God's Own Forum

Note: Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt, 'The Crag'

The High Priest and the Prophet walked together in silence as they approached the Forum. Both men had shed all that they'd been born to. When the church found them, they gave up their names, families, inheritances, and everything they or their forebears had built. Today, they just might learn why from God's own mouth.

Innumerable questions had haunted the High Priest in the years he gave to the church. Why had he not been found as a child? Why would God wait until he'd already lived six and forty years, fathered five children, and lived with his wife for nearly eight and twenty years before calling him to leave it all behind him, then wait another decade before sending a Prophet to lead him to the Forum? Why even send a Prophet? Were not his sacrifices and sermons sufficient evidence of faith to speak directly?

And why would God send the former Prince of Harathil as Prophet? Why demand easily the most loved of an aging King's sons, indeed his presumptive successor, to renounce all, to then travel in rags unarmed and without escort to lead the High Priest through the Wastes to the Forum?

All these rattled around the Priest's skull as they came to the first of the ten rings of stones. At the same time, the Prophet paused at the edge, tilting his head as had been the silent man's habit, before pointing out a particular pair of stones for the Priest to walk between, even as he moved to another. As the Priest passed through the ring, the world itself changed about him, or perhaps he changed, was the more sensible way to think of it. What had been still silent stones now subtly vibrated, each a different frequency. He must have frozen in place at the sudden additions to his sense of reality as the Prophet finally spoke to him.

"You'd not seen the layers peeled away before, have you? Explains why you had never heard me." He now heard the Prophet's voice as clearly as any of the church bells that had dictated his life and routines for ten years. He saw the waves of the Prophet's words coming towards his face, even as the Prophet's mouth remained stubbornly shut. As the Priest attempted to reply, the Prophet forcibly shut his mouth, unspoken words filling his ears again. "Think only, don't speak. Your words are more than you think, now that you see the world this way."

"What happens if I speak?" The Priest asked, shocked at how his travelling companion had stayed sane if this was how he saw the world, especially near sand, dirt, or grass, as every stray piece moved to its own rhythm, a deafening, disorienting mass of frequencies.

"Everything reacts. And neither you nor I know how, so better to stay silent, no?" The Prophet released his grip on the Priest's jaw before directing him through a different pair of stones, and again, the world changed, sounds fading away as though their source was far away from him at all times. Each time he passed through a pair of stones in the circle, and never in a straight line, more of what he thought was the world fell away, be it stability, sound, colour, smell, taste, weight, or even time fell away or ceased to behave as he understood them. As they crossed the final ring of stones, again from different points, the world snapped into something more recognizable. However, colour was still muted, but shape had reasserted itself as a constant. Solid stones greeted them once more, and something similar to themselves rested in the centre.

It stretched an arm before itself, which appeared to be both stone and ash-caked, fleshy but thin, as the Prophet seemed to reel away in pain briefly. "It wants us to sit, says we need not fear speaking. This place is safe," the Prophet said through gritted teeth, his nose bleeding heavily, his face rapidly purpling.

"Safe? You look like you were just beaten for spitting on the King." The Priest hesitated at moving before feeling an incredulous calm washing over him as the figure seemed to stare at him.

"It apologized already It's been ages since its spoken with such new initiates to the truth." The Prophet's injuries disappeared as swiftly as they had come as the figure again gestured before itself. Both men warily approached the places indicated as a mouth formed upon the being's face. Disturbingly, it first appeared where one would expect to see eyes before being pulled to the correct place by the being's hands, as two pinpricks of light, brighter than the sun in high summer, took the place of eyes.

"Your questions, are prudent, and deserve answers. This, is not what I created either of you for. This was not to be your lives. The church, has strayed. It must be culled. The corrupted, destroyed. I have brought you two into the fold for this. To purge the heresy festering within. You will gather trustworthy men to yourselves, and I will guide you to the sources of this plague in my houses. You will be hunted. Hated even. Opposed by both the guilty, and those blind to the rot. They will kill you in time. And I will bring you back. You will win, if you follow my commands. Fail to, and your people, will fall away to evil, in your lifetimes."