REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!Chapter 20: The Slane Theocracy
As the carriage passed through the border checkpoint, Lucian looked out through the gap in the curtains.
The Slane Theocracy's checkpoint was nothing like the Kingdom's. The Kingdom's had been a rotting wooden barrier, its guards in ragged uniforms with nothing in their eyes but dullness and greed. This one was a neat building of dressed stone, its white walls engraved with the emblems of the Six Great Gods.
"Please submit to inspection."
A young cleric approached the carriage, his manner respectful but not servile.
The inspection was brief.
"Welcome to the Slane Theocracy." He inclined his head slightly. "May the blessings of the Six Great Gods be with you."
The carriage moved on.
The sound of the wheels changed. The jolting creak of the dirt road gave way to a steady, even rumble.
Lucian lifted the curtain again. The carriage was traveling along a paved road, the stone laid with careful precision, the joints between the slabs narrow and even.
On either side of the road, the farmland was tended and orderly, the crops standing tall and golden. The occasional farmer moved along the field borders, dressed plainly but cleanly, without the blank look the Kingdom's farmhands had worn.
Lucian looked at that and felt briefly disoriented.
"Lord Lucian."
A tentative voice came from the corner of the compartment, slightly less small than before.
Lucian turned.
Siel was watching him, those amber eyes carrying a flicker of curiosity and something carefully exploratory.
"The people here..." she said quietly. "They seem happy."
Lucian nodded. "Because they believe things will be better."
* * *
The carriage stopped before a grand building.
White throughout, its facade stood on six great stone columns, each carved with a different divine emblem. Between the columns rose tall arched doors inlaid with colored glass, the sunlight coming through and scattering across the paving stones in broken patches of color.
Lucian climbed down and stood on the stone square. The sun was at just the right angle, the wind light, the distant sound of sacred singing barely audible, mixed with a faint thread of incense on the air.
The Foreign Affairs Temple's hall was wide and bright. The vaulted ceiling soared above, painted with a mural depicting the descent of the Six Great Gods. Sunlight fell through the skylights overhead and lit the hall like open daylight. Long benches lined both sides, empty of worshippers. At the far end stood a tall altar, bearing the divine images of the Six Great Gods.
"The two of you wait here." Lucian looked toward Aldred and Siel, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Aldred inclined his head. "Yes, young master."
Siel gave a slightly anxious nod, her amber eyes following Lucian until his figure disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Aldred stood where he was, hands folded in front of him, back straight, gaze level — the exact posture of a butler performing his duties.
A little while passed.
Footsteps came from deep in the corridor.
Aldred glanced toward them. Then his pupils contracted, sharply.
An old man as thin as bare branches was walking toward them. His face was so aged it was impossible to guess his years, his skin an unhealthy earth tone, his constitution visibly fragile. He wore robes of blue and white trimmed with gold, and from his chest hung a divine emblem in the shape of flowing water — the mark of the Water High Priest of the Slane Theocracy.
Sinedine Delan Guelph.
That name meant that within the entirety of the Slane Theocracy, this man's standing was second only to the legendary Supreme Pontiff. A level of authority the Aindra family could not begin to approach.
And this man was walking directly toward them.
And — Aldred registered the expression on that face. A smile. Not the polite, distant kind. Something warm. Something that carried what could only be called a certain deference.
"You are the guests from the Aindra family, I believe."
Sinedine stopped before them, glanced at Siel, and inclined his head. The depth of that inclination caused Aldred's mind to go briefly blank.
That was the courtesy between equals.
"Please come with me. The Supreme Pontiff requests that you rest in the side hall while you wait."
Aldred's lips moved. He found that speech had, for a moment, left him entirely. He turned and looked at Siel.
The girl was looking up, amber eyes full of puzzlement. She clearly had no understanding of what this warm old man represented.
"You are... most kind." Aldred recovered his voice and returned the bow with a slight one of his own. "Most kind, Your Grace."
Sinedine's smile deepened, and he turned to lead them forward.
Aldred followed, his heartbeat failing to settle.
Was this not a man whose standing outweighed even the Six Great Nobles of the Re-Estize Kingdom by some considerable measure?
He stopped himself there. Some things were not for him to think about.
* * *
Candlelight flickered in the sealed room, drawing the shadows of two figures long against the walls. An ancient tapestry hung opposite, embroidered with the image of the Lady of Death, the figure seeming almost alive in the shifting light.
"You... you say you knew the Lady of Death personally?"
The Supreme Pontiff's voice was unsteady. In his eyes: doubt, and beneath it, something that looked unmistakably like hope.
Lucian sat back in his chair, fingers tapping an idle rhythm against the armrest.
"Not just Silshana. Ara Arav, Brilliant Angel Cat~Meow — all of them."
He said those names with the ease of someone recounting a conversation over dinner. This was the composure of someone who had no need to perform authority — everything exactly in hand.
"Honestly," Lucian shook his head, a resigned smile on his face, "that cat-crazy furry had to choose a name like that. I can barely say it with a straight face."
The unfamiliar words fell from Lucian's mouth with an ease that belonged to no one from this world. The Supreme Pontiff's expression was shifting — the doubt receding like a tide, replaced by reverence, and behind that, the particular fervor that only the most devoted of the faithful ever carried.
"Then you are... you are..."
The Supreme Pontiff lurched to his feet, his chair scraping against the floor.
"Arakaki Tomoya."
Lucian's smile remained easy, his composure unbroken, as though he were giving the most ordinary name in the world.
"I'm curious whether that group of mine left any record of me."
The candlelight gave a single jump, casting alternating shadow and brightness across Lucian's face.
The Supreme Pontiff's voice broke with feeling.
"Then you are the one the Lady of Death herself spoke of — he who stands above all gods, who commands tens of gods equal to the Lady of Death, King of Gods, God of Judgment — Lord Arakaki Tomoya?"
His face was full of devotion. His eyes were wet.
The room fell into a brief silence.
Then —
"Silshana, you absolute idiot!"
Lucian slammed a hand on the table and shot to his feet. Every trace of composure shattered at once.
"Writing it that embarrassingly — you've completely ruined your guild leader's reputation! And I'm docking your pay!"
Snapping back into the exact mode he'd used with Silshana in a previous life, he blurted out his old standby on pure reflex.
***
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