by Daniel Ruth
“That we know of,” I said, prompting Beth to nervously glance around. She still remembered the night the demons herded her to my front door. “Never the less, I have some questions about faith.”
“Fine. Beth do you want to come with me or Derek?”
“I would like to the see the carriages.”
With that, the two girls headed towards the inn. I assume to ask directions. Meanwhile, I headed towards the spire to ask about gods, demons, and other assorted wonders.
The town was not that large, so it was a short time before I reached what I assumed was the church. It was tall and had a spire. It was either a church or a mage’s tower. Made of white stone blocks, it barely occupied an acre. Despite this, although the main building rose merely two stories, it had a tower that was six stories. It also had an old bell at the top. Most churches did.
As I opened the doors, I noted just how empty it was. Perhaps it wasn’t the time for worship but usually, these places were busier. There was a robed man kneeling in front of the altar in the rear of the building. As I approached, I glanced at the various statues of the gods by the windows. Ten-foot tall gold painted figures with animal-headed loomed over me as I walked. Gods like looming.
“Excuse me, cleric,” I coughed as I approached. “Do you have a moment?”
For almost a minute he was silent. I almost thought I had chosen someone who had taken a vow of silence. However, after some creaking and shifting of robes, the man slowly stood up and turned around. He was an elderly man, with more wisps than hair and more wrinkles than skin. I almost felt bad for making him stand.
“How can I help you,” he half whispered. “No healing is available. The gods are testing us.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I said, forcing a bit of startlement in my voice. “My retinue and I have been traveling the last few weeks. What happened?”
“The gods are restricting their grace. They no longer allow us to heal or channel their other powers.” I nodded. If the gods were active and the clerics attuned properly, they could cast many of the spells that their gods knew, destroy the undead and resurrect the dead. The barriers the demon lord placed must have played merry havoc with the priesthood.
“What does it mean?” I prompted. I was curious about what they thought was happening.
“Some of my brothers believe that the gods test us. Others, that a great darkness is rising.”
“What do you think?”
“It does not feel like the gods turned away. It feels like something keeps us from them. I would claim the demons that have plagued us, were making a push, yet they have stopped appearing so blatantly.”
“Surely the gods have not abandoned us,” I said, trying to put a slight tremble in my voice. “Do they demand we show our respect another way? Do our prayers and rituals have no effect?”
“None that we can see. As I said, many believe it to be a test.”
“If they believe so, then why aren’t they here, praying?”
“They were. For weeks, we prayed. When nothing happened, they left on a sabbatical to the holy land.”
Right, of course, there was a holy land. “I admit I have not been attentive to the gods. However, after knowing that they may have abandoned us, I feel the need to show them how much I care. If you would show me the correct way to worship our gods I will devote myself to them!” I stared him in the eyes and subtly willed him to believe in my devotion.
“You wish to join the church,” the old man said in surprise. “You are young, but age has never been a barrier for a true calling. Bring your parents to me and I shall make the arrangements immediately. Although our church has entered a period of tribulation, we will never turn away the faithful.”
“My guardians are not available for the moment,” I said lowering my head in sadness before looking at him again. “While I wait for them, would you be willing to let me examine the holy rituals of communion, so I can be as close to the gods as I can be before I join the church?” Once again I bore down on the old man’s mind with my will, putting a little more energy into it. He was actually withstanding it very well. If this kept up I would have to either knock him out and ransack the place or try again at the next town.
“Yes, I can do that,” he said as his eyes finally became unfocused. “Since you will become an initiate soon, it's only right.” He turned and woodenly staggered to a vestibule behind the dais. He pawed clumsily through several drawers before taking out a few tomes. Almost stumbling on his way back, he handed them to me.
“Thank you, great cleric,” I intoned while keeping my will on him. “I will use these to entreat the gods to bless us with their presence one more. You look tired, why don’t you sit down and rest a bit, before you begin to pray again.”
“Rest. Yes.” He awkwardly moved over to one of the benches and sat down. Meanwhile, I slowly backed away. With my ill-gotten goods clutched in my hands, I made my way out of the church. With a little luck, maybe we could avoid a vampire apocalypse to match our demon invasion.
Deciding against waiting for the two girls, I headed over to the inn. The town was not expansive enough to hide a slew of carriages. This decision paid off, as a carriage passing me stopped. Since Stella wasn’t driving it I was a little puzzled.
“Lord... Derek,” a female’s voice called from the very top of the vehicle. Looking over the edge was my elf. I glanced at the driver again. Nope, I didn’t have a clue who he was. “There were a few issues with getting a carriage.”
“What were they? Seems pretty simple,” I asked, somewhat puzzled. Beth had been able to get me a rickshaw with practically no warning. Perhaps I should have made her my retainer and the elf my whipping boy.
“It seems the town has none for sale. At least not that can be available within a few hours.” She coughed shyly and continued. “It was also pointed out that none of us knew how to drive one.”
“Really? How hard can it be? Slap the horses with the reins if you want to go and pull back to stop.” Honestly, I would be more worried about accidentally breaking the poor things neck. I admit my ancestors didn’t leave any related skills, but I’m not shy about trying new things.
“It’s a little more difficult than that my lord,” a gruff voice came from the driver. He was a burly middle-aged man dressed in a worn but well cared for suit. He looked like a frontier butler except for the sword he carried on his back and the spear propped up like a flag in some sort of cup holder next to the bench. “Grexor, at your service. When I explained the difficulties of keeping the carriage on the road and the sheer lack selections in a town this size she was concerned. Fortunately for the young Miss there’s still room in this one. It’s actually retained by the Runic Glyph School to shuttle the applicants to the school. They won’t mind if two more students join us. The young miss can sit up on top with the luggage and the trebuchet.”
“You’ve got a trebuchet up there? How does that even work? Is it toy size?” I asked in confusion. A trebuchet was a siege weapon. What the hell was it doing on a coach? “Also we’re headed to the Royal Academy. Will that be a problem?”
“Sister schools,” Grexor shrugged carelessly. “Basically the same thing. The only difference is that the nobles go to the Royal Academy branch. Due to the foot up in education they generally get home, they start in the more advanced classes. The other students can transfer to it if they get in the top eighty percent after the first semester.”
“Lies!” shouted a high-pitched voice from inside the carriage. “The Royal Academy is the elite. The Runic Glyph is where all the dregs go.” I heard several disheartened sighs from inside.
“Well, opinions can differ,” Grexor continued, unperturbed. “However, the schools share classes scattered all over the city in the various sub-colleges. It really only matters in the initial boost and where the students sleep. Oh, and the cafeteria.”
“The Royal Academy has better food? Is it all you can eat,” I asked eagerly, only slightly embarrassed in how easily di
stracted I was at food.
“It’s the envy of all the schools in the city,” Grexor whispered to me in a low voice.
“Well then, let’s be off,” I said enthusiastically as I walked up to the door. It was a bit stuck but a light tug pulled it open. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by the sound of metal cracking and some latching mechanism falling to the ground. “Um, oops.”
“That’s odd, the doors supposed to be open at our stops. Oh well, I’ll tie it closed and fix it tonight.”
Climbing into the large carriage would have been awkward for a ten-year-old body if my strength had not offset it. Once I clamored inside, I was greeted by the sight of Beth glaring across the seats at a slightly older male student. He was dressed in so many shiny bits and bobs that if he laid down, I might mistake him for my treasure horde. The other two students were more my apparent age and Beth’s. Their clothes were neat and well-made but obviously not expensive.
“This is Sentha,” Beth started the introductions, pointing to the dark curly haired girl. “She’s a minor Earl, from what sounds like a lovely city.” Sentha interjected with the name of her city but I was arranging my seat and getting ready to examine my tomes, so I did not really pay attention.
“This is Holland,” she introduced the other less shiny student. “He’s joining the Runic Glyph branch on a scholarship. I bet he can join the Royal Academy right after the first semester.”
“Good job, study hard,” I nodded as I leafed through the first book.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me,” whined the third student. He was the glittery one.
“Hadn’t planned on it,” Beth replied with aplomb.
“I am Clarence Whitehold, the third,” he stated with dignity, apparently ignoring Beth’s reply.
“And proud of it,” interjected Beth.
“Right, good job,” I nodded once more. “Keep up the good work.” Paging through the tome I was getting a feeling of trepidation. It appeared to be endless chants and rituals. Most were specific purposes, such as invoking healing or asking for a good harvest but many were just praises. Also, many were to specific gods. I needed something a little more generic that I could tweak to another god.
“Are you even paying attention to me,” whined Clarence. He had been going on about his noble heritage and how he was going to be the top of the class. The other children looked somewhat ill.
“Of course I am, Kleenex,” I said absently. Sometime in the last hour, we had started off at a decent pace. I could only assume that Cinnamon was following us since there was no way a unicorn would allow herself to be hitched to a manmade structure. “Here have a candy.” I reached into my pouch and brought out a mint.
“Derek those are my candies,” Beth whined. I winced, at this rate, all the children in the coach would be screeching at me.
“I’ll have Stell... er, Nonefna get you more tonight. Assuming they have chocolate in this kingdom.”
“Why are you ignoring us, are you an idiot,” asked Clarence. The other children sighed almost in unison. They seemed to be inured to the one noble’s foibles.
“Studying, you know. That school thing is approaching. Wouldn’t want to fall behind all the other kids,” I said frowning. Customizing a ritual would be tricky. Being what I was I could sense that most of these had no innate magic. They were just nonsense that the people could use to feel closer to their gods. The ones that called on specific gods used some symbology that had a more profound meaning and might actually tickle their attention. Changing the god out with another may make the ritual useless. It would be a fine balancing act.
“Well, stop it,” Clarence stated. “We’re going to be stuck in here for two days. The least you could do is talk to us.”
I looked up in contemplation. “I’m positive I could do less than that. Fine. I have always been fascinated by vampires. Let’s talk about them!”
“Shouldn’t we do that tonight at the inn,” Sentha suggested. “Ghost stories are best at night.”
“I was thinking more like fact checking,” I replied.
“Don’t we already know enough,” Beth asked in confusion.
“We only know about our blood drinkers. I am wondering about the local ones.”
“Well, we haven’t had an outbreak in ages,” Holland contributed. “I hear Carlises had one a decade ago. One of the five churches had to call a crusade together to clear it. There wasn’t much left of the town after that.”
“We’d be in trouble if we had one now. The churches are saying the gods have abandoned them,” Clarence said.
“I am pretty sure they didn’t say it quite like that,” Sentha retorted.
“That’s what it comes down to. No healing unless you have an in with an alchemist or an archmage, no blessings. Not even resurrections.” Clarence said with conviction. “My uncle broke his neck last month and the local church just hemmed and hawed about tribulation garbage. We had to pay a fortune to some old fart of a mage to bring him back.”
“It is a complex spell,” Holland added. “Requires a lot of power too.”
“So... feral vampires attached a city,” Beth asked with some disbelief. “Didn’t the council step in and do anything?”
“I think the Council at the time was dealing with a demon invasion. None of that anymore, at least. Maybe the gods are all tied up keeping the demons in check,” Holland said with some relief.
“No, I meant the Vampire Council.”
The other children grew silent for a moment, looking at each other. “There’s a Vampire Council? Are they like the churches but specialized in killing vampires?”
“Don’t talk about the Vampire Council,” I whispered conspiratorially at Beth. “I heard the last people that did disappeared a week later.” Beth just looked at me in confusion, however, she did drop the subject. “Have the vampires always been bloodthirsty killers? I had heard a rumor that there was a legendary ancient vampire that had won his soul back and he fought for the light.”
This was nonsense of course from some popular fantasy series in the early 2000’s, but the point of it was to direct the conversation into something useful. If I had to discuss dating and pimples with ten-year-olds for two days I could not be held accountable.
“That’s silly. Everyone knows vampires are soulless beasts. The only thing that might look civilized are the vampire lords. They have the ability to control their urges, enough to dress up and lure you into clutches. They won’t hesitate to drain you dry, though.” Clarence was confident as he replied.
“So they didn’t just turn evil about a month ago?”
“No, what are you studying that teaches you lies like that,” he asked disdainfully.
“Are you aware of a vampire deity that they worship,” I asked hopefully. Since our ten worlds were cut off from the outside multiverse it was a fair bet that the source of the vampire’s problem was in this world.
“Maybe you should ask your Vampire Council,” Sentha offered hesitantly. “Anyway, let’s talk about something less disturbing.”
“Okay, how about politics,” I offered. “I hear that the principal was on the council and he disappeared about ten years ago. Heard any good stories about it?”
“I take it back,” Clarence said gloomily. “Go back to your book. We’ll find some way to live without your conversation.”
Chapter 21
I did go back to my book during that ride. The children had many spirited conversations, which I happily avoided. At night, we would stop at the inns on the way. The others relied on Grexor to assign and pay for their room. We had Stella. She simply got a large room with several beds and it was adequate for the three of us. It was a peaceful ride, other than the bickering and Beth seemed to enjoy the presence of the others. Even Clarence wasn’t too horrible after she got used to him. She told me it was all thanks to me. Apparently, I creeped him out enough that he was able to restrain most of his ire.
Other than giving ten-year-olds the heebie-jeebies, I was mak
ing notes of variations on rituals. I was having troubles solidifying the exact forms, due to it not really being in my area of expertise. While I had gotten rather good at circles and wards, the rituals in the church’s books were rather alien to my point of view. Dragons are terrible at worship. Even our own gods had to earn our respect. Blind worship was not part of our paradigm.
I had borrowed a blank notebook from Holland and spent the day putting together various rituals, using my intuition to see if they made sense or were the least bit magical. I would have used my wrist terminal but I didn’t have a way to explain it yet. In those two days, I filled most of the pages with theories and nonsense. By the end, I had something I wasn’t happy with but didn’t have the expertise to do any better.
Beth spent days chattering with the others. She seemed happy at least. She must have been having more fun than I was. Religion is not something I am remotely suited for. At night, while I was muttering curses under my breath and scribbling doodles, she would make up for the lost time, typing madly away at her terminal. I had shown her the method to forcibly memorize almost anything you wanted to, as well as a simple speed-reader technique. She seemed to enjoy taking advantage of that.
Apparently, she split her online time with tracking down rocket parts and attempting to hack the damaged military satellite. She had more success gathering the materials but she was still able to get to the navigational commands. She was able to show us a live image of the city of Gildorn once she directed the device to a geostationary orbit over the city. It was remarkably clear for being forty thousand kilometers up.
Stella spent her days... actually, I haven’t a clue what she did. Maybe she watched the unicorn pace the coach and contemplated passing butterflies. The vehicle was fairly silent and a very smooth ride, so I didn’t hear any conversation between Grexor and Stella. While it was not a self-powered vehicle, it did have some rather nice enchantments built into it. At night, she would sit in the lotus position in front of the fire in the room and stare into it before she went to bed. I assumed she was meditating or communing with the essence of the elements or some similar rot.
