Servants of the Dead. “The Faith. The Faith originated here too?”
“It blossomed just before the Cleansing. Some say it caused it. In the space of barely twenty years thousands had forsaken the gods, preferring to grovel to the dead, begging a place in their imagined paradise beyond life. Such devotion was anathema to a Ruling Council intent on fostering absolute loyalty to the empire. The Servants of the Dead were the first to feel their wrath, though they resisted well, led by a man named Varin. In time though, they were forced into exile, taking ship to a damp land across the sea, where more followed in time as the Council sought to wipe away all vestige of what they termed irrational belief.”
“You killed your gods,” Reva said, recalling the Empress’s words.
“No.” They came to the bottom of the stairwell, Varulek crouching to unlock another door, pushing it open on squealing hinges. “We hid them.”
The space beyond the door gave a long echo as he stepped inside, though the absolute blackness prevented any estimation of its size. He paused next to the door, holding the lamp to a torch set into the wall, moving away as the flames blossomed. Reva followed him in, the chamber gradually revealed as he moved from torch to torch. Her gaze went immediately to the statues, three figures, two men and a woman. They were life-sized, and posed as if frozen in a moment of discussion. The woman leaned forward, hands raised and seemingly addressing both men at once. The taller of the two men stood stroking a bearded face, his brow deeply furrowed as if in sombre reflection. The other man was clean-shaven with narrow handsome features and appeared to be in mid-shrug, regarding the woman with a half smile, his expression one of affable disagreement.
The three figures stood around a plinth of some kind, flat-topped with a circular indentation in the centre. It seemed completely unweathered by age, its lines clean and free of chips or scars. It also contrasted with the three statues, being carved from some form of black stone, whilst they had been hewn from a kind of grey granite.
“The gods?” she asked Varulek.
“The gods are too divine to be captured by a mortal hand, in word or in stone.”
She frowned at his tone, hearing a faint echo of the priest’s rantings in the terse note it held. “These are the Tyrants,” he went on, gesturing at the three figures. “Progenitors of the Dermos. Once they ruled all the world with vile magics, casting down any who dared speak against them, a triumvirate of tyranny. In time the gods brought them down, banishing them to the fire pits beneath the earth where they spawned the Dermos. No, these are not the gods.” He moved away, going to a wall to play the lamplight over the stone. “This is where you’ll find them.”
Reva moved to the wall, finding the stone to be rough, shaped by unskilled hands into a vaguely flat surface, and marked with tiny indentations from end to end. Peering closer she saw the indentations were symbols of some kind, arranged into clusters, neat at first but becoming more irregular as they progressed along the wall.
“Scripture?” she asked Varulek.
“Only a few in every generation are chosen,” he said. “Those with the strength and will to contain the essence of the gods, their hands guided to impart their wisdom and guidance, chipped into stone whilst life and strength remain. Though, inevitably, a blessing of such power has a price.”
He moved along the wall, the light revealing yet more scripture, every cluster and symbol becoming less uniform until they were nothing more than vague scratches on the stone. The work of a madman scrawling in the dark, Reva concluded, deciding it best left unsaid for the moment. As he moved past her she noted again the tattoos covering Varulek’s hands, finding an unmistakable similarity to the wall markings.
“What does it say?” she asked. “You can read it can’t you?”
He nodded, eyes still fixed on the wall. “Though I doubt there is another soul in all the world who could.” He moved to the far end of the wall, where the markings were most coherent. “‘The Tyrants return,’” he read, finger tracking over the first cluster. “‘Hidden behind the face of a hero, unseen Dermos, set free upon the earth. Even this refuge will be lost to the gods.’”