To Arascus.
I sit here and I stare at this empty piece of paper, uncertain of what to even say or write. I know of everything that has been declared so far, I know of the discussions you have had with Allasaria, Fortia & Maisara. I promise I am not writing this on behalf of them. Yet I will say that they have approached me.
And now I sit here and don’t know what to say. Ultimately, the reason I have not taken a side is because of the debt I owe for your support during the creation of the War College of Arcadia. I know I admitted this then, and I know you said I was wrong back then too, but to this day I doubt whether your help only came because of a debt to the late Paramethus, of Spirit.
This sort of discussion has never been easy for me to hold, and I doubt it will be. All that I know Arascus is that the world is better because of the fact you are in it. My thoughts now travel to a discussion I have once had with both Goddess Kassandora, of War and Goddess Fortia, of Peace, although this was centuries ago, during Fer’s first incursion. Both of them agreed that it was a good thing that war started by Fer, because back then she served as a good punching bag for us to get our aggression out. I was still a young girl then, and I foolishly asked why they were celebrating, how could such a disastrous conflict be good, and what sort of deity would it need to be for a war to be terrible.
Both of them answered immediately, and both them said that a war led by you would tear Arda apart although that it would never happen.
Ultimately, that is what I wanted to say. A conflict on this scale would destroy the world and I will not sit on the sidelines. As I said, Allasaria, Fortia & Maisara have approached me. Allasaria says she plans to call it the White Pantheon, I have already given my word that I would join. Ultimately, it is not them that convinced me, it is you. Back at the start, when you helped me organise the War College of Arcadia in such fashion that it would never create its own Divine. Arascus, all the agreements of the past that you yourself have made you are now breaking. It is you yourself who said that a nation of Divines can never happen. You have not just broken this rule, you have shattered it to such a terrible level that we now debate how to counter this threat without matching you.
Arascus. What you are doing will bring Arda into a war more disastrous than Worldbreaking. I beg, on behalf of everything that has been built and on the future of this world. Call off this conflict.
From a Divine who once looked up to you, Goddess Elassa, of Magic.
- The final letter from Goddess Elassa, of Magic, to God Arascus, of Pride before the Great War.
“How do I look?” Iniri asked and Arascus gave her a thumbs up. Malam and Helenna were naturals at this sort of thing and when they prepared the clothes, it had been more of a game for them to try out designs that would suit the Goddess of Nature. At the end, Arascus threw the most garish ones away, Malam had actually stuck in some monstrosity of strawberry red and Helenna had gone crazy with some disgusting scraps of fabric that were yellow and orange. But once that had been gotten rid of, Iniri could pick anything out from that trailer and still look grandiose.
“Pretty as a peach.” Arascus said and saw Iniri smile as she shut the door to her wardrobe trailer. The Goddess of Nature cracked a smile, made a stupid expression, shook her head, rolled her eyes and kept silent. It was all performative though, Arascus could tell Iniri enjoyed the compliment. And he could tell that she as much as she had scowled and scorned the Goddesses of Hatred and of Love, she was happy with the dress. It was huge thing of deep green with the edges sewed in brown. The colour of the brown matched her hair perfectly.
“Who made it?” Iniri asked.
“I don’t know.” Arascus replied.
“You don’t know?” Iniri asked. “How?”
“How do I not know?” Arascus asked. “That’s a riddle, isn’t it?”
“I meant Malam or Helenna.” Arascus had only asked about the ones that amused him. This one had slipped under the radar because it was grandiose and inoffensive. Arascus shrugged, he genuinely had no clue and neither did he have any need to try and figure who made it.
“Ask them later.” Arascus led Iniri to the front of the convoy. “And stay by my side when we walk there. Don’t get too far away.” She shouldn’t have to be told that but then she shouldn’t have been in this position in the first place. The Iniri that Arascus remembered from the Great War would have needed to be not to just annihilate this bastion of civilization they were approaching. The Iniri of today? Well, it had been a challenge.
“They won’t attack me?” Iniri asked. On some level, Arascus actually hoped that the dwarves would try to test her only insofar as to push her to the breaking point. The two Divines walked to the head of the convoy in this huge highway. It was exactly as he had remembered it, and yet it had changed so much as to be unrecognizable. The sealing of the World Core had dimmed the suns under the surface and cooled the veins which kept these grand tunnels warm and lit.
And yet, the feeling within them was exactly the same. These places had never been safe, they had never been the terrain of mortals either. The dwarves may have claimed them, but that was all they did. These places weren’t dug, they were reclaimed. From what? No one really even knew. They were reclaimed from an era before civilization on Arda. The highway was massive, there was no other way to describe it. It was so tall a tower block could comfortably be put in here with room to spare, and so wide that an entire village could be transplanted within. “They won’t.” Arascus said.
“But if I went alone?”
“The World Core is closed off.” Arascus said. “The golems don’t move anymore. If you went in alone, as long as you breached the gate, you could probably exterminate them yourself.”
“Mmh.” Iniri said. She obviously didn’t like what he just said, but things needed to be put into perspective. The woman may be a timid Goddess, but she was a Goddess at the end of the day. There was no way around it. No amount of sadness or timidity would ever make her mortal. “Well I suppose it won’t be that bad.”
“It won’t.” Arascus said confidently. Half the battle he would face today would be just getting this woman to not make a fool of herself. “They’ll probably want you to grow them grapes.”
“Oh and make wine too?” Iniri asked jokingly.
“Well that’s one way to become popular.” Arascus replied easily. It had to be either Iniri or Elassa, and Elassa had more important things to do than serve as an ambassador to dwarves. There were mages to be taught for one, and there were records to pour over. Organisation within the White Pantheon had been so dismal that the fucking cretins did not even know the mechanics of how the World-Core had been shut up off by Paradeisius’ forces.
Iniri chuckled to herself. “Don’t they prefer beer?”
“They brew pure alcohol out of mushrooms and mix it down into vodka.” Arascus said. It was one of the few drinks he was not fond of. The taste was just terrible. “
“Do they know we’re coming?”
“I assume word travels fast.” Arascus said. He was sure that the dwarves knew they were having guests soon. Maybe if not from this tunnel, then definitely word would have come of the engagements that had been fought in the southern holds. Kassandora was reclaiming a hold apparently, Anassa was protecting four different holds herself. Neneria was sweeping through one of the North-South tunnels to see where the opening was. And a dozen holds were already being fortified by the Imperial Military. “But no promises.”
“Oh?” Iniri asked.
“What?” Arascus.
“I assumed you would have sent them word.”
“Not to Klavdiv.” Arascus said. Rarely did he ever give word of his arrival. Not when he had gone to meet with Fortia and Maisara and not now. “They have more important things to attend to than hold a celebration for my return.” Arascus doubted whether they would at this point in the first place. Even if they wanted to, what could they celebrate with? From what Malam had written in her report, they had even lost the technology of fire. Arascus had seen it, now these tunnels were lit up by glowstones if that. The highway further from Klavdiv had been flooded with darkness as thick as pitch, but here there was a line of lamps on one side of the tunnel. Every mile was marked with another small post.
No. It was the duty of a leader to know what his subjects were capable of. The only thing that could come of them trying to host a greeting would be a humiliation: either for them as they failed utterly or for him as they just flat refused. It was better to just arrive and apologize for hastiness. “How humble.” Iniri said.
“Truly.” Arascus said jokingly. “Of Humility is my second title.”
“Honestly I see it.” Iniri said from his side.
“I aim to surprise.” Arascus said.
“Surprising you are.” Iniri said. “Can…” She trailed off for a moment. Arascus didn’t bother catching her, she was catching herself. She was just trailing off because of muscle memory at this point and Iniri stressed out would be one of the worst things to happen. “I remember in the past when you were around.” Arascus smiled to himself as he thought of such innocent times.
“Great War or earlier?”
“Earlier, earlier than that.” Iniri said. “Much earlier. I…” She trailed off again. “Honestly, I don’t know where I’m going with this.”
Arascus smiled wryly to himself. What honesty and what a way to dig oneself out of a hole. He let Iniri keep her thoughts to herself, whatever they were, and just turned the situation into a joke. “I can imagination.” He used the same tone that Malam would use, one so knowing that there was only a single connotation a person could get out of it.
“Idiot!” Iniri scowled again. “Not that!”
“Your secrets are your own, keep them.” Arascus said. “If you really want to share them, then do a good job here and tell me when we’re done.”
“Mmh.” Iniri made that wordless sound of affirmation she always did. “I mean, I was just going to say I was always curious as to what you were really like.”
Arascus had head this line how many times from people now? And each time, it was always the same answer. “The myth is smaller.”
Iniri chuckled to herself, Arascus thought she would she would. It was good to get her laughing now, that would build up her own confidence. And even if it wouldn’t then it would put her at ease around him. That should be a good temporary substitute for whatever confidence and self-worth Anassa had broken down. Ultimately, it had been Arascus’ decision to send her to Anassa. Everyone knew how Anassa treated her subordinates, the woman had trained tens of thousands of sorcerers throughout her life. Just because she had been handed a Divine would not suddenly change her methods.
But Anassa was a fire that broke and humiliated and stripped away ego and self-worth until nothing remained. And then she remoulded and remade into what she admired, which ultimately was just a shallower version of herself. There was a reason that magicians were all different in thought and ideas and had plenty to debate on, yet all sorcerers ultimately turned out to be the same shade of arrogant and pompous faux-aristocrat. Arascus remembered how before the Great War, there had even been people that tried to study sorcery and see whether the art itself changed one’s behaviour as they missed the elephant in the room, the shared link all of them possessed: a teacher in the form of Anassa.
So now Arascus kept on humouring Iniri. Some people were tempered by adversity. Anassa, Kassandora, Irinika and Fer were all characters that would rise to meet whatever challenge was demanded to them. Iniri though? It was obvious that if he pushed her too hard, she would just collapse into a tool.
Arascus had seen enough Divines be reduced to tools in his lifetime. There wasn’t a need to try and shatter of Nature when she could be grown into the Goddess she had always been meant to be.
He kept her chatting for the entire distance. The Highway suddenly came to an end. Ahead, from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, stood the first gate. This, even in the dark, was exactly just as grand as Arascus had remembered it. The passage of time had stolen light from the underground, it had stolen the moving statues, it made the massive pair of stone golems that still stood on either side of the bronze silent and still. Some things were old though and just as Arascus remembered it. There was parapet and crenulation although those were empty, it had arrow slit for shooting through, it even had thin stone pillars near the ground to the manoeuvring of battering rams. But not even the huge red-white-black of tricolour of Empire, only half-lit by the pale orange shades of glowstone, managed to try and take away from the single greatest feature of the wall. The sheer size of a manmade cliff so thick that it would have to buried through rather than toppled.
Iniri gasped as she looked up at it and even Arascus felt the sheer scale. There were not many things that managed to make a Divine feel like an ant. This gate was. The fact that Arascus knew there were six more like it made it even grander. And what lay through them was a feat of such civilization conquest that there was nothing else in Arda quiet like it. Even the modern metropolis with skyscraper and car and plane and port and aeroplane, with millions of souls inhabiting like a hive, was like a mere shadow compared to the terrible phantom in the dark: a drop of water compared to an entire lake. A mortal baby, still clutching its mother’s breast compared to the magnanimity of a Divine.
Klavdiv, the Grandest City Under the World.