Chapter 367 — The Dimming Holy Light
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Bishop Megor—a man who happened to share his name with the pope of the Dream Church from seven hundred years ago—was the head of the Central Diocese. The name was not unfamiliar to Wright; the papal decree that had dispatched him to preach in the Southern Reaches bore Megor's signature.
Though the Bishop Megor who signed that decree might not even have known he existed. The man signed no small number of documents every day.
The Holy Light priest before Wright stated the grounds for his judgment with righteous severity, his tone brooking no doubt, his expression utterly devout—while the man declared an evil heretic sobbed softly. The soldier's heavy kick had likely broken his ribs, and his voice carried enormous pain. The woman in the worn-out dress was struggling to beg the soldiers to release her husband, but the silent divine art of the Law still bound her throat, leaving her unable to make a single sound.
Wright fell briefly silent.
So everything those refugees who had fled from the Plains of the Holy Spirit to the Southern Reaches said was true.
So the rumors the merchants brought—that the Church of the Shining Star was carrying out widespread persecution of the followers of foreign gods across the Plains of the Holy Spirit, amassing wealth—were true as well.
He raised his head, looked at his "fellow churchmen," and asked, "Will they stand trial?"
"Their trial is already over," the priest said rather casually. "What I just said was the verdict."
"Then what will happen to them?" Wright asked again.
"Is that even a question?" This time it was one of the soldiers who spoke. "The man gets dragged to the square and whipped a few dozen times; the woman gets locked in a water cell for a few days. Then we see whether they're willing to confess. Once they confess, they're sent to the town church, and after that it's the clergy's business."
"The Holy Light will give them one chance," continued the priest wearing the white soft cap with gold trim. He presumably took Wright for an ascetic monk who had been doing penance in some remote monastery, for his tone was thick with impatience. "They may convert to the Holy Light and hand over half their property as atonement money, and thereafter they are clean. Of course, they may also refuse to pay—in which case they can only go into the fire and prove whether their souls are still worth saving."
That last remark seemed quite humorous, and the two soldiers present could not help but laugh.
Wright looked silently at the priest before him, then at the two soldiers beside him. He could tell these two were not the Church's Temple Knights but rather the private soldiers of the local lord. If these soldiers came along with the priest to make arrests, then the local lord had surely taken no small share of the atonement money.
"You've caught quite a few people this way, haven't you," he said, looking at the priest in the white gold-trimmed cap, his tone more level than ever before. "How many gold coins can one poor commoner like this earn you?"
The priest could not help but frown, and a flicker of wariness suddenly surfaced in his expression. "Brother, that is not your concern. This is the territory of the Rylven Church."
"Oh," Wright nodded, glancing at the positions of the two soldiers beside him. "The Holy Light asked me to pass along a message."
The two soldiers exchanged a baffled glance, while the priest in the soft cap instinctively sensed a trace of danger and put his hand to the holy emblem on his chest. "What do you mean to do?"
Wright said flatly, "The Holy Light tells us to stand forth against evil."
As the words fell, he abruptly twisted his body and swung up his arm. His massive fist tore a whistling gust through the air and smashed toward the head of the soldier nearest him like a stone shot!