Chapter 299: The New Order

Kellar looked at the staff.

It was rather small. It fit in one hand without effort and weighed less than it appeared.

I suppose it suits a maiden’s hand... thought Kellar.

[Staff of the Bear God - Unique Object]

[Staff blessed by the Bear God. Amplifies divine power to work miracles. Uses divinity points to grant the wishes of the faithful]

Kellar stopped on the last line.

"Divinity points?" asked Kellar.

At the edge of the interface a new tab appeared, in small, cramped letters.

[RELIGION]

Kellar opened it.

Ten empty slots, in two rows, each with a (+) sign at its center. At the top, a counter.

Divinity Points

[1,436]

And then, one second later, the number changed.

[1,486]

[1,552]

Kellar watched it climb. Not by little. By fifty, by sixty, by leaps that grew larger each time.

"How do you calculate divinity points?" asked Kellar to the system.

[Divinity points are the sum of the faith of all the faithful who believe in the Bear God. The more faith, the more strength. And the more numerous the faithful, the faster the points will increase]

Kellar read it twice.

Faith was not an ornament. It was fuel. And the whole valley, in that moment, with the new statues and the golden pillar still burning in the air, was believing as it had never believed before.

"Fifteen hundred and climbing," said Kellar quietly. "In a simple valley."

He raised his eyes.

Ophelia was on her knees in the mud, head low and hands open on her thighs. She had not moved since the pillar. Her shoulders shook.

"I have received the mandate of the Bear God," said Ophelia, and her voice came out hoarse but firm. "His will shall be sent to every corner of the earth."

Kellar looked at her a while.

"Take it," said Kellar, and put the staff in her hands.

Ophelia closed her fingers on it without rising.

"This is your staff and your seal," said Kellar. "Keep it near you at all times. It will let you loose the blessings of the Bear God."

The girl pressed the staff to her breast and folded over it.

Kellar went back to the interface.

The ten empty slots were still there, each awaiting a blessing. He did not know what to put. He did not know whether what he put could be changed later.

This has to be thought through carefully... thought Kellar.

He closed the menu and laced his hands behind his back.

"Ophelia," said Kellar. "What kind of miracles do you think people will want?"

Ophelia raised her face.

"My lord, I feel that what people need most is health," said she. "We can work blessings that cure sickness. That raise food. Money."

Kellar nodded slowly, eyes on the staff she pressed to her breast.

"Follow me," said Kellar. "It seems we will not sleep tonight. I want to begin tomorrow, so we are going to wake Mentz. I was planning something with him and I want you to see it."

They set off. Grok, who had heard the name, was already signalling the guards on duty to fetch him.

Kellar climbed the valley’s edge to the eastern rise.

It was no lookout. It was a low, bare rise with three flat stones and a fallen trunk a man could sit on, and from there the whole village could be seen at once. The roofs, the well, the workshops, the pen, the wall. Kellar used it when he had to think about something he could not think about in the square, among people who watched him.

He sat on the trunk. Ophelia stood at his side, staff in both hands.

Mentz came running down the slope, still wiping the sleep from his eyes, shirt on inside out.

"Great Shaman! Great Shaman!" he shouted, and stopped dead. "You called me? Is there an emergency? Are we being invaded?"

Kellar could not help letting out a laugh.

And it cut off quickly, because Mentz’s state was the tribe’s state. Since he had taken command it had been battle after battle, enemy after enemy, without a single breath. The whole valley lived in psychosis. Kellar was certain that if the war horn sounded at that moment, the entire village would rise with weapons in hand and hurl itself at an invisible enemy.

And that served to defend. It did not serve to live.

"Sit down, Mentz," said Kellar.

Mentz sat on one of the flat stones and straightened his shirt.

"There is no invasion," said Kellar. "There is work."

Mentz straightened on the stone.

"What is happening, Great Shaman?" asked Mentz. "I am at your service."

"Tell Ophelia what we have been planning for the village," said Kellar.

"Yes, Great Shaman," said Mentz, and turned to her. "Lady Ophelia, what we have been working on is this."

Kellar leaned back against the trunk and let them talk.

Mentz explained it with his hands, the way he explained everything. Gold was the continent’s currency, that much they already knew, and every realm struck its own and stamped it with its seal. For that very reason the village had nothing. The tribe handed out food by the armful and charged not a copper, so there was no way to tell who worked and who let himself be kept.

The plan was to strike their own coin. Three denominations: bronze, silver, and gold. Each worth a hundred of the one below. A hundred bronze coins were one silver. A hundred silver were one gold.

And the free food ended. Everyone would draw a wage for what he did. Wages were reckoned on three factors: physical effort, danger, and usefulness.

There Mentz scratched the back of his neck.

"I recommended to the Great Shaman that effort should weigh more than danger," said Mentz. "But he thinks otherwise."

"I think danger has to be paid above effort," said Kellar. "We are in a valley full of things that kill. If I pay the man hauling stone the same as the man walking into the ash valley, the stone hauler rests easy and the other one dies for two coppers."

Mentz nodded, uneasy.

"On the Great Shaman’s road," Mentz went on, "the best paid would be the scouts of unknown land. Then the extermination corps for unexplored zones. Then the suppression corps. Then the extraction corps, with the gathering teams in the dangerous zones. The ash valley, the red forest, the depths of the lizard forest."

Ophelia raised her hand.

"I do not know those places," said she. "Can you tell me what they are like so that I may see them?"

"See them?" asked Mentz.

Kellar leaned forward.

"She can see everything inside my territory," said Kellar. "The Bear God blessed her. I forgot to introduce you. She is the new saint of the Bear God, and her authority will stand only below mine."

Mentz’s mouth hung open a long second.

Then he knelt so fast he cracked his knee on the stone.