Neither Claelish nor Grackenwelsh, neither Dridic nor Zan—there are no righteous men who walk the earth. No one is blameless who lives and breathes, nor who has passed away, for Ah-Ren has kept a record of wrongs since the dawn of time; yea, since the Time Before Time. Every mortal who walks the earth is damned, for he is mortal; everyone who lives, who has lived, or who will live is worthless by the blood of his birth. All mortals are evil; there are none among them who are good; not even a small number; yea, not even one.
-Gospel of Lucence, Tract 24, Lines 22-30
Dordreg Region, Grackenwell
“Blessed be the Bringer of Life,” said Beam. “And the Banisher of Death.” She licked her chapped lips. “Cursed be every false god who blasphemes against You. Blessed be Your word.” She lowered her head with great difficulty, her feeble arms trembling on the way down as she pressed her head against the scratchy surface of her prayer rug.
It was the thirty-seventh day since the flock had left Claeloch, and the seventh and final day of the fast. At midday, their fast would be over, and they would share a small meal of bread and water to begin feeding again safely. She was afraid to count them in her head—the few disciples who remained.
Torganh and that woman whose name she forgot, they left on the very first day of the fast. Ioghan had broken his vow on the third day of the fast and was sent home the following day. The fourth day, Lonh and Elesse both ate of the poison berries, and they were sent home on the fifth day. That fifth day, three others whose names Beam forgot—she thought one of them was Althor, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it—they all left of their own volition.
But yesterday was the worst. Only one day remained—one more day of fasting to prove their faith to Ah-Ren, to prove that they could weather the perilous journey through the Everswamp. The sixth day was the most disastrous to her flock. At least a dozen people left, even leaving their food behind in the communal sack; for them, it was worth it just to leave the flock.
I’ve tried so hard, my Lord, she thought. What more do I have to do? Your words in the Gospel prove truer than ever. They’re all worthless. None of them are devoted to you like I am!
But she knew that wasn’t true. Her heart felt a pang of guilt at her rash judgment of her fellow mortals. Not all of them were worthless beyond saving—the Gospel of Lucence told her this much. Still, it sickened her to see how faithless her comrades were, those who claimed to be members of her flock but who couldn’t survive even a test as simple as this one.
Beam had survived far greater tests of faith in the past.
***
There were no temples of Ah-Ren anywhere in Grackenwell. She wondered if she was the first to read the Gospel of Lucence, or if it was such a well-guarded secret that she had never heard it before in her life. Nonetheless, she was the only follower she knew, and so she couldn’t rely on someone of her faith for help. Not yet.
But there were Trinitist churches in the north. They were few and far between; of the ones she’d read about, more than half of them were in Claeloch alone, as all foreign faiths were often brutally shunned throughout the rest of the kingdom. She traveled to the farthest Trinitist church she knew. It was a tiny chapel in the northwest of the region.
“My heart broke for you,” she sobbed, holding her baby close to her chest, “the day you were born a girl in this world. My heart breaks for you now.” She approached the doorsteps of the church. The sconces flanking the door had lit torches; she could see light inside the building filtering through the imperfect glass windows. “But the way ahead is even more dangerous. I can’t bring you where I’m going—I wouldn’t.” She sniffled.
Her baby started to cry, too, and that broke another piece of her broken heart. She was not yet a year old, and so she was too young to be given a name. How badly she’d wanted to name her. She hadn’t thought of any names good enough to deserve her baby, but she would have thought of something when the time was right. She would have lit a candle to commemorate her daughter’s first birthday and rejoice in granting her a name.
Now that day would never come.
“I hope you’ll be happier this way,” she whimpered, choking back tears. She set the basket down gently on the steps of the church. “I hope...” She sobbed so hard that it was dead silent, just her muscles contracting inside her, pressing out tears. “I hope... that you can find peace one day. The kind I haven’t found yet. But I’m looking for it. When I find it, maybe I can bring it home to you. And maybe you can forgive me then.” She kissed her baby on the forehead, inhaled her smell one last time. A single tear wet her baby on the forehead. “I love you so much.”
She stood up in a hurry then. It was profoundly painful and best ended quickly, like setting a dislocated shoulder. She took the iron knocker in her trembling fingers and hit the door three times.
She couldn’t even bring herself to look back at the baby she left behind, though she could hear her cries. She walked, then ran, from the church. She sprinted into the woods until her legs burned and she could no longer hear the cries or the clopping of horse hooves, the other sounds of civilization. It was long behind her now.
She slowed to a trot, and soon she was walking down the wide dirt road that stretched off into oblivion. There wasn’t a soul around her. Eventually, she rested at the side of the road, her eyes dry and empty, her belly sore from crying, and she leaned her head against the trunk of a tree.
It was like the day her parents died and her village burned to the ground. She had nothing. Nothing but the clothes on her back.
But that wasn’t true.
She pulled out the Gospel of Lucence and set it in her lap. Sleep found her then, and she drifted hazily into fitful sleep, and she heard a voice say, “You have proven your faith to Me. Now your old name is gone away. Your name is Beam, and you are My chosen.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
***
“The fast is ended,” Beam announced in the loudest voice she could muster. She and Luster had built a fire, the largest one they’d built in the past seven days. This one was not just for light or warding off beasts of the deep woods; this one was made for cooking as well.
It must have been a clue to the other members of her flock, as many of them had wandered out of their tents even before Beam made her announcement. They were all thinner in the face; they looked tired, sad, a bit on edge, but she was brimming with pride for all of them. Many members of her flock had passed the test.
She saw mostly familiar faces in the believers who crowded around the fire and sat in the grass. Of course Luster had not failed her. There was also Glimmer, the young barmaid she’d saved from Grackenwelsh soldiers in the small village of Pythe; Shine, the devout, short-haired woman about thirty years of age; Ray, the older woman with dark hair streaked through with gray, who greeted her with a knowing smirk. There were others who were not yet named in the faith, men and women alike.
But she was most surprised to see Hjarsant among them.
“Hjarsant,” she croaked weakly. The fast seemed to have aged him seven years in as many days, but he succeeded; he had none of the berry pigment in his beard, and his once plump cheeks were now beginning to droop enough that they convinced her of his faithful fasting. “You did it.”
He did not seem happy, but there was a peace about him now that she hadn’t seen before. He nodded calmly, sagely, to her. “Yes. I did. By faith alone. Praise be to the Lord Ah-Ren.”
Ray sat on the grass next to Beam, quietly quoting the Gospel of Lucence. “‘The fruits born of faith are sweeter than the sweetest honey.’” She tilted her head once in Hjarsant’s direction. “He had faith in Ah-Ren. What do you say about having faith in him now?”
It warmed Beam’s heart to see the faithful disciples gathered around her. “This changes things. It does. I see now that Ah-Ren was testing me as much as he tested them.” She sat up straight, and, in a louder voice, addressed the flock. “I have another announcement to make. Four days ago, Hjarsant, I thought you would quit the flock and go home in protest. But you survived. You proved your faith to Ah-Ren. You’ve more than earned your name in the faith now. Your name shall be... Glint.” Hjarsant—Glint—smiled weakly despite his famished belly. “All of you have earned your names in the faith now.”
They were fifteen believers in all. Fifteen believers who were able to complete the fast, and thus proved their ability to make the trek through the Everswamp on the long journey to Holcort. Beam and Luster baked small loaves of bread and distributed them to the flock. Everyone took and ate of the loaves slowly, just like Beam commanded them, so as to avoid making themselves sick. They drank water. They salted their bread and savored every bite. Fasting filled them all with a deep gratitude for something as simple as warm bread and salt and nothing else. The fifteen of them sat around the cooking fire and traded stories of their fasting experience, and Beam told them that they would eat two more small meals that night and the following day before setting out again on the road east.
The sun eased its way down toward the horizon as day marched on toward evening. The disciples packed up everything but their tents so as to make it easier to leave at a moment’s notice the following day. Beam let Luster stoke the fire for supper while she prepared the dough for another round of small loaves to re-feed her flock.
“So,” said Ray, rolling up one of her rugs and cinching it with a rope. “Fifteen of us remain. There are other ways to weed out the nonbelievers, but yours was quick and thorough.”
“You were right,” Beam replied. “I needed to find my faith in them. Otherwise I never would have been able to lead them to Ah-Ren.”
“And have you found it?”
The prophetess bowed her head. “I’ve started to find it. I still have some lingering doubts. But you were right.” She studied her flock from a distance, the way they helped each other pack up their belongings for the long journey that would resume tomorrow. Would they have endured an eight-day fast? Or nine days? How many of them would have gone home early? “When I look for treachery, that’s all I see. I want to trust them completely... but it just feels impossible.”
“We must do the impossible in the name of our faith.” Ray smiled warmly at her. “Only then can we be sure of its fullness.”
Beam couldn’t help but crack a smile back. “Quoting me back to myself?”
“Quoting a wise prophetess I had the privilege of hearing recently.” Done with her own tasks, Ray helped Beam prepare the loaves for supper. “You can’t build faith in a day. You taught me that. You taught them that. Faith takes time to tend carefully, right? So maybe this is just the beginning for you.” Ray gestured with her chin at Luster, who was adding another log to the cooking fire. “What about him?”
“Luster?” Beam shrugged. “What about him?”
“Maybe he wouldn’t be a bad place to start. What do you think?” In another life, Beam imagined Ray could have made a good mother to her. It made her miss her own parents. What would they think of her now? She hoped they would be proud.
“Maybe you’re right again.”
***
That night, after supper, they retired in Beam’s tent, as had been their habit of late. Luster lay side by side with her and they listened to the dwindling sounds of the now-smaller flock climbing into their own tents and settling in for the night. The firelight shrank.
Luster held her gently from behind as they flirted with the edge of sleep like every night. But tonight was different. She had other thoughts of him, mortal thoughts, and she rolled over to face him in the dark. She could just barely see the muted firelight playing off his eyes like smothered embers.
“I know you’ve thought of it,” she said to him just above a whisper. “Don’t deny it. Don’t lie to me. I already know.”
Luster lay there in silence for a moment, stunned. “I have,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Lady Beam. I—”
“It’s all right. I have, too.” She held him by the side of his face, tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “You are no client of mine. You are no brothelkeeper. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I can refuse you. At any time. I can send you back to your tent whenever I like.” He didn’t say anything. “Well? Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Beam. I heard you. I understand. What sort of man wouldn’t understand what you said?”
She sighed. “To say a thing like that, you must know nothing of Grackenwell.”
“Beam...” He sat up, resting on one elbow, and addressed her seriously. “You can turn me away whenever you’d like. Now, or in a few moments, or in the middle of the night. I will go.”
“Just like that? Even in the heat of things?”
“Whenever. I promise.”
She furrowed her brow, though she knew he couldn’t see it in the dark. “Don’t make a fool out of me, Luster.”
“I would never, Beam. I have faith—in the Lord Ah-Ren and in you. I would never want to break your trust in me.”
She wanted—she ached—to believe him. “There is more to this journey than sharing a tent with me overnight.”
“I told you, Beam. I promised to follow you to the ends of the earth, even to the Great Unknown. Remember?”
“I remember.” Their lips found each other in the dark.
In the heat of things, he told her, “I promise that I won’t fail you where other men have failed.”
She prayed to Ah-Ren that he was telling her the truth.