Fiction #3 - Lord Reverend Wilhelm Kelvin

Wilhelm spent the first 12 years of his life in an orphanage. He had started having visions very early in life, and he had heard the monks murmur that his parents probably abandoned him because they thought he was possessed by evil spirits.

When he turned 12, a wandering ascetic Monk, Brother Barton Kelvin came to the orphanage. Recognizing young Wilhelm's potential, Brother Kelvin took the boy on as an apprentice. Using the boy's visions Brother Barton was able to travel to the places in the Kingdom where he was needed most. Wherever there was sickness, war, or famine, Brother Kelvin and Wilhelm were there to lend their assistance, even if it was often just to bury the dead.

When Wilhelm was 15 years old, he first foresaw the rise of a power that would change the face of Camlyn. So it was that he was one of the first to come into the camps of Cyrus Avallon.

The moment Wilhelm first saw the man who would become High King was forever etched in his mind. Then in the prime of his life, the smith Avallon was tall and strong. The Kingsword at his side seemed to glow with its own inner light, and to the young prophet, it was as if he was seeing the very Will of God in a tangible form. Overcome by the moment, the boy fell on his knees and swore allegiance immediately.

Wilhelm was at Cyrus's side from that day forward, always guiding him with the visions he received from on high. Together, they were the Voice and the Hand of the Creator on earth, and together, they forged a kingdom.

* * * * * * * * * *

High King Cyrus Avallon the First looked over the bloody battlefield that had finally cemented his total victory. As he had long dreamed, Camlyn was now a single united kingdom. He looked down wearily at the brown blood flaked on his sword and caked in his beard.

"Was it worth it, Reverend Kelvin. Was it really worth all of this blood and death? I made the sword, but I never thought that I would be called upon to use it. I was nothing more than a smith."

The short, (some might call 'dumpy') middle-aged clergymen paused to consider his answer. Standing in robes that were once white, but were now stained red with the blood of the fallen, Wilhelm looked beyond the field of the dead and dying to the beautiful contrast of the setting sun.

"It is the Creator's Will, my King. The Creator's Will is worth any price. We have attained peace. Our children will know prosperity of a kind our fathers only dreamed of. It is because you do not lust after the power that you now hold that you are worthy of it."

"I envy your ability to see things so clearly in black and white, my friend. Sometimes, I am not so sure. You are right about one thing for certain: it does my heart good to know that I can get back to building things instead of destroying them."

* * * * * * * * * *

Nearly twenty years passed and it seemed that the now Lorded Reverend Wilhelm Kelvin seldom got to have such conversations with his king as he would have liked. King Avallon did indeed know peace the rest of his days and he did spend those days building. He constructed the greatest city the world had ever known and in it he constructed a vast temple to the Creator that had made him King. King Cyrus built roads, aqueducts, and schools, but to the woe of the kingdom, he did not have children to inherit what he had built and now the great King was dead with no heir.

To Lord Reverend Kelvin, the prophet who had guided the great King on his journey, none of these things were a surprise. Reverend Wilhelm had seen from the beginning that King Cyrus was merely a tool in the hands of the Creator, like the weapon God had helped Cyrus forge. Avallon was a tool to unite the land so that the Creator's true, intended ruler could step in and guide His flock. Why else, had the King never been blessed with an heir?
Now was the time of God's church and Lord Reverend Wilhelm Kelvin was poised to step into the chaos and bring peace and healing. It would not take the people long to realize that the squabbling nobles that had turned upon one another almost before the king's body had turned cold, did not have the best interests of the citizens in mind. There would be pain and suffering. Wilhelm had almost asked that the future he had been shown could be changed when he had foreseen the suffering that would ensue; but just as he had told the king so long ago...

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"It is the Creator's Will. The Creator's Will is worth any price. The people will turn to the church when they see the suffering that is in store for them at the hands of these other 'sovereigns' who care nothing for the Will of God and seek only to further their own selfish gain. They will cry out to the church and they will join together in crowning a new king; a new king that serves the Will of God. I will be the hand of the Creator among men. I will be the next High King of Camlyn."

"As you say, Lord Reverend."

Wilhelm gave a start at the response. He had not realized that he was speaking aloud, but it was often like that when he experienced a vision.

"It is not I that say it, Brother Cooper. I am but the mouthpiece of the Creator. I must say, I was wrong about one thing, back then, with Cyrus. The sword was never intended for him."

With that, the Reverend withdrew the item that had, until then, been concealed within a wrapping. Glittering in his hands was none other than the Kingsword. "Of course, I do not need such a tool to authenticate the Will of God, but this will go far to ensure the masses who have come to see it as a symbol of Divine Appointment. It will surely smooth the process and hopefully ease some of the suffering I have foreseen."