Part 7

	The two sat quietly for a moment longer before Linus’s apprehension overwhelmed his desire to sit beside the avatar of radiant goodness.  “I should go,” he said, shaking his head violently to clean the memories away.  “I didn’t come here to whine to angels.”  He started to rise.

	“Linus Vorth,” Vanhaldiel said.  Her voice was still quiet, but now it was made of diamond-hard authority.  “I have not released your hand.  Do you intend to abandon this conversation without it?”

	Linus, feeling smaller than he had ever felt and really quite unimportant, sat back down, shaking slightly.  Vanhaldiel continued.  “I, like every single asura, angel, Couatl, and other manner of Celestial in this place, am a volunteer, and serve as much a guide as a guard.  Do I sit here not?  Do I listen not, speak not?  Do I not teach and encourage?”

	Linus didn’t dare answer.  “I am here, Linus Vorth, because the souls of the righteous are laden heavy with doubt, confusion, illness, and the disarrays of war and despair,” she said.  “I am here to listen, and to aid.  Confidant is not my title, yet counsel I offer, and if whining were what you were doing, instead of making a single cryptic remark and then self-flagellating, I assure you, Paladin, you would be the first to know.”  She had not released his hand.

	“Yes, Vanhaldiel,” Linus said.  He hung his head in shame.  “I’m sorry.”

	“Every soul here is cracked and split asunder, Linus.  Why do we think we make you wear the uniforms?” she asked pointedly.

	“…I don’t know.”

	“Gathered here are the forces of good, and of law, and of order and freedom,” Vanhaldiel pointed out.  “Be there among the planes any group less prone to judging others by their rank or their birthplace?”

	“Well… probably not,” Linus admitted.

	Vanhaldiel squeezed his hand.  “Yet uniformity we place upon your bodies, as much to drive home the point of the unconditionality of your continued presence here as to remind you all that none stand above or below another in this place.  Do you think a happily rich man such as you burdens me with a weight of counsel heavier than the poor Ilmateri wound-binder, or lighter than my own angelic kin driven to madness in the Blood War?”

	“…Maybe,” Linus admitted.  She didn’t need a Zone of Truth to compel honesty in him.  It was quite a trick.  “But I never thought about it.”

	“Then stop assuming your problems aren’t worth my time,” she scolded him, though all the edges had fallen from her tone.  “And stop averting your eyes from my face.  My knee is surely not so engulfing of your attention.”

	He looked up at her, and saw the faint smile of wry humor on her lips, and felt better at once.  “See?  Turn your penitent eyes from the truth, and all you have done is take your sight from relief,” she said.  “For in this place, honesty is coin and balm.”

	Linus managed a wistful smile of his own.  “I apologize.  I’m… unused to the company of holiness after so many years alone in the dark.  And of beautiful women.”

	“Then surely this is the best possible place to overcome such impediments of atrophied familiarity,” Vanhaldiel pointed out.

	“Something tells me that this place doesn’t offer many opportunities to… er… abate…” Linus trailed off.  He started to look away, then immediately thought better of it.

	“Abate… what?” Vanhaldiel asked.

	Linus coughed.  “Er…”

	Vanhaldiel cocked her head.  “Erectile dysfunction?” she prompted.

	Linus wanted to die.

	“What of it?  Did I not spend several minutes now, in urging you to abandon your thoughts of uniqueness?” Vanhaldiel asked plainly.  Linus boggled.

	“Er…”

	Vanhaldiel rolled her eyes.  “Why does every single mortal man assume that the ongoing functionality of his reproductive capability is the most shameful thing to lose?” she asked the air.  “Yes, Linus, we do.  Ask your Confidant.  Or I could.”

	“There is nothing that would drive me to suicide faster,” Linus said urgently.

	Vanhaldiel laughed, and Linus felt his heart lighten.  “Then loosen thine lips, warrior.  Do you imagine you will benefit from leaving this place with thine issues unaddressed?” she asked pointedly.  “Ask thy Confidant.”

	“Thank you.”  Linus looked down at his hand, and she released it.  “May I stay a while longer?” he asked her.

	“By all means, Linus,” she said.  “It seems we shall be uninterrupted.”  Indeed, foot traffic outside had wended down to nothing as the lunchtime crowds gathered in the cafeterias.  He saw groups of men on strange devices made of wheels and poles riding quickly by, bags of victuals in their hands, and supposed them to be delivering food to those too ill or weary to leave their residences.

	“So… yes, ma’am.  Damn it.  Vanhaldiel,” Linus said firmly.  “Sorry.  Is there a place I can safely train in weapons combat?  I found the drills to be my sole comfort in the Underdark.”

	“Is there a place for the multiverse’s most decorated veteran do-gooders to practice weapons combat?” Vanhaldiel echoed with a grin.

	Linus smiled dolefully.  “Fine, then.  Where is a place where I might practice safely?”

	“A better question,” Vanhaldiel said.  “The nearest is there,” she said, and raised one toned arm.  She pointed at a large building of the same grey stone, one with a lattice carved into its outer wall, swarming with dark green ivy.  “There, one might practice pugilist or armament arts to the heart’s content.  Archery, one might find in the chambers behind it, with firearms beyond.”

	“Firearms?” Linus asked quizzically.

	“I believe your folk call it smokepowder or Dwarf-dust,” Vanhaldiel explained.  “Not to be used without extensive training, you understand.  It is highly explosive.”

	Linus stared at the building.  “And… it is permitted here?  In a hospital the size of a city?”

	Vanhaldiel shook her white-maned head, scattering strands over her blood-gold flesh and copper tunic.  “Under only the strictest and most unyielding supervision, and only then for the guards such as I,” she said.  “Even angels tread lightly around firearms.  If it is equestrian practice you desire, the track is not yet complete, but it will be yonder, beside the nearest garrison,” she said, pointing in the other direction.

	Suddenly, she turned her head.  “I am summoned to council,” she said.  “I fear we shall have to call our conversation to close.”

	Disappointment soured Linus’s taste, and he marveled at how different that was from when she had first beckoned him.  He rose.  “Then don’t let me keep you, holy Vanhaldiel,” he said demurely.  “Thank you, so very much.  I feel better.”

	She smiled and waved him closer to where she sat.  When he stepped in closer, she rose just enough to kiss him on the crown of his head.  “Then no time of mine did we waste here, did we?” she whispered playfully into his ear as he froze solid.  “And you were so worried.”  She straightened up and spread her shining wings.  “Farewell, Linus Vorth,” she said fondly, and took flight.