Itrit made his way through a crowd of onlookers. They were all cheering as a young man was strapped to a wooden pole, stacks of kindling shoved close to his feet smelling of oil and salt. The old scholar moved like a cat, weaving his way from person to person, never touching a shoulder or stepping on a toe. They didn’t even know he was there, and, in a flash, he was standing at the front. Itrit gripped a gnarled staff in his right hand and pressed his weight against the stick, knees aching.
He wasn’t as young as he used to be.
“What is the crime?” Itrit asked the middle-aged gentleman to his right.
“Huh, new in town?” he snorted. “The bastard was caught worshipping false idols.”
Ah yes, the inquisition’s new decree. Or perhaps it was the king’s decree? Where was it that power truly lied? With the man who claimed to rule, or the men who ruled in his absence? The inquisition had certainly gained control quickly, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, they owed their rise to the pantheon they so despised.
At first, Itrit thought they would make life difficult for his children, but he was wrong. After all, the Scholars and the Inquisition were after the same thing. To stop the Great Devourer. It was a simple proposition. The hierophants of the sunken valley would preach the ills of worshipping false faith, and, in return, the king would leave a few cell doors open. Pilus, the leader of the inquisition, was a reasonable man if but a little drunk on power. Too drunk to notice the strings pulled tight above his head. Yes, banning the worship of the pantheon simply drove chapels underground, and Itrit was convinced of his god’s hand in the matter.
“Lift your heads and beg for mercy! Saint Iranol knows the way!” the young man shouted as the guards tossed torches into the pyre.
The flames erupted into a brilliant display of golden light and snapping thunder. Itrit turned away from the blaze as the young man screamed, hair catching fire and skin blistering.
Yes, he was certain the pantheon had a hand in all of this, ever since the young goddess Morta nearly destroyed the world, and the wraith deity gifted them the Sundial. Not that anyone but himself remembered. Resonants lived a long time, but even they fell short in years when compared to him. No, Itrit owed his longevity to the ice in his heart, the last gift of the white god. The pantheon worked hard to undermine the progress of their peers. So much so that they gave a mortal outside of the white city the gift of immortality. He used it to create the scholars and rotate the Sundial to blind distant Leviathans.
Yes, their cause was noble, even if their methods were taboo. Still, they, mere playthings in the cosmic wind, were caught up in a conflict they had no hope of winning.
Itrit shook his head and looked up at the night sky, spying the blazing torch of Saint Iranol. After a thousand years, the star had grown so bright it nearly outshone the sun. How much brighter would it be in a thousand more? They kept the smaller Leviathans at bay but had no hope of stopping the core.
Leviathan Iranol, the heart of the Great Devourer, was a festering cancer at the center of the universe. A tumor that had grown to such size that no cluster of stars, no matter how numerous and tight, could compare. Imprisoned within constellations, the other Leviathans were but tendrils, whisps of hair from a balding scalp. How long would they be able to fend off its ilk? Perhaps they were merely buying time for the Basilisk to reset the peninsula once more.
Whatever the case, he would do everything in his power to stop the coming storm.
Itrit turned back to the burning pyre. The young man’s cries had long since died down, and the crowd had dispersed when the smell turned sour. Then the ground shook, and the old scholar tumbled to his knees. On the eve of the winter solstice, Iranol sang a twisted tune that shook him to his core.
“Brace, yourselves,” he said as the crowds screamed. “The next Pallid war is about to begin.”
Drenched in saintly light
Entreat intercession for your plight
Vow to uphold
Our tenet old
Under pain of death
Remember each breath
Each beat of the heart
Recite your part
One calf, for your mother
Four fouls, for another
Wish carefully now
On furrowed brow
Revel in your sacrifice
Like so many kitchen mice
Dance upon the boiling pot, sinner
Saint Iranol has come for dinner