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January 3 - April 2, 2021
Contact with the sacred creatures cleanses the roya from the corrosion of the curse, but only for a little time.
“I think,” Umegat spoke carefully, “that it is very, very important that you tell me the truth.”
“Dondo’s spirit was taken by the death demon, but not passed to the gods.
I believe the demon was captured—constrained—bound, if you will—by a second and simultaneous miracle.
Judging by the distinctive colors boiling off you, it was from the holy and gracious hand of the Lady of Spring.
Dondo’s spirit is not abroad. It is bound to the death demon, who is bound in turn to the...
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the nights when the sea was Mother-touched? The way the wake glowed green in the breaking waves of a ship’s passage?”
The touch of the God's affects the world in mysterious ways.
What I see in you is not a passage but a Presence. A blessing. Far more intense. Your corona is slowly dying down—the sacred animals should be less enthralled by you in a day or two
at the center there sits a tight blue core of sapphire, into which I cannot see. I think it is an encapsulation.
“The gods do not grant miracles for our purposes, but for theirs. If you are become their tool, it is for a greater reason, an urgent reason. But you are the tool. You are not the work. Expect to be valued accordingly.
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“What are those things?” Cazaril asked, easing back into his bed. “Do you see them, too?
the Dowager Royina Ista’s words came back to him. The Zangre is haunted, you know.
How much else, then, of the eerie things she’d said might be not derangement, but plain truth—seen with altered eyes?
“You are a divine, a trained Inquirer. I didn’t imagine you could, or would, evade your oaths and disciplines.
You immobilized me to give yourself time to report, and confer.”
“As a divine, I defer to my superiors. As a saint, I answer to my god.
I think I can promise you none shall interfere with you.
“So the gods humble the would-be wise, I think.
that the talents given to you are the talents you should place in the gods’ service.
Believe that the gods ask for nothing back that they have not first lent to you. Not even your life.”
Several nights passed, made ghastly for Cazaril by the howls of Dondo’s soul in its private torment.
Cazaril’s inward ear could make out words in the cries.
The man had none of the luminous signs of second sight about him;
“And there is another, a most interesting one that I have only seen twice in my years of study—a round mass that, when opened, proved to contain knots of flesh with hair and teeth and bones.
I theorize that they were engendered by an escaped demon, trying to grow to human form.
I posit that it might have chewed its way out and entered the world
Has it never struck you that there is something uncanny about his strange illness?”
Not . . . the thing in his belly reaching out to twist and taunt and trick him into death, and its own release. . . .
Oh. You know what you did to Dondo. Now you know what Dondo is doing to you.
Dondo’s green stone glinted on the guard captain’s hand, raised to return Cazaril’s polite salute.
Corruption & betrayal are the hallmarks of evil in this story.
“I would speak to you later, Royse, on the matter that concerned you yesterday.”
And remained bent over, as the worst cramp yet kicked him in the belly with the power of a horse’s hind hooves. His breathing stopped.
The Bastard’s legendary hell, with all its supposed torments, seemed a sort of heaven by comparison.
The bastard has a hell.... Interesting
legend of the virgin and the water jar,
the treason of Lord dy Lutez.
“That was never well proved, even at the time,”
“Umegat is a Temple divine. Sent by the Bastard’s Order to care for the sacred animals, who were given by the god to preserve Orico.
the menagerie is a white miracle that keeps Orico alive
And the gods forfend Teidez had not slain a holy saint as well as the sacred animals.
“In any case, there is no mystery. Teidez says your amiable brother Dondo plotted this with him, before he died.”
I have served the gods faithfully all my life, but . . . they do not speak to me.
I bear death and murder in my gut.
An abomination, for all I know taking physical and not just psychic form,
“Murder? There was no murder.”
The ignorant are full of errors about death magic,
Death magic is actually a death miracle and based on justice.
Successful death magic is not magic at all, but a miracle of justice,
Not magic but a miracle.
cannot be a crime, because it is the hand of the god that carries off the victim—victims
The actions of the God's aren't crimes, they are miracles and just.
The Lady of Spring must love you dearly.”
