Colt: The Cosmic Prayer (Hidria Book 1) by Williams Joseph

Author:Williams, Joseph [Williams, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aidric Publishing
Published: 2017-04-18T22:00:00+00:00

14

It was morning. The entire village had assembled in the temple for the Duri Master’s sermon. As his pupil, Nuri was required to assist with the rituals preceding the service and then dismiss the congregation once their minds had been freshly saturated with what he liked to call scarecrow wisdom, or thoughts which appeared full-bodied but were nothing more than broad generalizations of relatable struggles.

Ghosts of the pulpit, he thought as he straightened his garments and prepared for the service. The spiritual equivalent of hot air.

Granted, Nuri had only been released from disciplinary cleansing the prior morning. He was still bitter and the wounds were fresh on his emaciated body. Therefore, every aspect of the Duri Order was subject to reflexive cynicism, and even with the threat of torture and starvation looming just as large as his scars and bruises, he found it difficult to keep those opinions to himself. In fact, the fatalistic urge to detail aloud the contradictions in Duri doctrine had nearly overwhelmed his survival instincts more than once that morning.

Maybe I’ll call it out during the service for all villagers to hear.

He imagined the fleeting seconds of bewilderment among his superiors, and for a moment, the fantasy seemed worth the shameful public execution that would inevitably follow. At least if he died, he wouldn’t be forced to make the choice that kept him tossing and turning each night.

It is not a difficult choice, the river girl assured him.

His gut told him she was right. Yet even on the heels of the order’s brutal punishment, his soul was torn between its purported destiny as a Called warrior and the identity he’d left beside his parents’ unmarked graves on Dublokee. At times, he thought he must escape his de facto imprisonment even if he failed in the attempt, but then he would wonder if God was merely testing his faith through misery. There was joy and godliness in suffering, the Duri said, and so by torturing Nuri both physically and spiritually, perhaps Omega was merely purifying him with greater intensity than his superiors.

At times, the idea of a special, targeted suffering gave him pause. Enough, at least, that he dared not venture too far along the path of doubt for fear of retribution. He may not have always believed in the Duri but he believed wholeheartedly in the Divine Infinite and had no desire to incite His righteous wrath, especially through willful negligence of a sacred duty.

The trouble was, unlike many among the Called, Nuri didn’t know what sort of path Omega had laid for him beyond the Calling, and if he dwelled on it long enough, he was prone to interpret any pull one way or the other as the Evil One’s deceit and thereby debate himself into apathy. Since the first seeds of doubt had arrived, he’d convinced himself any decision in which a choice appealed to him was a trap set by the Watchmen, and so even acts of charity made him suspicious of his own motives.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.