Settlers Abandon Restoration

Hundreds of Restoration settlers were spotted boarding a train at Grisham's Wall yesterday. One such traveler, a dwarf with his extended family of seven, said there was no need for concern.

"Don't make such a big deal out of it. We're just visiting family." When asked about the mountain of large trunks nearby, he became nervous. "Souvenirs. You can't afford to leave anyone out, can you?"

— The Estfold Herald

Going To Church

~ Taylor ~

It was a day to dress carefully, in the same jacket and breeches as yesterday (the only formal outfit he owned) with a fresh shirt and a pattern-woven vest of rare mycelium silk. He was using the training mirror in its inactive mode. When turned off, it was an excellent looking glass with mystic symbols engraved around its edges. It took up so much space, he figured it should serve more than one purpose.

Taylor was not excited about this wedding and didn't know the people getting married, but the governor had tapped him and several other legates to fill out the guest list. Officially, he was on the bride's side: she was the governor's niece, soon to be elevated to Legate of a township in the western part of the province. If she performed well, she could become a minister in due time. The Gordian Empire emphasized meritocracy, but connections still mattered.

With his best green-and-gold mask, Riverstone pin winking from his night-blue jacket, and his little sword in its engraved bone scabbard, he looked ready. The magic accessories and artfully cut hair streaked with gold mana-burn lent a hint of wild strength to his image. When he and Jane had designed his look, they wanted to give credence to his unlikely accomplishments and stave off the Augbergs' attempts to question his honesty. He was wondering now if he should tone it down, be more normal. The unmistakable wyvern-bone scabbard was the worst offender, but he didn't have another one for his sword, and it would be embarrassing to leave it behind. People would notice. In the run-up to the winter ball, he'd gotten too enthusiastic, done too much, and made a spectacle of himself.

Just like last night. If he got away with nobody important noticing, it would only be through luck. Making an Erstdwerg figure was fine, but he should have done it anonymously. Holding a public ceremony was a dumb move, sure to attract attention. People were going to talk. On top of the incident with Prater, it made him stick out at a time when he should be going about his business quietly, to remain unhindered.

He smiled at Alexis through the mirror. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in a sundress, anxious to get her turn and holding in her complaints about a boy taking so much time with his appearance, even though he didn't have to show his actual face. She was a good kid, and Taylor hoped he wasn't ruining her life by teaching her things that would mark her as someone different. Someone odd.

A polite but firm knock at their door made Alexis start and Taylor frown. They hadn't asked for anything to be brought to the room, and it was too early for the first message delivery of the day. Taylor vacated the mirror to answer the door and was immediately replaced by the fidgety girl.

"From the governor," said the fully armed man in the hallway, handing him a card. "The carriage is waiting."

It was an "invitation" to attend the governor in the city's main temple, "at your earliest convenience." Taylor guffawed. The card was abnormal in almost every way. Too large, too heavy, too cream instead of white, and too elegantly scrawled with ink that was too black. The governor's seal was embossed by a tool so sharp, he thought he'd get a papercut by running his thumb over it. Everything about it was designed to impress. He was probably meant to keep it as a souvenir and frame it.

The governor liked to keep tabs on her strange subordinate from the hinterlands whenever he did excessive things. Today, she had two reasons to summon him.

"I'll be right down," he told the guard, who left without closing the door. The phrase earliest convenience meant hurry. "Stop fidgeting," he told Alexis.

"But, I'm so plain." She touched the tie in her hair and the magic bracelet on her wrist. "Can't you do something?"

"I could, but it would be counter-productive."

"But why? I can't go out there on a date looking poor."

"You don't look poor. In fact, you're very pretty and the dress is flattering. The lack of adornment works in your favor."

"What do you know?" And she had been such a timid girl, ever since the Prater incident.

"He's probably looking forward to playing the worldly city-dweller and showing the country girl a good time. The lack of fancy accessories gives him an opening to buy you something to wear, without breaking his meager apprentice's budget. He's going to like you just the way you are. He asked you out, remember?"

"You really think so?" Her doubts about his advice wavered in the face of hope.

"I'm sure of it. I don't know how late I'll be, but you will return by dark. If you do not, I will know. I will find you and make an embarrassing scene he will never, ever forget. Understood?"

"I hear you!" She was busy trading her simple hair tie for an even plainer barrette. "You sound like my mother."

Knexenk dominated the main room of the Bostkirk temple in all her busty glory. She was twelve feet tall and reached out her arms to the grateful recipients of her gifts in a hall large enough to seat thousands of people in communal pews. The arrangement was a nod toward the notion of mortal equality before the gods but, in truth, the frontmost pews were almost always coveted places of public esteem reserved for the rich and powerful. People had to find ways to sort themselves. They couldn't help it.

The other gods, the real gods, were relegated to a long entry hall leading up to the main auditorium, mere appetizers to the main spiritual course. Each of the major gods had a statue in a dedicated crèche, surrounded by their subordinate gods in painted bas-relief. Their craftsmanship was superior to anything Taylor could make, but they were not divine figures. Whoever made them either didn't have the knack for it or didn't care to use it here. He wondered idly what would happen if he were to bless one of the minor gods. How long would it take for the church to notice? And how long would it remain in place?

His escort left him by the crèche belonging to Order to wait until he was summoned. Each alcove had several pews facing it. Taylor sat while being very careful not to pray. The last thing he needed was for someone with a priest-related class to spy on him while he communed with the gods.

Gods like Lanulculte, who was pouring him tea in the void. She was very green that day, and her clothing was made of a hundred scarves drifting gracefully behind her, caught in a current he could neither feel nor see. The tea she made for him was not to his usual taste. It was bitter and fruity, but with a warmth that sank into his bones.

"I'm supposed to meet someone soon," he told the goddess. She only smiled and kindly didn't remind him that the gods already knew as much. They were doing this to interfere with him for some purpose he didn't understand.

"Erstdwerg wanted you to have this tea, as thanks. He would be here himself, but he's busy."

"Gods can be busy? As in, more at some times than others?"

"Certainly. Arcs from all over the city are lined up to view his new statue and pray to him. There are so many fervent prayers; it'll demand his extra attention. Gods like myself ebb and flow with changes in the natural world. I am diminished by droughts and ice ages, for example. Gods like Erstdwerg wax and wane with the faith of their followers."

Taylor wanted to ask what the consequences would be of rekindling Arc faith across the empire – they couldn't all be positive ones. The Church of the Giving Goddess was sure to take exception if it felt diminished. It wouldn't be his first time burying an old institution, but he wanted to avoid another full-blown war. The last one had ended with him personally killing ten thousand men.

The big difference in this life was that the gods were personally involved. Obviously, there were things they wanted done, but they were unable or unwilling to fix the problems themselves. Why did they need someone like him? More to the point, why him in particular?

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"Am I particularly easy to summon?" he guessed.

Lanulculte laughed like rushing white waters. "Your soul is well suited for travel. But that's not the only reason why you were chosen."

The number of lives he'd lived could be points in his favor, but he counted most of them as failures. At peak power, he was admittedly extraordinary, but even he didn't stay at the top forever. There was always someone or something greater just around the corner. Power alone couldn't account for their choice.

"Is it because I'm a known moral quantity?"

"You're someone we could all agree on."

"A committee choice, then." He wasn't sure if he liked that. Committees, by their nature, had to make safe, unopinionated decisions, the ones nobody could object to strenuously enough to veto.

He had learned it was pointless to ask (again) why they brought him to Aarden. But he was learning there were certain kinds of questions they would answer. Aside from the occasional bit of common knowledge, they never answered questions about earthly matters. But they sometimes answered questions about the divine.

"Why are the gods unwilling to act directly in the mortal world? From my perspective, it seems like you have all the power you need."

"We would only do that under the most dire circumstances. When a god acts in the mortal world directly, even in minor ways, it almost always impacts the other gods, who then respond in kind. It can easily set off a series of events that mean little to us, but are cataclysms to mortals."

Her choice of words had to be intentional. Scripture had two books, Cataclysms I and II, where the world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Continents changed, the world froze and then burned, strange phenomena roamed the land, and the mortal races nearly went extinct. The cataclysms didn't end until … "The timing of Knexenk's appearance wasn't an accident, was it? That's why you made the system. You can offer power to mortals, but they have to be balanced with effort and risk. You can offer direction, but people are free to decline. Somehow, Knexenk keeps you from stepping on each other's toes. It must have been a big change for you."

"To a large extent, gods don't enforce the rules of the world. We are the rules. Knexenk's creation was, for us, a wrenching change, but we agreed to it because if things had continued as they were, we could have died. All of us. For a god, the prospect of returning to the great pool of renewal to be reborn as something else is unpleasant to contemplate. Much like mortals, we're only capable of profound change while at the brink of extinction."

They spent a long moment in silence while finishing their tea, and Taylor let the new ideas sink in. Divinity was something he'd long believed in. How could he not? But Aarden was the first world with gods he could talk to and remember, and they kept pulling him into their void for a reason. He was starting to understand that the energy in their void was different from normal mana. He had glimpsed that truth last night, when the congregation's power passed through him on the way to the new idol. It was mana, but it was different. Tenatively, he tried to feel the area around him, but discovered he was full to bursting, and he couldn't feel a thing. The term "divine mana" had a nice ring to it, but the word alone wouldn't tell him anything substantial. The idea that there were different kinds of mana was disturbing to him. Exactly how much of the world was he blind to, while he blithely roamed around thinking he was better informed than anyone else around him?

"Thank you, Lanulculte," he said after finishing his tea. He pressed his palms together, fingertips raised to his lips, like the people of his previous life did to express reverence.

"As soon as you can, let's spend some proper time together. A few days on the water would be good for you."

"The gods favor you."

Taylor had completely forgotten his body was in the main temple in Bostkirk. There was a man, sitting in the same pew as him, wearing a priest's white cassock and regarding him with bright, intelligent eyes. His obvious fitness and clear expression reminded Taylor of priests in his old denomination, who were trained to be scholars, warriors, and healers. He wrestled with an instant desire to like the stranger. It was stupid to trust someone at first sight.

"You shouldn't be so close," he warned the priest. After sitting in the presence of a goddess for a while, he didn't feel the least bit embarrassed about telling the older man off without even knowing his name.

"I know. I nearly called the guards to haul you away. I had to go down the hall and come back again." The priest looked at Taylor expectantly, while Taylor examined the crèche of Order and his subordinate gods. Chowgami, the god of contracts, wore the face of the previous governor and hovered on Order's right-hand side. In his attempt to curry favor, the artist had created something very unlike the god he was trying to depict.

"Where did you learn to pray like that?"

Taylor didn't bother to look at the priest. "You're joking, right?" He tapped his mask. "I spend a lot of time alone. The lack of distractions is nice."

The white-clad priest refused to take the hint. "You're really not going to ask, are you? Who is this strange priest? Why is he here?"

"I'm here to attend the governor. If you have something you want to talk about, then talk. But if you're here to pray," Taylor pointed at Order and his flight of related gods, "the gods are that way."

"The church would like to offer you a class."

"I'd rather not. I have plenty to do already. Thank you, though."

"Just like that? You don't need time to think about it?"

"Just like that."

"Nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand would do anything for a class, and you're just not interested? Imagine what you could do with the extra years of training."

Taylor sighed and made it clear from the tilt of his mask and the angle of his shoulders how boring he found the prospect. "Not interested."

"It might help you with your divine statues." The priest snapped his fingers as if he'd just remembered something. "That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. How would you like to make statues of Knexenk for the church? I saw what you did for the temple in Dwergbank. Come do the same for us."

"No thanks," said the boy flatly. "I only do the minor gods. I'd like to not die of depletion." He finally deigned to look at his interrogator. "Is that it?"

The priest's expression changed from easygoing to more serious. "No. The church wishes to remind you that, by Imperial law, every human child must stand for Selection in their twelfth year."

"I'm not likely to forget. Not when everybody's so crazy about getting classes and won't talk about anything else."

"In your case, that's not good enough. You're smart enough to understand, so I'm not going to dip this in honey. The church wants assurances that you won't reject Knexenk and her gifts, or preach anything similar to other people. If you don't bind yourself to the church with a class or vows or something, powerful people will get nervous."

"Who are you?"

"Someone concerned for your welfare." The priest was classed, Taylor could tell that much, and filled with mana. Past the easy smile, there was worry etched around the eyes of the not-just-a-priest. "Instead of taking a class, you could enter a religious order right away. If you do well academically, you could be sponsored into the Imperial Academy."

Taylor would run and hide before he submitted to a religious order under duress. "What's behind door number three?"

"Hmm. Solemn promises might be enough, for now. You promise to show up for your Selection ceremony, and the church promises to leave you alone until then. We would need a binding contract offered to Chowgami."

With an aggrieved sigh that sounded like he was lifting all the world, Taylor reached into his satchel and found his portable writing desk. After a bit of puttering to get everything in place, he began to write with a swan's feather dipped in expensive vermilion ink.

"I, Bilius d'Mourne, do swear that in my twelfth year I shall appear for my Selection ceremony …"

The priest interrupted, "at the Imperial Academy Grand Origin Temple."

"That's a mouthful." Taylor scrawled the name of the temple. It sounded like the Empire's state religion wanted a leash on him one way or the other. If he could keep them out of his life for a while longer, then the contract was worth signing. He was resigned to getting a class anyway, now that he understood Knexenk's purpose.

"In return, the Church of the Giving Goddess, represented by … your rank and name, sir?" He pointed the feather end of his pen at the priest. "And don't think about lying to Chowgami. He'll know."

The priest favored Taylor with an indulgent smile. "High Bishop Yaonoch."

"Early scriptural name. Nice." It wasn't his given name at birth, probably, but his chosen holy name in the church. Also, bishops typically wore black cassocks with fur-lined capes, which meant he had donned the habit of a lesser priest for this conversation.

"Shall not attempt to coerce the supplicant mentioned above into service, membership, indenturetude … " Taylor went through the entire boilerplate of unfavorable arrangements, interferences, and mayhem which required a second sheet of paper. "Sign here, My Lord High Bishop."

After both copies were dated, initialed, signed, and folded into thirds, and sealed according to the current clerical rules (for clerks, not clergy) for ad-hoc contracts between two parties, Taylor produced his personal figure of Chowgami from his bag and placed it next to Order, so they shared the same plinth.

"Your offering, Lord Bishop."

"You travel with your own Chowgami?"

"You didn't think I'd let you take my money and just promise to offer it up to the god, did you? I'm inexperienced, but I'm not gullible."

The bishop defiantly produced a gold Imperial Aurochs, as if that amount would cause the boy to balk. Taylor's coin quickly joined it, though in truth, it hurt when he thought of all the other things he could do with it. The sealed letter went at the god's feet, weighed down by two gold coins. Both supplicants clapped their hands, but didn't even get to bow their heads before a golden fire consumed the paper and gold, sending up curls of smoke which merged into the godly realm and disappeared. Most contracts weren't consumed this way. More often, the church put the contract on file and took the money as an advance fee to broker disagreements between the parties. However, any contract offered to one of Taylor's figures of Chowgami got the straight-to-heaven treatment.

The bishop's surprised expression was accompanied by a familiar buzz of quest activity in his class. Taylor didn't mind if Yaonoch got experience from the encounter. Neither did it bother him that he had to show himself at the Academy; Just being there didn't mean he had to enroll. The important detail was that he now had some insulation from the church, signed by a high church official and secured with Chowgami's blessing.

Let them break their promises. Taylor would give them what he gave the likes of Reginar and Prater, and let the gods clean up the leftovers.

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