Lee Swords Fishing

Chapter

The State Church

 

 

Kai Ang V’Shoor strolled lazily through the almost completed Cathedral of Dvorganna Fjall, He was amazed by the swift progress his builders had made on such an intricate project as this. The Empire insists that every kingdom has means by which its people can connect with the Gods, both old and new. The Empire also states that no one God should have sole access to the congregation and that being the case these so called “State Churches” are non denominational and intrareligious places that are open to all that have Faith in something higher. 

 

Kai generally didn’t hold much with the old Gods, or the new Gods if truth be told, neither variety had saved his family from rape, torture and eventual murder and neither variety had ever appeared in his tormented dreams to try as  best they might to explain the reasoning behind the insanity of life and take away his troubles so that he may sleep peacefully without the aid of either strong wine or medicinal herb.

No, when all is said and done Kingfisher did not hold with these new fangled churches but the choice was not his to make, The Empire insists that he should have one regardless of opinion and so he shall build the very best of them.  Kingfisher’s religious education as a boy had involved little more than the placing of several virgins within an open square of stone monoliths, the killing of a goat under a full moon and the de-flowering of the previously mentioned but soon not to be virgins whist wearing the goats head like an ill fitting hat.

It was “Old School” but it worked for him, however he knew that he had to move with the times. A quick prancing widdershins around the stones seven times with a girl that was pretending that she had never seen a cock before, when in fact she had seen more action than a second hand War Axe wouldn’t satisfy today’s Gods in the least.

These new modern Gods weren’t overly impressed with a bit of goat’s head helmet and the liberal application of what could only be described as slap and tickle on the edge of some chilly barley field at three bells in the morning anymore. Nope they wanted stained glass windows twelve feet tall and stone columns a full arm span in width.

Only last week the neighbouring Kingdom of Thrall had been shown the Wrath of the Gods for not providing a suitable place of worship for its people. That Kingdom had been devout followers of The Mighty Ming, The God of the Under Pit but that didn’t save them from falling victim to a virulent pestilence that caused the sufferers to actually “toilet” themselves to death!

Rumour has it however that visiting clerics from the Empire did not approve of the Church of Ming and so they set one of the new Gods a task of “bringing in” the flock and focussing their faith correctly and at an Imperially Approved Holy Being. Today’s priests and clerics do not solely deal in Faith they also deal in Gold and the Mighty Ming did not generate sufficient funds for the Imperial coffers.

 

Anyway less of the economics of religion and back to the point in hand which is the use of Gods as “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, It could be argued that the people of Thrall had played a part in their own decimation through their blind observance of several dubious hygiene practices on religious grounds. Indeed these may have played a part in their sudden drop in population especially the part where they wiped their backsides with their hands, which is as anyone with half a brain knows not a great idea, especially in this day and age with three ply air blown pink toilet tissue available to all and sundry at very low costs indeed.

Unfortunately people can be quite gullible when it comes to Gods and religion and will if given a chance see God in everything ( when in reality God’s are lazy and generally disinterested in the day to day workings of the world ) and it is this simple human failing that can be used as a potent means of control or as an outright weapon. For enough gold priests will do almost anything and that includes sanctioning the use of Dark Magic as a weapon against ones enemies not that they would ever accept that is what they do when invoking the Wrath of their God, the Dark Wizards are there only as means to oversee the BACS transfer of the spirit of gold into the correct God’s building society and savings plan account, the actual physical body of the gold the Dark Wizards keep for themselves.

There are also teams of “killer/assassin” priests, failed wizards for the most part but also retired Special Forces and Intelligence Operatives who specialise in bio-infiltration of food and water supplies that mimic the actions of the Gods, these merry bands of brothers can often be found wandering the wastelands looking for converts and contracts. Supply them with a place to pray and enough caskets of gold and you can be sure that your Kingdom has a potent weapon on stand-by that is capable of preventing the infiltration of enemy Gods and neutralising their Omnipotent Wrath.

And this being the case, many Kingdoms are now involved in a theocratic arms race, hiring ever more priests so that that they can invoke the Wrath of ever more Gods but at the same time prevent the Wrath of rogue Gods from causing anything more than minor digestive tract distress to the true believers.

One God however is no use when your enemy has two and it really is no good having a slow but extremely powerful God that can smite down your enemies with furious angers and waves of incredible anguish when you have been taken out by a smaller but far swifter omnipotent being that has rendered a kingdoms entire population incapable of getting off the lavatory for three days to pray for deliverance and another packet of Aloe Vera impregnated baby wipes whilst they are at it

And if the congregation don’t pray hard enough and long enough and fill the collection plates with gold the killer priests simply roll up their vestments and head off out into the wilds to look for another congregation to fleece.

Therefore Kingfisher has always been a little bit sceptical about the reliabilities of the Gods as omnipotent allies from above seeing as when you miss a few days of church through ill health…Poof!…The after-life cover  goes up in smoke and it’s off to purgatory to total up your ill deeds.

Kingfisher had thought it a waste of effort when the Imperial Edict came through about the inclusion of a State Church into the City State of Dvorganna Fjall but as is his nature decided that if he was going to have a State Church, then his would be by far the best. He tasked Talia and Sh’Vorn with the unenviable job of collating the Classical List of Gods so that they may choose a range of Gods that could best be relied on to provide some serious protection and when they had concluded their search for a suitable battalion of omnipotent allies Kingfisher soon found out that the State Church was like all other protection rackets…Expensive!

 

It would cost him a small fortune to maintain protection but he did what he thought was best for his people and to cap it all off and spread the icing on this particular cake and against his better judgment he contacted the Empire and had them send out an Imperial Man of God to minister the congregation.

He thought that he may as well have the benefits of Imperial Membership every now and again rather than rail against it all the time. He would also have the upgraded protection offered by the Imperial Clergyman which would off-set his costs via the fiscal treaties made available from the Imperial Theologian Society of Eurodarkia.

The Imperial religion was non-confrontational, all inclusive and did not make fire and brimstone judgments on age, race, sex, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation or gender specific issues that may or may not result in offence to anyone or anything.

Kingfisher thought the Imperial religion a little mushy if truth be told, however it did come highly recommended and would offer good coverage to his people at almost no cost to them whatsoever. At the end of the day Kingfisher did not really care a toss about the Gods, he simply wanted an easy life without the threat of some other God or Gods shitting on his tea party on the whim of some dubious priests with a pocket full of Gold Runes.

Kingfisher had been informed that the Bishop that was due to arrive any day was a serious man of God that could be relied on to pray for everyone. Which was a good thing in Kingfishers mind as time the Bishop spent praying for Kingfishers eternal soul was time that Kingfisher could spend pursuing the other more interesting things in life…Such as having a three way with a pair of green eyed ginger Thailanese mud wrestlers and avoiding the inherent pitfalls involved in such follies like transgender misunderstandings and terminal syphilis.

It could even be surmised that Kingfisher was a man that did not pray and was utterly without faith; but that would be very wrong indeed. Kingfisher had his own connection with God and didn’t do the whole organised thing. He prayed every night before bed that the tall, leggy, ginger haired maid called Faye would bring his crunchy nut cornflakes in the morning and he had faith that his butler would see that this was so.

Being King was good when it came to the simple things in life like this; he was for all intents and purposes a micro God.

But being a micro God would not save him from uncoiling 20 feet of lower intestines into the bowl if somebody else decided to ask their full sized God to smite him and his kingdom with some Wrath.

And so the building of the State Church had commenced and it had commenced with the help of some of the older Gods that had been offered remuneration via their Temple of the Forefathers, a Job-Centre/Employment Agency for want of a better concept that networks temporary contracts to former builders that have long since passed this mortal coil but who can at a price be raised from the dead to help on intricate and time sensitive projects when gold is not an issue.

Five thousand “living” workers therefore had the aid of two thousand poltergeist builders to help them work on the building of the State Church and the skills of the un-dead were second to none and to make things even faster Kingfisher had also asked the Civic Council of Elders to endorse the use of Building Acts I and Building Acts II which were in fact nothing more complex than the sub-contracting of two rather large bad tempered Ogres into site foreman positions.

The Ogres had one job and that was to walk round the site with big sticks to beat the living workers with as soon as they looked up at the sky making whistling noises and commenting on the possibility of rain.

 

The Ogres also kept an ear out for comments such as “Are we having a cuppa then?” And “I will be off site for the rest of the week” anything that threatened the speed of construction resulted in a whack.

The new State Church was magnificent.

High vaulted arches and a magnificent alter with pews for several thousand worshippers to attend mass. If they so wished.

A huge stained glass window depicting a large black dragon rampant with wings outstretched standing over what looked to be a rather hefty wedge of Cheddar, a slice of what may have been Brie and a large noggin of crumbly Cheshire gave a wonderfully dramatic backdrop. This was Kingfishers own flourish on what he could make out of the Imperial Religion. It seems that the Imperial Religion bases its worship around a God that makes cheeses. Kingfisher heard tell of a story from  a bloke town the Tavern that said the Imperial God had many thousands of years previous sent down cheeses from Heaven to save all of humanity.

Strange things these religions but Kingfisher was not one to pass judgment on another man’s faith and as such commissioned the construction of the stained glass window out of his own coffers, he did hope that the Imperial Man of God would like it.

Kingfisher admired the craftsmanship as shafts of light shone from one side of the nave to the other illuminating the tiny dust motes that floated through these newly constructed cloistered halls of worship. Kingfisher thought it quite magical and for a moment was lost in his thoughts.

Outside a builders labourer was being beaten by a pair of highly motivated Ogres for not sweeping up all the dust…