Even though he spared a little time trying to locate the mysterious priest that the young guard was quite certain he saw, in the days following his meeting with Brother Verdenin, he never did find anything else. It was as if the strange one-armed man had appeared, spoken to exactly one guard, and then disappeared. Todd never did find the culprit behind the rash of thefts, either, which was frustrating. He was sure that his extra scrutiny prevented the thievery from metastasizing into something worse, though, and that was all he could do.
In the weeks leading up to Saint Erdin's Day, he did everything he could, not just to look for signs of evil that would seek to disrupt the temple’s first service but to make sure it was a success. He worked tirelessly in Siddrim’s name. He helped the workmen when they were short-handed, booked the rooms at the local inns for the visiting dignitaries, and even helped with the strange plumbing that was required to finally show off the temple in its full glory.
Todd had known that plumbing existed, of course. The city of Siddrimar had lead pipes to bring in fresh water and sewers to remove the waste, as well. The capital city did, too, at least according to rumors. This far out in the country, though, very few buildings had such features. Though the Greshen palace had running water in the kitchens and to the fountains, even it had relied on chamber pots, and even though it was right next to the river, only the old city had even an open sewer, and it was a stinking cesspool in the summer.
Blackwater, at least, didn’t have that problem. Surrounded by water on two sides, it mostly just smelled of damp and mud year-round. Even if Brother Verdenin’s fountain project would do nothing practical, Todd did have to admit to himself that it looked pretty once he’d seen it turned on for the first time.
The Temple of Sunrise was almost 80 feet in diameter. It was actually seventy-seven and seven-tenths across, and it was ringed by thirteen fountains, evenly spaced along the outside, along with four smaller ones on the gilded dome of the roof. He’d never seen all of them active at once, but Todd had to admit that they were striking works of marble and alabaster and that the statues that had been chosen to depict different mythological scenes were incredibly detailed.
None of the fountains that were built into the red- and orange-colored walls were as lovely as those on the roof. They didn’t shoot streams of water like the lower fountains but instead depicted the handmaidens of light releasing a mist that cascaded over the dome’s oculus in a way that could fill the whole temple with a prismatic spray of rainbow light, depending on the time of day.
The first time Todd had seen that effect, it had taken his breath away, and he thought that perhaps he’d misjudged the priest he’d spent the last few years doubting. Brother Verdenin’s tent was finally removed from the temple last week when the altar had been moved into place. Now Siddrim’s light would fall onto it squarely at noon during the midsummer solstice, and even though that effect wouldn’t be quite so pronounced during Saint Erdin’s day, it would still make for a striking first service.
“This is a true masterwork,” Todd had confessed to the older man one day while he looked on in awe.
“And it’s not even completed yet. After this, we still have to build the pews, carve the pillars, and paint the ceilings with the story of creation,” he said in a tone that was exhausted but satisfied. “Only then will we have built a tiny slice of heaven here on earth that we might use to purify the Oroza and restore order to the region.”
As far as Todd was concerned, the river was getting close to purified as it was, but once these festivities were over, he planned to travel to the northwest with a few men and go on another goblin hunt. There were rumors that they were getting bolder in the red hills, as well as along the coast, and Todd wouldn’t stand for that. Not with what had happened with his village. He was going to purge them from this world if it was the last thing he did.
Still, for now, he had to focus on the task at hand and as the final day got closer and closer, the scaffolding was removed, and everyone’s focus turned to cleaning. It was a mundane task for a blooded warrior like Todd, but he didn’t mind. He’d spent more years cleaning under the supervision of priests and acolytes than he had swinging a mace or sword, and in Siddrim’s eyes, cleanliness was almost as important as light. So they scrubbed and washed and made the main chamber ready, and once that was done, they hung the maroon banners, and all took a well-earned rest for the day before the ceremony.
On that last day, Todd lingered in the temple after everyone else had gone to bathe and change for the feast to welcome Bishop Runsslow and his entourage into the city. It was the first time he’d ever been alone in the building, and as he let himself take in all of the majesty of the nearly completed structure, he couldn’t help but feel empty. It was odd.
The light that he expected to radiate off such a masterwork simply wasn’t there, and no matter how much he groped for it, the most he could find was a few thin trickles of holy fire flickering from the altar. The ground didn’t even feel consecrated to him anymore. That at least he understood. There was something about this old swampy ground that drank in the light and had since before the first cornerstone was laid, but he could only assume that in time the light would drive all of that darkness out of the land and then the river.
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At least, Todd hoped so. He walked away from the temple that night feeling empty, though he couldn’t quite understand why. He kept a smile on his face during the feast that followed in the pavilion that had been set up for the occasion, but he felt hollow the whole night.
Even when Priest Verdenin raised a toast to the assembled guests of priests from Siddrimar and important people from as far away as Fallravea, the words did not move him. “Thank you all for coming. Please, eat and drink the fruits of the land so that you might better understand our great work. We have come a long way, as you will see tomorrow, but there is still much further to go if we wish to claim this whole world for our god!”
There were cheers at that and a few chants of ‘down with Oroza’ and a few other gods that it was not considered bad luck to speak the names of aloud. Todd got drunk enough as he sought to fill the growing void inside him with something and briefly got into an argument with one of the elder priests about the nature of gods and spirits, even though he didn’t mean to.
“The small gods thrive and multiply from Siddrim’s light, my child,” Priest Karrick insisted. “Do you not see? Once we have built temples across this great continent of ours, and even across the sea, his light will shine across the world, and evil will be eradicated forever after!”
Todd insisted there would always be darkness and that it would just find smaller corners to hide in and cleverer tactics to worm its way into the minds of men. The priest used Fallravea as an example of the good work they were doing, and Todd was about to rebut that before Brother Verdenin wisely changed topics. He was more familiar than anyone with Todd’s feelings on that cursed city and did not wish to see a drunken argument foul the evening.
After that, Todd made his apologies and spent the rest of the evening speaking with his peers that guarded the Bishop’s entourage about how Brother Faerbar was doing and how frequent the goblin attacks were becoming. He found solace in that at least, and in the fact that the rest of his martial brothers would also rather be doing anything but watching the Bishop christen yet another temple.
“Even fighting bandits, waste of time that that would be, would still be better than dealing with all this pageantry,” one of them swore toward the end of the night. “I joined the church to fight evil, not polish statues!”
Todd would blame that comment for the dreams he had that night. Between the wine he’d had too much of and his foul mood, he dreamt that he spent his entire life doing nothing but cleaning floors and polishing statues until he, too, became one. Then another young man came and started to polish him for decades until he was so old that he, too, became a statue. The process continued, even as he struggled to wake up until the whole world was nothing but people worshiping statues of those that had spent their life worshiping statues.
It was not the right mindset to have when he woke at dawn for prayers and found Brother Verdenin there to join them for the first time in a long time. “Today’s an important day, Brother Graff,” he said as he greeted the sun with Todd. “We must start it off right.”
Though the ceremonies that followed were long and involved, Todd didn’t have to do much during them. Mostly he stood at attention in his freshly polished chainmail against the wall in neat ranks with the rest of the warriors while the priests made various invocations and gave speech after speech once all the guests had arrived.
By the time the bell was rung and everyone was in their places, there were almost 300 people crowded into the large temple. About twenty of them were guards, and another twenty or so were priests, but the rest was made up of the luminaries of Blackwater as well as some of the commoners that Brother Verdenin had taken a liking to during his time in the city. Some were here to receive the light’s blessing and be purified, and others were here because they’d just spent the last several years building some part of the temple or another. At a glance, Todd could see masons, stone carvers, painters, and metal workers, and he idly wondered what all these people would do once the temple was finally complete and there was no more call for their services.
Those thoughts faded as soon as the service started, though. First, they turned on the fountains and gave a demonstration of the beautiful lighting they could create, then they sacrificed a pure white lamb as they invoked the east and a goat that was as black as night when they honored sunset in the west. Then they drew that sacred arc that the sun traveled every day with the mixed blood of the two animals on the heads of all the worshipers in attendance before they finally proceeded to give a lengthy sermon about the importance of patience and how mountains could be torn down and rebuilt into fortresses by someone with enough time and devotion.
Todd had heard Brother Verdenin give this speech a dozen times in preparation for today, so he wasn’t paying much attention to the words, but then the priest suddenly ended the monologue with an unfamiliar phrase before the altar started moving.
“That is why we must all journey deeper into the darkness, so we better understand not just ourselves but our role in the great plan that awaits us all,” he said as he depressed a hidden switch that Todd hadn’t noticed before, and the altar started to sink downward.
When it reached the level of the floor, Brother Verdenin stepped onto it and said, “Follow me, everyone, and I will show you the path to true salvation.”
The altar was a large, round block of basalt that had been imported for its contrast with all the whites, reds, and pinks that otherwise dominated the chapel. It was precisely as big as the oculus that stood above it, and now it was disappearing into the darkness, which was not a mechanism that he’d seen anyone work on at any point in the last few years. The wedge-shaped stones that radiated out from it quickly followed suit, though they stopped at different levels.
Todd quickly realized that the thing was forming a spiral staircase that was slowly getting wider and deeper as Brother Verdenin disappeared from sight.