As he made his way down the mountains that spring, Paulus gave the city he once lived in a wide berth. He hadn’t skipped Fallravea because he feared that he’d be recognized but because he could see from a great distance that the place was even more fouled than the waters of the Oroza itself even after the Templars' supposed purges.
It didn’t matter to him that he still had bags of gold and silver coins tucked away there, in places that were unlikely to ever be found. That wealth was nothing but bait for a trap as far as he was concerned. It was impossible for such things to stay pure in the face of so much death. Instead of marching through that cursed town, he journeyed from hamlet to village as he slowly worked his way around it before continuing south.
“They said the place had been purged, but I told Sister Annise that was no longer possible,” he muttered to himself as he went. “If she’d just read the figures and done the math herself, she would have seen that!”
His trip had not been comfortable, but his life at the small temple he’d stayed at for the last half year had hardly been better. Now that his health had improved enough that he could sleep in a barn without being taken by a fever, he needed to move on. There was so much to do but so little time left for him to do it.
“Doom is coming for us,” he muttered.
He muttered that all the time now, often without realizing it. It was one of the reasons Priest Mallen's encouragements for him to leave had been so vociferous of late. Well - that and the priest was jealous of Paulus’s exalted rank.
He might wear the simple brown robes of a penitent, but that was just a disguise. He knew that as thanks for all his efforts, Siddrim had made him a secret high priest of his flock. The Lord of Light had told him so in a vision the night he’d lost his arm. Though it would never be common knowledge, it was an honor he’d been forced to accept, even if his health was no longer the best.
Despite his elevated rank, Paulus didn’t let things go to his head. He carried nothing with him on this trek but a walking stick which he leaned on heavily, and a begging bowl which he used to share the wealth of the land with the generous people who worked it.
Despite the hard times, the people were kind. Paulus had yet to go hungry. Instead, he’d blessed infants, healed the sick with his one good hand, and feasted on the finest leftover food as he made his long slow journey south.
He was going to the one place where a tragedy of unimaginable proportions might be stopped: Blackwater. It was an inauspicious name for a place where he hoped to save the world. It sounded more like the place where river pirates might spend their time between raids or where lizardmen might lie in wait to ambush unwary travelers, but all his notes had pointed to this critical crossroads, and if nothing was done, he feared that was where the world would soon end.
“My poor books,” he sighed. “They must be so lonely without me.”
He’d left them in Sister Annise’s care, but only because Paulus knew that if he left them with the priest, they would be burned as heresy.
“Not heresy,” Paulus had corrected the other men of the temple regularly, “Historic. This is why Siddrim saved me, to help you understand how the calamity about to befall the world might yet be avoided!”
No matter how many times Paulus had explained it to them, no one had ever been convinced enough to join him on his quest, so he would do it himself. Well, he would find the one who must do it himself, he corrected himself mentally. Even in his prime, Paulus had not been a fighter. He’d wielded thugs and secrets like a lesser man might wield a sword.
This time he wasn’t going to have to pay anyone, though, because Siddrim was a generous God and had given him a champion. He just needed to find the lad. From the sketch he’d made, the boy couldn’t properly be called a boy anymore, but he still had a childish, virtuous heart. More importantly, he had a strong sword arm, and if someone like Paulus could succeed in removing the blindfold that had been tied around his bright hazel eyes, then they might yet avert the catastrophe that Paulus had seen so many times in his sleep.
He tried not to think about it, but the very word ‘catastrophe’ brought terrible images to his mind. A shattered sun, temples on fire, monstrosities boiling out from the depths, and corpses rising from their own graves all flickered briefly through his imagination. It might have been the end of the world, but Paulus was going to stop it from ever happening. He had to, because no one else was going to.
So, day after day, he continued south, and eventually, he found the fabled city itself. Well - it wasn’t really a city - not like Fallravea. It was a large town on the verge of becoming something more, but it lacked the taint that the hoary old city he’d grown up in always had. There were newer buildings along the waterfront, but even so, most of the town seemed to be made of hastily built shacks.
It didn’t even have walls or a gate, he scoffed as he slowly approached the one small watch tower that passed for security in the backwater.
“I’m looking for the chosen one,” Paulus said to the first guard he laid eyes on. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“Ummm… I don’t know who you mean, sir. If you could be more specific…” the young man with a spear answered nervously.
“Well, he’s about your height,” Paulus sighed. “He’s either fair-haired or has hair the color of dun. He might have a secret birthmark, and he’s a holy warrior whose mother was born on an auspicious day that was strongly in tune with the element of air. He has—”
“If you’re looking for a holy warrior, there’s only one in these parts that I know of,” the guard said, cutting Paulus off just when he was getting going. “His name is Brother Graff, and you might be able to find him at the temple.”
“Might? Might?!” Paulus shouted, annoyed that he’d been interrupted when he had so much more to say on the subject. “And if he’s not, what then? I’m on urgent business for the temple, and the fate of the very world hangs in the balance, and the best you can do for me is might…”
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Paulus would have continued that rant a good deal longer as well, but this time it was coughing that laid him low, and he spent the next minute hacking up a lung. That could happen sometimes when he got too excited.
“I suppose I could send a messenger around to find him for you if you like, sir, since it’s temple business…” the guard answered uncertainly as he looked at Paulus like he was about to keel over at any moment.
“You do that, boy,” the old man said, patting him on the shoulder. “You do that. I’ll be at the temple. I’m eager to see what you all have been building so hard down here.”
He took the last leg of his long trip extra slowly while he recovered, which gave him a chance to appreciate the squat domed building as he slowly approached it. Though it was still obscured by a great deal of scaffolding, its sunset-colored walls and its gold dome were impossible to miss.
“It’s okay,” he said to himself with disappointment. From the way people had been going on about this magnificent work of art, he’d honestly expected more. Honestly, the whole thing had a strange aura about it he couldn’t quite put his finger on, at least not until he got inside and noticed the way the gazes of the statues lined up and he’d cross-referenced them by the number of pillars and the contours of the light beams. This place was cursed.
“Can I help you,” a man said, walking up to him as he stood there, taking in all the strange new information that was pouring into his brain.
Paulus spared the new voice a glance and was surprised to see another holy man addressing him. “Well, look at that,” he mused, “another one-armed priest. We find a couple more, and we can have ourselves a convocation.”
“Very amusing,” the stranger said, gesturing widely with his sole hand. “I’m Brother Verdenin, the priest of this temple; how may I address you, sir?”
“I am the secret grand high priest of the Order of the Ever-Present Watchers, but you may address me as Paulus on account of our shared disfigurement,” Paulus said glibly, returning his gaze to the walls as he started to notice something odd.
“The Order of the Ever-Present Watchers?” Brother Verdenin asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of such a thing. Do you—”
“Oh, I see now,” Paulus interrupted as his eyes widened in horror. “This is where it will begin. I see the blood on the walls and the fire from the sky—”
“Leave us,” Brother Verdenin ordered the few craftsmen in the room. They’d stopped working anyway, so their absence would be no loss. “I will handle this. My poor brother has just lost his way. There’s no blood here, Brother, only beautiful pink stones and brilliant red glass to light the way to those who still dwell in the dark.”
“Blood,” Paulus insisted, pointing around the room. Everywhere he looked, he saw blood. It was on the stones that made the walls, the pillars that held up the ceiling, and it was even on the gilded decorations.
Paulus walked over to where the men had been getting ready to hang an angelic figure from the wall near the door and looked at it as blood started to seep out from under the plaster and the gilding. That was when he finally understood.
“Oh - these have bodies inside them to perfect their forms, don’t they? They have— Acchhhkkk…” As Paulus spoke, wheeling about the room and looking at the terrible depravity of the place they were in, the other priest suddenly attacked him, wrapping both his hands around Paulus’ neck.
Both hands? Paulus asked, struck by the strange thought, even in this moment of peril. He momentarily stopped his struggles even as the life was being wrung from him to stare at the other priest’s newly grown arm. It was an abomination made entirely of shadow, and Paulus knew if he could just drag the other man a few feet into the light streaming down from the oculus, it would vanish like morning dew.
He couldn’t, though. He was too weak and getting weaker with every passing second. His salvation lay only a few feet away, but it might as well have been waiting for him in the temple with his papers and Sister Annise.
“Why,” Paulus gasped with his final breath. “We both serve the light…”
“My master has plans for you and your devious mind,” Brother Verdenin answered without malice or regret. The other priest's flat expression was the last thing that Paulus ever saw before the lights went out for good for poor old Paulus.
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It was only a few minutes later after the priest dragged the lifeless body of the madman from where it lay in the shadow of the pillar that Brother Verdenin had pinned him against into the pavilion he used as his personal chambers, that Brother Graff showed up. His spiritual arm had faded only seconds before the other man had entered the room, and Priest Verdenin was grateful for that. Such a thing would have been even more impossible to explain than the body.
Todd didn’t say anything at first. He just looked around the room expectantly before he asked.
“Is there… was there someone here waiting for me?” he asked sheepishly.
“Should there be?” the priest asked, feigning disinterest.
“Well, a messenger from the city guard came to me while I was studying the scriptures at the book seller’s and told me that a… a one-armed priest wished to speak with me,” Todd said, trying and failing not to look at Brother Verdenin’s missing arm.
“Do you know any other one-armed priests?” Brother Verdenin said with a laugh.
“Well, no, but the messenger described someone older and said—” Todd started to answer.
“He was almost certainly confused,” Brother Verdenin said, letting his tent flap fall into place behind him. “I was the one who sent for you.”
“Oh, okay,” Todd agreed uncertainly, “What is it you need?”
“A number of tools have gone missing from the stone masons' tents, and I fear there might be something darker afoot,” the priest lied. “As you know - we are only weeks away from holding our first service, and it would be a shame if that were disrupted because we weren’t vigilant enough.”
“I won’t let that happen, sir,” Todd said, saluting before he rushed off to find the culprits that existed only in his imagination.
That wasn’t unusual. Brother Graff had spent the better part of the last two years chasing ghosts, Brother Verdenin thought with a smile. The man was hopeless. He couldn’t even find a dead body a few feet from the corpse itself. Of course, all of the terrible medicines he’d given the lad while he was dying, along with the terrible symptoms of his cholirum withdrawal had muted any supernatural gifts he might have once possessed.
“I don’t know why I have to let him live,” the priest muttered to himself as he went inside to hide the body a little better. “But the lord works in mysterious ways, and if he says that Todd is needed, then who am I to second guess such things.”
Brother Verdenin doubted that Todd would come into his tent, but regardless, it wouldn’t do for the corpse of the raving lunatic to be found so close to the completion of the temple. That would raise too many questions which would be impossible to answer. Regardless, the priest was sure that sometime tonight, it would simply disappear all on its own anyway.