Talios (1)

A crush of people packed the great gate of Pirberk, every one of them trying to get into the city. Brus had been a city of some size in its own right, but one look at Pirberk and I had to revise that assessment.

“It’s swarming.”
“Bound to be. Even the Darbar side are itching to get here.”

From what Drick told me, the Talios church had moved its stronghold outright, out of a city in the Darbar domain and into Pirberk. The city drank deep of the Silbern River’s bounty, and with only a little exaggeration it would have borne comparison with the central cities near the capital.

…So the Talios church has grown strong enough to take a city like this.

For a moment I called back the days when I’d had dealings with them. A little over fifty years ago, that was.

An unusual territorial war was under way then, three domains of the north pitted against a league of the southern and western domains. I was out on the front line of the southwest league in those days, and there I ran into the Talios bastards of the north. An arm cut off, a leg broken; I paid it no mind and beat them to death. And then, before I knew it, the ones still on their feet had gone down on their knees to pray to me.

‘What are you doing?’
‘You are beyond doubt an apostle of the great Talios, come down among us.’
‘What are you talking about.’
‘The church of Talios reveres strength, for strength is what carries a holy war to victory. And you look as though you have no need even of that.’
‘Holy war?’
‘To the church of Talios, every battle is a sacred thing. You are no different from a god who commands a holy war without need of overwhelming strength, so what could you be, if not our apostle?’

Talios is a god of battle, and its church worships battle. In their eyes, a deathless man who kept on butchering the enemy even as spear and blade ran clean through him was the very incarnation of battle. And in one stroke I was exalted as an apostle of the Talios church.

They hung on my every word, naturally. Had I actually told them to die, they would have cried out the name of Talios and set about putting a blade in themselves. I got out in the end, but for some years I lived with the church and off their hospitality.

Being treated as no different from a god sounds fine on the face of it, but the reality is nothing of the sort. Watching them crowd in at all hours to bow before me was a species of nuisance only a man who has been through it could understand.

“That’s another thing I haven’t seen in a long while.”
“Brother, now that you mention it, you seem to have some tie to Talios. Don’t tell me you’re a high bishop or something?”

“…Something like that.”

I had no confidence I could explain that past to Drick, so I hedged, and while I hedged our party inched steadily toward the city gate.

“The church’s influence really is strong, then.”

Even the gatekeeper had the emblem of the Talios church cut into his armor.

Three swords crossed.

A fitting emblem for a church that had thrown away its shields and kept only the swords.

“That’s putting it mildly. Pirberk’s a city of religion now. The lord brought the church in himself and got swallowed by it for his trouble.”

The church’s hold on the city had grown past ignoring; it had laid hands even on Pirberk’s military power.

“Darbar was never that strong a domain to begin with. It was the church’s power that was monstrous enough to let them pick a fight with Slonhar.”
“So being swallowed was the natural next step.”

The line at the gate shrank, and our turn came. The merchant came over and asked what I meant to do next.

“If you’ve nothing particular planned, I’d be willing to pay extra on the condition that you escort the wagons every quarter from here on. Will you be moving straight on from Pirberk to another city?”
“I couldn’t say. But I won’t be travelling with you.”
“Is that so. Understood.”

I had taken my commission fee, the willow bark, the moment I accepted the job, so there was no further money coming to me. Drick was another matter.

“Master merchant, I’ll have to part ways here as well. I’ve somewhere to be with my brother.”

Drick had been formally hired by the merchant, and his pay came due once the commission was finished. While he settled up for his mercenary work, Kalen came over.

“Sir knight, what will you do now?”
“We head for the church first.”

Taking the church’s help was overwhelmingly better than searching alone. And when that church had this city in its grip and revered me as their god’s apostle, there was no reason to refuse it.

When I explained that we would be going straight to the church, Drick heard me out and asked:

“All well and good, but how do you mean to manage it? You’re a high bishop, so you can just walk into their stronghold, can you?”

I drew the church’s pendant from my breast and showed it to him. The apostle’s token, given to me when I left them.

“The gatekeeper looks to be the church’s man too, so if I show him this he’ll guide us there.”

Drick gave me a look that amounted to if-you-say-so, and Kalen, who had taken me for something close to a god from the start, said nothing at all. The merchant and the rest of them disappeared beyond the gate, and we stood before the gatekeeper.

“Purpose of your visit?”

The armor I had picked up in Brus had grown filthy over the past fortnight, so there was no danger of him mistaking me for a knight.

“I’ve come to see the church’s branch head.”

“…You think that’s someone you get to meet just because you feel like meeting him?”

Without a word, I showed him the token. The soldier looked the metal pendant over and said:

“And what’s this supposed to be?”

“…”

I had not reckoned on the gatekeeper failing to recognize it. The apostle’s token differed a little from the ordinary emblem, and with so much time gone by the number of people who could still place it had naturally dwindled. I had overlooked that entirely.

“I am, in fact, the apostle of Talios. Fifty-six years ago I came to you and handed down a revelation. This is the token of it.”

The soldier looked at me the way a man looks at an insect. Drick’s face was much the same, and Kalen, believing it apparently, went wide-eyed.

“…Listen, friend. Pay the gate toll and I can put you through quietly.”

“The church’s branch head—”
“Cut the bullshit and get moving.”

I paid the gatekeeper his gate toll as though it were being wrung out of me, and was shoved on into Pirberk.

This has gotten a little complicated.

As things stood, reaching the church’s stronghold would mean going a considerably harder way around. And beyond that, even if I managed somehow to reach their headquarters, there was no guarantee anyone would recognize the token.

So I cannot count on Talios’s help?

Their help was not something I could do without. The branch head here might well recognize the token, so if it came to it, even if it meant slipping in unseen, I had to meet him.

“…Brother. Have you ever taken a bad blow to the head?”

Drick had begun to doubt me outright. It took an explanation that explained nothing, and even then I only just escaped that look of his.

“Well, I believe you. Your skill’s real enough, at least.”

When the bandits hit the wagons, I had fought it through deliberately without taking a single wound. If they had found out then that mine was a body which would not die, there would have been no end of trouble.

“Still, brother, I’d never have guessed you were that old. Doesn’t that put you past sixty at the very least? And your voice sounds like a man of my own years.”
“Right? Well, I’ve come to see you a whole new way myself, sir knight.”

“…”

Taking off the helm to show them my face was hardly an option. While I wrestled with a secret nobody knew, Kalen went one step further.

“Ah! Then that time you covered your face so desperately, was that…”
“That’s enough out of you.”

The fuss over my age came to a close only after I cuffed Kalen on the head.

“First we gather information.”

That was the first thing I said once we had taken a room at an inn and gathered in one place. If only to learn exactly how large the church was, and whether Pindel might be here at all, we needed to walk Pirberk.

“Kalen, go around the city and look for Pindel. Describing what he looks like at every inn should do it. Drick, you come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Where else. The church, of course.”

Drick looked at me with half-belief in his eyes. I brushed that look aside with a single line.

“Don’t you want to be a paladin?”

“…Understood.”

I sent Kalen off, and followed Drick toward the church. Among Pirberk’s countless buildings, the Talios church stood out in particular.

“This is it?”
“It is.”

And no wonder. The thing was a castle. At the top of a fortress that must once have belonged to the lord of Slonhar, the emblem of the Talios church flaunted its grandeur.

“…Unbelievable. Taking the inner keep as well — they left a mere lord behind long ago.”

Pirberk, the city of religion.

I had read Drick’s words to mean the church held enormous influence, but that was wrong. Pirberk was, quite literally, a city of religion. A city belonging to the Talios church. By now it was not only the military; there was nothing the church’s claws had failed to reach.

“Well? Now that you’ve seen it for yourself, has a way to drag the branch head out come to you?”

The church’s power ran past that measure. Enough that a mere branch head could take a great city in hand.

“It has.”

A design sketched itself in my head like a flash of light. Their excessive bulk would be poison to them.

The rest of that day I spent watching the figures who came and went from the church’s stronghold. I thought about helping Kalen search for Pindel, but since I didn’t know his face there was nothing I could do.

“Not so much as the tip of his nose.”

The hour dusk fell.

That was what Kalen said, back at the inn. Naturally enough, finding a single man in a city the size of Pirberk was the sort of thing that could take months and surprise nobody.

“It’s fine. Good work.”

Still, it was certainly strange that not one person had so much as seen a man of his description. It meant Pindel had set his mind on hiding.

“Say, brother, who’s this Pindel you’re hunting for?”

I explained to Drick that I was tracking Pindel, mixing lie and truth in fair measure. To lay it all out, Lucseon would have had to come up, and then I would have had to speak of my centuries of living, and of Eladin besides.

“Shall I ask around the mercenaries?”
“That’s not a good idea.”

A church with the city wholly in its grip might be one thing, but if mercenaries started moving, word could not fail to reach Pindel’s ear. Rather than court trouble for nothing, it was better to take the church’s help, which was a sure thing.

“So in the end we need the church’s help all the more badly.”

Now that the thread of the talk had come back around to the church, I rose from my seat.

“Where are you going?”
“I’ll pay the church a visit.”

A hand caught me as I left the room. Drick’s.

“Whatever it is you’ve got in mind — that method of yours. Is it certain?”
“It is.”

I gave him a nod. I had just told him the deed would be done tonight, so he would explain it well enough to Kalen.

I drew out the apostle’s token and shook it.

“By tomorrow morning I’ll have the church’s branch head on his knees in front of you.”

Since midday I had been giving Pormel one order, over and over: come to Pirberk. Without Pormel the plan could not have existed in the first place.

Its signal reached me, saying it had only just arrived, and I withdrew the order to approach the city. At the same time, I gave a new one.

Pormel. Smash the largest castle in the city to pieces.