《The Bartender at the End of the Universe》Ch 121: Heretics, Apostles, and Saints
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"Despite your silence, you're quite interesting. You know that?" Azrail said as he slowly pulled loose twigs off of a long, fairly straight branch.
The hollow king remained silent as he leaned against the crumbled wall he had fallen back against earlier.
Azrail's hands moved slowly and with purpose. Each muscle seemed intent on not wasting a drop of energy as he meticulously cleaned branches off of the thick central piece of wood.
"Back in my younger days, when I worked for the government, I met this fanatical priest." Azrail started to get into another speech as the hollow king sat there like a corpse.
"He didn't follow any specific religion, not by the time I had met up with him. No, he simply followed what he called the 'true ideals' of religion itself." Azrail monologued.
"There was actually a quite impressive list of these ideals. At the time, I couldn't care less. I was there to do my job. Morals and ideology meant nothing to me. I was but an arrow shot out of a bow. My country directed me, and I did what had to be done."
He smiled faintly, as if a fond memory of better times had drifted into the forefront of his mind.
Azrail stopped cleaning his wooden stick, and looked down at the hollow king, as if to gauge his reaction. As he saw the same expression that had been on his face since they first met, he continued his story.
"He was supposed to lead me into this militant sect of religious fanatics. They were stirring up some troublesome attitudes with their rhetoric, and so I was sent in to take care of the issue at the root."
He sighed softly and shook his head before he continued, "What a fool I was. So trusting. So blind. So adamant that my owners could do no wrong."
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He cleared his throat and wagged a finger towards his silent companion. "Now, this priest had no issue with these fanatics, but he was 'convinced' to help. Not out of the goodness of his heart I'm sure."
"Now, he never told me how they convinced him, and I never thought to ask my government. Though I'd wager it was above my pay grade." He trailed off. "They might have offered him a suspended sentence, his daughter's life, who knows? Heck, they could have offered him a bunch of land and money as far as I know."
"But!" he said with a sharp exclamation. "What I do know is that he was a very quiet guy. Kept to himself through most of our trip. There were days where he said absolutely nothing. 'No point in wasting words, especially on a blind fool,' he told me once I had particularly irritated him."
His hand started to clean off his stick again as he smiled. "And what a fool I was. But, of course, I would prod him for information now and again. It was a three-month trip up a mountain and then down into its depths to get to their leader's location after all. I enjoyed silence, but it was hard to have an entire day with not a word spoken."
"Not for him of course. I'm sure he would have been happy to have never said or heard another word for his entire life." He said with a nod.
Then, he leaned down towards the hollow king. Azrail moved in front of him, and then knelt down so they were face to face. His eyes stared into the walls of skin where the hollow king's eyes should have been.
As he continued, he slowly inched closer and closer as his eyes studied the emaciated face in front of him. "But, everyone has at least one topic they love talking about. For him it was theology, and with the heretics we were heading up against it was inevitable that I would bring it up with him."
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"Once I cracked through that dam of his, he started to talk more and more. His theories, the hypocrisy he saw everywhere, the need for divine judgement, the need for man to take that into their own hands..." He held his hands up awkwardly close to the hollow king's face as a flash of madness shone in Azrail's eyes.
But it was brief, and as soon as it flashed through his eyes, it was gone. He quickly pulled back and shrugged dismissively. "But you don't care for religion. Or really any of my ramblings, do you?"
He shook his heas as he stood back up and cracked his back. "No, but there is something. Something you're so passionate about you'll have to talk about it. And, I will find it, just like I found his. Everyone speaks to me one way or the other, and you've forced me to avoid my easiest way to actually, truly hear you my friend."
"But we'll fix that I'm sure," he added quietly.
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