The Vampire & Her Witch

”Acolytes, join me in the Ode to Dawn,” Germot commanded as he took his place in the sacred chapel, standing behind a gilded altar and stretching his arms out wide, as if he intended to embrace his entire congregation.

”We lift our hearts, we lift our hands,

We lift our voices to the Light.

Oh faithful people of this land,

We join together our hearts in Light”

The Head Priest had to repeat the first verse of the Ode to Dawn twice, singing in a deep, resonant voice that commanded attention, before the acolytes positioned around the chapel joined in the song, calling upon the faithful to offer up their prayers and devotion. Once the acolytes had joined in, he moved on to the second verse, giving their power a purpose.

”Lord of Dawn and Morning’s glow,

Let Your fiery radiance flow.

As Your Sun ascends on high,

Bring forth Your Light across the sky.”

When the second verse completed, Germot could already feel the stirrings of faith in the air, gathering like dew drops in the morning air, but it was far from enough for his purposes. With a shake of his arms and a beckoning gesture to the people assembled in the chapel, he launched again into the first verse of the powerful ode, and this time, more than a hundred voices joined in prayer, raising up their hands high above their heads as if they were pulling the sun up above the distant eastern hills to welcome dawn.

The faith of a single lay-person was like a single grain of barley. Some were cracked, broken, and hard even when they had been carefully nurtured their whole lives. Others were full and plump, tender and ready to return all of the energy that had been invested in cultivating them. But no single grain of barley would be enough to make a meal, and no lay person could use the power of their faith to bring about a miracle.

But as the song spread through the temple, spilling out into the courtyard where even more of the faithful knelt near the flames of vast bonfires that had begun as pyres for those fallen in the snowstorm, the song grew stronger and so too did the faith that flowed from the singers.

With hundreds of voices united in prayer, Germot’s staff began to glow with a brilliant, golden aura as he began a slow procession from the front of the chapel to the courtyard outside, revealing the power of the Holy Lord of Light to all the faithful and encouraging those who weren’t yet singing to add their voices, and the power of their faith, to the prayer.

Soon, he had enough power swirling around him to raise his staff high above his head, holding it from the base so the gleaming disk of the sun atop the staff could be seen by all of the faithful around him. Then, as the people continued to sing, the glow spread from the staff to envelop the gilded dome atop the chapel, spreading the soft, rosy glow of dawn’s radiance across the entire temple grounds.

Still, it wasn’t enough, but Germot was patient, leading the singers in the courtyard in another round of the simple, powerful prayer as their voices called out to the entire town, entreating the lay people everywhere to join in the hymn to summon the light of dawn.

Within minutes, all across Hanrahan Town, people slowly knelt in their homes, singing along as if they were members of a sacred choir from the Heavenly Shores, and adding their voices and their tiny motes of faith to the stream of prayers that flowed toward the temple. Soon, more than a thousand voices were raised in song, pushing back against the darkness of the night and the fear that lurked in everyone’s hearts after listening to the slow, inexorable march of the demon’s drums.

Finally, Germot thought with a smile as the shining golden dome of the chapel grew bright enough to illuminate the entire town in a soft, rose-gold glow of dawn. He had finally gathered enough faith to ensure that no demon could cross the threshold of the temple. The sacred light would not only push back against the darkness and the unholy blue-green above, it also formed a shining curtain around the entire temple, protecting the most devout and faithful people within the temple walls from any danger that came from outside.

Each person’s faith might be as tiny as a grain of barley, but for a man skilled in harvesting that faith, they were more than enough to ensure he would never know the pains of hunger, or fear the blades and claws of demons in the night.

Of course, the ’most devout and faithful’ people within the chapel who received the strongest protection were also the ones who were able to open up their coin purses to pay for the privilege of that protection. But to Germot, the willingness to loosen the strings of a purse had always been an indication of a person’s dedication to the Holy Lord of Light, and he saw no reason that he shouldn’t repay their generosity by using the faith he collected from the rest of the town to reinforce the protections afforded to those most ’faithful’ people among his flock.

After all, he couldn’t protect everyone from the battle to come, but he could protect a chosen few. The rest of the city would have to depend on Disciple Loman and his armies, and Germot could only pray that they would have the strength to smite the demons, because even if he wove the mightiest curtain barriers of light, those barriers weren’t capable of killing even a single demon and the people couldn’t sing forever.

If someone didn’t eliminate the threat, then when the common people whose faith he required faltered... he would lose the protection of his holy barrier and likely his life not long after.

”May the Holy Lord of Light and all the Ascended Guardians in the night sky watch over you, Disciple Loman,” Germot said softly. ”Our fate is in your hands...”