FOURTEEN
The Reunified Church is as old as anything in our ancient world. According to historians, the Aligning had been disastrous: civilizations had collapsed, governments had crumbled, cities had been destroyed. The pre-Aligning church hadn't weathered the upheaval well, and generations of disputes had weakened its foundations. In the years before the Aligning, the great religions of the world had become more and more fragmented.
There's an old saying about standing united but falling divided. There's a truth in that. The more and more fractured something gets, the weaker it becomes. I had a road priest once describe it to me as soft ice. It appears solid, but there's so many tiny fractures that the ice shatters when even the slightest pressure is applied.
It's a good metaphor for th
