“Times like these, it’s good to hear from an old friend,” said Gorm.
“Right,” said the acolyte.
“Well, not hear. More like see. Ye know what I mean.” The Dwarf’s speech was slurred, and he was trying to lean on Burt for support. This was not going well, as the Kobold was barely taller than his knee and built like a bunch of reeds draped with a rat pelt. “I jus’… I jus’ wanna see him.”
“I understand, sir, I really do,” said the miserable Al’Matran. “And High Scribe Pathalan gave us permission to let you pass. It’s just that we’re undergoing, ah, routine maintenance, and the sanctuary is closed.”
“Tha’s good!” said Gorm. He pushed the Elf aside as though opening a gate and staggered into the Temple of Al’Matra, Burt at his heels. The Dwarf shambled forward a few steps, paused as a thought struck him, grabbed the acolyte by the arms, and shifted him back into position in front of the door. “Maybe ye got rid of the mushrooms an’… an’ the rat,” he said, staggering into the sanctuary.
The acolyte chased after them once the shock had worn off. “It’s just that… uh… well, we have cleaned up a bit, and nobody has the heart to bother old Scabbo these days, but really, that’s not the issue. You should know that we didn’t change… the… the…”
“The what?” asked Burt as Gorm wandered into the Al’Matran sanctuary.
“Uh… the…” The acolyte’s jaw flapped uselessly as he stared into the sanctuary.
The Al’Matran hall of worship had been cleared of most of its furnishings, as well as the mosses and mushrooms. Ornate censers and braziers arranged around the room bathed the floor in warm light and filled the air with aromas of cedar and incense. The lights and incense burners were part of an elaborate, esoteric diagram covering the floor, linked by lines of salt and chalk that Gorm was currently trampling over as he made his way across the room.
The acolyte, however, didn’t notice Gorm’s trail of destruction. His eyes were fixed on the bronze sculpture at the center of the arcane lines. Niln’s serene likeness greeted the visitors with outstretched hands.
“Something wrong?” Burt asked the dumbfounded acolyte.
“It… uh, but he… where is… where’s his smile?” stammered the Al’Matran. “Look at his face!”
Burt squinted up at the statue. “I dunno. Looks happy enough to me,” he said with a shrug.
The Elf’s only reply was a squeal of terror before he sprinted away.
“Yeah, nice talkin’ to you,” Burt called after him. With a snarl and some muttering about pinkskins, the Kobold pulled a limp cigarette from his vest, lit it in a holy brazier, and pulled a long drag as he wandered over to Gorm. “All right, big guy. Here’s Niln. This is what you wanted, right?”
“Yeah.” Gorm sat in front of the statue, staring with bleary eyes at Niln’s feet. He took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he repeated softly.
“Feels like we didn’t need to come all the way just to talk to a ghost. He’s just as gone out there as in here.”
“No, no,” Gorm slurred. “It’s different. Lost a lot of friends in my career. Iheen, Tib’rin, Ataya… all of ’em gone, each one leavin’ a hole in me heart. But Niln… what with his books and this statue, it just... it just feels like he’s here with me, ye know? In some little way. Ain’t much, but it’s the most I got.”
Burt sighed, but his expression softened. “Yeah. Take your time, Gorm.” The Kobold pulled a small flask from his vest and poured himself a thimbleful of Teagem rum. Drink in one hand and smoke in the other, he settled down next to a warm brazier and closed his eyes.
Gorm sighed again. It wasn’t a matter of finding the words; the apologies, the excuses, and everything else he wanted to say battered the back of his teeth like floodwaters against a dam. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to look into the high scribe’s sad bronze eyes. So he sat in silence, slowly sobering as the evening drifted on. Eventually, an admission leaked out. “I failed ye,” he said.
Niln looked down with a benevolently blank expression.
“It ain’t that I gave up. I still… still haven’t. I won’t. I want to fight. I want to make it right.” Gorm squeezed his hands into fists and wiped salty tears from his eyes. “But I ain’t enough. Every lead I chase goes nowhere. Every plan I hatch gets us nothin’. Johan just… well, the world seems set up for him to win. And nobody else seems to care.”
He shook his head. “The Shadowkin say I can’t fix all their problems; if I came in and rescued ’em I’d be part of their problem. Light’s Folk think Johan’s a hero, and tellin’ ’em otherwise only makes ’em hate ye and love him more. Nobody cares about the truth provided the lies are more comfortable. Even Burt’s gone cynical. Well, more cynical.”
“I’m a realist,” Burt called.
Gorm sighed. “Now Johan’s going to slay his fake dragon, and then he’ll be even more of a hero. City’s already full of people who don’t care about his crimes. What will they let him get away with after that? And I don’t want to give up but… I don’t see the way forward.”
He looked up at the statue. Niln seemed to stare down at him with benevolent understanding.
“Is this what it was like for ye?” Gorm asked the high scribe. “Knowin’ where ye needed to go, and no idea how to get there? I always thought ye didn’t know what ye were doin’ because… well, because ye were a young fool, but now… Ye were tryin’ to make the world right when the world’s doin’ everythin’ it can to stay wrong. And all ye could do was give up or stumble around in the darkness, looking for the way forward.”
There was a fond warmth in Niln’s cold, bronze face.
“And ye never gave up,” Gorm told him. “Even when ye stopped pretendin’ to be a guild hero, ye were goin’ back to find your place at the temple. Ye kept tryin’ to find your way. And it’s inspirin’, but…”
Gorm fell silent. Niln waited patiently.
“I been readin’ your scriptures again,” he said eventually. “And the old books ye collected for me. Know half of ’em by heart by now, but they… they just don’t make sense. If there’s somethin’ I’m supposed to see in the prophecy, I missed it. Or it ain’t here yet. Or it’s all nonsense, just as daft and useless as… as everythin’ else I tried.”
Someone cleared their throat. Gorm glanced back, and saw that the entryway was packed with worried Al’Matrans, all staring at him and the statue.
“I’d better go,” Gorm said. “The king’s been down in the dungeon for three days, and he should reach the dragon soon. If he sends a sprite back tomorrow, maybe we’ll get some clue as to what he’s plottin’ behind all this nonsense. And then… well, then I’ll keep on fightin’, once I figure out how to do it. And wherever this goes, however dark it gets, I’ll fight.”
The statue’s smile was all gentle acceptance.
“I swear it to ye, Niln.” Gorm’s voice cracked, and the next breath he drew was long and ragged. “I’ll see it through to the end.”
He dusted the salt from his knees as he stood. Burt hopped up and fell into step beside him as they crossed the sanctuary. They tried to push their way into the temple’s lobby, but the crowd of Al’Matrans glommed onto them like dungeon slime on an adventurer’s boot. The priestesses and scribes peppered Gorm and Burt with questions as they forged a path to the door.
“Did you see him move?”
“Was he like that when you arrived?”
“Notice any tears on the statue?
“Perhaps bloody ones?”
