The Story of the Sixth Saint

Excerpt from “The Empire of Dawn, A History”

Written by Hilbert Standard, Bishop of Longfathom,  IY 240

 

In the twilight of the reign of the Empire of Dawn, there was a boy born crippled in the South near the Grimmoor swamp.  He hobbled through his childhood, getting a stronger little by little as he grew older.  He joined the order of St. Baudri at the Monastery of the Brilliant Gem in an attempt to learn about the law of the Empire and serve the Brightfather.  At first, the boy struggled with his masters' teachings.  The work of Bor is never done, and even the simplest of chores take twice as long for a cripple such as he.  Many in the order shunned him because of his handicap.  His only solace was in the monastery's library, where he would spend as much time as he could.  The crippled boy would read anything he could find.  Magical texts, histories, treatises on military strategy, biographies -- nothing was beyond this boy's eye.  The boy would even go against his superiors and spend entire nights there, wrapped up in his books.  The boy took over the library when the elder librarian fell ill.  This position he held for many years.

 

After a time, this crippled boy was now very much a man.  His studies had given him what he always wanted, the magical power to fortify his body so that he could venture out and do Bor's will.   He resigned his post as the librarian and started to wander the countryside.  The cripple performed many miracles for the faithful.  He was a very charismatic individual, and he made a point of showing off his successes in order to compensate for the years of struggling with his handicap.  He wanted people to like him, despite being different.  The crippled man wandered far and wide, serving the people in the name of Bor. 

 

Eventually, this man became a favorite of the people.  They knew that he was special.  There were some that said that this poor, crippled servant was in fact the sixth saint of Bor.  In light of some of the miracles he performed, it was understandable how the common people could come to that conclusion.  A faction began to grow within the Church of Bor that demanded that this fellow be made the new monarch of the Empire.  After all, five saints had already been lost in the past -- all betrayed by Bor's own faithful.  The common people did not want this error repeated.  However, there were disagreements as to whether this man was in fact a saint or not.

 

The faction of the Sixth Saint grew too large, and the existing church was forced to come for him in order to quell the stirrings of rebellion.  The Sixth Saint was to be taken for imprisonment at the very monastery that started it all, the Brilliant Gem.

The Sixth Saint had grown to enjoy his power as the most powerful representative of Bor's will on all of Caedes.  He called the wrath of Bor down on those who wished to imprison him.  In his thoughts, he named the avenging avatar of the Justicefather – and the angel appeared.  This avatar is very different from avatars of Bor that had appeared in the past.  This beast stood as tall as a giant, with long fangs and dragon-like wings.  Flames issued forth from the scaly skin that covered its body.  The monster stood on two huge hoofed legs, and carried a tremendous flaming longsword in one hand, and a staff made of bone in another.  The avenging avatar of Bor did the Sixth Saint's bidding, commanded by a holy reliquary that the cripple wore on a thick chain around his neck at all times.  With the help of the avatar, the Sixth Saint left a path of destruction as he marched toward the Holy City to seek vengeance on those who sought to imprison him. 

 

The Saint even grew in power as he went, recruiting faithful and putting those who resisted to the sword.  More dark angels of Bor joined the cause, all just as warped as the avatar.  An army of diseased, cloven-hoofed, beast-headed footmen armed with glaives and halberds led the final charge across the Etrib River toward Orme.  The devil-backed force that the Sixth Saint had conjured was invincible.

 

In the end, it was the crippled man's own conscience that brought down this challenge to the established Church of Bor.  It is said that he realized that the fighting was a waste of Bor's resources, and that for him the battle would never end until his death.  Other say that he feared forcing the Empire of Dawn into a civil war had opened the door to conquest of the Empire.  Then, there are others who say that the Sixth Saint simply tired of the bloodshed.  In the end, the Sixth Saint took the reliquary of the avenging avatar and cast it into the Etrib river.  He commanded the avatar and all the dark angels to be gone.  The avatar screamed in anger at the upstart saint and slew him.  Vengence spent, the avatar and his dark angels withdrew from the place.  With the Sixth Saint's death, all his followers were routed from the place. 

 

One hundred years later, the Empire would be crushed beneath the weight of the attacks from the witch-kings.  The actual name of the Sixth Saint is no longer known.  It was erased from all history as an eternal punishment for pretending at being a saint of Bor.  Today, church history makes no reference to a sixth saint, except as a lesson for those who think themselves above the law of the Brightfather.