Mriga stepped over the sewer runnel in the middle of a street and reflected that even the gods were sometimes caught by surprise. The trouble had started with
Stonnbringer’s pillar of fire; the banner of a new power in Sanctuary, one that was going to diminish all others that were already there. She could still remember the night she woke in terrible shock to Siveni’s anguished screams, and to the feeling of something fiercer than life seemingly running out of her bones, as godhead wavered and sank within them both like a smothered fire. And then the Globes of Power were destroyed, and what little innate power was left to the three of them began to go awry. She and Siveni had said they were willing to be mortal, to die, for Harran’s sake. Now it appeared they would have a chance to find out just how willing. Meantime, a god (or goddess) without a temple needed a place to live, and food to eat….
Mriga walked across the bridge over the White Foal (briefly holding her breath against the morning smell) and headed into the Bazaar from the south side. Most of the stall-keepers were setting up their canopies, muttering to one another about prices, wholesalers, arguments at home: the usual morning gossip. She made her way over to the side near the north wall.
There was Rahi, her stallmate, setting up as usual… a large, florid, corpulent man, fighting with the canopy poles, sweating and swearing. Rahi was a tinker who did a small side business in small arms, knives, and the like. He boasted that he had sold knives to Hanse himself, but Mriga doubted this; anyone who really had would be too cautious to cry the man’s name aloud. At any rate, apart from his boasting, Rahi was that astonishing phenomenon, an honest tradesman. He didn’t mark up his wares more than a hundred percent or so, he didn’t scrape true gilt off hilts or scabbards and substitute brass, and his scales had trustworthy weights to them. Why he chose to be such an exception, he usually refused to explain… though one night, over a stoup of wine, he whispered one word to Mriga, looking around him as if the Prince’s men were waiting to take him away. “Religion,” he had said, and then immediately drank himself drunk.