The Heresy of Believers

“A god is a grand scapegoat, and a grand scapegoat can create a grand bloodshed. The question arises not from who is right, but who slays the holy scapegoat?”

—The Heresy of Leothen Ardenbough against the God Reborn Syvren.

The warmth of the holy pyre blazed around Leothen. He had been declared as a heretic, and sentenced to death for his heresy against the God Reborn Syvren. It blazed evermore around him, and there was a certain inevitable emotion that he held inside of him.

Injustice.

But how could he care? Leothen was most certainly dead. The only other emotion was the roaring and primal fear of death. He had never feared death before, but now, as all did, it was inevitable. He could scream all he wanted, it was simply lost amongst the fire.

To be a god was to be a scapegoat. It was such an obvious fact except to fanatical followers of the God Reborn Syvren. There was no denying that he was a god, but there was also no denying of the bloodshed that he caused.

Holy war. That is what Syvren did not quell. That is what Syvren could not quell. That is what fanatics believed so strongly in! Holy war had two sides for a fanatic: pious and blasphemous. For Leothen, the holy war was the worst kind of war. Military war was due to nations, and those nations could go to extreme lengths, but holy war was the true slaughterhouse.

Morals were lost in a holy war. One side could remorselessly slaughter the other, and still believe themselves righteous.

To be a god was to be a scapegoat.

When the scapegoat was inexorably sacrificed (as all scapegoats were), it always triggered the great holy slaughter. Brutalities like no other were experienced.

As I am experiencing!

The flame of the pyre slowly climbed up his body as it did the stake. Chants of Syvren’s name echoed around Leothen. The priests stood by, clad in their sacred robes and consecrated amulets. Those few moments of observation were the last moments of his bodily functions and thoughts he controlled.

As he died, he felt a blazing ecstasy of satisfaction run through every single nerve of his body. He laughed his final laugh, before slowly succumbing to the ice-cold realm of death.

In time, they will realize their own heresies.