Sariel: May 15th: High Temple
Sitting across from the man in front of me, he had an expression that best fit a cat when it had found a tasty rodent unknowingly wandering into its path. He gave me a very warm smile, which was quite unexpected considering I could've sworn I saw the semblance of a puzzle piece being placed in the long breath of air he spent gazing at me, after saying the words.
-"I'll do it."
The silence was longer than was due for a three-word commitment; I meant every second of it, but every second after was like a call for uncertainty to start creeping back in through the door.
The study was well-lit with candles, and the shine of their light allowed me to see the man's every expression thoroughly. And it also lit up the great bookcase beside us, as though the title of High Priest came with all the knowledge of the world at its disposal.
Felton was not a scary man, although he gave off an aura of age and experience that could not simply be achieved by reading and setting off spells in an old temple exclusively.
I leaned back in the seat, hoping to ease off the ever-growing pressure.
Lexita seemed to be happily watching the exchange from a stool in the corner, her white robes were shaping to the seat, and she sat, hands fiddling even as they were resting on her cloth-covered legs.
With a look of anticipation.
He spoke
-"Good… we have a long journey ahead of us before you can be considered a holy knight prospect, an addition to the High Temples' faith and dutiful service, is quite an honor.
But looking at you now, I can see something in you. Something that at your age, me and Svaland, as I called him then, had shared the same face of ambition that you are giving me now."
He moved forward, and the light revealed more of his thick black hair as it whisped across the top of his garments. His green eyes looked down on me, and the light reflected my own bewildered expression back at me. I took a breath and calmed myself instinctively. I gifted him a smile as he carried on speaking.
-" Tomorrow I will have blooded you when it nears midnight, as is tradition. I want you to take a series of books from the shelf over there. You will learn them before then. If you dont know how to read, I can teach you. It's a simple phrase now. May the light of the angels' blessing give us everlasting strength and fervour as we live under his guidance. May he t…" I cut him off
-" Don't worry, High Priest Felton, I am quite good at reading. It is all I had back at my village of Sarca. I was an outcast, so my mother kept me inside."
Sympathy rose in his expression, and I returned it with a cold indifference.
- "Well, not to worry, after the ceremony you will have been inducted into the temple's ranks as an Initiate. Once you are fully ready, you will be ascended to a squire, and then I can recommend you to be placed under one of my knights' care to gain on-the-ground knowledge. But before all of that, you must be as strong as I am, which I do hope you can learn as quickly as you have that reading, as I will be the one personally training you in swordsmanship. I have very high hopes for you as the one who rescued my daughter."
The lie made me twitch a little. I appreciated that Lexita was thinking of me when she told it. But the truth was that she had saved me, yes, it was my hands that took that pigs life away from him, but the credit should be shared in a just world.
Felton rose from his seat, he stepped across the room towards the towering bookcase, and removed three particularly dusty-looking books, titled.
The Holy Arts,
The Fallen Angels Scripture,
and A Pilgrim's Guide to Knighthood.
He made his way back over and placed the books in front of me.
I gave him a gracious nod before taking them in my hands and following him towards the door of the chamber.
-" Lexita has promised me that she will show you the way to the ritual chamber tomorrow night. I trust sleeping in the serving quarters with the other initiates will not be too distracting whilst pursuing your studies. Thank you for accepting my offer. I am glad we reached this outcome."
He gave us a long bow, and then carefully closed the door as I followed Lexita down the narrow passage. It was a bit drafty compared to the heat of Felton's quarters.
We walked for a short while until Lexita came to a halt at a room that was only a floor down from the one we had just come from. The doors were densely spaced, and it looked just sizable for maybe a few people. If this were the serving quarters, I was in for a rough time.
-" Father might've said that you have to sleep in the serving quarters, Sari, but that doesn't mean I have to listen. I'm of the same standing as a holy knight around here. If I can't do this much, then what am I even good for as a friend?"
She gave me a warm smile and closed her hand around mine before pushing open the door and leading me into a well-decorated, homely room. It had a pot of daffodils on the window ledge, and a large wooden double bed off to the side, next to a crudely-painted drawing of a girl in a field with a cute smiley face and some birds flying past.
I felt a warmth come over me, and turned to my new best friend with a smile on my face.
-" You have done more for me in a day than anyone has all of my life, Lexi. This is such a nice room. Thank you for letting me stay. I hope I won't be too much trouble." I let out a giggle
And she moved over to the door before letting one out herself.
-" Im gonna go get us some food Sari. I'll let you get on with it. Dont spend too long in those books or your eyes will fall off… okay, that might be something my mother told me, but either way." She stuck out her tongue and then left, closing the door behind her.
-" Time to get on with it thennnn," I muttered to nobody in particular, lying down and moving the books onto the soft carpet in the middle of the floor.
Svaland:May 15th: Kargos Capital, High Temple
The conscript standing before me took a heavy and respectful bow after taking me through to the room, my destination, when I reached what I had been looking forward to all day.
The door was inconspicuous, a sliding panel of heavy white bricked mechanation was awaiting me.
This time, I only had two holy knights accompanying me rather than my usual ten, and for good reason. My... habit was a secret between only the two behind me and myself.
Even the conscript guiding me to the door had no idea how to open it or what was past the door.
I had picked the two knights behind me because of their malleable temperaments, the one with aptitude for fire was as stupid as one could reasonably be without introducing oneself to a brick wall and exclaiming their own politics. Which was yet a step up from High Priests Corvos and Felton.
The other one was a woman I had hand-picked for her experience in espionage.
Narita was a exeptional half demon with an Ice aptitude who had joined us only five years ago. Although her hair had been dyed especially to keep the secret, which I had naturally taken an immediate interest in. After being alerted to the demon's movements, which had been sloppily attempted under my ever-watchful eyes.
It didn't take long before the crows had alerted me, and the situation came under hand with quite a few benefits.
One of my many skills being that I can sense things about people due to my unusual condition.
My hand creaked over with a sizable click from my bones as I slid open the hefty door with ease.
The pair already knew their jobs. And entered silently as mice. They moved about with clinical precision.
The foolish one prepared the stove.
And Narita lit the candles and set the cutlery as I made my way into the room after shutting the door.
Its weight reverberated through my hands almost immediately.
And fell into line with the walled white passage in a short time.
The meat was being thawed from the ice by the foolish one, and I took a seat upon the table as it was being prepared.
I stared off into the darkness of the corners, and darkness was creeping in as one of the candles dimmed slightly.
It reminded me of my own age as the marks of a thousand years were laying themselves bare upon my features.
Withered brow, wrinkled face. My best years are far behind, but my power is steadily hanging on.
Even with my age, I could keep the nuisances In check a thousand times over.
That foolish king is the first that came to mind.
The High clergy being second.
His ever-present persistence in our anti-demon sermons was disturbing and undermined the authority I held when conducting my speeches.
He was also requesting more than was due on that same matter.
-"Such a green boy", I gasped, the words were to myself.
Barely two centuries old, and he acted as though the world was at his fingertips, as though the oldest of us would forget the foolish business he made a mess out of with the demons a short while ago.
My staring was interrupted by the foolish one placing a plate of exquisitely prepared meat on the table in front of me.
Narita poured me some wine infused with the blood of the cattle, down to my last instruction.
A marvel she was. My concentration had been lacking recently due to age, but my habits had been kicked up by a few interesting developments in the temple recently.
I would deal with them eventually.
I reached for the knife and began to cut into the dish, tender, soft, and crisped to perfection.
It tasted as good as when it was first served to me, in that elven restaurant by the docks of the old kingdom.
Half-elf meat was hard to come by recently.
I took a bite of the dish, savouring it.
If my lord were still with us, he would have been here to enjoy it.
The fallen angel has graced me with a few more years of power today.
And I quite enjoyed savouring it.
Sariel: 15th May: Kargos Capital, High Temple
An hour had passed, and during it I managed to get some due studying in.
I had the phrase memorised from Felton, which was a given.
But now I even felt more familiar with the Elven High Temple and its central tenets.
The first one was elven supremacy.
'Do not fret upon elven bloods presencе, its strength will pass time, and spilling it by ones own kin demands an eye for an eye.
Then it was The Fallen Angels Declaration,
'When the old world has fallen, elven blood's strength will never have fallen, a noble will unite the power of the magic blooded. And this will be called Kargos.
And to finish off, it was the pilgrim's message:
'To the Initiates of new and old, the holy knights and pontiff themself, do not pass the same road of old those before you strived away from. Enter it with open arms, duty, loyalty, love, are the only ways for the fallen Angels boone to pass. And the fruit of life to be given back to elven hands once more from demon scourge.
They were long and made little sense apart from the elven purity one and some parts of the initiate's message to spread devotion or whatever. Oh well, at least I have them committed to memory.
Although I'm not sure if that will come with my unwilling commitment to a mad house.
I had heard the human religions were far less fanatical and instead worshipped a cross and bearded man.
But I suppose thinking about that would make me regret myself again. With a soft knock, the hardwood door opened. Lexita popped into the room, both hands full of plates of meat and fruit. A delicious combination best enjoyed with elven company, although I preferred a side of bread to go with it, usually.
-" Its still hot, so eat it up fast, okay."
I pushed my fork through the meat first. The texture was delicate, and it tasted so incredibly good. I haven't had anything like this in so long. The fruit was even better, sweet and crunchy. Both of them blended in my mouth like butter on bread.
After we ate, Lexita handed me a spare nightgown she had in her drawer. I changed into it before creeping into bed. She already had hers on and tucked herself in next to me. Drifting off to sleep It felt like something was actually going right for me now. I had security and friendship. If that wasn't good enough, then nothing was worth living for.
Sariel: May 16th: Kargos Capital, High Temple
When I woke up lexita was already gone. The room was still warm, so I decided to take the blanket with me to the carpet, as I carefully picked the book about elven magic and read a good bit more.
Hours had passed before I finally started to piece together some semblance of whatever was on the page. It was all in ancient elven.
And the words were like an amalgamation of human language and old elven words that hadn't been used in decades.
What the fuck does that mean?
'Ituzia selmon carbatos worship, icxma blood, Ituzia napa'
Okay im putting this down now, it's actually giving me a migraine.
Looking out the small slit in the room, stained glass being the only barrier between me and the outside, I could see the whole city from here, the small golden blur that makes up the top of the city gates. The merchant caravans that looked like ants scuttling across the main road. And the… scruffy-looking newcomers, being shoved through to the slum district, it was like a black pit of despair compared to the commoner district, and further towards the noble district, it looked as though it were a whole different world. Here I am struggling for a dead rat to eat, and the nobles in the spire are being carried around in fabric carriages, moved along by strong men.
It painted a very vivid picture of the clear divide between the slum dwellers and the commo…
-" Sariel, Its time now." I turned around and Lexita was watching me from the doorway. It was time for the blooding ceremony. I took a breath and brushed away my concern, for another time, I think, when I actually need it.
Lexi led me down the steps of the corridors, through the white passages lit with torches, down to the darkest, dampest parts of the Temple, where at first glance it would not have occurred to you that the staircases even led down here.
As we pulled through a particularly long stretch of passageway, the door was coming into view, and I knew it was the one because it was the only entrance that had a red star engraved within its wooden structure.
Lexita ended up being the bravest out of both of us, as she pushed past the door, and made her way into the extreme darkness of the room.
I entered, and it was pitch black; the door shut behind me, and I couldn't see or hear anything.
Then, one by one, dim lights appeared; at least ten of them were scattered about the darkness, like fireflies bouncing off a blind man's eye socket.
What was this?
The room was the only one in this temple that I had seen without a single drop of white present.
Bar the six holy knights lighting the candles, with Felton in the middle, overlooking the whole thing, as two braziers lit up, and I saw High Preist felton beckoning me to come forward, standing in a restless cavern of black liquid.
-" This is the first step, Sariel. The blood of the fallen angel rests in this pool here, and it has cleansed over twenty generations of holy knights and clergy. You will be the next"
This was deeply unnerving me from the moment I was ushered in.
I could feel their eyes darting at my every step, studying me, enjoying each deliberate movement that was taking me closer to the impending metallic stench of the pitch-black pool in front of me.
Felton's Holy knights lined up in a uniform line on each side of the slope towards the pool, kneeling in silent prayer.
Taking the first step into the water, it was making my head throb; the cold tension broke once my feet meshed against the liquid. I unbuttoned my shirt instinctively as the last straggler of its captivity was dispersed to the side of the room with a pop. and the liquid enveloped my body entirely. Pushing me to my back, forcing me there like I was the prey it desperately desired. Felton's gaze intensified as though this was an unexpected development. He was walking towards the slope himself.
The feeling was deeply uncomfortable, yet comfortable at the same time. The water, if it wanted to be called that… was warm, and seemed to be reaching for me rather than me simply swimming inside of it. Letting go of my senses seemed natural in the face of the calm lull of the black sludge enveloping my every crevice.
I could barely tell who was who outside of the sludge pool; dimly lit candles hid people's faces as they shifted, and silhouettes were constantly moving and merging.
A slow chanting, unnoticeable at first,
until it was practically blasting through my ears,
piercing my eardrums,
screeching like metal rubbing on ceramic.
It wouldn't stop!
I didn't even want it to anymore.
Then it was silent, the absence of movement coming from High Priest Felton was the most unnerving, especially in the pitch black.
naked and afraid, in a foreign embrace, that seemed more homely than I would like to admit.
Then I felt it, an immense disturbance, displacement, and a dreaded foreboding feeling crunched in my stomach, the same way it had when I had first woken, but worse, far, far worse.
-" On time, am I? Felton…. Sariel,
I hope you dont mind,
Ive been hearing quite a lot of buzz from Corvos about how this girl saved the priestess from the demons in the slums.
How about it?
I thought the hero from Corvos' story might deserve something a little bit more personal for her induction to our Faith. Do you not believe so
Felton?"
The voice was alive, but just hearing it made me feel sicker than before.
Felton replied to the detached voice with a restrained whisper.
The pitch black enveloped the whole place, apart from only the bottom end of his white silken robes as they moved with his voice, as though the dance of the fabric was being sewn in place with his words as he spoke. I noticed red specks on the bottom, which made my dread feel firmly at home here in this cavern.
What was happening…
-" Of course, your holiness."
I sincerely hoped it had not been the case, but it simply was.
What did the Pontiff want with me?
He was the finish line. If the Temple was the structure, the pontiff was the man holding it up with his hands.
-" Allow me to take it from here, anointed one."
The man stepped into the pool,
His flesh moved first, his robes came after, a quite long, and flabby leg had forced its place into the black liquids' domain. Another one came shortly after, his body shaping into something more skinny and sharp, as the liquid began to make the man's clothes stick to him like a dark glue, painting him.
His eyes were a piercing green with a reddish hue at the edges, and his ears were pointedly facing the blackness of the ceiling as well.
The Pontiff was set to be the one I received this Bloodening ceremony from, and I still had no clue what it was.
My breathing sped up as the fact set into the depths of my mind.
He was creeping up on me, but as he drew so close to me, a primal urge to flee intensified.
I felt myself frozen to the black water, only being able to cover my exposed chest from being seen, as he approached me with his hand out from above.
My flesh shuddered, and I felt a shiver envelope my skin, as though it was trying to wilt from my body as the man's touch forced me to his preferred position.
Slice.
A jagged dagger had already been put to use on the Pontiff's hand. I saw the shadows of crimson droplets and felt them fall onto my face.
What could I even do? I squirmed away.
But words of protest died in my throat, and all I could let out was an exasperated throw of air, as his fingers rubbed it in, shaping it with his frosted, wrinkled fingers, he made me want to retreat further into the sludges embrace; it was preferable to the creature above me, and his empty words and boney fingers.
Darkness enveloped me fully.
I remembered the phrase at the back of my throat. It came out strained and with ragged breath.
-" May the light of the angels' blessing give us everlasting strength… *gasp
and fervour… *gasp
as we live under his guidance"
My vision blurred.
A head whispered in my ear, I saw its rotting remains deep under the ground being desecrated, consumed. I heard its call, its high elven tongue violating my ears with a tickling feeling indescribable.
And then I was staring up at him again.
His crazed eyes were assessing my delicate body, staring at my impurities, laid bare for this… man.
He could see them, I could tell it in his eyes.
He knew what they were. His features scrunched into a wide grin before he stepped out of the pool.
His ten-man guard awaited him outside the chamber.
Felton and Lexitas' silhouettes enveloped me,
and ripped me from the dark warmth of the sludge,
The star-shaped marks infesting me moved back to silence as the pontiff disappeared down the hallway.
Fellton's small group of knights and smaller group of clergymen lifted me to my feet, handing me some wine to wash away my feelings.
Tears fell from my eyes, but nobody could see them; it was far too dark. I felt lexitas hand in the darkness.
-" It is done now," I heard Feltons whisper. It was the only thing that broke the steady silence, after the black water had settled, "and the pontiff had his way."
-" Come on sari, lets go back up now."
Lexita offered me her help, and I took it, as she carried my weight back up the stairs with the assistance of her father's men, donning their white cloth. Splashes of black covered the bottom of the garments; their boots hit the tiled floor, and we moved with purpose.
The sizable bed was a welcoming sight. Lexita held me softly as we both retired for the night; she had been through the same thing when she was a conscript. No doubt that was when she was far younger than I, but any bond was welcome to me as I felt the weight of my commitments suffocate my dwindling voice in the face of what had just transpired.
I should sleep now, I'll feel better if I sleep.