Moyalwande

"What's so important that you can't stay?" Cecilia was in his suite, the self-appointed captain of searching rooms for anything left behind.

"I have to sort out the church situation. Then I have to go to Wokehaad to keep a contract. I can't be late." He needed to be at the Farm in less than a week, and he was getting nervous about the timeline. Maybe, sealing every contract with Chowgami wasn't such a great idea, given the potential reach of divine punishment.

"When I'm done there, I need to earn money again. I kind of spent more than I meant to setting up the Discourse quest. And I want to track down that midwife. She might be the only person who knows what happened to our mother."

Our mother. The words tasted odd. She was an abstraction to Taylor, and Cecilia only had vague memories of her.

"But you are coming back. Aren't you?"

He smiled at her, even though she couldn't see it. In spite of his vastly improved curse situation, he wasn't ready to go around showing his face to people. Not even his sister.

"You're the only family I have, and you live near the Empire's best public library. Of course I'm coming back. Do you know your classes for Spring yet?"

"Core Scholarship, plus an elective. The Governance series is tempting. I did most of the colonel's work until Blodwin showed up, so it should be an easy grade. But I'm taking Monster Ecology instead. It sounds interesting, and I think it's time to try something new."

"I have a copy of Red Marsh Reserve in Orlut if you want to borrow it. It's supposed to be rare … "

"Yes, please!" She immediately held out her hands to receive the book. The Orlut version was in high demand, making it difficult for students to borrow it from the library. She waited for Taylor to sort through his satchel and find the right volume, then clutched it to her chest. The tome weighed ten pounds, but it was an exhaustive survey of bracken-water plants and animals.

"Don't even think of writing in my book," he warned her in his best imitation of Curator Jane.

"I love you too, Brother." She placed the book carefully on the bed. "Prepare yourself. I'm going to hug you now."

With his curse finally under control, he could let her have her fill.

-----

Taylor watched the nighttime scenery flow past in a dark velvet blur. It was only Saria and he for this leg of the trip, since five people in a private train compartment would be cramped. The water spirit lay along the bench opposite him with a hot water bottle draped across her eyes. She had tried to use the downtime to level up a few skills, but decided to experiment by taking the same drugs humans did to ease the transition.

"Next time, I'm sticking to alcohol," she groaned for the tenth time. "Do you know how much this sucks?"

"Like a double hangover," he quoted her, "times two. Are you sure you don't want to go back to Twilight?"

"I'm not abandoning you over a few skills."

"I have a new contract. I should be fine." He checked her water bottle and warmed it up with magic. She liked it hot enough to scald a normal person.

"But you're nervous." She peeked at him from under the bottle. "I can tell."

He wouldn't deny it. The green notice he received from Curator Jane told him how dire the church's situation was, and how much was riding on the upcoming meeting. The gods hadn't told Taylor what, if anything, he was supposed to do about it, or if it was something he needed to worry about at all.

As for his lost hand, it had been burned up by Scourge Evil. Not because he was evil, but because the member counted as dead flesh. Nearby restaurants lost their entire stock of meat, fish, and poultry to Cadmius's attack. Yet more damage for the church to pay for.

Negotiating his next meeting with Yaonoch was the only unfun part of his days off. The church's representative was a lawyer and tried to bury Taylor in fine print. He even tried to withhold verification that Taylor's severed hand had been disposed of until Taylor agreed to other terms first. In retaliation, Taylor deployed his Dwergbank contingent. A battle of bitter attrition was staged, and then cut short by the sudden appearance of a new negotiator, armed with a blanket promise to keep Taylor secure and allow his unfettered movement.

Apparently, High Bishop Yaonoch felt there was too much at stake to squabble over details. He wanted Taylor in Moyalwande, home of the Imperial Academy and Temple of Origins. Taylor was more than willing to go; he just needed to be safe while he was there.

Despite the early cessation of hostilities, Taylor had to pay his lawyers for their skirmish against the church. It made him wonder what the point was of making tons of money if it all went to legal fees, but he consoled himself with the thought that it was Augberg gold he was spending, not his own.

-----

The train sped silently into Moyalwande an hour after dawn. It lay on the mouth of the Sunglaze River, a city of white arches, domes, and spires jutting up from rose-tiled roofs. The city outskirts surrounded a shimmering blue-gray bay, but its center perched on a finger of land intruding into the water. Moyalwande was said to be the oldest and most beautiful city in the Empire. Home to the Imperial Academy, the Imperial Institute of Art, and a hundred museums stuffed to bursting with the world's treasures. While Avimore was the Empire's seat of power, Moyalwande was its jewel.

It was also in danger of being washed out to sea.

What looked like a solid city from a distance was a dozen zones perched on islands painstakingly shored up against high tides and erosion. Scores of smaller fragments of land dotted the spaces between the large ones. Bridges and waterways sewed the pieces together into a metropolitan mesh that looked too delicate to survive a storm. Naturally, it was all held together with magic. Taylor had read somewhere that the city spent literal tons of mana crystals every year on machines and enchantments to keep the city whole.

The train station was inland from the city, with further transportation available by boat from the adjoining waterway, fed by the river. Taylor walked the pier and chose a long, thin vessel piloted by an elf who claimed it was the fastest on the water. It almost certainly wasn't true, but his energy and the orange flames painted along the hull were encouraging.

"The Island of Mother Evangel, please." Taylor handed the boatman a card with his hotel information as soon as Saria and he were seated.

"You have good taste, my friend. Very boutique. But you can't get in unless you speak Arc."

Taylor switched to Arcaic. "That won't be a problem."

The elf looked impressed. Perhaps he didn't meet many humans who spoke his language well. "Have you come to look at the academy?" The boat pulled away from shore and gently nudged into the freshwater canal that would take them into the bay.

"We're mainly here to see the Temple of Origins."

His Arcaic tones expressed shared disappointment. "I'm afraid you're out of luck. They say Knexenk isn't talking to the church, so all the priests have gathered to blame each other. The Origin's doors are locked."

Saria was trailing one hand in the water, but withdrew it as they neared the bay. "Isn't there supposed to be beauty around every corner in Moyalwande? I'm sure we'll find something else to look at."

Their boat aimed for a far corner of the city and cut across the bay, following a lane marked out in buoys. On open water, their needle-like vessel accelerated and magically glided through the chop. Their destination was a tiny island, entirely occupied by a cozy hotel made of ancient white stone, where they were welcomed by a statue of the Evangel watching over a small dock. She was painted in lifelike colors and draped in cloth of gold, leading beastkin children by the hand.

Taylor and Saria checked in, bathed and dressed, and found themselves with time to kill. Most of the ground floor of the hotel was an informal restaurant with an open kitchen and views of the bay. The smell of seawater, butter, flour, and coffee woke their appetites. They sipped potent brews from tiny cups and ate crispy, thousand-layered pastries beneath a four-hundred-year-old fresco. Daria Metayos, one of Darius II's more competent children, rode a pegasus and drove her lance through the heart of the Shellyville Wyvern. It was signed by a legendary artist of the age.

"Is that real?" Taylor asked the cook.

The lady favored her masked customer with a patient smile. She must have heard that question every day. "Daria Slays the Wyvern was Minia Salgado's third public commission. She was very young then, and just getting started. If you want to see Salgado at her full mastery, you must take a tour of the Old Palace."

As they hailed a new boat for their appointment, Taylor looked down at the ground by his shoes. Water slapped against the stone-shod island. Less than a foot separated the pavement surface from the water level at high tide. One bad storm, one ill-timed pump failure, one break in the levees. That might be enough to drown this city, and all its priceless treasures with it.

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Their next trip lasted only a few minutes and landed them at a pier with a hundred small boats tied up and jostling each other. The island was entirely occupied by the Temple of Origins, one of the most recognizable landmarks in Moyalwand. A brick-paved walking path opened space between the temple and the water, with periodic benches for rest or contemplation.

The temple was a rectangular confection of stacked arches, saintly statues, flying buttresses, and a pair of spires at the front end. Anyone who had ever studied the reverse side of a one-dori coin would recognize it instantly. For all its artful proportions and historical importance, the temple wasn't especially large. It could even be called intimate, by the standards of Imperial architecture.

They were met by a priestess in a black habit and a salesgirl's smile. She led them past the guards in black and gold pinstripes, posted at intervals around the island. They stopped in a courtyard at the front of the temple. "His Holiness is nearby and will be with you shortly," she said and left them to their own devices. Four more guards stood at their posts by the temple entrance. They shone like polished metal against his mana senses, third- and fourth-tier classes. The city had come alive in earnest by that time, but its sounds and smells were far away, muted by the sea.

Yaonoch soon appeared with another man, similar but older. The first thing Taylor noticed about them was their hats, with brims as wide as rings around gas giants. Yaonoch wore red, with white piping and a white sash for a belt. The pontiff was the same but white, decorated with gold. Yaonoch did the introductions, but Taylor barely heard them. The two men's resemblance was more than clothing and comportment: it was familial.

Yaonoch looked him up and down. Taylor had worn his most princely outfit and turned his mask seawater gray to match the surroundings. One did not meet the pontiff in street clothes, if one could help it.

His Holiness, Laurence VI, granted Taylor a beatific smile. It was a good one, too, the kind of gentle expression that warmed souls and swayed hearts. Taylor could appreciate firsthand how much work went into it.

"You've been a busy young man. Fighting hordes of monsters, closing vents, and walking off with how many hundreds of pounds of mana crystal?" The pontiff spoke with grandfatherly indulgence.

Taylor ignored the jab about crystal. His Holiness was fishing. "I thought I was keeping a low profile."

"You can't levitate a rock giant thousands of feet into the sky, and not have anyone notice. Or call a great spirit to change Celosia's curriculum. That is not laying low." There was that look again, like somebody's kindly grandpa enjoying mischief.

"I thought sadism made for poor pedagogy. Doesn't the Church of the Giving Goddess have more urgent problems than my reputation? From what I hear, She's not talking to your people. That seems a lot more serious than one inconsequential, oddball hunter."

Laurence VI led the group to the edge of the courtyard, where stone benches were arranged for conversation, and the four of them took seats.

"Ah, the great topic of the hour. Much will be written of the Quiet Season, when Knexenk did not speak to the church. Is it a test of faith? Did we commit some great sin? So few will know the truth. Unless you plan on telling everyone?"

"I only know about our deal," Taylor nodded at Yaonoch, "and that one of your people broke it. Even if I knew why your classes stopped advancing, I don't have a reason to spread it around. I imagine your job is hard enough without me adding to your problems." Taylor had held the exact same title in his previous life and had no desire to repeat the experience. "A destabilized church is bad for the empire."

"Ah! Can we take that as a promise not to overthrow the church's authority?"

Now they were getting close to the heart of the matter. Was he an enemy or a friend?

"That depends. What happens when there aren't enough classed people to protect the empire? Will the church change, or will it be the final spiritual authority over a doomed people? Just speaking for myself, I'd rather be on the side of preserving humanity, not presiding over its extinction."

The patriarch showed no signs of offense. "If you want to fight for people, the church is a good choice. With your talents, you would do extraordinarily well here. We would give you every advantage: the best tutors, a scholarship to the Imperial Academy, plum assignments, and a career path of your choosing. You could have a tremendous impact. There is little closed off to you."

"Except Pontiff," Taylor pointed out, "from what I've heard."

"The rumors are true. Certain offices are reserved for Imperial blood. Before entering the church, I was thirtieth in line for the Imperial throne. Yaonoch was twenty-fourth when he entered."

"His Holiness is my uncle."

The pontiff nodded. "There are always a few of us walking the halls. There's a younger cohort behind the High Bishop, and yet another one behind them. There is enough Imperial blood in the curch to ensure our bloodline controls the Home Priory for generations to come."

"The Emperor controls the church." Taylor's posture slumped a little, deflated. He had hoped to discover some distance between the Emperor and his church, enough room to exploit differences in goals and policies. But that didn't seem likely now. Working from inside the system sounded good in theory, but it was out of the question in the long term. He would need to start breaking rules before the ink dried on his membership card.

"How did it even come to this?" He looked up to the two older men. "That's not a rhetorical question. I really want to know. Ten years in Restoration, and the Empire had to pull back. It can't close the vents in its own territory fast enough. The gods gave you an answer, but you won't use it. And please don't tell me that Knexenk is the one who decides who gets a class. I know that isn't exactly true."

Bishop and Pontiff looked at each other, and some unspoken agreement passed between them.

"Too much power in too many hands would doom the empire," explained Yaonoch. "How long before the provinces decide they want to govern themselves? Their dependence on the Empire is what keeps it together. Doubly so for the elves and beastkin. The worst bloodletting in the Empire's history came about from having too many classes in one place, far removed from the Imperial center."

Taylor sighed. He didn't envy them. "The Empire is stuck in an institutional conundrum, and you're stuck right there with it because you are the Empire."

"What conundrum is this?" asked the pontiff. His grandfatherly smile shifted from indulgent to patronizing.

"The Gordian Empire is in decline."

"It seems so," agreed the pontiff. "Anyone with a few hundred years of Imperial maps at their disposal would come to the same conclusion. Our brief occupation of Restoration was a blip. We had it and lost it. And there's rot in the south. The maps don't show it yet, but there are zones in the southern territories that people can't go near, and they've been slowly growing for years. You know this better than most people. But where is your conundrum?"

"Eventually, all of this falls apart. Maybe not this year or this decade, but it does. The balance will tip in the monsters' favor, the dungeons you let grow will get out of control, and Gordia won't be able to hide the losses. The maps will have to be redrawn. Again.

"But the Emperor can't or won't expand the class franchise because it would endanger the Imperium. That's the conundrum. The Empire can fail by monster, or beat the monsters and then fail by revolt. There is a third path, one where the Empire accepts a multi-polar world where it isn't the ultimate power standing over everyone, but it would take an astonishingly moral person to make that transition. Or a desperate one. It almost never happens. And if it did happen, it still wouldn't be bloodless. There's always some group of people who would rather die than let go of the glorious past.

"So you're stuck," concluded Taylor, "and I'd rather not be stuck next to you."

"But if I understand you," offered the pontiff, "you don't hate the Empire. You don't want to see it fail. You want it to continue, in some form or other. Is that right?"

"That would be ideal," agreed Taylor. "I think it has to change, but total and sudden collapse?" He knew what that looked like. Sudden power vacuums birthed wars like water bred mosquitoes. Taylor shook himself. "That's not what I want for the people of Aarden."

Yaonoch looked hopeful. "Then maybe you can help us with our current problem."

"How?"

"I'll explain," said the bishop, "but first, some history. There's an old pact between the church and the gods, going all the way back to the Evangel. Back then, there were several powerful churches and too many cults to count. The competition between them was bloody, and anyone with a divine skill faced aggressive recruitment. An oracle or divine healer who refused to join a group could be killed. One of the key moments that cemented our church's place in history … "

Taylor interrupted. "You mean other than grabbing the original Knexenk statue?"

"There were many reasons for that, and if you joined the church, you would get to learn them. The matter at hand now is something called the Covenant. Evangel was a Divine Agent and the first Pontiff, and she saw other holders of divine skills as kin to herself. She hated the bloodshed, so she formed a contract between her new church and the gods to protect holders of divine skills. You could say it was a principal motivation for creating the church in the first place.

"Under the Covenant, the gods encouraged the divinely gifted to seek out and join the church. In return, the church sheltered anyone with a divine gift, and, importantly, never caused harm to one. We've failed the Covenant in lesser ways before now, but Cadmius shattered it when he attacked you."

"Why am I included in the Covenant? I don't have a class."

"But you are divinely gifted. One of my skills identifies people like yourself. The day we met, I added you to the church's list of protected people: as Bilius d'Mourne. But I didn't circulate your name or description any wider than that, because it tends to bring unwanted attention. I tried to spare you that, but it was a mistake."

Like most disasters, the church's predicament was the culmination of good intentions, bad luck, minor malfeasance, and mistakes. A lot had to go wrong to put them here. It sounded like the church failed the Covenant before, but wasn't punished for it. That told Taylor the gods were taking advantage of the situation for reasons of their own. As always, the gods played their own game.

"How do you think I can help?"

Pontiff Laurence VI opened his class screen. "I have a quest line to restore the Covenant, and you're part of it." He made several lines visible and showed the screen to Taylor and Yaonoch.

Quest: [Repair The Covenant 1/10] Grant a boon and a class to [The Cursed Envoy]. The class must be granted in the Grand Origin Temple.

It sounded like gods were on top of the church situation, and Taylor didn't have to do anything he didn't want to. He was ready to take a class, and he knew how he was going to handle it. As for the boon, Taylor saw no reason to hesitate. "For my boon, I want divine spellbooks."

"Which ones?" prompted Yaonoch. He produced a small notebook and a pencil from his clerical robes.

"All of them." Taylor felt a warm and forgiving glow as he thought about the new additions to his library. "Every spell for every subspecialty of every divine class. From novice through Pontiff level. The gods will let you know if you forget any."

The Pontiff received a new quest, and his screen updated:

Quest: [A Boon Of Books 0/156] Repair your relationship with [The Cursed Envoy] by offering divine spellbooks. Abridged editions do not count.

The Pontiff flashed his grandfatherly smile, but it didn't quite fill his eyes like before. "And the class?"

"We're here. I have time. Let's do it."

Saria spoke for the first time since they arrived on the island. "Finally! We're going to have so much fun!"

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