Orphan At The Edge Of The World - 257 The Magician 15

Duran rolled his eyes. “I told you not to name her. You don’t even like horses.”

When they entered Raft Town, all seemed in place. The festival was in full swing. And from a distance, people were acting no different than they should be. That had lowered the tension somewhat.

As they got closer, however, eyes were subtly tighter. A few older folks didn’t seem very ‘festive’ at all. In fact, a few that were subtly being directed to stay off the streets were looking like their world had ended.

In the dancing square, a beady eyed bishop was overseeing the affair while a couple of clergy members roamed the streets, scrutinizing for malcontents. It didn’t take long to spot that the majority of the ‘young men’ doing the courting and dancing were temple guards out of uniform. Some even seemed to be doing so with the eagerness one would expect at such a festival.

As one such temple guard, posing as a reveler, began making his way to the three, Orison flashed the enamel badge at a distance. The man looked disgruntled and disappointed but he went back to help maintain the facade. It was worse than was originally anticipated. This wasn’t a press gang for kingdom defense. It was one for a ‘holy’ war.

The woodsman cursed under his breath. “Those b*****ds set up the festival as a honey trap for able young men.”

The young mage said, “Keep focus. Where’s the jail?”

Dirk lead them through the town, past the center. The few who took note of their passing were stopped by the flash of light off an enameled badge.

That was, until a passing clergyman stopped them. “What is your business here?”

Putting on his best ‘noble’ sneer. Orison began pacing a circle around the man as he said, “Unlawful seizure of a noble’s property.”

The clergyman gestured for a guard who WAS in uniform as he said, “We merely are appealing to the common masses for aid against wickedness.”

Continuing to pace, Orison bellowed, “Appeals rarely require manacles or barred cells. This is thuggery dressed in falsehood. The people here will remember it for all days and a cancer will spread within. Wrath is the domain of the Lord and war the king. What you do is blasphemy and against the laws of this kingdom as well.”

The Bishop rushed over, wide eyed and ravening, “This is the Lord’s Will. HOW DARE-”

With supernatural speed, Orison rushed up and punched the bishop in the face with near lethal force.

Duran crouched low and muttered, “About time.”

With a crushed fistful of lavender, Orison yelled, “SLEEP HERITICS!”

A large portion of the rushing temple guards collapsed into unconsciousness as invisible power radiated out from the circle the young mage had drawn with his feet.

Tossing the keys on the bishop’s body to the woodsman, Orison kept the guards’ focus on himself as he started bellowing, “False prophets will burn in the hottest hell! Wrath belongs to God! War belongs to kings!”

As Duran weaved through the temple guardsmen, making goose eggs bloom on heads with a hilt pommel, the young mage bobbed and weaved through the ones after Them continuing to shout the slogan ‘Wrath belongs to God. War belongs to kings’.

Once the townsfolk were emboldened by their surprise champion, parents of those who were detained to be dragged off for church conscription took it up. Several minutes later, a slavering bishop was shouting damnation and heresy as he was being tied to a pole at the center of the festival bonfire. Towards the end, it had turned bloody.

From a distance, some temple guards attempted to provide cover for fleeing clergy with arrow fire, killing some townsfolk. To keep from the town turning into a murderous mob that would kill indiscriminately, the young mage had offered the bishop up as a sacrificial black sheep. To keep from anyone in the town having the man’s blood on their hands, Orison set fire to it Themselves.

They whispered in the bishop’s ear. “In the game of heretics, the one who screams louder and carries the bigger fist wins.”

Stuffing a dirty rag into the bishop’s mouth, the young mage jumped down as the flames began spreading upwards.

A new slogan was shouted by the angry people. “False prophets burn in the hottest hell.”

Aside from a bit of coin that They robbed from the bishop and clergy in secret, all the armor and weapons were confiscated from the temple guards and given to the unlawful conscripts as compensation.

As the Bishop burned to death behind Them, Orison loudly addressed the mob and the subdued temple guards equally. “False prophets have infiltrated the church, turning the Lord of Light’s message of love and forgiveness into damnation, hatred and cruelty. They take pleasures at leisure in rich apartments, mutilating the genitals of children so that they will sing sweetly for them while guzzling wine and fornicating!

“People! It is the duty of every devout believer to not only stomp heresy out from among the herd but also the shepherds as well! Those older among you, especially those of the order of temple guards, I ask you; Is this the church you remember praying in? Is this the message you entrusted your heart and soul to?

“Turn a blind eye to the iniquity no longer! False prophets are greater in wickedness than even a devil for they wear the garments of righteousness and deceive the virtuous into sin! They force the faces of the devout into wickedness through fear! Pursue them with vengeance and restore the Lord of Light to the heart of his church before he turns his back on you in sadness and SHAME!”

“The Finger of God was a wake up call. Suffer false prophets no more! Return war and tax to the king and the church back to salvation, never to stain its hands in the sinful and secular world again!”

As They finished the crest of Their speech, Orison brought a mage light into existence behind his head and augmented it with ultraviolet brilliance. “The deceivers came to force you into the yoke of their false graven image, their dark idol. Throw it aside and raise your arms in prayer to YOUR god, the Lord of Light in YOUR heart. THAT is your TRUE god and his love lives and breathes into the world through YOU!”

A strange connection began to form between the young mage and the crowd. They knew immediately what had happened. The mysterious power of existence that only mortals could make began seeping into Them. It was unwanted, a form of structure poison.

Gathering it up, the young mage targeted one among the temple guards that was part of the flow and channeled it at them, “Sir, I dare not claim the mantle for I am not ordained but the Lord of Light dwells powerfully within you. Go forth and drive the devil out of his house!”

With a swipe of magical power, Orison freed the man and returned an unclaimed set of equipment to him.

The rather plain man in his mid twenties said in astonished fervor, “I can feel him! I can feel the Lord in my heart!”

Orison said, “Remember that you are no more than a man but the Lord can raise the low and humble up high. He brings the high, low and humbles them as well. With humility and praise in your heart, lay a hand upon the girl there who was pierced by an arrow of wickedness fired from the hand of a poor deceived man of virtue.”

The girl in question had a wound in her arm the arrow had pierced cleanly through. It had left a nasty hole that would have made her arm weak and feeble long after it had healed on its own. Shakily the man approached her and timidly placed a hand on her wound as she looked up into the man’s face with pain, sadness and fear.

The man’s eyes shook from the welling of sympathy such a look evoked. There was little doubt that the image of her face in that moment would remain in the man for the rest of his life. Channeling the mysterious essence tainted by several dozen different people’s versions of the ‘lord’ in their hearts, Orison used the man as a pseudo avatar and healed the girl’s arm through him.

As soon as it was done, the girl’s mother checked the arm and started crying and praising with broken words. The channel of essence was filling with more structure poison Orison was desperately shunting to the temple guard. It was in that moment, inspiration struck.

The young mage made the light behind him flare in greater brilliance before flickering and fading away. “People! I have sinned in my heart, the sin of pride. Chosen of the Lord… You, man! I have sinned and no longer feel him move through me. Take my sin as lesson and guard your heart from pride as you guard the church from corruption.

“The Lord moves through you now. Though I no longer have the right, nay privilege, of requesting anything. I beseech you. Lead these people in prayer and do not let their faith down as I have just done.”

With a last small burst of magical effort, Orison cast an augmented mage light on the temple guard’s helmet as the man lead a stammering prayer.

To aid the effort, the young mage said, “Behold, the grace that has fled me has found a brighter and worthier heart to shine in. I am shamed and humbled. Now, I shall seek to find redemption in the south. For however long or short it shall be, I will spread truth there til I have found my way again.”

While They went around, giving subtle nudges and some mental sleight of hand to move people still using Them as a focus onto the ‘righteous’ newborn paladin, the woodsman asked Duran, “What manner of creature is your friend?”

The soldierly young man said simply, “The Magician.”

The man looked puzzled.

After a huff, Duran added, “A magician makes great effort seem effortless while making the effortless seem hard. They distract with one hand while the other works its magic. They make the illusionary real while turning the real into illusion. Orison is no different, except… think bigger, much bigger.”

With a mental nudge and forcing the last of the tainted essence into the paladin, They shared spirit sight with him. The last of the essence was spent to make that sight visible to all where the paladin looked. The dark, the light and the gray were revealed briefly before fading away.

No longer the focus of attention, They returned to Duran, the woodsman and a shaken young man that must have been the woodsman’s apprentice. “Alright, where’s this raft guy? The barbecue’s just begun but I, for one, ain’t hungry.”

The woodsman pointed at a thin, ropy muscled man in his mid thirties who was chanting the slogans Orison spouted earlier while another clergy member was tied more securely and tossed on the bonfire.

“Oh… Maybe you can talk him over? I don’t want to get pulled into that stuff again. I just managed to get out of it,” the young mage said.

The woodsman looked at the gruesome revelries and shuddered before steeling himself and getting the rafter.

“So, you going down south to fight the good fight the right way? Sorry about that fall from grace thing. Pride can get to the best of us… Tell you what. This trip’s on me but you’ll still have to pay the river boat captain. He’s a good man but he ain’t no believer. Pity he’s headed for Hell but we got an agreement and he’s an old friend of mine. His afterlife is his business as far as I’m concerned,” the rafter said.

Orison nodded sagely, “We were granted free will for a reason. Without the freedom to choose, devotion is merely faithless servitude.”

The man eyeballed Them. “You sure you ain’t still got a spark of that grace left in you?”

The young mage smiled wryly, “No more than anyone else. If you ever find yourself called to serve, don’t get a swollen head about it. The big guy don’t like it.”

As the two ‘climbers’ loaded up on the raft, the hand-made paladin quickly made his way over.

Orison muttered under his breath, “Damn.”

The temple guard turned militant religious leader said, “Would that I could join you on your peaceful crusade of redemption. I am certain that the Lord’s light will- May the Lord’s light find you no matter what darkness you may traverse.”

A mark emblazoned itself onto Orison’s soul faster than the desolate realm’s ability to grab it.

The man’s eyes cleared of the brief fog that clouded them and looked at the young mage in smiling, fanatical wonder. “The Lord of Light isn’t done with you yet. I await your triumphant return to the fold!”

They chuckled bitterly. “Well, you’ve got your work cut out for you. I hope the Lord of Light that dwells in your heart today, is the one that finds it’s way into the heart of the church. A dark idol parading hatred as love will be clawed to the abyss itself with time.”

The man smiled wider, “Then, it seems I am assured victory.”

Orison shook Their head. “Humble heart. Victory isn’t assured with faith alone. It requires a great deal more than that.”

After being tortured for words of wisdom a few more minutes, the paladin finally left to join his flock in making preparations to release surrounding villages from the clutches of the false prophets. All the while, Duran looked at Orison with concern. He was aware of what happened but wasn’t free to discuss openly. The raft wasn’t big enough for privacy.

An hour or so down the tributary, the rafter said, “How much of a difference do you think it’ll make? I’m kind of scared I’m going to come back to a burned down village.”

With Orison pretending contemplation to fish for gold sand, Duran said, “Martyr or leader, there’s going to be blood. He’s got a few old foxes by his side. It takes a little darkness to know it but only time will tell if the guy can bend or if he’ll snap. Either way, there’s going to be change.”

Sighing, the young mage couldn’t help but add, “The important thing here is that the church is stepping out of line and usurping noble authority. The nobles aren’t any bunch of do gooders themselves and will take any chance they can get to snatch some authority back. As long as the intent to divide church from statecraft stays clear in their message, our newly minted paladin will have strong support.”

The rafter look slightly scandalized. “If the Lord isn’t in the hearts of our secular leaders, how will our country-”

“Spiritual affairs focus on the afterlife. A noble’s DUTY is to the welfare of people while they are alive! Let’s leave it at that. I’m all for the idea that nobles should be ‘noble of spirit’ as well but clergy needs to be looking for heavenly rewards not fighting in politics for fatter earthly ones.”

Duran cut in. “I can see where this is going. Before you get into ‘better technology is more important than a bigger population’ or a deep and confusing state craft speech with our raft poling benefactor, why don’t you focus on the state of your soul and leave the man be before you give him…and me a headache.”

Orison gave him a superficial hurt and reproachful look before returning to fishing for gold sand.

Giving the rafter a wry smile, Duran said, “Trust me on this. You’re better off leaving it there. He’s got more opinions than time to express them.”

The man sighed and said, “Night rafting is tedious. Good conversation makes it pass faster but rest makes it pass the quickest. I’m used to looking over slumbering malcontents and glad for the peace.

“I’ll have you there a bit after ninth bell and the Red Dock Inn will take stragglers until eleven this time of year. But no matter when you get there, the keeper’s wife knocks on doors seventh bell sharp. You’re more than ten minutes later handing in your key, she takes another silver or you don’t get breakfast.”

They didn’t intend to sleep and Duran did get a lot of information about local affairs while the young mage fashioned Their first gold coin replica. Without meaning to, the drift of water and the weariness of all the day had brought caused the young mage to drift into involuntary trance. With a dream of drowning, Orison clawed to consciousness in a bed at the sound of a sharp rapping on the door.

Looking at the large bed, Their head ached abominably. As They took in the presence of two young women in various stages of undress in the bed with Them, the young mage noticed Duran on the floor with most of the bedding and a third young woman weakly protesting over her position as a body pillow.

“What in the flap jacks happened, last night!? I remember jack all!” Orison protested at Their sleeping friend.