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k_a_webb“Father comes over at least once a year,” Sini said, sounding surprised. “I’d rather he didn’t, and I’ve told him that, but I think he thinks that if he spends enough time with me I’ll eventually decide to move to Mothar. He doesn’t seem to realise that I’m happy here, because he seems to believe that I’ll only be happy when I’m living with my true family.” She shook her head. “All I can hope if that he’ll eventually come to the conclusion that I’m not worth his time any longer.”
“That’s never going to happen,” Sal replied. “You’re half quetzel and that makes you special, but having queztel magic… you’re something he’ll always want, because of the position he’s in.”
Sini looked at him. “How do you know that?”
“Studying intensely for months at a time.” Sal shrugged. “You see your father for a week or two every year, which can’t add up to as much time as I spent learning everything I could about Mothar. I probably know as much about the religion as a quetzel priest, but I know about a number of different religions, because my teacher wanted me to know everything. Some missionaries wouldn’t do the same thing, so I know that I was lucky.”
“How many religions are there in Mothar?” Lucille asked.
“That’s a question I can’t answer, Lucille, although I personally studied eight.” Sal smiled at the Moonjumper. “There’s one thing you have to understand about Motharan religion – it’s not static. Some want it to be, so they do their best to make it that way, while others appreciate the way things can change. You’ll find that a lot of converts help to make the changes, in part due to what they might have learnt from travelling the worlds or from a Moonjumper travelling to Quiar, and what I learnt from the llama was that there are those who are scared of the converts, but they want them at the same time.” He shook his head. “Religion isn’t logical, because it’s all about belief.”
Lucille nodded. “I’ve seen enough religions to know how illogical they can be.” She smiled back at Sal. “Tell me more about the religions you studied.”
“I can do that.” Sal moved slightly, into a more comfortable position, and felt grateful all over again that he’d put the work in, even though he didn’t end up going to Mothar. “The main religion involves the worship of the fae. It’s not one specific fae, because they view each of the known fae as someone they can petition to for guidance on certain matters, and I don’t think they have any connection to something that they actually did. As far as I know the Motharans picked out names from a book that received to decide which fae was which.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t there, so I dont know for certain, but that seems to be the story that was passed down from generation to generation.
“The second best known religion is that of the Cult of Emrys.” Meriwether laughed, but the didn’t stop Sal from continuing, because he knew why Meriwether was amused. “None of the other fae are worshipped, not ever the race creators, and the Motharans who are a part of this religion don’t think that any other is valid.” Sal shook his head. “To be honest none of the religions accept the others as valid in any way, but the Cult of Emrys is the worst for cutting off anyone who might have valid questions about why they worship Emrys alone while others worship other fae. They have a quetzel priest who is known for trying to keep the Cult static and when someone turned up telling them he’d met Emrys they executed him.
“The third is one of Riordan’s religion. It doesn’t have a specific name and it’s one of the stranger religions that I studied, because the followers don’t have a temple or anything like that. They simply wander the country, as a group, gathering members during their journey. From the information I have I’d guess there are about eight thousand followers of the religion, which makes the logistics of travelling Mothar rather interesting, but they don’t want to put down roots, I think, because they don’t want their beloved religion to become static. Everyone from that religion avoids any territory known to belong to the Cult of Emrys.
“The fourth is another of Emrys’ religions, only it’s very different to the Cult. It’s young, in comparison to the others, and is said to be led by Emrys himself. I have no idea if that’s true or not – it could simply be someone pretending to be Emrys or just a story to make the religion seem more valid, but there are more and more followers joining each day.”
“It might well be led by an Emrys,” Meriwether said. “There are three that I know of that were in this Web, but that might have changed.”
“Three?” Sal asked.
Meriwether nodded. “One came from the Athare that has no Web. He left that world behind as soon as he realised what was happening and Mab met him during her fourth lifetime, I think. The second and third were travelling the Webs to learn what was different from the Webs they’d left behind, so one of them may well have decided to led a religion on Mothar.”
“One of the stories is that the Emrys who leads them is reborn every time he dies, so it would make a lot of sense.” Sal nodded. “It might even be an Emrys you don’t know about.”
“Exactly. The thing I realised not long into my third life is that I have no chance of knowing everything about all the worlds, so I focus on the things that are important to me. Knowing where the other reincarnated fae are isn’t all that important, really, so I only know about them if they’ve happened to cross my path. It was different for Mab.” Meriwether smiled. “She was keeping a list of every fae she came across, where they’d been and where they were planning on going, because it was something she needed to know about. Even though she stepped down as Queen she still cared about the Thirteen Families and that has continued on into her other lives.”
“The fifth largest religion is one of Mab’s actually. I was surprised to learn that there was a religion dedicated to Mab and even more surprised when I was told that there’s at least eight.” Sal sighed. “That’s when I realised that I’d never be able to learn about all of the religions of Mothar and decided to focus on the main eight. Until I met my missionary I thought there was just one religion that all Motharans followed.”
“Once, a very long time ago, there was,” Sini said. “My father told me that there are records going back to that time in the temple he and my grandfather preach at, because it was the first temple to be build on Mothar. I have no idea if what he was saying is true, but it seems possible.” She shook her head. “The only reason he told me was because he thought it would help tempt me to visit, but it didn’t, as I have a much greater interest in the Web. Mothar, even though I’m half Motharan, has never interested me.”
“Mothar had always interested me, which was why I took the time to study it.” Sal smiled. “We all have different interests and that’s why it’s so good for Lucille to learn from a number of us, so she can learn as much about our world as possible in the short time she has here.”
“When I’m finally a full Moonjumper I’ll be able to do whatever I want, but until then I have to follow the guidance of my mentor and travel to worlds for short periods of time so I can make my final decision as to which worlds will be mine. That is, of course, if the Council approve it, which they will only do if I’ve spent a certain amount of time on each of my chosen worlds and written three separate essays on each of them.” Lucille looked at Sal. “I have a feeling one of my essays will be on the religions of Mothar.”
“If it helps I still have the books my missionary gave me.”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Why do you never call her by name?” Bertram asked. “My brother did the same thing when he was learning from a Motharan missionary.”
“I was never given her name. If I’d have made the decision to travel to Mothar then she would have granted me the gift of her name, but until I made the decision I wasn’t permitted to know.” Sal shrugged. “I think it might be for the protection of the missionaries, because they feel that there’s a lot of power in a name, and I think there might be a way of using them in magic on Mothar. I don’t know though, as I wasn’t allowed to learn much about the magic. That was something else that had to wait until I was there.”
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
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Date: 2013-10-22 01:39 am (UTC)I think that should say "they received" or "that they received" above.
>> “None of the other fae are worshipped, not ever the race creators, <<
I think that should say "not even" above.
>> “The third is one of Riordan’s religion.<<
I think that should say "religions" above.
>> so one of them may well have decided to led a religion on Mothar.” <<
That should say "lead" above.
This whole post is just fascinating.