Broken Lands

Chapter 424 – The Goddess of the Way

Issvako tweaked the color on the goddess’s draperies, then sighed. She was putting off fixing what needed to be fixed because she didn’t want to admit that she had to shape the stone where she should have been carving it. The goddess’s right wing was too small and too thick; it properly ought to be thin enough that shining a light through it would make it glow. The small details of the extremities had squished the last time she moved it, too, and that was always a pain to fix. Why had she decided that the main form of the goddess should be human this time?

Issvako scolded herself. Archons with a human body were still Archons; that was the point of the Blessing. They belonged. It was simply easier when Issvako could see them and feel them in the Lifeweb to know that they belonged. She was old and had done far too much work elsewhere, which was why she allowed tasks like stone carving to take up her time as long as the requestor showed up at her doorstep. The current Prelate of the Way knew exactly where her door was.

Issvako knew the real reason. She was making the statuette for the Temple of the Way and the Temple of the Way welcomed all who came, yet all of the statues of the Goddess of the Way were traditional Archons. Never mind that it was Archons who Opened the Way, or that the Goddess did not appear until afterwards; that did not matter. She had decreed that all should be welcomed, and that meant a statue with the Goddess’s attributes that humans could more easily revere.

A statue that made it clear she was a goddess and not a Patron would help, but Issvako was not certain she had managed that. All too many outside Arcatiz conflated the two when they were entirely separate. Gods could not grant Patronage. They could influence their followers’ Spheres, but it was more like a Towerbound Ruler’s influence than a Patron’s, and it was different even from that. A Ruler required allegiance while a god required faith; they weren’t the same thing.

Issvako might not be able to manage that level of detail, but she could still make something good enough. Turning the goddess’s crest and beak into a headdress and a mask was inspired, even if Issvako had to claim credit for her own choice. It wasn’t easy; the beak sort of worked, but the headdress just didn’t look right. It was the best she was going to be able to do, just like the jewelry that substituted for the goddess’s feather markings.

At least carving the spiraling portal that was the goddess’s left wing worked out well, just like making it blend smoothly into the very ground she walked on worked out well. It was the trickiest bit of carving, and something that would probably have been better in the hands of a Professional stonecarver, but Issvako was proud of it nonetheless.

The door to the workshop pulsed slightly and Issvako sighed. A visitor? It had only been a couple of days since the Prelate of the Way’s last visit; at this rate, she was never going to get anything done.

Issvako allowed the door to swing open. That should be the Prelate. He was a bit early, since she wasn’t done yet, but she wouldn’t mind talking through the color changes or maybe adjusting the goddess’s posture in her dance. She had told him it would be two days, and it had been two days.

The figure outside her door wasn’t the Prelate. In fact, he wasn’t an Archon; he was human, not even Blessed. It took Issvako a moment, but she knew the man. He’d helped quite a few different human Tower-keepers find their way to her door. “Revanos! I haven’t seen you in decades! What are you doing here?

Revanos smiled and crouched as he stepped through the doorway. Issvako’s workshop was not built with his height in mind. “I thought I’d best warn you that two of mine are coming to see you.”

“Two of yours?” Issvako tilted her head to the side. She was fairly certain that Revanos didn’t choose to Hallow outside his own species; she wasn’t even certain he knew how to. It was possible, but that was something the older Patrons didn’t always share with the younger ones and while Revanow was not young, he was from a single-species world. Unlike Arcatiz. “They’re low enough to have to climb the World Tree, then?”

Revanos nodded. “I expect them here fairly quickly, for all that they’re only third upgrade. They’re capable, even though their team is small.”

Issvako laughed. “I know the stories, Revanos. You are not one to talk about small teams!”

Revanos shrugged expressively. “I walked with others when their paths matched mine. Many of our paths crossed, back in the day. We even conquered Towers together.”

“And you all became Patrons, yes, I know.” Issvako nodded repeatedly in amusement. “That doesn’t change the fact that you were the first to complete a Tower and you did it alone. Start to finish.”

“There were others in the Tower,” Revanos countered poorly. He always had trouble accepting compliments. “And it was a far smaller Tower than the World Tree is. It only had six floors, barely more than you require to reach you.”

Issvako snorted but she allowed the matter to drop. She was old enough and powerful enough to tweak the nose of a Patron, especially one as approachable as Revanos, but there was a point past which there was no reason to go. It was better to stop while everyone involved found it amusing. “Are they stealth specialists to sneak through the fourth upgrade floor? That is possible, but finding appropriate Challenges tends to be difficult.”

Revanos shook his head. If Issvako didn’t know better, and in truth she didn’t, she’d have said he was proud of his Hallowed. “They have a pair of allies, Hallowed by other Patrons. All four are skilled; they tend more towards training than trinkets and have done well by their upgrades.”

Issvako shook her head. “That is the duty of their Patron. I do not know how you do it; your Hallowed travel too much, how can they possibly pay back their debt to you?”

Revanos shook his head slightly. “I do not count it as a debt. It is mine to offer and if my Hallowed choose to follow my precepts in a way that does not gather Wisps for me, that is fine. It is not the ones who travel too much that have trouble with Wisps in any case; after all, they must gather the aurichalc for the Gateways.” 

He paused as if he was considering something, then shook his head. “And as for the ones who are coming to you … they opened a door that had been closed for sixteen hundred years. They have earned me far more Wisps than their Spheres cost, more than I’ve ever spent on any two Hallowed, but the fact that I can once more be active there is more important. The fact that the place they restored may now heal instead of slowly dying … well, it may not aid me directly but it is still exactly what my Hallowed are supposed to do. I owe them a great deal and smoothing their road is the least I can do.”

Issvako blinked slowly. Revanos absolutely was acting like a proud father talking about his children’s accomplishments. She’d better not offer him tea; if she did that, he’d probably be here for hours. That was what happened every time she let her grandchildren talk about their children, after all. Maybe she’d better hurry him along; a break from carving was nice, but the Prelate could show up at any time and he was inclined to make problems for Patrons. The fact that Revanos was not a Patron to Archons wouldn’t matter. The fact that he was the Wanderer might, but Issvako didn’t see any reason to take the risk. “Smooth their road? And that brings you to me? What do you want me to do.”

“He wants you to open a Way,” the Prelate of the Way said bluntly. “That is what you do, is it not?”

Issvako turned towards the doorway. It stood open. Revanos might have failed to latch it, but Issvako’s guess was that the Prelate was simply being impolite when he heard speaking coming from the workshop. He normally knocked, but no door would dare bar the Prelate of the Way if he decided it should not.

The Prelate looked to be in good health, the lightning that had replaced his body long before he became Prelate still well formed and observing the bounds of his original shape: that of an ibis, a shore bird. Ibis were especially prone to following the Way, with their sacred connection.

Issvako shook her head. The Prelate already knew the answer to that. He knew what she did. He was trying to lead her somewhere, and he only did that when he thought the blunt answer wouldn’t get him what he wanted. “He wouldn’t be here for that. Revanos knows my price for building a Way and my requirements. If he wanted that, he’d have asked and offered to pay. I’d bend that far; he meets the requirements.”

“That’s not the Way he wants.” The Prelate opened his beak in amusement. “Obviously. If I can guess what he wants, so can you.”

Issvako turned towards Revanos in the hope that he’d say something that meant the Prelate wasn’t right. There was only one thing the Prelate could mean, and it was not something Issvako was prepared to undertake, even for both the Prelate and a Patron.

Revanos lifted his shoulders slightly. It was too small a gesture to be called a shrug, but it was in the same family. “They want to go home. Sophia and Dav, that is, my Hallowed; they are from another universe, thrown here by an accident. I take it you’ve heard, Prelate Varthas?”

“I have not met them,” the Prelate of the Way admitted, “but I have heard stories and I have felt the touch of one of them. The woman’s wings … Sophia’s? They stretch across the Lifeweb. I feel them even here, when she is not in the Moonlit Branches. I am as yet uncertain if we should send her away or try to keep her close.”

“It is not the Way to keep someone where they do not wish to be,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted. 

Issvako looked around. Had someone else approached while they talked?

No one was at the door. Both Revanos and the Prelate were staring in the same direction, so Issvako turned, then froze.

The statue of the Goddess of the Way was moving. Her portal-wing simply shifted in place, providing a place for her to stand, but she gave an elegant bow when Issvako finally turned to her. “And yet. There are Ways that must not be opened. You know that as well as I, Revanos.”

“Some routes hold danger,” the Wanderer answered with a neutral tone, “That does not mean must not applies. They made their way here and they have walked through a severed interlink with no harm; Sophia claims that the space cannot harm her and it is deeply tied to Dav’s magic. I do not believe that simply walking an unprotected Way would be impossible for them.”

“You do not know.” The Goddess sounded surprised. “I had thought M’Beja would tell you after I rejected her request. Well, if not, then so be it; she paid the price for that knowledge, not you. Issvako. You may not open a Way to Sophia’s origin. I have not yet decided about the others.”

She froze back in her original position, but Issvako had no doubt of what she’d just seen. The Goddess had blessed her sculpture.

It was done.

Issvako handed the sculpture to the Prelate and shooed both of her visitors out the door. She needed time to rest and think about what the Goddess said before she listened to either of them.