Celestial Hymn 23 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 23

-VB-

Being a construction worker seemed like a decent job…since I had clothes, gear, and skills to make this job so much easier than it could have been. The textile I made using the workbench, the metamaterial that dropped temperature with ease really helped with the merciless sun. Tools like my second ionic chainsaw helped, too. And then the construction time reducing gift. God, the construction halving skill.

Despite the fact that not even a week had passed, I had completed three floors of the tower. Sure, I had help from my smallfolk, but their jobs were mostly hauling the stones, timber, and other materials. The three servitors I had were the ones moving them - they were faster and stronger than mortal men - and I laid the mortar and everything else.

I’ve yet to move my workshop into the wizard’s tower yet, though it wasn’t because the two completed floors were smaller. Each of the tower’s floors was actually the same size as my fifty-by-thirty yard workshop. They shrunk in size as the floors rose higher into the sky, but even at the end of the planned tenth floor, it would be no less than six thousand square feet.

Was it another castle at this rate? Yes, actually. It was a third of the size of my keep. Unlike my keep, which had been designed solely with defensibility and practicality in mind, my tower would be something to marvel at. I wanted it to be something grand in this dreary landscape.

Speaking of dreary, my aqueduct was complete!

Water from the nearby mountainside now flowed directly to my village, and made my next projects not only feasible but viable.

However, the labor used to make the aqueduct had been put to work as punishment for the smallfolk transgression and ended when that project ended.

“Welcome to my incomplete tower,” I said without looking as twelve representatives of my Brownspear village’s representative. “Now, before we get to the main reason why you have been called, I want to ask you all if I am evil.”

No response.

“Your lord asked you a question.”

Though the people have become more familiar with me over the years, they found themselves still a little skittish.

“No, I do not believe so,” a young man with crow’s nest brown hair and beard stubble replied after a moment.

“Do I use magic?”

“Yes,” the same young man replied.

“Tell me, have I done anything to warrant mistrust?”

“... Yes.”

I turned around and looked at the man in the eyes. “Please, do tell.”

“You use magic,” the brave fool gulped as he replied in earnest even as the man I assumed was the young man’s father tried to nudge him to change his answer. “Magic … the tales of magic are never good. It speaks of evil. You are not evil but the magic you use can be. We do not know more than that, but using magic that the maesters and septons have always spoken of as evil made you untrustworthy … at first.”

I gestured for him to go on.

“But you never killed when you did not. You killed a foul septon. You defended us from the neighboring lords who wanted our lands and newfound prosperity.” He gulped again. “And you began to openly use magic.”

“And what did my magic change?”

“Nothing significant,” he replied. “We were - still are - wrong about you, milord. You could have demanded that our wives and sisters and daughters and mothers serve as your toys. Lecherous lords have done more for less. Instead you have used our punishment to better ourselves when you could have used it solely for your benefit.” He bowed after saying so. “Thank you, milord.”

I nodded. “Raise your head.”

He did.

I pulled out my crystal-topped staff out of its invisibility and tapped it against his forehead. He trembled in obvious fear as the purple crystal lit up. “Do you swear to have spoken the truth?”

“... Yes, milord.”

The light didn’t change in intensity.

I smiled.

“Wonderful!” I grinned while continuing to put the crystal there. “If I were to tell you to spy on your family so that something like this doesn’t happen, then would you?”

“... Yes.”

No change.

“Why?”

“Because …. Because you are the voice of the Seven.”

Ah, so it was that, wasn’t it?

“Am I?”

“Are you not?” he asked. “You have sculpted the Voice of the Seven. All of us, the smallfolk, the septons, knights, lords, and even criminals can now speak to the Seven.”

“And that warrants trust? What if the Seven told you to kill me?”

He froze.

“Speak honestly.”

“... I will first ask why.”

“Good man!” That was way more than I expected from a smallfolk. I pulled the staff back and tossed him the sword I had been holding. He caught it and looked down at it. It was a prototype of the anti-Other sword I intended to mass-produce. It had traces of dragonglass in its steel. It wasn’t any stronger than regular steel, though. It just had a darker sheen to it. “Then I ask if you wish to be my voice to your neighbors and family.”

He looked at me with wide eyes before he fumbled out some words. “B-But I am no knight, milord!”

“You will get better at swinging the sword,” I shrugged. “Because as my voice, you will earn your pay by training, learning, and working. I will not ask you to do what the Seven forbid but this job will not be easy.”

He looked at me with those wide eyes of his before he slowly knelt down and bowed.

“I-I obey.”

Good. I intentionally had him picked out when I called for these representatives. He’s been talking good things about me on the construction site. Most of it was how the food was good and how they got paid, however little it was. He was a logical man, and if I was right, then he was someone I could bring to my side as a trustworthy aid. His answers today only cemented my decision.

Sure, he was more a man of the faith than of this lordship and village, but all people changed over time. With proper prodding, education, and training, I could make this man my servant in time for the rise of the Others.

It also helped that he was one of the most liked and charismatic young men in the village. He would convert others in my stead. I did not joke to him when I asked him to be my voice. I would reward him for his honesty (little things counted) and he would go to tell others how mere honesty got him coins, swords, and a job.

He would be a catalyst for a change from within the people.

“No,” I told him with a pearl white grin as I raised him up. “You follow me, my dear acolyte.”