Arc 4: Chapter 11: Confession and Communion
Above the streets of Garihelm, the bells of Myrr Arthor tolled a mournful song. A dirge well matched to the weeping sky. Across the city, more bells answered the call of the great seat of the Faith, until all the streets, the towers, the storm walls and manor rows echoed with the clamor.
I thought perhaps the sound passed into the pouring sky above, out over the churning waters of the bay, and were taken in by them.
Lias had once told me that the world’s water is caught in an endless cycle. It evaporates from the surface, rising into the sky only to fall again as rain. Sometimes I wondered if all the world’s pain worked in a similar loop, seeping into the soil and the water only to return unchanged, echoing itself down into forever. Only, sorrow and pain are cumulative, added to by every new injury done until life had room for little else.
The sky took in our suffering, and gave it back to us tenfold. It gave us storms, and flooding rains, and cold. It gave us monsters who wielded blades of lightning.
Did the gods not care? Did God not care?
I would have my answers.
“Are you ready?” A soft voice asked me.
I stood at the window of an outer tower of the Bell Ward, my gaze fixed on the spires of the city’s grandest cathedral. I wore a thick cloak of brown wool against the chill of the latest rain, the hood up to conceal my face, the front clasped by rope. I would look little different from what the monks and lesser clericons who tended to the houses of the clergy wore.
I turned to the figure who stepped into the small room where I’d been waiting. Lisette wore an outfit similar to mine, her black priorguard uniform hidden or exchanged. The face beneath the tightly bound cowl stared at me with calm blue eyes.
“I am,” I said.
The spy nodded. “The rector is ready for you.”