enticements of the few whores not yet taken for the night. They approached
Vashanka’s abandoned temple, passing behind the arrays of wood and stone which
were now being appropriated for the reconstruction of the old Ilsig villas
ringing Sanctuary.
One stone, a vast black boulder set deep into the soil and fractured by
Vashanka’s annihilation, would never be moved again. Molin approached it on
foot. He could not make himself form the words to the Vashankan invocations he’d
known from childhood, nor could he bring himself to pray, like an ordinary
worshiper, to another god. His anxiety, despair and helplessness fled naked
toward whatever power might be disposed to hear them.
“OPEN YOUR EYES, MORTAL. GAZE UPON STORMBRINGER AND BOW DOWN!”
Whatever Ischade believed, priests did not often look upon their gods. Molin had
seen Vashanka only once: in the chaotic moments before the god’s destruction.
Vashanka had been swollen with rage and defeat, but his visage had been that of
a man. The apparition which flickered above the stone had erupted from the
bowels of hell. Molin’s quivering knees guided him quickly to the ground.
“Vashanka?”
“DEPARTED. / HAVE HEARD YOUR PRAYERS. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.”
Priests shaped the prayers of the faithful to a form acceptable to the god. Each
priesthood evolved a liturgy to keep god and worshiper at a proper distance, one
from the other. Private prayer was universally discouraged lest it disrupt that
delicate balance. Molin had been caught in prayer so private that his conscious