Chapter 2: Prologue II : The Lie of K
"And a man shall come, with no father nor grave, clothed in white and shadow. And even the angels shall fall silent at his passing."
— Apocryphal Verses from the Letter to the Lumen
No one knows where he came from.
And those who claim to know either lie—or die within the week.
He calls himself KleinIlliasSeraphiel. Or rather, that is the name by which he was introduced in Vatican.
Only weeks after the unexplained disappearance of His Holiness Andrew XVIII, the last elected Pope before the Fall.
Andrew XVIII had ruled for twenty-four years, a master of metacontemplative theology, a moderate conservative, and a gifted orator.
His papacy was mostly by attempts to reconcile faith and science, to preach caution concerning the meteorites, and to prevent—unsuccessfully—their use in warfare.
He vanished without warning, without farewell.
His throne was found empty at dawn on the day of the Saint Michael.
In any other era, such an event would have triggered a conclave, a bitter doctrinal battle, a transition of power fought through ancient rites and ecclesiastical politicking.