Sure, the authority in Cuthbert's voice forestalled panic but his words also killed the birth of Valen's hope. Spellcasters, here? Gods could no world be free of the damnable Registry and its thralls? Because as much as Valen pretended otherwise--even to himself--he was a spellcaster. But he'd be damned before he got himself caught by them, even in a place such as this. He nodded fervently in understanding, a look of stark fear crossing his visage at the idea of spellcasters, playing the lie of any backroads ordinary folk who held suspicion against the magic users.
"In Iero's name, bless you brother," he said, feeling quite devout "for without you I'd rightly be lost. When I'm on my feet I'll carry you to heaven myself!" And in the meantime send every devotion out to the aingerou, and whatever other Gods out there, for the blessing they divised for him to leave him in this place.
"We're not speaking the same language Cuthbert Allgood of.. Gil-ead," mispronouncing it on purpose though he'd heard him fine the first time. If he was to play the backroads townsmen he needn't try hard. "I've no idea what a gunslinger is, but if you're it that's all fine with me. Name's Valen," and only Valen though some would mark him as Valen Militius, and he'd never claim the title, deserter as he was. There was only one way a man got an arrow in the back--or shoulder as was Valen's case--not that he'd remark upon the fact without the shaft sticking from his shoulder like a knob on a gangly tree. And neither did his title mark him clergyman or nobility.
"I'm afraid I can't think up the questions to ask, sir. I'm all turned around in this place. I thought the whore juped me out of coin and brains, but here I am by Iero's good graces." He gestured vaguely. "But as you seem in the know, I'll follow your lead sir, else I lose myself some more."