The Power of Ten

Master Fred was admitted after flaring his Pact. No form of charm or enchantment could supersede a Pact, so doing so guaranteed he was not under duress. The guards had been notified that he would be returning, and that I was with him, so there was little more than a casual magical scan and visual confirmation before we were inside and on our way.

The interior was laid out in a park-like format, with smaller Churches to each of the gods of Heaven standing in their own courts. These churches were purely for the use of the people who lived and worked here, not the public. There were larger churches of all the gods in the neighboring areas outside the walls, with big areas developed for use by the public. The churches inside here were more for administration and training purposes.

At the center of it all sat Heavenbound Hall.

Normally, powered vehicles wouldn’t be allowed very far inside, but nobody was going to say no to a unicorn-Possessed motorcycle. Sleipner seemed to have his own reputation here, and cruised silently and familiarly through the winding trails of the gardens and training areas, earning both familiar waves for himself and his rider, and more than a few startled looks by newbies who weren’t expecting a motorcycle to be on the bike paths.

The Hall itself was built more like a domed arena, and most of the areas close to it were used for training purposes. Master Fred informed me that the obstacle course was legendary, and there were underground areas throughout all of the grounds, and at least three levels deep under each of the buildings, sometimes much deeper.

He alluded to the fact there might actually be a Felldeep connection. As a training place for Warlocks who could patiently open such a passageway over time, it was totally believable.

The building itself was in colors of soft yellow, white, and somber brown. The stone was fluid, obviously Shaped into position, and many carvings of various scenes and stories associated with the works of Heaven decorated it.

The three Walks of the Heavenbound framed the main entrance.

Silver, gold, and rainbow glittered on the ground and the columns, and the plates bearing the names of the fallen Warlocks sat there upon dark marble polished mirror-bright.

The Order of the Shield, the Order of the Tome, and the Order of the Song.

Looking at any of the names instantly filled the mind with a picture of the person who had died in service to Heaven. Here a bushy-haired black woman with a wide white smile, there a tired and greying white man in a crushed fedora. There were men and women, although the former dominated by about three to one, except in the Order of the Song.

It had only been eight decades, but there were still hundreds of names here. Heavenbound, bound for Heaven...

You never retired Heavenbound. When you became too old to serve, your Pact was passed to another. Heavenbound only ever died in combat, going out and doing the Right Thing, regardless of how much others hated it.

We got off Sleipner before the Walks, and I took the Walk of the Tome. I was not in any hurry, and passed my eyes over each and every name and plate, looking upon the people who had taken the path of Wisdom, and those who held the Heart of the Heavenbound, holding on to the lore of the path for the other two Orders.

It was perhaps strange, but the Walk of the Tome was the least populated. Most people who became Heavenbound had things they wanted to accomplish and fight for; it required a certain zeal and fiery demeanor to take up a Pact that was likely to kill you, and so Heavenbound tended to diverge to the Song and the Shield on the paths of Silver and Rainbow.

The Tome tended to appeal to people who came to Heaven later in life, had seen things, and had passed the extremes of those desires, or tempered them with years. At the same time, they had plenty of inspiration of bringing the Wrath on both sides, and while they were less fiery and more patient then the other Orders, most opponents of the Heavenbound considered them the most dangerous. Hunters, stalkers, planners, and deadly pragmatic strikers, the Tome didn’t stand forth like the other two Orders did, getting the job done and moving on to the next.

The Rainbow were those that fought most against the Sins that formed Hell: tyranny, racism, oppression, organized crime, and corruption in government. As such, there weren’t many of them active in North America, but they were very common in Central and South America, Africa, and much of Asia. The Lawbound loathed them, because the Order of the Song actually worked together, while true Chaosbound tended to be wildly independent and disorganized. The Song didn’t give a shit about breaking laws if it meant doing the right thing, and were plenty willing to break the people imposing those laws, holding them responsible for their deeds regardless of what the laws formal or informal decreed.

The Shield tended to have a more defensive/protective aspect to them... or straight out fixation on one foe they were going to bring down. They either took up places where Evil continually raised its head, or pursued Evil full time. The very last thing Sinbound wanted to learn was that a member of the Order of the Shield was on their tail, likely with a bunch of friends helping out. Cult-hunters, pursuers of criminals and those who did dark things, and avengers of those who had fallen prey to those powers, the Shield stood between them and the dark, and let the dark know there were those that were going to hunt them forever for what they had done...

The Shields were like cops from Heaven, the Song were like freedom fighters and rebels, and the Tome went where they were needed. They were all Heavenbound.

Back on Terra-Luna, Warlocks hadn’t been around all that long, and they’d gotten tremendous support from the Powered community right from the beginning, meaning they’d Leveled and had decent Gear rapidly enough to be able to survive the constant early fighting and ongoing conflicts around the globe afterwards.

There was a memorial there, too, but there were nowhere near as many names on it...

---

There was obviously a large training area directly ahead of us as we walked into the building, lit up more brightly than the outside was. Indeed, looking up was enough to make me stop and close my eyes as I saw the blue of the open sky, and could feel the sun shining down.

The Return of the Sky was the overarching goal all Heavenbound on this world were working towards.

Heavenbound Hall was famous worldwide for their Midsummer and Midwinter Rituals, which forced the Haze back for one day and one night, respectively. On that day and night, the longest ones of the year, millions of people came to gaze at the blue sky and sun, or the night sky and stars for the brief time the Haze was held back.

It gave people the faith that they could overcome it, and the stars and sun were still out there, waiting for them...

Seeing the true sky above, however emulated it was, was still enough to make me pause and bow my head. While I had read about their Rituals, I had not realized until right this moment how oppressive the Haze was on my thoughts, and even with a Shroudborn link, it felt at this moment like some invisible weight had just burned away about me, a dreary pressure from above on body and soul that had been vaporized by that blue sky.

Hope is so strong... and it had been too long since I had seen the sun, let alone these people who had endured so many decades without it.

I wasn’t sure exactly when I started singing the Salute to Aru under the false sunlight, but the Words of Creation rose with it.

I only knew three of the Words: Hope, Truth, and Valor. It was the wrong time of day, far past Natural Renewal, and so didn’t have the true power of the Salute voiced in the morning... but with Hope, carrying up to that need for the Light, it didn’t much matter as I gave voice to the Salute and the Light and the hope it represented to all who lived...

I only had a Rank in Song at this point, so while I was a trained Singer, I wasn’t very good at it. Still, just having the Words involved gave it a ringing sincerity and yearning to it that could not be ignored, and sure, people were stopping to watch as I stood there, face to that illusory sun, and sang out to a god who could not hear me.

Hope didn’t care, and didn’t care about QL, either.

--------------------

Master Fred waited politely, listening and staring up at the fake sky of what should be, of what was only seen in this location one day a year... and perhaps not at all, or extremely rarely, anywhere else on the planet. Hundreds of millions of people had lived and died without seeing the true sky since the arrival of the Shroud...

He knew this was an illusion; Devasight made him virtually immune to illusions, with a broader ability to discern colors, ignore tricks of light, and making him immune to blinding or bright lights of any kind. Trying to emulate the sun had always seemed kind of an empty gesture, especially to Heavenbound who could see right through it.

But the Word she was working into her song was thrumming on his Heavenpact, and his Hellpact was writhing to it in distaste and hate.

It was something he rarely felt, rarely even dreamed about, washing through his ears and over his soul like a soothing balm.

Hope...

It was not that the sky was fake, an illusion, a travesty that could not possibly replicate reality enough to satisfy their eyes. It was that it represented a dream, what they wanted, what they worked for, the return of something Right. Those who had put it in place hadn’t done it out of vanity, or proof of their own power, or even for it to be believed as real.

No, they’d done it to bring Hope. To remind every single person who walked into Heavenbound Hall what they were working towards, what the whole world was yearning for.

He would never be able to look up at the false sky and not feel the Hope that it embodied again...

He smiled slightly, twisting his scarred face as usual. Of all the Virtues, Hell despised Hope the most, and it was the most beloved Virtue of the Order of the Song.

There could always be a brighter day...

The young Warlocks being trained here were staring at the ceiling just like him, Traveler’s voice carrying with clarity despite the lack of true power behind it. Not all of them were Heavenbound; the Hall trained more Citybound and Stormbound than any other place on the planet, too. A fair number of Earthbound, Landbound, and Waterbound came here for professional Warlock training and to learn how to balance morality with their obligations, too.

Michigan was firmly covered by the latter two Pacts, taking excellent care of the ecology, and the Great Lakes were fully Pacted up at all times. The Waterbound were slowly pushing out along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the dismay of many an uncaring polluter, while the Landbound tended to go north and secure the wilder places from abuse and exploitation... especially by the dark creatures that tried to hide there.

Earthbound were an odd choice for the area, as Michigan had no real mountains, but there were Felldeep connections in the area, and few knew that a Krysmal dwelled below the Hall and sponsored those who defended stone and earth. The Earthbound were mostly dhatun, dwarves, and gnomes with aggressive mindsets against the Evils that dwelt below.

Different powers, different mindsets. The only Element they were missing was Fire, but there were no known Good-allied creatures of Fire around, and indeed the only Firebound who came here tended to have massive chips on their shoulders and wanted to challenge those being trained here. Firebound tended to be pretty mercenary, happy as long as they got to burn something, and it was the preferred Pact for those who wanted power, but didn’t want to become Sinbound basically truly selling their souls off and earning a pre-paid bullet from any Heavenbound who saw them.

It was just a song he had heard thousands of times before, an illusion that couldn’t fool him, and Hope.

Hope was indeed powerful...