Reshid climbed up an endless, winding stair behind Feane, Rory following behind him. As promised, they walked near the back of the group, but a small rearguard of wights and a disturbing, six-legged werecreature followed behind to make sure they didn’t try to cut and run.

They didn’t talk. After an hour of climbing, Rory was too out of breath, and Reshid wasn’t in the mood for conversation. The long hike up the endless stair gave him an opportunity to think. A mostly unwelcome opportunity. The closer they got to their destination, the harder it became to ignore the fact that they were walking to their deaths.

Sure, Reshid knew now that he could survive and recover from things that would have killed him instantly in his previous life, but who was he kidding? Guardians didn’t fight with their own power—no, they borrowed that of a god. Unless the priests, or the gods themselves took pity on them, he was not getting out of here alive. Not unless the lich won. With the city warned, though, that wasn’t going to happen, nor did he want it to.

Maybe Rory, as a living human, would be left alone. Him, though? They would kill him. To most people, the line between ghouls and revenants was blurry at best, a technicality. Even many of the soldiers, who had met and lived among them down below, still mostly viewed them as monsters, though less threatening than the ghouls.

For a moment, Reshid wanted to go home so badly it hurt. Not back to the village, but home, to Iljaska, to his house. He wanted to feel normal again, to sit on his roof with a cup of rich coffee and enjoy the view of the valley below, as he had so many times before. To feel safe and comfortable, maybe even a bit bored sometimes, knowing that his life would continue as it was right then until the day he died. Which, of course, it had.

And now he was here.

Reshid hadn’t been a religious man in life. He hadn’t thought much about what happened to those who disappeared from the crypts. Hadn’t wanted to speculate too much. The priests had their narrative, of course, but he never put too much stock into it. A long life of travel had shown him that, in most places, priests adapted their story to suit local beliefs—and more importantly, the interests of their rulers. There was no point in trying to learn the truth about the Deep Paths. He would never go there and as far as he’d known, there was no reason to believe that anyone alive on the surface knew anyway.

Still, he’d been shocked by the reality of undeath, and especially by what he discovered when he first reached the bottom of the stairwell—a well-lit, living landscape with trees, soil, small streams and even some wildlife. That hadn’t been an unwelcome surprise, but it had certainly set the tone for his experiences ever since. He was off-balance, and had been since that day, scrambling to find a new way to exist in a different kind of world.

It was what he’d always done: whatever was necessary to get by.

Now, though, he was beginning to realize something important.

First, he didn’t want to die. Sure, he’d already lived a full life and explored much of the world… but there was a whole new world here. One that he had barely scratched the surface of.

The other thing was that he had screwed up. Big time. He had reacted to his new circumstances mostly passively, the same way he’d been living for the past decade or so before his death. Even after arriving at the village and achieving some level of normalcy, he hadn’t wanted to get too involved. Politicians like Frederik, and, to a lesser extent Hasan, were bad news. Their goals were too large. They lost sight of the individuals that they used to accomplish their ends. All too often, soldiers, civilians and entire towns became nothing but simple collateral damage in their larger game.

Reshid knew that—he’d experienced it. But he had still been swept up. He hadn’t really taken control of his life, his direction. Maybe he’d forgotten how.

That was a mistake. Now, somehow, he’d allowed himself to end up here, marching toward a second death on a doomed mission for an evil undead monstrosity. Before that happened, he needed to find a new direction. Maybe he could slip away when the fighting started, to hide in one of the grottos. But that seemed unlikely. The lich could track him, and the guardians would surely scour the crypt for survivors—if they won. Surely, Antonius had to be aware that the city was forewarned at this point. If he was still attacking, it had to mean that he thought he could win anyway.

Reshid’s stomach clenched with anxiety as he trudged up the endless stair, looking for a way out.

–--------

Em looked up at a brisk knock on the door. The former prisoners and soldiers were spread throughout the house, but she, Lonnie and Charlie had stayed on the bottom floor door with Meuren and most of the wounded. She sat on the floor, trying not to move her head, since too much movement still made her nauseous. For the past hour, Meuren and Charlie had been talking tactics, deciding what the revenants might be able to contribute to the fight—especially considering that they weren’t being allowed to participate in preparations.

One of the soldiers rose and opened the door, admitting two harried-looking priests. Outside, the sound of tromping feet, shouts, and the construction noises of a barricade being built spoke volumes of how seriously the Captain of the Guard was taking the coming attack. Finally.

The priests were from two different orders, one being of the Order of Lynhild, and the other the same young priestess of Morana that they’d met earlier. Looking around, the priest’s eyes stopped on Charlie for a moment before landing on the Lieutenant.

“Ma’am. Are you Lieutenant Meuren? My name is Yarem. I’ve been asked to heal your injured…?”

Meuren nodded.

“Yes, good. I’m glad you got here so quickly. You can start with this one.” She said, pointing right at Em. “In fact, do all the revenants that can fight first. We’ll probably need them sooner rather than later.”

The priest looked taken aback at that for a moment, but then collected himself, nodded to Meuren and moved over to Em. He had a calm, professional air and squatted down next to her as he appraised her with a clinical eye.

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“I’m dizzy.” she answered. “Feel sick when I move.”

“She’s concussed.” Charlie piped up. “Explosion in an enclosed space. We have a couple more with similar problems, but she has it the worst.”

“I see…” the priest frowned. “Do you… want me to do something about your eye?”, he asked, gesturing toward the one that she’d lost a few months earlier. The one with which she now saw the world in a very different way.

Em wrinkled her brow.

“No? My eyes are fine.”

Clearly disbelieving, the priest held his hand up to her head and murmured something into his patchy beard.

A reddish light flickered in his hand, and he pulled it away, eyebrows raised.

“Oh. I see! How curious…”

Em rolled her eyes. Nobody up here really understood how revenants interacted with magic—except Agatha, maybe. But they probably didn’t have time for this right now.

“Do you mind? I’m really pretty uncomfortable…”

Yarem seemed to come back to himself, now looking slightly abashed.

“Right, of course. Sorry.”

Reaching out again, he put both hands over Em’s ears, and murmured to himself again, longer this time. Out of the corner of her eyes, Em could see red essence gathering, but she couldn’t sense it. That didn’t mean much—just that it wasn’t anything closely related to air essence. Still, it presented very differently from Reshid’s healing magic.

Suddenly, the essence poured into her, pushing her own essence, her soul, away and inward. It felt oddly like a spiritual vice grip around her head and it was much, much more powerful than her. Despite that, it didn’t harm her. A moment later, the priest removed his hands and the essence was gone. Em’s brain fog and dizziness went with it, and she realized that she could suddenly hear better as well.

The priest was looking at her curiously, and she realized that she’d pulled back and was staring at him, eyes wide.

“That felt… invasive.” She said by way of explanation, then coughed as color rose in her cheeks. “But thank you, young man, I appreciate it.” Then she cringed. Yarem was well over 30. Oh well. Youth was a relative thing, and she was more than old enough to be his mother.

“No problem.” He replied, somewhat awkwardly.

She changed the subject. “So if you’re here to heal us up, what’s the young lady there doing?”

The priestess really was a young thing, barely old enough for the initiate’s robe she was wearing, by her reckoning. She was staring at Charlie with obvious fascination—and it was clearly making him very uncomfortable. At her words, she looked up.

“My name is Verena.” She said pointedly. “And I’m here to assist as needed. Priests are to travel in pairs until the city is secured and traitorous elements in the guard are identified.”

“Assist how, exactly?” Lonnie asked from the corner of the room, his tone more than a little suspicious. She was a priestess of death.

She looked at him with an annoyed expression.

“Yarem there can’t fix dead bodies, you know. And Lynhild’s priests have never tried to heal the undead before, as far as we have records. There was no guarantee that he’d even be able to do it. Who do you think would have the next best chance of success? Death is Morana’s domain.”

“Alright, alright!” Meuren waved at them both. “Go treat the others. We’re on a tight schedule. We really don’t know how long we have and I want to be ready to respond when that lich gets here.”

Verena frowned at that, looking concerned now.

“Do you really think so? We have almost 20 priests and guardians standing out there now. What could possibly get past them?”

“Hmph.” Meuren grunted. “I’ve seen what that thing can do, and I’m going to assume the worst until well after it’s dead and buried. Besides, the guardians who really knew what they were doing just got brutally murdered by traitors. You shouldn’t assume that we’ve seen the last of them.”

“We’re not.” Verena sniffed, looking a little offended. “Besides, we didn’t lose all of them. We might not be well-suited to fighting soldiers and assassins, but undead abominations are another matter. You’ll see! —Uh… sorry.” She added lamely, looking at the revenants all around.

Lonnie snorted.

“Well, let’s not take any chances.”

–---------

Geoffrey limped into the Temple of Vaclar, ignoring the stares of worshippers as he removed the bandage from his head, uncovering his unmarred face. The fresh bandage on his arm was already soiled again, blood seeping through. There hadn’t been time to see a healer, not now.

He’d been prepared to wait before making his report here. But then the high priest was slain and the demons had been allowed out of the crypt. That changed things.

Frederik and his heretics had clearly planned much further ahead than even he had guessed. This tribulation was beyond him and the lesser Scions. They tried to keep their people on the path of righteousness and to bring the truth to those who would hear it.

This wasn’t a matter of guidance anymore, though. The city guard itself was killing Guardians and inviting the depraved denizens of the Deep Paths into the city. There was no telling how deep the rot had gone. This was a matter of justice now—and justice belonged to Vaclar.

Geoffrey pushed past a priest who was mediating a dispute between two citizens and stood directly in front of the altar. Recognizing him, the man interrupted himself and quickly stepped aside. The two citizens watched him curiously, but he didn’t spare them a glance.

Instead he knelt down and placed both hands on the altar. It was time to take drastic measures—time to take a risk.

“Vaclar. Arbiter, illuminator and holy judge. Hear my words.” He intoned. “Your city stands in rebellion. Your word goes unheeded, and your enemies rule your people. Your right hand lies dead at the hands of heretics. Demons rise from the depths to destroy your works and corrupt the world with their foulness.”

The priest, who looked more and more alarmed as Geoffrey spoke, took a step back, then another. He could guess what the injured Guardian was about to do, and regardless how it ended, he didn’t want to be standing too close.

“For its crimes, I call for judgment on this city.” Geoffrey called out, getting louder until he was shouting. “Let me be your verdict in this place!”

As he finished, the words seemed to hang in the temple unnaturally. At the same time, the very air seemed to glow with its own light. Slowly at first, but then all at once the light collapsed in on itself to form the shape of a huge, glowing man floating in the air above the altar directly in front of him.

Vaclar himself, or his avatar. Geoffrey didn’t know which, but it didn’t matter. He pressed his forehead down to the ground and wept in awe.

For a few seconds, silence reigned. Then, the god spoke.

“You speak the truth. It is witnessed.” he said calmly in a deep, resonant voice. “Our law has been broken, and our protection of this city is revoked.”

As he spoke, he lifted his hand, and a shard of something that shone like the sun itself tore through the roof of the temple to land in his grip.

“I have seen the depth of your conviction and fervor for justice under the light. You will be our judgment. Cleanse the city of corruption and set right its wrongs. I name you my Paladin, executor of my will upon the earth. Manifest my justice here, and soon you will bring my light even into the deep places.”

He reached forward and gripped Geoffrey’s shoulder with one hand. It felt completely solid. How remarkable. Tears streamed from his eyes, though he didn’t know if they were emotional or because of the painful brightness all around.

With his other hand, the god rammed the shard of incandescent light directly into Geoffrey’s heart.