It was on the next to last day before they journeyed north to Siddrimar that priest-candidate Verdenin had a vision. Not far from the warfs, where the squat and ugly toll tower that held the near end of the chain stood, he saw a beautiful temple to Siddrim rising up to shine its light onto the polluted river. To hear him describe it, it was a building of pure light that would transcend anything that had ever been created before in all the reds, oranges, and pinks of a beautiful sunrise, forever showing the people of the region that Siddrim would light the way.
No one doubted the priest-candidate’s communication with the divine. However, it did occur to Todd as he helped the one-armed priest with the initial drawings and what he called the elevation that it was oddly specific. He’d heard of many visions in his lessons about important saints and battle priests. Though some of them had been incredibly vivid, especially in regards to the bloody and terrible end times, none of them that he was aware of had come with measurements.
As more details fell into place on the way back home, it was unlike any of the other temples he’d been in over the years in a number of major ways. It featured the holy number seven quite strongly and would be built as a giant domed edifice with pillars in the outer apsis, as was tradition, but somehow the details were off. Todd had trouble putting his fingers on the differences at first, but he could not escape the way that the subtle reflected symmetry was unnatural.
“It will purify the river, I’m sure of it,” the priest candidate had told them around the fire one night while he tried to explain the fountains that he’d chosen especially strange placement for on the roof and near the outer walls. “You see when the spray of water hangs over the oculus like a cloud, day and night, all you’ll see from the inside is the rainbows of that prismatic spray!”
That detail did sound lovely, although Todd had no idea why the priest-candidate thought that such a touch would be needed for a town like Blackwater when a city the size of Fallravea didn’t even have a full temple. It made do with a small shrine, and Todd doubted that a larger, more beautiful edifice would have kept the deprivations of the Oroza at bay.
This was one of many small conversations that the priest-candidate had either to share some strange detail or another or to ask the brothers to pray with him so he might have a better understanding of how this door should be oriented or what scene should play out on this stained-glass window. Publicly everyone humored the man, but privately they worried that he’d gone quite mad to develop such a strange fixation. That was a fair worry for Todd because he could see Brother Verdenin in a way most of them could not, and to him, it looked like the darkness had taken root in the other man’s heart and was slowly growing.
That merely brought back the words of his Master about giving the man time for his soul to heal, and so he tried to be patient with Brother Verdenin. After all, until the day of his vision, the priest had not seemed particularly interested in anything but recording the minutia of the day for his superiors to read later, Todd thought. It was entirely possible that all of this was merely a coping mechanism.
However, it was enough to make him seem like he was a different person. He didn’t even complain about his missing arm or the quality of Todd’s linework anymore. He was just a man possessed, and by the time they reached Fallravea, he had something resembling a plan. Drawn on all the spare pages of the notebook he’d brought with him to record the events of the trip.
The cadre stayed there almost a week to resupply and make their reports to the governor, and in all that time, Priest-candidate Verdenin was almost nowhere to be seen. Todd largely stuck with Brother Faerbar, and though they did examine the city more than once, Todd found that hopelessly depressing. The place was a shell devoid of happiness and light now.
Ironically, one of the only truly happy people he saw the whole time he was there was the infant count that was kept in the governor’s house. Todd would have expected that a child like that, who’d survived such a terrible massacre, to be permanently stained by it. Instead, the child glowed with an inner light that seemed to defy the darkness that hung over everything else, and to him, that was inexplicable.
Todd only found out what had happened to Brother Verdenin as they were preparing to leave the city. The man had found a few artisans that were suspected of evil acts and promised to intercede with his superiors on their behalf if only they would help him with his designs as penance. So he had spent the last week slaving away unceasingly with them to better realize his great work.
The result was a giant set of scrolls displaying delicate linework that made the disturbing designs look somehow beautiful. A normal temple to their God was a bright, sunny affair, and few of the buildings outside of Siddrimar or the capital had much ornamentation. This building was quite ostentatious by comparison, containing fountains on the outside and golden decorations on the inside to demonstrate various important moments in the history of their religion. The entire building somehow managed to become a parable. Though the priest candidate explained that this was necessary to honor both the gold that Siddrim had blessed them with, as well as the river, which was now their burden to bear, it still seemed like an extravagant way to embody those important messages.
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Todd didn’t really care either way. He was happy enough to pray anywhere. To him, communing with his God under an open sky was just as good as kneeling beside a simple altar, and he was sure such funds could be better used in other places like the beleaguered Fallravea or any number of the dying villages that they’d passed on their way here. To him, it looked like half of the region might wither and die without help.
Ultimately it didn’t matter what he thought, though. He wouldn’t get a vote. Neither would priest-candidate Verdenin. Only the high priests could decide such things and given the low opinion of the whole county of Greshen right now, he thought they were unlikely to lift a finger to help the people of the area. The following month he would find out how wrong he was.
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The first thing that had to happen when all of them returned to the Courtyard of the Penitent, other than the funerals that were held immediately as large triumphant bonfires, was that all of them were purified. The weapons and armor of every member of the cadre were taken to be cleansed and given plain grey vestments while their clothing was burned. Then all of them stood a midnight vigil and fasted for 48 hours. It was only then that the darkness of everything that they’d slain was said to be shriven from their scarred flesh, and they were permitted to travel deeper into the giant temple city for additional cleansing.
From there, there were confessions to be made and baths to be taken, and after that things were quiet for the next few weeks. Brother Faerbar was lauded for the bravery of his men, and a feast was held in their honor that Todd had gotten more than a little drunk at.
They’d been back less than a month when he heard the news. “Your favorite priest-candidate has been promoted,” Micah teased after their first round of sparring. “He’s priest Verdinen now, but the next time you see him, I guess you’ll just be calling him your grace, or sir!”
“Why would I be seeing him again?” Todd asked, genuinely confused. The other boy gave him no answers, though. He just smiled like he had a secret and used it to tease Todd relentlessly as they fought, using that dread to gain an advantage.
He hoped that was all it was, of course, but the exchange nibbled at the back of his mind, and it was only when his Master pulled him aside to chat the following evening that he knew it was true.
“But I don’t want to go with him,” Todd protested after Brother Faerbar spent five minutes telling him about everything that was going to happen next.
Apparently, the priest had not only been successful in petitioning the high council to let the man try to save the Oroza, but he’d been promoted and requested Todd accompany him as part of the team, so Todd would be taking a few years participating in that great project instead of going out into the dark places of the world at his Master’s side.
“All squires that serve The Order of Purgative Flame must spend some time serving another part of the church before they will be deemed worthy to become a Paladin,” Brother Faerbar said, sitting down next to his disappointed squire. “You know this. You’ve known that this day would come for a long while now.”
“Yes,” Todd agreed, “but I was hoping I could serve in the guard and stay here.”
“So you don’t have to see the shades?” his Master asked.
Todd nodded at that. “So I don’t have to see the shades,” he agreed.
“Such gifts were not made to hide behind these walls,” his Master said, putting his arm around Todd’s shoulder and bringing him closer. “We found nothing in Blackwater, but that doesn’t mean that there was nothing to find.”
“But—” Todd tried to interrupt the older man.
“And in all the weeks that Priest Verdenin has healed and regained his will to live,” Brother Faerbar continued, “He has gained a newfound lust for design, but the darkness in his heart has not diminished.”
They both laughed at that for a moment before Todd hazarded a guess. “So, you’re saying… you want me to keep an eye on them?”
“I’m saying that since a full-fledged Templar would never be allowed to loiter in such a place, you might see things that others will not,” Brother Faerbar said, “And if there is nothing to be found, then in a few years, you will return to the city and take your place here where you belong in my cadre.”
That mollified Todd, and slowly the conversation turned to other topics. They spent the next couple hours talking about all of the perils and hazards that the Paladin thought the church was facing, both from the outside as well as from within and by the time Todd went to bed his heart was heavy with worry. Though he never would have refused his Master’s order in the first place, now that he had a better sense of perspective, he could see the wisdom in the older man’s actions. Though it was obvious he hadn’t told his apprentice everything, it was equally obvious that even the Holy City wasn’t quite so safe as he imagined.
The next week they set out on the long trek back, and Todd thought it was quite telling that, unlike his former Master, his new one had chosen to return to Blackwater by boat. It was equally telling that the voyage was uneventful, apart from the stink of corruption from the still-fetid waters. Todd was untroubled, though, toward the end of the voyage, he did start to develop strange dreams.