• Maharet Cameo's Gallery
  • View Profile
  • Send Private Message
  • Artist Info: "It has been.... a while, Dien Zephyrus. I am pleased you could visit." A priestess wearing a black, heavy robe, the cowl over her head, pulled open the worker's door to the church, a cleverly hidden door that was concealed along the south basalt wall. I walked right in, letting the holy woman slide the door shut again. Her heavy desert accent was still present, and I shuddered at how much her whisper reminded me of the sound of fine gypsum sand gliding across bone. The priestess lit a glow-orb, and pulled the hood of her habit from her head, letting her waist-length white hair flow free. Strangely enough, Maharet Cameo was only perhaps five years older than I, but her aura gave off an impression of timeless wisdom. Her deeply tanned desert skin had remained even through her years in the north, not fading from being hidden under black cloth and black walls. Priestesses were never allowed to walk the streets. "You do not come just to see me. What news do you have?" Maharet asked, walking sedately down the aisle to the main altar. She turned to face me, her black eyes drinking in the light of the orb she held as if it were a fine wine that had just peaked. <br />
    "I am trying to help others find their way out of the dark."<br />
    "How can you lead others out if you will not leave the darkness yourself? Will you only tell them where to go before letting them fend for themselves as you hide in the shadows, shrinking from the light because you have lived for so long in the dark?" Maharet blew out her orb, letting the church blacken until I could not see even her moon-colored hair. <br />
    My hip bumped against a pew, and I tripped, but didn't fall. Although Maharet was a very close friend of mine, she still spooked me. Her years of being the oracle of the most powerful of gods of the D'ram had probably done something to her sanity. And that fact about her being a berserker in the South Desert before journeying to the north didn't help my confidence that she was not about to rip open my throat if she was ever so inclined. She may be a size "stick" habit, but she had muscles the size of a blacksmith's. They were hidden by the full sleeves of the priestess's uniform, but I could definitely tell she was at least as strong as most men after I saw her lift the side of the altar so she could sweep under the immense platform of silver and gold. All right, I'll say it. She plain out right scared me. <br />
    "I help them expel the evil in their lives." I muttered, glancing about the aisle. I wish my imagination was not so vivid- every time I turned my head, I saw shapes I knew were not there. I would hate it if I went blind. I couldn't stand the constant darkness.<br />
    I heard Maharet's voice from the other side of the church. How she could see so well in the dark I did not know. From what I recalled from the last time I was in the church when there was light, and I could see, the side of the church I believed Maharet to be in at the moment was filled with prayer stools, candles, and incense burners. Yet I hadn't heard any evidence of objects being disturbed. <br />
    "The ultimate evil is that Time is perpetual perishing, and being actual involves elimination. The nature of evil may be epitomized therefore, in two simple but horrible and holy propositions: 'Things fade' and 'Alternating exclude'. Such is His mystery; that beauty requires contrast, and that discord is fundamental to the creation of new intensities of feeling. Ultimate wisdom, I have come to perceive, lies in the perception that the solemnity and grandeur of the universe rise through the slow process of unification in which the diversities of existence are utilized, and nothing, nothing is lost."<br />
    With that, the lights came on, and I saw that Maharet was standing inches from my face. I could swear that my eyes swelled to the size of dinner plates, and I heard myself gasp in fright and surprise. "You're going to give me a heart attack one day."<br />
    "I won't. Sooner or later, most likely later, you will get used to me."
  • Avg. rating: