Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 279

Chapter 279: The Grand Temple

If any part of the exterior of Zarielle’s temple could be called plain or ordinary, that criticism didn’t apply to the interior.  There were no mounds of gold or statues of pure silver, or even collections of the most advanced artifice on Aimarion awaiting Lysette as she followed Dennell into the antechamber.  But there were plenty of paintings, relief carvings, and statues of both granite and some black stone scattered throughout the grand room.  And of course, a chandelier of remarkable craftsmanship, nobility’s one defining mark of overwhelming ostentatiousness to dazzle and wow an incoming crowd.

The largest of the statues and the only one to be painted was unmistakable.  That pale, unblemished, glossy white skin, that shroud of darkness that moved with graceful poise at her back.  That long dress of pure matte black that covered just what it needed of Zarielle’s impressively-sculpted figure to avoid being scandalous while still showcasing as much as she deigned reveal.  And those eyes that were the Night’s stare incarnate, the very abyss upon whose precipice Lysette now stood.

Lysette bowed slightly before the icon, only to be chastised by her guide.  Or maybe warden now. 

“We would not want to keep Her Divinity waiting.”

Lysette acquiesced.  The two made their way up the central staircase and into a large hall.  Dozens of long pews arranged in three long columns filled the floor space.  The temple seemed to stretch on infinitely, though it was but a trick of the eyes easily dispelled by a glimpse of the cathedral through her aura.  The many paintings on the curved walls and the darkness upon the ceiling gave the illusory perception of the world being slowly swallowed up into a black void at the top of the massive room.  Even the light near the ground floor was dim, just enough that untrained humans could make out the faintest bits of color throughout the chamber.

Before her stood a grand altar with numerous pitch black flames alight on either side of it.  Just in front of that altar was a stone dais, and atop in the center was a brass lectern with even more carvings and depictions of their goddess and her numerous exploits over the eons.

A single man knelt at the altar, his back against the wall.  If he had heard the main doors creep open and then close, he gave no indication of his awareness.  He was by far the most well-dressed person Lysette had seen thus far in Ereill, dressed in robes of black, of course.  Just like everything else in the city and its immediate surroundings.

Lysette tensed as she approached.  If Dennell was a gifted Cultivator who’d reaped the benefits of his title and prestige and benefits, then the man kneeling in front of her was but a step removed from divinity of his own right.  She had no doubt that, despite his quiet, deferential demeanor, he could and absolutely would crush her avatar in an instant should his goddess order him so.  She didn’t have reason to believe the purpose of the meeting was to lure her into a trap, but she was relieved not to have her primary body present for the meeting.

Dennell paused just before the dais, and Lysette waited an arm’s length behind him and just to his right side.  More time passed, but Lysette dared not make a sound or do anything else to interrupt the Grand Abbott while in the midst of his meditations.  This too was a test of etiquette— she was to wait for however long he and Zarielle decided to keep her waiting.  Even without their little test, Lysette knew better than to risk her once and perhaps future patron’s ire.  She didn’t know how much Zarielle had been secretly protecting her from other gods, and didn’t need yet more enemies when she already had so many.  Enemies which she had earned for the most part.

Five minutes turned to ten, and ten became fifteen.  Finally after seventeen minutes, the wizened man raised his head ever so slightly, not letting his snow-white hair be ruffled in the slightest.

“Her Divinity is expecting you, Your Ladyship.”  He raised a single index finger almost imperceptibly, again not deigning to look at her or otherwise even acknowledge her presence.  “Stand in the center of the platform.”

The lectern moved by some higher power, though whether the Grand Abbott’s or Zarielle’s or the power of some artifact that lay within the temple, Lysette couldn’t tell.  All of their powers and presences seemed to flow partially into one another.  So much so that Lysette wasn’t sure if this Grand Abbott— Skarillel, if she recalled— was his own person or a puppet controlled by Zarielle’s power or even an avatar through whom she interacted with her flock.

Lysette did as instructed, standing on the central platform.  Strange mechanisms beneath the main hall turned and creaked and grinded against one another as the platform first inverted, then slowly descended.  Not unlike the devices within the Aestori temples.  Which made a lot of sense when Lysette thought on it.  The gods were far more involved in the creation of the previous world than this one.  It would make sense either that the gods designed both themselves, or iterated on the designs of the more advanced civilization which existed on Aimarion three million years ago.

Down lower and lower Lysette descended, to the point where the air had stopped being cold and grew pleasantly warm and then somewhat less so.  No light trickled in, and the air was stale and oppressive both from the sheer quantity of Essence suffusing the chamber as well as the divine presence barreling outward.  Two hundred yards below the surface, the elevator came to a screeching halt and a single door opened into a realm of darkness so all-encompassing that ordinary darkness was as much so as daylight on Domark.

Lysette stepped outward into the hall and lowered her gaze as she approached the throne within the core of the temple.  She did not kneel as would be expected of Zarielle’s subordinates, but still showed a modicum of respect to the divine presence gathering before her.  And gather it did, motes of Essence, both ordinary and Divine, began swirling about through the chamber, slowly coalescing into a form that was superficially human but otherworldly and alien at the same time.

A familiar voice, yet a bifurcated one, greeted her.  “My dear Lys–  Hmm…  Karchek, was it?”  Zarielle’s voice possessed both the gentle warmth of a mother greeting her child with the cold aloofness of a deity looking down upon her subject.

“A lot has happened in the past several months.  Karchek is now dead.  And I needed another body.  Things worked out best this way.”

“As an upstart tyrant in a distant land once said before his ultimate defeat, that the finest pawns are those with pawns of their own.”  Zarielle gave a full-throated, haughty laugh.  “It has been too long, my dear Lysette.  Far too long for my taste.  Please, have a seat.”

Nothing good ever came of being asked to take a seat in such blunt words, but Lysette obliged nonetheless, sitting on the carved wooden chair in the center of the sanctum and waiting for Zarielle to take her own seat.  Which she did with a surprising lack of delay.

“I do apologize for making you wait, my dear.  I had not expected you to be here quite so soon.”  Zarielle giggled.  “Even here in the seat of my power on this world, it still takes time and effort to manifest my physical avatar.”

“I see.”  Lysette lowered her head.  “If I might ask, why did you summon me out here?  I can’t imagine you’d have one of your top agents and hundreds of Ereillan sailors travel across the ocean to summon me here just for a social gathering.”

“Oh, Lysette. I’m hurt!  It’s been so many months since the last time we’ve had a chance to talk, and here you are, wanting to get right down to business.”

“Can you blame me, Zarielle?  Our last encounter didn’t exactly end on amicable terms.  You did try to kill me after I refused to kill my friends and the others under my protection.  Or can you say you would be happy if I started cutting down the people here?”

“If you could.”

“It’s not about whether I could do so.  It’s about how you would react if I tried.  You’ve been worshiped as a protector deity before— I know, I’ve witnessed as much firsthand.  I’m sure you can relate to how I would feel.”

“Do you think I intended for you to go through with that?”

“No.  I think that everything that happened that night happened exactly as you foresaw it, as part of some greater scheme.  For what purpose, I could only speculate, although I do have a few guesses.”

“Oh?  Please, do enlighten me as to the nature of my gambit.”

“This is a test, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is, my dear.  If you can’t think logically and analyze even a simple gambit like that, you will be shredded alive once you ascend.”

“When I ascend?” Lysette half-asked, half-stated.  “I do have a lot of questions about how that works as well.  But to answer your question, our current hypothesis is that you were trying to distance yourself from us.  I’ve been gaining a lot of notoriety myself in recent months.  Gods and their associates are now increasingly aware of who I am.  And much more importantly, what I am and what I am capable of.  You wanted to try to distance yourself from me, so you could avoid even further complications that could tip things in the Celestial realm.”

“And what about now, Lysette, my dear?  Why have I summoned you here?”

“That I still don’t know.  I can’t even begin to fathom the happenings in the Celestial realm, nor the various schemes, alliances, and conflicts going on between you and the others jockeying for influence in both.  Something has shifted to make you more interested in reconnecting with me than distancing yourself from me.  As for what, I would say the death of Asterion’s Godslayer, but again, that’s just speculation.”

“What if I said that that night was a test for you.  One that you passed with flying colors?”

“You wanted to test our strength?  Yes, that was something that crossed my mind.”

“No.  Okay, yes, testing the physical strength of you and your allies was necessary, but it was more of an ancillary benefit than my primary objective.  A word of advice: always make sure that each move you make has multiple follow-ups, depending on how your opponent reacts.  A single threat easily parried is no threat at all.

“No, I wanted to make sure you had your priorities in order.  Make sure you understood the most important thing about being a deity.  Protecting those under your auspices, and ensuring their worship and prayer.”

“You ordered me to kill the people of Ciricu…  Precisely because you hoped that I would refuse?”

“Of course.”

“And if I had failed your test?”

“You would have been eliminated.  It would have been such a poor outcome for the both of us.”

“Would you have–  No, of course you could have.  You let us win when we fought, didn’t you?”

Memories of that night flashed through Lysette’s mind.  There were so many pulled punches that Lysette was too weak and too inexperienced to notice at the time.  Not least of which was that Zarielle could have pulled her blessing before the fight instead of after.  And only the Goddess of Darkness knew what bevy of techniques she had developed over the countless eons.  More than enough to have countered anything that she, Mirae, and Serrena could use at the time.

Zarielle’s neutral countenance broke as her lips curled upward into a slight smile.  “I always did like you, my dear Lysette.  And once again, it is time for me to make my next move.  Soon my favorite pawn will promote, and then the next phase of our little game can commence.”

Chapter 278: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116502663

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101896170

Chapter 280: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116618353