The God Reborn

Chapter 6

Fabian moved with Octavia to the front of the column to get a report from the vanguard. As he marched quickly up the line of troops, nodding back to his men as they interrupted their songs to raise their weapons to the closely cropped hair of their temples in salute, he couldn't help but thinking about the strangeness of his task to exile the girl.

"Years ago, I was injured while guarding the farmlands," he said to Octavia. "While I was recovering I served for almost a year as a marshal, solving crimes committed by Acolytes."

Octavia's features took on a look of disgust. "The very idea that marshals are needed is sickening, sir. How can acolytes commit crimes against their brethren, against the city, or even against lord Vinicius himself?"

Fabian nodded. Initially, he'd had the same reaction, though after several months he'd become inured to the fact that greed and jealousy could drive men against each other. But that was not the point he wanted to discuss with Octavia. "To my relief, there were few crimes. So I had a lot of spare time."

"What did you do?" she asked. "Pray? Spend time with your family?"

"I wasn't married to Peloma yet. So no, I spent time studying Sanctuary's penal codes and court records. The penal code was simple enough and the court records few enough – at least those not illegible from age – that I became quite an expert."

"Are you about to tell me I've committed some crime, sir?"

Fabian couldn't help smiling at Octavia's dutifulness. "I doubt that's possible, Octavia. No, I was recalling how the exile of the godslayer is the worst punishment in the entire penal code."

Octavia nodded. "Surely you didn't have to spend months studying the penal code to learn this, sir. Any child knows that the soul of an executed criminal can eventually be redeemed and allowed to live in the ether with lord Vinicius. But our lord turns his face away from an exile. They are stripped of the god's protection and left to wander the wilds for eternity."

"Yes. But our task of escorting the exile has reminded me of something that struck me as strange. In all of Sanctuary's records going back hundreds of years, there was only ever one acolyte exiled every decade, always coinciding exactly with the benevolent provider's rebirth ceremony."

Octavia looked at him with a blank expression.

He continued, "During the intervening ten years, no criminal was ever punished with exile, even if his crime was much more heinous than the crimes committed by some exiles. Only the accident of timing separates eventual forgiveness from eternal damnation."

Octavia frowned. Fabian could see his meandering thoughts were making her uneasy. "The wisdom of lord Vinicius in matters of justice is beyond our comprehension, sir."

He persisted with his line of reasoning. "Of course. But bear with me. It seems like an exile is necessary for the rebirth ceremony. But what if there was no one deserving exile at the time of a rebirth? Would the marshals and the intermediaries have to fabricate a crime to justify exiling an acolyte? Or would lord Vinicius have to delay his own rebirth? Is our god's ability to protect us for eternity dependent on our sins?"

"That cannot be," Octavia said emphatically. "There is no need to fabricate a crime. The rebirth could happen without the exile. The benevolent provider's eternal power isn't dependent on exiling an acolyte. How could it be?"

"Aye, it can't be," agreed Fabian. He could believe that lord Vinicius had grown weary of the daily cares of Sanctuary. He could believe that the god had overlooked Julius' corruption. But he could never believe that the benevolent provider was a malevolent parasite feeding upon his acolytes.