"So, let me get this straight. You three--and nobody else--are planning to take over the town and force it to renounce its nature-hating, god-fearing ways," Brian said.

"Why don't you just leave?" the Trickster asked.

"None of us have ever managed to get on a gathering team. We have no idea how to live outside the city," the teenager, whose named was Alfred, muttered. And don't say it out loud like that, we're allowed to have dreams, you know."

"Sorry," Brian said. We are grateful for the rescue."

"It isn't your fault that your master was mistaken for a god," Yvonne said. "The guards are a paranoid lot."

"Ha ha, he does love his silly godlike cloak," the Trickster said, laughing nervously. "Brian, I am going to stay here and try to formulate a plan to rescue your master. You should find a way to leave te town."

"But--"

"And look after the gods," the Trickster added.

"Oh. Right."

"I'll try to get you there," Yvonne said.

"I'll help!" Alfred said quickly.

After much arguing, planning, and for the Trickster at least a surprisingly good nap, Yvonne, Brian and Alfred set off after dark.

'Be careful," the Templeman, Sally, said, her hands trembling slightly as they rested on her knees.

"We will," Alfred said, waving an arm at her in farewell. The Trickster and the Templeman sat in awkward silence for a minute or so.

"You never told us your name," Sally said after a while.

"Cassie Strathfield," the Trickster said shortly.

"It is a pleasure to know you."

"Unlikely, but thank you."

"I hope you can find a way to rescue your master."

"He isn't my master, he's my brother."

"Oh. I hope he doesn't have eyes like yours?"

"He does have witch-green eyes, yes."

"Oh dear. Well, Magnus doesn't have a sister--" at this the Trickster bit her own hand so she wouldn't accidentally say anything "--so maybe if you plead your case to the guards they will be convinced?"

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"Maybe. So, if you have never been outside the town, why did you become a templeman?"

"Huh? Oh, right. Wait, how can you tell?'

"The Templeman Aura you have...They don't call them witch's eyes for nothing, you know." The Trickster had never really spoken to the other gods about templemen; for all she knew it really was only Magnus and her who could tell them apart from other humans by sight.

"My father was a templeman, working in secret in the town. And after he died, I thought that maybe if I became one, the gods would listen to my prayers."

"I don't think it makes the gods listen to them any more or less," the Trickster confessed.

"I've come to that conclusion."

"What did you pray for? If you don't mind me asking."

"The deliverance of my sister. She is a priest, and she was caught long ago."

"I'm sorry."

"My one hope is that she eventually repents. They let priests go if they do."

"I hope that she is returned to you one day."

"I believe that she will," Sally said, but her tone of voice said that she was lying.

*

After the third guard yelled in his face, Magnus was finding it very hard not to show them exactly how unwise it was to anger a god. Especially this god in particular, who could kill them all with a whisper and a wave of his hand. But while he could take out these guards, he might find it difficult fighting them all. And if they roused the whole town against him, he might be in trouble. Gods could die, his now-sister was unliving proof of that.

"Cloaks are warm, convenient, and versatile," Magnus said for the fifteenth time. "I have come from out of town, where cloaks are normal. They do not suggest at all that you are a god."

"Nice try, Magnus," the guard said. Magnus sighed. He still couldn't believe he had been caught by these cretins. They had tied him up to a wooden chair and were attempting to interrogate him. The interrogation was more frustrating than terrifying, though that might just be because he knew he could get free at any time.

"I told you before, my name is Renee Cooper. I am a merchant on an exploratory mission." There was a brief knock on the door, and a guard with a shinier hat than usual came into the room. A higher up, Magnus surmised, from the salutes he was getting.

"What is this, then?" the head guard asked.

"We captured this god," one of the guards said. The head guard looked Magnus up and down.

"Alleged god," the head guard said. "You're unlikely to get any sense out of him, and you run the risk of being contaminated by him if you talk to him too long."

"Being a god isn't contagious," Magnus objected. "Even if I was one, which I am not, it wouldn't make a difference how long you talked to me."

"Put him in a cell until his trial tomorrow," the head guard ordered, and walked out of the room. The guards made a big show of untying Magnus from the chair, and then retying his hands together before prodding him down the corridor. Magnus went, planning to escape the moment his captors left him alone in his cell. The guard house was one of the only stone buildings in the town, which would make it slightly harder to deal with than wood, but it would still be reasonably easy to escape. The guards pushed him into a cell.

"See you tomorrow, lads," Magnus said.

"I hope you rot, evil deity," a guard said, and they shut the door. As son as they did, the circuit of cold iron laid into the walls and the door was completed, nullifying all magic in the area.

"Oh," Magnus said. "Oh, f--"