The Dreaming Land

Chapter 17: The Will of a Fallen God

Though it surprised Orius, he eagerly agreed to go to the temple of Pehrun for Misha. He had no idea she wanted to help them so badly, and after all they'd been through so far, there was no way he could say no. Between himself and Imara, though, this was a worthy detour to lead them out of the way of any traps Reiner may have set for them. He wouldn't be able to anticipate this detour.

The temple was to the south of Kalice, and not all that far to reach on foot. The journey there was fairly boring, though. The landscape was barren, with nothing to see for miles in all directions. The wind whipped up the dust, forcing them to shield their eyes and faces as they walked. Orius found himself missing the damp ocean breeze from the pier, back in Gigas. Which surprised him, as he normally hated it.

Imara seemed mostly unbothered by it, though. She'd grown up having to deal with conditions like this before. Hasyia had a vast desert of its own, just on the edge of the great plains, where her clan called home. Dust storms would pass through in the late summer, when the storm winds began to pick up. It almost reminded her of home, in a weird way.

At one point the southern road reached a bridge which passed over a deep crevasse in the earth. The gash in the earth went down for miles, until darkness swallowed the bottom, and they couldn't see any further. Quintir took a moment to really take in the vastness of it all, which left him awe. Seeing this kind of damage up close was humbling, putting in perspective how devastating the moon's war must have been.

After a few hours, they approached the temple grounds. This temple was quite different than the last one. It was out in the open, not secluded at all. There were no walls, or even a building at all. Instead, there was an arrangement of pillars in a circle around a wide stone platform, with a pedestal in the centre. The stones making up the temple had been partially eroded on one side by hundreds of years of dust buffeting it.

As they walked into the centre of the stone circles, they got a good look at the massive stone pillars encircling the temple grounds. There were carvings of fanatics and worshipers, surrounded by flames reaching all the way up to the top of the pillars. The wide floor of the platform was engraved, too, with flames lashing out from the centre.

"This temple is ancient." Quintir said, "Of course, all temples are ancient at this point in time, but this particular one must have been built quite early one. You can tell by how simplistic the carvings are. The imagery surrounding the moon gods got more complicated as the civilization advanced. I'm just surprised this place is still standing..."

"So what do we do now?" Misha asked, walking around the platform.

"We wait until nightfall." Quintir explained, "Pehrun is fickle, you see. His powers are great, so even within his temples, we must perform the proper rituals to attract his attention."

"That wont take long." Orius said, looking at the position of the sun in the sky.

"Quin," Imara said, "if the moon god are dead, how can they still have a will of their own?"

"Ah, a common misconception." He said, eager to answer her question, "The moon gods aren't dead, they're just broken. Separated as they are, now, their will has no conduit. Which is why we come to these temples. Even in their current state, they still recognize these places as houses of worship. Places intended strictly to commune with them."

"So..." Imara pondered, "Let's say someone puts all the shards back together, would the moon god come back to life?"

"In theory, probably." He nodded, considering the question, "But In actuality, it would be nearly impossible. The moon were enormous. No man made structure could be big enough to perform such a task."