...awake...

He begins to move even before his mind comes to full awareness. His eyes open and he races for the door, ignoring the room around him. Its contents are unimportant. The door leads him to a long hallway with a slick floor and directionless white light. Light and sound and texture all fill him like a sponge. The cold metal floor stings his feet as he runs at a dead sprint toward the other end of the hallway. Another door waits for him, yawning in anticipation. The sound of his heartbeat pounds out a counter-rhythm to the slap of his feet. He can feel time slipping away as acutely as if it were sand falling between his fingers.

Barely slowing as he leaps through the door, he makes a hard right turn and ascends a stairway. More turns and doors and stairways follow. The markers are burned into his memory and the path is always clear, if he can only reach the end in time. Every ounce of his being screams for more speed. His muscles strain against the demands he puts on them. His heart seems ready to burst from the force of its pounding beat. Time nips at his heels.

He is almost at the end. The hallway opens up into a great domed chamber with a platform rising like an alter at its center. Something other than his heart now beats in his ears. A pulsing light brighter than the sun burns at the top of the platform. His eyes fill up with tears as he races toward it. He takes the stairs three at a time, swinging his arms to get more distance. Impossibly, the light is getting brighter. The pulse of that other heart quickens with anticipation. Existence tightens and compresses toward the knife-point of creation.

A bell tolls. The tears are burned from his cheeks by the power of that light. He stumbles and falls to the ground beside a woman in white who weeps and takes his hand.

"We're too late!"

Her voice drowns in the sound of a ringing bell. The light is so bright that he cannot see.

He screams, and is reborn.

-

The Prophet...

...claws his way out of a nightmare and screams so loudly that people wake and lights appear in the nearby windows. Shouts and curses ring down the length of the alley. The other homeless, those that are coherent enough to wake, throw spoiled fruit or things more foul and drive him away from their refuge. He gathers his few belongings, cloak and knife, and flees into the deeper darkness of Okodar's rotting underbelly.

"Jus dream friend. Jus dream. Dream little dream. No harm. Not truth. Not real dreams friend."

He giggles at himself and scratches at his flees. The tittering laughter soon turns to weeping as the force of the dream crashes in on him with a startling aftershock that drives him to his knees. The filthy cobblestones are unforgiving. He reaches for the wall to steady himself and manages to get to his feet.

"Mustn't sleep friend. Mustn't. Dreams can't find you if you wake. Open eyes can't see the truth."

Hunger nags him like an incessant child. He cuffs it again but knows that it won't leave him be. Empty bellies have a way of catching up with you, and a man can only eat dead rats for so long before he feels more inclined to starve.

wake

Weeping, he swipes a hand through the air near his head to drive away the voice. The whisper tickles him. Words boil in his stomach and burn at the back of his throat. He can feel their power. They are words so profound that to speak them would alter the fabric of the world around him. Even thinking them sends a ripple through the air. The stars stare down accusingly from on high. They can see him through the darkness. Their cruel eyes pierce the layers of dirty rags and shove aside the broken shell of his outer seeming to assail the iron core of his being.

Oh the sharp words they whisper.


art thou greater than heaven?
what mortal can resist the fire of truth?
it will burn with or without your tongue.
choose.
wouldst thou be a prophet, or a torch?

He finds his fear again and buries himself within it. Strength floods into his legs. The empty darkness rushes by on either side as he abandons himself to panic. He is lost. Each turn and junction seems the same as the one before. None of them seem to offer any more safety than the one down which he'd come. The world around him trembles. Visions break free of times grasp and burst upon him like crushing waves.

"O his pain! The forgotten. His tears unseen and his return unlooked for. An empty hall is little comfort to a returning father! He-"

The muscles of his jaw ache as he slams his mouth shut. The stars laugh at his vain efforts. He would curse them if he could open his mouth. The words are burning so fiercely that sweat soaks his rags. He rips them off his body and lets the cool night air caress him as he runs. Freedom is only a few steps ahead. It must be.

The walls on either side of him disappear. The air opens and the sky spreads its arms. The courtyard opens like a chasm to swallow him in its spaciousness. The temple of the Manifold God rears up against the night sky, surrounded by a hundred pillars each bearing a hundred names of god.

His screams fill the open air. He turns and tries to flee back into the alley, only to find that a solid wall stretches away to the left and right. He is trapped.

speak the words of god
or be consumed

The stars fall silent. The Prophet sinks to his knees. He has nowhere left to run. He surrenders.

the message must have an audience

He crawls toward the steps of the temple. He ascends them one by one, until he can rest beneath the doors. The carven images of god, each one different in its aspect, watch him without feeling.

wait until dawn
the worshipers

He waits. He rests. He gives in to the words and lets them saturate his soul.

--

The sun breaks free of the horizon and casts a red glow across the rooftops of Okodar. The city wakes, and with one heart it moves toward its center to worship. The multitudes fill the Court of the Great Aspect that surrounds the temple of the Manifold God. The young ones are hoisted onto the shoulders of their parents while the older children strain onto the tips of their toes in an effort to see. A great hush shrouds the crowd in silence as they wait for the priests to come out and begin the morning service.

Whether by some trick of the light or through divine intervention, no one notices the naked man huddled in the corner beside the temple doors. No one sees him until he rises, as if from the grave, and strides from the shadows into the infant light of the dawn. A collective gasp rushes through the throng. Shock and horror touch each face indiscriminately. More so than his nakedness, his very presence upon the steps of the great temple causes an angry murmur to shudder to life and stalk through the mass of people.

Undaunted by the adverse reaction to his appearance, the man lifts his hands in the universal call for silence.

As is ever the case with man, curiosity overcomes stronger emotions. The people settle into an uneasy silence as they wait to see what the man will say.

His voice, in defiance of his unseemly and unhealthy appearance, rolls like thunder across the crowd.

"Do not kneel at the feet of false gods!"

The words fall like arrows amongst the people, and the wounded roar to life.

"Blasphemy!"
"Madman!"
"Heretic!"

The words have no effect on the Prophet. His gaze searches the crowd and he meets the eyes of those who have broken the silence. One by one, under the force of his regard, they grow quiet. Once again, he has their attention.

"The Path of the Manifold leads to destruction. It forsakes the old ways and the old gods. The Priests of the Manifold teach that the divine exists in everything. That a rock or a tree or your very selves bear the substance of god. And if you are part of god, they say, then how can you ever be wrong?"

As it rises, the sun gilds the prophet's skin and sets fire to his eyes.

"Do no forsake the Absolutes! Right and wrong are not simple ideas to be cast aside when it is most convenient. Truth is not a whore. Murder is never justified. Theft is never neccessary. The Manifold makes light of these things. What is wrong for one man, they say, may not be wrong for another man. I tell you now that these lies will lead to a great darkness."

The crowd begins to stir again for a different reason. The doors to the Manifold Temple swing open and four priests in multicolored robes step into the sunlight. Anticipation paints the crowded faces. Surely the priests will deal with this madman, who dares defame the god on its own steps. The prophet, heedless of the sudden anger of the priests, continues to speak.

"There is evil behind the face of the Manifold. An ancient darkness that all have forgotten and none choose to see. It seeks, even now, to destroy all that has come before. To wipe from the histories the true names of god. Have we so easily forgotten those who created us?"

A portly priest hisses. "Speak not these lies!" The priest hefts his heavily carved staff as if to strike the naked man.

"Choose this day whom you serve! Already our past awakens. The lines will soon be drawn. 'Ware that you are not on the wrong side."

A sudden gust of wind howls into the plaza, strong enough to knock people off balance. The priests shield their eyes and the throng holds their cloaks tight. As the wind dies with a whisper, a suseration sweeps through the crowd, quickly turning into a roaring murmur.

The prophet has vanished, and above the temple doors, the 7-eyed symbol of the Manifold god weeps tears of blood.

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