The Book of Battles

Erek

Erek Skabelund remembered an early morning like this one, the first time he had been sent to find a Prophet, this very boy whom he had greeted with the death of Zakil. That motning, years ago, tt had still been dark, he felt Austin’s hands in his boxers, stroking him, making him bigger. Austin moved under the sheets. Half awake, he let Austin turn him over and his eyes watering, he felt Austin inside of him, Austin’s mouth on his neck, Austin’s thighs bunched against his, Austin, thrusting, coming.

Austin held him and Erek had always assumed he would be the one to hold Austin, to make Austin secure.

“Austin?”

“Huh?

“Nothing.” Erek said.

They were drifting off to sleep when there was a sharp rap at the door. The two of them looked at each other, and then Austin slid out of the bed, and tipped across the floor, slipping into the closet and closing the door.

Erek cleared his throat before calling: “Just a moment.”

He pulled his dressing gown on and answered the door.

“Brother Allman.”

“You have been chosen,” Allman said without introduction. “We will be traveling to find the newborn Prophet.”

Erek’s mouth was half open in astoundment, and now Allman said, “I am on my way to find Austin Buwa. The Council wants him to go too.”

“Why?” Erek began. Then he said “I will tell him. I will see him soon.”

“Why, I cannot say. I believe it is because he is from a noble family outside of Zahem. If you can tell him, then it relieves me of a responsibility, thank you much, Brother.”

Allman nodded, smiled, and left the room, closing the door behind him. When a few moments had passed, the closet door opened, and Austin stuck out his head.

Erek turned to him and smiled.

“It would seem we’re going on a journey.”

 

 

Allman had fallen asleep, and Skabeland and Austin sat on either side of the fire warming their hands when Erek said, “Rulon is a prophet. A false prophet. He is the head of the Rebels who live in Long Lake.”

“Rebels?”

“He is not the only one, either,” Erek said. “There are the Rebels of the Badlands, and those of East Daho as well. There are many small groups, but those are the largest. Right now, Rulon is the most famous.”

Austin nodded, and as the flames changed color, painting Erek’s smooth face gold, then red, then emersing it in shadow, he contemplated not saying anything, but finally he said, “Erek, I don’t know what a Rebel is.”

Erek looked at him strangely and then said, “Oh. Well, I don’t suppose they exist in Westrial, or that you would hear about them. We don’t really like to talk about them in Zahem either. It all comes down to who is the true Prophet, who has the right to rule.”

“But the true prophet is in Nava.”

“Exactly,” Erek said, “but not everyone feels that way.”

Austin could tell that Erek did not wish to go on, but Austin needed him to. Rather than pester him, he simply sat and waited for Erek to continue speaking. At last he did.

“Of course you know how when the Prophet Joses was killed, most of the Zahem followed Yahn out of Westrial, into the Wilderness, Zahem. Some, however, who are separate from us and live in Solahn and Sussail, followed Joses’s son and his wife and made their own temple, though they built only one. They resisted one of the last of the revelations Joses had, and some say we should have too. In that revelation he declared that God had once been a man, like us, but that he had become God by having several wives at once, Heavenly marriage, and that this was the highest degree of living.”

“I always thought it was done because our ancestors—I mean the people of Hale—did it.”

“No,” Erek shook his head. “Joses had several wives, though we do not know their names, but Yahn took fifty-five. He preached the adding of wives and we all did it, in the Temple itself, and then in all of our temples, the multiple marriages were performed. It was the highest part of our religion for a long time. Then five hundred years ago it stopped.”

A strange feeling passed over Austin. He had always heard whispers, jokes, but not believed them. Now no one else less than Erek spoke of it.

“Why did it stop?” he said.

“Because God demanded it stop,” Erek said, shortly, his voice filled with more force that he’d intended.

“But the Rebels did not believe this,” Erek continued after a time.

“We had been paying taxes to, or fighting, the Solahni to the south for years, and a new king came to the throne. He offered to sell us, at great price, our land and the decision to acknowledge us an independent nation, to begin trade with us if we would abandon plural marriage. This king’s mother was of the other Zahem, descended from Joses’s son. And after all, only high ups could practice Heavenly Marriage anyway. It had been a stain on many Zahem who lived outside of our lands. Because of many of the things Prophets had said about the Royan, it also meant we had no allies. So we gave up many old teachings and we gave up Heavenly Marriage. The Rebels said the Prophet had capitulated to convenience and the words of heathens. From then on, many of the old leading priestly families, and the families of councilors departed to establish their own rival Navas. Now that we had peace from the rest of the world, we began to have internal war.”

Austin had become fascinated now, and Erek was increasingly excited over his own story..

“Jayvan was the Prophet who declared that Plural Marriage was over and downplayed the curse of the Royan. He said he and the Elders consulted God and God told them this, and I believe it. His three successors remade the religion, but still wars arose. The Prophets did not lead armies. Generals did, but they needed someone to follow and so something new rose up, the Priesthood.”

“But I thought we all had the priesthood,” Austin said. “I remember the Anointing.”

“Yes,” Erek said, “but you know some people are high priests. It’s a title for certain men of exalted degree. Many of the Council have it. But in Jayvon’s day there was one priest who was also a general, Hyrum, and he began to take on much of the power of a general and king. This freed the Prophet to be a spiritual head. Among the Rebels, the Prophet is Priest and King and so were Joses and Yahn, but with us that is not necessarily the case. The Prophet guides the people and declares what is. He receives revelation. The High Priests, for after Hyrum, this title was reserved to his children and certain officers, oversee the temple rituals, but when the Prophet cannot rule like a king, when he is young or too old, or incapacitated, then it is the High Priest who rules.”

To Austin, who had seen very little of life in Zahem, but much of life in a royal court, it seemed like the High Priest and the Prophet would do an endless dance of power, one about the other, no matter how holy both might be. He did not say this. He was weary. He went to sleep.

    

Two days later they entered a green valley centered by a deep river, and it was filled with the hustle and bustle of cities.

“We are close to Solahn now,” Erek said. “This is a whole different world.”

By evening they were riding into a town and making reservations at an inn, but as they headed out, Allman pointed up to a hill and said, “Up there is his family. Up there is his house.”

And Erek did not have to explain to Austin that what Allman meant was the home of the Prophet Reborn.