The Priest Read online

  KESH

  GOD OF TRANSCENDENCE

  “Why do you torture yourself, Kesh?” Nox said.

  His arms folded haughtily across his chest, Kesh shook his head.

  “He was foolish,” Kesh said. “It was but a small step from his Truth to my own.”

  “Oh?” she said. “Where do they go, Kesh? Do they live in the clouds? Do they join the stars in the night sky? Or do they go to a pastoral underworld by way of their graves?”

  Kesh sighed. “As usual, your insight and intelligence are as stunted as your physical growth. They transcend the physical plane!”

  “Do they, though?” she remained perfectly calm despite his agitation.

  “Of course they do! You offer nothing! I offer hope!”

  “Hope?” She made a point to look in all directions. “Does hope have any place in this world? You offer a lie. I offer Truth and everyone can see it. Granted, it is a hard Truth, but this world proves it more and more each day. You call me a child, but it’s you who’s unsophisticated and naive.”

  “You ignorant bitch.”

  Nox smiled.

  “The end will show—”

  Phaeax, had been standing by with tightly clenched fists, trying his best to quell his outrage, but this last insult was too much to bear. He moved with sudden speed, driving one of those fists into Kesh’s glistening stomach. His fist sank deep, doubling Kesh, silencing him, and causing the god’s colorless eyes to go wide.

  “Open your mouth again,” Phaeax said.

  Tenes and the Grays gawked. Nox looked on with interest and amusement, a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.

  Kesh’s priests weren’t sure what to do. Their god had just been assaulted by a rival’s head priest. Such things were not unprecedented, but the combination of Nox’s words and their own god’s apparent weakness was sufficient to raise serious questions about Kesh’s Truth.

  “You dare, too!” Kesh said, sputtering and backing away through his priests.

  Phaeax made brief eye contact with Nox, who nodded subtly.

  Standing before Phaeax now, more resulting from the dynamic of Kesh’s retreat than any concerted effort, were Kesh’s three head priests. Nilsum was at the right of them, staring at Phaeax with haunted eyes, his head twitching left to right.

  Over his shoulder Phaeax said, “Tenes,” and he proceeded towards the three as if they weren’t there. Looking past him and radiating black, Phaeax took hold of Nilsum’s head in both hands and twisted it with a degree of violence that stood in sharp contrast to his controlled demeanor. He passed through the head priests as Tenes arrived to engage the two remaining. The Grays, too, seeing their seniors act, acted themselves. From all of Nox’s priests, the the black corona began to shine.

  Kesh had backed up the steps of Karm’s temple to the gate. With one hand nursing the unfamiliar pain shooting through his stomach, he struck the gate with his other, causing it to fly open.

  “Stay away from me,” Kesh said, in a low, guttural, threatening tone.

  Phaeax responded by increasing the pace of his pursuit. Kesh turned and tried to run, but was shoved from behind and sent sprawling onto the slick, polished floor. The only light came from the open gate, and Phaeax’s shadow loomed large over Kesh as the god attempted to right himself and face his assailant. Kesh rose, and felt Phaeax’s fist a second time, this time upon his jaw, then a third time against the opposite cheek.

  Again and again, the priest’s fists came.

  Kesh’s face lost what little definition it had, so that his features ran together and dripped to the floor. Phaeax continued the beating, nearly slipping on the colorless blood, but Kesh, led in a dance by Phaeax’s fists, began to laugh.

  “You can hurt me, yes, but you cannot kill me, let alone convert me.”

  Phaeax stopped, took a step back, his breast heaving from exertion. His rage was spent, but not so his purpose. He knew from the way his blows glanced off of Kesh’s gelatinous form that only a fraction of the force was being transmitted.

  “I can hurt you. I can kill you. And I can most certainly convert you.”

  Kesh started laughing again, spat onto the floor, straightened to his full height.

  “No, you are just a little man, following a little girl, whose only defining trait is impertinence.”

  He wiped a hand across his face, further smearing his features, and despite the eye contact he’d been maintaining with Phaeax, Phaeax, suddenly, was no longer there.

  Dim light from above caught Kesh’s attention, but as the line draped down and was wrapped double around his neck, he felt the pressure between his shoulder blades help cinch the garotte’s grip.

  Kesh gasped silently and clawed uselessly at the air. Phaeax was behind him, his knee pressed against the god’s back, his hands clasping either end of the taut, faintly glowing wire. The black aura poured off of Phaeax like furnace flames, consuming the last of Kesh’s strength and will.

  Kesh dropped to his knees, then fell flat on his face, dead.

  When Phaeax was finished, he saw Tenes standing at the threshold.

  “You . . . You did it,” Tenes said, full of awe or fear or both. “I didn’t think you could, but you did.”

  Phaeax stood and stepped clear of Kesh’s corpse. “Either of us could have.”

  At that, Tenes assumed an inscrutable expression and nodded slowly. “Maybe,” he said, but unconvincingly.

  They descended the temple steps together, and the Divine Accountants renewed their tabulations.

  VICE

  THE PROCURER

  Once the fighting was done, the neighborhood containing Karm’s temple seemed calm, quiet, peaceful, and especially idyllic when the sun began to set. However, as Nox and her priests made their way through the darkening streets, chaos asserted itself as the norm. Several fires flickered, lighting the night sky sporadically until they, too, victims of the Last Times, sputtered and died with no real consequence. A number of corpses littered the streets. More and more people were losing their minds as the reality of life and death resolved itself into just two ultimate possibilities: Nox’s true death or one of Ahurimanda’s two fates.

  Ahurimanda’s faith offered some degree of hope, but no one would know for sure which of the two fates they’d earned until judgement. It was easier to just know with Nox, but the Accounting would not be finished until one alone remained. In the meantime, everyone who lost his or her mind, became an unwitting adherent of, and gave strength to, the god on the hill, straining at his chains. The end had been encroaching slowly for the last fifty years at least, but once the Lunatic God broke his chains, time was up.

  On arrival at their own temple, Nox rewarded her priests for the day’s Accounting with freedom to do as they would for the rest of the night. Most of her priests took advantage of this rare boon, with only a very few deciding to remain at the temple.

  “Come on Tenes, let’s celebrate,” Phaeax said.

  “No, I’m too old for carousing. Besides, behind the temple walls, away from all the noise, the night is pleasant enough, and the song of the mana tree’s leaves on the wind is all I need. Well, that and a bottle I’ve been saving for a very long time.”

  Phaeax grinned. “Save a drink for me, if you can.”

  “We shall see, young Phaeax. We shall see.”

  Phaeax took his leave with a number of Grays into the city. Though they left together, Phaeax soon broke away from his fellows and continued alone.

  • • •

  Within a few short minutes, Phaeax came upon a figure, cloaked and hooded, which seemed to move invisibly through the night crowds.

  “Most cannot recognize me outside one of my many establishments,” the figure said in a voice that might have belonged to a man or a woman.

  “Most aren’t looking for the level of discretion I am,” Phaeax said.

  “Which is it then that powers your preternatural perception? Your desire or your need for discretion?”

  Phaeax shrugge
d. “Desire alone has decided the rise and fall of empires. Anyway, what do you care? It keeps you in business, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, but maybe not for very much longer. I believe we’ve run out of empires, and I’ve seen the most recent tallies. Very impressive day’s work. I can see why you sought me out. Come this way.”

  Phaeax followed. The location was always different, and the one waiting for him was always the same, at least in appearance. He suspected that some glamour was involved and knew that it couldn’t be otherwise.

  He spent two hours coupling with her and another just holding her while they lay there naked. Eventually, the same dark disappointment overcame him and brought him back to harsh reality. He dressed in his black cassock, stared longingly at her on the bed for a bit longer, and left.

  Outside, Vice awaited and took the handful of coins Phaeax offered.

  “Still not satisfied? I assure you that every curve, however slight, has been meticulously reproduced. The face and the body, too, are perfect reproductions. But—and I suspect this is the problem—she is not her. Tell me, what is it you wish to achieve?”

  Phaeax sighed. “Release.”

  “My dear boy, if I were charging you by the instance and not by the hour, I’d have retired long ago, if ever it was in my makeup to do so. Release, you say?”

  “Goodbye, Vice.”

  LORD MURDER

  Despite the hour, the streets were noisier than when Phaeax had set out. Chaos and panic continued to prevail, and the bodies went unnoticed or ignored. There could be no question that the Lunatic God would snap his chains very soon now. Phaeax didn’t care. It didn’t matter. It changed nothing. And, more importantly, it had no impact on his mood, darkened by what he could not have.

  He pushed through the temple gate, closed it behind him to silence the clamor, and passed through the open foyer into the yard that housed the mana tree. On a stone bench beneath the softly creaking boughs, he found Tenes with his bottle.

  Tenes perked up at Phaeax’s presence. “You still want that drink?”

  “If you can spare it.”

  “I can.”

  Tenes held the bottle out. Phaeax took it, drank from it.

  “Never seen numbers move like they did today,” Tenes said.

  “Well, these are the Last Times.”

  “Yes, yes they are. Still, not sure exactly what I saw in Karm’s temple.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re awfully good at what you do, Phaeax.”

  Phaeax snorted. “You trained me, Tenes.”

  Tenes’s eyes sparkled. “Did I?”

  Phaeax scoffed. “You’re drunk, old friend.”

  “Who are you?” Tenes said.

  “What do you mean? Tenes, you’ve known me since I was twelve years old. I’ve lived inside these walls ever since, learning everything you’ve had to teach.”

  “It’s true,” Tenes said. “You entered this temple fifteen years ago. You devoted yourself to your training and advanced quickly and believably because of that devotion. Even so, no one in the history of the priesthood, besides you, ever received the black cassock in ten years. No one has ever done what you did today. So tell me: Who are you?”

  Phaeax shrugged, shook his head, but couldn’t bring himself to break away from Tenes’s penetrating gaze.

  Tenes just stared, his eyes still sparkling enigmatically. Finally, he started again. “A long time before you were . . . born there was an adjunct god who served death. He had a cult of killers who were a match for any priesthood. He was called Lord Murder and he operated according to his own code or to flippant whim, no one ever knew which. Maybe they were same. I guess it doesn’t matter.

  “Lord Murder was legendary. Unbeatable. But one day, he just disappeared. All his cultists turned up dead. As he was an adjunct god, there were no tallies to check with the Divine Accountants, so there was no way to confirm one way or the other if he was really gone. Eventually, people forgot about him. His legend faded, just like everything else once we entered into the Last Times.”

  Phaeax shook his head again. “Tenes, why are you telling me about Lord Murder?”

  Tenes chuckled, reached for the bottle in Phaeax’s hand, retrieved it, and took a drink.

  “Why . . . When I was a boy, twelve, just like you were when you entered the priesthood, I saw him once. This was before the Six Gods of War ruined everything, when just about everybody felt about Nox the way Kesh did. Back then his opinion wasn’t unique. She and her priests have had to, and so have, consistently proven her Truth over the years.”

  “Okay,” Phaeax said, still confused by the turn of the conversation.

  “Have you ever heard of Tai Sun Sen, the Immortal? Probably not. That day, when I was twelve, I saw Lord Murder end his life. Tai Sun Sen was different from the rest of the gods. He taught anyone who’d take the time to learn to be physically immortal. He called it cultivating the breath. His priests were more than formidable. They challenged the natural order with what they’d achieved. His following had always been small, but had started to grow.

  “Lord Murder, who never appeared the same to more than one person, challenged him publicly. They boxed, they wrestled. Lord Murder plied him with knives, with bludgeons. Nothing worked. Finally, realizing that the source of Tai Sun Sen’s immortality was in the breath he cultivated, Lord Murder produced the Ghost Wire and strangled him from behind. It wasn’t a quick thing. Tai Sun Sen struggled and thrashed, but Lord Murder had held his knee to the Immortal’s back, further tightening the noose and making himself unreachable. I watched the light go out of the Immortal’s eyes and it terrified me. The dread there, bordering on utter emptiness, spoke to one Truth, and I saw him, with no breath left to speak, mouth his last words: ‘Nox is Truth.’

  “That was a hundred and twenty-six years ago. Lord Murder disappeared shortly after. Needless to say, that incident decided and defined my religious career.”

  “That’s a great story, Tenes, but I still don’t understand what it has to do with today.”

  Tenes snorted. “I haven’t thought about it for years, but back then, I often wondered if Lord Murder was influenced just as I was on that day.”

  “That certainly would be a boon to her cause.”

  “It would indeed. You are the best student I’ve ever had, Phaeax. You’ve been just as good a friend. Remember, though, you are a priest of Nox. If you by chance forget that, make sure you don’t forget that I am, too, and always will be.”

  “Alright, Tenes. I’ll remember, but maybe we should both try to get some sleep.”

  “You go on ahead.”

  AHURIMANDA

  GOD OF THE TWO FATES

  Two hours before dawn, Phaeax awoke. Someone had spoken his name. He sat up clear-headed and alert, and despite the darkness, he saw that he was alone in his cell. He dressed quickly and set off through the temple for Nox’s chamber.

  • • •

  A pounding at the gate startled Tenes to wakefulness. He rose from the stone bench—his makeshift bed beneath the mana tree—stretched his back, and walked the short distance to the gate to open it.

  “What is it?” he said rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Tenes,” a refined voice replied with some surprise. “How fortuitous . . . and good of you to answer at this early hour.”

  “Aael?” Tenes said.

  It was indeed Aael, Ahurimanda’s head priest, wearing his benevolent face.

  “It’s too early.”

  “Never so in our line of work. I need your help with something. Would you come with me?”

  “Now?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Let me call you some Grays.”

  “I believe this to be beyond the scope of what a lesser priest, even a group of them, could accomplish. You can see,” Aael said, glancing over his shoulder, “what it’s like out here.”

  Tenes peered through the early morning dark to see rioters in the distance, co
rpses strewn everywhere, vendor stalls smashed, buildings defaced and crumbling, variously-sized bonfires smoldering on and off the streets. He grunted, took a deep breath, and stepped outside.

  “Are you alone?” Tenes said.

  “I wasn’t when I set out,” Aael said, politely waving Tenes ahead of him.

  Tenes descended the steps to the street with Aael close behind him. When he started to speak again, Tenes found his words cut off by a rope tightening around his neck, then another pulling from the opposite direction. He saw that Aael was now wearing his malevolent face, as were a number of his juniors emerging from the shadows at the other end of each rope. Tenes tried to loosen the coils crushing his throat, but his fingers could not find sufficient purchase.

  “You see, Tenes,” Aael said, “the Grays don’t concern us, you Black Cassocks do. We heard what Phaeax did to Kesh, but our Lord God Ahurimanda has taken precautions and cannot fail.”

  Awareness shot through Tenes like an arrow. Despite the competing forces acting on him, he shot a wide-eyed look back towards the temple. Rallying himself, he grabbed one of the lengths of rope with both hands and pulled as hard as he could. The three men holding it were overwhelmed and yanked off balance. He whirled, kicked Aael a solid blow, sending the priest sprawling, wound the loose end around his left arm, and took the other in both hands as he started back up the steps for the gate. He heaved the rope as he went and managed to knock those men to the ground as well, though some still maintained their grip. He pulled and twisted, as he reached the gate, and managed to free the rope. With both loose, he removed them from around his neck and re-entered the temple, sounding the alarm bell as he did. He hesitated then. Aael could easily take any number of Grays himself, and he wasn’t alone. In fact, Tenes had no way of knowing just how many of Ahurimanda’s priests were present. Maybe all of them were there. The Grays would be outnumbered regardless, but Tenes had to do something about Aael. Nox was not completely defenseless. And there was Phaeax.