Book 1, Verse 5

The path we took was long and winding, but it wasn’t too exhausting. It was still early morning and the path ran through a very dense forest, so there were several spots where the trees hung over the road and provided shade from the slowly brightening light.

After roughly an hour of walking, I stopped.

“W-wait, I don’t have any water.”

Vivian stopped and looked at me, then sighed disappointedly.

“Of course you don’t.” She looked under her cloak and pulled out a decently-sized waterskin. She weighed it in her hands for a few moments. “You can have a little bit of mine. Once we get to town, you’ll purchase your own waterskin.”

“Thank you.” I took the waterskin from her and looked at it awkwardly.

It was like trying to drink from a water balloon. I squished and squeezed it a couple times before nearly dropping it.

Vivian chuckled as I fumbled with it.

“We never used waterskins at the monastery, you see.” I lied while trying to get the darn thing open.

“That much was obvious.” She smirked.

After nearly a minute, I managed to drink some of the water. I almost spit it back out because it was so warm, but I managed to force it down.

Warm water, dumb ways of storing it, traveling by foot.

If only I had taken up hiking as a hobby.

“You said we’d reach the town before noon.” I said once we started walking again.

“We will.” She replied nonchalantly. “By the way, you may not want to tell everyone that you’re a priest once we get there.”

I tilted my head.

“I wasn’t planning on doing that unless people asked.”

“Don’t even do it then.” She added. “Honestly, I don’t know why they bothered to send you to that church.”

“Why is that?”

“Hardly anyone attends church in this day and age.” Vivian shrugged.

My eyes widened.

“And why do you think that is?”

“Because priests are phonies.” She said harshly, then immediately sounded awkward. “Er, n-not that you’re a phony priest, or anything like that!”

I nodded and accepted her apology even though she was right about my phony priesthood.

“It’s just that… Do you know about the ‘Church Pact?’” She asked without turning around.

“I’ve never heard about it.” I said bluntly.

Vivian shook her head, and her long brown hair swayed gently as she did so.

“Wow, you really are sheltered.” Vivian exclaimed. “But that’s strange; the priest at the church where my…”

She stopped talking, but kept moving.

“M-miss Vivian? What happened?”

She didn’t stop moving.

“Nothing.” She said with a slight edge to her voice. “Anyway, other priests I’ve met have heard about it.”

“Y-yes, well, they must not have been raised in my monastery.” I said quickly.

“I guess not.” She said slowly. “I’ll try and summarize ‘The Church Pact’ for you.”

Vivian cleared her throat.

As she did so, the birds began to sing and chirp. It was still the morning, and a cool breeze drifted down from between the treetops of the forest and passed along the dirt path beside us as we traveled.

“Centuries ago, the church used to be a fact of life. It was involved in nearly every aspect of existence, from farming to traveling to everything else you could think of.” She said calmly. “It even stretched between the different races; you were as likely to attend church with a faunid as you were with a human or an elf.”

I nodded. I think I could see where this story was going, and I had to suppress a smile.

“Over time, the church began to fragment; different churches began to believe slightly different things.” She shrugged. “I’m not a scholar, but since you were raised in a monastery you would probably understand the differences of all the ‘sects’ as you called them. I always called them ‘church.’ But even with the differences, the church continued to spread and prosper.”

The sound of birds singing began to quiet as Vivian continued.

“Part of the reason people attended the church was because of what they thought the priests could do.” Vivian’s voice sharpened. “People used to believe that anything a priest prayed for would come true, and that only the priesthood could do those things.” Her voice sounded harsh. “Need water? Ask the priest to pray for some. Food? No problem. Someone has a disease? The church will take care of them.”

As we kept walking, Vivian began to sound very tense.

“And then the wizards appeared.” Vivian said with a cold laugh. “And everyone found out that all the things the priests were doing? It wasn’t because of ‘God’ or ‘Prayer’ or any other stupid thing like that! The priests were just using magic; plain old magic that anyone could use with a bit of training.” She spat out the words.

The song of the birds and the rustle of the leaves both disappeared, and it became very quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were the sounds of our footsteps on the dirt road.

“And the church was keeping it away from everyone. Forcing people to join them if they wanted some of it. Silencing anyone who tried to share it with others.” Vivian’s voice became louder as she kept walking.

I took a step back from her as a precaution.

“Letting people die because they weren’t part of it.” She stopped walking.

I nodded and processed the information that she gave me.

It sounded a lot like the church in my world. Greedy; self-serving; exclusive; power hungry; the list went on and on.

“Once people found out, the church was on the run.” She said, wiping her hand over her face while keeping her back to me. “In only fifty years, the entire church was nearly wiped off the face of Firma.” She started walking again. “But it didn’t die; like a hydra, every time people thought that they had finally rid themselves of the church, it came back.”

That sounded a lot like my world too. I had to hand it to those church-types; they were persistent. On the other hand, comparing them to a hydra made them sound too cool; it wasn’t like they were getting stronger.

A more fitting comparison would be to a cockroach; you could stomp on it with brute force as many times as you wanted; you could spray it with logic until it nearly drowned; but no matter what, it always came back.

“And that’s when the ‘Church Pact’ happened. I think nearly every ruler came together to discuss what to do about the church, and in the end it was decided that it would be allowed to exist in their lands under three conditions.” Vivian tilted her head back and forth as shadows from the trees overhead danced across her body.

“The three conditions were,” Vivian held up her hand as she kept walking, then put up one finger. “First, it had to use a version of their holy texts that was approved by the ruler of the land.” She held up another finger. “Second, it wasn’t allowed to build its temples within three miles of any cities, towns, or villages.” She put up one last finger with a flourish. “Third, it wasn’t allowed to use magic in any of its ceremonies.”

That sounded pretty merciful in my opinion. Let the church-types do their thing away from everyone else and stop them from getting too radical with their ideas.

At least with regards to religion, this world seemed leagues ahead of mine; maybe being here for a while wouldn’t be so bad.

“And that’s how the church has existed for the last few centuries. Even now, most people don’t trust the church.” She lowered her head. “And for good reason. The whole place is full of–”

“Liars and hypocrites.” I said in unison with her.

She stopped and turned around. The trees on both sides of the path were beginning to thin out.

“H-how did you–”

“Miss Vivian, I may be sheltered, but I’m not an idiot.” I said calmly. “It was obvious where your line of reasoning was headed.” I shook my head slowly. “I understand now why I shouldn’t reveal my identity as a priest. I will do my best to act like a fellow pagan while we are in the town.”

Finally, a chance to relax a little bit. This ‘priest’ facade was starting to get a little complicated.

“Huh.” She said, looking at me with a slightly tilted head. “You’re being oddly calm about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just that, I don’t know… I expected you to say something about how you’d never hide your religion, even if it meant taking it to the grave. Maybe I’m being a little unrealistic with my assumptions.”

Darn it, she was right. John used to tell me about those missionary people who went to countries and got killed for their faith. There was no way I could do that!

I breathed a sigh of relief as I remembered that he also told me about people who snuck their holy texts into countries where they were illegal. I grilled him on how that was permissible in his religion for a while; what was it he said in response?

“N-no; there’s no need for me to be ostentatious about my beliefs; shouting my faith on the streets just to get myself arrested would be foolish. In an age like this, we must be tactical with our displays of faith.”

That was probably it.

Vivian nodded.

“That… makes sense, I guess.” She stopped a little farther down the path. “We’re here.”

I caught up with her and looked down the road.

Down a slight incline in front of us, in a large clearing in the forest, was a bustling town.

I felt all my muscles tense at the sight of it.

“Now, we’re going to need a cover story for you.”

“A what?!”