It was not radically changed since the last time she’d been here; that had only been a few hours ago. The great expanse of lawn was a welcoming moss-green—Star-moss, they called it down here. The walls stood as walls ought to, carved about as they were with every living thing its carvers were familiar with. There were no elephants here, no roaring lions or giraffes or tigers, or improbable pelicans wounding their own breasts. There were a lot of rabbit-shaped things, because the Gods (or, she hoped, evolution) had used rabbits as the foundation for domesticated animals. There were Fleet-Hares, with big bunny ears and legs for days. There were heavier, burlier pack animals, also rabbits. And here and there, hidden in the carvings, were Shadowbeasts. The Shadowmaster’s token animal.

She should have known the first time she saw the walls.

But one difference was striking: the fire. Argon, Firemaster and former gym teacher, had started it. How, she wasn’t sure, but the things burning within it were still animate. Hopefully not still sentient; she couldn’t imagine a thought surviving that hell. This fire, which had chased Hawk across what felt like half of Holia, had now gathered at the Temple’s base. Billows of black smoke cut through the sunlit glow of the place, choking thick and worrying. There wasn’t that much oxygen down here.

Immediately after their feet touched the moss lawn, white robed acolytes of the Temple of Light swarmed towards her. They were panicked, arms fluttering, speaking in a tongue Hawk could not understand. At first she thought they were attacking…then she remembered, she hadn’t had enough time to change her clothes. She, too, was in the white robes of a temple acolyte.

“Help us!” One of the temple servants said, in English. It was the Holian’s most ancient and sacred tongue. A kick in the teeth, that. It made sense: the seed population for this world had been six hundred children, carefully selected to attend a school that was eugenics in all but name. While she expected there’d been a few sophisticated polyglots in the bunch, English had become the lingua franca down in this dark and burning place.

Hawk looked at Em, helplessly. Em looked back, focused and sharp.

“It’s a delay,” Hawk said.

Em’s gaze gained a tinge of disgust. “Henry’s dead. He’s not coming back. And he’s Earthside. I help people, Hawk. And these are people.”

Chastened, deservedly, Hawk turned to the fearful. There was soot all over their clothing, marks on their faces. Had any of them witnessed the battle that she had fought here, just a few hours ago? Did it matter? “Go up the pylon,” She told the nearest. “Take the ropes and start climbing.”

“No. We can’t. That’s forbidden territory. That’s where the Shadow waits.”

“Shadows are nothing,” Hawk said, hotly. “They’re an absence of Light. You want to know who your master of Light is? Who you should be bowing to? The Shadowmaster was your precious First God. He’s all that’s left after your rancid pantheon ate him down to the rind. So you want to do honor to your God? You ignore everything you’ve ever been told and you start to climb.” A shattered look crossed the nearest faces, telling her who was educated enough to understand.

“No, Hawk. Don’t fight with them about Religion. They’ll never accept it. They’ll never believe you.” And Em grabbed the nearest warm body, a slight and slender girl that they dwarfed in frame. Which was impressive. Em wasn’t exactly a linebacker themselves. They took the poor, sobbing girl and put the ropes harness they’d been wearing on her. “Climb.”

“The God will punish me,” The girl insisted.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Are they here?” Em said. Waited for a shake of the head. “Does God know everything? Then he knows you’re climbing.”

“She,” came the sob. “She knows. It is Nasheth, and she knows all.”

“And you are fleeing her.” Em agreed. “Start climbing.”

Another gulp. Another sob. “Maybe the fire will go down?” She said, and coughed.

“It won’t. Climb.”

“But God—”

“If they cared, they’d be here. GO. And you tell the people you find up there that more’s coming. We need more harnesses. We need more ropes. Go on, girl, your whole world is waiting for the help you’ll bring. Start to climb!”

She trembled like dew on moss. And then she took the first step up. And the next. And the next. Bravely bypassing every logical barrier in her head—the Gods, Hawk thought, and gods and gods and more. She was so sick of gods—this near-child began to pull her way up through the ropes, using the harness. Em grabbed the loose end of the rope and held it down.

“It’s going to take her hours to climb,” Hawk said. “This fire reached the base of the temple in the time for us to climb up and back. We have to find a way of fighting it if we’re going to get these people out of here alive.”

“Yep. Them, and the villages that just got burned out because of Argon’s tantrum.” Em didn’t let go of the rope, despite the gasps and signs against blasphemy that greeted their words. They looked around at the pale faces and said it again, “Argon’s tantrum. Argon threw a fucking tantrum because we ran away from him, and he can’t get us back. There’s the truth. Do what you want with it.” There was a pause as they worked against the twisting line in their hands. The girl was only a few feet along. “Go, Hawk. You’re aching to. Go find him.”

And Hawk didn’t need another word.

The gates to the Temple were closed. “We need to get those gates open,” she said, to the nearest white robe.

“Why? There are refugees.” The white robe wrung her hands together, twisting them like paper in her own grip.

“Exactly why. There are refugees.”

“But they don’t belong here in the Temple.” The white robe insisted.

“It’s a temple. Where else should refugees go? Get those goddamn gates open!” And she strode across the moss lawn herself, blinded in a way by the callous reaction. Maybe that was an Earthside bias. Maybe it wasn’t fair to expect another world to care as much for its fellow man as she did. Maybe it had taken centuries, even millennia to bring humanity to where it mostly cared about itself, where churches and temples and tabernacles opened their doors to the desperate. Maybe the modern view of compassion had needed the shoulders of religion to stand on, and the shoulders of poverty and disaster beyond counting. Maybe, down here, this was the first disaster where they needed each other to survive. Hawk should have mercy, and lowered expectations, and should teach instead of chastise.

Fuck that noise in the ear, was her response. If it took centuries to reach the “right” point of view, the view of compassion and mercy, then those were wasted centuries, and time itself was wrong. There was no excuse for a dearth of mercy. She’d get those gates open if she had to force it all herself.

And then what?

Em would get people up topside. They might even be able to respond if they moved fast enough.

She coughed in a ghust of smoke from the fire, then reached the doors. They opened inward; she was on the wrong side to push it open. Well, might as well start climbing, then. These gates were not staying barred. They were easy enough to climb on this side. She found handholds in sculpted birds and rabbits, inch by inch making her way up the warm milk crystal…and it was warm. Like heat from a summer’s day. Foothold here, handhold there. It was also getting hard to breathe. The Temple stood on a spire of milk crystal, with a road that lead up to its great gates. The fire that Argon had started had lashed across the land, curled through mossy meadows and eaten trees whole, and now it was gathering at the base of the spire. Not good, Hawk thought. Not good at all. Especially not when there were a very large number of people gathered at the base.

If I were Alex, where would I be, was an easy question to answer: Down there, where all the people were, trying to get them moving. But they were likely faithful Holians, to whom the holy processions and pavilions were places of joy—give a little food, maybe a bird or two for sacrifice, and in return they could take the pavilions down and keep whatever they pleased. If they knew about the bevy of human sacrifice and cruelty that actually happened inside…so he’d use his reputation and fearsome appearance as the Shadow to chase people up the spire. The absolute last thing he ought to do.

She had to get down there. Fast.