The creek bubbled along merrily, the frogs croaked and the birds chirped. Sitting by the creek was a fisherman wearing a big hat and starting to doze off. He jerked awake when there was a thunder of hooves on the path behind him. Five men in dark green cloaks and dark green scarves rode by, stirring up dust in their wake. The fisherman stood up and watched them go by, coughing out the dust as it billowed into his face. They disappeared off into the distance.

“Finally,” he muttered.

Sirrene finished mopping the floor of the great church and stretched in relief. She knew in the ancient times it had been filled with hundreds of priests and paladins and priestesses and matrons, but she still often wondered if the ancients had had to make it so big. It took her all week to mop the floor properly, working most hours of the day. And most of it was never even used anymore. There were still a few people sitting in the pews praying to themselves, the desperate, the lonely, those who had nowhere else to go. She wished she could help them, talk to them like Father Nox did, but whenever she tried she never knew what to say.

She picked up her bucket and mop and left the main hall, walking under the great mosaics and sculptures that filled the high ceilings. It was a magnificent building, kept beautiful and majestic through its many years. Mostly by people like her she imagined. The little orphans who worked for the church and cleaned it for little pay and no credit. Not that she minded too much, she had a place to stay, and that was more than some of the people praying there.

She went back to her room and fell onto her bed, opening her Vatheaglion, the great book of Havath. It was difficult to read, ancient verses in ancient text, but she struggled through it. If she was to be a true priestess some day she had best know her scriptures.

There was a knock on her door and she opened it to find Father Nox standing there, towering high beneath his dangling dreadlocks, his characteristic smile beaming from his face.

“I hope I’m not disturbing anything, I have something to show you.”

She nodded and followed him out of the room. The church was huge and there were many places she had never explored. She wondered if even Father Nox knew where they all were after being here so long. It was an enormous building and often at night it felt quite lonely with just the two of them left. She followed him through the winding tunnels around the back, into the cellar and then beyond it. She often wondered why they had a cellar, they weren’t allowed to drink alcohol after all. She used to pretend it was a cave when she had come here as a child hiding from her brother. A nice safe cave where no one would find her. He was dead now, her brother, drank too much, they said. Perhaps he should’ve joined the clergy like her. Then again perhaps not, he would have made a terrible cleric, he would have made a terrible anything.

They were into tunnels she’d never explored now, places so full of cobwebs and dust it was hard to feel safe at all. But there was a clearly trodden path through the middle. Father Nox had walked this path before.

“I am going away Sirrene,” he said solemnly as they walked. That was unusual, he rarely did anything solemnly. “There is trouble out in the outlying villages, Mother Daiya is dead.”

Sirrene’s eyes grew wide. “What happened?”

“Bandits, they are out there preying upon innocent people. There are people hunting them but until they are caught the people out there will suffer and they will need a priest.”

“But what about here? The people here need a priest too.”

“They do, luckily they have one,” he grinned back at her. “A little young and inexperienced, not very intelligent-”

“Hey!” Sirrene felt terrified. She was no good at being a priestess, she barely knew how to talk to people who weren’t Father Nox or her brother. “But... I don’t know what I’m doing...”

“Neither do I child,” he kept smiling. “Somehow it all works out. And you won’t be alone, that’s why we have come here.” They reached the end of their trail, the tunnel continued but it clearly hadn’t been trodden in a long time so thick was it with cobwebs. He produced a key from his robes and unlocked a small stone door in the wall, pulling it open with a puff of dust.

Beyond was a room, empty save for a pedestal upon which sat an amulet, an amulet with the old symbol of Havath, the symbol from when he was a god of war and wrath before calming in the Temperance. It was a brutal symbol, twisted and jagged, like thorns wrapped around a dead heart. Sirrene had never liked that symbol.

Father Nox walked into the room and touched the amulet, it glowed a pale glow and a spectral figure floated from it, hanging like mist in the room before them. Sirrene was terrified, she muttered a few prayers but knew none about ghosts.

“Do not be afraid,” Father Nox told her. “She will not hurt you.”

Sirrene hadn’t been paying much attention but when she looked closer she could see the ghost was a woman, wearing robes of the clergy and smiling at her in much the way Father Nox always smiled.

“Who... who is it?” she asked, edging closer to him.

“She is Riza, my daughter,” he said sadly.

“Hello Sirrene,” the ghost said. “Father has told me about you.”

Sirrene smiled nervously. “Um... yes...” she said and then immediately regretted it.

“This is the amulet of the dead. An ancient artifact given to the clergy by Havath during the Old Wars. It is one of the most powerful artifacts in the world able to summon the dead family of the person using it. It has been guarded by the church for as long as the church has stood,” Father Nox said.

“In ancient times the paladins of Havath guarded it,” Riza said looking down at the twisted amulet. “They were the strongest knights in the land and it was considered the highest of honours to be chosen as one. But that order faded and now only the priests and priestesses guard it.”

Sirrene realised what was happening. “So now I have to guard it?” she squeaked. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about looking after the church already.

“No no,” Riza smiled. “I will guard the amulet while my father is gone, but no one knows of its existence anymore.”

Father Nox chuckled. “I didn’t bring you here to lump more responsibilities on your shoulders. I brought you here to show you Riza. She was a member of the clergy long ago. When she... died I joined it to honour her memory. She can help you with any questions you might have about running the church and helping people with their troubles.”

Riza smiled some more, she was a lot less terrifying now. “I’m sure I can help you with anything you need.”

“Um... yes... I mean thank you... sorry...”

Riza laughed, she sounded just like her father. “Don’t worry, you’ll be okay, it’s really much easier than you think.”

Sirrene smiled back, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She had led prayers before and done all the things she would need to do before. It was just that before Father Nox had always been there if she needed help. This time Riza was there but she was down guarding the amulet and not much use unless she had time to go all the way down the tunnels and passages. So Sirrene stumbled through her tasks for the first day, always numb with the fear of doing something wrong. She missed a few lines of various prayers and sung higher than she usually did. There were no babies to baptise which she was grateful for, after the prayer she was shaking so much she thought she might drop them.

Confessions and guidance was the hardest part. She mostly listened and had no idea what to say, falling back on various verses that vaguely related to the problem. The people didn’t seem to mind though, it seemed the main part was listening and she was good at that.

After everyone had left she packed up the church and breathed a sigh of relief, it had all been much easier than she’d been afraid of after all. She whistled to herself in the empty church and went down to see Riza. The ghost was still there, hovering in the room next to the glowing amulet. It was all much less scary now, just another part of the majesty of the church.

“How did it go?” Riza asked. “You didn’t come to ask my advice at all,” she said proudly and Sirrene felt herself smiling.

“It went well... yes. I don’t know if I helped anyone as much as Father Nox does, and I didn’t sing very well but...”

Riza chuckled. “No one will mind your singing, they know you don’t have much experience.”

Sirrene nodded and let her eyes drift to the amulet, it was the only thing in the room and it was glowing so it was hard to miss.

“What are you thinking?” Riza asked cautiously, following her gaze.

“I wonder... if maybe I could speak to my parents...” she said slowly.

Riza’s smile faded. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, you don’t know your parents do you?”

“No, I know nothing about them. But I could find out.” She reached for the amulet. Riza flinched but did nothing to stop her. It was cold, colder even than metal should have been, and it glowed just like when Father Nox had touched it.

Out of the amulet came a figure, it was hard to recognise it in the spectral form but it was cloaked in tattered rags, slumped against a wall that wasn’t there. Sirrene narrowed her eyes as the figure turned wearily around. He saw her and his eyes filled with rage, he lifted a hand to throw something at her.

“No!” she screamed and he was gone. It was Kiran, her brother.

Riza looked down sadly. “I’m sorry child but the amulet... it-”

Sirrene’s mouth cracked open in a grin. “This means they’re still alive!”

Riza stopped talking and tried to formulate a response.

“Don’t you see. If they were dead they would have been here but it was only my brother who was here. So they’re still alive! I’m not actually an orphan!”

“Well perhaps but even if they were alive you have no way of finding them,” Riza said, not sharing in her excitement. “This doesn’t really change anything.”

“Well maybe not right now but now I know they’re alive I can start looking.”

Riza still looked doubtful but Sirrene didn’t care. She went to bed happy that night.

Five men on horses rode into Avathor, their green cloaks billowing in the wind. They were armed but that was not forbidden in the city these days. After all there were bandits afoot, best to be prepared.

Sirrene was woken by a knock at the door of the church. It was a powerful knock that echoed through the whole building as though someone were trying to break down the door. She waited for Father Nox to get it for a moment before realising in a moment of panic that he wasn’t here. She leapt from the bed and struggled into her robes, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she made the long cold walk to the door. It was probably someone here for a late night confession or something of that nature. It wasn’t easy being head priestess.

“Yes?” she asked, sliding open the peephole in the door.

There was a rich man there doing his best to look sad and miserable in his fine clothes and clean shaven face. “Hello miss, sorry, mother... May me and my companions please come in, we have travelled a long way and we are very sore from riding. We have nowhere else to go and ask only for a moment of rest before we are on our way.” He gestured to four other men like him standing out in the wind, their horses already tied to the church gates.

“Yes yes okay. You’ll have to leave your weapons outside though, this is a church.”

“Of course of course,” the man said humbly, taking off his sword and strapping it to his horse. The other men did the same and then returned to the door. Sirrene didn’t like letting them in, they were strangers and she was all alone apart from Riza far below. But she was in the church and in her tired mind she would always be safe in the church.

She unlocked the door and the men came in, spreading out through the darkened pews. She closed the door behind them and then went around lighting candles with her torch, yawning as she did so. They began to speak in a language she didn’t understand, she mostly ignored them, hopefully they wouldn’t be there for too long and she could return to bed. She walked across the pews to light the other side of the church when a gloved hand grabbed her. Her torch fell to the ground and went out and she was pulled into the grip of one of the men, a small yelp the only resistance she could offer before his other hand closed over her mouth. She felt cold metal against her neck, sharp metal. She probably should have been more careful about their weapons.

He whispered in her ear and she felt his hot breath on her face. “Scream and you’ll bleed, struggle and you’ll bleed. Make me slip and cut you and you’ll bleed out and we’ll have to find it on our own. But I don’t think any of us want that. Don’t tell us and well... there are other things we can do to you instead of death.”

Another one of the men was talking now, from somewhere behind her. “They have a vow of chastity I think. We could break that.”

The men laughed, she didn’t like that, it was just how her brother used to laugh. She felt the coldness spreading through her body, the calm weight she’d taught herself to push back the tears. She prayed in her head, looking up at the mosaic on the church roof. Havath had saved people in the stories, maybe he could save her now.

The man took his hand away. “Now,” he said slowly, turning her around to face the rest of them. “Nobody needs to get hurt, tell us where it is.”

She stared at them coldly. She had no idea what to do, her brother had never had a knife to her throat, this was a new experience. Her mind raced and got nowhere, so she just stared.

“Where is the amulet?!” One of them shouted in her face. She looked down at the floor, it was best not to look in their eyes she knew. He grabbed her face and made her look at him. “Look me in the eyes when I’m talking to you!” Or perhaps not.

“Maybe she doesn’t know,” one of them said and shrugged. Yes, she thought, believe him. “Maybe we should just kill her.” No wait, don’t believe him.

“You want to search this whole fucking place, why don’t you start now. Perhaps you’ll be done by next fucking month.”

“Well she might not know where it is.”

“Shut up!” The one holding her shouted right in her ear, she winced. “We don’t know what’s in this place so we’re keeping together and not fighting alright?!”

The others nodded slowly. Sirrene’s racing mind found an idea, it was a stupid idea but as Father Nox was fond of joking, she’d never been particularly intelligent.

“I can take you to the amulet,” she said and they all looked at her. Her heart started hammering, funny how she hadn’t noticed while they were shouting at her before.

The man holding her stepped back, he still had one hand on her wrist though, squeezing it tighter than was comfortable. “Lead the way,” he said.

She picked up her torch and lit it off a candle then led them to the cellar and into the tunnels. She stopped, it had been a long time since she’d lied to anyone. Lies were discouraged in the church. But before then she’d had to lie to survive, she figured she could still do it.

“It’s full of traps, step exactly where I step,” she said coldly.

They talked in their own language behind her and her heart beat even faster. It was cold in the tunnel but she was sweating anyway, she hoped the man holding her wrist didn’t notice it through his gloves. She almost laughed at that, what a stupid thing to hope, what a stupid thing to care about right now.

“Alright, lead the way,” they said from behind her. “But go slowly.” They’d lit their own torch and she could feel all their eyes on her back in the cramped tunnel. This was the tricky bit, she had to make it all look believable.

She took a long step to a completely random point on the floor and then looked back to make sure they were all watching. Then she stepped off somewhere else and dragged the man holding her along. She kept stepping like that, going slowly but not too slowly. There was a long way to go, they hadn’t even left the part of the tunnels that she had thoroughly explored yet, plenty of time for her to enact the next part of her plan.

She waited as they painstakingly tiptoed through the tunnels. Waiting as the men followed close behind her, watching her feet, but not watching her hands.

She felt his grip loosen as he placed his foot carefully where she had and she acted. Jerking her hand out of his grip. He tried to grab her and was pulled off balance but he righted himself again before he fell to the floor. Then she was off, bounding along the tunnel, still careful to place her feet in randomly selected positions. The men shouted after her but she turned a corner and they were gone, still afraid of the traps she’d invented.

She hurried through the tunnels and reached the door which she’d foolishly left open the whole time. Inside Riza was still floating there and looked surprised to see her dash in frantically.

“What-”

Sirrene shushed her and whispered back. “There are men here trying to steal the amulet. I gave them the slip in the tunnels but we need to do something.”

Riza nodded. “Say no more,” and she flew out of the room and away into the tunnels, as fast as the wind. Sirrene blinked in surprise, she’d assumed she couldn’t leave the amulet. Why hadn’t she come up and helped her run the church before?

Back in the tunnel, splayed out across the floor like some bizarre slow dance the five men muttered in their own language. They tossed a few knives and boots out onto the floor and found that nothing happened. So they walked, tentatively at first, but soon they were running. The tunnels split up so so did they, desperate to find the girl and her amulet as fast as possible.

Sirrene waited in the room with the amulet and prayed. She prayed Riza would be successful and drive off the invaders. She prayed Father Nox would come back and everything would be alright. She prayed that her home in the church wasn’t in danger. She didn’t want to go back to where she’d come from. She’d come so far since then. She felt tears and forced them down. But it was hard this time, facing people who wanted to hurt her was something she’d done many times before, she’d been hurt many times before. But going back to the start, that was something new. She’d never had so much to lose.

She heard footsteps and peered out cautiously into the tunnels. There were two of the men walking toward her, muttering in their language. She slid back into the room and felt her heart hammering against her chest again. She could close the door but it would be loud and she didn’t have a key to lock it anyway. She looked at the amulet, even without anyone touching it it was still glowing faintly. Or was that from her prayer?

The voices were getting loud now, then she heard them start to run as they saw the door. The first one burst in, knife in hand and saw the amulet.

She yanked it off the pedestal and screamed at him. The figure burst from the amulet and impaled him through the chest with a broken spectral bottle, her brother’s favourite weapon of choice. The man looked at her blankly and then crumpled to the floor. Her brother turned to her with his eyes of rage.

“No,” she said and he disappeared again. Then the second man was in the room and he looked down at his dead friend and shouted. She slid the amulet into her robes and huddled in the corner. Then the man saw her and grabbed her, holding his knife to her throat.

“Where is it?” he growled.

“It’s in the main hall,” she lied. “I just wanted to get away... I...”

He growled wordlessly at her and dragged her out of the room. She stumbled over the dead man on the way out and she looked back at him as they ran. It was hard to see in the darkness of the tunnels but a shadow rose from the dead man. A spectral ghostly figure. Then they rounded the corner and he was gone.

She stumbled after the running man, the dust and cobwebs falling all over her. Was that dead man part of her family? Had she just killed a distant relative? Or even worse, had she just killed her father?

They emerged into the main hall again. Sirrene could hear screams from down below as Riza and the others fought. Not all the screams were of men though, she wasn’t sure she could rely on Riza to save her this time.

“Where is it?” the man growled. Sirrene hadn’t had much of a plan past this point, she’d hoped in all the time it took to get back here that Riza could have saved her.

“Um... I...”

“You better not be lying again you little bitch,” the man held the knife right up to her face. “Dressen doesn’t like killing little girls but I don’t mind so much. In fact I-”

The door burst open and the great wind howled through the main hall, blowing out most of the candles. Standing in the doorway was Father Nox holding one of the great swords the men had brought with them.

Sirrene felt hope flood back into her. The man stood back from her to look at what was happening and as he moved away she used her free hand to grab the amulet and throw it to the doorway.

The man holding her realised what was happening and before she could even see if Father Nox had caught it she was wrapped up in his grip with a knife pressed to her throat.

“Give me the amulet old man or she dies!” The man growled and Sirrene felt all her hopes crash down. Why had she done that? She hadn’t thought that through at all? She was going to be killed and there was nothing she could do about it.

But she wasn’t. “Alright,” she heard Father Nox say from the doorway and she heard the amulet clatter to the ground. The man tossed her to the hard ground and she heard him sprinting across the floor. She looked up groggily to see him pick up the amulet and run through the doorway which Father Nox had walked away from. He cut one of the horse’s tethers and galloped off into the windy night.

Sirrene cried this time, she had lost it. She had lost the most powerful artifact of Havath, the artifact that the church had guarded and kept safe since it had been formed. She would be cast out and put back to square one, she wouldn’t have her brother but there were plenty of other men like him who’d want to abuse her. She sat on the hard stone floor with her hands around her knees and her head in her lap, and she cried.

She felt arms fold around her, but they weren’t rough arms like those of the thieves. They were gentle and kind, Father Nox’s arms. She looked up and he hugged her and she tried to apologise through her tears.

“I... I lost it... I’m sorry... I...”

Father Nox smiled. “It’s okay, you saved you. Considering how many there were, that is impressive enough.”

“But... it’s the most important artifact... in church history...”

“Yes it is,” he said warmly. “It has great power and great importance. But it is an artifact. It is a thing. And you are a person. So you are infinitely more important.”

Sirrene sniffed, she didn’t feel very important.

Riza had disappeared but the other three men were all dead, woundless like the one Sirrene had killed. She looked over his body, his face didn’t look much like hers. But he had to be related to her, that was how the amulet worked.

“Father when I was using the amulet I saw this man’s ghost. That means he’s my family right?”

Father Nox looked sad when she told him that. Sadder than she’d ever seen him look before. “I didn’t want to tell you this. Especially since you don’t deserve any further pain. But the amulet cares nothing for family.”

Sirrene narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Then how does it-”

“When I was a young man I was full of passion and rage. I came home one night in a drunken fit and grew angry with my daughter for no reason at all. When I realised what I’d truly done I tried to make amends. I forswore drinking and joined the church, becoming a priest as she was a priestess. I told you it only brought back family for two reasons. So I wouldn’t have to explain what kind of man I was and also because I was worried what would happen if you touched the amulet.”

Sirrene’s mind began to turn over slowly, then faster as she began to make connections. The man she’d killed, his daughter Nox had killed.

“Your brother came in for confessions when he was close to dying. I tried to help him but he was too hateful, too far gone. In truth he didn’t come to make confessions, he came to tell me about you. I am glad you did what you did but in his mind you abandoned him and left him to die. He blames you for his death and that is all the amulet needs.”

She felt sick, she remembered the hate in the ghost’s eyes.

“Havath was a cruel god once, all the scriptures say so. In the Old Wars bringing an army of those you’d slain in battle to your side would have been a powerful weapon. But now he is changed, now perhaps he realises what a hateful weapon that is. I do not claim to know the minds of gods but perhaps he wanted that hateful thing gone. Now we no longer need to guard it. We no longer need to dwell on the tragedies of the past.”

Sirrene nodded. Her brother was dead. He might blame her but he was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of things. Perhaps it was better the amulet was gone. Perhaps it was better they’d never have to worry about it again.

The man thunders down the road on his horse, the stolen amulet clutched tightly against his chest. He has done it, he thinks, and from what he can tell there is no one following him. He slowly eases his horse to a walk and looks at the twisted amulet in the pale moonlight. It is dark but beautiful, just like the night around him. There are frogs croaking and the creek bubbling, and music, drifting up from the creek. The fisherman is still there, he has stopped fishing and now he is playing a patterned lute.