4.15 The Revivalists

“They’re called revivalists,” Doreen explained, handing Bernt her battered tin tea pot, which was filled to the brim with cold water. “They’re loud and obnoxious, but they’re not relevant to Madzhur’s politics. Or, they weren’t when I lived there. This… well, it could be a problem that they’re here.”

The old priestess had come back up to the temple about an hour after Torvald and Bernt, looking tired and irritated. Finding the two of them chatting in her sanctuary, she invited them for a cup of ginseng tea out back in the courtyard, reasoning that a cup would do them all a bit of good.

“Who are they, though?” Bernt asked, boiling the water with a spell. “And what are they trying to revive? Why would a Temple even work with them, especially Noruk? The one I talked to didn’t look like much of a warrior…”

“You have to understand,” she began, leaning back in her chair and rubbing at a leg as though it pained her. “Madzhur isn’t like Besermark as a country. Your cities are growing, Your government is still taming some of the wildlands within its borders, claiming new farmland, signing treaties with natives. Its best days are ahead. Madzhur… well, it’s what was left, at the end. It’s a rump state. Nothing they can do will ever measure up to the glory of their former empire. Some look back on that lost grandeur with nostalgia, and they want to go back. They have practically since the day it fell.”

Torvald paced back and forth in the courtyard, too agitated to sit. “You mean they want to bring it back? The Madurian Empire? Isn’t that exactly what we’re trying to prevent, here? They’re the ones who started all this in the first place. The temples would never work with them!”

“Eh,” Doreen shrugged. “Gods are narrow in their thinking. Or maybe they just don’t care about anything beyond their specific interest.” She gestured toward the open door at the courtyard’s entrance where the sanctuary lay. “Ruzinia certainly doesn’t and I expect that Noruk is the same. He’s a god of war, and he believes in unity through strength. The revivalists aren’t warlocks, just bigoted imperialists. Why would he have a problem with that?”

“Because they’re not uniting us,” the paladin spluttered, “or making us stronger. If anything, they’re working to tear us apart!”

Doreen let out a sigh as she poured the tea, set the pot down and scratched at her jaw in thought before replying. 

“How many non-humans have you seen up here, boy? There are a few legitimators, sure, but that’s it. Why do you think Ruzinia didn’t call any non-humans to represent her at the Conclave? She’s widely worshipped by goblins and dwarves in Kallrix—I even met a half-elven priest once.”

Bernt furrowed his brow at her words. He had noticed that practically everyone up here at the peaks was human, but he hadn’t thought that much of it. After all, the Invigilation was originally formed by four of humanity’s gods specifically to fight a threat to humanity.

“You mean the gods themselves are bigots? They’re not safe here?”

“I don’t know about that. Like I said, gods are narrow in their thinking, for all their power, and they don’t change over time. The other three gods are ancient. They’ve guided humanity since time immemorial, even before the elven wars. Only humanity. There are a few prehistoric sites on the western coast that suggest our ancestors worshipped them before they even landed on this continent. They might have even created us, though none of them claim that outright.”

“Okay,” Bernt grunted, trying not to sound annoyed at the indirect response. “But what does that have to do with this?” 

“Everything. Dwarves, gnomes, goblins, orcs and elves might as well not exist as far as they are concerned, except maybe as potential threats to humanity. That latter part is especially relevant for Noruk. If he or someone important in the temple hierarchy sees the revivalists as being aligned with the god’s core purpose, they would support them. For the god of war, antagonizing our non-human allies is an opportunity for humanity to seize more land and to grow in power. As I understand it, he literally can’t see it any other way.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Torvald complained. “Sowing division when we’re at war against an external threat is bad for everyone. In the worst case, Besermark could fall entirely! Surely a god would see that.”

Doreen just shrugged. “It’s dangerous, that’s for certain. But wars make great catalysts for societal change. Just look at history.”

The old priestess had more than a few examples, which she was happy to list, but Bernt only listened with half an ear. Why would they try to smear non-human Beseris now? What were they hoping to get out of the Conclave in the first place? The Invigilation was here to decide how to react to the Duergar, not to manage Besermark’s internal racial tensions.

After finishing his tea, Bernt retired to his room and wrote up a report on the day’s events for Jesra, including Doreen’s comments. He wasn’t sure how much the minister already knew about internal Madzhuri politics, but he’d never heard of these “revivalists” before today. Racism was common in Besermark, of course, but it was rarely so broad in scope. Human farmers hated goblins for stealing their cattle, and smiths often hated dwarves for driving them out of business. It was stupid, but their thought process was easy to follow. Nobody just hated everyone else. It didn’t make sense.

The report wasn’t long, but hopefully it would help Jesra. It was becoming clear to Bernt that he had a lot more to offer as a wizard than he did as a legitimator. In one role, the clerk at the Scryers’ Office sneered at him while in the other he’d met and made a deal with the Duke of Norhold. Granted, in the latter case he’d benefitted from an introduction by Olias, but the reason they’d wanted to meet him had nothing to do with the Beseri prince. Archmage Dalbrand had recognized him for his prior work as a wizard, not his connections. The court mage hadn’t cared about the color of his robes, either—he probably didn’t even know what Bernt’s day job was.

Despite that, Bernt had only managed to come here because of his appointment as Torvald’s legitimator, so he would do the job as best he could. It was the least he could do.

Finishing the note, he grabbed Jesra’s scrying anchor and headed out into the courtyard, where he used it to weigh the paper down behind Doreen’s raised garden beds. He didn’t want the other mage peeking into his room—he didn’t want an audience for the next task on his list. 

He rose and found himself staring into a pair of wide brown eyes.

Ranna, the cultist he and Song had found out in the Phoenix Reaches was standing on the other side with a watering can in her one good hand, clearly startled to find him there. Bernt hadn’t heard her coming. 

She took a step back, mouth working soundlessly. “Sorry…” she choked, setting down the can. Then she turned and fled without another word, the sound of her steps fading quickly.

For a moment, Bernt considered going after her. He still wanted answers from her about what her cult had been doing in Besermark besides trying to hunt down their expedition, but he remembered Song’s warning. This wasn’t the place. In fact, she was probably staying here specifically for the temple’s protection. From him.

There wasn’t anything he could do about that now. He would see if Torvald had found anything out yet, though he guessed the paladin would have said something if he had. For now, he was overdue to check in with his familiar and best friend in infernal exile.

***

“You’re recruiting sorcerers too?” Jori exclaimed as Bernt finished relating the last few days’ events to her. “That’s great!”

“I.. uh… yes?” Bernt hadn’t considered that they were, in a way, doing the same thing in two very different contexts. Sure, Jori was recruiting demons with natural sorcery, but… well, they might still be able to learn from one another. “How is that going? Have you been able to work out any new spells?”

Jori’s lips stretched into a grin. “Yes! Varinoth is back, and he found a better way to track mortals over long distances. It’s hard, because it’s more souls and blood than fire, and it probably won’t work well where there are too many people, but I can do it, too! We tested it to hunt souls out here.”

“Varinoth?” Bernt frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard the name before. “Do I know that one?”

“He is one of my cousins. I sent him out to infiltrate Nuros’ demons and the Duergar. He got back a few days ago and tells me that he saved your life.” As she spoke, Jori wandered through the growing complex of rooms that her minions were carving into the cliff face where she and Ed had stayed to help her hunt down a powerful blood fiend and rescue her fellow imps. Finding who she was looking for, she pointed at a smallish imp with a rusty orange spot on the back of his neck who was digging softened rock out of a wall.

“A few days—?” Bernt stopped as a few details clicked into place. Ranna had said that her captor, an imp, had wanted to trade her to a warlock for a reward. And he’d been bringing her here. “Wait, I’m the warlock? That was one of yours?”

“I won’t give him a reward for the cultist.” Jori said with a little snort. “He let himself get stabbed with a knife! But he did distract Zijeregh’s shade servant so they wouldn’t find you as quickly in the Phoenix Reaches. Ed says he showed good initiative, and that’s important. He says I should give him more responsibility. You should be careful, though. The shade might still be out there.”

Bernt doubted that any demons would dare to poke around up here, and there wasn’t much a shade could do to him, regardless. Still, he would take some precautions in Norhold, but the paranoia he’d felt after being attacked by a shade – maybe this same one – in Halfbridge had mostly faded. Being chased across half the country for weeks had a way of putting things into perspective.

Jori kept talking, catching him up on her progress here. Bernt felt pride swell in her chest over their bond as she showed him her small army of demon sorcerers practicing a variety of different spells out in front of their little cave complex, from simple balls of hellfire to lights and a variation on his own fire shield. One demon, Bernt thought he might be the one called Maladzhoth, set himself on fire, coating his skin in viscous flames that couldn’t touch him but would be devastating to anyone who tried to touch him.

They’d begun raiding other demons’ territories for souls, targeting other near-worthless regions held by Varamemnon’s lowest servants. Like Tallash, they held lands where few souls ever wandered. They were too weak to defend themselves from coordinated strikes, but also too strong to admit that a pack of imps had managed to steal from them. Revealing such incompetence would risk their destruction at the hands of their own masters.

A few minutes later, their conversation drifted back to Bernt’s own efforts and his hopes for his own incipient order of sorcerers within the Mages’ Guild.

“I still have to look over the actual contract offer that Dalbrand is going to make, but it sounds promising,” he said. “Whatever happens, we won’t have to go back to mucking out sewers, that’s for certain.” 

He couldn’t actually quit his job as an Underkeeper while he was Torvald’s legitimator—he was only eligible for the role because he was a government employee. But once he got back home, he could leave it behind him. The duke would be paying him enough gold in just the next few weeks to fund his research and live off of for at least two years. Enough to explore the potential of his sorcery, even if everything else fell through. By that point, the Mages’ Guild would surely have rolled out his treatment for burnt out mages. Even if they didn’t, Archmage Dalbrand’s enthusiasm suggested that he’d easily be able to sell his services privately, if it came to that.

“You can’t quit!” Jori protested with outrage. “I need to be an Underkeeper to justify my return. And all our friends are there!”

“Jori, your employment isn’t contingent on me,” he reminded her. “You have your own contract. Besides, I’ll be more useful to everyone as a sorcerer in the Mages’ Guild than as a junior Underkeeper with a wizarding hobby.”

Of course, he wasn’t going to do anything yet. He was here as an Underkeeper, and he couldn’t even consider resigning until after he arrived back home. By then, though, his way forward would hopefully be clear.