Over a year had pa.s.sed since the last visit, but he suspected the topic would be the same.

In a way he missed the early visits with their verbal fencing and his own clumsy attempts at coercing the stranger to reveal his true ident.i.ty. The ugly scar marring his face should be possible to identify, especially as a magehealer could have removed it in an instant. That made it an affection rather than something the stranger suffered from.

Should be, but that meant searching the archives in the G.o.dless city of Verd. Most of the papal archives had been lost during World War.

He hadn't, of course. The stranger was a dragon and came with promises of power and only a vague demand of later services in return.

From youngest son, a simple priest in a poor bishopric, to bishop, cardinal and pope in a mere fifteen years was unheard of, and but for the visitor it would never have happened. No one stood in the way of a dragon though, not even the holy chair, and this dragon has let his cold eyes s.h.i.+ne over Iachoby Klarenhertz both before and after he took the name Innocentius.

Now the stranger had come to claim that debt.

They spoke, and as always Innocentius wondered how much golden there was left behind those steely eyes where only a remnant of yellow lingered.

The conversation followed his mood. From worry to exhilaration, from questions to pure astonishment.

A becoming was near. Within three or four years, maybe even in two.

Exactly what would happen with the ascendancy of a new G.o.d no one could tell, but great chaos always ensued. Now the holy chair never officially accepted the concept of G.o.ds. The very idea was anathema, but Innocentius accepted that things were not always as the holy scriptures said, but then nothing had been written about the second great exodus either.

Officially all new G.o.ds where either demons or angels rising in power. Soon he would make another official statement. One about the G.o.dless northern empire. And then they would gather a great host, and G.o.d's grace would once again s.h.i.+ne north of the Narrow Sea.