Afternoon, Fifth of One, Harvest, 236 CR
Cleric Veil was impossibly busy, and insisted on making time for me anyway.
They didn’t volunteer details about what they were busy with, and I didn’t press. It was obvious to me that it was something that had to do with their position as Pillar for the Thousand in Kibosh, and presumably it also had to do with all of the shit that was going on—weird changes in the Forest, incoming powerhouses acting as unwanted reinforcements, and the like. It was all big stuff that had nothing to do with me, as far as I could tell, but there were at least some people who were very confident in my being involved.
Veil showed absolutely none of that as we met at the doors to the Hall of the Thousand; they were visibly focused on the moment and on me, almost radiating attention and presence.
“You have asked for us to attend on a matter of theology,” they said in their vibrantly colorless way. “Will you join us in meditation first? We find it to be useful, under the aegis of the Thousand Facets, to consider the truth fundamental to a matter.”
I looked at them consideringly, taking in the intensity in their body language. They were a lot more expressive than I had seen before, but I didn’t know how much of that was a difference in their opinion of me as I’d started to settle into Kibosh’s social landscape and how much was my getting more used to reading the details of their aggressively androgynous blandness.
It was obvious there was a correct answer here, and just as obvious what the correct answer was, but I didn’t understand it.
So I did what I did best, and asked.
“How would I join you in meditation? When Kelly and I came here, we wound up being separated into our own little instances of the Thousand, and she said that was how it always was.”
“So it is when one seeks the Sundered,” they answered, unruffled and at least a little pleased by my question. “Always, as we are sure Miss Avara told you; for when in the Hall or at the end of our lives, we each and every one of us faces them alone.”
“But not outside in the world,” I murmured. “Or at least, not always. When Zuqeh witnesses a bargain, that’s anodyne and a shared experience, but nobody’s seeking Zuqeh when that happens.”
“Will you join us, then?”
“I… guess? If you think it’s best that we meditate—I’ve gotta warn you, last time I tried to meditate by someone else’s direction, it was kind of a disaster and a waste of time.” Their smile gave way to a sort of flat look, and I shook my head at myself. “Sorry, that’s irrelevant to my answer. Yes, I’ll join you in meditation first.”
“Follow, then.”
They opened the door, and I stepped through… and didn’t lose myself, in that moment.
The Hall of the Thousand, and I was pretty sure this was the Hall, the actual structure itself, was a starkly beautiful and simple open room of blazingly white stone. There were incredibly subtle shadings which had more emphasis than most rich color tones, just because of the purity of color that they were contrasted against, and my eyes slid across the shapes and engravings without being able to actually focus on any of them.
Veil directed us to a couple of cushioned mats on the floor, and we sat down side by side. Wordlessly, their breathing slowed and their body stilled as though they were falling into a trance, and I let myself drift a little. I wasn’t trying to empty my mind like Tayir had failed to teach me, but just letting my eyes wander along the bizarre visual effect was weirdly relaxing, and I felt my muscles unclench.
I was nervous, I realized. Nervous and worried and a little bit afraid, and as I realized it, the tension eased just a little bit more.
What exactly was I there to ask Veil about, anyway? I wanted to know about their personal theology, about the different theologies of Shem as a Kingdom and of Alqar as a continent.
What am I nervous about?
My eyes kept tracing ever-changing abstract patterns across the stone as my thoughts failed to empty, succeeding instead at digging deeper into my emotions and the reasons for them.
I am nervous, I thought to myself, because I don’t want to be judged harshly. That… wasn’t right, or at least wasn’t right enough, wasn’t the core of it. I am nervous because I’ve been burned by religion before, and I’m worried it’ll happen again? I’m nervous because I have deep-seated issues with religious leaders and organized religion in general? I’m perennially reluctant to grapple with my own traumas, and a bunch of those are around religion?
That last one was closer to right, and that clarified a few things.
I am nervous, I thought to myself eventually, because I still hold dearly so much of the community of practice that I was raised in. I am afraid that the last parts of it that I identify with will turn out to have been dross, and I will be left adrift—cut from an anchor I didn’t even know I had.
It made sense. Hadn’t I cracked wise in ways particularly suited to my origins for over a decade and a half? Hadn’t I always had a voice in my head coming up with quips whose context not a single person in my life had? Quips that relied on the years of study which I had turned my back on, the years of study that my father—that his eyes and tongue should fail him, and he be able only to hear, I cursed him in my head, drawing as I always did on that vast cultural well which was my birthright and his truest legacy, and may his scalp itch abominably whenever he was unable to scratch it.
“I want to reconcile the theology and religious practice of my upbringing with the truths I know. I want to bring into harmony all of who I am now with my childhood, my ancestors, and my memories of what was once home.”
I’d said it out loud, which had felt right. I heard fragments of my words echoing from the walls, a susurrus if instead of wind through the trees it were the Gods whispering through the weave of the world.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“We will be happy to be of any help we can,” Veil said with calm certainty. “It is our belief that all of divinity is as one, and all worship is valid thereby. By aiding you in coming to find the path of your renewed faith, we do not only faithfully execute those civic duties we ourself embody as Pillar; we also bring another closer to the truths of She Who Was Sundered.”
“I know I should be asking about your theology,” I said apologetically, “but my brain is getting caught up on your grammar. It sounded like you were switching between the singular our and the plural, and I think I’m missing a cultural nuance that’s implied by it.”
Despite not looking away from the possibly-hypnotic patterns of the wall, I could feel them tilt their head to the side quizzically—like I had some sort of proprioception for their body movements. “We are… surprised. Not by your question, but by its prior absence, in light of your not having known; you have been meticulous in address and reference.”
“It’s not that hard to get someone’s pronouns right,” I muttered, refraining from rolling my eyes. “It’s a lot easier than remembering someone’s name, much less their birthday, and people did in fact expect me to remember those. Birthdays! Unbelievable.”
“We, the clergy of Sundered Namma, are all sundered,” they said after a moment of thought. “One might address the Pillar of Kibosh as singular, and likewise the social person who dwells in the village and eats at the refectory, for it is all of us who are between us Cleric Veil; but each of us is but a sundered facet, a shard, of that name.”
“Oh.” I blinked twice, then once more. “Oh! You’re plural? There’s a word for that in Shemmai, I’m not surprised. Except…” I frowned. “Not quite the classic definition that most people use, because that would suggest that there’s a bunch of singular you sharing a body and brain.”
“It is a word that can be applied, though—”
I caught the blandness in Veil’s voice. “—there’s a bunch of singular definitions sharing the word,” I preempted them remorselessly.
“Just so.” Their voice had barely-perceptible shades of approval, something that felt absolutely emphatic coming from them. “There are as many manners in which one might be sundered as there are facets of Her Sundering in all possible worlds. We are one such—in our case, we are in existence only as one whole, and it is one whole made of parts that know this to be their nature.”
“Huh.” I chewed on that for a moment, then decided to just let it pass through me. “I have no idea what that’s like,” I said with total honesty, “but I respect it anyway. Always have.”
Veil inclined their head at me, smiling faintly. “We, as you say, respect that in turn, even if we are surprised you are already familiar with the matter; as unusual as the sundered are in Shem, we expected them to be moreso in what was once your home. But we did not come here only to talk about ourselves, nor ourself.”
“Yeah, well.” I reassembled my thoughts, packing away my curiosity about Veil as a person and going back to theology—and, not by coincidence, also setting aside thoughts of the many people who had drifted in and out of my life over the years. “So is Sundered Namma some sort of broken demiurge?”
“The Maker, the Creator,” they agreed. “We believe that She shattered with the creation of the world, though the reasons differ between the Faiths of Namma.”
“Tell me yours. You don’t need to go into the others.”
“As you ask.” Veil paused, switching to their polished storyteller’s cadence. “We hold, in the Spine where we were raised, that She was the waters which are Chaos for an eternity and no time at all, for time did not yet exist. Time, space, and all that exists within the vastness of all worlds and that which is beyond them—these things were Her great creation, and in the cataclysm that ensued, She was riven and gave birth to the Gods of the earth, the sky, and the waters; and as well, through them, the Gods of fire and ice, of destiny and freedom, of heroes and monsters, and of the Self and the Other.”
“That sounds… familiar,” I said slowly. “Which might not be coincidence.”
“Namma is present in all worlds.” Their voice and body language was confident, and firmed into more confidence at my reflexive skepticism. “We do not say this in ignorance—no God of Yelem’s Thousand knows of any world without some shard of Hers, though in none of them is She whole and present.”
“Some shard of Namma.” I closed my eyes, feeling like the shifting patterns of the wall were distracting me from thinking. When I reopened them, the patterns were gone, which was… interesting in its own right, and I shook my head as I caught my thoughts wandering. “Not the Sundered, though?”
“No two shards are the same. But through each and every, there is a lens into Truth, that which underlies all truths.” They raised a finger as I went to reply, and I waited for them to… gather their thoughts, probably. “And so,” they continued after a moment, “the Faiths of Namma may say that there is a singular truth around which our faith has grown, a foundation.
“For we Sundered, it is just that—that just as She is sundered, so are we, no matter how whole we seem.” Veil smiled at me, the smallest of facial expressions but possessing a burning intensity. “What, Sophie Nadash, is the foundation of your faith?”
In that space, subtly liminal and near to the divine without touching it, the question struck me like a thunderbolt. It might not have if I hadn’t spent the time unwinding physically and trying to understand the underlying truths of Veil’s identity and faith, but it might have regardless—I had grappled with that question for decades, after all.
“A lot of people would say that God or faith or practice is at the center of it,” I murmured. I was talking as much to myself as to Veil, but I had that singing calm that came with a decision I’d already made, a question I’d already answered. “Hear, the creed went, Yi-sra-el: the Lord is our God; the Lord is One. But I’ve always thought that people missed the most important part of that.
“In the story, a man wrestled with Jacob until the break of dawn. The man crippled him with a magical touch, and Jacob wrestled on. And the man blessed him and left him with an epithet: Yi-sra-El, because he strove against divinity, against God, and won out. Our mythic patriarch argued with God and called His course of action sacrilege, and if that’s not striving I don’t know what is. But that’s not enough, is it? It can’t be, because that doesn’t have direction, it’s just action.”
Veil didn’t say anything, but their question hung in the air just the same. What, Sophie Nadash, is the foundation of your faith?
“Rav Joshua said, and we continued to hold after him, that the Law and the practice was not in the heavens—that the faith and its manifestation in our lives are forevermore in our own hands, to be interpreted and lived by ourselves. And that’s a kind of striving, too, isn’t it.”
My eyes had closed, and I opened them. There was a glyph on the wall in front of me, a glyph that my eyes slid around like they were skating around a void, and I almost expected to feel a connection snapping into place as the answer came to me.
It didn’t, and I couldn’t change how that made me feel, but… maybe that was necessary, in a way.
Maybe I would just have to accept it, that God was no more present now than he had been in a world with neither magic nor divinity.
“We strove, and will strive, against all of it,” I said. “Every idea, every belief, every argument is grist. We will grapple with every claim and every truth, and nothing of what we knew will stay the same. But we will be the same—because what we are is not a creed of faith, but a promise. We strove against God and against our own lack of understanding, and never may we stop.”
The words weren’t perfect. They didn’t ring with truth, much less Truth—it wasn’t sublime, wasn’t exactly right.
It was somewhere to start with, footing for a grappler.
“She did well by you, to bring you here,” Veil murmured absently. “As Shemmai a faith as any.”
I had, it turned out, nothing to say to that. Nothing at all.