B5 Chapter 37 – Shattered People

“Have you managed to get some rest?” Elsbeth asked.

Munhilde grimaced. Despite her agelessness, a gift from the Three, even the old Priestess was looking fatigued. Sometimes Elsbeth wondered just what price her teacher had paid for her long life. She had no idea how old the woman, who she now counted as a friend, really was, seemingly perpetually locked in middle age, and she knew better than to ask.

Through her own work as a Priestess and her growing familiarity with these Gods she had found, or had found her, Elsbeth knew it was a blessing from the Crone, the God who most involved herself with the humans who lived in this realm.

Rot and Raven were interested in… other things, for the most part.

“I managed to snatch a few hours of sleep yesterday,” the old Priestess replied. “It’s not enough, but it’s better than nothing. Have you spoken to Rolan today?”

Elsbeth grimaced, which was all the answer Munhilde needed.

“You can’t keep avoiding him forever,” she chuckled.

Elsbeth sighed.

“I know. It’s just… unpleasant.”

It had taken Elsbeth a long time to get used to her own blessing. Her first, received upon her ascension to bronze rank at level twenty, had been a minor thing. Now that she was silver, the power the Gods were willing to invest in her had grown, and with it, the strength of the blessings they were willing to offer.

When the Raven had made his offer, she had seen the light of knowledge in his eye, or perhaps she had only thought she did. The Ancient God was a knower of things and a worker of storms. It shouldn’t be surprising that he knew about her as well, and knew that his offering would be too tempting for her to resist.

“Fool girl,” Munhilde scoffed with genuine affection. She reached out and cuffed Elsbeth lightly over the head, as she had often done while the two rode her wagon from village to village, ministering to the remote communities. “You should have just taken youth.”

Elsbeth blinked. Did Munhilde know? … She shouldn’t. As usual, Elsbeth chose to go with the truth.

“I wasn’t sure I would be willing to pay the price,” she admitted.

If her teacher hadn’t known that it was offered before, she did now, along with the reluctance she felt towards the gift. The blessings were powerful, but the Gods, as they did with all things, demanded a price, which they would only tell you after you had selected. Amongst the Priesthood, discussing what they had been forced to give up simply wasn’t done, but she had picked up enough to know that different people were asked for different things.

The Venerable had given up everything he could, hollowing himself out in order to pour out a bounty to the rest of his people. Despite his warning, Elsbeth still thought of the gnarled and crooked old man as an inspiring figure.

Munhilde nodded slowly.

“It isn’t cheap,” she said simply.

A silence fell between them for a long moment, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, Elsbeth reached out and patted her friend on the shoulder.

“Get some rest,” she told her. “You look like you’re about to fall over. I’ll make sure your duties are tended to.”

“As if you look any better,” Munhilde snorted, waving the younger woman away. “Fine, fine. I’ll get some soup and go to bed. I don’t want to hear you complaining tomorrow.”

“Leave the pot on over the coals,” Elsbeth told her. “If I have something warm to eat when I get home, there’ll be no complaints from me.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

The two had shared a residence for some time, a small place they had continued to repair close to the centre of the city. With a final squeeze of the arm, Munhilde headed home, and Elsbeth braced herself to face the rest of the day.

Much of the Priesthood had survived the exodus from the Western Province, forewarned by their Gods and armed with the support necessary to survive the journey. It hadn’t hurt that almost all of them had been gathered in Cragwhistle at the time the invasion had started. Now they did their best to administer to the refugees, just as they had in the mountains, though it was a hopeless task. The followers of The Three had always been a secretive and furtive community, and the Priests and Priestesses had been actively hunted for thousands of years. Now, as the survivors, hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, tried to eke out an existence in the ruins of a fallen empire, it fell to only a few thousand of Elsbeth’s colleagues to try to give spiritual guidance and comfort.

A hopeless task indeed.

The bulk of the Priesthood operated out of what she suspected had once been a bank, its sturdy stone foundations and pillars proving to be strong enough to keep the building largely intact over the hundreds of years since Granin had fallen. Swept out, repaired and cleaned, a little of the structure’s former grandeur was starting to return. The elegant stonework and buttresses overhead were far from perfect condition, but even so, they were impressive.

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If she lurked in the shadows near the entrance any longer, she’d look like she was here to seek guidance, rather than provide it. Elsbeth squared her shoulders and marched inside. The entrance to the ground floor was a large open foyer, with the pillars rising high to hold up the roof three stories above. It created an impressive open space, in which many gathered, seeking aid from The Three. Some found themselves organised into lines, sorted by the greeters stationed at the entrance. A line for food, another for work, another for blessing, another for conflict resolution.

There wasn’t really any sort of law enforcement in the city, nothing official, anyway. The people were distrustful of Guards and Marshalls now, after what those Classes normally charged with keeping the peace had done to them during the purge. In their place, community groups had organised, and Tyron regularly sent out patrols of skeletons to sweep the streets. Intimidated by the undead and their eerie Wight leaders, most of the survivors were too afraid to put a toe out of line.

After working out in the city, she was expected to return to the Priest who had been put in charge of trying to keep them organised, Rolan, who kept an office on the second floor. She moved with purpose, striding up the stone spiral staircase and walked to the open door. The open doorframe, anyway. Most wooden doors had long rotted away or been smashed by the roving kin, and there weren’t any trees to replace them with. Tyron had doors, the underground complex had proven safe from the elements and roving monsters, but almost nobody else was able to afford such a luxury.