“Partly, you say. And the other part?”
“It’s hard to say this without feeling like I’m either whining or a heretic.”
“Go on.”
“I find … Increasingly, I find that I don’t see eye to eye with my superiors on matters of strategy or resource allocation.”
Evandor rubbed his stubbled chin. “Those are their words, not yours. Don’t talk to me as a diplomat or a subordinate. Talk to me as Keren Rhinn.”
Keren dipped her head. “I can’t turn off my thinking mind to follow orders, and I know our Lady wouldn’t want me to. But it feels increasingly that it’s what’s expected of me. I can’t serve heart and soul when I don’t trust that the mortals in charge are ordering the best course of action. And when there’s a rift between my interpretation of what’s right and the interpretations of others, I get stubborn, and then I feel guilty about being stubborn. I’ve been so well trained to follow orders that I hesitate to trust my own instinct anymore, but if I can’t trust my superiors and I can’t trust myself, how can I operate at my best?”
“If you were in charge of a unit, would you feel the same?”
She hesitated, giving the question serious thought. “I’m afraid I would. I’d still be fighting the battles I’m told to fight, rather than the injustice I see. Does that sound hopelessly arrogant?”
“I’d say it sounds too timid.”
Keren blinked. “Sir?”
“You say Iomedae doesn’t speak to you, yet you feel an indefinable wrongness about standing watch and following orders. Have you never considered that your unease might be a sign from her that you’re meant for other things? Your dilemma is not unique, Crusader Rhinn. There are those who thrive as a small part of a larger body. It makes them feel complete. But others feel as you do, and thrive with autonomy. There’s no shame in it, merely a different path to honor. We’ll work together to find out how you might serve her best.”
Shame flushed Keren’s cheeks. A soldier didn’t blush, but there it was. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Well, now. There are a few routes open to you. Tell me, for what purpose do you want to be her conduit?”
Keren paused to set her words in order, but only briefly. They were already loud in her heart. “To root out the enemies of the order. Waiting for them to come to us … I don’t think it’s what I’m made for. Defending Lastwall, keeping vigil over the Whispering Tyrant and the orcs of Belkzen—it’s all important, I’m not saying it’s not.”
“But you’re a crusader, and you yearn to crusade.”
“Yes, sir. But when my brother left for the crusade against the Worldwound, it angered my father and they never spoke again.”
“Ah. And that looms over you when you have these thoughts.” They reached a corner, and the knight indicated the way with his hand. “Very good. We’ll examine this further. But first, there are things you should see.”
“What kind of—”
The two knights turned, and the Starstone Cathedral now loomed tall at the end of a broad avenue. Keren had not taken the guards’ advice and gone to stare at the cathedral the night before, but even if she had, she doubted it would have at all diminished the queasy awe it inspired in her stomach in its full daylight splendor: massive and gleaming white, with spires that stretched confidently toward the heavens.
“Well, that, for one.” Evandor seemed unruffled, and was staid enough not to mock her for being overwhelmed.
Keren shook her head, still transfixed. “How long does it take before you can walk past this every day like it’s a normal thing?”
“‘Normal’ is a bit generous, but after passing it for about a month, you start to expect it. It still affects us, but the ways in which it affects us evolve. You’ll find the same, especially as your training progresses.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that for now.”
“Fair enough. Now, I know it’s a tall order, but I need you to tear your gaze away and look at what’s in front of you.”
Keren made a face, but brought her focus down to street level. Stretching before them was a crowded market bazaar with tents and booths lining both sides of a broad avenue. A constant rush of sound grew louder as they approached. “Street fair?” she asked.
“Permanent fixture. This is the God’s Market, and it’s where vendors try to make coin off the tourists, the pilgrims, and the hopefuls.”
“Hopefuls? So people still try to take the Test of the Starstone?”
“Oh, yes. Many of them. The Avenue of the Hopeful, the street that feeds into this market, is where the aspirants live and gather their followings while they prepare for the test. Farther down that way, there’s a whole shrine that’s just the names of the fallen. It’s incredibly sobering. Of course, every aspirant believes themselves the exception and is convinced they’ll be the next new god, even though only three people in history have ever succeeded.”
“I wouldn’t take those odds,” Keren agreed. They joined the crowd and let themselves be swept along at a snail’s pace. The scent of grilling meat combined with the sweat of bodies and the faint salt of the sea. Some vendors worked the crowd and interacted with the passersby, while others stood in the shade of their tents and let young children hawk their wares for them, their high voices cutting over the din of the crowd and leaving the stall-keepers free to converse with more serious customers.
Evandor set a browsing pace, and Keren took the opportunity to peer into stalls as well as to watch the shifting crowd.
She saw statuettes of many of the gods, holy water, religious clothing and texts. Some of the vendor stalls were minimal: portable carts, or blankets, or tables open to the air. Others were more showy, with tents and banners, or actual reinforced roofs for shade.
To her right, a stall sold enameled replicas of the Starstone Cathedral, and boxy canvases with sketches and painted scenes of the market and its centerpiece. To her left, a vendor was proudly offering a handkerchief used by Cayden Cailean himself—unwashed, of course, and stiffened with the ascended god’s mortal snot. Keren willed her expression to remain neutral. Inwardly, part of her was repulsed, but part of her wanted nothing so much as to find Zae and tell her about it.
Another tent, emblazoned with a large sign that read “Estelle’s Last Hope Mercantile,” also featured supposed relics. Keren had to concede that it was possible that a newly ascended god might not have need for his worldly belongings, and might not care if his home was looted by scavengers eager to make coin on his last mortal goods … but the spiral of petrified orange peel on the near shelf was unlikely to actually be over a thousand years old, and was more likely the remains of a snack purloined from the fruit seller across the way. There seemed to be no rhyme or order to the contents of each stall; they appeared merely to be whatever bits and bobs the seller could get his or her hands on.
“Jarid,” Evandor greeted the stall’s rotund merchant while Keren browsed. “Staying out of the Graycloaks’ hair?”
“As always, Sword Knight. As always. Oh—may I interest you in this fine artifact of your own goddess?” He rummaged under the table. “I’ve been saving this for someone truly devout such as yourself. Ah, here. This may look like a simple scrap of scarlet cloth to you, but I’ve had it verified from three scholarly sources that this, my friend, is a piece of Iomedae’s own sock. For you, her devoted servant, I could pass it to your safe keeping for a very reasonable price.”
Without touching the sweat-stained rag, Evandor leaned over as if examining it closely while considering it too holy to actually touch. “A rare find indeed,” he agreed, straightening, “but undoubtedly too rich for a stipend such as mine. You honor me by showing it to me, friend.”
Undeterred, Jarid stowed the rag back where it came from, and gestured grandly to a stoneware jar. “And do you know what this is?”
“Cinnamon from Calistria’s own cupboard?” Keren ventured.
“No, dear lady. This is a Bloodstone of Arazni! Yes, the very splee
n of the Lich Queen herself. And for the Sword Knight, an excellent bargain.”
Keren didn’t make eye contact with Evandor; she couldn’t trust herself to keep her expression schooled. “Fascinating. You truly have an impressive array of rare and precious goods.” But since Jarid was on such familiar terms with Evandor, it was obvious he was toying with them deliberately. He bowed in their direction and excused himself to lure in another pair of more serious customers.
They moved on. “I don’t understand. How can the enforcers let them operate, peddling fake artifacts as the real thing? Isn’t this all offensive to the gods?”
“The hawking is a formality only. All this is just amusement; spectacle for the crowd. I doubt anyone, even the newest visitor, thinks any of these are real. They’re novelties, sold to those who are amused by novelties. Real artifacts, on the whole, aren’t for sale in the open air. Which is not to say that nothing here is of value. Plenty of these goods are real magical items. If nothing here had value, no one would buy and the market wouldn’t survive. It’s a matter of knowing where to shop. The flashier tents and stalls have the flashier goods. The smaller, nondescript tents are where you’ll find the real magic.”
Keren noticed a shift as they neared the cathedral, from stalls selling artifacts of ascended gods to sellers of potions, boons, and lucky trinkets meant to assist the ascending hopefuls themselves. “You mentioned Graycloaks?” she asked.
“The city watch of the Ascended Court. Here in the heart of the religious district, order is maintained by atheists who proclaim no allegiance. They wear unadorned gray to further stress that their loyalty is to no god.”
“They must find this all absurd, then.”
“Some look upon it as the desperation of the gullible. Others simply find it a good way to make a living.”
“What’s the desperation of the gullible, Sword Knight?” a gentle male voice cut in alongside them.
The speaker was human and slight. She recognized him immediately as Sula’s observer from the courtyard.
“Crusader Rhinn, you remember Omari.”
“A pleasure,” Keren said.
“And likewise. Enjoy your tour of Absalom Rhinn. And your wooden swords. Be sure to come by the Irorium when you’re ready for a real challenge.”
“Are you still here, stealing my people? Haven’t you ascended yet?” There was no malice in Evandor’s voice. Omari laughed.
“When the time is right, and not a moment before.” He bowed gracefully to both of them, winked at Keren, and backed away into the crowd. She scanned the market for him, but couldn’t see where he’d gone.
“There’s undoubtedly a story there,” Keren said.
Evandor’s laugh was robust and genuine, coming from deep in his belly. “The Tempering Hall isn’t just for Iomedaeans. As I mentioned this morning, Omari came to us for training several months back, but lost patience with us and moved to the Irorium. Some of Irori’s followers can be—how should I say this—ambitious about achieving enlightenment. It seems contradictory to me, but Omari embraces it. So he helps to train the unarmed fighters against us, and us against them.”
“And he plans to ascend, you said?”
Evandor wandered toward a stall selling extravagantly expensive potions in cut crystal bottles. “He plans to try.”
Keren picked a bottle at random and held it up to the light. Though it was difficult to see beyond the intricate bevels of the bottle, the pale blue liquid swirled with darker tendrils of suspended color.
“Oh, a good eye.” A wizened halfling woman walked along the tabletop, inspecting the potion with Keren. “This one’s for a cat’s swiftness and grace. Quaff it and you’ll be across the chasm without so much as a running start.”
Keren set the bottle down. “It sounds wonderful. I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.” She left to rejoin Evandor before the seller could try to convince Keren of her need for it. “Are those potions just water with dye in them?” she asked him. “Some of them aren’t even well mixed.”
“There’s a bit of potion in there. Diluted, of course, but enough to show an aura to anyone who tries to detect their magic. That’s not to say that the potions do what she says they do, mind you, but as I mentioned, the people who are serious know to look beyond the showmanship to find the genuine articles. Ah. Watch yourself, now. Everything else we’ve seen might be exaggerated, but the pit really is as endless as they say.”
Without realizing it, Keren had walked with Evandor nearly to the very edge of the street. It ended abruptly at a smooth curve of pavement that fell away to nothingness. Beyond a vast blankness that looked impossible to cross was the grand Starstone Cathedral, even more majestic in its unobstructed proximity. Keren tried to follow the wind-roughened cliff face of the endless pit downward with her eyes, but the cathedral’s island at the center of the city defied her gaze. Before she had a chance to give heed to her vertigo, Evandor was already guiding her back from the edge.
“It’s the spectacle,” Keren said. “That’s what you brought me here to see. How hopeless the quest for ascension is, and how much effort goes into making it something people can believe in. That if your mortal life is beyond hope and you have nothing left to lose, you can be the one to beat the odds and find all the power and glory you lack, with a thousand strangers cheering you on. That’s why there’s no railing. If you’re foolish enough to get so lost in the dream of it, you’ve earned your fate.”
They were silent for a few moments. Keren imagined she heard the wind howling through the endless chasm, but in truth she heard nothing but the dim roar of the market crowd at her back.
“That’s the perspective your father would’ve taken away from it,” Evandor noted. “Here’s another: Iomedae breached this chasm. Look at it for yourself. Stripped of all the trickery and superstition, our mortal minds can only comprehend the impossibility of this task. So, in a metaphorical way—and a concrete one—this gap that seems so wide is only the first of an unknowable number of divides between we mortals and our gods.” He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Your first task is to contemplate that vastness. Mind that you don’t fall in.”
7
GREEN AND GOLD, AND ARTERIAL RED
KEREN
The clinks of small hammers on metal and the clicks of ratchets reached Zae’s ears first, followed by the low, warm sound of comfortable chatter. No one stopped talking or gawked her way when she appeared at the turn in the stairwell, but one person, a young and beautiful halfling with tousled dark hair, extended his arm toward Zae and then curled it grandly back toward himself, summoning her inward. Everything was distorted in her vision, as if this really was all a dream. Then she realized she still had her goggles set for magnification, and eased them up off her eyes and into her azure curls.
About thirty people of all shapes, sizes, and ages milled about in a cellar that was as big as the upstairs, if not larger. Some sat around tables, looking over parchments decorated with diagrams and plans. Others worked on handheld devices alone or in small groups. Some wore colorful clothing, and some the drab garments of students and market-workers. Others wore the vestments of Brigh—the same sort of brown leather coat with brass buttons as Zae herself was wearing.
The halfling who had welcomed Zae down the stairs was still watching her with a coy smile even though he was involved in a conversation with three other students. She joined him, and the knot of comrades automatically flowed apart just enough to make room for her.
“Congratulations and welcome,” the halfling said. His voice was more melodic than Zae expected, pleasantly rich with a lilt she couldn’t place.
“Thank you!”
“Did you like the path?” The halfling pointed down. Zae’s boots were rimed with the powder; its glow was quickly fading to nothing.
Zae laughed. “It was very nice! Is it the paper or the ink that the spell detects?”
“The ink. Pretty clever, isn’t it? If you’re looking for other first-timers, don’t.
It’s just you today. This place works more on a continuum than a formal class setting. The machine keeps running while different parts are swapped in and out.”
Zae could visualize this very easily in her head, and she grinned. “So swap me in.”
The halfling laughed. “Come along, then. I’m Rowan.”
“Zae,” the gnome answered.
“Pleased to meet you. Where are you from, Zae?”
“Lastwall, most recently.”
“Most recently?” Rowan winked. “Running from the law?”
Zae considered that for a moment. “Running with the law, more like it.”
“Can I ask about your hardware?” Rowan touched his own lower lip, then pointed at Zae’s. “Decorative or functional?”
She laughed, having forgotten the bubbly personalities of halflings, and brushed her hair aside to reveal the similar rings marching close in a line all the way up each ear. “There was a bet. I was keeping score with these, and after both ears I ran out of room.”
“Congratulations and welcome!” a new voice cut in, before Rowan could respond with more questions. The dwarf was older, grizzled, with a voice that sounded like gravel worn smooth by time. His coat sported a brass button with the likeness of Brigh, just like the top button on Zae’s own coat, and colored beads shone in his beard. Zae liked him already. “Renwick Graystone. I’m the leader of this cognate. Welcome.”
Zae introduced herself. “You’re faculty here?”
“Just an advanced student. There are five of us; we teach the rest of you, and also take more advanced courses of our own.”
“It might be years before you see any actual faculty,” Rowan added. “But don’t worry. We’re in good hands.”
“Yes. I can certainly see that.” Zae glanced toward Renwick’s imposing hands, and was glad to be his ally.
“Did you bring a device?” Renwick asked.
“I brought a bunch.”
“In that case, show me one you made to meet a specific need.”
Pathfinder Tales--Gears of Faith Page 6