[Considering you said Zach managed to kill old Oganj single-handedly, it is clearly not ‘anyone’.]
[He wasn’t always that strong, though,] Zorian pointed out. [In the first few restarts, any decent mage could have overpowered him, even some of our classmates. For that matter, it could be a matter of backstabbing rather than losing in combat — someone could have drugged him or lured him into a heavily warded trap area.]
[Even a classmate, you say?] the matriarch asked speculatively. [That’s interesting. Didn’t you say Zach is fairly obsessed with learning more about the rest of your class? He would probably think nothing of sharing a secret with one of them, especially since they’re ‘just’ students… How well do you know them as a whole? Are any of them acting strange?]
[I’m… not really very close to any of them,] Zorian admitted. [I don’t think I would know if they started to behave strange, so long as they didn’t go completely out of character. I can think of a few that I’m sure aren’t time travelers but…]
[Try to investigate,] the matriarch said. [It would be terribly embarrassing if it turns out the third one was hiding in plain sight all along, no? Try to see if you can connect any of them with the invaders as well.]
The matriarch gave Zorian a list of human diviners that might know more about the irregularities related to future forecasting and they both agreed to meet in another three days. Zorian was a bit of annoyed that the topic of his empathy and getting it under control never came up but he supposed the matriarch wanted to see how useful to them he was before investing their time to teach him their (possibly secret) mind arts.
It was nice having someone on his side in this whole tangled mess. He just hoped he wasn’t making the same mistake with the aranea that Zach did with the person behind the invasion.
Chapter 020
A Matter of Faith
Zorian didn’t like temples. Partially it was due to his bad experiences with them as a child, but mostly due to his inability to understand the reverence with which the priesthood spoke of the vanished gods they were supposed to be venerating. Virtually every story he had read or heard about the age of gods made the divinities sound like gigantic jerks, so why would anyone want them back? Nobody could ever give him a satisfactory answer to that question, least of all his parents, who were religious only so long as the neighbors were watching.
The temple in front of which he was standing at the moment did nothing to dispel that unease. The large, dome-like building on the outskirts of Cyoria was larger and far more imposing than any other temple Zorian had previously been in, despite being described as one of the smaller ones in Cyoria. Still, the aranea matriarch had claimed this temple housed the best (human) future forecaster in the city, so his unease would have to be set aside for the sake of accomplishing the mission.
He hesitantly stepped towards the heavy wooden doors that served as an entrance to the temple, warily glancing at the huge stone angels that flanked the doorway. Lifelike and grim-faced, the angels appeared to gaze down on him as he approached, judging him and finding him lacking. Try as he might, Zorian couldn’t completely dismiss his unease with the statues, since there was a very real possibility they were guardian golems or some other sort of security. He was just about to open the door and walk inside when he noticed a series of images carved into the door and paused to study them.
Although the carvings on the door were fairly stylized and disjointed, he recognized instantly what they were about. They formed a crude sort of comic, depicting a familiar story of how the world was created according to Ikosians (and by extension, most religions drawing their traditions from them). According to Ikosians, the world was originally a swirling, shapeless chaos, inhabited only by the 7 primordial dragons. One day, the gods descended from the higher planes of existence and killed all of them save one. This last one they refashioned into the material world that humans now inhabit, turning her body into dirt and stone, her blood into water, her breath into air and her fire into magic. The vast networks of tunnels stretching beneath the surface of the world are dragon veins, now empty of blood that had been turned into the seas but still flooded with magic emanating from the Heart of the World — the fiery, still-beating heart of the primordial dragon that rests somewhere deep underground. Far from being content with her fate, the Dragon Below still rages against her bounds, giving birth to natural disasters like volcanoes and earthquakes. Unable to strike back against the gods themselves, the dragon takes her anger out on their favored creations — humans — by utilizing her heart, the one thing the gods have not seen fit to take away from her. Pieces of it continually flake off from the main mass, giving birth to horrifying monsters whenever they hit the ground, at which point said monsters begin their ascent to the surface to terrorize mankind…
And so on. Zorian didn’t believe there was much truth in the old story, but the whole thing was pretty horrifying if one took it at face value. With gods like that, it was no wonder the Old Faiths were steadily losing converts to new religions that popped up after the gods disappeared.
«Can I help you with something, young man?»
Zorian wrenched himself from his musings to look at the man who spoke to him. He found himself facing a young, green-haired man in priestly robes. The man’s relaxed posture and friendly smile set Zorian at ease, but he couldn’t help but wonder about that green hair. As far as Zorian knew, the only people who naturally had green hair were members of House Reid, and it seemed rather out of character for one of them to go into clergy. That particular house was infamous for their links to crime syndicates.
«Maybe,» allowed Zorian. «I am Zorian Kazinski, mage in training. I was wondering whether Priestess Kylae was around and willing to talk to me? Oh, and sorry about worrying you. I suppose I had been staring at the entrance a little too long.»
«Junior Priest Batak,» the man introduced himself. «And don’t worry, a lot of people are intimidated by the gates. It’s why I like to greet newcomers personally like this. As for Kylae… well, she is currently in the middle of a ritual, but if you’re willing to wait an hour or so I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear you out.»
«Sure,» Zorian agreed. This was far better than he expected, to be honest — he half-expected the man to put him through some kind of religious test before allowing him to see the head priestess. Waiting an hour or two was a minor price to pay really. «Err, so should I come back later or…?»
«Nonsense,» the man scoffed. «Come inside and I’ll make us something to drink while we wait. It’ll be nice to have someone new to chat with for a change. We get so few visitors these days…»
Uh oh, it seemed that he might still end up being subjected to a test, only this one in the form of ‘casual’ conversation instead of something overt.
«Slow week?» Zorian asked as they entered the temple. The interior was pleasantly cool and fairly dark, with rays of multicolored light streaming down from several high-placed stained glass windows, as well as totally empty. He was grateful for the lack of crowds, but it was unusual to see a temple completely deserted like this.
«I wish,» Batak sighed. He led Zorian through rows and rows of wooden benches that filled the temple’s main hall, his steps echoing hauntingly behind him. «More like a slow decade. The aftermath of the Weeping has not been kind to this place.»
«What do you mean?» Zorian asked. «What does the Weeping have to do with this place?»
Batak gave him a judging glance before sighing heavily. «Though the gods have gone silent, the priesthood has never been completely powerless. Most priests have some skill with magic, and higher ranks can usually call upon the aid of angels and other lesser spiritual entities, but our real claim to authority came from various hidden mysteries that were entrusted to us before the gods departed to the unknown. Over time a lot of those were stolen or otherwise lost, but the one thing where we were always unmatched was the healing arts. As such, when the Weeping Plague started spreading across the lands like wildfire, we were expected to do something about it. Sadly, not only were we as powerless against it as anyone else, our close contact with the infected quickly resulted in massive casualties within our ranks. With the subsequent shortage of qualified priests, peripheral temples like this one were all but abandoned, both by believers and by the Holy Triumvirate.»