‘I managed to borrow asmall cask of sacred wine from the store a couple of days ago. Whydon’t we look after that while our modest friend here does hisduty,’ said one of them. The others all laughed, agreed and left ina jovial mood.
The remaining priestinitiate closed the door and casually walked over to the womanlying prone on the couch. He sat beside her stroking her shoulderthen suddenly moved to grip her around the neck.
‘My sister was aprostitute. She disgraced our family. I killed her. You are adisgrace to your family and need to die.’
The woman fought andstruggled, trying to push him away, but he lay across her body withhis own to hold her down while choking her.
Rob heard what he saidand became angry. A change came over him as he used his magic toeliminate the light in the room; he dropped to the floor with aslopping sound, reforming as a human female with wings, resemblinga figure he had seen in one of the city’s books.
‘What’s happening?’demanded the priest, slackening his hold on the woman’s neck. Shemanaged to break his grip on her and scratched at his face in thedarkness.
The light in the roomreturned and the priest and the prostitute both saw a glowing nakedwinged woman with cold black eyes standing several paces fromthem.
‘Miriam move to theside. I will deal with this man,’ Rob intoned in a strangelychilling feminine voice.
The prostitute pushedthe priest away from her, climbed off the couch, grabbed herpanties and fell to her knees before what she believed to be a holyavenger.
‘You know me? Thankyou, thank you gracious lady protector! I thought I was done for. Iwill donate my night’s takings to honour you. Give him what hedeserves.’ And she stood up, kicked the priest initiate who hadfallen to his knees visibly shaking in fear, and quickly moved tothe door but turned to watch.
‘Forgive meeeee!’begged the priest initiate.
‘Did you not murderyour own sister and just now try to kill another woman?’ Robasked.
‘Yes, yes,’ cried theyoung initiate.
‘How many more have youmurdered?’ asked Rob.
‘Only four - they wereall tainted prostitutes who deserved to die. I hated them all!’
‘He must be the onethat’s been killing my friends!’ said the girl. ‘Give him what hedeserves Lady.’
‘Leave us, please.’Said the black eyed Rob and the girl fled through the door.
There was a pulse ofmind magic and the priest’s eye glazed over.
‘I leave you to judgeyourself as if you were judging another guilty of your crimes.’Said Rob then returned to the Logicon form and, slithering back upto the ceiling, darkened the room.
The priest initiatepulled out a dagger and plunged in into his heart falling forwardinto the pool of his own blood.
Rob’s eyes returned totheir normal brown colour and he became conscious of the darkenedroom. Hearing no sounds, he slid back to the floor and dismissedthe darkness, to be confronted by the dead priest. He quicklyexamined the body.
‘Hmm. Looks like thisfellow must have been overcome with guilt to kill himself likethat. I better go before someone thinks that I’m involved.’ hethought.
He noted that he didn’tstink like he had before. The young priest’s room freshening magicmust have cleansed him of the bad smell. The incident reinforcedwhat Granddad had being saying for years. The priests in thetemples had grown corrupt. They collected too much in taxes andoverindulged in the good life, while the poor and the sicksuffered. He had only half believed it before. Now he had witnessedit firsthand.
His job was to escape.He was still naked, so travelling without clothes in the streetseven at night would attract unwanted attention. He carefully openedthe basement door and saw that there were more than twenty steps upto the ground floor. He edged up the stairs and spotted a pair ofstatues in the corridor.
All the statues inGranddad’s mansion were guards that set off alarms. He had toassume that these statues would do the same. He considered justtrying to run past them, but didn’t know how far it was to thefront door, where perhaps an alarm would lock it before he couldleave.
As he stood at the baseof the stairs he noticed the symbol of the Faith over the door. Itwas a smiling face looking at a pile of coins enveloped in flames.He thought for a minute and recalled that this was the symbol ofthe Temple of Spiritual and Financial Harmony.
The followers of thisfaith believed that the road to happiness was a careful balancingof the financial and spiritual aspects of life. Harmony could beachieved if the wealthy donated a proportion of their wealth to thetemple to help the poor, while the poor prayed for the sins of therich. Thus the spiritual devotion of the poor neatly balanced thefinancial wealth of the rich.
In the afterlife, thepoor would be rewarded for their devotion to prayer and the richfor their generous donations. In the unusual situation where awealthy person was both generous in donations and devoted toprayer, then that one would be feted in the afterlife and secure agood position in the hierarchy of the god.
Rob’s Granddad hadmentioned them a few times. Some of the merchant wizards who hadbecome followers had donated all their wealth to the temple ondying, leaving their family destitute. The family, now poor, couldadd extra atonement for the excesses of the dead wizard by devotionto prayer, ensuring that his donation of wealth would ensure him anextra high position within the god’s hierarchy and that all wouldbe well off when they joined him in the afterlife.
Their High PriestKelnor was the Treasurer of the temple and Head of the financialcommittee that ensured harmony was kept between the devotion of thepoor and donations from the rich. He was known to be fiercelyopposed to mind magic and all its practitioners.
Rob was temptedto go back down the latrine and find a better place to surface butthen again he felt that it would be an exciting challenge to escapefrom here, one that he could tell heroic stories about in thefuture. As
