Chapter 51: The Gray Wheat

If you looked east from the gates of the city at this time of year, you would expect to see nothing but golden wheat as far as the eye could see, but from the back of Hale’s borrowed cart, the only thing Kai could see was gray.

Gray wheat lined both sides of the road they were traveling down, and when the wind passed through it, the wheat didn’t sway the way it was supposed to. Instead, the stalks clattered against each other like dry sticks and sent up little clouds of fine gray dust that drifted across the road behind them.

"I’ve seen blight before," Garrick said from the front of the cart, holding the horse’s reins in one hand and covering his mouth with the other. "My uncle had it once, and it took out half his crops, but it never looked like this."

"What did it look like?" Mira asked.

"It looked brown," Garrick said. "Wheat’s supposed to turn brown when it rots. This is something different."

They had left Celestine behind at Hale’s house with the old judge and four of the King’s guards. She wasn’t strong enough to bounce along on a cart for two hours, and nobody wanted to find out what Liora would do if she learned her mother was out in the open. The rest of them had piled into the cart, with Sunny and Elowen sitting across from Kai and Mira, while Princess Seris perched on a sack of oats with her notebook open in her lap.

[Kai, I do not like these fields. They feel empty]

"Empty how?" Kai whispered.

[The same way the cave felt when we first arrived, before the bells were rung, and the way the tower felt before the sisters began to sing. As if something is supposed to be here, and it is not]

The Temple of the Harvest Lord turned out to be a barn, and it was the biggest barn Kai had ever seen in his life, built out of thick dark timber with a roof that curved up at the ends almost like the brim of a hat. A large wooden statue of a man stood beside its doors, with broad shoulders and a big beard that looked like a haystack, holding a sickle in one hand and a bundle of wheat in the other. It must have been painted gold at one point, because Kai could still see a few flecks of gold paint clinging to the bundle of wheat in his hand.

A huge beam had been laid across the barn doors to bar them shut, and in front of the barn stood at least thirty farmers, every one of them holding a pitchfork, except for one man near the back who was holding a very angry-looking goose.

"That’s a lot of pitchforks," Kai said.

"I count thirty-one," Princess Seris said, writing it down. "And one goose."

An old man stepped out of the crowd as the cart pulled up to the barn. He was short and wiry, with sunbaked skin and huge hands that looked like they were made out of knots, and he was holding a pitchfork that looked like it had been used for a lot more than forking hay.

"You can stop right there," the old man said. "We know who you are, and we know what you are."

"I’m Kai," Kai said, climbing down off the cart and holding his hands up in the air. "I’m the God of Failure. Not the best introduction, I know."

"That’s about what we figured," the old man said. "My name’s Hollis. I’ve been the elder of this church for thirty years, and I’ve never seen crops like this in my life. You know what the Radiant Church is offering us?"

"A hundred carts of grain," Kai said.

"A hundred carts of grain," Hollis said, and his voice cracked a little. "You know how many children live on these farms? I do, because I’ve counted them every night for the past month. Those kids won’t make it to spring if we don’t get that grain." He pointed his pitchfork straight at Kai’s chest. "So what do you have to offer us, God of Failure?"

Kai opened his mouth, and every instinct from his old life told him exactly what to say. He could offer them anything they wanted, and they would take it, because when people are starving, they take whatever they can get.

Then he felt Elowen standing behind him, and he closed his mouth again.

"I don’t know," Kai finally said. "I can’t offer you grain, because I don’t have any. I can’t offer you rain, because I can’t make it. Honestly, I don’t know what I can offer you at all."

Hollis stared at him, and the farmers behind him began muttering to each other, and the goose hissed at him.

"That’s it?" Hollis asked. "You rode all this way to tell me you’ve got nothing to offer us?"

"I rode all this way because a lot of other churches had nothing to offer either," Kai said. "Until we found out why."

Hollis lowered his pitchfork a little bit, and Kai decided to take that as permission to keep talking.

"When did your wheat start turning gray?" Kai asked.

"About a month ago, I’d say," Hollis said. "Right after the canals were blessed."

Kai felt every hair on the back of his neck stand up, and behind him, he heard Mira gasp.

"Who blessed the canals?" Kai asked slowly.

"The Radiant Church, of course," Hollis said, frowning at him. "They always send a priest out to bless the water that goes into our fields. The priest came a little late this year, but he came, and he blessed our water just like always."

[Kai, they blessed the water in Millbrook too. Do you remember?]

"Every time the Radiant Church blesses water," Kai said, "something bad happens to the people who use it."

Hollis looked at him like he was crazy, and Kai didn’t blame him one bit, so he turned around and walked over to the closest field. A narrow stone canal ran along its edge, filled with slow brown water that trickled out into a dozen little ditches between the rows of gray wheat.

Elowen followed him without being asked and knelt down beside the canal, and she tilted her blindfolded face towards the water and stayed there for a long time without saying a word.

"There is light in the water," Elowen finally said. "It is gold and very faint, just like the light I saw inside the bells and on the false clappers. It is a Radiant blessing."

"Blessings are supposed to help crops grow," Mira said, kneeling down beside her.

"This one does not," Elowen said. "It is not growing anything. It is consuming it."

Kai looked down at the brown water flowing past his feet, and he thought about the bells in the sea cave, the moon hymn hidden under plaster, and the empty urn. Every god in Veyrath had been silenced by some kind of Radiant blessing, so that no one would ever think to question why.

"We need to show him," Kai said. "He’s not going to believe a blind woman with a sword and a guy who can’t hit anything he aims at."

[Then do what you do best]

"Miss?" Kai whispered.

[Yes. You are very good at it]

Kai pointed his finger at the closest stalk of gray wheat, thought about green fields and children eating full meals, and said the words out loud.

"Minor Blessing," Kai said.

The small ball of golden light shot out of his finger towards the wheat, but at the last second, it swerved away and dove into the canal with a soft splash.

For one second, nothing happened at all, and then the water began to hiss and bubble, and steam started rising off of it, as if someone had dropped a hot coal into the canal. A thick gray sludge floated up to the surface, glowing a faint, sickly gold, and everywhere Kai’s blessing touched it, the sludge shriveled up and died like burning paper.

All of the farmers had followed them over to the field, and none of them were saying a word.

"What is that?" Hollis asked quietly.

"That’s what’s in your water," Kai said. "Elowen says it’s a blessing, but it’s eating your crops instead of helping them grow. My blessing missed the wheat because it went looking for that instead."

Hollis knelt down beside the canal and scooped some of the gray sludge out of the water with his big, knotted hands. He stared at it for a long time while it hissed and shriveled in his palm, and then he looked out at the fields of gray wheat stretching all the way to the horizon.

"They poisoned our crops," Hollis said quietly. "And then they tried to sell us the grain to fix it."

"Yep," Kai said quietly. "That’s usually how it goes."

Hollis didn’t say anything for a long time, and when he finally stood back up, his face looked like the face of a man who was about to give up.

"Knowing doesn’t help our crops," Hollis said. "We’ve got three weeks until harvest, and every field from here to the river is already gray. There’s nothing anybody can do about it now."

Kai looked out at the endless gray fields, and his stomach dropped, because he knew Hollis was right.

[Kai, you need to see this]

The little golden window appeared in front of Kai, glowing faintly in the dusty air, with a single new skill written across it.

[Lesser Bounty (20 points): Allows you to restore crops that have been poisoned or blighted. You currently have 4 divinity points.]

"Twenty points," Kai whispered. "Of course it’s twenty."

[Yes. But you have hundreds of followers now, and thirty-one farmers who are watching you very closely. If they believe in you, the points will come]

Kai looked up at the thirty-one farmers standing along the edge of the canal, every one of them staring at him with tired, hopeless eyes, and then at the goose, which was staring at him too.

"Okay," Kai said slowly. "I think I might have an idea."