A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands - Book 2: Chapter 50: The Belly of the Beast

Our ancestors came from the sky to make their home in the stone.

– Excerpt from the Lavella Tablets unearthed from the old ruins in the Beacon Mountains.

“Mortal priest of the whore, abase yourself before me and know your place. You would dare bring the light of another here, in my temple, and still defy me?” the voice answered in turn, with another question. Demand had turned into nonplussed incredulity.

“You will make no demands of me,” I said flatly in response, standing tall and straightening my shoulders.

“Haha. You amuse us. Die then, as a sacrifice to us here in my temple. I will even grace you with my presence. as a parting gift for entertaining me so. I had forgotten how droll you mortals could be. How long has it been, I wonder?” the voice almost preened.

A naked female figure, the voice given shape, floated out of antiquity from an intricately-detailed mosaic on the ceiling, the tiles turning blank as she formed in the real. Long black hair trailed behind her, as if caught in some unseen current. Her skin was darker than the blackest night, and she looked down at me with golden-slitted eyes. A smile that would have shamed the best of artists played about her face. I noted that she stayed out of the radius of my aura.

“I am Iasis, sacrifice, and know this is one of the highest of honors,” stated the goddess. I knew it to be a goddess, for she had a presence, if not appearance, that was almost a mirror to Avaria’s. Unlike Avaria, I did not feel a sense of forced adulation, rather a traitorous stirring in my loins. Seconds later, I felt repulsed in equal measure as her mouth split into four parts revealing a fanged maw that undulated as she spoke.

“I am no sacrifice, godling. But yours is the first presence that has a tongue to speak. Tell me, what is this place? Was it you who placed those traps?” I demanded.

Delicate laughter was my only answer for a while, before the goddess answered.

“A goddess should not do a laborer’s work, unlike my virginal whore of a sister Vari. My worshipers would do anything to preserve the sanctity of my temple,” an almost-invisibly dark eyebrow lifted in wry amusement before her face turned into an expression of consternation, “Where are my priests? My worshipers? The sacrifices for this day? My children, the Guardians, I can barely hear their voices…” she questioned of me, her delicate features turning almost feral.

“I bear no love for Vari,” I stated simply, recognizing the variation of Avaria’s name and seeking to divert the flow of the conversation. This was what it was to walk the razor’s edge. Though I hated the gods and all that they stood for, it would do me no favors to earn the ire of one, here, where I was vulnerable.

A peal of laughter resounded through the hall like the screeching of cats. “You are a jester of the highest sorts. You bear her cursed light… yet you speak the truth. At least, as you believe it to be. Intriguing,” her voice turning into one of clinical interest.

Drifting on invisible wings, moving closer to me, she crossed the threshold of the light, with only the smallest of traces of a wince as she did so. Like an ethereal wisp, she danced sinuously around me, inspecting me from every angle. I yearned to reach out and touch her, but instead stood stock still.

“I feel it… you bear one of my tokens about your person,” she stated quizzically before asking simply in a flat voice, “Why?”

“I know not of what you speak,” I answered in kind, drawing a snort from the Divine. “All I wish for is to leave this place in peace. I have no issue with you.”

The mercurial goddess continued to circle me, and I turned my body to track her. “So soon, fallen priest of Vari. No issue, you say,” she returned, her tone mimicking my own and her expression playful like a cat’s.

The goddess had called me a priest, and from this, I intuited that the Divines of this accursed world were, at the very least, not omniscient. That, or she could just be playing with me. A habit common to many of those in power.

“But I have issue with you,” she rebuked, her voice growing dread. “You bring no offering, no votives, here, in one of the most sacred places. A most grievous insult.”

“Whatever shall I do with you?” she questioned of the air, seductive promise threaded into every syllable.

I forced myself to keep up my shield of silence, fighting against feelings that were not my own. How dare these entities, that played at being gods, use me for their own amusement!

Her features shifted back to a girlish and demure aspect. “As always, she and her lot have taken from me. This time, I think I want that of my sister’s. It is a good time to return the favor. It is, after all, only fair recompense. This will be as mud on her face! How fitting!” she clapped her hands together in innocent joy before fixing me a targeted look.

“Flawed, even for a mortal. Your Ma’at is almost pitiful. Still, you have some of the qualities that would allow you to survive my favor. It would be most amusing, do you not think, for a fallen priest of Vari to bear one of the marks of the Mother? I think it would be fair Justice,” she continued, airing her ideas to the world at large. For an audience of one.

She clapped her hands together with a smile, “Yes! I will have you take the Test! Fail and you will be another honored sacrifice… but succeed and you will receive my favor, and I will unleash you on the world to spread the joy of my creation,” she announced, her light tone at odds with the ominous echo that followed it.

“And if I refuse to take this Test?” I said, none too gently.

“Oh, how you test me so,” she chimed, pleased at her own pathetic attempt at witticism. “Then, I am afraid your little spark will be snuffed here. Gilgamesh.”

I gulped, a cold sweat forming about my body at the mention of my name. Perhaps the gods knew more than I thought they did. Though I hated myself for the next words I was forced to utter, I uttered them nonetheless.

“Then I accept,” I croaked into the darkness.

“Then know this, unbeliever. I am the Truth of Life, of the endless struggle against the nothingness of empty existence. Of boundless change and infinite possibilities. To overcome my trial, you must overcome Life in its many aspects,” the Divine declared, her voice now heavy with the authority of the years.

“This is not going to be easy, is it?” I spat bitterly.

She danced close to me, cupping my face with her hands, her skin smoking slightly at the touch of the light. The goddess looked at me with black orbs of deep ebon and answered in a stern voice, “Life ever was meant to be a struggle. A favor given and not earned has no meaning. Has no value. Without struggle, there can be no change. Without change, there can be no growth.”

Still dizzy from the sudden nearness of Iasis, I barely had time to register the ominous rumbling, let alone her mindless platitudes. A great, straining creak resounded as stone began to crack and splinter. Turning towards the noise, I found myself rooted to the spot in sheer disbelief. Defying all logic and reason, a statue to my left was coming to life before my disbelieving eyes.

Fragments of stone tumbled off the figure like shedding scales, revealing a creature of flesh and blood beneath. Eyes that had once been nothing more than lifeless stone sparked a vibrant copper. A lion’s head shook free of its remaining stony shroud, its mane glorious. Bat wings, encased for countless centuries, unfurled in a grand gesture of newfound freedom. Instead of a tail, a second head, a serpent’s head, emerged, its forked tongue flickering in the air to taste its surroundings.

It was a creature from myth and legend. It was a Manticore.