Kal suspected that Tirian liked disguises a lot less than he would let on verbally. When Kal had viciously cut the man’s extra-long hair with a few slashes of his knife, Tirian had frowned but remained silent. When Kal expended corpist energy to cause Tirian’s face to sprout a thick, and long, beard, he could see the disappointment in his face.

But, as they snuck out of the grove surrounding Elmarad’s palace, the tension the younger man had tried to hide dissolved. Surrounding the massive grove and palace, was the entirety of Elmarad’s capital city.

Kal turned his gaze to the city’s main thoroughfare, leading Tirian through the celebrating crowds. Every shop, home, and building bore the symbol of the metal rod and a lightning bolt. Many bore banners depicting Elmarad’s benevolent face smiling down on them.

Kal scoffed at that. Bollusag had told him that Elmarad was stressed and stressful, obsessive, paranoid, and faithless. But he did run a good country, despite his flaws. The loud celebrations were only half the festival, many people sat, stood, or knelt in random groups in the street, offering silent prayers to Elmarad.

Kal nodded in understanding. This was a devotion festival. In gratitude to Elmarad for his defeat of the former god of magnetism in the past and his protection in the present. Elmarad would be gaining a lot of Devotion from his followers this day, no matter what city they were living in, thus ensuring his immortality.

“Stay close to me,” Kal said, “we need to get out of the city as soon as possible.”

Tirian scratched his beard in annoyance and frowned. “With a disguise as good as this, don’t you think we could stop for some food?”

Kal returned Tirian’s frown with a glare. He didn’t understand what it meant to feel ravenously hungry for a week while you stored the ability to resist starvation. But he decided to ignore the young man’s attitude.

“Absolutely not,” Kal growled. “Let’s keep moving.”

As they continued to make their way through the city, Tirian and Kal both kept their eyes open. Soldiers of Elmarad were everywhere, but none of them spared them a second glance. That said, Kal wasn’t taking any chances. Why would his god assign him the task of watching such a blasphemous criminal?

“You don’t really want to be here, do you?”

Kal shifted his swiveling to gaze to Tirian. The man gave him a knowing smile. “I live to serve my god.”

“That’s not really what I asked.”

Kal paused. About a hundred paces ahead of them was a small crowd of Elmarad’s priests. Not regular priests, but fighters. Hunters. Kal cautiously slowed down, moving to approach a stand to the side.

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At the stand, half dozen children sat on stools or the ground, watching a puppet show. After a moment, Kal recognized they were depicting the story of Elmarad’s defeat of his predecessor.

“I thought the gods lived to serve us,” Tirian said, also watching the show. He cast a careful glance towards Elmarad’s hunters.

“Apparently you think they live to serve you,” Kal said.

Kal returned his gaze to the puppet show. The puppet dressed in yellow was stabbing the puppet dressed in cyan until he called out in agony and fell to the ground. Several other puppets appeared, patterned to look like peasants, who cheered and chanted Elmarad’s name. The tyrant was gone.

Tirian shrugged. “They have power to spare for me.”

It took every ounce of self-control Kal had to not punch Tirian in the face. It didn’t matter that the, now a bearded, young man was being hunted. It didn’t matter that Kal’s god had a special mission for him.

“You stomp on the sacrifices of others for your own selfish gains. What did the gods ever take from you? As you can see,” Kal said, motioning toward the puppet show, “gods who don’t serve their people cease to be gods.”

Kal checked the street again, seeing several hunters approach their position. But, they paid Kal and his charge no mind, looking past the shorthaired and bearded man in a workers’ jacket as little as they would any other commoner in the city.

Kal continued push his way through the crowd, making sure Tirian stayed close.

“The gods don’t need to serve anyone, they just need to brainwash enough people into worshiping them.”

Kal took another deep breath.

“My God does a great many things because he cares.”

Tirian shook his head. “I guess Bollusag’s religion has been working on you.”

“What do you know about religion?” Kal hissed.

“Plenty,” Tirian said. “Seems you didn’t do much research on my life before the circus did you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tirian said, “Someday you’ll see. What you call “gods” are just normal men with a little extra power. Just like a king or a captain. And someday, Bollusag will ask you to do something wrong to protect his interests, and you’ll have to decide whether to do it or not.”

For a moment, Kal was taken aback. Bollusag would never ask him to do anything wrong. Bollusag was a god of nobility and virtue.

It took him a moment to realize that Tirian had continued walking ahead. The crowd mixing and flowing behind him. Kal cursed under his breath. He couldn’t let him get away.

He was about to cuss him out when he saw Tirian just watching as the people of Elmarad performed their sacred Devotion Day dance. Kal analyzed their movements. People entered and exited the dance at their leisure. If people were dancing here until morning, the tradition would be upheld. It was a way of honoring those men who had fought all day and all night with Elmarad against the old god of magnetism.

“I know this dance,” Tirian said, and he made a move to step into the dancing crowd.

But Kal grabbed his wrist too fast. “Oh no you don’t.”

“I wasn’t going to run away!” Tirian said, putting up his hands in offense.

“You’ve already tried to run away, twice. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Come on, you’ve already given me a great disguise.”

Tirian winked at a young woman moving through the dancing circle, and she gave him an odd look back. “Maybe you gave me too good a disguise.”

Tirian tried to pull his wrist out of Kal’s grip. But no matter how slippery this thief was, Kal was a vise.

“Alright,” Tirian said, “We’ll meet this god of yours. The sooner I found out what he wants, the sooner I can get back to my life.”