Tenthé woke up, got ready, and stuffed down some food from the tables next to the assignment desk. After running a few messages between nearby offices, he took a job that sent him into the City. When he finished, instead of returning to the fort, he jogged through the City Center until he arrived at the temple of the Turtle God.

It was as busy as ever, with the crowds drifting across the plaza, relaxing and enjoying themselves. The first thing he noticed was the absence of anti-magic spells. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but since he didn’t have any clue one way or another, he decided to continue his mission. Quite a number of people were entering and leaving the temple, so Tenthé joined the influx.

After passing through the gate, he broke away from the majority who were here to bother their gods about the usual nothings, and walked around, impressed by the affluence on display. Numerous smaller fountains populated a large open square, interspersed between small clumps of exotic trees and flowers. Although the open area in front of a temple was usually called a square, this one was more like an oval, with the outside wall making one long side and the front of the temple the other.

The temple itself was not what Tenthé expected. Instead of a bunch of separate buildings, there was a single structure with separate entrances dedicated to different gods. Of course, the biggest entrance in the middle was for the Turtle God, with increasingly smaller doors fanning away to each side for the rest of his pantheon.

Statues indicated which god went with which door. In some cases, there was one big statue and in others, many, often crammed together. There was no subtlety. The further from the Turtle’s entrance, the less important the god.

It was likely that these represented the gods who’d supported Turtle in the re-do. It would be interesting to find out who was here and who wasn’t.

On each side of the center were entrances for various gods. Closest were the so-called coin Gods: Life and Death, Love and Hate, Health and Sickness, plus a few more. Next came a few more of the important gods: weather, fertility, knowledge, and magic. After that were a few holdovers from the old Gods, such as the God of Vermin and, for some reason, the God of Fog, who was separate from the God of Weather. After these came a few doors surrounded by statues covered in shrouds. The hidden gods were available for worship by invitation only. Tenthé suspected the mystery goddess was one of them.

After that were doors for the less important gods. For the most part, Tenthé wasn’t sure what they represented, since he didn’t recognize the statues.

One he did know, and his favorite, was associated with the statue of a cross-eyed man. This religion was just weird. The statue had nothing to do with the god, and even the worshippers were a little shaky when asked what they believed in, although everyone agreed it was a last resort for the desperate. Or the nuts.

The deity was called the all-or-nothing god for a good reason: if you had run out of options, you could come here and ask for help. Sometimes you got it, and sometimes you’d find yourself even worse off. But mostly, you’d get nothing. Tenthé liked the randomness of it all.

This entrance was the last one, and because of the oval shape of the square, it was a fair distance from the gate. Not too surprisingly, none of the crowd had made it this far. Since the Temple was still here meant it had to have a few worshippers, but from the lack of traffic, Tenthé suspected that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

Even without being able to count, it was apparent there weren’t as many gods as before the re-do. He could tell a lot from a few, and this was definitely a few.

A big banner hung over the main entrance displaying a picture of the Turtle and a man with his hand on the god’s shell. Probably the Dreamer. He looked happy. A little different than Tenthé’s relationship with the god. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and he figured there was a teeny-tiny-huge chance that the god held a grudge. Fortunately, he wasn’t here to visit with Turtle, he was here to talk to the Dreamer.

Just because he didn’t know who or where the Dreamer was didn’t deter him in the slightest. He’d track him down somehow. Although Tenthé suspected it would not be as simple as walking in and asking to see the guy.

And was it was a good bet that he wouldn’t be able to get inside as easily as the last time, since that turned out to be a total setup. Come to think of it, so was the first time. He grimaced, realizing, yet again, that he really wasn’t the brightest cucumber in the cutlery drawer. It was embarrassing to admit that a turtle had been running rings around him.

So, possibly, everything he was planning was a lost cause.

That thought made Tenthé laugh. Maybe he should go and talk to the cross-eyed god! He’d fit right in. Then he thought about it again. Why not? The god was probably one worshipper away from being kicked out, so perhaps he’d be willing to help. At least he could talk to a priest and see what they had to say.

He trudged over to the door beside the cross-eyed statue, but as he attempted to enter, he lurched to a halt when his arm was grabbed by something! Tenthé looked around, but couldn’t find any obvious explanation for what was happening.

Backing up, his arm followed like it should, but when he tried to go into the temple, it got stuck. He could move it from side to side, or up and down, but not forward.

After exiting again, he rolled up his sleeve.

Oh, yeah! The tattoo! He’d forgotten about it.

As he stood, wondering what he should do, someone, possibly a priest, walked out of the murk that obscured the inside of the temple. The priest was a little taller than him, but utterly filthy! He wore something that might be a robe, but it was hard to tell since it was shredded and covered in dirt and… well, whatever. A miasma surrounded the man like armor.

He spoke, showing teeth that were anything but white.

“You can’t come in here with that,” he said, indicating the tattoo.

“Yeah, I figured that out by the fact I couldn’t come in with it.”

The priest started to wheeze. It took a moment before Tenthé realized he was laughing. When he finished his fit, the priest pointed out, “You don’t look like the avatar that tattoo says you are. Usually, they are big and clean, with a pike six paces up their butt.”

“Hey, can you tell me what this thing is about? Nobody seems to know, exactly.”

“Yeah, even with the lines you’ve drawn to hide it, I can see what it is. How’d you earn it?”

“You know? I’m not sure. I was breaking into Turtle’s old temple and he just gave it to me. About all I managed to use it for was to sic my bees on him.”

“Oh? That was you?” And once again, he began wheezing.

When the priest calmed down a bit, Tenthé asked, “You seem, uh… not like Turtle. At all. Why did you support him in this re-do?”

“Re-do? I guess you could call it that. I call it a coup. We showed them!”

“Showed who, what?”

“What?”

“Well, who, what.”

The old guy was not following. He looked around as if he were lost, then turned to go back into the temple.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hey. Don’t leave. I need some help.”

“And who are you?”

“Tenthé.”

“That explains it,” the priest stated before he stopped and stood.

Tenthé waited a while, then asked, “Explains what?”

“The tattoo.”

“And… what about it?” Tenthé prompted.

“If you’re the Tenthé, he’d want to keep track of you.”

“I blocked it off.”

“Uh-huh? I suppose. But he’s still going to be able to sense where you are.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Guess I’m not as sneaky as I thought.”

“Well… I can tell you’re older than you look, but most gods’re older than crap. They’ve seen everything. Whatever your plans are, he’ll have thought of them.”

“I don’t plan that much. I just do what feels right.”

“Hm… You know? That’s not the worst approach. I’ll have to think about it.”

“You’re not a priest, are you?”

Silence.

“Okay, then. Can you take the tattoo off me?” Tenthé

“If I ripped your arm off, that’d do it.”

“I’m starting to see why people aren’t flocking to your door.”

More wheezing. The old guy began hobbling back inside. Over his shoulder, he yelled, “Not everything bad is bad, not everything you think you want is best. Use what you have. Toodles.”

Tenthé stared as he disappeared into the gloom. Yeah, most definitely, one of those gods! Nearly as bad as an Oracle.

Thinking over what the priest-god had said, Tenthé couldn’t see how it had anything to do with his tattoo. After using it to get by the Turtle’s defenses once, he was sure that idea wouldn’t work again.

That started him thinking. Perhaps he could use the fact that the God knew where he was as a distraction… Hm. That had possibilities.

But if he was being tracked, his usual methods of sneaking in would be a waste of time. He juggled ideas as he walked toward the main entrance.

“Excuse me,” he said to a pair of legs that blocked his way. He turned to go around and found another pair of legs in his way. He looked up into the face of one of the Turtle’s elite warrior-priests.

Apparently, his options had shifted again.

“Come with us!” the warrior-priest demanded.

There were four of them surrounding him, all with the same glower.

“Move, or we’ll move you!” another of them yelled.

“Really?” Tenthé replied.

The owner of the first pair of legs reached down, grabbed his shirt, and pulled. He seemed somewhat surprised when nothing much happened. He wrapped his hand around Tenthé’s upper arm and heaved, still to no effect.

“Do you mind?” Tenthé requested, looking the warrior-priest in the eye. The man manifested a spell and was more than a little disconcerted when Tenthé ate it.

Showing no sign of strain, Tenthé peeled the hand off his arm, and before the priests could react, rolled up his sleeve, exposing the tattoo.

“Does this mean anything to you guys?” he asked.

The warrior-priests stared.

“Oh, wait,” Tenthé exclaimed. He rubbed at the tattoo, and nothing much happened.

“That ink is really good,” Tenthé muttered as he kept at it. Eventually, the extra lines began to come off, taking a bit of skin with them, and, as the true tattoo became apparent, the priests gasped and stepped back.

Tenthé sort of sniggered as his entourage vacillated between standing and bowing. The end result was a strange sort of bobbing up and down.

“You know what this means?” he stated, more than asked.

Three of the four nodded.

“Well, can you tell me? The Turtle gave it to me without saying a lot. Mostly we argue. It hasn’t been much of use.”

The warrior-priests were confused. Tenthé’d seen it before. They were highly trained, but for all that, not really experienced.

Tenthé sighed. “So, what were your orders?”

“We’re to take you to the head priest.”

“Not Turtle?”

This again seemed to upset the priests. Like he’d asked them to do something inconceivable.

Tenthé prompted, “Head priest? Hey, is it an old crabby guy who’d die rather than make a joke? Sleeps a lot?”

His admirers were not doing well. A simple snatch and grab had fallen into the realm of surreal.

“Okay. Take me to see the head priest.” Tenthé said, as if he were addressing children.

This put the men back on familiar ground. They surrounded him, one in front, one behind, and the other two on each side. Tenthé walked slowly, which made the priests break step. They were used to being the ones setting the pace.

Entering the Turtle entrance, Tenthé stopped and stared in amazement. The inside of the temple was even more beautiful than the square outside! The room was stuffed with exotic plants of all colors hanging in pots, growing from the walls, and in and around a myriad of fountains. And those fountains! Spectacular! No two were alike, and, with the aid of magic, water arched and pooled everywhere. All of this surrounded many statues of the Turtle. Despite the potential for chaos, everything blended together perfectly.

Birds and flying things darted back and forth, while strange creatures swam leisurely in the pools. The screeching and cooing of the wildlife was a perfect accent to the exotic tableau.

Tenthé’s sudden stop had caused the trailing warrior-priest to come very close to falling over him, but, in homage to his training, he managed to hop to the side at the last moment. Tenthé ignored his glare. Wasn’t his fault the guy had been following too closely.

“This is even better than before!” Tenthé exclaimed. “Someone here really knows what they’re doing.”

“I’m sure our God appreciates your opinion.” The leading priest said haughtily.

“Oh, I expect he doesn’t care, but I don’t care about his, either.”

This was too much. Fortunately, the priests kept it physical, so what they did was of no consequence. Tenthé’s entourage railed and beat at his shields as he paced around the room, admiring the kind of beauty he’d never seen before.

Annoying the warrior-priests was a secondary benefit to what Tenthé was doing, which was getting prepared. He was sorting through his abilities, putting them in order to help him deal with what he might expect he would need to do, enabling him to reach his ultimate goal. An unbiased observer could even accuse him of planning. He would deny it vehemently: it was preparing.

Also, his meanderings had another purpose. He was mapping out the various entrances and exits to the room, since the heaviness of the God’s presence made it difficult to do from outside. There were a couple of doors he thought had potential.

“Stop!” rang out. It was magically enhanced and everyone froze. Except for Tenthé. He pushed out from under the unmoving pile of warrior-priests and found himself looking up at the yeller. It was the priest he’d met the last time he was here to see Turtle. Old Snoozer, appearing to be much more lively than before.

As he approached the old priest, Tenthé winced. What was coming would really hurt. In spite of his misgivings, he sloughed off a copy.

Copying was not the same as how he came back after dying. The process didn’t need raw resources, instead it used a huge amount of his reserves to make the duplicate, and what power was left split between the two versions of himself. Part of setting up the spell let him assign everything he was carrying to one or the other of him, but there were a couple of major drawbacks.

The first was that no matter what he did, one of the Tenthés would die. Always, for different reasons, but one of them would be dead within a day. When that happened, their experiences merged back together, leaving a body and its possessions behind. It wasn’t a cheat for messaging over distances, since, if they’d become separated by a significant amount, the merge wouldn’t happen. The memories would just… go away.

The second issue was, like coming back from death, the pain was unimaginable. Tenthé was tough, but even he avoided the process unless he was desperate, or couldn’t come up with any better ideas.

There was a third reason why the technique could only be used occasionally: a long cool-down period. Doing it once a year, as his master at the time had told him, was guaranteed to be safe and should avoid the meat explosion. Maybe he could do it more often, but he didn’t want to experiment, even without exploding, it hurt too much.

Like now. For forever and an instant, the two of him were frozen in agony, incapable of the tiniest coherent thought. Although the pain went on and on, to the outside world, the process was nearly instantaneous. After a brief flicker, the one of him that had materialized away from the original Tenthé plane walked into the floor and wrapped himself in layers of stealth, with extra wards around his tattoo to, hopefully, reduce its impact.

The other him stumbled to his knees, drawing everyone’s attention, then got up and continued walking toward the old priest. A quick check showed he was still okay. Sometimes the pain of the copy process fractured his mind, but that hadn’t happened, this time. It was one of the reasons the other him-s let a kid be in charge. Being able to copy yourself and not die was a lot handier if you didn’t go crazy.

Time to be noticed. He relaxed the locks on the tattoo and cycled through several powerful abilities. Not enough to be obvious, but to anyone with the expertise, it looked as if he was readying himself for a violent confrontation.

Which, to tell the truth, was quite likely. He wasn’t among friends.

The old priest turned and walked over to a nondescript door partially hidden in the back of the temple, which he opened and went through, obviously expecting Tenthé to follow. Tenthé did so, moving slowly enough that his entourage had to stop and start to let him catch up.

The strange procession lurched along.