Paladins of the Pickle Goddess

My absent, mysterious, and horribly boring husband was the Voice of the greatest god in the world. I blinked, hard, in case I’d hallucinated it. The Baron Vindex. When we’d met, he’d represented an old, if impressive, house. Desperately in need of new money, in the form of me. My signature on a paper, at least, and my mother’s cooperation.

He wasn’t in need of money now. He wore a golden ring of office, some ridiculous hat with multifaceted eyes on it, and a necklace so heavy with gold I was surprised it hadn’t strangled him yet. He didn’t seem to have much of a spine to resist it.

His face remained. So bland it looped back around to being distinctive.

I resisted the urge to thump him over the head with the basket of food I’d carried in. After telling me to speak to his secretary, he’d turned back to his notes. As if that was all he needed to do. “It’s been fourteen years,” I said. “You couldn’t take some cousin?”

My mother definitely had offered him any conscious woman in the family she could. I could only imagine her face when he’d ascended. Somewhere between rapture and torture.

Imagine. All it had taken to get my mother and I working for the same goal was literal godly intervention.

He didn’t even look up at my entreaty. He underlined some comma, then scratched out a letter.

Line-editing. Instead of speaking to me. Presumably, he cared about his immortal soul. Was he dedicating that to some secretary’s work, too?

I gave up, stepping back and assessing the room at large.

The Voice of the Beetle, of course, in the center. On his right was an empty chair, and then another filled by a woman sitting straight upright. She had pale eyes and a hand held up, quivering, to her mouth. Her eyes were slowly filling with tears. Next to her was an old man, head tipped back and snoring. As I watched him, he snored so hard he woke himself up, choking on drool. His tunic was emblazoned with a fiery horse. The Voice of Cabellus?

Behind the chairs on the right were a pair of servants- one hunched over, leaning on a cane and hooded, and one young. They were accompanied by a single guard. The guard looked a little strange- his plate was misbalanced, and his helmet kept slipping forward. The servant, next to him, avoided my eyes. It looked like the same young man who had promised Candida mead.

The guard straightened up and put a hand behind his back, where he’d been sneaking it inside of his helmet to scratch at his nose.

Well. I didn’t know what was happening, but it wasn’t to be dealt with now.

I turned to the left of the table. There were seven seats set up, but only four were set up. An older man toasted me with his cup. “Thank you much for the food. Mind passing it over?…Sorry about him. He’s always that way.”

“I’m quite aware.” I handed him the basket, cogs in my mind turning.

Behind me, Duran stepped closer. Apis pulled the door closed. With a thump, we were in the top tower of the chamber. Closed in with the Council of the Chosen.

“I’m not just here for Baron Vindex,” I said. “I’m here to pursue Justice.” I tried to say it with bells on, like Andrena did. Only a few people paid attention to me. The suspicious guard clanked, his head turning towards me.

“Just like everyone else, then,” said the loud man. He waved a hand. “Well? You’ve brought the basket, let’s have it!”

The Voice of Ursus was already peering under the fabric. “I say, this looks delicious! Fresh, even. Not that cold stuff we’ve been getting. Makes me feel like it’s a normal time again.”

He pulled out the flatbread, wandered over to slump down next to the pale, trembling woman. She must be the Voice of Teuthida, then; the Upper Gods, separated from the small gods. Staring at each other across the table.

“Makes me wonder why we even bothered with this locking-up nonsense in the first place,” mumbled the Voice of Ursus, through his mouth of flatbread. “Waste of time. No one’s even tried to get us, in all this time. Makes me think that certain people were a little quick on the draw. Eh? Eh?”

He turned, obviously, towards the Voice of Teuthida. The Voice of Teuthida reached into her breast pocket and removed a handkerchief, which she used to delicately dab at her cheeks. “You- you do not realize what is happening! Before us is a great threat! She is here to murder us!”

The loud man had given up on me and gone to go get his own food. He stopped halfway through a chicken thigh.

“What, with a lemon slice?”

The Voice of Teuthida threw the handkerchief down with surprising violence. “No, you fool! She’s brought fake guards with her! They’ll roast us on spits! Decry the gods! And you will have accepted it!”

“Ah, well, just another day, then,” said the man.

I coughed. “Excuse me. Who exactly are you?”

There were other small gods there- only three in total, to fill out the council of seven they were permitted. I wondered if the others had rejected the invitation, after the burning of the altar. They had certainly seemed afraid, in that tea-house.

“Voice of Saxum,” he said. He nodded his head to me. “God of rocks in boots.”

“And?”

“Just rocks in boots.”

“You made it here, through…?”

“Well, every time you find one in there, you believe don’t you?” He gestured to the room at large. “Sure, huntsman pray to the forests, or sailors to the winds. But everyone’s got a boot.”

“Enough! She is distracting us. She is a murderer, a thief, a-”

“I brought you food, and now I’m here to find the truth,” I said. I slid the basket over to the Voice of Teuthida. Impressively, through this whole exchange, Baron Vindex hadn’t looked up once. He circled something else on a list.

“What truth! We’ve said we’re contemplating!”

I had to circle this slowly. If you wanted a stew to come out right, you couldn’t rush it. First you browned your meat, added your vegetables. Then you put it on the heat to simmer.

I stepped closer to the Voice of Teuthida. She didn’t shrink back, like she might have if she was actually afraid. She was truly crying, I’d give her that; I got a stink of onion off of her handkerchief. “Your work?” I said, nodding towards the pages of writing on her desk. I caught a glimpse of something about budgets, a row of zeroes, a rejection.

“I do what is necessary for my temple! As do we all,” she said.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” I took the papers before she could do anything else, holding them up. The handwriting was familiar. Very familiar.

I had spent a long, long time in that hold, staring at those letters.

“Letterboys,” I said. Baron Vindex still scribbled, on his throne. The rest of the room was staring at me. In horror or appreciation, I didn’t know. “I assume you’re all familiar?”

“You’re here about the letterboys?”

“I heard they escaped,” said the Voice of Saxum. “Pulled a disappearing act.” He waved his hands dramatically.

“I heard the Law executed them in secret, afraid that the law would be called heartless,” said another of the Small Voices, a woman so old I was surprised she’d even made it up the tower. She scowled at me. “Disgraceful. Boys that age, being blamed for that sort of thing. Makes me think of the bad old days. We should have grown more, as a country.”

“I heard there was a rule no one could go in or out of the tower,” I said. “How are you getting your news?”

“Oh,” said the old woman. “Well, Vitus doesn’t count. He’s been here longer than any of us have. He’s practically an institution.”

We all turned to stare at Vitus. “Well?” I said, to the ancient servant in the corner, hiding behind his hood. “Which is it? Are the letterboys dead, or are they escaped?”

The old man straightened. I caught a glimpse of his face, now, as he turned to speak to me. I had seen it once before. Leaning back in a chair, in the Temple of Small gods. In front of an alter burned to ashes.

“It’s not for Vitus to know,” he said. He was much more quiet here. “I bring only the news.”

Should I confront him now? No. I had no evidence that he was related. It was just more evidence that something was going wrong. I watched as he turned away again. The Voice of Teuthida was staring at him, fingers drumming on the tabletop.

Next to me, the Voice of Celeres leaned towards me. “That man-”

“I know,” I said. “I’m handling it.”

Was I?

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the letters, ruffling my fingers through them. “The Temple of Teuthida, in the Southern District. Lovely place. Have many of you visited?”

“Obviously.” That was from the Voice of Teuthida.

“Once only. Decent, if a little cramped.” The Voice of Saxus, again.

A scratch as Baron Vindex crossed something out, handing it to the Voice of Teuthida. “Re-write this.”

“Were you ever taken to the tunnel underneath?”

I turned, watching my audience. The strange guard shifted again, uncomfortable in his armor. Duran put his hand on the sword. The Council looked confused, bored… or uncomfortable.

“What do you mean,” said the Voice of Teuthida. “There is no tunnel.”

“Oh? I walked there myself. I was accompanied by my apprentice, Duran. Duran, are you willing to testify?”

Duran peered around the room, then nodded. “There was a tunnel!”

“Take your hands off of that sword,” I muttered, then continued, “Do you recall the entrance- squeaking? Being rusty? Needing grease, at all?”

He shook his head.

“There you have it. Someone’s aware of that tunnel. They’re maintaining it. Lovingly.”

“What of it? Anyone can have a tunnel.”

“Husband. Baron Vindex. BEETLE!”

When he didn’t respond, I cleared my throat a second time. He finally looked up. “What?”

“Who signed the quarantine regulations into law?” The stricter set were only a few years old. Approved by both the law and the Spire. There were certain specifications- including where ships had to anchor at harbor.

“That would be me,” he said. I turned away, disappointed, until he continued- “And the Voice of Teuthida, who suggested them. There’s been a rise in the pox of almost 30% over the last twelve years, which is likely a result of open borders-”

“Enough!” I held up a hand. “She recommended Quarantine ships anchor at the end of a tunnel that connects to her temple. Strange, isn’t it? Why would you do that? Would you want your worshippers to get sick?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If that happened, it was only a coincidence.”

I slammed the letters down on the desk. “These are written in your hand,” I said. “They seem like nonsense at first. Speaking of eclipses, speaking in numbers. We knew there had to be a code, however, when we remembered the last eclipse. I suppose a few of you saw the last one?”

The Voice of Ursus nodded heartily. He’d moved on from the chicken to a flatbread with olive. “Fantastic,” he said. “Thought we’d lost the sun entirely for a moment there. “

“Quite a while ago, though, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” he said.

“Twenty years, if I recall. Which doesn’t match this letter.” I held it out, began to read aloud. When I was thirty-one, I saw the moon cross over the sun and try to set us into darkness. Did you see it, too? Did you wonder if we were trying for something too large to understand?

“What do you mean by this nonsense?” The Voice of Teuthida leaned away from me. “So the eclipse statement didn’t make sense. What of it?”

“These letters are in code,” I said. “Vitus, do you take letters for people?”

As one, everyone turned to the ancient Vitus. After a moment, he nodded.

“Have you ever taken one for the Voice of Teuthida?” I added.

“I take letters for all of the Voices,” he said. That was when I remembered it- the proof that he was involved. What he’d been holding, that day in the temple of Small Gods.

“So,” I said. “My point stands.”

“So what! I have the right to encode my messages. This city is falling apart. It’s certainly not safe to write things in plain speech.”

I pulled out the other two letters. I watched her lean back, slightly, in her seat. She seemed to be unwilling to touch the seat-back, as though it pained her. “It matters because we have your other letters. We decoded them using a children’s book- one that I saw Vitus holding the other day.”

“Now you’re accusing me of having the mind of a child! Really.”

She held up the onion handkerchief to her eyes again, tears springing to meet it. The Voice of Cabellus, fully awake, leaned over to pat her on the back. She shrieked in pain and leaned away.

“Apis,” I said. “Why don’t you tell us what you read in those letters?”

There was a click as Apis removed his helmet and rolled his neck, clearly uncomfortable to be in sight.

“You see!” said the Voice of Teuthida. “Hidden! In plain sight! An attack on us!”

“Oh, shut up. This is just getting interesting. Pass the bread!” The Voice of Saxum waved his hand invitingly.

“Quite a few of them didn’t make sense,” Apis said, finally. “But one of them was clear. Move believers to shadow.”

“That doesn’t make sense either! You’re obviously just throwing darts at a moving target.”

“As it happens, we found the letterboys,” I said. “But I’m not the best person to tell you about that. Voice of Celeres, where were they?”

“The quarantine ship,” said the Voice of Celeres. She hadn’t taken off her helmet, only pushed up the visor. Her eyes glared out, angry at the world. “You know what they said? That the Priests of Teuthida promised to rescue them from the Infamy. Instead, they ended up locked up until I pulled my own strings.”

“So she admits it! She’s been manipulating the guilds.”

“The guilds are a different question,” I said. “The facts are clear. You sent your priests to hurt the letterboys, after they were framed for the arson of Andrena’s temple. Why?”

The Voice of Teuthida seemed confused by my question. She turned to either side, like they might have answers for her. “Of course I didn’t!”

“We all saw the evidence. It was you.”

Of course, I’d seen Sylvia on that ship, too. If she would only admit it… we might be able to resolve this easily.

“If they did anything, it was without my knowledge, and I decry it,” said the Voice of Teuthida. “Horrible, the level of help you get these days. Apologies, please speak to my secretary.”

“As if that man ever works,” muttered the Voice of Cabellus, next to her. She elbowed him.

The hard way it was, then.