Chapter 26 - Answer the Call

Bishop Kolash was largely silent as we went through the sleeping city. His pace was quick, his long legs eating up a surprising amount of distance while his staff *panged* on the cobblestones underfoot. I still wasn’t wearing shoes, making the pace and the makeup of the street an unpleasant experience, but my feet hurt in the conventional way, not the bare-skin-on-quellstone, knives-in-my-bones way. Apparently, the city itself wasn’t paved in the stuff, which was a relief. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where having life-sucking rocks right outside your house was a good thing.

Really need to get some boots or something before I leave.

The thoroughfare was a wide river of gray banked with impenetrable walls of hulking, wooden buildings jammed tightly onto either side, packed so thick they could all be mistaken for a solid structure like the city walls. The road sloped gently down from the gate where we left Jassin and his people, just enough that I was able to feel it like I was being guided along by a sluggish current.

Most buildings were several floors tall with canted roofs that sloped away from us, big shuttered windows, and awnings covering wide wooden stoops only a few steps off street level. Every set of doors that led to our road was tall and wide, and every one sported multiple fat, wooden signs that swung on long metal poles stretching diagonally up and out over the street, each trying to reach longer than the other. The shape and color of the signage was of such variety, the gently swaying planks so numerous they probably cast the street in shade much like the forest canopy we’d left behind.

‘Was that comforting for people to live under?’ I wondered. On a planet so dominated by greenery, maybe some folk felt living under an open sky was a touch unnerving.

I didn’t know what time it was, but I got the feeling we were in that fun part of the morning where it was too late to go to bed but too early to be awake. Almost no one was out and about, and there were very few signs of life. There were exceptions to that rule though. A few chimneys billowed smoke, and I could smell the tantalizing scent of baking bread and the rich, greasy aroma of spiced meat somewhere out there.

Sightings of fellow travelers were rare, and they tended to shy away from us, or, more likely, the light on the Bishop’s staff, instead sticking to the side of the road or turning down the much narrower side streets upon spotting us. Occasionally, we’d pass a stoop with a snoring figure curled up against the building’s entrance door, presumably leeching some of the heat from under the sweep.

As we left the gate area, the slope of the terrain steepened, carrying us down lower until our street intersected with another of a similar, expansive width where, together, they formed a square. Cold fog pooled on the ground, ankle deep and thick as soup, and the stones were slick with moisture. In the center of the square stood an empty black plinth that, at one time, had an inscription on its front, but someone had taken great care to destroy the writing with something sharp.

The familiar, icy fingers of the quellstone were back with me as soon as I stepped foot into the intersection. I could feel it under my bare feet, and though I couldn’t see it, I could feel that the stones had sizeable, regular gaps between them like the spaces of a grate.

A drainage system maybe? That makes some sense. It’s huge, though. Where does it go? Why pave it with quellstone?

A solitary figure dressed in loose gray robes worked a push broom on the far corner of the square, supposedly the only person out at this hour not on their way to somewhere. The bristles of its broom made a harsh, *shck* *shck* sound loud enough to carry across to us, and something about the aimless, spasmodic way in which they worked drew my eye. The way the worker carried themselves. The way they moved. The lack of pauses, single mindedly scraping their broom across the same stones over and over again.

Their hood prevented me from seeing their face or a general shape, turned away from me like they were, but the skin on the workers’ hands, the parts not covered in bandages at least, looked purple and bruised. Every couple seconds the hood of the robe would list to the side as if the person within couldn’t hold up its head or didn’t care to.

The Bishop didn’t pay the figure much mind, however, taking a right to head down a different street, and I did my best to stay in his shadow, keeping a low profile and pretending to know what I was doing while making it look natural. A sort of, blend in by looking like I had nothing to hide, sort of thing. It was an art, really. Soon, my feet were back on regular cobblestone, and we were headed back up into another district.

Stealth is now level 5.

Upgrade paths available:

Reduced Presence

Gray Man

One with the Shadows

Huh?

This was the second time Stealth had leveled without me realizing I was using it. Sure, I was trying to hide, but I was in plain sight. The first time this happened was during my first night in the forest as I slept. I was hiding in the hollow of a tree when I’d leveled it in my sleep. The other times were more overt uses of the skill where I’d hidden from the big creature in the tutorial facility and then when I was hiding from Jassin’s guards.

That brought into question exactly how it worked. Was it my intent that mattered?

Regardless, I’d hidden from something. Successfully.

As we climbed another hill away from the foggy square, the character of the city changed significantly. Gone were the shoulder to shoulder buildings, replaced by rows of evenly spaced and trimmed trees, lit from beneath by yellow lights. Planters the size of tractor tires sat next to empty stone benches, and the gentle rustle of the wind and trickle of water from triangular marble fountains lent background noise to the early morning silence.

We approached the Bishop’s church from the side. Easily the biggest building I’d encountered so far, the structure was in the rough shape of a prism with a triangular front and back with a long bit in the middle. Carved stone and polished wood made up the base which gave way to a baffling array of colorful stained glass for the roof that stretched up to the building’s tip. The church was lit from the inside, making the glass glow warmly in the early morning dark, a beacon for those that could see it.

We entered through double doors set into the wide base of the street facing side and stepped into a warmly lit foyer, big enough to hold fifty or so people, with lots of gray fabric over old and multi-hued polished wood. From inside, the stained glass ceiling looked dark, but I imagined it was quite a sight to see during the day when the sun was out.

A lit brazier crackled and popped in the center of the room, illuminating another set of double doors, these with round metal knockers, leading out of this room. The bishop led me over to the fixture.

“Ah. Here we are,” Kolash said, pausing to stretch and take the place in like he was coming home after a long day. Then he reached up to the head of his staff and plucked the dancing flame from the head, cupping it in his palm before tipping it into the brazier. The orange flame trickled out of his shovel-sized hand like liquid, and the bowl whooshed, flaring high enough to touch the Bishop’s skin. He didn’t show any sign that the heat had harmed him, though.

“Your holiness!” someone yipped, their voice muffled by the doors beyond the brazier. Muted scrabbling noises came from behind the wall followed by a *bang,* and one of the doors rattled slightly. Muffled grunts could be heard as well as soft scratches as someone struggled to do something on the other side of the wall. Then, with the sound of some kind of mechanical latch being disengaged, one of the doors clicked and swung open for us to enter.

“Shall we, brother?” Kolash asked before stepping through the doorway and into the next room, a sanctuary of some kind with rows and rows of wooden pews all facing a pair of altars on a raised dais of smokey gray stone. I made to follow, reflexively reaching out to keep the door from closing as I passed through, but my hand came down on something fuzzy and warm… and wiggly.

The high-pitched shriek that wanted to burst out of my mouth didn’t quite make it to freedom. I caught myself in time and turned it into a sort of gasp that bordered on a wheeze.

Reflexively, I brought my hands up as if to take a swing at the thing before I could stop myself, but the damage was done.

“Oh! Excuse me! I’m sorry!” yipped the little voice yet again, this time from what I’d taken for a door handle before. This door did have a handle made of thick brass, but there was a creature hanging from it. It was three feet long with triangular ears on top of its head, a pointed nose, and covered from head to toe with brown and black fur almost identical in hue to the wood of the door. The robe it wore, tan but for bright white stitches on the seams, hung loosely from its shoulders and arms.

Dropping back down to the floor and scrambling on all fours, it got a polite distance from me before standing back up on its back legs, rubbing its front paws together nervously. Its wide, black eyes stared up at me, and its ears flattened as it bowed in my direction. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle Brother- uh- mister Brother of the Dawn.”

Kolash boomed with laughter that echoed from the hard surfaces of the church and shook my squishy bits. It was a strange sort of laugh, like he was both amused and violently sick, featuring a lot of burps and gurgles.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

What exactly was I looking at here?

Apparently, the bishop could read my expression well enough to answer my unasked question. “You have never met a Volpa before, I take it, and the way you look at me, Rahns must be in short supply in your monastery as well.”

I nodded reluctantly, not wanting to offend, and I set my jaw, back to looking severe and hoping to not just come off as having a bout of constipation.

The fox creature shrunk slightly under my gaze, like he desperately wanted to hide. “Don’t worry, Mister Brother of- Brother of the Dawn, sir. It happens a lot. I realize that I am very small. I didn’t mean to-”

“Yik’i’trix, the proper way to address him is simply, Brother. You are of the same rank. Despite his order’s pedigree, we are all part of the same church. Am I correct?” Kolash asked me with a raised ‘eyebrow.’

I nodded again. I wasn’t about to argue with the Bishop. I was a holy man now, afterall. Looking down at the little fox creature, the Volpa, I allowed my frown to slip for a moment.

Yik’i’trix wasn’t hearing of it, though. He bowed low again. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that, your holiness, but I will try to address him properly. May I ask our Brother’s name so that I may apologize formally, your holiness?”

“He has not told me,” Kolash said. “We were just about to get into that in my office.”

“Oh, well, I apologize, Brother. I hope I can assist you in whatever you need while you are here. Would you like food or water? I am very fast, and I know my way around the kitchen.”

I shot a glance over at Kolash, who simply looked on with quiet amusement. I really wasn’t comfortable with the bowing and scraping, especially if it was directed at me. The concept of this kind of hierarchy felt foreign and ridiculous to me. My dad was the Headman of the Clan, but that just meant he made decisions when the council wasn’t in session. No one thought he was any better than the rest of us. My people had a saying: “Bow to no one, stand for mankind,” and we generally meant it.

I swallowed quietly, hoping this didn’t set a precedent.

“My name is Ryan,” I said, keeping things short and simple. I regretted it immediately.

Yik’i’trix did this full body shudder thing starting small at his tail, and it crept all the way up until his head practically shook off of his shoulders and his ears made slapping sounds against his skull.

“Oh! Brother Ryan, you honor me with your voice. I promise I will treat being one of your trusted few with the respect it deserves.” Now he was bowing even lower, practically vibrating on the floor.

My first day as a monk is going swimmingly. Jassin, if I see you again, we’re going to have words.

Kolash saved me from this supremely awkward moment with one of his half-belches. He was doing that more and more now that we weren’t in public.

A cultural thing maybe?

“Hurp. Yes, it is a great honor, I am sure, Yik’i’trix. Now, please, do go and get our new guest some refreshments. Bring them to my office. Also, prepare a room for him.”

“Yes! Yes!” The little Volpa took off like a shot. He ran on all fours, slipping beneath pews and taking corners at great speed, the rapid padding of his feet the only sounds we could hear until an unseen door creaked and subsequently slammed somewhere out of sight.

“Come. Bwoorf. Before you gain a full retinue,” Kolash rumbled with obvious displeasure, leading me swiftly further into the church. I followed him all the way down the center aisle between the pews until we hooked a left and went through an unassuming archway and into a set of plain hallways at the end of which was the Bishop’s office.

The hulking bishop propped his staff against the wall by the door and walked around his huge desk to sit in his equally huge chair, gesturing for me to sit as well, in (if you could believe it) another huge chair. The size of everything in the room made the ink pots, pens, seals, papers and scrolls on the bishop’s desk seem like they belonged to a child, but I suspected if I reached out and took one, I’d be holding something pretty standard sized for a human.

“I think you just made Yik’i’Trix’s year, Brother Ryan, but I ask that you don’t get his hopes up too much,” Kolash said with a deep, concerned frown that subdivided his head in interesting ways.

I knit what used to be my eyebrows together to communicate how confused I was.

Two people in the room, and not an eyebrow between us. It takes… what?... Weeks? To grow back hair?

“Speak, please, Brother Ryan. I promise not to ask it of you often.”

I just sat there, stone faced. The last time I’d spoken, I’d nearly made a tiny fox man pee himself. I had no desire to continue that trajectory.

Kolash cleared his throat. “Urp. Very well. Consider it an order. Know that I do not do this lightly. We will need to communicate if we are to solve this problem of ours. Now speak.”

Apparently, the bishop was my superior. I remembered him saying something like that before. Noted.

Let’s keep this conversation away from me.

“What do you mean by not getting his hopes up?” I asked.

“Yik’i’trix’s dream is to belong to a militant sect of the church. Your order is something a cut above, a reputation well cultivated and I have no reason to doubt. Since you just took him into your confidence by sharing your voice with him, he might have hopes of following you back to your monastery to undergo the trials.”

I scratched the back of my head where my monk’s head covering came together in its knot. “And that would be bad?”

Kolash sighed and leaned over to look worriedly past me to the door before answering. “Yik’i’Trix has many talents and a kind soul. His place isn’t on a battlefield. It would ruin him.”

I furrowed my brow, contemplating. “Shouldn’t that be up to him?” I asked. Of course, the little guy was adorable, but why shouldn’t he be allowed to build himself up and fight? I spent years wishing I could do that very thing back home.

“Of course, brorp,” Kolash acknowledged. “He is free to serve how he sees fit, but if you do not plan to initiate him, do not give him reason to hope. I was surprised when you deigned to speak to him and bring him into your confidence. I would have rather had this discussion beforehand, but I suppose the damage is done now.”

He had me there. I hadn’t realized a word from me would mean so much, but I had to roll with it now. “Like you said. We need to communicate if we’re going to solve our problem.”

“The plague.” The bishop’s lips parted and a deep, displeasured croak escaped from his maw.

“I take it, things are dire,” I guessed.

He shook his head. “No, not yet, but situations like this can escalate quickly. What did your order tell you before you came?” The Bishop asked.

“Some,” I said, leaning forward to listen intently. “but I would like to hear it all from you.”

Deception is now level 4.

The door to the office creaked open, and Yik’i’trix poked his head inside, his pointy, satellite dish ears angled toward me but his eyes on the bishop. “I have food and drink for you both, your holiness.”

The bishop leaned forward to see over his desk, all smiles again.“Yes, Yik’i’trix, bring it in, please.”

The Volpa disappeared for a second then came back inside, balancing a tray on his head with two arms supporting the underside while he walked on his hind legs. He’d made what looked like little finger sandwiches with sliced cheese and greens with a pitcher of water and cups to wash it all down. He served the bishop first then myself.

“Thanks,” I said after taking the offered cup. The finger sandwiches called to me, even more tempting than the mockvine’s deer girl illusion. I hadn’t had anything green in months, and cheese was something rare even on Proxis. My stomach gurgled.

Yik’i’trix did that full body shudder again, nearly dropping the now empty tray, but then he bowed and waddled back out of the room.

Kolash looked at me reproachfully, grunting with displeasure, but he didn’t chastise me.

You go and live your dream, little guy. Don’t let the frog man keep you down.

The bishop downed his water in one, long, pull, then set the cup atop a stack of papers.

“As I was saying. The situation is becoming dire. The plague is a most vexing one, incurable by any method we possess other than the most radical of purge procedures, and even then patients do not survive the curing. We started seeing it three months ago, when the goblin tribes began to cross the mountains and the truly desperate came knocking on our gates. A trade caravan was set upon by a large pack of feral goblins, black of skin, long claws, completely mad. The caravan lost people, but they were able to put the goblins down. However, when they arrived in the city, one of their Returned started showing symptoms.”

I tilted my head to indicate I was listening and wanted to know more, hoping Kolash would take the cue instead of requiring a more specific question.

“I know. Returned being affected by plague. Outlandish on its face, but we are cursed to live in interesting times. The sickness manifests in hallucinations, nervous twitching, nonsense speech, and violent outbursts. It’s horrible to see, especially among such a vulnerable population as our Returned. We went back to the site of the battle to try and get a sample of the plague carrier, but the bodies were gone, either taken by scavengers or carried off by others of their kind.”

My brain was going a mile a minute, trying to think of appropriate, intelligent questions to ask. “How long does the plague take to run its course?” Was all I came up with.

“It doesn’t. The afflicted never get better. They get worse. They stop speaking entirely. They’re violent and temperamental. Beasts are affected largely the same way, though knowing their symptoms is a guessing game unless a very specific type of practitioner is on hand. We’ve tried to contain the sick and tease out the plague’s nature, but, so far, our talents have largely been ineffective. We can’t let the afflicted wander free, but we can’t take care of them all. We’ve taken to using the old Cathedral Ward as a haven for the sick, but it’s like trying to put out a fire by smothering it with straw.”

Kolash leaned forward to put his elbows on his desk and folded his long, three-fingered hands.

“We haven’t told anyone yet, but we were getting desperate enough to send for military aid to contain the spread. The infected Returned, all of them, eventually try to escape the city. They choose the shortest path south and just set out. They become violent if you interfere with them,” he said gravely.

He hung his head and reached up to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Worse, on my approval, the city watch allowed one of the afflicted a line of egress from the city walls, and I had a pair of scouts follow it out into the wilds. Roorkch. They have not yet returned after two weeks.”

He made that little sign with his fingers like the Sergeant had done at the gate. I caught more of it this time. The way Kolash folded his fingers, it was a rudimentary triangle. “So, you see why I was… well I wouldn’t say pleasantly… I was surprised when I saw your order had dispatched you to us, but perhaps it is providence. As I wrote in my request, I would have loved for a specialized healer to be sent from the main branch, but that was then. I am more and more convinced this threat might require a full purge. Another crusade if we do not act quickly enough. I hope your order’s specialized capabilities are even half of what your reputation says.”