Firsts among servants (Vatican City) [Closed]

[Patricus I]

The implication of threat was not lost to Philip. The story of Sylvester as the founder of the Atharim’s subjugation beneath the watchful eyes of the church suggested dangers hidden among Atharim autonomy. That some were priests, who worked among their number indicated an infiltration, an entwinement, an arrangement that Patricus was not particularly comfortable allowing unrestricted habits. ”I require a list of those priests who work with your people. I must know the identity of those who serve both God and men. For one cannot serve two masters,” he quoted Matthew. What he would do with the information remained to be seen, but Philip would watch.

He closed his eyes while the Regus continued, but he was only half listening to the tale of histories. A dream from years’ ago returned to memory then, with lines crossing the whole of the earth, of a dragon watching from on high while the church warred among their own. He was himself the dragon, a slumbering pope who bore witness to a church that splintered itself? Was it his own destiny he dreamed? In the dream, it was himself as a young Philip who followed the lines of fate that crawled around the earth like poison leeching along the main arteries. How did the Atharim fall into this reality? Were they the poison splintering the church? They seemed to be the key to mankind’s protection, a shield for the flesh while God shielded the soul? The two vicars of man and God side by side, eating from the same table? He shuddered to think of it.

The final proclamation lifted his lids, and while a chill flushed his spine, it wasn’t one of horror as the weakness of the flesh betrayed in the basements. It was one of revelation, of truth of only the kind bestowed by God. The clench to his jaw grit his teeth, buckling the lines of his throat to harsh cords. He knew his own ascension to the Papal throne was one of unexplained circumstances. There were others far more likely to bear the ring of the Fisherman before himself was likely to be an option. Yet here Patricus I sat, a figure of extreme declaration, of fearlessness, and of frustration. It would irk him to wonder how and why the former Father Sullivan, Archbishop of Baltimore, caught the attention of the Vicar of Iscariot. He would say it didn’t matter to the outcome, even if it mattered to him, but he would not say it aloud.

”This means I will choose your successor when you die, unless the Regus intends to retire at some point. Does the Church provide your pension too?” His smirk intended to draw ire, just as his jokes intended offense. ”Assuming also that I opt to select any successor. The Church is not the great power it once was. A billion people is enormous, but the truly devoted dwindle to remnants. What entwines the Atharim with the Church beyond tradition? Why does the alliance persist?” He must know.

He sat forward in his seat, and for the first time the entire evening, the candles flickered their reflections in the wide pupils of his holy face, breeching the darkness and casting forth new light; but it wasn’t the light of Christ that shone. It was that of Philip’s own reflection. Their future was his decree. At once in history, the Atharim needed the Church and the Church needed to monitor the Atharim, but the Dark Ages were long gone. This was the modern world, or so he was reminded daily. His old ways were not so well-received in the Vatican. A young pope with an antique soul retracted the gains of more ‘inclusive allowances’ so painstakingly sought these last few decades.
”Why should we continue this accord?” They each had the power to dissolve the past in favor of a new future; one to be written right now, if so chosen.

He thought of the dragon again, lifting its slumbering red eye and peering ominously into all that was happening around it. Was the splintering he dreamed a dissection of the church and the Atharim? Or of the faithful from the world itself?

It was nearly overwhelming. The pull to prayer tugged at his heart as his nails dug into the table. He must have answers.