Chương 91: Chapter 88 – Blessed be the brewery

High Bishop Mathias rode in a carriage that had been designed to hold far fewer priests than it currently contained. Robes occupied most of the available space. The priests themselves occupied what remained of it with varying degrees of dignity and discomfort. One senior cleric had arranged his expression into something serene and untroubled, which would have been more convincing if he were not gripping the side of the seat as though he believed the road was trying to kill him.

Another had braced both feet and was attempting to absorb the motion of the carriage through his spine with the determination of a man who had not climbed stairs quickly in several decades and had no intention of beginning now. The carriage struck a shallow dip in the road. There was a collective shift of fabric and breath.

"I believe," said one priest, after a moment, "that the roads may have worsened."

"They have not," said another, adjusting himself for the third time in as many minutes.

"They are merely… deeper." Cladus, who appeared to be enjoying himself, leaned back as much as the surrounding robes allowed.

"It will not be long now," he said.

"The rest should be nearby." Mathias inclined his head. It was the sort of nod that committed a man to events he would have preferred to remain hypothetical. Outside, the city had begun to notice. Priests did not move in numbers without attracting attention, and the number currently assembling would have attracted attention even if they had attempted subtlety, which they had not.

Clergy emerged from side streets in ones and twos and then in small groups, converging toward the same destination with the slow inevitability of something that had been planned very carefully and would therefore not proceed entirely as expected. People paused. Shopkeepers leaned in their doorways. A man carrying a crate stopped and did not immediately remember why he had been carrying it. It had the shape of an event.

Not yet a disaster or celebration, but something that might become either depending on how long one watched it. The brewery, by contrast, continued working. It was loud. It was busy. It smelled of grain, yeast, and heat. People moved with purpose. Casks were shifted, checked, tapped, sealed. Steam rose where it was supposed to rise. Nothing about it suggested that it had been selected, without consultation, as the site of a theological debate. The carriage drew to a halt some distance short of the turnoff.

Mathias stepped down first. Around him, priests disembarked in a manner that suggested the concept of disembarking had been designed for younger men. The inside of the carriage had become a puzzle of trying to figure out who was sitting or stepping on whose robes, like a game of pickup sticks but with more complaining. One required assistance but accepted it as though granting a favour. Another reached the ground and remained there for a moment longer than necessary. Clergy continued to arrive.

Not in a single, clean formation. Groups approached from different directions, each with the vague confidence that they knew where they were supposed to stand. They arranged themselves accordingly. Then they adjusted. Then they adjusted the adjustment. A low murmur of polite disagreement passed through the assembly, expressed in the careful language of men who had spent many years disagreeing without admitting to it.

An attendant hurried past carrying a bundle of folded cloths, nearly collided with a senior priest, apologised with great intensity, and then continued on at the same speed, having learned nothing from the experience. One priest stood very firmly in a position that appeared to be incorrect and therefore, by virtue of being occupied with sufficient confidence, became correct. Mathias allowed it. Largely because fighting it would take all day.

There were moments in leadership where correction achieved less than acceptance. Mathias believed firmly in this philosophy. It often became someone else's problem if left this way. When the last of the clergy had gathered, or at least when enough had gathered that the absence of the remainder could be interpreted as intentional, Mathias stepped forward. The murmuring quieted in ripples. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.

Years of practice had taught him that if one spoke as though one expected to be heard, most people would arrange it that way themselves"This place," he began, and did not say brewery, "serves the city." He let that settle.

"It provides for its people. It sustains many homes, families and livelihoods. It preserves order in ways that are often overlooked precisely because they work." A few heads nodded. No one was entirely certain what they were agreeing with, but it sounded correct.

"What serves the people," he continued, "serves the stability of the city. And what serves the stability of the city is not without interest to the gods." This, too, was accepted.

"We do not always understand the manner in which such things come to be," he said, "but that doesn't mean it is our place to judge it." He paused, just long enough for the weight of that sentence to become something one might carry away and repeat later with confidence.

"We are here," he said, "to acknowledge that place and its contribution." He did not say beer. He did not say casks, or fermentation, or the fact that three hundred citizens had left a hall believing that alcohol had been divinely redistributed. He said everything around it.

"I expect your best efforts." That line settled differently. It had the shape of an order. Mathias turned, gave a small nod. The master of ceremonies drew breath. He possessed a voice that had been cultivated for occasions in which subtlety would have been mistaken for failure. It rolled out across the gathered clergy and into the street beyond, deep and resonant, the sort of sound that suggested doors opening in very large places. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The choir began. Not gently or tentatively. Voices layered over one another, some arriving a fraction too early, others a fraction too late, until they found one another and joined into something that filled the air with structure. Attendants moved with grim urgency. Blankets and prayer mats were laid out with great urgency and reverence. Priests stepped into position. They lowered themselves. Most did so in unison. Some did not.

One priest, a half-beat behind the rest, descended with visible determination and a small, unavoidable wince that he converted, with admirable speed, into an expression of profound devotion. No one acknowledged this. The church had many strengths. Mercy toward knees was not one of them. Mathias knelt at the front. The prayer began. It was solemn. It was measured. It had weight. The sort of weight that suggested it had been used before, on larger problems. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the sky adjusted.

Clouds, which had been present a moment before parted with urgency. With a decisiveness that suggested either agreement or a willingness to participate. Sunlight poured down. Only on the brewery. It arrived with the kind of relish and aplomb as people arriving late to a good party. The blessing followed. There are gradations to such things. Small invocations. Household wards. City protections. This was not any of those. This was proving a point. Light gathered, concentrated, and then descended.

The brewery took it as a struck bell takes sound. It answered. The walls brightened. The beams caught and held the glow. The roof shimmered. Windows flared with reflected brilliance. Golden motes lifted from surfaces in such quantity that it became difficult to determine whether they had always been there, waiting, or had been created in the act of blessing. The air itself seemed to thicken with it. It sparkled. It did not merely appear blessed.

It appeared emphatically, unmistakably, and somewhat excessively blessed.

'All things in moderation' was a phrase repeated often in its halls, today it had put moderation on moderation. Inside, Henry nearly dropped a cask.

"What is that?" someone shouted. The light intensified. It did not behave like sunlight. It reached corners that sunlight had never considered. It slid under tables, through gaps, across surfaces that had not been polished with any expectation of divine inspection. Golden flecks drifted through the air, slow and deliberate, entirely unconcerned with drafts or the established behaviour of dust. Hal attempted to brush them aside.

The brush passed through them with the disappointing resistance of something that did not recognise the authority cleanliness.

"Is it the stones?" another asked.

"No," said Hal, too quickly.

"They don't do that."

"Should they be doing that?" someone else asked.

"It's not the stones!" came the reply from Hal. Alric was already moving. He checked the nearest stone flooring, pressing down with his weight as though expecting it to respond. It did not. He moved to the boilers, scanning the stones, the fittings, the seams. Everything was as it had been. Everything was not as it had been.

"It's everywhere," someone said. It was. The glow did not localise. It did not concentrate. It simply existed, uniformly and with quiet insistence, as though the building had decided to become more itself than usual. Alric swore, turned, and headed for the cellar. If this was structural, it would show there. The cellar however was worse. The same light. The same motes. The same sense that something fundamental had occurred and had not bothered to explain itself.

He stood there for a moment, staring at a barrel that had leaked before from the bung during fermentation, the berry wine had taken a distinctive golden sheen. Then he ran back upstairs and out the door. The procession was still there, though it had entered the phase where events ended and explanations became optional. Priests were rising. Attendants were collecting items. The choir had diminished to something that suggested closure rather than continuation.

The street was full of clergy who had just participated in something significant and would shortly need to agree on what it had been. Alric blinked. It took a moment. Then he found the one he had dubbed Throaty. Throaty was watching the dispersal with a satisfied expression, as though he had attended a particularly successful festival.

"What," said Alric, "is happening?" Throaty looked at him, then at the building, then back at him.

"It's blessed," he said. Alric followed his gaze back to the brewery, which at that moment produced a faint, entirely unnecessary glow along all of its walls.

"That's…" he began.

"A very thorough one," Tarrow added.

"I've not seen the temple put that much into even the temple itself."

"You blessed what? The whole…" He said gesturing to all of 'it'"Yes." Alric considered this.

"Why?" Throaty frowned slightly, as though the question required unnecessary effort.

"It makes the city's beer," he said, as though this were explanation enough.

"Tis Important." Alric opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked back at the building, which had not taken this opportunity to become less radiant.

"You should be grateful," Throaty added, helpfully. Around them, the clergy were leaving. Not hurriedly. Not in a way that suggested retreat. But with purpose. Groups formed and moved. Lines dissolved. The careful structure of the event loosened into the practical necessity of departure. Mathias was already in his carriage. He did not look back. The carriage began to move with the quiet efficiency of something that had been waiting for precisely this moment. It did not accelerate.

It did not draw attention to itself. It simply departed. Alric watched it go. It had, he decided, the distinct feel of a man leaving a situation just before it became his responsibility again. A bit like a bandit leaving the scene of a crime and trying to look casual. He turned back. The brewery glowed brightly. Come evening the light had not left. It softened, perhaps. It became less aggressive.

But it remained, clinging to surfaces, drifting through the air, catching in corners, settling into the structure of the place as though it had paid for the privilege. Alric sat outside with a tankard. The back of the brewery was quieter. Less of the light reached here, though enough did to ensure that the building behind him looked like it had become a nightclub with free glowsticks. He drank. Inside, it was too bright to sleep. The door opened.

Henry stepped out, paused, and looked back over his shoulder as though confirming that the glow had not followed him out in full. It had, to an extent. Henry himself was glowing. He was faintly illuminated, as though he had been standing too close to something radioactive and had not entirely shaken it off. Alric held up a tankard. Henry eyed it.

"It's cold," Alric said. Henry accepted immediately. He settled himself on the bench trying to not look at the brewery. Both sipped the beer, trying not to watch the building.

"Any idea how long this lasts?" Henry asked.

"Tarrow reckons about a week," said Alric. Henry nodded once.

"Right," he said, in the tone of a man who had just been informed that his sickness would in fact pass.

"The guards are using it," he added after a moment.

"For what?" Alric asked peering sideways at Henry"Directions." Henry explained "If you go past that glowy building, ya gone too far. Turn right at the glowing building." Alric was impressed by how good his impersonation of a guard was. Alric glanced at the brewery briefly. He merely nodded. A line of light appeared through the doorway coming toward them. It formed cleanly, deliberately, along the ground, a path of soft motes gathering that moved with quiet purpose toward them. Seren followed it.

She did not appear surprised. The path reached them and stopped, as though satisfied. Seren stopped where it had as well.

"And that?" Alric asked pointing to the motes collecting in front of her when she moved.

"Divine path," she said with a sigh.

"Tarrow explained it. It's meant to guide holy warriors through difficult times." she went on, with the tone of someone reciting something she did not entirely approve of. Alric considered this.

"You planning on taking up being a holy warrior?" Alric asked. Henry nearly choked on his beer. Seren gave him a look.

"On the side?" he added. She huffed.

"Only Hal and I have it though, I'm guessing Hal is having a difficult time, the path is trying to guide him to the latrine," she said with a sigh. This got out a burst of laughter from Alric and Henry. Alric couldn't help but note if Seren was making crude jokes, she too was tired.

"Why?" Henry asked trying between laughs. Seren just shrugged. The brewery glowed behind them. The path lingered, then faded. Alric took another sip.

"Want one Seren?"

"After this?" she said gesturing to the glowing building behind her "I might want a few." she said. Henry and Alric made space for her to sit. All of them stared up at the stars, sipping drinks, trying not to look at the brewery. Across the river in the palace, a man stood on his balcony, also having a quiet glass of wine. He couldn't help but stare at the building glowing in the distance.