Chapter 17

So now I was going to be more useless with a dull knife. My party members and even the damn opposition was going to be more useless with their own edged or stabbing weapons. More awesome was that it’s a damned cursed item that I supposedly can’t get rid of.

The taxi swerved in and out of lanes with a startlingly unhealthy disregard for the lives of those around him and while I was alarmed, Mace just looked bored. I guess he’d seen French drivers before. After another 40 or so minutes of scaring other drivers and pedestrians, we arrived at a bus terminal and surreptitiously hopped a town bus; each paying the fare in cash separately and separated by a few other passengers. I sat alone as we slowly trundled alone through the suburbs of Paris. They looked like any other suburban area, albeit with fewer cars in the small driveways.

Ten or so stops later, and I caught him gesturing out the door so I stood and walked off the bus.

Alone.

Mace’s inventory disappeared from view of my Skill and I had the sudden realization that I was all alone and basically broke, in a foreign country where I spoke barely any of the language. If Mace abandoned me here I was fucked. The Gold Key in my inventory gave me some comfort though, they’d gone through all this shit just to get it. As long as I had it; I was too valuable to just be cut loose.

Hopefully.

I realized he could track me somehow and I shouldn’t have worried, so I walked in the same direction the bus had pulled off in; feeling somehow it was the appropriate thing to do. A couple hundred meters down the road, an old stone church stood with one door propped open and I decided to shelter in there. The atmosphere suddenly felt heavy, like a storm was about to break.

Europe is covered in these old things. Heavy thick stone walls with slate or tile roofs over giant oak beams. Sometimes they took over a hundred years to slowly build. Most are still standing, their decorative wood work and stained glass windows withstanding the centuries of wear and tear while being basically ignored by the majority of passersby these days.

If it was back at home, this’d be a major tourist spot.

I dropped the change from my pocket into the offering box and took a seat. I giggled a bit when it occurred to me that this was the second time I’d been in church today. Over the past year I hadn’t even gone that many times.

My eyes were closed and I was just glancing at the crazy new contents of my inventory when another Weapon popped onto my Skill screen and into my awareness. A quick glance showed me it wasn’t Mace.

Opening my eyes, I saw a young priest making his way over to me. He stopped and offered what I recognized as a greeting in French.

“Je regrette, je ne parle francais.” I’m sorry, I don’t speak French. I responded.

“Are you American?” He asked, with very little accent.

“No,” I laughed. “Further North!”

He smiled “I went to school in Montreal”

“Beautiful city, Divinity studies?” I asked, just to carry the conversation on. My Bio-mom had left us all to ‘find herself’ when I was almost a teen, she’d ended up at divinity school before becoming a minister.

“Structural Engineering actually. It eventually drew me to old cathedrals, and the quiet voice took it from there” he smiled ruefully and sat down beside me.

“The quiet voice?” I asked, grateful for something to grasp onto to hold the conversation aloft. I needed time for Mace to get here.

“The loud voices drown it out for a long time, but once you get tired of listening to their overbearing demands, many actually go looking for it. Some even find it.” He was silent at this, maybe listening to his quiet voices.

“What were the loud voices?” I asked after a while of sitting silently.

“Money, Women, Social standing, a sculpted body, jewellery, cars, recognition of my peers...” he trailed off and I got the impression that he could have gone on and on.

“And what was the quiet voice?” I asked, oddly quiet myself since he’d just listed off most of the things that my friends and had striven for, for most of our lives.

He looked me over for a while. “If you listen, you might just find out”. There was a long pause “A man needs a purpose, one that is rarely fulfilled by just listening to the loud voices.”

We sat quiet together, normally a quip like that from anyone else might have prompted a barb of my own, but despite the sting I felt at his words, I got the impression he was being honest.

“Did the quiet voice give you the weapon?” I finally asked. I was coming around to the idea of what his Small voice was.

He flashed a tower shield and a small sword. It looked Roman. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I suppose it’s possible.” He spoke quietly. “I’m not a fighter, in my youth perhaps but not now, not anymore.”

I noticed that he didn’t ask how I knew he had a weapon “Perhaps your purpose is to defend? Earlier today I sheltered two of us behind my own shield when we were threatened. Maybe you were given a weapon and shield to protect others?” I asked, feeling a bit philosophical today. I guess getting shot at will do that to you.

This produced more silence, the two of us staring up at the Christ on the cross. A picture on the right had an image of a Roman centurion with a sword, spear and a shield like the one I’d just seen. “Who is that guy? The one with the spear and shield...” I pointed off toward the life-sized picture that was probably older than my country.

“He is called ‘Longinus’ though the book does not name him directly when he stabs Jesus during the crucification. His spear is referred to with reverence. The story goes that the body of Christ poured both water and blood from the wound.” The priest looked with distaste at the image. “His story actually goes on from there, and he is referred to here and there in the scriptures. He was eventually canonized and is considered a Saint.”