The rest of the week passed quite pleasantly. Ketla and her mage did not, at any point, try to kill Wirrin. Wirrin did not, at any point, let up on taking in the scenery. But as they walked, Ketla pulled ahead less, and even deigned to look at the scenery with Wirrin.

‘Not much for the natural world?’ Wirrin had asked, as Ketla fidgeted and begrudgingly looked at some particularly round melon cacti. ‘Why wear a flower, then?’

Ketla had frowned, as severely as she could, and had been very cute about it. ‘Growth isn’t only about plants,’ she informed Wirrin. ‘Growth can be about aging, about learning new things, about personal… well… growth.’

‘About growing the Church’s congregation, perhaps?’ Wirrin suggested.

If she could have frowned harder, Ketla would have frowned harder. ‘Yes, alright, that’s why we wear it.’

‘We at the retention department?’ Wirrin smiled.

Ketla gave her a stormy look and didn’t say anything.

‘Why the swords?’ Wirrin asked, still gazing vaguely at the impressively round melon cacti. ‘To smite those who leave the Church?’

Ketla gave her the same stormy look.

‘You’re very cute, Ketla,’ Wirrin said.

Ketla blushed and her stormy look got very confused.

On the third night, as Wirrin cooked, the mage gathered firewood, and Ketla didn’t help, Wirrin had asked: ‘Have you noticed, working in the retention department, that there’s a difference in worship between the rich and ordinary people?’

Ketla had frowned thoughtfully and looked up from her book. ‘It’s not universal, but the trend seems to be that wealthy people are less likely to attend Churches,’ she said. ‘Those that do are more consistent, since they aren’t so affected by the seasons.’

Wirrin had looked between her cooking meal and the mage’s armful of firewood. Ketla had either not noticed or chosen to ignore the hint. Instead she put her holy book down and looked at Wirrin.

‘I feel we’ve talked enough about religion,’ she said, not at all like she’d been practicing the line in her head while pretending to read her holy book. ‘Do you mind if I ask about you?’

Wirrin had smiled. ‘Feel free, as long as you don’t mind the same.’

Ketla nodded enthusiastically. ‘Of course. You said your mother was religious, but you weren’t?’

‘I thought we weren’t talking about religion,’ Wirrin smiled. ‘She was quite enthusiastically religious, when we lived in Ettovica. She took me to the Church if I was at home at the right time, but I avoided being home at the right time whenever I could, as I got a little older.’

‘You didn’t like going to the Church?’

‘It was boring. I’d been there enough times to get the gist of it, and Ettovica is a big city, there’s lots to do.’

‘And your father? Was he religious?’ Ketla was leaning into the fire a bit, eyes glimmering in the firelight as if this was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard.

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Wirrin shrugged. ‘I’m told he drowned at sea while my mother was pregnant.’

Ketla’s frown looked very sympathetic. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’

Wirrin shrugged again. ‘I never had a father, hard to be sorry about it. Though I suspected one of the reasons my mother was so enthusiastic about the Church was that it gave her community and comfort.’

Ketla had nodded, very enthusiastically. ‘See, that’s what I’ve noticed quite a lot,’ she said. ‘And I think it’s part of why the wealthy, who are generally urbanites, are less likely to go to Church.’

Wirrin had not reminded Ketla that they weren’t supposed to be talking about religion. ‘Do urbanites attend Church less?’

Ketla wobbled her head, somewhere between a nod and a shake. ‘More people who live in the bigger towns and cities go to Church than people in smaller towns, villages, and farmsteads, just by the numbers. But proportionally far fewer people in cities attend Church.’

‘As I said, other things to do.’

‘Like listening to the dirge singers in Ettovica complain for the lack of emperors and wars?’ Ketla had asked, very nearly making it sound like a genuine question.

Wirrin winced. ‘I couldn’t understand the dirge when I was a kid,’ she said. ‘I liked it better than Church chants, though, possibly for that very reason.’

The mage, sitting beside Ketla, frowned under his hood.

‘It’s all a matter of taste, Baras,’ Ketla said. ‘Wirrin can have poor taste in music if she likes.’

Wirrin chuckled. ‘Oh, is your name Baras, then?’

The mage looked at her.

‘Oh.’ Ketla started giggling. ‘I completely forgot to introduce the two of you, didn’t I?’

‘You certainly did,’ Wirrin said. ‘I imagine you often forget to introduce the help.’

Ketla fought down her giggles with great haste as Baras’s steady gaze turned gradually into a scowl. ‘Baras isn’t the help,’ Ketla managed. ‘He’s my esteemed companion.’

‘He does all your work for you,’ Wirrin had pointed out.

Ketla frowned. ‘Oh.’ She frowned harder. ‘That’s why you were asking about rich people. I get it.’

Wirrin shrugged.

‘Baras has sworn a vow to assist the Church and the Gods in every way he can,’ Ketla said. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mind the work. Work is good for us, after all. It brings us closer to grace.’

‘Says the one who’s not working.’

Ketla’s expression turned stormy.

‘Still cute,’ Wirrin had said, and started serving dinner.

Ketla had blushed and spluttered.

Wirrin had certainly noticed that, the next evening, Ketla helped with the cooking. Baras still did most of the work, but Ketla did something other than re-read her holy book.

‘You asked about my family,’ Wirrin had said. ‘‘How about yours? I’ve heard that the Tassavolts are good, Church-going types.’

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‘Oh, they are.’ Ketla shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t call any of them enthusiastic about it. It’s seen as a duty, you know? A family tradition.’

‘Enthusiastic enough that you joined the Church.’

‘I’m a third child, you know?’ Ketla said. ‘It was expected.’

‘I’ve met plenty of third children who didn’t join the Church,’ Wirrin said.

Ketla pressed her lips together. ‘More common in the west, I think.’

‘I worked with a farming family that had nine children, when I was in the west. None of them had joined the Church,’ Wirrin said. ‘Did their utmost to go to Church every week, even during high harvest.’

‘Is that why they hired a heathen to work the fields? So someone would be working while they were at Church?’ Ketla smiled.

Wirrin arched an eyebrow. ‘Must be.’

‘It’s a little funny,’ Ketla said, visibly changing the subject. ‘When I first joined the Church, I didn’t think of myself or my family as being particularly religious. But the more people I meet, the more wrong I realise I was.’

Baras started serving dinner into bowls.

‘You didn’t think of yourself as very religious, and yet you joined the Church?’ Wirrin asked. ‘Thank you, Baras.’

‘It’s not poisoned,’ Naertral burbled, as Wirrin took a bite.

‘Oh, yes, thank you, Baras,’ Ketla echoed, as if she hadn’t thought to say it when Baras actually handed her the bowl.

They ate quietly for a minute.

‘What got you into this retention business?’ Wirrin asked.

Ketla finished chewing before she answered. ‘I wasn’t much good at writing sermons or public speaking,’ she admitted with a little smile. ‘I’m certainly not dedicated enough to be a mage. I found hearing people’s stories interesting, I suppose. I tried counselling at first, but I didn’t feel qualified to give people advice, so I got into doing research.’

Wirrin glanced at Baras. ‘You have to be very dedicated to be a mage, do you?’

Baras nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want just anyone to do it, would you?’ Ketla smiled. ‘And the Gods wouldn’t pick just anyone.’

‘They can afford to be more discerning,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘No shortage of candidates.’

‘We weren’t so discerning, back in the day,’ Naertral burbled.

‘Yet another reason I couldn’t be a mage,’ Wirrin smiled.

‘You’re an adventurer, aren’t you?’ Ketla said, lighting up again. ‘Surely that’s a very interesting sort of work.’

‘I’m an explorer. Not an adventurer,’ Wirrin said, though a mouthful of fried rice.

‘What’s the difference?’ Ketla asked, leaning in.

‘I wander around, looking at things that interest me, and working if I need the money,’ Wirrin said. ‘Adventurers are rich sorts who get killed in landslides because they don’t listen to the people they hired to keep them safe.’

Ketla frowned, deeply. ‘Oh.’

Hekaulseg was reminiscent of Esbolva in being a wide town of low buildings. Sandstone and stucco gave the place a very bright feeling, and the lakes glowed in the early winter sun. It was sparser than Esbolva, and it was quiet and dim at night, the moon and stars glowing comfortingly off the water.

The three of them had been on the road together for just shy of eight days since getting off the barge and Wirrin was feeling quite relaxed about the situation. Until Ketla suggested that Wirrin visit the Church with her.

Wirrin did her best to stay relaxed. ‘A heretic like me? Visiting a Church?’

‘You’re barely a heretic,’ Ketla said, already leading the way through the airy streets toward the big, solid Church building. ‘A heathen at worst.’

‘To what end?’ Wirrin asked. ‘You won’t convert me.’

‘I’m sure I won’t.’ Ketla’s smile was mischievous. ‘I’m sure there are pretty women your own age there.’

‘There’s a cute woman my age right here, what difference does a few years make?’

Ketla blushed. ‘Dartol said I was too young for you.’

‘Is that why you were so hostile?’ Wirrin grinned.

Ketla stopped to glare. ‘You kept insulting me.’

‘And I have no intention of stopping,’ Wirrin said.

Ketla kept on glaring.

‘Alright, fine.’ Wirrin sighed dramatically. ‘But it’s not because of the women, there are plenty of women who aren’t religious. And you can’t blame me if the attrition rate goes up as a result.’

Ketla chuckled. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Now you’re going to a Church?’ Mkaer grumbled. ‘To what end?’

‘I’m being nice,’ Wirrin said. ‘I’m not going to leave until the morning anyway.’

‘And there might be pretty women in there,’ Naertral burbled.

Wirrin successfully turned a snort into another coughing fit.

The Church building in Hekaulseg was exactly how Wirrin remembered it: big and solid and out of place. Like every other Church building, it was made from dark grey stone instead of whatever the rest of the local buildings were made from. It had only a small window on each of the six sides, and big, green-copper plates on either side of the doors with the Church’s symbol chased into them.

Until she’d been to Keredin the first time, Wirrin had never understood why the Church’s buildings stood out so much. The Church buildings in Keredin looked like they belonged. And as much as she was loathe to admit it, the Church buildings would have looked like they belonged in the south if they weren’t always on the outskirts of town.

The inside of the Church was much brighter than Wirrin remembered the inside of Churches being. Across from the door in the main room was a Light mage, pleasant globes of sunlight hanging in the air around him as he gave a resonant talk to the assembled worshippers: all four of them.

In the Light mage’s defence, it wasn’t the day for Church going.

That image of a woman with a scarred face burning the eyes out of a young man drifted through Wirrin’s head. She let it pass, standing to the side of the door with Ketla and Baras, and looking around at all the carvings around the walls and vaulted ceiling.

‘I do not recall the Ettovican Etopla being very pleasant,’ Naertral burbled. ‘But if these carvings are any indication, I expect I too would have preferred it to whatever they call singing.’

Wirrin smirked around at the solid lines and hard shapes that did nothing to stand out from the stone blocks of the wall. While it was the most common style of stone carving these days, Wirrin certainly preferred the more delicate, organic shapes found in old ruins and the older shrines.

‘See, that woman looks like she’s about your age,’ Ketla whispered.

Wirrin looked where Ketla was indicating and snorted. A local woman with thick corkscrew curls sat on the floor, facing away from them. Her hair was nearly completely white, her back hunched and her hands wrinkled.

‘At least she’s not too young,’ Wirrin muttered back.

Ketla clapped a hand over her mouth.

The Light mage said something about respect and Wirrin went back to scrutinising the carvings. Aside from the simplicity of them, Wirrin always found Church-style carvings a little dull for their directness. The walls depicted suns, plants, people labouring in fields, people building houses. Direct images of those things intended to be associated with the Gods.

Even old Church carvings of the more organic variety were more abstracted: moving tools, flowering leaves, wavy rays. The half-rotted animals and mountain shapes of the Fiends’ temples hadn’t been subtle, but even those had been more open to interpretation than the stark images of swords and hammers and suns.

The Light mage finished his little sermon and those sunlight orbs drifted up to the faulted ceiling, casting a warm glow around the whole of the large room. As his small congregation started getting up, he strode across to Ketla, Baras, and Wirrin.

His face was cast in shadows under his hood, but Wirrin could see the glimmering eyes looking Ketla and her up and down. He, correctly, settled on Ketla.

‘You must be Ketla,’ the Light mage said, in his deep, resonant voice. ‘I’m so glad you could change your plans to join us here. My name is Aulk.’

Wirrin noticed that he held out a hand for Ketla to shake.

Ketla took his hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Aulk,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to be here.’

Aulk looked at Wirrin. ‘And who is this? A friend?’

‘Wirrin.’ Wirrin held out her left hand, palm up. ‘More like a travelling companion.’

Ketla put her hands over her heart and gave Wirrin an extremely impressive, doe-eyed look. To the mage, she said. ‘A travelling companion. A happy coincidence that we were headed in the same direction at the same time.’

Aulk put his right palm on Wirrin’s hand. She wondered if that meant anything, or if he simply didn’t know the tradition. From what she could see of Aulk, he didn’t look much like a local.

‘Not a worshipper, from the look of it, are you, Wirrin?’ Aulk asked, pointedly.

‘A fundamental difference in perspective,’ Ketla said.

‘I just don’t see what the Gods could possibly need from me,’ Wirrin said.

‘Is it not enough to simply be grateful for their grace and kindness?’ Aulk asked, voice dipping back into oration for a moment.

‘Do they need me to be grateful?’ Wirrin asked. ‘Or am I simply expected to be, as I am expected to respect my elders?’

Aulk was quiet for a moment. ‘I see,’ he said, much less resonant and impressive. ‘A fundamental difference in perspective.’