by James Stone
It peered through the mists like something holy unearthing itself from the soil. There were spires without number, enchanting her as they pierced the skyline. Angels descended to form the arches—a complex of stained glass and milky marble. It was so much larger than Magmaya had imagined when she’d first seen it from the ship.
The First Temple was a veritable fortress and monastery all at once; shell-shaped fountains framed its height, all while streaks of water hung above like cuts in the air. It was as if Deih and the First Temple had been formed in the womb together—a woman made in the image of her own worship. And yet, whatever miracles she had performed in the decades before were truly no comparison to the indomitable city of carved stone and divinity.
Anclyn wasn’t giving anything away, but she must’ve been enchanted too. And as for Krel and Akanah? Who knew what went through their minds. It must’ve been jealousy, surely. Not a soul could look upon the First Temple and feel arrogant still. When Magmaya had travelled with the angels, she had thought herself to be a goddess. The thought was laughable now.
‘Repent!’ The serenity was gone with a screeching, as a horde of preachers stormed towards the Divinicus, and pearly swords were raised faster than Magmaya could acknowledge. The robed followers shuffled back, but they kept on screaming, ‘Repent! Repent to the First and your souls will be saved!’
‘Stand down. These men are guests,’ Deih scorned.
‘Priestess,’ they protested. ‘Those false angels have contaminated blood. Each step they take on Belliousa is blasphemy.’
‘It is not for you to decide what makes blasphemy,’ the High Priestess thundered. ‘Return to your families and thank the First you have been saved. In good time, these angels may be too.’
Through the crowds, Magmaya watched as Akanah raised an eyebrow, and the disciples disappeared with a hiss. Deih muffled an apology to the Divinicus, and they carried on without another word.
With the protests behind them, the First Temple (at last) was in walking distance. Magmaya found herself thinking to Kurulian—how had he felt in the shadow of such a thing?
After what felt like a millennium, the steps levelled out onto a patch of broken earth, and the grand entrance to the Temple appeared. Before the Divinicus, a thousand Belliousans must have crowded, draped in red silk and brass. They outnumbered the angels vastly, but they were disorganised and scattered about the hilltop, and the angels towered above them.
The entrance itself was an arched bastion, shimmering yellow even when the sun failed to shine. The stone was carved into flocks of fiery birds, stretching their wings across the spires, all while their trailing tail feathers haloed the First Temple with grandeur like none other.
The High Priestess looked to Akanah, aloof. ‘This way, please.’ She gestured to the doorway, and all the Legatus could do was nod and bow and walk.
Magmaya turned to Anclyn with a fretful smile, but the handmaiden’s attention was drawn elsewhere. She looked away with a sigh, and an instant later, they shuffled inside the Temple, and the Divinicus were lost behind them.
There was a hint of summer inside the walls that she hadn’t felt in what seemed like a lifetime; Magmaya was a summer child, after all—born during the greatest thawing Orianne had ever felt. But there hadn’t been anything like it since, and she’d once feared there wouldn’t be again.
How wrong she had been! The First Temple had come alive once the light reached it; it was a maze of pillars, each inscribed with a thousand hieroglyphs so that not an inch of the original stonework was visible. And where the sun showered down, there was revelation within the carvings. The runes in the floor were a little more sinister; by the looks of them, they had time before been flowered with the blood of virgins. Now they were stained bronze and copper—echoes of sacrifice. There were statues and shrines about the halls too—effigies of men and women too pure to reason with.
Magmaya turned her attention to a flock of harpists lingering around fountains. They had grins like pearls on their lips as they played, and she found herself ensnared. There was no escaping the monks either as they shuffled about the corridors, curtsying to Deih before moving on to tidy their shrines.
Hanging cloths were stitched into glorious tunnels, and it appeared as if the passageways they lined would stretch on forever until the motifs they carried no longer had any meaning. How Fabius had forsaken Belliousa for his ‘higher order’ was quickly becoming a mystery; if only he could’ve seen for himself the marble arches, the sprawling ivory and hovering bells, then perhaps the Lord Commander would’ve submitted to Deih at last. Perhaps if he’d seen the truth, none of this would have been necessary.
‘Welcome to the First Temple.’ Deih turned sharply to the Small Court as they gazed up across the halls. ‘The First have blessed your coming here.’
‘You have my thanks, High Priestess.’ Akanah bowed. ‘I do hope we can arrange a union that will benefit both of our peoples.’
‘For too long, Belliousa has been at odds with Inamorata,’ she remarked. ‘Your last Legatus didn’t seem keen on changing that. I do hope this time will be different.’
‘As do I,’ Akanah replied curtly.
Deih nodded and looked away from the Legatus. And then her eyes fixated on Magmaya.
She froze.
‘You were the girl who intervened earlier, no?’
‘Yes, my lady.’ Magmaya bowed. There was something cold growing inside of her; there was a sickness between her lungs. It was fear she was feeling, she was sure of it. No excitement could’ve tasted so rancid.
‘And you’re part of Legatus Akanah’s Small Court?’
She found herself nodding.
‘Then I am grateful,’ Deih said and looked away to the others. ‘Upon notice of your arrival, we have prepared a great feast for all of your Court, as is the tradition of Belliousa. If you would come with me.’
The High Priestess led them through a series of doorways like each was a portrait framing the next. They arrived quickly enough at a large hall, where the roof concaved, and candles lined the cavities, flickering with a ghostly ambience.
The hall was cut in half by a black wood table that ran from its head to toe. Strangest of all, it was barely a foot from the floor, and instead of chairs to perch on, there were striped cushions dyed pastel that could’ve hidden a thousand years of dust, she reckoned. Several of the table’s places were already filled with all manner of bizarre looking people; half had vases for heads, while the other half appeared to have no heads at all. They spoke in tongues Magmaya didn’t understand and traded coppers and incense across the dining table. But they all stopped their chattering once Deih entered.
‘My lords and ladies,’ she began, ‘we are joined tonight by the representatives of Inamorata—the Divinicus of Hardingham Reach. They have come to discuss a truce and all sorts of dogmatism I shan’t bore you with.’ They laughed at that, and the High Priestess beamed. ‘But first, we will allow our guests a feast.’
While Magmaya’s dinner for the Divinicus had offered twelve courses, the Belliousans’ actually delivered. She found her place next to Anclyn among the other members of the Small Court, with Deih at its height and Akanah by her side. He spoke at her while she just smiled all the way until the first meal arrived: a platter of crabs which looked as if they’d scuttle off the plate at any moment. To eat them, each diner was offered a small, barbed spear.
Magmaya fondled the food for a little while, until she looked to Anclyn in confusion. But the handmaiden was already eating, impaling each scrap before moving onto the next.
‘Let me help,’ a Belliousan pushed by and pursed her hand around Magmaya’s. She furled the spear between her forefingers and steadied it with the rest of her palm. ‘Like this,’ she said and swallowed the crab whole, smirking. ‘Now you won’t get any juice on your lap, girl.’
‘Oh, thank you.’ Magmaya tried a number of times, but she dropped her food more clumsily with each attempt,
and her cheeks began to flush red. The Belliousan just laughed.
‘I think everyone should try a Belliousan dish at least once,’ another of Deih’s servants said. ‘People are more appreciative of forks after that.’
‘Do you all speak the common tongue?’ Magmaya asked, confused.
‘Many of us do, but it’s easier to ignore you if we pretend we don’t,’ the girl who helped her said before smiling and kissing Magmaya’s cheeks. ‘I’m Keriah,’ she pointed to the other Belliousan behind her. ‘That’s my brother, Zoiln—we’re High Priestess Deih’s… advisors…’ she explained. ‘I’m sure you angels will be seeing us around a little more.’
‘I’m Magmaya,’ she replied. ‘And I’m glad someone’s telling me what’s going on.’
‘It is an honour to meet you, Maggy,’ Keriah said.
‘Magmaya,’ she corrected her, but the pair had already disappeared.
Maggy, she thought. Kharon had called me that once before Rache had been crippled and he still had hope of a boy heir. Sometimes she wished she’d been born a man.
She looked to Akanah and found that his food had already been neatly prepared for him, and he had his own dining robes too. They reminded her of what Kurulian had worn around Orianne and the story he had told her about that feast. Chills began running up her spine. Was there a murderer at every meal? Was someone going to try and kill her here? I better be cautious of my wine.
Magmaya sighed and turned away. ‘You look comfortable,’ she said to Anclyn at last.
‘This is how we eat in the Water,’ the handmaiden replied for what might have been the first time in hours. But her relief proved short as she glanced at Deih and asked, ‘You do know she’s from the Summerlands, Magmaya?’
The next course was a boiling pan of small tentacles, orange and ringed like they’d been severed from a miniature kraken. Even worse, they still writhed about her platter, even detached from their body.
Krel tore into them straight away, ripping apart each tentacle with stubby fingers before grinding them apart with his teeth. At the top of the table, Deih ordered a servitor to stop Akanah’s food from moving, while Cheyne, on the other hand, appeared to enjoy watching it wrap around his utensils.
Anclyn cried out as she bit into one of them, blushing. ‘I’ve never tried anything like this.’
Magmaya smiled and felt a knot in her stomach begin to unravel. If only Anclyn admitted her a little more. But she had lied to her, and nothing good came out of that. All she could do was try to eat.
It didn’t taste like anything, though, and the texture was another matter altogether. It was wriggling about her mouth, and when she swallowed it down, she felt it trying to crawl back out of her.
‘Ahaha,’ Keriah laughed from across the table, and opened a small vial, pouring its sugar-white contents over her meal. ‘Look- it dances, Maggy,’ she said, and it did; the food had found life again, and Magmaya gagged.
The next course was less of a course and more of a sample. It was the kind of thing commoners clawed at as they scoured the streets at night, but Magmaya looked to it with pity. It had started out colossal, in truth: a green fish with mirror-like scales bigger than even Krel. Strangely enough, the Belliousans began to pray over it, but only until a servitor brought a carving knife to the thing and all that was left were confetti-like sinews. Everyone at the feast was given a scrap, and though it tasted of oil and barely touched her sides, Magmaya was at least thankful she didn’t have to embarrass herself in an effort to eat it.
The offerings of food continued well into the night, until Magmaya was very much full, and even past then, when she could hardly move anymore. She ate strange meats she had never known in life, from razor-edged whalebone to pastry filled with sheep’s eyes. It would have perhaps been bearable if someone had spoken to her, but Cheyne was too concerned with what way he would eat his next meal, Akanah too concerned with Deih, and Anclyn too concerned with ignoring her concern. From time to time, Zoiln and Keriah would smile or make a jest, but above all the noise, there was silence.
Magmaya was glad when the whole ordeal was finally over, and the Court was allocated its quarters for the night; the talks were proposed to begin early on the morrow—when she presumed the High Priestess would summon her—and it looked like they needed her. Akanah had been talking to Deih all night, but she’d scarcely said a word in return, though Magmaya was beginning to doubt she would speak to her either. To a bystander, she might have well been one of the angels anyway. She could only pray the night would heal all her worries.
It seemed the night would never come, though. Even as Deih led the rest of them to their quarters, and as tiredness washed over her, the voice of the High Priestess ran through her mind and only became real again when someone drew her attention to it. ‘May I have a word, young lady?’
Her heart sunk, and she glanced at Akanah. He nodded, and so she turned back to Deih.
‘Of course.’ Magmaya smiled, and Deih thanked her.
‘If you would be so kind as to give me a moment,’ the High Priestess said, and a number of robed monks swamped Akanah and the others. ‘My loyal men and women will tend to your every need,’ she said to the angels. ‘Make yourselves comfortable—drink, eat, listen to the harpists play.’
Krel spat something vulgar, but Magmaya couldn’t quite hear what as Deih laced her arm with her own; her skin was cold through her robes, while her lank, black gloves were nimble like spider legs as she flexed her fingers. The pair disappeared down a corridor together and into a maze of pillars.
‘What’s the matter, High Priestess?’ Magmaya looked to her at last.
‘In truth,’ she began, ‘I have not been able to stop thinking of you. You saved the girl from that brute.’
‘No, you did, truly—’
‘Would you care to tell me your name, girl?’
‘Magmaya,’ she answered, but it didn’t taste like her name anymore. The syllables had become all wrong since she’d entered the First Temple.
Deih nodded to herself. ‘Magmaya—?’
‘Vorr, my lady.’
‘Are you of noble birth?’ the High Priestess asked, raising an eyebrow.
Magmaya winced at the question, but she just recited in her head what she had been taught to say: ‘Somewhat, High Priestess.’ She shrugged. ‘You probably wouldn’t have heard of me, though.’
‘Oh,’ Deih exclaimed. ‘Akanah spoke of you at the dinner. He said you were a well-regarded royal lady, and I’m inclined to believe so.’
‘Thank you, High Priestess,’ Magmaya said proudly, though her underarms had become slick with sweat. ‘It is an honour.’
‘Where are you from, girl?’
‘I grew up in Cecalia,’ she replied.
‘Cecalia?’ Deih nodded. ‘I’ve not heard of any Vorr from Cecalia. How is the weather that far south?’
‘It’s very…’
‘Yes…?’
‘Hot,’ Magmaya lied, using every inch of her being to sound convincing. ‘I can scarcely weather the summers,’ she said but began cursing herself the moment she spoke. Deih’s perfumes had clouded her mind—she hadn’t learnt a thing about Cecalia’s weather—only its doctrines and customs.
‘Yes, I see.’ Deih looked to her skin. ‘And the trees—there are none like them here in Belliousa, no?’
‘The palm trees line the streets for miles.’ Magmaya nodded. ‘Or so I remember, it has been many years.’
Deih smiled and stopped as they reached the end of the hall, and Magmaya found herself atop an ivory balcony. She gazed forward, finding a hall below and then a chandelier above which was little more than a blazing kaleidoscope, lighting the room for the rows of Belliousans as they kneeled in a perfect circle upon the cobblestone floor below.
In the centre of the circle, where their red robes ended, Magmaya could make out some sort of face engraved in the stone. It was a skull to be sure, but its eyes wept with fire, and its
teeth were jagged like cutlasses. There were whispers from the crowds as they prayed, and when Magmaya looked at them, she spied the faces of children and elderly alike. But no matter their age, their frowns were weathered by an age of grief.
At their foot, a preacher stood and echoed their words through an iron bell; his voice was distorted to the point of absurdity, and his gospels were more hellish than heavenly.
‘You must forgive me, girl,’ Deih whispered amid the prayers, and Magmaya turned back to her. ‘For everything I do is for my people.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. The hall had gone cold.
‘I’ve heard worse lies than yours.’ Deih smiled sympathetically, and Magmaya’s head became ablaze.
‘Oh,’ was all she could stammer, but The High Priestess had scarcely begun.
‘Why did you lie to me?’ she asked.
‘I—’ she stuttered, on uneven footing. ‘I don’t know what you’re…’
‘Enough.’
‘I don’t—!’
‘Drop the act, girl,’ Deih said. Her voice was like a cold knife.
‘Legatus… Legatus Akanah said you would tell I was a foreigner a mile off,’ she spluttered, and a weight lifted off her back.
‘He probably put you up to this, didn’t he, my dear?’ She tutted. ‘You must never believe the lies of those angels. You should never have come here.’
Magmaya stayed quiet. She wasn’t sure whether to be afraid of Deih’s rage or grateful for her understanding. She was beginning to fear either choice would kill her.
‘Cecalia is south of Halo Blue, but is it warm?’ The High Priestess boomed with laughter. ‘Heavens, no!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Magmaya frowned, ashamed. ‘I never meant to—’
‘I don’t care what you meant,’ Deih interrupted. ‘You see, I was born and raised in the Water, girl—a coastal gathering. And as you might have expected, my sisters and I were stolen away by raiders.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Magmaya said. ‘What does that have to do with Cecalia?’