With nothing else in mind to say or do, she followed as Grandmother Swan led her over the long dirt track that cut through the grass along the edge of the farmlands.  Fighter’s eyes grew like saucers as she beheld the sight of the vast open fields.  “They say…”  Grandmother Swan began, “that a dragon once lived and died here, and that our rich fields are the result of its body sleeping in death beneath the ground.  They say you can hear it trying to claw against the underworld beneath the mountain on quiet days.  That one day it will return to life, rising from beneath the Garden of Burning.”  She gave a tiny smile up to Fighter.  “A children’s tale, of course.”

“Of course, Grandmother Swan.”  Fighter agreed, recalling with a faint laugh, the stories of her childhood.  She then took the old woman’s arm to help prop her up for the rest of the walk.  To her surprise the old woman was handling the long walk with relative ease, her steps were slow but steady and constant, and the arm, though withered, held to Fighter’s forearm with more strength than the young woman anticipated.

When she’d been shown the length of the fields, and the granaries, Fighter was impressed enough by the sheer scope of it all, but nothing prepared her for the pens of cattle, which stopped her dead in her tracks.  “Grandmother Swan… how…?”

“How what, my child?”  Grandmother Swan asked in a sweet voice that dripped sincerity.

“The cattle?”  Fighter asked as if those two words said enough.

“Yes?  We have many heads.  Our cheese is greatly sought after, and we trade a great deal of meat to the cities on the long drives.”  Grandmother Swan raised her chin proudly, a sparkle to her eyes as she spoke.

Fighter stared openly and did not answer for some time.  The steers were the largest she’d ever seen, with long wide horns and massive muscular bodies, and there were hundreds of the male steers, not to mention the massive females, confined by the simple wooden fence.  “Grandmother Swan, the town, the village I came from.  It was a cattle raising area more than anything.  It was not my father’s work but, well I learned something of it anyway.  You have hundreds of what my… my home, former home, had not even ten of.”  She swallowed as she gazed over the vastness of the wealth represented in the form of animals that grazed in front of her eyes.

Grandmother Swan’s arm tensed a little.  But her sweet, elderly little smile wavered not even a little.  “Oh my sweet child,”  she began to turn and head toward the great high walls of the temple convent,  “our wealth is born of our revenge.  Don’t you see?”  She shook her head and hung it low,  “The goblins ruined the lives we had, so we built better ones on their ashes with Abbadar’s loving help.  Don’t trouble yourself, you’ll understand more fully in time.”  The ancient hand patted Fighter’s youthful one like a mother or grandmother guiding the youngest of her young daughters through the confusion of growing up.

“Now, why don’t you tell me more about you, your father, your life?”  Grandmother Swan gently coaxed her, and Fighter began to spill words out like an overturned pitcher of milk over a table with a pair of short legs.  In that moment, all that she’d seen was put out of her head as she cast herself back to what she now regarded as the last happy days of her life.

She was still talking about her father when they entered the convent again, and was finally done with the details of his ‘first adventure’ as she knew it from him when she found herself confronted by thick doors of silver.  Far from smooth, they were engraved with images of Abbadar, god of fortune.  His long hair was inlaid with gold, his eyes were cut blue stones that shone in the dancing candle lights of the hall.

In his left hand were the Scales of Justice, in his right hand was a sword whose tip pierced a mountain top beneath his feet.  Fighter had to crane her neck back when she drew closer.  “Help me with the door, would you dear?”  Grandmother Swan asked in her creaky voice and stayed back while Fighter braced herself between the heavy double doors.  She leaned forward with one hand on each and one foot behind the other, her head down at the stone beneath her feet, she took a deep breath, and pushed.

The groaning doors resisted her strongly, and she heard the longed for voice come to her again as she struggled in between Grandmother Swan and the doors which opposed her. ‘You can do it!’

Her muscles strained and she gritted her teeth while she labored at her task, but slowly, the doors gave way before her efforts.  The crack between them widened and she took a step forward, the faint echo of her foot on the stone caught her ear, she made another step forward, then another.  She felt the sharp eyes of the old woman at her back, but focused herself on the push, on the drive to see herself to the other side, and what lay beyond.

It was only when the door parted in earnest that she was rewarded with the marvelous view.  “Welcome, to the temple of the White Swan.  No man has ever set foot within this sacred place except for the spirit of Abbadar himself.”

Fighter’s eyes widened as she stepped within, her arms opened wide to press the doors their last few inches apart, and held them open like she wanted to hug the inner sanctum.  Her eyes, big as saucers again as they had been when they saw the wealth of cattle, she now looked with equal awe at the place of worship.  

On the left wall, she saw bright colors and first thought them paint, but then covered her mouth with a sudden jerk.  “Not… not paint, that’s not paint, is it?”  

Grandmother Swan closed the distance between them.  Against the pale wall were indeed bright colors, but the old woman laughed a light cackle and said,  “No, we have painted with light.”  She reached beside her to grasp Fighter’s chin in her boney hands and turned her upward towards the opposing wall and pointed with her staff.  “There.”

Fighter turned her eyes back and forth from the wall where the multicolored lights stood, to the upper area of the wall she was pointed to, where stained glass windows caught the light of the sun.  The image had a familiar looking figure.  “Goblin Slayer?”  She asked rhetorically, speaking without thinking when she recognized the hero who dragged her alive from her hell of stone and darkness.

“Yes.”  Grandmother Swan replied, ignoring the rhetorical tone.  “He has been here many times since his days as a porcelain rank.  I remember the first time I saw him, and I thought that would be the last.  Most heroes move on from killing goblins.  But he didn’t.  He kept going out, kept doing what he does… even I couldn’t tell you how many women here, are here because he held out his armored hand and said, “Come with me, and live.”

She tapped her staff on the stone,  “I had to pay him a dozen heal potions to stay here long enough to pose for that.”  She chuckled,  “Saint Slayer is a gift of divine retribution, and some of our younger members even say he is possessed by Abbadar and cannot be killed.”

Her smirk said what she thought of that claim, but Fighter pressed the matter, recalling the godlike way he plowed through goblins, the way his sword flashed past like holy light itself.  “You don’t think so?”  She asked, not looking down at Grandmother Swan.

“No.  I have seen his blood, he can be wounded, and if he can be wounded, he can die.  He is a great man.  A saint, even.  But only a man.  Live long enough here, and one day he won’t return.  Age, misfortune, or misfortune due to his own denial of his age?  Whatever it is, something will take him from this world to Abbadar’s reward.”  Grandmother Swan tapped her staff sharply on the stone to emphasize her point, then pointed up to the other side.

“When the sun begins to set, the light will cast that onto the opposing wall.”  Grandmother Swan added.  Where the light cast through Goblin Slayer’s image featured him tearing through goblins, crushing skulls, and ending the lives of monsters, the other side revealed a more tranquil scene.  A city upon a hill with a great castle that stood so tall that a cloud lay below its tallest towers.  A sprawling vista below featuring green verdant fields, rolling hills, a bright blue river with a mill that cut through it all.  Tranquility.  Peace. 

Fighter expelled a heavy breath and wiped away sweat she suddenly noticed had formed on her forehead.  The rest of the temple worship area was of white stone on the floor, with long rows of prostration mats of bright green silk, and a few feet from them, near the back, a white marble statue of Abbadar.      

The only dark of the room was the deep shadow that was cast from the shadow itself.  “Will you help me worship?”  Grandmother Swan asked, and began to walk toward the far silk mats that lay on the floor just before the intricate marble statue.  Fighter took her arm with reverential awe, and without a word, helped her to the far end, and when they reached a mat, Grandmother Swan knelt in one where the shadow fell.  There, with Fighter’s help, she slowly sank to her knees.

Fighter’s hand on Grandmother Swan’s skin felt the shadow chill, and when the ancient woman cast herself forward so that her face was pressed to the silk in the dark shadow, and her hands far forward, she began to intone her prayers.

Fighter took a long, deep breath and turned her eyes up to the marble perfection, the masterwork of rippling muscles in divine armor with powerful, thick arms and legs.  A sword in one hand, the scales of justice in the other, the empty bowls alone were not of stone, but rather simple bronze things that swayed in the faint breeze that made its way into the room, like they were asking to be used.

‘Why didn’t you protect me?  Why didn’t you stop them?  Abbadar, god of justice, god of commerce, god of… my father, myself… you left me in a hell of stone and shadow.  Why?’  It was the first blasphemous prayer, and her look of anger and bitterness at the stalwart face of the divine with its noble straight noise and all seeing eyes of white stone, did not turn down to her.  The lips of the statue remained closed, it would not speak.

Fighter took a few steps away to the silk matt in the light, and prostrated herself.  ‘Why?  Maybe you sent your saint… perhaps Goblin Slayer was your tool… but he was a tool that came too late for Warrior.  Too late for Wizard.  Too late to spare me… what happened.  Why won’t you answer your faithful?  Was I being punished for my pride?  I just wanted to help… we all just wanted to help…’

She raised her head a few inches from the silk, and slapped it down against the green fabric, gritting her teeth, her outstretched hands turned into fists, a blasphemy to her god that she could not keep from committing.  Her entire body shook with fresh outrage, and she uttered again, and again, and again, in the quietness of her heart, her doubtful, demanding prayer for answers that were never going to come.

‘What do you want me to do?  Abbadar, my god, what is it I am supposed to do?  How do I do… whatever it is?  Please… the nightmares… do I have to bear them?  Can’t you give me courage when the night comes?  I used to laugh in caves!  Their darkness was nothing, a minor inconvenience… now even in that room, I could only cry… only cry… and shame my father’s memory with my cowardice.  Isn’t there something… anything...? Some answer, some offering you want for it?  What must I offer you in exchange for justice?!’  She howled it in her mind until her fists clenched so tightly in their blasphemous form that her nails ripped open the palms and blood seeped down to stain the floor.

It was the feel of that trickle of blood touching more of her hand that brought her back to the moment.  Her eyes flew open, and she felt the touch of Grandmother Swan’s hand on her shoulder.

Fighter’s pale blue eyes looked with horror at her hands, and she began to stammer, “S-so sorry!  I’m so sorry Grandmother Swan… I didn’t mean… blasphemy, it was just, I… I… I wanted god to speak to me…”  She rose up so that she was sitting on her heels and felt the old arms embrace her as she spoke.

“I wanted Abbadar… to tell me why.  Why it happened.  What did I do to deserve this?  Why do those ‘things’ have to exist, why did he abandon me…?  Was I being punished… I know… I know, it is blasphemy to make a fist at the god of Justice, to… to shed blood even my own…”

Grandmother Swan grabbed Fighter’s jaw with surprising strength and made the young woman look to her elder.  “Nothing.  You did nothing.  Do you think you asked for what happened?  No!  The goblins made their own decisions.  They alone are responsible for what they do, and you are responsible for what you do!  You wanted to help, they wanted to hurt… you just had a bad roll of the dice is all.  Abbadar wasn’t punishing you… it wasn’t being a woman, it wasn’t wearing the wrong armor, it wasn’t going to the wrong place, that made goblins into goblins.  You are not responsible for what they did to you, they are responsible for what they did, and nobody else.  Do you understand me?”

The fingers tightened, and Fighter’s eyes could not blink.  “Do you?”  Grandmother Swan demanded.

Fighter gave a faint nod, and the grip fell away, before the old woman knelt down more firmly and drew the broken adventurer into her folds, ignoring the bloodstain that marred the flawless white floor, she said nothing of the blasphemy in gesture, in act, or in silent prayer.  

Allowing herself to savor the comforting understanding of the old woman, Fighter looked up at the silent statue, and in her silent heart, she dared the god to condemn her, and again, it said nothing, failing to condemn, as it had failed to warn or protect, Fighter heard only one single voice in her head beyond her own.

‘You can do it.’  She heard the refrain, and wondered exactly what it… or he, was talking about.

She was still wondering that, when the sun began to cast its light through the stained glass windows on the other side, and the long broad scene of the longed for human tranquility was cast in paint made of light, against the other wall.  She savored the dream, until Grandmother Swan started to rise, and said, “It’s time to go, you need food before you sleep, and so do I.”

“As you say, Grandmother Swan, would you like me to get the door behind me?”  Fighter asked when they reached the entrance to the sanctuary.

“No, my dear, six of my children will come to do it later.”  Grandmother Swan smiled sweetly again, the faint corners of her mouth turning up, as Fighter’s head flew around in a sharp motion to the door she’d managed by herself.

“Now… perhaps you begin to understand… child.”  Grandmother Swan whispered, and led her to the dining hall.