The People’s Martyr-Prophet is an unnamed preacher of Star City in Caldero, murdered by agents of Pope Borg. His relics, carried by prophesied pilgrims, broke the seal of the Ancient Giantess around 1812 AE.
| Type | Character |
| World | Vala Cristalis |
| Era | Before 1812 AE (preaching); present cycle, 1824 AE |
| Place | Star City |
| Killed by | Agents of Pope Borg |
| Spanish entry | El mártir profeta del pueblo |
Name
His name is not preserved. The compilation of Mascor Blancarba calls him “the people’s martyr-prophet”, “the prophet murdered by agents of the Pope” and “the bearer of the people’s words”. Pope Borg’s church apparatus suppressed the name from the official record, and popular memory did not fully restore it, or restored it in variants that are not reconciled.
Preaching
He preached to the people of Star City during Pope Borg’s rule, before 1812 AE. His doctrine, reconstructed from fragments of the compilation and the popular Decadian archive, held that:
- the natural order of the gem-world must be upheld against the papal negative pole;
- the obsidian star of the Great Plaza hides a primordial sanctuary, whose path opens to one who knows how to kiss it;
- the platforms of the stars of Alpha Centauri work beneath the Plaza, held by a cosmological seal (see Platforms of Vala-Ely);
- the Ancient Giantess keeps watch in the sanctuary, awaiting a prophesied summons.
This was residual knowledge of the primordial platforms that Pope Borg’s Decadian apparatus had buried from the official catechism. The people kept it as popular tradition; the martyr gave it a voice the papacy would not tolerate.
Murder and relics
Agents of Pope Borg killed him; the circumstances are not recorded. Pilgrims of the people gathered his relics (bone fragments, scraps of clothing, objects he used in his preaching) and kept them in hiding while Pope Borg ruled.
The seal of the Giantess required the martyr’s relics together with a prophesied kiss of the star made during a papal ritual in progress. By killing him, the negative pole unknowingly supplied the condition for the seal’s undoing.
Liberation of the Giantess
Around 1812 AE the prophesied pilgrims burst into the Great Obsidian Plaza during Pope Borg’s lichification ritual, carrying the relics, and kissed the center of the star. A blue-green flash followed, the ground gave way, and they found the sanctuary and broke the seal. The Ancient Giantess emerged, crushed Pope Borg and vanished into volcanic vapors, leaving a trail of golden ash. The martyr himself was never present in the Plaza.
Legacy
- The relics remain minor sacred objects of the popular cult after Pope Borg.
- His doctrine, partly restored, is taught semi-clandestinely in the slums of Star City; the post-Borg Decadian church tolerates it discreetly.
- His name remains suppressed, now by convention rather than by papal repression.
- By 1824 AE (present cycle) he is kept as a nameless, permanent sign of the primordial light pole.