It wasn’t long before Dia’s attitude brightened, though she was forced to help. They bundled the clothes in one of the larger pieces of fur and gave them to Dia. Meanwhile, Clide continued to carry the furs. As for how much horse could fit, well, only a bit of head and hoof had made the cut, but their knight companion did not seem worried.

“Can we do something about this smell,” Keenin asked as he and the knight dragged the chest of horse remains. 

The sun was beating down ruthlessly and the smell was starting to give him a headache. The scent of smoke would be much nicer, burning horse. He shook the thought from his head before he did something irreversible. 

“Yes. You could walk further back,” Clide joked.

“Don’t you still care about the money?” Dia said. 

Damn, Keenin though in response to the jokes. The jokes were not helping.

 “What about the bravery of my horse. Does anyone still care about that these days?” Murphy’s owner said.

“Bravery killed your horse,” the dragon pointed out.

These word jabs continued for the duration of their trip. If there was anything Keenin learned that day it was not to put a righteous man and two bored immortals together. 

The town called Selendrum was full of religion. Every second person on the street was either saying a prayer or preaching about the gods. Every intersection was decorated with a statue to the gods and every vendor sold religious symbols. The people themselves were as mixed and confusing as the number of gods that had been crammed into the city.  

“Try not to offend anyone,” the knight said quietly as they walked through.  

“How?” Dia asked. 

“Don’t talk.” 

He need not have told them. Except for Dia’s reply, none of them had spoken upon entering the city. Now his two new companions crowded close behind Keenin. Townspeople started to complain about the smell as they walked by. Clide took hold of the chest handle with Keenin and Dia did the same on the other side with the knight. Like this, the four of them made their way up to a fort-like structure in the center of town, which in truth was a temple surrounded by large black walls. The walls were full of square holes fitted with skulls, giving the impression of a sealed dungeon, but its double door entrance stood wide open and the guard standing at the gate barely looked at the people walking past.    

The knight that led them didn't go to these doors but rather a much smaller closed door to the side. Here was a guard leisurely sitting on a chair. 

“As a knight of the realm I ask for your services,” their knight announced. 

He pulled out a carved piece of wood and showed it to the guard.

“Marcus Sullivan, is it?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“What about them,” the guard said pointing to Keenin’s group. 

“They are in my care. I require them to carry my belongings unless you want to.”

The guard gave them a distasteful look and took a notebook from his pocket to make a record. He showed this to the knight Marcus. 

"Sign here and we will send you the bill. And if you fail to make all the installments we reserve the right to send assassins. Agreed."  

Keenin saw the words 500 gold pieces written on the page and suddenly realized that he might not get paid, but he didn’t dare say anything. Of course, Marcus accepted and even spread ink on his pass to make an impression on the paper. 

“Be sure to watch them. If the children get in trouble with the priests your law won’t protect them,” the guard warned as he unlocked the small door. 

The guard pulled the door back enough for them to pass through and then shut it behind them with a resounding thud. They were now in the public courtyard where gardens of black roses hugged the perimeter of every wall, with gaps only for the stone walkways. Keenin would have questioned the existence of such flowers if he had not met so many strange things before now. From where they stood on the side path they could see the large statue towering beside the main walkway, a large dark figure wrapped in cloaks with the only discernible feature being the sapphire stones in his eyes.

"That statue is death," the knight informed them. 

“He looks so gloomy?” Keenin asked. 

“Well, he is death. The matter of resurrection must ultimately go through him.”

“Is that really what the death god looks like?” Dia asked.

Keenin would have thought she knew since she herself had died, but apparently not.

“Nobody can tell. I’m sorry you had to see this. I’ll make sure this resurrection ceremony goes as quickly as possible.”

Isn't this too easy, Keenin thought. 

They continued through the courtyard and upon entering the main temple they saw what you might expect to see in a church, people of religion wandering around in dark robes. Someone who had been lighting candles by the door approached them.  

“What service have you come for?”

“This,” the knight said turning his head to the chest between them. 

Keenin was almost glad that the knight did not say aloud the bit about resurrection.

"I understand," the robed figure said. "Follow me." 

He said that, but the space they were in was entirely open to the public. In from of the onlookers, the chest was handed over and arranged open in the middle of a circle situated under a skylight in the middle of the room. A symbol was drawn, a donkey on a chain and a knife were brought out.

“They aren’t going to…” Dia started to say.  

The priest started chanting. Dia looked away from the scene. Keenin understood and he too looked away for the animal's sake, although he was curious how this worked. The chant ended with a loud shout. Keenin heard the rattle of a chain and assumed that the donkey had fallen to the ground dead. He and Dia looked to the ritual site to observe the resurrection.

But the goat wasn’t dead yet. It was still held in place by the chain it had been brought out on. The chanters had paused at the sound. The sound of a chain slipping sounded again. Dia looked up to the ceiling and he followed her gaze. A huge chandelier above was... Dia shoved him hard and he stumbled back right before the metal chandelier crashed down. 

Keenin stood in shock at the place he had been standing. There was something wet on his face. He wiped it off and found blood on his fingers. Dia lay in a horrifying tangle under the fallen chandelier. Her body was crushed, back broken, organs burst, blood leaking out, but at the end of her arm, her fingers twitch. 

He felt doubly horrified that she would still be alive. She would have been better off dead, but he remembered what she had said about being an Esmer. Not dead. Even if he waited she wouldn’t be dead and these people would find out. The only thing he could do was get her out of it. He moved forward slowly and grabbed one of the curving metal light fixtures to pull the chandelier off, but it stayed fixed in place. He realized that he couldn’t move it so he reached for her instead. 

He couldn’t figure out which part of the crushed body he should touch and he didn’t want to hurt her so he instinctively grabbed hold of the staff tied to her back instead. Maybe he could use leverage. Like before the flaming figure appeared in front of him, this time sitting on a curving metal candlestick. The sight of it made him angry. 'How dare you' he was going to say, but it had already understood. There was a flash of white in which Keenin let go of the staff and the chandelier and the flaming figure disappeared. It had not occurred to him that it could remove metal.

He now saw that Dia’s freed body had started to put itself back together as the blood that had flowed outwards flowed back in and her joints popped back into place. The process was disgusting and unnatural, but he wasn't going to complain if his friend was alive. It wasn’t long before Dia sat there as good as new, the only thing ruined being her tattered dress which was no longer stained in her blood. Of course, everyone stared. 

“I really liked this dress,” Dia told him. 

“Demons,” one of the priests said quietly.

They all looked at Keenin now. Just imagine if Clide had taken this opportunity to transform because this was surely going to happen next. Keenin was waiting for the group of priests to start chanting the word demons in unison, but they were distracted by the rise of another corpse, the bits of horse were piecing themselves back together from inside the box, and the missing parts filling in. 

“Murphy your back!” the excited Marcus said.

Nobody noticed that the poor donkey lay dead.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Murphy said. “But where am I?”

“It’s a miracle,” one of the priests now said. 

“It speaks,” said another.  

“The voice of our god,” still another said. 

“Did anyone consider that it’s an evil horse," Keenin put out helpfully. 

“No. It was allowed life,” the priest who had called him a demon said. “We should hear what it says.”  

Keenin could not see what the big deal was. Sure, the horse lived, but wasn't that the point.

“Dear Murphy. Tell these people what you stand for,” Marcus said calmly. 

“Certainly. I must go to fight evil and I will not stop until it is vanquished. Since you all seem of good intention I will be off,” he said trotting out the doors.

A minute of silent contemplation passed. 

“Wait! You’re supposed to wait for me,” Marcus said running after his mount.  

“Then the children are innocent?” a priest questioned. 

“As you can see, there are no demons,” Clide said with finality.

Clide took hold of Dia and Keenin’s hands and pulling them out the door. They met Marcus and his horse outside the temple. Murphy the horse had finally let the knight climb on his back.  

“I almost forgot to thank you for your time,” Marcus said down to them. 

“Getting us out alive is good enough,” Clide said. “Why don’t you go.”

“I will, but this first,” he said taking the medallion from his pocket. “Take this. If need be, please use my name to gain the aid of others.”

“A man always repays his debts,” Murphy announced. 

“Can we sell it for money?” Dia questioned. 

“No. You might be arrested, but wait.” 

This time he reached down and took off his boot. Marcus shook it out over the ground and seven silver coins fell out. 

"It’s not as much as I promised, but it’s all I have right now."

"Then why do I feel cheated," Clide remarked snidely.

"Say what you want," Marcus said pulling his boot back on. "I'm not removing the other boot."

“There you go Keenin,” Dia said. “Pick up that money. You can hold onto it for us.”  

Keenin picked it up to stash in the pockets of his new pants.

“I thought you wanted it,” he told Dia. 

“I don’t have pockets and neither does he,” she said indicating Clide.

In fact, Clide did have pockets that came with the outfit his human disguise was wearing, but Keenin supposed the clothes must have been the equivalent of a shiny set of scales.   

“Just tell me one thing,” Keenin said looking up at the knight. “Why does your horse talk? It’s not really a miracle is it?” 

“That’s right." Murphy the horse said. "Bask in my glory."

“Of course not,” Marcus answered. “He is a divine horse that used to belong to a druid friend of mine, but the man asked me to take care of him."

“So that’s why you couldn’t let him die,” Dia said. 

"He’s also a very motivating creature. Anyways, I should be off,” the knight said tapping Murphy’s sides. “I must not let Iscara's army take the city. I should warn you though-”  

As Murphy had already started walking away the end of Marcus's speech was cut off as the two disappeared into the crowd. 

“I hope that wasn’t important,” Dia observed.

"They deserve each other," Keenin added.

“Let’s find somewhere to sit down,” Clide prompted.

None of them moved.

“Better yet," Dia said. "Find me somewhere when I can change out of these clothes.”