Credit has to be given where credit has to be given. This statement seems fairly redundant at face value, however it has to be repeated. There are many today who look back upon the times of Divine Tyranny and proclaim that no Divine should ever rule again because of the faults of the past. This statement is inapplicable to human leaders who reign for how long? Just over half a century is considered an exceptional time as authority already. Most mortal rulers scratch a decade, maybe two. Divines are ageless, we have the potential to exist for thousands of years.
There is a collective agreement among Divinity that we do not hold grudges of past eras against each other. There are exceptions, of course. Types such as Allasaria and Irinika, or Anassa and Elassa are simply unable to agree on the smallest of things. Yet the general rule remains. We can look at the alliances of the Great War and see that these factions are made up of former opponents. Intuitively, every Divine who has some sort of aspiration for a grander life or some dream of rulership has to understand that the alliances of eras past are worth less than a grain of sand.
Yet whilst the rule holds, there are certain things we simply do not move past from. Worldbreaking can, to some extent, be laid at the feet of Arascus and Paramethus for giving humanity such tremendous power in the first place. Yet do we blame Arascus for Worldbreaking? No. We simply do not. Worldbreaking almost tore Arda apart and yet there is no one who carries the blame for it. I am not writing this to try and shift the blame back onto Arascus. I am writing this to demonstrate how even such a terrible time can seemingly be swept away.
And I am writing this to compare it to my own situation. For no one will lay blame at anyone’s feet for Worldbreaking, but the Divine Tyrannies? Those same Tyrannies that ensured humanity had guardians to stand against the beasts of the past? The Tyrannies which established the tenets of order and civilization as we know it now? Those Tyrannies, so terrible they were, that we rely on them for the principles of logic, the foundation of argumentation and the principles for science?
What happened to the tribes that tried to co-exist with Godhood? What happened to the tribes that would argue back when a Divine told them to march to escape from a greater threat? The Tyrannies were a product of their time, this book will argue that. They were not malicious in nature unlike the Magocracies which came after.
Yet also, there is another issue I wish to pose. It is the blatant hypocrisy cast towards me by Divines no better. I served under the Tyrannies, but I was not the only one. When they were overthrown, I did not try to resurrect them, nor do I argue for some sort of second attempt at them. Yet still, this great crime that I stood till the end to the losing side stains my reputation and mine alone.
- Introduction to “In defence of the indefensible”, written by Goddess Maisara, of Order. Kept locked within the deepest sections of the White Pantheon’s Closed Library.
Iniri had not been assigned to the frontline. Iniri had not even seen a single day of battle since she had gotten underground. When Anassa had told her to prepare and steel herself for the coming storm, Iniri had thought she would have to be wading through fields of blood. Honestly, she had actually prepared herself for it. It wouldn’t be glorious, and she wouldn’t enjoy doing it, but it would be to protect the humans who had come to venture into the tunnels. Yet it wasn’t that.
No. Iniri had been relegated by Anassa right to the rear. It wasn’t even the rear guard. It was the home front at this point. Iniri spent every waking moment rushing from one location to another to fix problems. Honestly, never had she been treated like this, it must have been Kassandora’s directive. There had been times when she had been made to sit and grow fruit for cities under siege, and there had been times when she had to assist in construction. But this?
Vines carried Iniri to the front of the railway that was being installed in this section of tunnel. The Empire had come in full force. The tunnel from Kirinyaa that the first expedition had taken was being used as the example and the prototype. The mistakes made there were being rectified. Waters pipes were being pulled from Epa proper so that the men could put fires out. Two sets of rails were being built, although no more than that. There simply wasn’t need for throughput that large. Electricity was being pulled, lamps were being installed. Small homes were built or excavated in the walls were supplies would be stored. Telephone lines and fibre-optic cable was being installed. Apparently near the station the first internet receiver had been installed. Phone booths were quickly being installed too, they came pre-manufactured and pre-assembled. Huge trains brought them, a crane would place them down on the ground and then engineers would swarm the booths like swarm of angry ants as they hooked it up. Twice now Iniri had to put fires out.
Iniri got to the very start where of the railway. A massive train was parked in place here. It was pulling a cart full of rails towards, a crane on wheels had broken its own supporting arm and toppled over onto the cart of rails. A rope had snapped, the heavy rails had tumbled onto the ground. Iniri sniffed the air. Blood. So someone got hurt. She looked at the huge pile of metal. If that caught someone, then there was no real hope at finding survivors. “Goddess Iniri!” One man shouted, dressed in a dark grey uniform of the Second Expedition, shouted. It was a thick to deal with the coat.
Iniri got straight to work. Blood was blood, it did not matter. Vines flew from her dress. They threw down seeds which expanded into oaks that crashed into the wall onto to instantly recover and start moving their heavy branches. Iniri grit her teeth as she gave the flora more of her power and hefted the heavy up and onto back onto the wagon of the train. Another set of vines buried themselves into the far wall, lit up by bright electric lamps, and then flung themselves at the crane which had fallen over to set it back on its wheels. Iniri found the blood too, she tasted it in her mouth when one of the oak’s branches touched a puddle under the steel. An engineer had been crushed in several points, even a Cleric would not be able to resurrect him at this point.
“Good job.” Anassa said from Iniri’s side and the Goddess of Nature blinked. She hated when Anassa appeared like this. It was annoying and the Goddess never had anything nice to say.
“Thanks.” Iniri replied.
“Oh no.” Anassa declared in that haughty voice of hers. “Not like that, you say something like ‘I know.’” Iniri found herself smiling. Anassa was horrible true, but… Well, Iniri knew it was a twisted appreciation but she did not feel too bad being the woman’s surrogate… what would it be? She had seen sorcerers be trained by Anassa, the term ‘beating fields’ was indeed the correct name for their areas they trained in. “And also, you do it like this.” Anassa snapped her fingers, the steel beams that Iniri’s trees were lifting up started to glow red and float into the air. Anassa turned to the engineer in his thick grey coat. “In a line?”
The man did not respond immediately. The beams were flying past him im. “In a line? Answer me whilst you still live or I will ask your soul.” Anassa said. Iniri did not even know if that was true or not, wasn’t Neneria the only one who could hold the spirit on Arda after the body had been killed? Of Nature’s eyes slid to Anassa, the Goddess looked like a Goddess. Perfect in all ways, tall, with sleek dark hair and a dress of red silk. If Anassa had not told Iniri she had been in battle several times already, there was no way the Goddess of Nature would have known. “Last warning.” Anassa said in a low growl.
The engineer seemed to understand what Anassa was asking. “Yes Goddess! In a line!” He bowed his head between every syllable and each word was a cloud of warm condensation in the cold underground air. Anassa must have known already, she snapped her fingers. The rails shot off and then floated down to the ground in a perfect line. That was perfect Divinity. Iniri knew it was, it was the sort of power and trembling she had tried to run away from. “Thank you! Thank you!” The man said and Anassa clapped her hands.
“Come Iniri.” She did not give the engineer a single glance. Iniri was not about to argue with Anassa, she followed the Goddess of Sorcery ahead. From the distance, several trucks were approaching with their headlights switched off, they didn’t need to. This entire area had already been lit up. There were even fans being installed, affixed on the walls to circulate fresh air. They would switch on every two hours and send storm winds barrelling through the tunnels.
They did not go a far distance. Anassa floated silently through the air, Iniri was carried by the rustling of branches until Anassa settled on the ground. Iniri settled down besides her. “Did you see how it was done?” Anassa asked.
“I’m not you.” Iniri said. “I can’t move steel like that.” It was a pure lie and a deflection. Maybe she could not move steel through the air like that, but if she tried, she could make it seem as easy as Anassa did. And besides, Iniri knew that the woman wasn’t talking about that.
Anassa was too honest and too uncaring to be nice about it. “I wasn’t talking about that girl.” She said as the two Goddesses watched the engineers bring some machine strapped to the back of a tractor. It was some massive cannon, pointed towards the ground, that lodged itself around the steel beam for the train track, shimmied it into position, and then blasted a huge set of nails through pre-cut holes into the stone with the sound of a huge explosion.
Iniri knew she was being difficult on purpose. She didn’t even know why she was behaving like this frankly. Maybe it was simply a case of not wanting to admit out loud that the little seedling Anassa had planted within had been a lie? Anassa had not planted anything. Anassa had simply come along and cracked the stone plate Iniri had spent a thousand years trying to forget about. “Then what were you talking about?”
“Act like a damn Goddess.” Anassa said, the Goddess of Sorcery turned to Iniri, opened her mouth as if ready to shout something else. And then she saw Iniri’s smile. Of Nature realised she was smiling and quickly wiped it off. Did she make it? Hopefully Anassa just thought she was being nervous and laughing in annoyance. “I know you know, I’m not going to explain myself.”
“Mmh.” Iniri made a wordless noise. She didn’t know exactly what to say. “Can we talk?”
“Act like a damn Goddess.” Anassa growled again. These past few days, Iniri had learned that the single hardest word for Anassa to say was ‘yes’. The only times she heard it come out of the woman’s mouth was when Anassa went on a show of rhetoric and used it to answer her own questions. But to other people? Almost never.
“Why did you put me in logistics?” Iniri asked and Anassa chuckled to herself. That huge piston on the back of the tractor hissed, released air, and there was a crash as it shot two more nails into the steel beams Anassa had laid out. It started to his again as the cannon built up pressure, the engine of the tractor roared twice as loud as it provided power to it.
Anassa finally got her humours under control. “Logistics build character.”
Iniri doubted that was Anassa’s own original thought. It sounded like something Kassandora would say. “Really?” The Goddess of Nature asked.
“No. Suffering builds character but logistics is the worst job I can offer you without just breaking your will.” Anassa said quickly. Iniri stood there and took a deep breath. It was honest at least.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she had to ask the question. “How would you do that?”
“I would just beat you into the ground everyday. There would be no hope. I am in a different league than you Iniri, in the same way that Kass does not stand up to Fer, you do not, can not and will never stand up to me. It’s that simple.” Silence. Iniri stood there and waved her arms forward and back as she repeated Anassa’s words back to herself several times. She understood them well enough. She knew what they meant. There was nothing she disagreed with there. It was odd, Iniri knew it should have been offensive. If anyone else said those words, it probably would spark an argument. But then who else would say that? Even if someone thought such things, then who would say that? Even Maisara and Fortia would alternate between being vainly polite until they were forced into argument, at which point they simply tried to scold with their words for the sake of scolding.
“I believe you.” Iniri said absentmindedly.
“There’s nothing to believe. That is how the world is.” Anassa said.
“I’m not arguing with you.” Iniri said, there was no formal guide to Divines but Anassa could firmly be placed in the top ten Divine in terms of raw power. Maybe top twenty if not the top ten. There was nothing to argue about. Iniri knew that scale existed in the back of everyone’s minds, Anassa was just the only one who broke common sensibility enough to drag it out into the open.
“You should.” Anassa said.
“But I don’t want to.” Iniri replied.
“But you do.” Anassa said. “Because we both know this isn’t enough for you.” Anassa waved her hand forwards towards the tractor, another one had caught up and was doing the rails on the other side of the track.
“But it’s the hand I’ve been dealt.” Iniri said.
“It’s Divine responsibility to tip the table when the game is unfair.” Anassa said. “That’s how we get what we want.”
“Is it?” Iniri asked. And again, that terrible little seed in Iniri began to spread its roots. Why did she even ask. She knew this was the way, this was how the Divine world simply operated. Did Elassa beg permission to create her refuge for magicians in Arcadia? Or did she just kill everyone who dared threaten her demesne? Did Kassandora beg for respect? Or did she simply demand it through action? And every Divine Order belonging to every Divine? Why did they exist in the first place? Certainly no Divine would ever willingly let another have a private army. No, Divine Orders existed because they had backing.
Anassa hit back with an example far closer to home. “How did you protect the forests in the past? Did you ask? Or did you tip the table and forced humanity to clean up the pieces?” Iniri could not answer that question.
The seedling within her burned up and yet started to regrow even more furiously than her. She tried to smite it with the fire of righteous rage and yet it burned so hot Iniri cowardly ran away from that blazing heat. She balled her fists, shook her head and spoke. ‘That’s not me.’ Or at least, she tried to speak. The words would not come out.
“It is simple Iniri.” Anassa said. “It may not be with me, you may get transferred somewhere else, you could spend the next decade with me if you’re unlucky. But you either flip the table, or you get sent to logistics.” Iniri said nothing, she stood there in silence and realised why Anassa had put her here. It was supposed to be humiliating. An auxiliary Goddess? It was like sending the king to clean toilets.
“And how do I do that?” Iniri was glad she asked. Even though the phrasing was terrible and pathetic and nothing how a Goddess should sound like, at least she asked. There was some fight left in her after all.
“We both know the answer to that.” Anassa snapped, obviously annoyed. “There’s a saying, I’m sure you know it. Mortals love it, it is ‘Divines stand up for people’.” Iniri raised an eyebrow. Was that really a saying? She had heard it before but it was akin to… She didn’t even know, one could not say that the words ‘grass was green’ was a saying either. “Do you agree with it?”
“I do.” Iniri said.
“I do too.” Anassa replied. Iniri didn’t know if it was bad that she was genuinely surprised. But then why wouldn’t Anassa agree with it? Grass was green after all. “Divines are step one. When all else fails, when hope in each other is exhausted, mankind turns to us. We are the final safety net for mankind. Behind us, there is nothing. Do you understand that? Divinity stands up for mankind.”
“I know Anassa.” Iniri didn’t know where this lesson was going.
“But if Divinity stands up for mankind, who stands up for Divinity?” Anassa asked.
Iniri opened her mouth instinctively to answer. She closed it. She balled her fists. She took a deep breath. There was an answer. She knew what the answer was. She just… Iniri forced it out. “No one.”
Anassa replied with pure satisfaction in her voice. “I knew you’d know. I’d tell you to think on it but I don’t think you have to.” Her tone suddenly changed to a more chipper, upbeat version. “There’s another small force approaching one of our region’s Holds. I’m going. Have fun in logistics.”
And just like that, Anassa disappeared. No flourish of magic. No stagnant energies left behind. Nothing. Anassa was there for one moment and then gone in the next. Iniri stared at the engineers, there was another explosion, more pistons were sounding as the set of machines which laid the railway tracks down here made their way forwards. The train on the freshly constructed tracks blew its horn and inched forwards onto the new rail. Engineers by the side waved for it to keep going.
Anassa had gone and Iniri was left all alone. And the worst part was that Iniri now knew exactly how to get out of this situation. But then, she had always known.
She just wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it.