Metropolitan
The room in which Guzokh had been staying for the last month was not cramped, even though there was almost no space. It was more than modestly furnished: an oak bed, an oak table and chair, and only one chair. There were a few kerosene candlesticks and a large panel with a picture of the Black Stone on the entire wall.
Guzokh remembered the times he had spent in his cell when he was still a novice in the seminary. He had been studying the ancient rules of the Zhakh and the Silan-Zhakh code, which was still in its infancy and which was destined for a great future.
All the priests had great expectations of how their lives would change when Silan-Zhakh was introduced universally. It would mean the consolidation of the Church's role in all areas of plague life. Then the Holy Inquisition would be able to hold weeks of penance unannounced and more than once a year in the same place, and the guilty could be mercilessly destroyed. In addition, the priest-patriarch and priest-metropolitans will not be able to refuse to visit any place in the plague empire, and no service will be able to prevent an inquest made personally by any of them. Only 7 plagues will be able to wield such power, but still it is a sure step towards fixing the supremacy of the Church. And then we can breathe a sigh of relief that we have finally nipped heresy in the bud. Before it spreads to us all.
Guzokh remembered his prayers then, and piously believed that if he was ever honored to become a Metropolitan Priest, he would certainly not miss a single heretic, and would uphold with dignity the sacred foundations of the Zhakh faith, the belief in the omnipotence of the Black Stone.
Neuroch, now a priest-patriarch, had been a year older than he was, and was characterized by two complementary traits: a tendency to persuade with emotion, and an ability to hold the strings of leadership in his hands. In Guzokh's opinion, however, he did not fully understand the foundations of the faith, but he knew the Code of Silan-Jah, with its new administrative rules and regulations, by heart.
It did not seem strange at the time. Indeed, the Black Stone gave some people the ability to understand the faith and interpret it with reason, others to convince them of its correctness, and others to put it down on paper. The Black Stone gave some of them the ability to understand the faith and interpret it with reason, others to convince them of its correctness, and others to put it on paper.
In time, they even began to rise together in their careers, and Guzokh was even the first to become a metropolitan, and then he helped Nevrokh in this. It seemed very important to him that someone could persuade when real arguments didn't work, when someone simply didn't want to listen to you… Neurokh always had to listen. It always turned out that any conversation, even knowingly useless, turned into a passionate dispute, where Nevroh brought the situation to the boiling point several times and, thus exhausting the opponent, tilted everything in his favor. It was very useful and effective.
