S3E3: The Temple of the Foreign Prophet

Sapphire and John enter Oi, and the prophet takes Sapphire to a temple built for foreign gods and foreign prophets.

CAST
Timmy Vilgiate: John
Sophia Doss: Sapphire
C.j. Hackett: Oi'te'lotep
CROWD
Natalie Ruths, Elannia Lake, Joshua Leano, Daniel Rojas, Cindy Verzwyvelt, Christina Vilgiate, Marissa Burdette, Anthony Carlson, Priscilla Yip, Collin Estes, Erin Caitlinn, and Anthony Vilgiate.
MUSIC
Performed by Timmy Vilgiate on prepared mandolin, mandola, guitar, and analog synthesizer.
SOUND EFFECTS
From freesound.org:  "Italian village no traffic" by squidge316, "Highflow River" by Cagan Celik, "G52-05 Ox Cart" by craigsmith, "Crowd Drums" by dobroide,  "Dolen village July morning..." by mihal40, "street-market-2" by stevious, "chinese flute hulusi" by iluppai, "crowd yay applause 25 people" by Jesse Pash, and "crowd cheer" by Adam n.

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We reached the city with a tail of men, women and children following us close behind, eagerly reciting and clinging to the words of Sapphire, the foreign prophet. The local prophet walked in front of us, his head held slightly low, his lips pursed together, his face set in a weak grimace. His visibly tense expression eased into a hesitant relief as we grew nearer to the city—the city proper—the city of peace, light, and goodwill—and escaped the desperate, discontent buildings of the outer settlement. All activity stopped as soon as his feet touched the sandstone streets, streets that all the unclean masses filling up the alleys and rooftops around us knew they could not walk down. In a chain of fluttering noises, the conversations of men and women, the playing of pipers and drummers, the selling of wares, were all quelled by a shockwaves of whispers that resonated on down the street and through the alleyways. “The prophet has returned.”, echoing on down the pavement over and over, drawing attention to where we were until the whole city started to file into the street, dragging our cart again to a crawl. Behind us extended a crowd of workers from the city’s edge clothed in rough cloth and tree bark; in front of us stretched on a mass of people clothed in elegant yarns. Our cart occupied the frontier of this boundary.

Noting the jewels above the open doors, the lines cut into the clean, gleaming sidewalks, the poor nervously inched back, trying to stay off of the sidewalks, away from the houses, from the temples.
P: “Good people of Oi, this city at the heart of the world, the place where the gods walk among men. For seven days have I rested in the dwelling place of Amatep’oi, drinking only the blood of his kill, waiting for that great and powerful hunter to tell me the meaning of the vision he sent to me. The vision was a warning, which you all must heed. (Pause, anxious murmurs from the crowd) Already there have been cows fallen sick, as you very well know. And the custom prescribed to us by Shedali’Oi the Shepherd says that we must cordon off the sick cows, and slaughter them cows if they are not better after a fortnight. Indeed this custom must not change, but, I Amatep warns you, the cows must be burnt, not eaten, and must not be taken for leather, or the city will fall to a great plague. This is the will of Amatep. Anyone who violates his decree shall be chased into the wilderness by our cities greatest hunters and slain, their body burnt and cast into the doldrums, for they will have violated no law of man, but the law of Amatep, god of the hunt, and he will demand revenge.”.
J: Moans and whispers of dissatisfaction blended with mystified hums or acquiescent groans. No beef blood for the rituals, no cow hearts for the harvest festival, no leather to make fresh garments for the next Spirit’s Night. The price of leather, knew the merchants, would rise; the fishermen wondered if they could catch enough fish to satiate the hunger of the people. A trio of hunters, in jest, began to make jokes about what fun it would be to exact the punishment proscribed; an elderly priest in the temple of Shedali’oi nodded with satisfaction in hearing his god receiving some exposure; a drummer and a flautist took advantage of the momentary distraction to copulate in a temple dedicated to the Nyra, God of Death. Having given them time to process the edict, the prophet raised one hand into the air
Prophet: “Quiet! Listen to me, for there is more that I must tell you! On my return from the home of Amatep, I encountered a great and powerful foreign prophet, just as the one I foretold to you. Her name is Sapphire’oi, prophet of the Kingdom of 2017 Idols, a faraway kingdom. Wandering deeper into the Doldrums than any man has ever gone, Sapphire killed a ghost bird and stripped its bones of meat when it attacked her manservant John. The spirits have sent Sapphire as a blessing to the city—she is the foreign prophet, of whom so many have spoken, of which so many hymns and songs have been sung. She comes bearing a message of peace and love. Peace, in that men must know order and not backslide into quarrelling; love, in that men must show the gentleness of a father to all of lower station.”
S: “Well, uh, actually, what I meant was—”
P: “As the prophecy has demanded, Sapphire must be delivered to the temple which has been prepared for her, the temple of the foreign prophet. And so, on this auspicious occasion, I declare, in accordance with Amatep the Red, Nyra the Black, and Shedali the White, together with all the spirits of this city, that henceforth, this day, the twelvth day of the time of low waters, shall be known as the Day of the Foreign Prophet. All workers today must rest, save the shepherds in the fields, the streets shall fill with song and dance, our mouths should feast on the bounty of this city, and we shall bear Sapphire to her temple in a grand parade, that she may join the ranks of our city’s gods!”
J: The crowd burst into an uproar, as the piper and the drummer slid from the temple of death with disheveled hair and clothing lead the crowd in a song—the street erupted with dancing, and our cart slowly started to move like a boat down the crowded street (Lines assigned at random to members of the ensemble) “Foreign prophet, be welcome.”, said some of the people as we passed by, others, “May your manservant be well”, and a few, “I pray your temple will be to your liking, foreign prophet.” Sapphire began to tune them out, and turned to me to engage in a silent, telepathic conversation.
S: This is kinda uh…far out man. Where the fuck are we? Is this for real, or are we tripping?”
J: It was difficult to put to words. All of it felt real, but not tangible--the lingering traces of minds, real minds, stitched together every piece of the landscape--I could sense it, but couldn’t formulate a way to explain it. “We’re not tripping. But... I…I can’t say for sure. This place seems familiar…. Same with the people. And I know Ryan’s dead, but I can sense him here, somewhere, hanging in between the buildings, lurking in their minds, in our minds…it’s not just him though. It’s...it’s other people. Lot’s of them.”
S: “You don’t think I’m gonna get sacrificed or something?”
J: “No, no, from what I can tell,  Nyra the Black told them to stop doing human sacrifices a long time ago. Plus, I mean, you’re a ghost.”
S: “This sounds crazy but the prophet guy seems familiar to me. Like…I swear to God I’ve seen him before, but I can’t remember where.”
J: “In the lab?”
S: “Maybe.”

J: Our conversation was cut short when we reached the temple of the foreign prophet, a tall clay dome with a rounded chimney stretching high up into the sky. Over its entryway hung a semicircle of white and red gems. The crowd around us cheered, but knew that they could not enter—only the prophet could do so. He dismounted his cart and led us inside. The crowd’s voices faded to a dull roar from within the warm clay vessel—there were no windows, only a tall chimney. The air inside felt heavy, and smelled of mildew. Along the wall, there were carvings of foreign idols, idols made of wood, or stone, or thatch, or glass, each placed upon short wooden tables. Small golden bowls filled with a cow’s blood rested in front of each one. The prophet walked around them in a circle, his head hanging low.
P: A foreign prophet.
J: He pulled an herb from a bag on his waist, a dried up plant that once had bushed leaves and yellow flowers. Pinching it between his fingers, he made another circle about the room, crushing the herb over the heads of the idols, and then coming to Sapphire, to adorn her head with the herb. It smelt sweet—sickly sweet.
P: “The Juva flower. The flower of gratitude. Hospitality. I have longed for a foreign prophet to whom I could extend it, and here you are. Of course, you don’t think of yourself as a foreign prophet, do you? No. I’m probably a foreign prophet to you, aren’t I? (Chuckles) Maybe it’s all very suprising to you to find out that I exist. Once I thought I was the only prophet, and this was the only city. But one day, you see, when sitting by the river to talk with it’s spirits. I watched an idol—this one right here, with the hooked eyes—float past me in the water, an idol that I did not recognize. My heart lept in horror. I snatched it up. The idol, inscribed with alien markings, hewn of alien wood, must have come from another city. A foreign city.

With trepidation, I then realized there must be other prophets in these foreign cities, other priests building idols and dedicating houses to them, and endowing them with spirits--giving the spirits names so that the foreign prophets would know their names. I realized that these idols would from time to time drift down the river. Can you imagine my anxiety? What would happen when the next idol floated into town? What if it were not captured by another prophet and instead ended up in the hands of a thoughtless child, who might deliver it to his conniving mother, or his reckless brother, or, worst, a greedy king. Then, the people would all find out at once, all of them learn of the existence of the other prophets,with their foreign gods, inscriptions, and prophecies.

It was not so much a matter of pride, like you might think, but I worried that should the spirits I knew--spirits which, I felt certain, were the same as the foreign spirits only under different names-- should those spirits warn me of coming danger and impose on us a new law, the people would say to themselves ‘Certainly our prophet says one thing...but perhaps another prophet might have another point of view...’ And the people would refuse the will of the spirits. Worse still, as I pondered the existence of foreign prophets, I considered that some might be more malevolent than I, more willing to flatter kings or appease the whims of the people with hollow, unmeasured words. With all these thoughts I hunched there by the river and in white knuckled hands I clutched the invading idol; I squinted with unease at it’s face--a face carved into the likeness of a foreign animal, and I studied its hand, which clutched the branch of a foreign tree. It leered back at me with its pyramid eyes, and outstretched wings. A sinister creation.

Or perhaps this was a blessing. After all, the foreign prophet who serves this idol will one day arrive in my city, I realized. Before he could get to me, I decided to name this idol God of the Foreign Prophet. From time to time, I could relish the people with stories of this god’s character, its powers, it’s foreignness. I proscribed a small temple for him, and all the other foreign gods who washed up on the river bank, complete with rituals and rites to follow. That way, I knew that when that foreigner catches sight of me in his alien eyes, carrying in his alien hands his foreign prophecies, my people will have already met him. They will welcome him in with open arms and known him, for they’ve already seen him through the door of the temple: the foreign prophet. The people would have heard me, a prophet that they trust, introduce his idol to them, and they would have seen me place him here in this temple. They would already know what to think, how to behave, the rituals and celebrations that must be performed for the foreign prophet—he would already have a place at our table, though never at the head—the foreign prophet would never be my equal, for I had made him, named and drawn him before their eyes could see him crawling from the Horizon into the city.

They might welcome that foreign prophet; they might feel touched by her appealing yet impossible words. But if the foreign prophet steps out of line, perhaps the local spirits may tell me of her unfitness. They will tell me the idols of the foreign prophet no longer deserves welcome, that they deserve a quick dragging from the town square back into the river where they came from, and then there will be no more foreign prophet in this city. “Death to the foreigner! Death to the foreigner”, they will shout, once they realize it is the righteous thing to do. But hopefully, the foreign prophet would not take advantage of my hospitality, whenever they did arrive.

A pliable, malleable foreign idol this was, set adrift on the river from another city. A gracious and excellent idol it was for letting me pluck it out of the river, permitting me to make the prophet it foreshadowed into a useful god before he or she or it could make any trouble. Like a man anticipating a great flood, I cast a levybreak against his entry to harness his inevitable flood through the valley, reducing his advance to a slow and steady trickle, setting it at order, and using its force to do the work of a thousand oxen to keep the wheels of the city moving, to water the fields, and most importantly, to allow me to serve my people. As I am sure you feel in your Kingdom, my people are my god. I am their arms reaching out to heaven begging for rain, I am their hands that scour the floor of the forest, finding plants to cure their ills, their mouth prescribing burns of diseased bodies, their stomach, digesting the mystery of a splintered world. My people are my god, and my god cannot think that I’m replaceable.”
Sapphire: The prophet guy got super close to us and I could smell that he didn’t really brush his teeth that well. Or ever. I could see bloodstains from the rituals on his teeth, I could see a menacing and crazed look in his eye. He smiled and backed away, to look at another one of the foreign idols, this one in the shape of a huge wooden bird--he took a drop of blood and smeared it on the eagle’s face with his middle finger. So... that’s kind of fucked up right? What’s he even saying like, trying to scare me or something? Yeah, probably. He led me towards the door. I was still kind of like, uh…what the fuck man? But I didn’t want to incite some kind of riot or something with these people all riled up. On some level, it sounded like he almost had good intentions about the whole thing, as weird as that sounds, like he honestly knows that there’s microbes or something in the sick cattle but he can’t tell them not to eat the cattle without making up some shit about Amatep. But I felt shitty. I felt shitty cause I was being used, I was like a weird puppet without even realizing it. I started to wonder if…if I really should’ve killed that bird anyway. I heard it’s wings behind me, I heard it crying out in my mind, rising above the sound of the prophet as he lifted my right arm up over my head and shouted,
P: “Amatep’oi, Red God of the Hunt; daring God who sculpted the trees from red clay, who slayed the great dragon and from him carved the whole world. Shedali’oi, White God of the Shepherd in the Field; gentle God who led animals into the fields and hid jewels in the mountains; Nyra, Black God of the Grave; patient God who feeds the world with his broken body and cares for the ever burning flames in the sky; all you spirits of the town come out from your dwellings, for now there walks among us the Foreign Prophet, promised to us by her God, the river Ia; In the sight of most holy Oi, I bestow upon her this temple, and pray that she finds and keeps a peaceful home—I bestow upon her a godly name—Sapphire’oi, and present her to the people.”