From Night On: Magdalene

Chapters 13-14

"That's rather cynical," Mathew laughed, "not Sokratic."

"I was thinking more of Platonic," Thomas explained. "Think of Plato's allegory of the cave of shadows and his experience of losing his teacher, Sokrates."

"Yes," Mathew nodded in the gravity and then looked seriously towards Meira, "that is most definitely a cautionary tale we should consider before speaking truths people may not be willing to hear."

"I don't understand," Meira said in frustration, "why the truth is such a dangerous thing to speak."

"Think about it," Thomas squatted back down to fiddle with the dirt while he talked. "If your power comes from a lie, like the slave owner who believes a slave is lesser than he is, the truth threatens to strip you of that power."

"Like your fight in Dimasq over the equality of women and slaves," Mathew pointed out. "If you gave women equal power and responsibility to men, men would lose the power over them that they currently hold, which is why you were resisted."

Looking back over the conflicts, Meira was only more confused by the mystic's telling. In Dimasq and along their journey, she didn't make any attempt to convert anyone to her religion. Her battles had been strictly for equality. "My head is spinning now," she confessed. "Was the mystic telling me that I SHOULD preach even though it will lead to irreversible effects?"

"Well," Mathew smiled, "you did manage to convert a whole crew over a week with your miracles and kindness. Maybe," he rubbed the back of his neck, "it's not something that you need to do more or less of?"

"That is unknowable," Thomas grunted, "and not worth the strain of reason. We should focus on what these old gods want and why they're willing to turn entire cities against you."

"Well, that's easy," Meira shook her head like it wasn't even a question. "Like you said, and it makes sense, if others stop believing in them, stop praying to them and making sacrifices to them, they lose their power, their influence over the people."

"Then why not just smite you where you stand?" Thomas asked, rubbing his temples. "Why would they risk failure with spells and people? Why not just end it quickly?"

After a moment of quiet contemplation between them, Mathew broke the silence with an epiphany. "We're missing someone important during this conversation," he said.

"Who?" Meira and Thomas both asked him.

"Our strange little friend," Mathew answered. "Quaden seems to have a lot more answers we may never consider."

"That's right," Meira's memory was jogged. "He spoke of the war between the gods and the titans like the entire story was different than what you know," she explained to Thomas.

"What did he say?" he asked, quite curious to learn the differences.

"That the gods didn't lock the titans away," Mathew recounted, on the verge of accepting Quaden's brief, but potent, revelation. "It was the reverse: the oceanid Pleione and the titan Atlas somehow locked away the gods with the help of his gods to end their tyrannies over man."

Thomas, in his quick intellect, thought about it for only a second before tilting his head to the side in confusion. "That doesn't make any sense," he said. "If the gods were locked away, how could they have been there in Dimasq or Mari?"

"Could that answer your question," Meira added, "as why they seem so limited in their abilities? Maybe they couldn't simply 'smite' me because there is some truth to Quaden's story."

"That would make sense," Thomas nodded, "but there's still no evidence to suggest that and how could we possibly find it? We are not gods, nor were we present during the battle between the Olympians and the Titans, so how could he possibly know one truth from the other?"