As he made his way upstairs, Bhehbe pondered about his life.

He was a good guy. At least he liked to think so.

Of course, a less biased observer might add that he was a bit misguided perhaps. Well, very misguided, actually. Not like the thought ever came across Bhehbe’s mind, Goddess forbid! As far as he was concerned, he was part of a sacred crusade against evil...

His was a sad story, really, that much anyone would probably agree upon. Dealt a bad hand at birth, so to speak. The complete package of misery, marred by poor looks, and poorer brains yet on top.

His mom had been a whore, and one of those that went for a bargain, at that. The kind of tramp that Imperial soldiers weren’t allowed to touch with a pole, because they were too filthy.

‘Had’, because she had passed away when he was eleven. He didn’t know exactly how she had died, but he’d been able to guess. Her corpse had turned up in some random ditch, a couple of days after she had gone missing.

No one had batted an eye, of course. Honestly, Bhehbe had counted himself lucky there had been a corpse, at all. For all that Zabala prided itself as ‘the Pearl of the Empire’, as far as its slums were concerned, life was cheap. Even cheaper than most working girls. And cheaper than a proper burial too, which Bhehbe hadn’t been able to pay for.

Still, in an ironic twist of fate, his mother’s final resting place had ended up being better than probably anything she’d been able to afford in life. An actual tomb, on consecrated grounds! There had even been a proper priest overseeing her funerals. Along with those of every other dead vagrant around, true, but that didn’t matter.

Rumors of necromancy being seen near the capital had been rampant at the time, and the temples had made it their mission to scour the city for anything dead or dying. They had even been kind enough to let Bhehbe sleep in the small building attached to the sanctum the one night his mourning had been allowed to last. By sunrise, however, one of the nuns had all but chased him out of it with a broom.

By sunset, he had been summarily informed that his mom’s shack hadn’t actually been hers, but rather her pimp’s, and that he was no longer wanted around. Unless he was willing to whore himself out too, that is.

Truth of the matter, he had even given the idea some thought. But eventually decided against it. That’s how, Bhehbe, age 11, had found himself on the streets, with only the clothes he was wearing and a couple of stale loaves of bread to his name.

Suffice it to say, he had had no one to ask for help. Aside from himself, his mom didn’t have any other family, none that he knew of at least. As for his father, he had never -knowingly- met the man. Not like he would have wanted to, anyway. The man was probably just one of the several lowlife drunkards that his mom had regularly tended to. Maybe even the scumbag who killed her...

He had never been the religious sort -too young to really understand it, really-, but he knew his mom had been a devotee of Ishtar. At least, he had seen her kneeling before the small altar in their shack often enough, silently staring at a small wooden effigy of the Lady. So, after his third day on an empty stomach, he had prayed to the Lady too. And kept praying.

Of course, his prayer ended up being worth fuckall. So, he had gone for his second-best option. Since the gods wouldn’t help him, he could only help himself. And it was in the midst of helping himself to a passerby’s purse that, that one fateful day a few years later, the cutpurse had come to meet The Priest.

Curtly put, The Priest, as he often introduced himself, was a man of many facets. In Bhehbe’s eyes, however, he was simply the holiest of men. And, to be fair, pretty much everything Bhehbe knew, that was even remotely related to what society at large would consider ‘decent behavior’, he had learned from the man.

The Priest lived in utter poverty himself. Yet, he would always lend a hand to anyone in need. The man would often go out of his way to heal the infirm, counsel the troubled, and overall bring salvation to those that everyone else seemed to have given up hope on. Most of the time, without even asking for anything in return.

After The Priest took him in, Bhehbe had learned to do the same. In a way, one could say The Priest was his Father and mentor.

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For all that he was good and generous, The Priest was also a secretive man. Even after spending over a decade by his side, Bhehbe had yet to learn his birth name. Or, for that matter, the name of the goddess he served. When asked about the former, The Priest would only smile, saying that he wasn’t worthy of any, not anymore. As for the latter, the man would always answer with the same sentence: “Her arms are welcoming of all and, in her embrace, we are as One.”

Truly, it had taken Bhehbe years to figure out what The Priest meant by that. When he finally did, though, he had almost been blown away by how meaningful the revelation was.

Death.

Not the phony gods and goddesses of death, or the underworld, or what will have you; Hades, Supay, Hel, Osiris, and their ilk. Those were a dime a dozen in the temples of Zabala, and every bit as useless as their peers.

No. What The Priest meant was True Death. The Death of everything and anything. Yes, even gods. All the gods could die, that much was avowed by the deities themselves. In fact, mankind knew of a handful that had been killed by their peers! And if they could die, how could any of them be truly considered to preside over death?

No! True Death was beyond gods. The Goddess of gods, that’s who She was! As for mortals? Everyone in the Realms was free to worship any pantheon they may fancy. But, regardless of individual preferences, each and every single being would ultimately have to bow down to the same mistress, eventually, when the time to breathe their last came. Was that not proof enough that She stood above all?

And what a joy that was!

Wasn’t hers just the goal of all life? Its cornerstone? Just like light held no meaning without shadow, life was just as meaningless without death! In a way, Bhehbe had intuited that idea the day he had seen his mother’s corpse, but his younger self hadn’t quite been able to put it into words...

No, Her contribution didn’t even end there! Who could claim to offer a kinder blessing than Her?

While not all men were made equal, in death all became peers! In her benevolent eyes, the lowliest of whores was no lesser than any princess, any empress, and yes, even any goddess! She was the epitome of fairness, heralding the end of all pain, all suffering, and all struggle!

The night he had the epiphany, Bhehbe hadn’t been able to sleep. The next morning, however, he hadn’t been tired for it, not at all. Instead, he had felt filled to the brim with restless energy. How could it have been otherwise? Even though he was unworthy, She had anointed him as one of Her agents!

There had been no visions, no whispers, and no dreamed revelations. Still, every single last fiber of his being had been able to tell. And, more importantly, The Priest had somehow been able to tell too.

By sunrise, when they met for a breakfast of bread and water, as their small congregation did every day, Bhehbe hadn’t said a word, but The Priest hadn’t greeted him with his usual beatific smile. Instead, his grin was colored with a hint of amused complicity. By sunset, The Priest had come to find him. Alone. And so, Bhehbe’s actual training had begun.

It had then been years studying in secret, learning how to harness energies that he hadn’t even been aware he could command. Years where he had truly come to understand how wise his Lady was, how great were her blessings, and how generous she could be with those who proved worthy. For his Lady was Death, true, but she wasn’t only death. What She valued, above all, was Power. What was Death, if not Power over Life?

Truly, there were as many Aspects to Her as there were stars in the night sky. But all of them approved of those willing to help themselves, as well as of all of those who were willing to help Her. Those who, after being blessed like Bhehbe himself, were willing to go to any lengths to get a taste of more.

After having reached that understanding, Bhehbe had spent decades in the shadows of the city. Skulking around like a rat, some may say, but he couldn’t have cared less. Ever so slowly, at first, then with ever-increasing momentum, he had gathered support among the common folk. While most nobles scowled at the sight of him, the masses thought him a local hero. After all, even most slaves considered that their origins were better than those of a bastard son of a whore, so, if even he could thrive, why couldn’t they?

Incidentally, that’s when Bhehbe, illumined during his talks with the Priest, had presented to the public a way to do just so. Some uppity nobles had owed Bhehbe a favor or two and, over the years, the Priest had gathered many hands that were willing to help, which is how the first of the Institutes came to be. It was certainly not the last, though.

The Institutes were open to anyone willing to learn, for free. Nothing in-depth, of course, but the people had no need for scholarly academics anyway! Just the basics of letters and numbers, Imperial law, trade, rhetoric, and quite a few other practical topics had proven enough to change the life of more than one fishmonger.

Of course, since the Institutes provided anyone under fifteen with a daily free meal, most of their pupils were kids and teens. Well, at least until the years gradually transformed those kids and teens into adults. From there, it hadn’t taken long before alumni could be found just about anywhere where a little finesse wasn’t necessarily needed, but certainly constituted a plus.

Whether they worked at the docks, or with the city’s garrison, though, the Institutes made certain that most of their former students shared a few core beliefs. Chief among them being that all men share the same fate in death, therefore all are equal... Those who proved particularly amenable, perhaps, were also asked to ignore or bury a few unimportant reports of necromancy and dark sorcery, in exchange for a little extra help here and there.

And now, the Priest had assured him, it was finally time to start making some big moves. Bhehbe, looking at Zabala from the top of the large house he had built where his mom’s shack used to stand, could barely wait.