Novel: A Priest of the Occident **Content Warning!: Bullying, Bad Parents, Controversial Religious Topics etc.**

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I was originally going to post a short story on here called Joachin, but I found myself making a lot of advancements with this novel here, A Priest of the Occident, and thus, I figured I'd share this here instead. So far I have received fairly positive critiques of it, the only real issues people have had with it thus far have been grammar issues; though there may be other things I need to clean up. Chapter 2 is almost done, but if anyone is interested in reading that in may take some time as I'll be needing to clean things up and correct a few things. In the meantime, here is the prologue and chapter 1:

A Priest of the Occident:

“For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens.”
-Psalm 95:5 DR

Prologue:

Dawn broke with a terrible howl, an awful, awe-full howl! The servant of the prophet awoke in his room along side his fellow-servants, he knew full-well what had happened, his master had dreamt more than just a dream. grabbing a lantern to dispel the shadows in the house, the servant headed up the creaking stairs of the country house to his master’s bedroom, his fellow-servants fallowing close behind him. Opening the thin wooden door to his bedroom, the servant found the white-bearded old prophet tossing and turning in his small bed, still wailing over the vision he saw. The servants helped him out of his bed, and down the crickets old stairs to the kitchen, where they quickly prepared food for him. But the prophet continued to howl and whimper, refusing to eat the food that the servant offered him, he waited but his master was completely unresponsive, making him wonder what kind of vision the prophet had to put him in such a state of madness. Many visions and prophecies, this wise and elderly man had had, and among them, not a few were terrible, but never had the prophet received a vision like this, for a long time the he whimpered and shuddered and could not speak, several times they tried to talk to him or get him to eat, but he couldn’t reply.

The servant then ordered that the residence’s chaplain be brought in, and his assistants as well, he believed that having the priest and his assistants pray over his master, light incense and bring idols and sacred objects before him, would console him and relieve him of whatever ailments he was afflicted with. But when the prophet beheld those idols and objects of the gods, he became greatly overcome with anguish and dread and his wailing increased. At a loss of what to do, the servants brought him into the house’s living room and lit a fire in the fireplace for him, as they tried to lighten the mood and figure out what to do, one of the prophet’s handmaids started playing her lyre and as she played, the servant noticed that his master’s catatonia began to subside. Encouraging the handmaid and her fellow-maid servants to keep on playing, the servant then sent his workmates back into the kitchen to make tea and other goods for the prophet, and the handmaids continued to play soothing melodies with their flutes and lyres. Soon the room was filled with soothing music and the smell of tea, and after several minutes of playing the prophet was finally calm enough to pick up a biscotti in his trembling hand and slowly move it towards his mouth. He was able to take a small bite out of it and slowly chew, albeit in a slow mechanical bite fashion.

After still more time of the handmaids playing music, and tea, coffee and baked goods being served, the prophet seemed calm enough for the servant to ask him about the vision that he had in the dark of night? The prophet’s face turned pale and fright returned to his face, but his mind was now strong enough that he was able to muster up a response,

“I saw, I saw the end… I saw the end of our very society, our civilization!”

“What?!” Replied the servant, “the gods have now deemed to destroy our civilization?! What sins have we committed to deserve such a fate!?!”

“No,” the prophet replied, “it’s worse than that, the gods will not be spared, this fate will effect even them! What is coming, the cataclysm that awaits us all, shall dethrone them from their place on high! That is what I meant when I spoke of the very end of our society! The overthrow of our own lords! What I saw coming will bring about their overthrow, and perhaps even their very deaths. What I saw, could very well be the death of the gods themselves!”

[Chapter 1 Below]

 

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Chapter 1: Rejected and Chosen

Marnócammes was sitting on his bed in his room, the light was off and although it was daytime, the light shining in through his window seemed dim, as it shone on the cold, bluish white walls of his bedroom. He could hear the bathroom fan droning across the hall from him, it did little to assuage his bad mood, nor did the fact that tomorrow was the first day of the new school year as he hated school. He remembered last year, the evening before the start of last year’s school season, heading down the hallway from the living room to the bedroom. He felt relatively relaxed, sure school sucks, he had thought, but it won’t be that bad, life’s just like that, he’ll be fine and sooner than he’ll know it, school will be over and it’ll be summer again, he could enjoy it!

But no, putting-up with school was beginning to take a toll on him, the teachers, the classmates, and the boringness of it all. It was strange how school was both frustrating and enraging at one point, and yet also incredibly boring and pointless in the same breadth,

How is that even possible? He thought.

But then, that led to something else that was bothering Marnócammes a lot recently, why is life itself so boring and pointless? Well not life itself, the gods’ know I was having a lot of fun this summer, but why do things like school make life so boring, why can’t life be as interesting and action-packed as all the cartoon TV shows I watch, and books and comics I read?

Marnócammes thought about this for a moment, indeed he had been thinking about this for awhile, he had wished life could be more like video games and cartoons and movies and the like, and yet as he was thinking about all this, something else he hadn’t considered, rose to his mind, (and perhaps if someone else, like his dad, had brought it up, he would have resented it and refused to consider it) summertime wasn’t that bad, he was out enjoying things, and of course the same was true for Yuletide and the winter, there was lots of snow for him to enjoy; it wasn’t that life itself was boring, it was things like school that ruined it for him. What is going on here?

As Marnócammes pondered this he noticed something else that he had thought about earlier, actually connected with the things he was thinking now, in the TV shows I watch, the video games I play, and the books I read, there are bad guys who do bad things that the heroes have to deal with it, and yet they’re cool and interesting. But here, I have to deal with teachers and jerky classmates who do bad things and they’re not cool or interesting, they’re jerks!

These thoughts continued to swirl around in Marnócammes’ mind, but as he sat there thinking, he suddenly noticed some kind of disturbance in the air of his room, very subtle and very odd. He looked up and looked around, quickly his attention was drawn to his closet door as the source of the disturbance. He stared at the door, it was completely silent, there was no noise coming from the closet and yet he could feel the disturbance coming in through the cracks between the closet door’s panels, very eerie!

For awhile he just sat there uneasily, staring into the dark cracks in the closet door from which this invisible, un-hear-able disturbance was wafting into his room. He could see nothing through the cracks, hear nothing coming through them, all he could feel was the disturbance, and his own fear and discomfort increasing with every passing second that this disturbance continued to exist. Finally, after a long, painful time of waiting, Marnócammes got up, headed to the closet door, and pulled it open.

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Marnócammes flung himself to the floor against his bed in fright, he placed his hand over his mouth as if he knew he must not alert anyone to the shocking thing he was witnessing, indeed, there seemed to be no need anyway as he was too terror-stricken to make a sound. Despite there being no light coming through the cracks in the closet door before, Marnócammes now saw, not the unlit interior of his closet, but swirling clouds of snow and flame. Snowflakes and sparks danced wildly about in the swirl of clouds, as the gold and silver glared through the door on him, Marnócammes felt more the wintry aspects than the fiery aspects, the room had becoming chillingly cold! Standing in front of it all, in the doorway of the closet, was a tall, young woman, her hair was a perfect, seamless blend of winter blonde and flaming red, she wore a long golden dress that covered her feet, and was embroidered with a design of blossoming flames. She had a white and silver sash tied around her waist and a white and silver shawl wrapped around her arms, both embroidered with snowflakes.

The small amount of jewelry she wore was of the same motif, though Marnócammes didn’t notice it in detail. Among ordinary women, he didn’t notice such accessories, but in this situation, with his heart racing in terror, it was a wonder the Marnócammes was aware of these details at all! Yet somehow, with his head and heart racing, he was still somehow able to pick-up the impression of the lady’s accessories, her garbs and jewelry wasn’t excessive and princess-like, but rather, was just enough to make her look noble and powerful.

Marnócammes never felt terror like this before, seeing this woman that he knew was not human! Yet as he lay there on floor in fright another sensation was coming over him that, just like the brutal cold that bit deep into his bones, had also began the moment he opened his closet door and saw her. A strange, draining sensation had started over him since he first time he laid eyes on her, a weariness that covered his whole body, it was as though as his whole senses were fading away at her presence, everything becoming dull. Yet despite all this dullness and draining, Marnócammes’ terror still remained, he was terrified by what he saw, he could barely think, yet before this great fear could torment him any longer, the woman finally spoke,

“Marnócammes, do not be afraid, I have not come here to punish you.”

Her voice was monotone and calm, it felt soothing to Marnócammes and his fear subsided greatly. The way she spoke the word “punish” to him was very comforting, she was able to contain in it, all the harshness, anger and pain associated with that word, yet soften in it under her peaceful voice, like a rough surface full of sharp and jagged rocks covered in a thick layer of soft snow. Marnócammes relaxed and slowly sat-up, getting a better look at her. She was indeed quite beautiful, nothing about her seemed to imply that she wanted to harm him. Her lips were spread wide in a subtle hint of a smile, the light from the swirling scene behind her seemed to curve around and illuminate her, making her appearance beautiful and bright, and Marnócammes now noticed that she was actually floating a bit off the floor, giving him feelings of softness and gentleness.

“Wh-who are you?” he asked.

“You must search for me, Marnócammes.” the woman replied, “but I will give you hint, this closet is full of toys,” she gestured subtly with one of her arms, “and one of the titles I’m know by, is the goddess of toys, search for me by that title, and you will find me. And when you find me, you will find what you want and receive it, and you will surely grow-up happy.”

With that, the swirling storm of snow and flame behind her shown blindingly bright and with a flash both she and storm vanished, and Marnócammes was left staring into his dark closet.

goddess of toys… He thought, he had indeed suspected that this woman was in fact a goddess. I never knew there was a goddess of toys before! Wish I knew that, maybe I could’ve more easily gotten the toys I wanted!

Marnócammes’ family wasn’t very religious, he knew about some gods from his parents, teachers and others, and his father did teach him a few stories, prayers to Ohûl and the like. Throughout the holidays his parents played religious songs and told religious stories, but overall, Marnócammes didn’t really know much about the gods and who they were. Who is this goddess, and why haven’t my parents told me about her? What does she mean that I will find what I want with her? -Well actually, she is beautiful, I do like her I guess, and it would be nice to be with her. I really do need to find her and figure all this out, I’ll sneak into the school’s computer lab tomorrow and search for her!

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***

The rest of the evening passed relatively uneventfully, fortunately his mother wasn’t mad at him for the run-in that happened earlier, it was because of that Marnócammes was sulking in his room, the things she had yelled at him had echoed in his mind, telling him that he was selfish and never thought about her, they would’ve echoed in his mid this afternoon had it not been for his encounter with the goddess. Now he was too shocked and caught-up in his thoughts over what had happened to think about this run-in. Indeed Marnócammes had very mixed feelings about this encounter with the goddess, he had decided that he liked her and wanted to go through with his plans of pursuing her, but the encounter itself was nonetheless terrifying. Indeed, Marnócammes was quite certain he had never experienced any event in his life as terrifying as that encounter, he really hoped he never experienced anything worse, in his life! That awful draining feeling he had, being in her presence, and there was something else, something he couldn’t describe, but made him feel terrified and awful being in her presence, despite her beauty, soothing voice and comforting words. As for his plan of going through with looking-up who this goddess was, that also had it’s challenges for Marnócammes to worry about, the fact that these plans involved going to school, and not just going to school but potentially getting into trouble and getting yelled at by the teachers, and possibly even his mom some more.

“You alright Marnócammes?” Marnócammes’ father suddenly asked at dinner, his mind had wondered back into the encounter, and the fear he experienced must have shown on his face.

“Uh, yeah!” He quickly replied, “It’s just uh…”

He quickly struggled to come up with a lie, he had seen enough movies and TV shows to know, that the number one rule for kids when they came across weird things like this, is to never tell your parents or an adult about them.

“It’s just, I was remembering something Kamíarjew told me before he moved to Osoyoos, [1] a nightmare he had.”

“A nightmare?” His father replied, “what about?”

“It’s too complicated and scary to explain.” Marnócammes replied.

You know that’s interesting, Marnócammes thought, Kamíarjew moved away this year, and now this goddess came, I lose one friend but now I have this goddess! Very interesting, I guess it’s a good sign, as Kamíarjew often liked to point out, we were anything but friends back in Kindergarten and yet ended up being really good friends before he had to move. Maybe the same will be true with this goddess, that despite how terrifying my first encounter was with her, I’ll end up really liking her and’ll happily serve her, and she’ll be really nice to me, help me out with things I’ve always needed help with. She is very beautiful!

***

The uneventful evening continued and soon, the last day of summer ended and Marnócammes was off to bed. Marnócammes had difficulty sleeping as he always did. Had his parents seen him, they would’ve thought that, in addition to his insomnia, he was stressed over having to go back to school. But in reality, he was of course thinking non-stop about that goddess,

The goddess of toys… who is she? What can she offer me, can she offer me power? Can she stop the teachers and classmates from being jerks who mess with me? Can she finally make life interesting and fun and not boring?

[1] Some places like Osoyoos here, retain their real-life names, while other names are changed.

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***

The next morning Marnócammes got up and had breakfast, as he dug his spoon into his cereal, his mind was focused on the fact that today was the first day of the new school year,

It doesn’t have to be that bad, he thought, after all, no year is exactly like the last year, maybe the teachers won’t be big jerks this year like they were last year; maybe my classmates will leave me alone and respect me. Maybe something interesting will happen, a cool field trip or, oh yeah!! The goddess!!!

Marnócammes froze in the midst of putting his spoonful of cereal into his mouth, that’s right! I have to find a way to sneak into the computer lab so that I can figure out who she is!

His mind quickly shifted to focusing on this plan, he really hoped that he could slip in easily without being caught and in his desperate anxiety he, for the first time since he was very young, started praying to Ohûl that he would grant him good vibes for this mission.

As was usually the case on the first day of school, the school buses didn’t run and his mother drove him. They lived on the highland, western outskirts of Castle Rock, right next to a warehouse and some telephone facility. The drive to school was quite short and simple though, just across the highway, into the southern more residential area of the western outskirts, past the middle school, down through more residential areas and finally they reached the Hall of Arjeus Elementary School. Marnócammes never thought that he would feel almost happy to see his elementary school. While he hated school nonetheless, Marnócammes was so eager to go along with his mission of finding out who this goddess was, that he felt excited and thus was in a positive mood. Additionally he was also hopeful, again, there was no reason to think that this school year, would be as bad as his previous school years.

“Alright, have a good day at school!” His mother said.

“Thanks!” Marnócammes replied as he climbed out of the car and slipped on his backpack. He headed down the sidewalk towards the school, humming and muttering cool action-y spy music that played in his head. As he approached, he observed the school building in front of him,

I clearly can’t go in through the main entrance, he thought, the office is right there and there are too many people! I’ll go for the right-side entrance first, as I have been planning since yesterday evening. I really hope it works, the other entrances are a bit harder and this one is closest to the computer lab!

He made a calm, wide turn to the right heading across the front field of the school towards its eastern side. A gentle but cool breeze blew as he headed across the field, the sky was a pale-blue, with a few long, wispy clouds here and there, the trees where still green, but their leaves were a pale-faded green, a dullness that matched the overall mood of this September day, even Marnócammes’ excitement had dulled. But it dulled to the fact that Marnócammes now had to focus on his “mission,” not because he’d lost any of his new-found positivity, his spirit was still up, even if he wasn’t able to now express it.

He reached the eastern side of the school, he could hear the many kids there chattering as they loitered or played on the various tetherball courts that dotted the front of the school. Marnócammes hadn’t seen any teachers or adults present thus far, through his black-haired reflection of the window of in the door, he was delighted to see that it was completely empty!

Ohûl seems to have favoured me with his vibes! He thought, I guess it is his will that I get to know this goddess! Come to think of it, I guess this goddess herself would want me to know her without any problems, duh!

Marnócammes carefully opened the door and slipped in. It was all quiet except for a few murmurs coming from the other end of the building. Suppressing his humming down to a few quiet puhs, he made wide tiptoes forward, turning left and down the hall, looking forward he could see no one at the other end of the hall. Arriving at computer lab, Marnócammes’ quick thinking deduced that he should take a seat at the far end of the lab and in the second row, so that it would be hard for anyone to see him either from the doorway, or through the windows from outside. As Marnócammes paced silently down the aisle he saw to his continued delight that the computers had already been turned on, indeed the soft, ambient hum of the computers was the only audible sound in that quiet room.

Slipping quietly into his seat at a computer, Marnócammes carefully and quietly logged onto his desktop and went onto the internet. With a search engine on his browser, he typed into the search bar the hint he was given, goddess of toys.

This is it, now it’s time to finally find out who this goddess really is… As Marnócammes got ready to click “search,” he couldn’t help but feel really nervous, like the goddess was going to swoop suddenly into that very room where he was. Yes, she was very beautiful and he trusted her, but that encounter with her was just so terrifying for him, there was just something about her that made him feel, really disturbed.

Upon clicking the search button, immediately one name kept showing up in the search results;

Ehîlhana
Ehîlhana
Ehîlhana

Feeling still uncomfortable and on edge, Marnócammes nervously clicked on the first search result and read what it said. He seemed to be in a subsection of an article on the goddess, the header to this subsection read “goddess of toys” and to the right of the subsection was a picture of the goddess, dressed almost exactly as how she appeared to him last evening. The picture showed a cartoon version of the goddess standing in a playroom with many toys at her feet, the sun and moon were two big balloons that she was holding by a gold and silver streamer respectively. She had a smile on her face, that seemed to Marnócammes somewhat smug-looking, her hair was a tad bit different from how she appeared to him last time and her eyes were only dots as again, this was only a cartoon. But these dotted eyes called to Marnócammes’ mind that there was something about the goddess’s eyes in her apparition that he couldn’t put his finger on.

After looking to the picture for a bit, Marnócammes then proceeded to read the subsection;

Because she’s associated with the care and protection of children, and also fire and therefore craftsmanship, Ehîlhana is sometimes worshipped as the goddess of toys. Toymakers have often prayed to Ehîlhana for success in their work, and credited her for the profits they’ve made. Many guilds and companies specializing toys and childcare products have been dedicated to her patronage, many of which were set-up as deliberate rivals to ones dedicated to the smith-god Farnon.

Marnócammes scrolled up to the top of the article to read the start of it;

Ehîlhana is the goddess of fire and light, ice and snow, magick, directions, roads, gates and doorways, boundaries and many other things. She is one of oldest as well as one of the most powerful of the gods, being born almost right after Rax, the god of wisdom. When Rax was born from Ohûl’s forehead, sparks flew from his forehead as well, one of those sparks did not go out and when Ohûl saw it, he turned it into a “Seed of Light” and from it, Ehîlhana was born.

Her name seems to mean “graceful goddess,” “hana” is Arlan for “graceful,” and while the Arlan word for goddess is “Ohûlaniyid,” “Ehîl” seems to be a feminine version of “Ohûl.” (“Ohûl,” seeming to be Arlan for “divine one,” “powerful one.”) Her oldest shrines were found in the northern regions of Arlástan, in the highlands of modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan among snow-capped mountains, which were associated with her as well as her daughter Tzyahíd.

Ehîlhana is a virgin, as an immortal goddess she felt no need to marry and have children. However, after helping Ohûl create the moon, the god rewarded her by taking a spark and a piece of frost from her and turning them into Yavas, the god of fire and Tzyahíd, the goddess of snow, ice and winter; her son and daughter respectively. When the stoic goddess saw her son and daughter, she was overwhelmed with joy, and wept and wailed a great storm which turned into a third daughter, the tragic Híxanayíd, wife of Farnon.

Ehîlhana’s personality is quite stoic and calm, she doesn’t show much emotion. However her priests and seers testify that she can also be amiable and even warm at times, and will show mercy and pity to those whom she feels genuinely deserve it. She can also very vengeful to those who offend her and show no mercy to them, accounts of her vengeance or well-known and terrifying. While she is ultimately moody like most deities, she is actually much more predictable than the other gods, those who offend her will receive grate wrath while those who please her will be granted rewards and kindness.

The epithets of Ehîlhana include, queen of terrible beauty, queen of up & down, bright mistress, shining lady, empress of boundaries, queen of foresight, lady of gates, mistress of doorways and empress of magick, among many others.

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Marnócammes finished reading the opening portion of the article, to the right of the opening portion was another picture of this goddess, Ehîlhana. In this picture, her dress was fiery-red instead of gold and what’s more she had four arms instead of two; albeit it wasn’t unusual for the gods to sometimes be shown with more than two arms, Marnócammes had often seen Arjeus portrayed with four arms. Two of Ehîlhana’s arms were stretched upwards while the other two were stretched-out and downwards-arcing, flames lept from her upper hands while flurries of snow issued from her lower hands. She wore a tiara on her head, bedecked with fiery rubies and snowy diamonds, and the centre of the tiara was a symbol of a full-moon, between two crescent moons. Her eyes in this picture resembled her eyes in the apparition he had seen, but Marnócammes still couldn’t quite put is finger on what is was about those eyes.

So that’s who she is. Thought Marnócammes, he still felt quite nervous about her, but not as much as before, he had actually heard of Ehîlhana before. During Yuletide, Marnócammes’ parents would read stories about Ehîlhana and her daughter Tzyahîd, the two snow-goddesses. It’s ironic that I didn’t get interested in them back then, considering how much I love snow. But then again, they are girl-goddesses and I didn’t like girls back then.

Having finally found Ehîlhana, Marnócammes proceeded to log-off of the internet and log-off of his desktop, making sure he left no trace he was there. Ironically, considering where he was going now, he didn’t really need to be stealthy anymore, he was going to the school’s prayer hall. The prayer hall was practically right by the office where all the teachers and staff were and thus, he would undoubtedly be seen. But Marnócammes wasn’t thinking about that as he slipped on his backpack and left the computer lab, he just knew he needed to go there.

As Marnócammes made his way down the long hallway, it was now eerily quiet, he could not hear any murmuring coming from ahead of him, nor beside or behind him, all was quiet. He reached the western end of the school, turning left, he headed towards the prayer hall, there were indeed two or three adults hanging around the main entrance but they didn’t notice him, not even when he creaked open the great wooden doors to go in.

Upon entering the prayer hall, Marnócammes found that most of the teachers and staff were actually in the prayer hall, they were actually offering some kind of ceremony to the gods for the start of the school year. At the front, a group of priests had brought in idols of the gods and a portable altar of incense, they were chanting loudly and bowing their heads and torsos submissively as they dropped incense onto the altar. At the very back of the hall a great mural was painted on the wall, and on the mural, many of the various gods were depicted. Though Marnócammes’ family was again, not very religious, Marnócammes himself did recognize some of the gods that were depicted upon the wall.

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At the very top of the wall, was a dark void, at the centre of which was a great golden eye peering out, and a great large hand extended down from it, this was the Creator God. Below the Creator God’s hand, perched on a kind of bow between the cosmos and chaos, an elderly man sat with long white hair and a beard, he was clothed in brown, earthly clothes with a pointy cap upon his head. This was Ohûl, kind, wise Ohûl, father of the gods and god of good and bad vibes. Below Ohûl, seated on a high thrown was Arjeus, king of the gods, king of kings and lord of empires, sometimes he was referred to as just Ze’r-Arkah, “the emperor,” he is the god of civilization itself. He too had a beard like Ohûl, but Arjeus was much younger and stronger looking than Ohûl, he was dressed in royal robes and both a crown and laurel reef adorned his head. He held a mighty thunderbolt in his lefthand, and scroll of laws in his right. Arjeus was very popular in Marnócammes’ region and also at this very school, hence its name Hall of Arjeus, there was actually another shrine dedicated to him in the office area, (Marnócammes repeatedly found himself in the office area for some reason) and a statue of him outside by the flagpole. Marnócammes could see Arjeus’ pet dragon lie, curled-up at his left,\ and directly to the left of Arjeus’ throne sat his wife Camoon, dressed in royal blue and purple robes that covered her feet, she wore a fancy tiara on her head. To the far right of Arjeus’ throne stood Rax, the good of wisdom, holding several books in his arms, Marnócammes’ father often commented on how Rax was often depicted as looking much younger than Arjeus, despite actually being much older than him, indeed here Rax was portrayed as a studious young man with glasses and scholarly robes. Rax was Arjeus’ arch-rival and the two were often at each other’s throats, this was apparently because Arjeus had something that Marnócammes’ parents and other adults referred to as “infidelity” or “unfaithfulness.” Marnócammes heard that Rax was particularly popular in Germany and Scandinavia. Right by Rax’s side dressed in a simple but elegant dark blue dress that covered her feet, was Rax’s wife, Shalmmoldyew, the goddess of peace, law and civility, she wore a simple tiara on her head. Shalmmoldyew was perhaps the most popular of all the deities, Marnócammes, himself repeatedly heard her name invoked in ordinary, everyday conversations, and would himself, invoke her often.

To the left of Arjeus’ throne, in the lower right corner of the mural, Marnãocamîs saw a massive animal, resembling a winged and horned fox or coyote, lying there in a somewhat dignified manner. This was Marnanon, the god of animals and the wilderness, it was after him that Marnócammes was named, from the Arlan Marnanonkhamas “graced by Marnanon.” Below Marnanon, in the bottom centre of the mural, lay Amahàzgêmexis, mother earth, she lay there, curled up around the earth which was her womb, her head crowned with the small horns of a cow. Some of Marnócammes’ teachers and female friends had a strong devotion to her and she was quite popular in the town of Silverdale, which lay north of here. Between Rax and Shalmmoldyew to the left, and Arjeus and Camoon to the right, was Moúda, the god of war and death, he had many arms and hands, in which were held many weapons including an antique rifle and pistol. Marnócammes actually did have a bit of an interest in this deity, as he had a short fuse and wanted to fight back against anyone who tried to mess with him. Moúda’s head was the head of a hog, Moúda was often depicted as having the head of a hog, bull, goat or rooster, Marnócammes had learned that this was meant to symbolize sacrifice and that a soldier was meant to lay down his life for his countrymen.

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Finally, just above Marnanon, and just between him and Arjeus and Camoon, he found her, Ehîlhana. Marnócammes had missed her a couple of times while scanning the mural but now he recognized her, she was dressed in a scarlet and gold dress covering her feet, and had the same, silver and snow-white shawl and sash around her arms and waist. Looking at her eyes, Marnócammes saw that they did in fact, resemble the eyes of the actual goddess in the apparition he saw, but he still couldn’t put his finger on what it was about them. Ehîlhana’s seamless winter-blonde and flaming-red her was done-up in a flamelike ponytail and she had butterfly wings, the upper-parts were flames springing upwards and the lower parts was snow falling downwards. At either side of her were two great birds with long plumes of feathers, one red and gold, the other white and silver. Marnócammes instantly realized that these were her children, he recognized the silver and white bird as the snow goddess Tzyahíd. It was not uncommon for the gods to appear in animal-form, Ohûl sometimes took on the form of a bull or owl and Arjeus, a bearded-lion or eagle. It was from a children’s book that was read to him during Yuletide that Marnócammes recognized Tzyahíd, she would sometimes appear in her bird form, while other times she appear as a little girl, or a beautiful adult lady. In fact, in scenes where Tzyahíd would speak with her mother amidst the snow clouds, she would have the body of her bird-form, but the head of her little girl form.

Having finally found her on the mural, Marnócammes now had to look for her side shrine somewhere in the hall, this was the main reason why he had come here after all. But, before Marnócammes could start looking, one of the adults finally noticed he was there,

“Hey you’re not supposed to be here! This is a sacred ceremony for the teachers and staff, you’re supposed to be out on the playground!”

Marnócammes got mad, being told-off alone got him angry, but being told-off and stopped from engaging in the pious act of prayer and worship, that was deeply outrageous to him!

“I’m here to pray to Ehîlhana! You’re going to dare stop me from praying to a goddess!?”

“Marnócammes! Marnócammes! Calm down!” Marnócammes’ EA, Mrs. Xenovillis stepped in to defuse things, “You can pray to any deity at anytime, you don’t have to be in this place to pray to a god. We’re having our own ceremony here. We can arrange for you to visit here some other time, and here’ll be plenty. But here, we have a special ceremony for the adults.”

“But I’m just gonna bow down quietly in front of the shrine of Ehîlhana and pray!” Marnócammes protested, as he mentioned the shrine of Ehîlhana, he glanced towards the side-shrines to see if he could spot it, he wasn’t making eye-contact with anyone.

“It doesn’t matter if you’ll be quiet or not,” the other staff member who had spotted him first said, “it’s not about you, this ceremony is for the staff and teachers.”

“It’s not about me!” responded Marnócammes, angered over the accusation, “It’s about Ehîlhana! She chose me! I’m here for her! So just let me pray and worship her for her sake!”

“You can pray to Ehîlhana anywhere at anytime,” Mrs. Xenovillis said, “it doesn’t have to be here, she can hear your prayers anywhere, she is the empress of boundaries after all.”

“Then why have shrines and idols and hofs and prayer halls and other things, if I can just pray anywhere?”

“Because it’s not just prayer son,” the other staff member replied, “ it’s sacrifice, we have priests here offering incense on an alter, we’re doing things and praying things in a very special way, this isn’t just prayer. It’s a special ceremony on a special day with special people present. It’s the same reason why we only attend our town’s hof of Arjeus on special days at special times.”

“And I can’t just go over to the Ehîlhana’s shrine and just pray quietly by myself?!” Marnócammes asked, frustrated.

“No!” answered the staff member.

“Well,” Mrs. Xenovillis, interjected, seeing Marnócammes growing more and more agitated, “technically the precepts don’t forbid someone praying elsewhere within the vicinity of the place of adoration. If you can really be quiet and not interrupt things Marnócammes, I guess that would be alright.”

“I will!” replied Marnócammes, “I’m doing it for her!”

“Are you sure about this?” The staff member said, “we wouldn’t want to give him the impression that he can bend the rules under the guise of piety.”

“He’s Autistic,” replied Mrs. Xenovillis, indeed Marnócammes was diagnosed as level-1 Autistic, “Autistic children usually mean what they say or do, especially if they know or believe what’s being said or done is important.”

She continued, “I think it’s great that he’s developed this devotion to Ehîlhana, most people with Autism end-up being priests or devotees of Ohûlōm.”

Ohûlōm was the deity depicted at the top of the mural, the god of primal chaos, the god of everything and nothing, he gave Marnócammes the creeps!

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“The Priesthood of Ehîlhana has its fair share of eccentrics.” Said the staff man, “Ehîlhana does hold patronage of folks, that aren’t the most socially agreeable of people.”

“So can I go?” asked Marnócammes, unsure.

“Yes Marnócammes but be quiet, don’t disturb anyone, and this is only a one time thing, you can’t come here every time you need to pray to Ehîlhana or any other god.”

“Okay,” replied Marnócammes, “so where is her side-shrine?”

“It’s to your right, you should be able to find it quickly if you know what she looks like.” Answered Mrs. Xenovillis.

“Okay, I do.” And with that Marnócammes carefully and quietly headed to the right side of the prayer hall and carefully scanned the side shrines. Sure enough, he spotted the side shrine to Ehîlhana, and slipped carefully along the side of the wall to the shrine.

Resting his knees on the kneeler, Marnãocamîs gazed on the idol of the new queen of his life. The background of the shrine depicted the scene of a beautiful winter wonderland in which children, clearly students of the school, were playing in the snow. They were all dressed in old-fashioned winter clothes, clothes from the time period in which the school was built. The idol of the goddess herself was dressed in a long, yellow, gold and white dress that covered her feet, embroidered in a pattern of flames. Her right hand was held up in which a white, gold and yellow flame shone, the colours of her flame and dress were obviously meant to match the wintry white scene behind her. From the goddess’s left hand, a blanket of snowflakes unfolded, as usual she had a white and silver shawl wrapped around her arms, and a sash fastened around her waste of the same colours. Her hair was the same colours Marnócammes had often seen, although the red part was slightly lighter, she was a bit younger-looking in this idol then in most of the previous images Marnócammes had seen of her. One of her eyes had a silver iris, while the other was golden. It was upon observing this that Marnãocamîs finally realized what it was about Ehîlhana’s eyes that he had been missing. In the apparition, one of Ehîlhana’s eyes was sunshine yellow, while the other was a pale, wintry blue, it was this detail that was either present or missing in all the images he had seen of her thus far.

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As Marnócammes knelt there, he suddenly heard the goddess’ voice,

Good boy Marnócammes! Good boy! She said tenderly, listen, I want you to be my priest and seer now ‘kay? This will give you that purpose and meaning in life that you’ve been longing for awhile.

Yes uh, great lady, ma’am! Replied Marnócammes in his head in prayer, I’ll do what you say, I do like you.

You can call me Ehîlhana-Varíd, or Ehîlhana-Moldíd, kid. The goddess replied, her voice very warm and friendly, You know, like Shalmmoldyew-Varíd.

Ah, like Arjeus-Arkah, or like Ohûl-Varès or Ohûl-Malkès! He replied in mental prayer.

Yes, the goddess chuckled warmly in his head, exactly, you’re such a good boy!

You know, I was worried for a minute, said Marnócammes in prayer, I thought for sure when I was caught back there, that it was all over, it always happens like that.

And it would’ve this time as well, Ehîlhana replied, poor little guy! You would’ve been yelled at, punished and kicked out of their if I wasn’t there for you!

That was you? Yeah! You were looking out for me the whole time! Making sure I wouldn’t fail!

That’s right kid! She replied, No way I was letting you down there!

Thank you very much my queen, Marnócammes prayed, I really like you now!

You should silly! the goddess chuckled in reply, after all without us, you puny little human beings can’t do nothing!

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***

That recess Marnócammes was out on the playground as usual, he was wandering through the field, trying to imagine what it would be like this winter, when the field would be covered in snow, and he, now being Ehîlhana’s seer and eventually priest, would honour and praise her and her daughter while wandering through it. As he looked up, he saw three familiar boys, brown, blonde and brown haired, walking up to him, their names were Brodad, Brodan and Vrooban respectively. His irritation rose rapidly upon seeing them!

“So,” grinned Brodad in a mocking tone, “I heard that you managed to sneak your way into the prayer hall this morning. What ‘mission,’ ‘quest,’ or ‘operation’ were you up to this time? Did one of the idols have a special computer ship on it or something?”

“Oh go to The Void!” Marnócammes yelled angrily.

The three boys laughed, “a boy who slipped into the prayer hall while the teachers were having their sacred ceremony, is threatening us with eternal punishment in The Void!”

“I was going to speak to Ehîlhana-Varíd, she chose me to be her priest!” Marnócammes explained.

“You, a priest of Ehîlhana?” The boys continued to laugh, “like that goddess would be impressed with a dweeb like you! Ehîlhana likes wild crazy men and women that run through the forest with wolves and coyotes, she wouldn’t be impressed with a dork like you! You may be crazy but you’re not her kind of crazy!”

“Ehîlhana did choose me!” Said Marnócammes, “I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did if it wasn’t for her, if she wasn’t looking out for me, I would’ve surely been punished for what I did!”

“Sure, whatever,” smirked Brodad, “so how’s this game gonna play-out? Will it be as fun and entertaining as the previous games you’ve done?”

“It’s different this time!” Said Marnócammes, “this time I know who I am and what my purpose is, I will be a priest for Ehîlhana-Varíd, and serve her all the days of my life, this is what my life is about!”

“Ooh! Dramatic! Deep!” Mocked Brodad, “I’m sure Ehîlhana will help you out with all your lofty quests, just like she did with this one!”

“You know to be fair,” said Vrooban, half-mockingly, “I think Marnócammes has finally grown-up a bit, he said ‘it’s different this time.’ We all know nothing is ever Marnócammes’ fault, it’s always somebody else’s fault, someone else has gotta be blamed for Marnócammes’ mess-ups, no matter how hard the teachers try to make him see otherwise! Here, we finally have Marnócammes admitting the maybe he is a mess-up! Maybe he should just grow-up and act like, you know, a person! And not go off on all these weird games that get himself in trouble! Maybe he and all of us can finally just have some fun, without him trying to make stuff all weird and the like!”

“I have changed,” said Marnócammes angrily, “but I have not changed to be what you want me to be, I’ve changed to be what she wants me to be! I’m what she wants me to be, not you! You are a mere mortal, she’s an immortal and powerful goddess, she deserves my change, you don’t!

“She’s the queen of terrible beauty, the queen of up & down, the empress of boundaries, the goddess of fire and light and ice and snow, and magick!!” Marnócammes’ face suddenly lit-up with vindictive delight, he was going through everything he had read in the article that morning, and his memory had just landed on the fact that Ehîlhana was the goddess of magick, “yes! Magick! I’ll learn how to do magick! Now you won’t be messing with me anymore! Once I’ve learned Ehîlhana’s arts, you try to mess with me and boom! You won’t know what hit you! Yes I have changed, I will now serve Ehîlhana-Moldíd, as her servant I’ll have her protection and will be able to cook-up some spells to get some sweet, sweet vengeance, for all that you, and this cursed school has done to me!

[End of Chapter 1]

 

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If anyone’s interested I’m almost done chapter 2, I should warn anyone who reads this that protagonist does experience a traumatic event here, in fact it’s one of the reasons why it took me so long to write this as I felt I had to be in the right mood to write that particular scene. I’ll still have to do a lot of editing before I can post this though.