And I thought I had encountered it, when I was captured by Inviernos and nearly tortured by an animagus. But maybe not. Maybe the worst is yet to come.
“This here,” he says, pounding the vellum with a forefinger, “is the Blasphemy of Lucero.”
I gasp. “Lucero is my name.”
He nods. “This document was presented for canonization as official scripture almost a century ago, but it was rejected by a council of priests.”
“Not just rejected,” Father Alentín cuts in. “It was banned.”
“Wait. A century? That means . . .”
“He was your predecessor,” Alentín confirms.
Lucero. The bearer before me. Though he lived a hundred years ago, I suddenly feel closer to him than anyone. My voice is shaky as I ask, “So why was this document banned?”
Ximena says, “The structure is atrocious, for one. It was penned by an uneducated hand; the original is rife with spelling and grammar errors. The council believed God would never allow his holy words to be anything less than pristine.”
I stare down at the vellum. The script is faded with age, but the lines are even and precise, perfectly scribed. “So this is a copy.”
Nicandro nods, “Of a copy of a copy, no doubt. The original is lost to us forever. No one felt it important to preserve it.”
“And now you think the priests were wrong? Maybe it isn’t blasphemy, but actual scripture?”
“No,” Ximena says, even as Alentín says, “Definitely.”
They exchange a friendly glare. Then Ximena sighs and says, “Adding to the cannon is no light matter. It could alter centuries of traditions. Of beliefs. I would have to be absolutely certain before I accepted it as God’s own words.”
Alentín says, “But you concede the possibility. We have compelling evidence.”
“I concede the possibility.”
“Aha!” he says, as if he’s won a great victory, and then I’m shocked when Ximena rolls her eyes at him. I’ve never seen her resort to such impropriety.
“Tell me, then,” I say. “Why you think it ought to be considered scripture? What does it say?”
Nicandro clears his throat. “Master Lucero was a poor village boy. He could neither read nor write. According to the introduction, he dictated his vision to a friend, who scribed it hastily on a sheep’s hide. The friend, as it turned out, was also not very good at reading and writing. The manuscript, if you can call it that, was delivered to the nearest monastery, but the story was never verified. The boy disappeared. The monastery searched for him for years, to no avail.”
“So the priests declared it blasphemy.” I can see why. They would think it odd that God would speak through someone so poor and backward as to be totally illiterate. But I warm to the idea. It’s nice to consider that God may not count imperfection as an obstacle to working out his will in the world.
“Seems a little convenient that he would disappear,” Ximena grumbles. “Not available to answer questions or have his Godstone verified by the monastery.”
Alentín leans forward, eyes bright. “But it’s not unusual for a bearer to disappear. Three hundred years ago, for example. Another boy evaporated right out of the Monastery-at-Altapalma, his service undone. No one knows what happened.”
I imagine that they fled—from expectations, from terror, from the constant barrage of others deciding the best way to accomplish God’s will. Or maybe they died young, suddenly and unexpectedly, as most bearers seem to do. It’s something I came to terms with when I lived in the desert—that I would likely die young in service to God.
I say, “Why do you think we should take the boy’s message seriously?”
“Lucero knew things,” Nicandro says. “Things an illiterate boy from a remote village could never know. I won’t go into detail, but it was enough to give me pause. Enough to keep me reading eagerly. And then I reached this right here.” He scrolls down with his finger until he finds the pertinent passage. “Go ahead, Your Majesty. Read it.”
I lean forward, tingling with anticipation, with the possibility of discovery. “‘The gate that leads to life is narrow and small so that few find it.’” I look up, puzzled. “Nothing new here. It says the same in the Scriptura Sancta.”
“Keep reading,” Ximena says.
“‘The champion alone shall traverse it and find the zafira, for this wellspring of his power shall beckon him. And all the power of this world shall come into him and he shall have life eternal in accordance with God’s will. None shall stand against him, and his enemies shall crumble, verily a thousand shall fall before his might.’”