God of Eyes

When I stopped to think about it, I found it very strange: nobody ever asked me my name. Not Alanna, not Manne, not the mayor... nobody. They didn't seem bothered by it. They didn't even seem to notice.

On my way out the door to do my job--the Mayor had come by, and was very understanding that I had come down with an illness, but would very much appreciate it if I went back to work--I was trying to think of how I would spin my newfound abilities into being my own priest. But that led to a very simple question: I was the priest of... whom?

I found Alanna as quickly as I could, but she just shook her head at the question. "A God's True Name is special. An ancient rite protects a new god until they can establish their True Name. After that, you can use soulflame to bind other names, but the first name, the True Name, that can always be used to reach you, even if your life force is extinguished and your soul flame is gone. You must decide on a True Name, but keep it hidden. Don't bother writing it down, because you'll never forget it. Then... after that should you decide on a day-to-day name. When--if--you ever have soul flame, you can create a name for others, and unbind that later if you no longer wish to use it.

I looked at Alanna, my mind immediately going to the Goddess Herald, Xerana, whose sacred realm was full of light, who had fallen in love with a mortal, and whose story was written down for the ages. I nodded, without comment. Sometimes you had to leave the past behind.

So I rushed off to the docks, to find that a ship I didn't recognize was docked, and had been for a time. Mel had not mentioned it when she came by, so I went off to make sure she knew, and of course she did, and she assured me I didn't need to do anything else unless something came up.

So I had some private time in my--Manne's--office, where I tried to think about True Names and making things that nobody would ever guess. I considered using my Real Name from earth, but somehow... that didn't seem to fit. If nothing else, I worried that someone from there would call me back, by reading my gravestone... or the label on my cryo-capsule, since I doubt they would detect I was braindead and throw me out so soon after I had been put in storage. I considered reversing the name, or something similar, but it seemed... undignified to have a name that was just nonsense.

Eventually, I decided to just shorten my name, taking a few letters from each part of it. "Rythva" was not a word in the language I used, and my godly sense said it was not a name that was in use, for True Naming purposes. So that was who I was. Without needing to spend flame or anything, I felt a change, and in fact, I felt like something that had been consuming flame to protect me eased off.

Rythva, God of Eyes.

It made the most sense. Without flame, I could only perform miracles that my current power set gave, and that was insight into others and into magic. If I could convince people that praying to me granted insight, I might be able to meet those expectations without burning power. But who to convince?

It wasn't that much longer before the same fisherman met the same fishmonger on the docks, and had the same conversation about the price of fish. This time, with my godly senses, I measured them both. It was... no different than I expected, really. The fishmonger was angry, but he was straightforward. The fisherman was deeply depressed; he was poor, not because the price of fish was too low, but because he spent what little money he had to spare on booze. I could almost see the collection of empty bottles around his feet, dragged around with him wherever he went. He drank to drown his sorrows, and he only managed to sink himself.

A common story, I thought, but that was just how the world was, wasn't it?

Gods don't walk the earth. I couldn't call him out. I couldn't save him. I shouldn't even be looking. But could I? Could I bring the fisherman into my flock just be seeing through him?

I watched the argument play out and did nothing. The fishmonger paid the fisherman, the fisherman sulked his way back home.

Looking through Manne's office with my new gift, I discovered a something new: he had a secret stash, which somehow I couldn't sense without intense focus. When I pulled it out, in a hollow in a support beam that you could only access after lifting up a floor board, I found it was inside of a very strange cloth bag. The bag, and not the beam or the contents, seemed to be what hid it; inside was money, about twenty golds' worth, and two rings that I assumed, from context, were either magical or proof of identity somehow. My eyes didn't show a flow of magic through them, but one ring did seem to interrupt the flow of magic around it. Looking it over showed no signs of sigils or even markings of any kind, so I was at a loss.

The other ring definitely had an engraved glyph on the inner surface, but having no idea what it was, I didn't touch it. My eyes didn't grant me some kind of academic knowledge of facts I had never learned; they just showed me what was, and the glyph was. Perhaps more interestingly, though, the glyph ring and a couple of the golds both showed some minor traces of the black flame. As Alanna had suggested, Manne must had dealt with the necromancer before, or at least the pirates that harbored him.

Although it was still mid-afternoon, I took the excuse to head back to the temple and find Lucile. Before I got there, though, I found a guard hauling one of the refugees off, aginst her will and amidst protest. To my dismay, it was the woman with the knife scar, whose philosophical question had led to my brief sermon.

"Guardsman! Wait." He didn't, of course, but I got in the way easily enough, and he paused. "What seems to be the problem?" I asked, hoping it was something easy.

Of course not.

"This woman attacked a man in broad daylight." The guard didn't sneer, but I could tell he thought little of her, and little of me for interfering with his work. "An open and shut case. Don't think the Temple has any say in us enforcing the law."

At least five things didn't fit with that story.

"Guardsman... that knife wound wouldn't let her lift her arm two days ago without agony. I don't believe for a minute that she assaulted anyone." My eyes passed over her, and I saw signs of blood on her... especially her legs. "Did you witness it yourself, or was it someone else?"

"Not your business." The guard moved to strong-arm me, but somehow, a strength I'd never had combined with self defense training I thought I'd long forgotten let me slip out of his grasp and stay in front of him.

"The guards' business is the town's business. Right or wrong, the truth matters." I raised my eyes to his. "What happened?"

"You interfere with me again and I'll arrest you," he threatened.

"If the woman is guilty, you can convince me readily enough," I said simply. "Tell me what happened."

"I told you. She assaulted a man." I could see in his head that he did try to come up with some kind of relevant detail that would help his case... but couldn't. "Open and shut."

"Who was assaulted?"

"Dunno. Some man."

I sighed. "So you can't call him as a witness to the crime, because you didn't so much as ask his name. Did anyone else witness it?"

The guard straightened slightly, blinking at me, now thoroughly confused. "What?"

"Did you witness the assault? Did anyone?"

"I, er, yeah. I turned and saw 'em in the alleyway, an' she was hittin' him."

Oh, this guy. This guy was dense.

"Alright," I said, "we should go to the captain of the guard, then." I jerked my head. "You lead. I'm coming along."

The guard did sneer at me, and yanked the poor woman along. I seethed to watch her hurt, but I didn't have any authority to stop him. I doubted he would listen to anyone but the guard captain... or the mayor.

As it turns out, the guard captain was an older man, balding and a bit chubby, with a habit of napping on the bench outside the guards barracks. I had seen him there before, but never knew quite who he was until the guard called out, "Captain Bard!" Bard, to his credit, bounced up off the bench as though he'd heard a gunshot... or a bell toll, I guess? His eyes and ears took in the situation immediately, and he shuffled forward.

"Yes, Phinn, what is it this time." From the sound of his voice, he was used to the guard--Phinn--causing some amount of trouble before. His level stare seemed equally blunt, focused mostly on the man and not the woman.

"Caught this one in the act of assault, sir." Phinn bared his teeth into a grimace. "Open and shut case, sir."

"That's not what that means," said Captain Bard, tiredly, and looked the woman up and down. Then, his eyes turned to me. "You the victim?"

"No. I'm a man who's concerned to watch a guardsman hauling off a badly injured woman as though he had caught a murderer." I shot Phinn a glare. "Ask him what happened."

Bard laughed, a single sound. "I've asked enough questions of Phinn to know he won't say anything except that she did it. Never does." So he turned to the woman. "You tell me."

But she was in agony, her shoulder wounds ripped open, muscles that had been healing ripped apart. She was crying, miserable, and just wanted it to be open. So I stepped in instead. "Guardsman... Phinn. You told me she was in an alley with a man when she committed assualt. Alone. Correct?"

Phinn turned look at me, lips still bared into a snarl. "Yes. Why?"

"This woman was one of the victims from the ship. She knows nobody in the town, and is badly injured, and was alone in an alleyway with a man, and had reason to attack him. And when you put all of those facts together, you arrest HER?"

The captain's eyes flick between me, the woman, and Phinn, and I see a tiredness start to well up in him that seemed bottomless. Phinn's snarl didn't seem to change, although he blinked a few times, as though that was supposed to kickstart a thinking process that didn't materialize. "Yes? She committed a crime."

"Captain, please..." I looked at him. "I don't want to assault a guardsman, and I'm this close to doing it."

"You'd be within your rights, in this case." Captain Bard in two long steps grabbed Phinn's hand and disengaged it from the woman's. "I'm sorry. You're free to go. I'll deal with this one--"

"That's not enough, Captain." My voice surprised me a bit, because it was very sharp, and pretty loud. He stopped and looked back at me, now more than a bit grumpy. I forced myself to continue. "The woman is injured, by a guardsman of Olesport. That wound was serious, and I can tell at a glance she's much worse off than she was. She needs treatment, and it should be paid for." I glared at Phinn, hoping he felt the death I put into the look. "By the one who did it."

Phinn's protest, whatever it would have been, was cut off by a single word from Captain bard: "Agreed." Then, with a single action, he dragged Phinn three steps and almost threw him into the guard barracks. "Have the healer see me. We'll work it out."

That left me alone with the woman, but only for a moment. Mel, bless her, rounded the corner a block away, and saw the woman collapse to her knees, crying. I knelt with her, unsure what to do except let her vent her tension; I had no idea exactly where to turn to for healing help. Lucile, I thought, couldn't do much of it, or she would have done a lot more for the victims after they arrived.

Mel got to us much faster than I would have thought, and I gave her a quick gesture that I hope conveyed that things were better. "An idiot guard hurt her," I said quickly. "We should get her to a healer."

"The witch that saw her the last time is probably best," agreed Mel, scooping the woman up very gently into a princess carry. "Come on, Felli. It'll be alright." As soon as she was on her feet, Mel began a very smooth-gaited walk, one that was probably a little slower but didn't seem to jostle the girl at all. "Tell me more--you know, I forgot your name."

"Ryan." My intution told me it was not a common name on this world, but I didn't bother hiding it. Using my old name felt best. "It was that guard Phinn. I saw him dragging the poor girl, but everything he said points to her defending herself in an alley against some idiot--"

That got Mel's hackles up, and she started to shake, but stopped and calmed down for Felli's sake. "Men... stupid, inexcusable..."

"Captain Bard sided with her immediately, and promised to pay for her healing." I glanced backwards. "I should say, promised to make Phinn pay for it."

"Good man, Bard." Mel turned down a side street, then another, finally arriving at a white-brick cottage that looked shockingly respectable for the home of a 'witch'. "Cortnee... need your help."

The woman who came out looked almost exactly like the stereotypical Halloween witch I envisioned in when heard the term, except with no warts and with a nose that wasn't comically long. She gestured the two women inside but stopped me at the door. "No men," she said flatly, and slammed it shut.

Under the circumstances, I chose not to be insulted. It stung my pride a bit, but she was being cared for.

Mel was back out in a moment. She gave me a look. "Was this what had you away from the docks?"

"Ah... no. Found some things of Manne's." I pulled the weird-cloth sack out of the only pocket I had, but paused before handing it over. "Some coins, and two rings. But there is a bad feeling on it, like the ship. I wanted Lucile to look them over--"

"Show me, first. I know Lucile won't take anything--and you better not--but at least show me." So I squatted on the ground next to a chair set out before Cortnee's cottage, and poured the pouch out on it.

"The pouch itself is odd. Can't sense it with my... limited mage gifts." I moved the one ring and couple golds off to one side. "Those feel weird. Not sure about the rest."

"Not a fortune. Though..." she picked up the non-tainted ring  It was silvery, but looked strange, especially as she turned it in the sunlight. "this might be worth a pretty penny. Do you know what this is?"

I gave her a bewildered look. "No, ma'am."

Rather than answer immediately, she went inside and came back out with a bit of string. After hanging the ring on a string, she struck it with the hilt of her knife. The sound it gave was so crystal clear and loud, and lasted so long, that I could swear the simple ring was a musical instrument. "It rings true," she said, satisfied, and stilled it with her hand. "Tear zinc. Does nothing for the wearer; most would consider it a waste of resources to make the stuff. No idea why someone would make a ring out of it."

Really? I gave her a look, but she seemed in earnest. "Because," I said, "nobody would ever make them."

She looked at me, puzzled.

"Madam Mayor... suppose that the identity of the town guards was secret, so secret that only Captain Bard knew who was a member. They would still need some way to prove that they were members of the guard, especially to you, say. A secret that guards would know and others would not." I pointed at the ring. "That looks like normal metal. Even if someone knew the ring was the proof, and killed a guard and took it, they would have to know, when asked for proof, that it had to be rung. Maybe even in a special way."

Mel let the ring dangle and stared at it. "So it's a secret ring."

I nodded. "It proves Manne was a part of some group. Even if we knew what group, and tried to lie our way into their midst, there might yet be some secret we don't know--a tune played on it, perhaps. Whatever ring he was a part of--" I paused as my head caught up to the words I spoke, then continued, "...proof of membership at minimum would require having the ring, and proving that it's the right ring. But we don't know what group it belongs to."

We sat in stillness for a minute, before Cortnee poked her nose out. "Loud you two are talking," said the witch in a pleasant, almost musical, if definitely deep voice, "and my patient has been listening. She's restless now, and talking is the only cure. I can't finish until she says her peace." She glanced at me. "You may come, but no more than a moment."

Mel and I exchanged glances, but entered.

Cortnee's house was likewise pleasant. Given that she was termed 'witch' and had the look of one, I almost expected some ugly potion-shop, but her front parlor was pleasant, the kind of place that you would hope that a healer's house would have. I passed one room that clearly had alchemy-style vials, boilers, and stills, but even that was kept clean. The room that Felli was in was little more than a padded bench, which Felli was laid out on, and a stool. From here, I could tell Felli's room was just inside from where were talking, although we had rounded three corners to get there.

Felli's eyes rested immediately on the mayor. "The slavers, ma'am," she said quietly. "I know I heard strange chimes in the dark of night. No idea who... where... why. Few words." She shivered. "That was the sound, I know it was. I can still hear it. Still hear it."

Mel knelt and cupped Felli's hand in her own. "I'm sorry, child. I'd never have sounded it if I knew." She paused. "We won't sound it again, I promise you."

Questions whirled in my head, but I had the sense not to make the girl relive the trauma now. A glance at the witch showed she was giving me the stink-eye, so I just nodded. "Thank you. I'll leave." I didn't know why, exactly, the witch hated men so... but I had a lot of possible options to choose from, one obvious one still stretched out on the bench before me. So I stepped outside and waited for Mel. It was easy to say I had done nothing wrong, but I knew this was one of those times where I could easily do something wrong on accident. Not by being twisted or evil, just... self-centered. She needed space, peace, time. Enough times in my life, I had needed those things and had to fight to get them. It was bad enough to have to fight, but worse to lose.

After a minute or two, Mel was back, and with a gesture suggested we leave. After I scooped up the rest of the evidence from Manne, she led me away from Cortnee's. "Felli will be fine," she said. "I think from what she said, it's either a mark of the slaver group, or someone they work with." She lifted the ring to look at it, then pocketed it. "I will send a message to someone I know in the Weaver clans. They would know who to put pressure on."

I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she raised an eyebrow. "You don't know much about politics here, do you?"

"I am something of a lost soul," I admitted. "Haven't asked, haven't learned."

Mel snorted. "And you found your way to about the only human-friendly port in southern Belma. By some gods' grace, I suppose." She shook her head, then held out a hand. "I'll take the coins that you feel aren't tainted. I expect the rest when Lucile is done with them. I did count them." She gave me a look. "I trust that was all of them."

I nodded, not having anything to hide on the matter, and gave her what I felt was safe. Her comments reminded me I had no idea where I was, let alone the politics involved above me. I was sure Lucile could point me towards a book that would help. After I told her about the ring, and the bag, and got her help with the necromancy-tainted items.