The air was heavy with moisture; a bank of fog had rolled into the river valley well before sunrise and was permeating every crevice of Eskemar. It would be a few hours before the sun dissipated the dampness, which settled over everything and sullenly clung to any exposed surface. The cobblestones were slick, and the pennons habitually hoisted aloft at the city’s gates were sodden and limp. Every protruding edge was dripping and the gutters in the streets were half full of the condensation that had already run off.

  Merril was attired in his lightest silken robe in preparation for the steamy warmth that was sure to follow. His calfskin boots had been exchanged for sandals, which he would appreciate later. Right now, though, he was not enjoying the clamminess of his exposed feet.

  The priests of Qua’ Sorinth would rejoice this day, he knew, seeing in the pervasive moisture evidence of the divine favor of their watery deity. They would doubtless hold a feast tonight in their small temple to celebrate, although Merril privately suspected that this practice was merely to dispose of food stores that they already possessed before mold and rot would consume their perishables for them. Admittedly, it was convenient when ritual dovetailed with expediency; that certainly wasn’t always the case.

  From long experience, Merril knew the city would remain muggy and unpleasant for the rest of the day – and possibly a few days afterward. Best perhaps to go down by the docks then, outside the confines of the city walls. Perhaps the wisp of a cooling breeze would come off the river.

  It was an exhilarating bit of freedom – this untrammeled choice to select his path through the city, which offered a significant contrast to, and respite from, his daily routine. Therefore, he relished it in an almost unseemly manner. But, as he had stated on numerous occasions, he went where he was called, and this explanation always seemed to suffice for his fellow clerics. Besides, he reasoned, leadership did occasionally have its perks.

  Today was going to be unusual. He could sense it. Principally this was because he had decided that Farl should accompany him on his urban rounds. The lad chafed at the restrictions of temple life, so why not take him out and about as he took in the state of the city? Besides, he warranted a bit more oversight. Perhaps he was ready for more exposure to the world. And perhaps the world was ready for more exposure to him…

  Farl walked beside him; Merril had told him to suspend the customary practice of dutifully following behind the high priest, and this had served to brighten his spirits even more. He looked at everything about him with interest, unaffected by the unpleasant weather.

  Merril’s silver-shod crozier tapped out a steady rhythm as they processed. He brought it along as a badge that tacitly announced his position, for it helped to part the crowds they might encounter. It also generally benefited him in social encounters, aiding by way of silent proclamation of his station. Even the most surly ruffian was loathe to cross a high priest of one of the city’s gods.

  As if he was sensing Merril’s train of thought Farl spoke up, “Father, how many temples are there in Eskemar?”

  “Enough,” grunted Merril. Then, he softened a bit, not wishing to come off as gruff. “Enough to serve the needs of the people.”

  “Any more would probably be too many. You must always be conscious that temples only survive and thrive by living off the offerings of worshippers and gifts and bequests from the wealthy. Temples must never become rapacious, or so numerous that their needs impose too great a burden on the populace. You must tread gently on the lives of those you shepherd.”

  It was an important lesson, and one that Merril wished he could communicate to the other cults in a way that would be received and heeded. He had seen more than one priest in his day fall prey to greed and turn away from his sacred purpose.

  As he spoke, he turned into a narrow lane that lead to the Quarter of the Trades, where lived and worked inhabitants of Eskemar who were neither merchants nor craftsmen, and hence lacked the gold or guild memberships that provided a measure of influence and protection. There were laundries, bakeries, butcher shops, and tailors and tinkers, cobblers and potters, all eking out an existence only a bit less precarious than the itinerants who swelled the city’s ranks during the day looking for employment at whatever they could find. They all occupied narrow three-story houses where they plied their trades, with street-level awnings already propped open in front of decent-sized windows that aided in displaying their wares or services. Sometimes the window sills even served as counters, where purchases could be made without anyone entering or leaving. The workers and their families lived in the stories above that jettied out over the stone-paved streets, not a few leaning drunkenly this way or that, unless shored up by a stouter neighbor. Merril made certain to stay beneath the shelter of the projecting floors if he could – lest he be needlessly exposed to the splash of an emptied chamber pot or rubbish pail. The plumbing in this part of the city was more rudimentary than elsewhere. Doubtless, the City was waiting for the next serious fire to level a block or two to facilitate the installation of a piping system.

  They had walked only a few blocks where he began to see them: one partly in an alley, legs protruding into the street, the next building over a pair propped up against a shuttered storefront not yet open for business, and towards the end of the block another slumped over in a recessed doorway - derelicts, shabby, unkempt, thin and wan. Humanity adrift, flotsam and jetsam flirting with most dire extremity.

  Concerned, Merril decided to investigate further, for he was trained to not only discern suffering but had resolved not to ignore it.

  They all looked like they had been stricken with the same malady. Was this the beginning of an epidemic?

  Beckoning Farl to follow but keep his distance, Merril approached the drooping figure in the doorway to assess his condition.

  Noticing his approach at the last moment, the man peered up at him with glazed eyes. “Can you spare a copper or two?” he said plaintively, extending a hand with palsied fingers. All Merril’s experience informed him that he looked sick. Certainly, he seemed in need of care. His appearance indicated that he couldn’t last another week in this state.

  He laid his hands upon man’s bedraggled head. Merril summoned the resolve to cast a cure disease spell upon the man. Eyes shut, his temples throbbed in that familiar way as he sensed the divine power enter him and he mentally formed the proper framework in his mind to channel that power into the sunken form before him.

  There was the briefest of flares as his hands flickered with golden light and a slight hum, but almost before this could register on passersby it was truncated. Merril opened his eyes, surprised that the spell had been cut short as if a candle had been snuffed out by a gust of wind. The man appeared the same as before. Then a disturbing thought came to him.

  The spell did not take effect because the man wasn’t sick.

  But then what was the cause? The sorry lot arrayed before him did not appear to be inebriates, hungover from a night’s drunken escapades.

  Merril pursed his lips and frowned. Feeling the need to directly get at the truth of the matter, he promptly decided to cast a quick charm person spell, even though this was generally against his principles – and considered an abuse of power by the local constabulary. And after looking about to confirm that no one seemed to be watching, he did so.

  It was a simple matter to subsume the man’s will and gain his complete compliance. In a few moments he had gained the immediate particulars of what he needed to know, and he was thoroughly appalled. As a curious but patient Farl stood watch, Merril reached down and rifled through the pockets of the man’s threadbare coat, finally retrieving a folded wad of wax paper. He carefully unwrapped it, and its contents were revealed to be a few small crystalline nuggets, murky and red, like garnets the sort of which would be set into the brooch of a merchant’s wife. He gave them a brief sniff, then folded them back up and placed them in his own pocket, placing a couple of coins in the indigent’s hands in exchange.

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  “Father, you are taking this man’s possessions?” Farl questioned, his voice filled with alarm and astonishment.

  “I would fain send this substance to a friend of mine so he can perform some tests on it. Besides, I suspect this particular possession will only bring him further harm, so it is better we deprive him of it. Although he won’t see it that way – count on that! Which is why we must hasten from the vicinity, my lad, ‘ere his psyche reasserts itself. Come along!” And before they left, he looked into the indigent’s eyes and said simply, “Remain.”

  After several more blocks of brisk walking, they went through the open gates that lead to the strip of riverbank bordering the Esk River, with its wharves and piers. Merril selected the longest of the latter and headed for it. He slackened his pace, reducing it to an amble so they could take in the more expansive scene.

  Every day unruly throngs sought entrance to the city by land, while dozens of barges and galleys laden with all manner of cargo came to the city by river.

  The docks of course were already bustling, the longshoremen always up before dawn during the warm months and prudently attempting to accomplish the most strenuous work before the sun reached its zenith, river traffic permitting. As they watched, an especially wide barge – Teranthen by the look of her - ponderously sidled up to one of the piers that dog-legged from the shore. She sat low in the brown water which slapped up against her tarred flanks, heavily laden with cargo. A dozen sailors equipped with hooked poles strained to guide her into place, their harsh curses mingling with the cries of the circling gulls.

  Here there were freshly harvested bushels of barley and maize from fertile fields a few days’ journey north. From farther north than that came luxuriant furs of the lynx, ermine, badger, and elusive peryton. Large wheels of hard cheese hailed from the highland farms of Kh’ lennore. Baskets of eggs from Braddock’s Cairn. Milled timber planks and stacks of shingles from the forests of the northwest. Ingots of tin, copper, and iron from the hills of the northeast. Glazed pottery and stoneware from the east. Piles of tanned hides from the west.

  Just as the vast watershed upriver drained towards Eskemar so did all the goods produced by the people that lived there. And the captain of every boat and barge sailing the river had no choice but to stop at Eskemar and unload a significant portion of his cargo for a minimum of two market days, giving her citizens first crack at the buying, ensuring the city would never go without. Or at least, everyone else downriver would go without first.

  Oak barrels were lashed with thick ropes and hoisted aloft via windlasses manned by grunting men pulling in unison. Wagon wheels were rolled down gangplanks, wheelbarrows toted valuables of every description and some beyond description. With amusement Merril watched Farl’s reactions out of the corner of his eye, also keeping alert that the lad didn’t trip or blunder into the profusion of foodstuffs, implements, and laboring men, who would not appreciate any disruptions from intruding gawkers.

  Using a towering pivoting davit crane mounted on the aft deck of the largest ship, several longshoremen were pulling on a rope connected to a net that held long bundles of wrought iron rods, no doubt bound for the workshops of the street of the ironmongers. As it left the deck and climbed into the air, beginning its rotating trajectory, a dory containing four men, two of them rowing, began to navigate just behind the ship’s stern to approach the end of the dock. Just as the small vessel passed underneath the weighty load as it swung towards the pier the air was punctuated by a loud “snap”, and several things occurred in quick succession.

  There was a crash as the net with its heavy contents hurtled down and smashed clean through the dory, shearing it into two separate pieces, which sank immediately. There was a gasp and a scream that was choked off as the men in the boat were suddenly cast into the water. Two of them had disappeared from view altogether beneath the falling mass of metal.

  The men, who a mere instant before had been hauling this freight stood dumbfounded for a long moment, while the now loose end of the rope purposelessly flailed about in the air.

  Leaving a stunned Farl behind him, Merril shouldered his way through the growing crowd of people flocking to the dock for a view of the calamity, resorting to outright shoving in a desperate effort to get to the fore and obtain a clear line of sight.

  Once he had reached the edge, he did not hesitate. He dispensed with his crozier, which clattered on the weather-beaten boards of the pier. He extended his arms rigidly outward and brought his hands together with a clap.

  “Part water,” he intoned firmly. And keeping his arms straight, he slowly and deliberately moved them apart from each other as he rotated his wrists so that his palms faced away from each other.

  A sucking sound rent the air.

  The surface of the water clove asunder.

  A gap the width of several paces had opened up in the river, all the way down its bottom, and the sides were defined by walls of shivering murky water, that caught the sunlight here and there and sparkled with a radiance that matched that of the magic that had been dispensed over the area of effect. The faces of the stunned onlookers were dashed with spray, and waves radiated outward, the force of the shifted mass of liquid causing forceful ripples that propagated away in all possible directions, rocking any vessels they encountered. The agitated surface of the river churned, but the magic held.

  Below them, about three fathoms down lay a chaotic mess. Shattered remnants of the boat, netting, iron, assorted refuse, and the four men could be seen. Two of them were sputtering and already struggling to climb to their feet, wresting their limbs free of slimy black silt. Quick-thinking observers were already lowering ropes down so the men could be retrieved.

  But the other two men lay in the muck of the riverbed. Neither moved. One was coated in red, a wash of diluted blood coming from a nasty gash near the top of his head. The other lay face down. It was difficult to tell which one had worse prospects.

  Merril grabbed a ladder that was already being handed forward by several able dockworkers and swung it over the side, taking only the briefest moment to plant it in the ooze below. The water would remain parted for perhaps ten minutes. He clambered down it, followed by an agitated Farl who had managed to catch up to him.

  A moment later he was examining the bodies for signs of life. He rolled the one over onto his back so he could check for evidence of respiration. There was none. Then he looked over the crimson-stained man. He sighed. He noticed Farl standing over him, his now soiled robe plastered against his legs.

  “Nothing to be done for them,” Merril stated sadly. “They are no more. This is a day that is trying to the faith, Farl.”

  “But they were just alive moments ago - surely it is not too late!”

  “There are limits to what aid we can offer, as you well know. Now come – help me loop this rope under his arms here…”

  “Won’t you at least try, Father? They don’t deserve this! We can try!” He knelt between the stricken figures.

  Merril’s composure was wearing thin. “Farl, enough! We don’t have that much time before the waters close in upon us. We need to move these bodies so at least their loved ones can properly conduct funeral rites.”

  But Farl did not appear to be listening. His head was bowed, obscuring his face, and he had his arms out, a hand on the chest of each corpse. Merril was about to sharply reprimand him, when he felt, deep in his bones, the marshaling of great holy power. This astonished him, as he had nothing to do with introducing its presence. Despite the urgent need for haste, he stared at his acolyte.

  The sacred puissance swelled, siphoned from unimaginably vast and remote reservoirs of pure energy. A wordless chorus filled the air, celestial voices striking a poignant chord. A piercing shaft of golden light from the heavens enveloped them. For an instant, Merril could not see.

  The light coalesced around the two bodies and they briefly shone white-hot.

  Merril felt dizzy. The exposure to such power was almost too much to endure. Reeling, he plunged his hands down into the muck to steady himself. As the light faded he saw Farl collapse.

  For a moment there was nothing but stillness. Then, the two bodies that had been bereft of life stirred. They opened their eyes. And first one, and then the other sat up.

  The people crowded on the dock and the sailors watching from the ships were awestruck and fell to their knees en masse. Some cried out, others began to utter fervent prayers, most just stared with wide eyes.

  Merril was just as astonished as any of them – though because of his knowledge rather than their ignorance of the act. Resurrection – raising the dead – was something that was theoretically possible without the possession of a holy relic of great power, but only if very specific conditions were met. The body had to be entirely whole, with intact organs and a sufficient amount of blood. The death had to be very recent. The recipient of this greatest of gifts had to be worthy, typically either of long service to the faith or believed to be an instrument, however unwitting, of the deities’ will.

  This was entirely unprecedented.

  Merril had only successfully accomplished a single resurrection during his entire tenure as a priest. And it had been a prolonged, exhausting process that had left him on the brink of collapse. And here a neophyte with incomplete training, no preparation, and limited understanding of the faith had raised not just one, but TWO men from the dead.

  The remainder of the day was a complete haze of stupefaction, and Merril could recall little of it later, which was a novel experience for him. Somehow they extricated themselves from the riverbed, the confused, alive-again men asking questions that could not entirely be answered, the onlookers reaching out to touch Farl and bow to him as they passed. Finally, Merril managed to shepherd Farl through the throng and eventually made it back to the temple, where he bid the acolyte conduct his mid-day prayers and then discharge his customary lowly duties, while Merril sat, stunned, in silence with the confused temple mother.

  There were many worshippers at the temple the next day. And many more the day after that. And the sense of wonder grew in the breast of High Priest Merril as he pondered the import of it all.