Elyse palmed her face. “I don’t believe it.”
“I helped you get your bishopric back. And you promised to come with me to Brakith so that I could get my lordship back.”
“I did. But I didn’t promise to—”
“Rami helped too,” I interjected. “That means you owe her. The least you could do is help her with this. Besides, we’re forming quite the adventuring party.”
Elyse sighed. “So be it. As long as you cease this foolish nonsense of being a God of Death.”
I shrugged. “You’ll see soon enough.” I turned to Rami. “So, are there any other artifacts related to Xayon that might give us some clues as to the whereabouts of her body?”
Rami furrowed her brow and scratched her delicate chin. “Well, it is rumored that Xayon’s armor is still in existence.”
“What does it look like?” I asked. “Do you have any leads on where it might be?”
She shook her head. “All I know is that Xayon’s sigil is engraved on the breastplate.”
“Xayon’s sigil?”
“This.”
She handed me the amulet she’d taken from Nabu. I took it in my hands, and she pointed to a stylized symbol of a tornado engraved into the gold around the jewel. Elyse looked over my shoulder as I was examining it, and gasped.
“I know that sigil!”
“You’ve seen this before?” Rami asked excitedly.
“Yes!” She seemed positively exuberant to be on the quest now.
“Isn’t this something you should have mentioned earlier?” I asked.
“I didn’t know what it represented. I thought it was some kind of guild symbol. That’s what everyone in Erst assumed it to be.”
“Where is it?” Rami blurted out, unable to contain her excitement.
“It’s on the primary fountain in the town square. There are many legends and superstitions about the fountain. Some say it has healing powers; others say that muttering a curse over it will call up a storm. One thing everyone in Erst knows for sure is that it’s older than almost everything else in the town. It was built during the time of monstrous dungeons and adventuring guilds, when the Lord of Light was just one god among many.”
“It sounds to me,” I said, “like that fountain is exactly where we need to start looking. So, what’s stopping us? And on a night like this one? Saint Jorl’s sounds like a perfect time to reward ourselves after a job well done. Debauchery and drunkenness, the perfect combination for a night out for the God of Death and his servants.”
“Servants?” Elyse scowled.
“Well, maybe not servants. Allies?”
“I will serve Vance Chauzec, God of Death, wherever he leads.” Rami genuflected before me.
Elyse bristled. “He’s not a god. An excellent assassin and an even better necromancer, but he’s no god. Even if he were, I only serve the Lord of Light.”
“Thank you,” I said to Rami as I took her hand and lifted her up. “Elyse, if a miracle is required for you to have faith in me, then that’s what you’ll get. Only not right now. I’ve got a town to paint red—your town, officially again, now that Nabu is dead—and a shitload of souls to steal.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Yes, Nabu is dead, and I’m Bishop of Erst again,” Elyse said. “But I don’t think the guards and soldiers outside will be too pleased with what we did in here. We can’t just march out there as if everything’s fine.”
“We don’t know how many of them might be loyal to Nabu,” Rami added. “How many of them won’t care that Elyse is the rightful bishop. We may have a bigger fight on our hands than we can handle. We slew the church’s most elite and honored warriors.” She gazed uneasily at the scattered bodies of the dead Resplendent Crusaders.
“Well, regarding that second problem,” I said, “I’ve got a solution.”
Before I could continue, our conversation was interrupted by a piercing shriek. It came from the stairs leading to the crypts. I knew exactly who it was.
Rami drew her sais. “What the hell was that?”
“It sounds like one demon still draws breath in this cathedral,” Elyse growled, her fingertips glowing.
“Relax, ladies, relax,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s just… our new friend.”
“Our new friend?” Elyse stared at me in disbelief. “We’re friends with banshees now, or whatever made that horrible sound?”
“That was no banshee,” I said. “Nor was it a demon. It was—”
As if on cue, Isu appeared at the top of the steps, her nose in the air and her arms folded defiantly across her chest as she strutted across the floor.
“—Isu,” I continued, “former Goddess of Death.”
Isu growled wordlessly, and for a few moments the look in her now-auburn eyes was one of absolute murder. Then, abruptly, her entire countenance changed. Her eyes were still locked onto me, but I’d become the object of her ravenous lust instead of her hatred, an intense lust that got me hot and tingly in all the right places. It was absolutely genuine too; I could spot a fake a mile away, and Isu was no tavern whore pretending to be smitten. Nor was this some kind of sly excuse for her to find a moment to do to me what I’d done to her a few moments before.. It seemed, rather, that while she hated me for what I’d done, she couldn’t help being hopelessly attracted to me at the same time. I suspected this bizarre love-hate pendulum would get even more erratic and strange now that the power balance had shifted so dramatically. Well, how could things not be weird between me and a former goddess who I’d personally killed and resurrected?
Rami and Elyse simply stared at Isu, their mouths hanging open. Then they turned and briefly stared at each other before they
