Published at 1st of December 2023 10:41 am

Chapter 73 Anointed

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The next few weeks were among the worst of Todd’s life as he tossed and turned feverishly in his sick bed. Sometimes he felt like he was receiving divine wisdom in the strange things he saw, and other times he was sure he was going quite mad as his mind turned inside out. One day he was being taken care of by a demon in the guise of a man, and then next, it was by the priest he’d once nursed back to health in a similar way. Todd didn’t know what to believe, but he was in no shape to take any action, regardless.

When he was through the worst of it, Todd could no longer remember half of the things he’d seen nor most of what he’d said. They were the ravings of a mad man though, of that he was certain, and he’d said things worth being ashamed of. He knew that he’d condemned everyone for being tainted by the darkness, though, from the priest down to the doctor that treated him and the washerwoman that took care of him while the priest was busy elsewhere.

It was only when his fever went down that the world started to return to normal. Instead of seeing everything as radiating light and darkness, the world slowly returned to the relative normalcy he’d seen for so long: A little darkness clung to most of the residents of Blackwater, along with the river and the priest, but it was nothing like the apocalyptic visions he’d seen when he was on death’s door, and he regretted his accusations.

Even though he had large gaps in his memories, a few images still haunted his dreams. He remembered the dread black hand of the priest extending from his stump like a creature that was made of shadows that lived inside the holy man and only crawled out when no one was looking. He also remembered the Temple of Dawn bleeding from its walls as the infinite darkness extended beneath it. He had no idea what to make of those things, but they filled his nightmares for the next few months while he recovered.

He took it easy for a long time, letting even his practice slip as he focused on getting better, and even after his deathly pallor lessened, he still spent most days in the shade, watching the construction while he looked for details that might give him insight into why something still felt so wrong.

It was during this time, too, that he realized that the town had grown into a small city in its own right. For months Todd had been so focused on rooting out imagined evils that he’d still pictured Blackwater as the town he’d first visited over a year ago with Brother Faerber. It was so much more than that now. For every brothel or shrine to the Oroza that they’d destroyed between now and then, five new artisan workshops had sprung up. Of course, each of those provided Brother Verdenin with the complicated fixtures and decorations that were needed for every stage of construction, and of course, for every new group of artisans, another bakery or bathhouse opened up to accommodate the needs of so many wealthy clients. Todd couldn’t walk down Brackenwald Street on the way to his boarding house each night without tripping over a barber or a bookseller.

“It’s amazing how much growth happens just by spreading a little gold around,” he muttered in surprise one day when he’d watched a fancy carriage rattle over the brick streets for the first time, unsure of who it belonged to.

“Gold is the seed corn of civilization,” Brother Verdenin said smoothly like he was reciting a proverb. “Every spring, the farmer plants a crop and watches it multiply, and every fall, he saves part of that miracle to do the same the following year. Cities are grown in much the same way, and we will harvest their souls. For Siddrim, of course.”

That last part sounded almost like an afterthought, and Todd thought that it was just one more sign of the priest’s growing hubris, but he thought about it for days afterward for reasons he couldn’t quite say, even after Brother Verdenin had mentioned that an important visitor would be arriving soon. If one wasn’t harvesting souls for Siddrim after all, who would they be harvesting them for?

Even though he still hadn’t completely recovered from recent events, a few days after Todd celebrated his nineteenth name day, he was anointed and finally became a full-fledged Brother of the Light. This wasn’t because of any achievement of his own, though. Sadly, it was because the Archbishop that was visiting Blackwater to check on the Temple of Dawn’s progress wanted to conduct a ceremony worth recording for the sake of bragging rights.

“Henceforth, my boy, you shall be known as Brother Graff, and when the history of this beautiful place is written, it will say that Archbishop Dobriven was the first one to invoke the divine here on your behalf. Isn’t that exciting?” the portly man asked as if that was supposed to mean something. “You’ll forever be a part of this place!”

That Brother Faerbar hadn’t been here made the whole thing almost meaningless in Todd’s eyes, but the quality of the priest that had recited the words had somehow managed to make them completely worthless. It didn’t matter what he said to men such as this. He didn’t need his sight to see the corruption blossoming off of him.

The Archbishop was a lifelong ladder climber in the holy city. He was so banal that he made Brother Verdenin look contrite and humble by comparison, which was a hard thing to do, Todd thought wryly.

In the end, Todd felt no different, and even though he thought he might feel cleaner or lighter once he’d finally achieved the ranks of the elect. He was still the same old Todd, though, just with a little fragrant oil smeared on his forehead.

Still, he’d obeyed because that was the place of a warrior of light, but he hadn’t been happy about it, nor about escorting the two of them around the room as the Priest and Archbishop discussed the motif for the stained glass windows, which were still half a year from installation.

“You think that Saint Etroven’s temptation would be best here?” the Archbishop asked skeptically. “He’s a bit of an odd choice. Why not Saint Frank or the sisters of Karavar?”

“Well, - that’s easy,” Priest Verdinen said with a smile. “Because his temptation was said to start at sunset and last all through the night. What better symmetry of symbolism could you ask for?”

They both laughed at that, but Todd stood there quietly. He didn’t know all of the stories that the two of them discussed that afternoon as he stood there in his polished armor as an unnecessary honor guard, but he did know that one. It was an evil, libidinous tale, and though the moral was restraint and resistance, he had no idea why Brother Verdenin thought that was an appropriate tale to plaster on the front of his masterpiece.

The question was answered that evening, at least in part when Todd was summoned to Brother Verdenin’s tent. It was funny to Todd that the priest still slept in such a place given that the forms that would support the building of the dome made the whole thing more of a house than many of the buildings in town, but habits were habits, he supposed.

“The Archbishop asked if you will be returning with him to Siddrimar, you know, Brother Graff,” Brother Verdenin said casually, feeling him out. “I’m inclined to agree. You could finally be reunited with your old Master, but this time as an equal.”

Todd’s last name still sounded foreign to his ears. He’d been called toad, Todd, acolyte, or squire for so long that it was practically another language.

“I thought he might,” Todd answered cryptically, “But just the same, I would prefer to stay here. At least until this Temple is complete.”

“You would?” the priest asked, folding up his papers as he looked at Todd directly. “I would have thought that you’d want to go back to the light as soon as possible, so you could use your strength to fight against the darkness where you are most needed.”

Todd gritted his teeth, annoyed by how transparently the older man was trying to manipulate him. Brother Verdenin might address him with the title of an equal, but it was clear that the priest still thought of Todd as a child and someone to be kept away from whatever secrets he was still keeping about this project.

“As much as I’d love to fight the dark elsewhere, I have to see this project complete as I’ve sworn I would,” Todd answered curtly. “No one can release me from a vow like that once sworn. Still, it shouldn’t be too much longer, right? Another year? Two?”

“Closer to two,” Brother Verdenin sighed. “If you’ve made up your mind, I won’t force you, but I think you’d be happier if you were back fighting alongside the rest of your cadre.”

“Thank you,” Todd said curtly before leaving.

The exchange only further reaffirmed for him that there was still something here. Though Todd might owe the priest for saving his life when he’d returned to Blackwater a few months ago on death’s door, that didn’t mean he was going to turn a blind eye to whatever Brother Verdenin was trying to accomplish here.

It was unnatural, and Todd would sniff it out; somehow, he swore to himself with frustration. All he ended up with for his efforts, though, were sleepless nights as he stalked among the construction site looking for miscreants and jumping at shadows.

He never found anything, though, except for the growing collection of statues that were populating the shrines and fountains. On this, at least, he thought that Brother Verdenin was doing some good. Some of them were so realistic that it was like they were people trapped under layers of plaster, stone, and gold.

That was impossible, of course, but still, the effect was startling. Those works of art were lovelier than any of the marble statues he’d seen in Siddrimar. They could look disturbing by the flickering light of a torch, but by the light of day, those same expressions were almost beatific.

In the end, Todd was forced to conclude that perhaps the priest’s sins were limited to the merely mundane. Perhaps he acted so strangely because he was embezzling some small part of his enormous funds for his own gain when all this was done. After all, if one gold piece out of every twenty or thirty went missing during such a costly project, who would know?

Todd was even less interested in those sorts of crimes than he was in the games of status that determined rank in Siddrimar’s pecking order, and he had no interest in going through the man’s account books to try to catch him in a lie. In the end, despite his ardent desire to stay here and unwind some grand conspiracy, he was forced to conclude that he was the one that had clearly been imagining things, and spent more and more time to the west of Blackwater hunting down small goblin dens and destroying them.

That, at least, was satisfying work, and though he earned himself a few new scars over the months that followed, he never did manage to shake the feeling that he’d missed something, and though he wrote several letters to Brother Faerbar in that time, he was never able to share anything beyond progress reports because Todd’s doubts were far too flimsy for the light of day.

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