Lady Ovida of the chicken crest said, "That isn't the main point."

"One thing at a time. Let's see what she offers."

Another noble said, "And she should be making those elemental bombs!"

Ruyo felt she was on somewhat more comfortable ground. "If I get enough prayer energy, I can summon not just food, but convenient food-creating items to the site of a shrine. The shrine must be more elaborate than the Vissio family's." Notably, House Vissio was not represented here today. "Or items that spawn elementals, yes."

"Without obvious limits?"

"I don't know my limits, sir. Certainly I'd have trouble spending hours and hours at a stretch casting the same spell. I can work on efficiency and quantity, especially if I get enchantment training for that part of the work."

The chairman nodded to her, then to a fellow noble who was scribbling notes. Then he said, "We can talk details later. Now, sacred matters. Do you know enough of our theology to know of Night's Glittering Fastness?"

"I've heard of it. A symbol of people working together as stars in the sky. It seems a little out of place for the Church." She waved one hand around the rocky fortress.

Ovida said, "At least you know that. In the absence of a guide, we're all out of place."

A noble called out, "I motion to show her."

"Seconded," Anemos said.

A vote happened quickly. And with some hesitation, every member of the group raised a hand. "Adjourn to the heart in a few minutes, then," the chairman said.

The seven stood up and swept past Ruyo, toward the door. Anemos paused and waited for the rest to leave. He murmured, "Be very respectful with what you're about to see. We take it seriously. Now come."

#

Mystified, Ruyo followed him out of the meeting hall, through the main chamber, and down a short staircase. The councilors trickled back into view and met in a room with a heavy stone door. There, a nobleman ushered the others back and struck a pose as though fighting the door. He lifted his hands and moved them in a complex motion. A rock or metal piece inside a complex lock was moving, flung this way and that by magery to operate a puzzle invisible to the one solving it. Finally the passage opened, and Anemos operated a second gate that he played like a musical instrument of haunting air-magic notes. Beyond that was only a dark passage. A faint noise began somewhere ahead.

Anemos bowed to the others and said to Ruyo, "There are fire and water beyond here. Don't resist either; you'll be fine." He walked down the hall and around a corner, out of sight.

Ovida followed him a few moments later, and then the chairman looked toward Ruyo.

Ruyo was staring into the darkness. She sensed magic ahead, but only as a low pulsing aura of no known form or function. "I could make a light..."

"No lights. Just walk."

Ruyo set foot into the passageway and went slowly. Her boots echoed on a slight downward slope and her hand traced along the rough stonework. Around another corner there was light... firelight. Jets of flame filled the path. Ruyo's eyes widened. That would kill anyone unprotected! But the people ahead of her had already gone through. She stepped closer, feeling the heat. She could dash, create some ice as she leaped.

The city leaders, the Church leaders, had said there was no need. They knew what they were doing. Ruyo trembled but edged forward. The fire trap still blazed. Yet the heat didn't increase; it was no worse than a hot day. Ready to sprint and put herself out, Ruyo shut her eyes and kept walking, stifling a scream. Then she was through, and not in pain. Two stumbling steps forward and she turned around. How? The fire looked real.

More footsteps were coming from that direction, as the next councilman entered. Ruyo moved on, shaken. The next corner revealed jets of freezing water, barely visible in the darkness. Less menacing than the fire but shot through with jagged ice shards. She approached the aura of bitter cold and pushed through, feeling no worse than being caught in a hailstorm. Her clothes weren't even singed or soaked. Ruyo hurried ahead.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She reached a round room ten paces across, under a dome like a starry sky. Those were ordinary magelights, if cunningly tiny and numerous. The middle of the room was sunken and had a ring of cushions. Inside that was just open space.

"This is the Fastness?" Ruyo said.

Anemos shook his head. "This is where we kept it. Lady Ovida?"

The farmer spoke solemnly. "Miss Ruyo, you are honored to stand in the Steadfast Church's heart. It's an ancient shrine dating nearly to the founding of Averell, when we turned from bare survival to deeper things. Partly because one of our people found a great treasure of the Lost World."

They said little until the other councilors arrived. Then Chairman Tivius took up the story. "Night's Glittering Fastness was a relic of the old gods. It was beyond anything that any wizard we know has ever designed. Physically it was a tapestry, shroud, cloak, veil or sash, depending on the day."

"What did it do?" asked Ruyo. "And which god?"

Ovida said, "We believe it was a god of night or darkness. One might expect it to be a work of evil, and so we first thought. Really, it's anything but."

Or it's sneaky, thought Ruyo. Meanwhile in Brotherhood, the monks were keeping the ancient God of Light prisoner, and every soul that remembered anything about that creature -- including hers, now -- screamed Kill it! She shivered at recalling her one personal encounter with that beautiful, trapped creature that people kept accidentally dying near.

Anemos said, "The Fastness is a powerful but subtle tool. There is a place inside it. Being there is like a waking dream in which you can see something of the consequences of your actions, as though at the end of a long tunnel."

"A device for prophecy?" she asked. She'd seen a distorted, impossible space inside the Light God's prison, so this could be a similar relic.

"Not exactly; it works with the knowledge of the people using it. More of a guide, or a view from above. The lost god isn't with us, but the Fastness is a gift meant to bring wisdom to future rulers."

The chairman took over. "We have no gods in the sense of idols and divine kings. This is the secret of the Steadfast Church: we do have guidance echoing from this world's past. It's one reason we hate to see groups like the Inheritors trying to abuse the Lost World's legacy."

Anemos said, "That, and they tend to set things on fire."

Ovida glared at him. "This is no place for levity. Miss Ruyo, do you understand now what we've lost? The Khyberians only dimly know what the Fastness can do, we think, but they forced us to hand it over or face immediate attack. Their occupying soldiers... well, some were more dangerous than others."

Ruyo was distracted now by mention of the Inheritors. "I came here to ask what you've learned about the cult and where they've taken my friend."

"Never mind that!" said one noble.

Ovida was a bit sympathetic this time, patting Ruyo on the shoulder. "I understand she's important to you. Your own guide to the past. Since you know how terrible it is to lose such help, you must see how bad it is for the whole Church to lose the Fastness."

Ruyo thought of the whole Church, centered here but with branches in the other city-states of the southern lands. "Do the leaders of the other cities use the Fastness, too?"

"A few of them have. Ones we've trusted. It's a humbling experience to see how your own natural desire for power and control can lead to ruin."

Ruyo looked up at the starry ceiling. So the entire government of her homeland wasn't quite what she'd always assumed: a group of naturally decent people in balance with the commoners. All her life, some of their benevolent-enough rule was due to their being able to study magical stars and understand what might be. "You... you're more than just men and women yourselves, then."

Anemos said, "We're only people. It's the chance to look into something greater, that lets us be a little better. Not one of us has ever used its power and been told we're perfect. Without the relic's guidance we'll do our best, but we just don't have the same insight."

She whistled, feeling that the dim room spread far larger than it was, and that she was tiny. "Was it for that insight that Khyber stole it?"

"It might be. There are two other possibilities, one being that they just want to use it to transport troops as though packing them in a bag. I see you scowling, ma'am, and I feel the same way about abusing it like that. The other thing is, now that we know what happened to you, we fear the Fastness contains a shard of divinity. If our enemies got it, we'd be facing someone like you."

"I would hope the new Night God would be wise from using that thing."

"We can hope, yes. Or we can stop them from creating a god who sincerely believes conquering us is best for everyone."

Ruyo said, "Why did you let them take it, if you knew this might happen and you're willing to fight for it?"

"We didn't know much about you, yet. Our last use of the Fastness showed us we had little choice but to hand it over, and look for solutions later. That was based on what knowledge we had, not what we then learned about you."

The chairman said, "Why do you think we've been helping you? The best chance for restoring what's ours and preventing the rise of a true dark god is you."

Ruyo stared at the floor now, feeling even smaller. "I didn't have any idea. I was trying to explore a cave for fun, and then wanted to help the spirit I found inside. I know, I've been trying to collect prayers and shrines, but it's all been part of a plan to build up gradually to start being useful. This is too much."

Anemos said, "I'm afraid handing out trinkets isn't going to be enough to keep growing your power. When the heart of a whole society has been torn out, something must replace it or the realm will die. In time we might get back what we had, but only with a fight."