The Quantum Wanderer

I think about the way to get to the church. I would like to go incognito, but I am not particularly good with mind magic. I have an idea.

“Muninn, can you disguise us? I would like to visit Sidhu in the church.”

“Of course, father.”

Muninn applies his magic. I turn to Rajesh.

“Do I look like a demon?”

Rajesh covers his mouth and giggles one time.

“Yes. You are definitely not recognizable.”

“Thanks to you both.”

“Let me get you someone to guide you.”

Rajesh calls one of the guards keeping the room, and tell him to escort us up to the palace gates. We follow the guard. The area immediately outside the door now has a garden. There are some trees growing. The trees are very young still, but I can see a future.

When I get in the open, I look around, and there are more water reservoirs around the city. The whole thing multiplied. There are several aqueducts coming down. I can’t see where all the aqueducts end, but one of them is going straight to the palace. It feeds a smaller reservoir, on top of the castle. Sometimes I wonder if I should have done more for them. I remember Rajesh’s words, that he would not spend water that his people would not be able to access. I smile.

As I leave the palace, I can see some improvement to economy. The buildings are less bleak, people are overall looking better. I know I am in the noble district, and this is a big one at that, but still. Clothes for the servants are looking better, there are more materials around. The metal shops now sell music boxes, and better quality wares.

I walk through the merchant district, it also has a lot of changes. There are more shops around. Some of them are dealing with dwarven wares, from armors to day to day things like kitchen knives, utensils. The clothing is finer than previously. The city is buzzing with movements.

I can see that a lot of demons in the city are visiting. It is clear on their faces, on the way they look around, fascinated with everything. Living your young years in a tourism oriented city will make it easy to find the outsiders.

I keep walking through the cobblestone streets. I get to the food market. There are several stands selling fruits. Some stands are being handled by centaurs. There are also some fish, as expected, and even some meat in the market. Things here are very different.

I go to where Sidhu’s church was, but it is no longer there. There is a fence, and then some buildings where the church was. I see some children playing soldiers in front of the building. I stop to look at the scene. One of the kids end up playing a little too rough, and pushes the other one down. The one that falls on the ground starts crying, his knee is scraped.

The bigger one realizes that the small one is actually hurt, and he breaks character. He helps the little one up, and both of them go inside the building. They knock, and I see a girl opening the door. She is dressed like the girls in my harem. She sees the smaller one hurt, and puts her closed fists on her waist.

She kneels down, and places her hand over the smaller kid’s scrape. A golden light comes out of her hand, and the knee is cured immediately. I wonder what is going on. I decide to question this. I go inside, and I knock on the door. She same girl opens the door.

“Good afternoon, traveler-ji. How can I help you?”

“Good afternoon… Madam. I am a little thirsty. Could I have some water?”

“Of course, traveler-ji. Please come in.”

I come inside. There are no excesses, but everything is well cared. Everything is functional, in a mix of simple and military feel. I sit by a table that the girl gestures to me. While she picking up some water in the kitchen, Muninn flies up to the cupboard nearby and removes his invisibility.

She arrives with a jug and a cup of water, both made of burnt clay. I hold the cup up, and look at it.

“Do you know what is funny?”

She shakes her head.

“Clay, in particular burnt clay, is one of the best materials for cups and water jugs. They allow a very very tiny portion of water out. When the tiny water evaporates, it gets cooler. Have you ever noticed that the water in them is cooler than water stored in other things, like metal and glass?”

She tilts her head.

“Hum… We knew it made the water cooler, and we knew about the water evaporating. But why would water evaporating make it cooler?”

“Because for water to evaporate, it needs heat. So it absorbs it when it evaporates. Water is made of grains. But the grains are so tiny that you can’t see them, or feel them. The natural movement of these particles is the temperature, and that is an amount of heat. I am simplifying, though.”

At this point, I lost the audience. She has this distrustful face. Muninn starts laughing.

“Tough croud, right, father?”

The girl turns around, and looks at Muninn at the top of the cupboard. She tilts her head.

“A talking crow?”

“If you can talk, why can’t I?”

I can almost hear the gears turning in her head. At some point, she realizes. She freezes and whispers.

“Your godliness Munnin?”

Muninn uses his paw to clear his ear. She kowtows in front of him.

“I am sorry, your godliness, I hadn’t recognized you.”

“It’s ok.” Huginn says.

She looks at me, and she is now terrified that I am just savoring the water. She gestures with her head for me to kowtow by her side. I giggle a little. Then Muninn giggles. The girl is lost, and that makes her fearful. Muninn lands on my shoulder.

“They truly do know how to treat us, father.”

She raises her head.

“Father?”

I answer.

“Yes, that is how Muninn and Huginn call me. Actually, Huginn is a bit softer, she has been calling me papa. I kind of like it, though.”

“By the Great Adventurer! I am sorry! I didn’t know any better!”

She starts crying. The kids are now looking through the door.

“WHY ARE YOU BULLYING BIG SISTER?” One of the boys shout. He actually runs towards Muninn and me, armed with the sword made of wood that he was playing with outside. The girl on the ground is now terrified. Muninn and I laugh. Muninn goes back to the cupboard.

He starts hitting me with the wood sword, and the girl screams.

“STOP! THAT IS THE GREAT ADVENTURER!”

Muninn is now laughing out loud. The kid looks at him, and then turns his head very slowly towards me. Muninn undoes the illusion spell, and the kid freezes, wooden sword high above his head. The girl stands up, kowtows before me, and pushes the kid to the ground by the neck.

“PARDON US, GREAT ADVENTURER. WE KNOW WE ARE NOT WORTHY, BUT PLEASE, AT LEAST EXTEND YOUR CLEMENCY TO HIM. HE DOESN’T KNOW ANY BETTER!”

She is sobbing. I sigh.

“It’s ok. No harm intended, no harm done.”

I pull the kid up by the shirt, and he stands up. I get down close to the girl and put my hand on her shoulder. She shakes a little bit. I try to soothe her.

“Please, just sit with me a little bit.”

She is looking at a chair available, and then at me.

“At a chair?”

“Yes? What else?”

“I am one of your servants, your godliness. I would prefer you didn’t take me in front of the kids, but you are still my priority.”

“Oh, that answers one of the questions I was going to make. So you girls are not restricted to the… the…” I look at the children around.

“The leisure convent? No, we are not. We also do some other tasks for the church. One of these tasks is taking care of the children in orphanages, such as this. We also help on the church with several things.”

“Interesting…” I look around, and I see the kid that had a scraped knee.

“Oh, a tip. Whenever you apply heal magic, make sure the injury is washed first. So you should boil a cloth, and then take the cloth out, and wait for the temperature of the cloth to get bearable. Then use that cloth to clean the injury before closing it with healing magic.”

“It will be done, your godliness.”

I open a hand sized portal, and reach in my bank. I grab a dwarven gold coin, and I place it on the table.

“I assume you accept donations…?”

“Yes, your godliness… Thank you.”

I nod at Muninn, he casts the illusion spell again. He lands on my shoulder. Apparently, he became invisible.

“By the way, where is the Sidhu? Is he in the church? Where is the church now?”

“There is no longer a church in the capital, your godliness… Just the Fire Pilar Cathedral. It is outside the city.”

“Where the dragons landed?”

“Yes, your godliness.”

“Great, thank you.”

I get off the orphanage, and I start walking towards the exit of the city. Right outside the city there is this big fork in the road, with a road taking to that place. Shortly after the city’s gate, there is a line. A huge line. I keep walking by the side. I keep getting some staring daggers. I look towards the valley where the dragons had landed when I go over the corner. There is a huge cathedral there. It is really beautiful. It is mostly white, with four towers around it, and a hemispheric ceiling in the middle.

On top of that ceiling there is a bonfire burning.

When I get closer, I can see the details. There are, around the main door, two dragons on each side. On one side there is a white and a blue, on the other side there is a white and a red. Beneath them, making for a foot high engraving that went around the cathedral, there were the paintings of a lot of smaller dragons, bowing to the ones around the door.

The line, to my left, is moving forward. I see that there is a priest to the left of the altar. He has a big bowl to his back. The first of the line bowls down in front of him. The priest turns around, and picks an amount of clay. He then places six dots on the forehead of the demon in the first place of the line. He lays his hands on the demon’s head, and the hands shine. When he is done, the demon that was kneeling stands up and leaves the cathedral. With a big smile on his face.

“Excuse me, can you tell me what is this ritual?”

He looks at me like I am crazy for asking.

“Where have you been living? This is the blessing from the land of the fire pilar.”

He leaves me, shaking his head. He looks at a guy in the line, that was near us. The demon in the line scoffs and shakes his head. I take a look at the line, several of the demons on the line are looking at us.

I turn back to enter the church. Some of the demons on the line laugh. Apparently it was a stupid question.

I walk through the main aisle. I sit down on the first bench. It is long, made for dozens of people. Once I sit down, Muninn flies to my right, and perches on the back support of the bench. He dispels his invisibility.

Immediately, about a dozen crows in the church fly down, making this semi-circle in front of us, and bow their head, touching the floor. The priest that was anointing the demons stopped with his thumb on a demon’s forehead. He finishes his work on that demon. When the next one approaches, the priest excuses himself and goes inside a side doorway in the back.

He comes back with another one of the… vestals, for lack of a better word? I haven’t asked their collective name yet. The girl sees the scene. She is also pretty. I catch myself thinking about these girls in this very small dress. Demons are well behaved, apparently. As much as modern societies in Earth, since they respect the girls with skimpy outfits. That is a big contrast to things I have seen in human lands.

The girl gets closer, and looks intrigued. She kneels down, to take a look if the crows are fine. She tries to pick one up, but it doesn’t want to be lifted from the floor. She is too focused on the crows to notice Muninn doing a small gesture with his wing, dismissing the bowing from the crows. The crows get to normal position, and  fly back to their nests in the cathedral.

She notices Muninn staying close to me.

“Greetings, traveler-ji.”

“Greetings.” I nod.

“Where are you from?”

“Far. I didn’t even know this cathedral was built here.”

“I see… Can I trust that you are treating your crow well?”

I shrug.

“I think so…” I leave out a giggle. “On another topic, is Sidhu around?”

“Yes he is, but he is a very busy man, traveler-ji. Do you have a time scheduled with him? Is it something perhaps another priest might help you with?”

“I didn’t really plan coming here, I was expecting to thank him… Excuse me, but how should I call one in your order?”

“We are priestesses, traveler-ji. The order I am in is the vestals. Only we can wear these dresses. Do you want me to pass your gratitude to the pope?”

 I sigh. What a pity.

“Sure. Tell him that I enjoyed my wedding gift immensely. Yesterday was a first day that I will remember for ages.”

She giggles, and places a hand in front of her mouth. She blushes a little. I turn to her.

“What is it?”

She looks around, as if she was going to share a deep secret. Then she whispers.

“I am only saying this because you have a crow with you… But yesterday was the first time the Great Adventurer visited our convent… Some of my sisters in faith there were so lucky…”

I relax a bit.

“Yes, and on my side that was also so good…” I say with a giggle.

“What?”

“What what?”

A silence settles in. She tilts her head. I have to say, belly button exposed, these dresses were hand picked. She looks at Muninn. Muninn nods slowly. To make sure she understands that he is nodding. She looks at me next. I shrug. I can notice the moment she realizes she is talking to me. She is about to kowtow, but I stand up and hold her arm. I whisper in her ear.

“Wait, please don’t make a scene. I am just visiting, I don’t want to disturb the work.”

The priest that is working the line looks at me with an ugly face. The demons in the line notice that the priest is looking at me, and now I have some hundreds of demons looking me with a very aggressive manner. I let go of the priestess arm quickly, and they slowly become less aggressive.  She whispers in my ear.

“I am sorry, Great Adventurer, but it is a big taboo to touch a priestess, or for a priestess to let herself get touched by any other.”

I sit down. The demons in the line measure me, checking if I deserve another chance. She steps back.

“Please accompany me, his holiness will see you.” She does this very deep bow.

I follow her, Muninn lands on my shoulder. The other demons are looking at the scene, but they don’t like it too much.

 I follow her through some long corridors, with a lot of doors. There are all types of structures. Several studies. Other corridors, the whole thing is a lot bigger than just the church space. We go to one of the towers, in the back. We enter one in the end.

The tower is huge. The lower floor has some desks. They are arranged close to the wall, there is a bigger desk in the middle, in front of a door in the back. The priestess goes straight to a priest working in this desk. The priest has a robe, it has four dragons, with their heads pointing inside, making an X of sorts. Above that there were two tiny crows.

The priest puts down his pen. He looks up at the priestess.

“Yes, priestess Maya?”

“I have a very special guest for his holiness.”

He takes out a block from a drawer.

“What is his name, priestess?”

She looks at me. Her expression is empty. Apparently, I am just called the Great Adventurer, or godliness. I giggle.

“Marcelo.”

The priest looks at me inquisitively.

“That is a very unusual name, traveler-ji.”

“I come from a far away place.”

Priestess Maya is massaging her temples. She bends over the table. The priest is probably having a very nice view. She is not one of my girls, but it still feels a little weird. With the softest of smiles, she whispers in his ear. I can hear, but I think that Muninn and I are the only ones that can.

“Priest Tanish, believe me when I tell you something. If you don’t let this person in, pope Sidhu is going to take your arms off, and beat you with them. And after that, I will be there to kick your balls. He has a crow. The crow.”

His face gets scared. Then he looks at me. Muninn sighs, he is tired of trying to keep under the radar. He becomes visible. The priest’s eyes bulge a little more.

“Crow? Not really. What was it the centaurs called me? Brâns, right, father?”

The priest stands up so fast the chair is thrown back. He comes around the table. The other priests and priestesses in the room are looking. He kowtows.

“I AM SORRY, YOUR GODLINESS! PLEASE PUNISH THIS UNDESERVING PAWN AS YOU SEE FIT!”

The other priests are looking intently, still sitting. Muninn gestures with his head towards me, I nod. He undoes the illusion. All the other priests immediately kowtow.

“It’s ok, guys. Please get back to your work. I am just visiting Sidhu on a whim, nothing important.”

“Your godliness, your will to visit us is already the most important event that could happen.” Tanish is still talking a lot louder than necessary.

“Anyway, is Sidhu this way?”

“Yes, your godliness. Can I guide you?”

“Don’t worry. Priestess Maya is going to guide me.”

The door after Tanish’s desk lead to a stair to the left. Priestess Maya is climbing the stairs in front of me. Her tail is a lot higher than normal, and that lifts her skirt up, making her panties visible. The stair is wide enough for a two people to go through it comfortably, but not more than that. I pay attention that my right hand is against the wall as I go up. This was a detail on all tower stairs in the middle ages; they were built that way so that invading forces would have a harder time fighting their way up.

We reach a chamber on the second floor. I knock.

“Yes? Who is it?”

Maya has a playful smile on her. I yell through the door.

“Just a visitor trying to spend your time, your holiness!”

***

Edward’s POV

I am at my office in the schools. The school financials look good. Marcelo’s girls are breaking less and less stuff, they learned to control themselves. The news about the girls increased noble interest in the schools. They get attracted to power like flies to food. Even if everything is hidden, the girls are recognized as a power house.

There are some other girls they talk to. I have been observing closely. There is this whole fandom around the girls, but it is not dangerous.

I put the financial report on the table and take a look out the window. There is a top of a tree out in the yard in front of my window, in the garden. There is a bird there. I wonder if Marcelo is watching. I take a look at small bird, and it seems intent on looking at me. I feel a chill. I sigh. I am getting too paranoid.

While I am still looking at the bird, thinking about all the things happening, I hear some shouting in the ante-chamber. I can recognize the voices. It is a shouting match between my secretary and professor Marianne. Both of them are trying to shout over each other.

I open the door. The secretary is protecting the door. Professor Marianne stops shouting when she sees me at the door frame. I don’t have my happy face, this is probably going to be a headache. I hear my secretary’s end of rant, before she realizes I opened the door.

“… NOT GOING THROUGH, BITCH!”

Only then my secretary realizes that she is the only one shouting. She gets back to her normal stance. She adjusts her glasses, as if she wasn’t almost coming to a fist fight with a professor.

“Dean, I was politely telling professor Marianne that you were busy evaluating financials this morning. If she needs to talk to you, she should have an appointment.”

I can’t hold a giggle.

“Sure, sure. Well, since I already stopped a little bit, let her in.”

Professor Marianne enters the room, and sits on a chair in front of my desk. She is shaking. It probably is not my secretary. If it were a student, I could understand, but not professor Marianne. This is lunch time, so I serve her a glass of liquor.

“If you don’t need this to calm down, you can just leave it.”

She looks at me, then at the glass. She grabs it with a  shaky hand, and gulps it in one go. Now I am worried.

“So, professor Marianne, how can I help you?”

She casts a silence spell. She has this conspiratorial tone with me.

“I come to you with a very important information.”

I sit on my chair, behind my desk. I land my elbows on the table, I rest my chin on my hands. I let my face mirror my lack of interest into what she is probably going to announce.

“Sure. What is it?”

She looks to one side, then to the other, as if to make sure that no one was listening. She even looked outside my window. I took a look as well, and the bird was still there. Just let it be. I focus my attention back at her. She starts talking.

“I had mentioned to you that Cecilia became powerful out of nothing, right?”

“No, you mentioned that you THOUGHT Cecilia became more powerful. You didn’t present any proof.”

“Now I know what happened!”

She gave a couple of seconds for dramatic effect. I sigh. She continues.

“She is a dark priestess of Wrax!”

“What?” I get shocked. For several reasons.

“She came to school today with a crow on her shoulder! I am telling you a crow. And the crow seemed sentient. I am telling you, it knows what is happening!”

“Did the crow talk to you?”

“Of course not, that’s what they are trying to hide.”

“They? They who, dare I ask?”

“The church of Wrax. They are preparing his coming! Are you not paying attention?”

I ignore the slight jab. I have been through so much on the past half a month that decide to ignore it.

“So, how do you know the crow is sentient?”

“I was inspecting Cecilia up close. The crow looked at me, and SMILED! THE CROW SMILED!”

I look at her, with a distasteful expression.

“Crows don’t smile.”

“EXACTLY! OPEN YOUR EYES!”

I take a long breath, and start counting to try to calm down. I have to learn the size of the damage before I can act.

“What did you do?”

“Against a Wrax’s crow? I came here. We have to dispatch the knights! We have to kill them before they destroy the world!”

She is frantic. Her expression is going to help us, actually. She has a crazy look on her, eyes bulging, breathing hard. If I wanted, I could just have her committed to a crazy house right now and every healer in the empire would agree with my decision.

“So you are telling me that one of our good students, that has not done anything wrong, should be killed because she has a crow on her shoulder? Are you crazy?”

She stands up and places both hands on my desk.

“ARE YOU NOT LISTENING? CECILIA SOLD HER SOUL FOR POWER! SHE IS WRAX’S MINION!”

She looks at something behind me, leaves out a small shriek, and sits down. She points to the window that is to my right. I turn around, and the little bird, the size of a closed hand, is inside the window. Inside her silence spell area. I feel a chill, this is messed up. I can see the terror in Prof Marianne’s eyes.

“THAT! THAT IS PROOF! I AM TELLING YOU.”

In spite of all the shouting, the bird remains inside the window. She shoots it with a fireball. It explodes against the window frame. It takes the bird out. The window frame is also broken and cinged. This is about to become real.

I slap the desk. I almost break it, it bounces on the floor.

“YOU FUCKING CRAZY BITCH! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?”

Professor Marianne recoils in her chair, she is very small right now.

“You are going to get back to class, and finish the day. I am going to think of what I am going to do with you. I can’t have some unbalanced lunatic teaching in the school, it is going to look very bad. I expect your resignation by the end of the day.”

She is crying. This was a bit much, but she has been taking some very soft jabs against Cecilia. Having her out is for the best. I approach the window and take a look at the damage.

“This is coming out of your last pay.”

Something breaks inside the professor. She undoes the silence spell, and I lead her to the door. I open it, and she leaves. My secretary is at her table, I call her in. She feels the burnt wood smell and sees the damage on the window. She approaches it, and bends down to inspect it, while holding her glasses.

“What happened?”

“Professor Marianne was just telling me about a conspiracy theory that is supposedly preparing for the coming of Wrax!” I do some overt gestures, making sure she understands that I don’t believe a single word. I continue.

“A little bird landed on the window, she shot a fireball against it. Hence the damage.” I gesture dismissively towards the window. “This is going to come out of her next paycheck.”

My secretary sighs and shakes her head.

“Of course, dean.”

“And I expect her resignation tomorrow, we can’t have someone deranged teaching classes. Find out a temporary professor for tomorrow’s classes, and a permanent one, please.”

“Of course, dean.”

The secretary leaves, I pour myself a glass of liquor. A little earlier than I generally do, but it’s ok. Time to get back to work.