29 Pity
“Why do the Elsar elevate some humans to godhood? Priests and sceptics alike have posited hundreds of theories as to the purpose of the Naaduir’s existence.
Many among the Elsarian Order only revere the major pantheon, pointing to the Saints and the Wretched as little more than national heroes that were formalized into religious significance.
There is truth to this, certo. But it also remains that the gods created the minor pantheon of the Naaduir and would have done so for a purpose.
Was it to show humanity the rewards they could reap by obedience?
Or do even the gods, in all their might, require assistance managing our foibles?
The latter theory is further compounded by the fact that living in service of one of the Elsar can result in formalization as a Naaduir.
On the other hand, living in service of a Naaduir will, at most, result in dwelling in that minor god’s realm upon death.
The better option, then, is to predominantly worship the Elsar as the Clerics do, but leave space in your hearts and altars for the minor gods.
Who knows? Some Naaduir are even said to have consorts.
If you can’t become a minor god, marrying one is an option! ”
—excerpt from So You Want to Become One of the Naaduir, author unknown
There were eighty-three manuscripts in the Codices that formed the canon purported to be the word of the Elsar according to the Elsarian Order. This land was doomed if they were going to have to read through all of them.
Hiding in a corner of the Hall of Records’ Archive of Elsarian Texts, Sarai flipped another page, eyes blurry with reading about another battle between Wrath and Ruin.
The six High Elsar—seven if Wrath counted—and three ambiguous Elsar aside, there were tens of Naaduir that could induce visions and had strong senses of justice.
Saints and Wretched of such domains as rot, song, literal darkness, hunting, pacts, knowledge, and even the supposed Naaduir of dreams, Faragathe, herself.
The hours bled by into evening as they tried to narrow it down, with Sarai hiding a smile as Anek flirted outrageously with Méherre.
“So, you can only Bridge people to places you’ve already been to?” Anek rested their head on their elbow.
Méherre’s gaze caught theirs before the beginnings of a smile came to her lips. “I picture it in my head. Then, I imagine the sounds, smells, the gravel under my feet. It’s like I leave a bit of myself in each place I go to, and I pull myself back to it when I open a portal there.”
“Fascinating.”
Grinning, Sarai turned the page when Harion groaned.
“Where a Summoner asks a god to curse a person or place, the only way to end it is to kill the Summoner and relieve the god of the obligation to fulfill it,” he read aloud from a volume and tossed it aside, looking green. “We’re all going to die.”
Méherre eyed him with mild irritation. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re loud?”
Beside her, Anek let out a besotted wheeze.
He glowered. “There’s also the fact that the more the god tightens their hold over a mortal realm, the easier they can swallow it.”
Méherre’s brows drew together. “A vanished city. History is littered with them.”
“We’ve seven thousand dead and ten and a half thousand madness-struck now,” Anek sucked in a breath. “Evil folk or not, those deaths mean we’re well on our way to becoming history. Could this be someone in the Elsarian Order, trying to prove a point?”
Méherre snorted. “If those fools were capable of Summoning anything more than a swollen head, they wouldn’t have forced Sarai to a Hearing, like she was Faragathe herself.”
Wisdom’s breath, she really can’t stand the Order. Sarai made a mental note to ask the other woman why when a hubbub rose in the distance, loud enough to penetrate the insular grouping of buildings forming the Hall of Records.
Anek wearily rubbed their eyes. “What now?”
“Sounds like it’s coming from the public square down the street.” Sarai rose, trying to discern whether the yells were cheers or protests.
“Let’s take a look.” Méherre shelved the tome in her hands. “I’ll pull you both out if it gets dangerous.”
They raced out of the Archive of Elsarian Texts and past the Hall of Records’ three-faced statue of Time.
The air parted easily under Méherre’s hands, leading into the square.
They shrank back upon entry as a mob rushed past them to join an even larger crowd snarling at a figure standing in the center.
Sarai stood on tiptoe and went motionless. Fenced by a group of northern vigiles, Noceo, unfortunately well-healed from their last meeting, eyed the Edessans spitting hatred his way with cold fury.
Gray-green banners draped the square in Clan Kader’s heraldry, the eerie image of blood dripping from a safsher into a chalice glowering down at every corner.
Silver abounded in color and metalwork, glinting off the elaborate braziers ringing the square at strategic intervals against the wind.
The columns of the colonnade circling the square had been painted gold.
Gilding a throne. After destroying the Aequitas, he’d had no other choice. This was the largest public square in the city.
“For the last godsdamned time, I have nothing to do with the so-called madness-struck in your city,” he spoke sharply over his roaring audience.
Her jaw tightened at the memories his voice evoked. You have to see it as I have or I become the villain of the piece. How did he believe himself in the right?
“Gods, he’s decorated this even more garishly than the Am Semni Institute,” Méherre muttered. “And that’s saying something.”
“What does it look like?” Anek smirked when the crowd resumed its verbal attacks.
“Opulent,” the Bridger said wryly.
Sarai watched Noceo’s features pale further when he began barking orders at the spectators to cease obstructing his path.
That people felt free to roar at him now was proof that they had smelled weakness.
He was visibly sweating, features as strained as Kadra’s had been when he had overexerted himself at the Aequitas.
The two were remarkably similar in that sense, pushing past their limits.
Noceo’s men lit the braziers around the square. Fire danced gold and red under the light of the twin moons, spreading long arms to the sky in silent devouring and nuzzling into the wood to sear everything within. She’d give anything for a fraction of that destructive strength.
“You crave security,” Kadra had said. Why was power the only way to ensure it?
“Whatever conversation you’re having with yourself, please do let us join in,” Anek remarked to Sarai’s right.
Sarai grunted. “I hate him.”
“So do I.”
“And I pity him.”
Méherre’s brows jumped high along with Anek’s. “Why bother? He’s done much harm.”
“He wanted me to understand him.” Sarai cursed silently at the memory of what she’d seen in his head. “I did.”
The Bridger went quiet. “That feels unfair,” she said after a moment. “Ahead, we have a man who’s robbed people of free will and murdered them without care, and you’re quick to understand him when you didn’t get half as much compassion from him or from Edessa’s population.”
“I second that,” Anek said with a wince.
“Pity’s best reserved for those who can change, Sarai.
I’m not interested in finding out if he will.
” They slung an arm around her shoulder.
“Let’s leave him to receive a lovely Edessan chewing out, hmm?
Once this all blows over, they’ll be back to swearing up and down that the Tetrarchy is evil incarnate. ”
Sarai managed a smile, mulling over their arguments throughout the brief journey back to Méherre’s home. They aren’t wrong. Yet, it was hard to shake off the sense that she had seen more of him that day than he had intended.
Perhaps that was why she walked toward Dalvia’s blond hair upon spotting her.
The other woman drew up her hood before entering a tavern and sat there, staring out of the window for a long moment. Pulling up her own hood, Sarai entered and spoke to the barmaid there. A few moments later, she plunked two bowls of soup before Dalvia and took the seat across from her.
“Dinner.” She smiled. “It isn’t drugged. Would you like to eat with me?”
Dalvia’s empty gaze seemed to look through her before slowly moving to the soup. Something perturbed and resigned crossed her face before she picked up her spoon.
Sarai had never known anyone so utterly broken down. How bitter it was that people could emerge from the same crucible so differently.
They ate in silence, though Sarai noticed that Dalvia was careful not to make too much sound as she gingerly sipped from her soup, as though she feared drawing attention to her existence. Surprisingly, she spoke first.
“If you’re looking for me to betray Noceo, I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”
“In truth, I wasn’t. I just—” Sarai sighed. “I wanted to understand you.”
Dalvia raised her head at that, dark eyes inscrutable. “Why bother? I’ve done much harm.”
“You’ve also been seeing to the care of Komis’s injured. I saw how many people struck by plague were being carted by the wagon to the Am Semni Institute for recovery.”
Dalvia looked away with a click of teeth and a hard swallow. “I do nothing. My Clan built that hospital centuries ago. It only made sense to use it once the plague rose.”
Sarai scrutinized the other woman’s almost ethereal frailty. “Have you never wanted to leave?”
Dalvia set down her spoon. “That possibility vanished early on.”
A shudder made a cozy home in Sarai’s already shaking hands at the empty way she said it. “But you’ve had the best chance at escape of all of them. A portal could take you anywhere.”
“Bridgers can only open portals to places they’ve already visited.”
“Was there nowhere that felt safe to you?”