I hadn’t forgotten the strange, subtle power he had used to quell the confrontation. This man was a stranger, yet he had intervened. He had a purpose. I watched him, my guard raised, weighing his every word.
“But I can prove it,” Jared insisted. “I just wasn’t prepared. Next time, I’ll have Parula help me summon the light beforehand. When I walk over to them glowing, they’ll have to accept me then!” Freed from the immediate pressure, his mind was sharp once more.
“That would be even worse,” the old man said, a mocking smile playing on the lips I couldn’t see. “If you were a fraud, they could at least dismiss you as a joke. But if you are real… think, for a moment, what that would mean to them.”
“What would it mean?” Jared was no student of the dark, twisted corridors of the human heart. But I was beginning to understand.
“It would mean,” the old man’s voice was a low, conspiratorial sneer, “that even you, a boy from the slums who cannot read a single word, who has not been initiated, who cannot even parse the Holy Scripture, can receive the grace of God. And they, who were raised by the Church from childhood, who have memorized every classic, who pray until their knees are raw, have not received a single, solitary shred of God’s favor. Wouldn’t that mean their entire lives have been a waste?”
“Ah,” I said, a little surprised. “You mean they can’t perform any miracles at all?” I had assumed the Church was filled with men like Jared, men who could call down the light.
“Heh. Of course not,” the old man chuckled. “There are not many who receive God’s favor. And talent, my boy, can be a very cruel thing. They have neither, which is why they are doomed to be nothing more than priests who guard a door. They will never be true pastors.”
From his words, I pieced together a rough hierarchy. In the Church, only those who had received God’s favor—those who could summon the holy light, were called pastors. The common priests were just that: common. The lowest rung. No wonder the old man held them in such contempt.
“But even so, they can’t deny the truth, can they?” Jared retorted. “As long as I perform a miracle, they’ll have nothing left to say.”
“Heh. And why can’t the truth be denied?” the old man asked in return, his simple question leaving Jared stunned. “How can you prove that what you wield is a miracle of God?”
“But… but…” Jared stammered, wanting to argue but finding no words.
“For them to admit that one of their lessers can receive the glory of God would be a fate more painful than death. Those fools would die before they acknowledged you. They would call you a fraud, a heretic, a spy sent by a false god!”
The old man, to my surprise, was growing agitated, his voice rising with a passion that felt deeply personal. “If you are real, they will hate you all the more. They will not rest until they have seen you destroyed.”
“But the Church isn’t just made up of priests,” Jared argued, a last, desperate flicker of hope in his voice. “If I could speak to a real pastor, or a bishop…”
“Give it up. They are all the same. The Church trusts only its own, those it has raised from the cradle. They will not give a child from the slums a single chance. To them, the real must be made fake.”
The old man let out a long, weary sigh, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of centuries. “Joan of Arc,” he said, his voice a low, grim whisper, “was, in the end, burned as a witch. You would not wish to share her fate, would you?”
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