The God Reborn

Chapter 5

Naomi had spent a fitful day in her cell watching the rain through the barred window. She was terrified not only by how she had been coldly spurned by the community she had lived in her entire life, but also by the violence she had seen her father commit. Every time she began to relax, her mind replayed the geyser of blood spurting into the air, and she would sit up in her cell, squinting in the darkness at her ragged garments to see if they were covered in gore.

She heard her father's voice behind her, finally. "Naomi, my love, are you well?"

She spun around. "Where have you been?"

He couldn't meet her eye. "I spent the morning with Achish, begging him to let you free. But the reborn god did not grant me the power to change his will."

"How can the god repay your loyalty by allowing Achish's ruling to stand? How can he allow me, the guiltless, to suffer? Is there no end to the price he demands of his faithful, no end to his thirst for their blood?"

Her father thrust a hemp sack towards her. "I have brought you fresh clothes and the thickest blanket I could find." As she took it from him with her bound hands, he tried to embrace her through the cell bars, but she stepped away.

Niaomi thought back to last night, in the farmhouse with her father before the trial, and how she had shied away from his embrace then as well. If only she could undo what had happened. No father, please! she had cried as she dodged his open arms. This cannot be what the god wants of us.

"If only mother hadn't fallen down that shaft five years ago! If she hadn't died, if we hadn't found your damned reborn god—"

Her father looked aghast. "Naomi, that is blasphemy. We must do what the reborn god askes of us, no matter the cost."

Now it was Naomi's turn to look away. Her father continued. "I have just spoken with your mother. She wishes you well, and promises to look over you."

"Mother is dead!" she screamed. "And soon I will be, too!"

"Naomi, listen to me—"

"No I won't listen to you and your stupid delusions anymore. Look at me, father! I'm wearing threadbare clothing and thin straw sandals. I'm dressed for life on a farm, not for journeying through the wilds with a band of warriors. They all wear leather and furs for warmth and have proper boots."

Her father had tried to calm her. "Last time you travelled with me, you wore clothes much the same as you wear now."

"The last time I travelled with you, we went to the Marble City. That was when mother died!" She remembered the city vaguely: proud statues and great temples made of stone, the impossibly tall obelisk of white marble, the great five-sided hall that lay across the river from it.

"The reborn god will protect you. He has told me."

She shook her head. "How can you be so sure? No one else has spoken with your god. No one else... "

"Yes, no one else believes," he grimaced. "But that does not mean it is not true."

The guard rose and gestured for her father to leave. Naomi refused to take her father's hand through the bars. Instead she asked "Why doesn't the god just rise and defeat the acolytes himself instead of asking us to do it for him?"

As her father slowly stepped away from the cell bars he said "I'm sorry, Naomi, the reborn god cannot intervene directly, he can only give us guidance. We must be wise enough to listen to his guidance, and also strong enough to fight our own battles. The god will guide us, and we must follow, no matter the cost."