“There is one more thing you can do for me.”
“Anything, Soultaker. You just name it, and I’ll do my bloody best to do it.”
“Spread the word about me. Tell everyone you meet that there’s a new god in Prand. A god who wields enormous power, a god who steals the souls of evildoers, who metes out justice wherever he treads. The God of Death.”
“Aye! I can do that, for sure!” Grast’s face split into an ear-to-ear grin. “Every tavern from here to Erst and beyond will be hearing of your exploits. Aye, you can be sure of that. And I’m a bloody marvelous storyteller, I am.”
“Excellent.”
Another idea came to me.
I’d need more than simple cairns by the roadside if I really wanted to establish myself and develop a reputation. I needed missionaries, priests, temples… all the essentials of a burgeoning religion.
And I had a great idea of who my first missionary could be. Perhaps, if he proved himself worthy of it, I could even make him a priest. Then, if he did well at that, a bishop. That’d be something… a Bishop of Death. I liked the sound of that.
Chapter Six
My initial consideration for my first Fated was Grast. He was enthusiastic and more than willing to do anything I asked him. Except he had family and friends in Erst, and they could be problematic. Clergy from other religions were often celibate because it meant they could be unreservedly committed to their vocations. Grast might say he was dedicated, but there would always be a sliver of doubt, no matter the oath he took.
My thoughts then turned to Cranton. He had a wife and children, but I gave it a few months—perhaps days—before they abandoned him. He was also a greenfoil addict, and I could use that to my advantage. That same addictive tendency would do wonders for furthering my religion—and, thus, my power—if it was in service to me.
“Cranton, come here for a second,” I said, stepping away from the others. “I’d like to have a word with you.”
“Uh, sure, what do you want to talk about?” he asked as we strolled around to the back of the wagon, where we could have some privacy.
“You don’t currently follow any gods, do you?”
Cranton shook his head. “Like I said, I studied with Elyse for a while and wanted to get into the Church of Light, but those assholes are way too uptight with their holier-than-thou bullshit. And I found history way more interesting, anyway, so I dropped out. After all my reading, I started to despise the Lord of Light. Man, he’s got a stick so far up his shiny ass that he’s probably gotta pick splinters outta his teeth. Fuck him, and all his codswallop.”
I smiled. Cranton hated the Church of Light as much as I did.
“Wouldn’t you have liked to have become Fated, though?” I asked. “It could have happened if you’d remained with the Church of Light.”
“I’d love to be Fated, man, damn! But not if it meant crawling back to those assholes, and bowing down before their glowing ballsack of a god.”
“What if another god could make you Fated, in exchange for your dedicated service to him and his cause? A god who’s nothing like the Lord of Light, a god who loathes that pompous ass-rag just as much as you do.”
Cranton looked into my eyes. At least, he tried to with his squint eyes but ended up seeming to look at the corner of the wagon to my left. Still, I knew he was trying to be earnest.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, man?”
“If you can be a clergyman for me, Cranton, I can make you Fated.”
A look of sheer awe and stunned disbelief came across his face, and he dropped to his knees.
“You’d… you’d seriously do that for me?” he gasped. “You’d make me Fated? Man, I can’t think of a greater honor. I’ll spend every waking hour preaching your message if it means I get to fuck the Lord of Light and his bullshit church in the ass. Oh, and I’d never touch greenfoil again, ever, and, and—”
“I believe you.”
Cranton’s eyes welled up with tears, and the smile he was beaming at me could probably have been seen by a blind man. “This is the best thing anyone has ever done for me. I can’t believe I’m actually experiencing this. Here we are, man, at the founding of the Church of… of Death? And I’m gonna be its first priest!”
I scratched my chin and mused on the name for a while. I didn’t want my religion—if that was the right word for it—to be called the “church” of anything. That word simply had too much of an association with the Lord of Light. And as far as he was concerned, well, that self-righteous prick could take a spiked mace up the ass.
“It won’t be called the Church of Death,” I said.
“It won’t?”
“Let’s call it. . . the Temple of Necrosis.”
“Yeaaahhh! That sounds perfect.”
I looked down at his grimy, stained, torn-up clothes and his shoes that were full of holes. “You can’t be my priest if you look like a beggar. My clergy are going to need uniforms, of sorts, and we’re going to start with you.” I opened my purse, fished out a couple of gold coins, and pressed them into one of his greasy palms. “You need to buy yourself some new clothes. I’m thinking a black hooded cloak, some black pants, a black shirt, and some nice black boots.”
“All black, huh?”
“Can you think of a more appropriate color to represent death?”
“Sounds good to me, man. I’ve been wanting to ditch these rags for a while anyway. I figure I’ll look pretty damn good in black.”
I doubted that Cranton could look even remotely attractive in anything except for a sack over his head, but I kept my mouth shut and simply smiled and nodded. A disfigured priest might instill a little fear
