Page 154 of Shadowface

With confidence, the scribe replied, “Next week, I will return with this tin, and the pot will grow. Then you will see what I am saying is true.”

The clergyman chuckled, thinking his friend had gone mad. He decided, however, to go along with it to prove to all his friends that Matteo Vital had no place going against the church. Each of them, one after another, placed a coin in the tin and gave it to the scribe.

A week later, they met again to drown their sorrows in ale, but the scribe arrived, looking dejected, as the money in the pot had not grown.

They mocked Matteo and used their remaining coins to get drunk, and Matteo left, promising the next time he saw them, he would make the coins grow.

Weeks passed and things worsened. The flu, having already menaced nearby towns, had reached the village of Kinsmen, causing deaths among the young and old.

A year later, the scribe walked into the bustling tavern, on a particularly dark night. He placed the same tin on the table in front of his friends, and their eyes widened with greed. The coppers, as Matteo promised, had indeed doubled.

“Impossible!” exclaimed the clergyman, with a glimmer of hope and greed.

“The dark god smiles upon us,” explained the scribe. “He showers us with his blessings, while your god leaves us sick and impoverished.” The clergyman couldn’t deny what he was witnessing, even if he didn’t fully comprehend it.

Coppers don’t multiply on their own. So where were they coming from?

They didn’t know Matteo was insane. He heard voices and saw the god’s shadowed face through the ancient trees encircling the area.

He was also a thief, stealing from the young people who were flocking to town to study at his school to learn a more secularized way of life.

The god spoke to Matteo and said that by offering a sacrifice to him, their money would continue to grow and ironically, more young people would come to the town to learn.

The clergyman, who had lost his only daughter, couldn’t ignore the fact that, despite his devoutness, he did not seem to have his god’s favor.

Christianity was failing him.

The following week, the scribe’s tin reappeared, augmented with additional coins, and Matteo claimed to be the voice of the dark god who was smiling on them. He opened the codex and started reading passages that detailed the steps required to become one of the chosen children.

Eventually, the four men pooled what little money they had, trusting their friend the scribe. Each week, the scribe brought back those same coins, plus more, and handed it out to his friends and spewed his rhetoric, convincing his friends of a new way.

One fateful night, they entered a solemn pact, a sacred blood oath, vowing that the first sacrifice must be made.

And so, mere days later, the enchanting wife of the scribe ventured into the cave on the outskirts of town, unknowingly walking to her own demise. From the tales I’ve been told, she was a youthful soul, barely reaching adulthood when this tragedy befell her. Yet, despite her tender age, she had already brought three precious children into the world before meeting her untimely end.

The children of Matteo Vital.

The scribe hid these coins in a trust within the area he administered at the small school he founded. Eventually, this small school grew, and his office became the department of psychology at Kinsmen College.

No one knows the existence of this trust other than those involved, and to this day exists in a fund only accessible by those in this department.

The trust grew with each passing year; the school growing and the trust growing exponentially as each student unknowingly paid for it with their tuition.

Trusts are binding, trusts are law, and trusts are forever.

The interest compounded, and grew for two hundred and eighty years, creating one of the richest endowments in the world. The town flourished under their watch, and they became the wealthiest people in the region.

The scribe waited—as scribes tend to do—biding his time, planning and plotting, wanting more for himself. Scribes, by nature, are very patient people. Matteo waited for his friends to kill their wives in ceremonial debauchery, then he poisoned their ale, weakening them before he slaughtered them, leaving their bodies to rot in the forest.

None of their wives birthed any more children before they died, and the ones that were alive died from the flu, leaving Matteo’s descendants the sole beneficiaries of the trust.

Overtime, and as generations passed, Matteo became that god. His children, and their children thereafter, sacrifice under his name. The children became the new Order, giving their sacrifice before moving on and bearing children of their own, keeping on with the tradition.

How do I know all of this? I don’t. It’s an educated guess based on historical records of the time, but isn’t that how all history is written?

Whoever survives tells the story.

Now, each one of their descendants stands in this very circle, bound to the scribe who demands blood and sacrifice.