Only God Will Save (13)
My false priestess was an unbeliever who despised Allah.
"Please, test them if you will, O exalted one."
Maryam wanted me to test the faith of her siblings.
"Just repeat the words I taught you."
Thus, she hoped to demonstrate the instrumental potential value of herself and her group to me, reaffirm her self-determined position and role, and thereby secure more 'grace' for their little faith community—the ummah—from me.
"You are the messenger of the One who is unique and eternal, who has no saints or fathers, the Holy One with no equals in the world. Since sacred teachings always supersede the old with the new, our norms will be filled solely by the words of the exalted one."
Just as the Christian Bible contains many contradictory passages, the holy book Quran is rife with them too. The first principle for interpreting doctrine in such cases is to unconditionally assume that the later verses are correct. As a cult leader, Maryam expanded this to claim that my teachings as the messiah descended to earth—the Mahdi—take precedence over all prior ones. Even if contradictions arise with my teachings, the logic runs that any later pronouncement from me would simply be more correct, rendering it a mad rationale with no issues whatsoever.
"Your humble servant, Maryam, daughter of Batur, shall make it so."
The test was a table laden with pork.
"Eat. It is permitted to you."
With just that one command, the young and youthful Uyghurs seated around the table gazing at me began devouring the pork without a shred of hesitation or reluctance. Even though Maryam had explicitly informed them beforehand that it was pork, not a trace of disgust showed on their faces.
The only ones whose expressions had darkened even before the meal began were the unfortunate six who had yet to receive baptism from me.
Having tried it myself, I get why those imperialist bastards love pulling this shit so much.
Ruling over followers as a divine being, altering their values with a single word—it was the ultimate domination, power incarnate. Even I, who despised such antics, felt a tickle of thrill deep in my chest. For the Round Table's grand magi, embodiments of narcissism and chosen supremacy, indulging in their own deification was a natural conclusion, wasn't it?
My mentor bastard had demanded that I worship him like a god back in the orphanage days. Remembering that I was doing something similar soured my mood considerably, but at least I wasn't deliberately manufacturing fanatics, so the line separating me from the Round Table imperialists remained clearly drawn.
A line meaningful only to me, that is.
"From this day forth, nothing in this world—of things to eat and drink—is forbidden to you. While under my care, nothing that passes your lips can defile your soul. Eat freely, drink freely, but only avoid what harms your health. These are my words to you."
I recited exactly as Maryam had instructed, and everyone around the table praised my grace. Maryam translated my words into Uyghur from my side. They were all camp survivors, so they had basic standard Chinese, but a few weren't fluent.
I toured the section of the passenger ship housing Maryam's group. The cabin used as a prayer and study room bore traces of intense learning.
I pointed to the whiteboard and asked Maryam, who followed two steps behind me.
"What's written there?"
The board was lined with Uyghur script I couldn't read—similar to Arabic but with occasional distinct features.
Maryam bowed her head and replied.
"It concerns the signs that appear in a world approaching the final war when the messiah descends to earth on Judgment Day."
"Shia?"
"Yes."
"Then I should hear it too. How does it translate?"
"People no longer pray, falsehood spreads across the world, the blood of the innocent flows while the oppressed boast of their chains..."
I listened quietly, then instructed corrections to unnecessary parts.
"Omit the bits about women dressing like men, starting businesses to compete with them, and so on. Regardless of gender, you must all be able to do whatever I command."
"I'll correct it at the next study session."
"Progress coming along well?"
"It shouldn't take long. No one needed to start from basic letters anyway."
"The sooner the better. After Uyghur, learn standard Arabic and English too. It's the bare minimum preparation to be useful to me."
"Yes. We shall ensure the gracious one has no cause for disappointment."
For someone from a colony under ethnic erasure policies, Maryam was exceptionally well-educated. Her fluent Uyghur was proof enough. From fragments during our interviews—or rather, her group's status reports—I'd learned she'd majored in "Languages and Literature of Chinese Ethnic Minorities" at Xinjiang University before being dragged to Karamay.
I recalled a casual fact from those reminiscences.
"The president of your university was executed, right?"
"Yes."
"On charges of plotting national division?"
"...Yes."
"What kind of man was he?"
"He faced much finger-pointing from our kin. He also served as deputy secretary of the autonomous region's Communist Party, the highest-ranking visible traitor in our eyes, and often acted as the Party's mouthpiece during incidents."
"But turned out to be a hidden nationalist?"
"At least that's what the Party and the Koreans claimed. A two-faced rebel fomenting seditious activities from the shadows."
Like one of the Eulsa Five Traitors secretly supporting a provisional government in colonial Korea, something like that.
"Any chance his seditious activities were why you ended up in the camp later?"
"...I suspect so."
Uyghur language education isn't officially banned in China. Even wild China can't fully ignore international opinion. But language is a nation's soul, so from the Communist imperialists' view, suppressing it was inevitable. I could guess the rest. They couldn't criminalize learning itself, but ways to turn learners into criminals were endless.
In that context, it was surprising that Maryam's group had no illiterates. Even the least educated could transcribe their mother tongue, albeit riddled with errors.
Considering late Japanese colonial Korea had literacy rates barely scraping one in ten among youth and below, the Uyghurs' efforts to preserve their tongue were remarkably tenacious.
I'd tasked Maryam with Uyghur education for her group precisely because minority-language-based cryptosystems were invaluable for security. The pioneers were the U.S. military, deploying Navajo code talkers in WWII for unbreakable comms—the only voice cipher never cracked by outsiders.
Thus, crime syndicates often used them too: Los Mexicles mixing Nahuatl dialects with slang, Bratki Krug inventing their own fenyka.
Uyghur-based voice crypto wouldn't match Navajo, but it'd bolster security for the London operation. Maryam, not even a full undergrad grad, had limits to her knowledge, but reaching university as a third-class colonial citizen showed solid aptitude.
"Maybe he felt inferior to you."
"Whom do you mean?"
"Alim Shahidi."
Maryam's face hardened blankly at Shahidi's name from my lips.
Stimulating hatred toward a specific target and empathizing builds bonds effectively. To manage subordinates' loyalty, stacking such bonds opportunely was wise.
Maryam asked dryly.
"What did that heretic tell you, exalted one?"
"That framing you in the camp was an unavoidable choice on his part."
I floated the opener, then unloaded Shahidi's sophistries and self-justifications verbatim. Hearing even the part about posthumous compensation, Maryam spoke with a murderous intent she'd never shown before me.
"I hate the god he believes in."
"Is that so."
"Yes. That god abandoned me and my siblings. He's the god who turned believers' lands into earthly hells while granting power and prosperity to Koreans who don't even believe in him. What part of such a god is merciful?"
"......"
"From my experiences, I've realized it desperately, so desperately: an omnipotent absolute being inflicts suffering on the faithful with no justification whatsoever. If anything could substitute, it'd be sadistic pleasure alone. I don't want to enter the paradise of such an evil god! I don't even want to believe he exists...!"
Whew. After her emotional outburst, the apostate calmed with a long exhale and concluded, gazing at me.
"You alone saved me. You gave me life, you granted me power. Not that lofty heavenly Allah, but you here before me. That's why, at least for this one person, you are greater than Allah."
Was this a trauma switch flipping? Such convulsive faith confessions were best seen as mental instability. Or perhaps the process of killing unconscious guilt from abandoning old faith through conscious self-brainwashing, over and over.
Realizing her excitement, Maryam averted her eyes in slight panic.
"I dared raise my voice rudely. Forgive me."
"No. I understand."
Lacking a fitting reply, I nodded vaguely and moved on.
One side of the study cabin held tablets and earphones, beside stacks of papers where Maryam's Uyghurs had transcribed recordings.
One role I'd assigned her was aiding surveillance of other groups. Subordinates passed her transcripts of Uyghur convos they wanted decoded; her students listened via earphones and transcribed onto paper. Maryam then corrected grammar and spelling, summarized key points, and returned them—insights into group dynamics and interactions.
Glancing around the cabin, I tossed routine encouragement.
"You're doing well, so keep it up for now. One day, you'll truly become my secret mouth and ears."
"An honor."
Maryam bowed again. I'd worried about qualms over shady work, but approaching the site showed none. Truly, a dangerously addictive domination.
Confirmed repeatedly, I could assign today's other task safely. I thought of the special prisoner I'd confined to this ship five days prior.