Episode 2: The Demands of a God
Written by: Tehri
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All in all, Lily was rather satisfied with her haul from the little town she was in. It had taken a fair while, but she was rather lucky to have found two wealthy families in the same town that were, frankly, dumb as rocks. Or at least dumb enough to not realise that the halvling who most of them had had in their beds by now was to blame for their rapidly depleting fortunes.
The amount of rubies she’d managed to swipe from them was more than satisfactory; if she were careful, they’d be enough for a few months of offerings, at the very least.
She grinned at her reflection in the mirror she stood before as she took her comb to her dark hair one last time, simply ensuring that she looked as she ought. She’d be leaving this dingy little inn today, heading back onto the road for fresh pastures, as it were. An old friend of hers would be travelling along the road to the south with a caravan at this time of the year, and if she moved swiftly, she’d be able to catch up with him in Brackenbrook. Hopefully she’d be able to quietly join the caravan and get past at least Silverdale without much incident; she couldn’t afford being spotted around there again, so best stick to a group with some numbers to them.
She hummed to herself as she packed her last few things and finally swung her pack over her shoulder. It was early, but it was always best to leave early – and this way, she wouldn’t be bothered by anyone she’d bedded during the past month. People really could be clingy…
In hindsight, she really should’ve known that something was about to go sideways. Things had gone her way for too long; it was only natural that A Certain Someone in the Beyond would decide to make things complicated for her.
She opened the door and stepped through it – only to freeze as she found herself not at all in the corridor outside her room at the inn, but instead in an enormous circular room lit only by a fireplace and a few flickering torches along the walls. Laughter and conversation echoed throughout the room.
Lily turned, intending to swiftly make her escape through the door, but found that it had vanished behind her, leaving only what looked like a large mirror made of red glass.
Fuck.
For good measure, she uttered the curse aloud. But behind her, a laugh rose above the din, echoing above all others.
“It has been too long, little flower!” a voice called out. “Come, come, join me!”
The weight of her pack on her shoulders suddenly vanished, and she realised that her dear old trusty armour had been transformed into a dress that most certainly was not her own, a tight-fitting and revealing thing of ruby-red fabric much finer than she had ever seen in her life. Not to mention more impractical; it barely qualified as fabric, really.
But such were the tastes of the one who brought her there. Arguing with him was useless, especially regarding clothing.
She huffed as she turned again, reluctantly stepping further into the room, further into the grand circle of lights.
One might call the room tastefully decorated – if the word “tasteful” implied a brothel. Sheer fabrics in shades of red hung over the walls and from the ceiling, creating little nooks and crannies everywhere. Tables and chairs were placed here and there, as were loveseats.
But though she could hear people all around her, though she could hear them as clearly as though they were right beside her, she could see little more than shadows moving behind the veils, none of them clear enough that she could make out more than that they were humanoid in nature.
At the centre of the room stood a large gilded bed, raised atop a dais of black stone. In the light from the fire on the hearth and the torches, shining through the many veils, even the black sheets were coloured a dark red. All around it were shades of people, some lounging on the steps of the dais, some offering food and wine. An ostentatious sight, one that would seem out of place even in the chambers of an emperor.
And upon the bed sat the tall lanky form of the one who had brought Lily to that place, the very person who had called out to her. His silver grey skin seemed nearly to shine in the light, seemed nearly to reflect it just as the jewellery adorning him did; chains and rubies around his neck, hung from the two large horns on his head, adorning his wrists and his ankles, strung between two rings piercing his nipples. Even his white hair was adorned with gold, tinkling as he moved his head. Only a long, thin bit of flimsy red fabric covered his nether regions, hanging from similarly golden chains that looked thin enough to break if one breathed wrong. The display was very nearly enough to take away attention from his four arms – or indeed from his pupil-less red eyes against their black sclera.
“I’m not late with an offering,” Lily grumbled as she climbed the steps of the dais, pushing past the shades. “I offered up three rubies only days ago, you greedy prick, and I have plenty for later, so why would you pull me here, Savrosil?”
Savrosil, the four-armed being, smiled at her. She had never seen him without a smile plastered on his face, almost as though it were sculpted that way and couldn’t change, but she had learned to see subtle differences in his smile. For the moment, at least, it was indulgent, benevolent, welcoming; after all, what did a mortal’s annoyance over being pulled into a god’s world matter in the grand scheme of things?
“My dear flower, if I rarely ask anything of you, might you not assume that I would only inconvenience you in this manner if it was important?” His voice was deep and smooth, sounding as though it were designed to light fires in the veins of those who heard him speak, and Lily bit the inside of her cheek to remind herself to pay attention to what he said rather than his voice. “Come here, little blossom, come to me. Let us speak of what is to come and what I require of you.”
Only with great reluctance did Lily come closer. Savrosil had always been touchy whenever she encountered his physical form; Hells, he was touchy even in his spirit-form, unable to keep his damn hands to himself! And while the halvling certainly wasn’t stupid enough to let a god bed her, there were definitely limits to how much teasing a person could endure, even after so much time spent attempting to move beyond such limits.
And sure enough, the moment she was at the bedside and within reach, two of the god’s long arms shot out, hands grasping at her waist and lifting her with ease. Without listening to her snapping at him to put her down, he pulled her close and had her straddling his lap.
“My little flower,” he sighed. “My little Lily! You have worked hard, I know, but I must ask a little more of you – only this time.”
“’Only this time’, my foot!” Lily huffed and glared up at him. “I’ve had a wearisome month, you know! You could just have let me rest for a bit!”
“Oh, I know.” Savrosil’s smile widened. There was something nearly manic in his eyes for a moment, something speaking of intense delight that the halvling didn’t wish to linger on. “Do I not watch you carefully, little one? I know what you have done, my dear, and I commend you for it. You have left the most exquisite haze over that little hamlet – and it does not only linger over the families you have played with. Beautiful work, my flower, absolutely beautiful. But I must still ask this of you now, before you begin your journey south. I know your habits, and I know you would avoid Silverdale.”
“Don’t tell me you need me to go there!”
“Unfortunately so, my dear. But I would not ask this of you if it were not necessary.” Keeping two hands on Lily’s waist and leaning back on the third, the fourth of Savrosil’s hand came to gently smooth over her cheek in a very nearly loving gesture. “Who else might I turn to but my priestess?”
Had it been a mortal speaking, Lily would immediately have told them to fuck right off. No one speaking like that had anything good in mind.
And if a god spoke that way, it would be outright idiotic to not question it.
“Always plenty of fish in the sea,” she answered in her best motherly voice, patting his chest with one hand. “You can always find someone to do the work for you, right?”
Savrosil laughed and pulled her even closer, pressed her against his chest and bent his head low to murmur in her ear:
“And that is why I turn to you, my darling. My blossom, my flower, my lily-of-the-valley in the mortal world.” For but a moment, his grip on her tightened in a silent warning, and Lily felt sharp nails digging into her skin through the flimsy dress. “My priestess, my devoted. I favour you, but I warn you to not displease me. A forgotten offering here or there, such little things will not have you fall from grace. But to refuse me? To reject my direct order? You remember the oath I had you take and the consequences of breaking it.” He laughed, little else but a low rumble in his chest, and made her turn her head to see the shades around them. “Is this how you wish to end up, my dear? A shade, a soul with no essence of your mortal self left, bound in eternal servitude?”
“I’m not rejecting you,” Lily insisted, trying to turn her head so that she could look up at him again. When she failed, she pushed against the hand on her head, grumbling angrily when his grip only tightened. Finally she simply reached out and took a hold of the chain hung from his pierced nipples and pulled, hard, drawing a halfway surprised but satisfied moan from him. “I am questioning you! Why me? Do you really not have anyone else sworn to you now? All these shades, you must’ve had a lot of people serving you throughout the years, but right now you’re relying entirely on me?”
The hand on her head left its place and grasped her wrist, urging her to release the chain. As she glared up at him, she found his smile looking very nearly hazy, almost as one who’d had too much to drink.
“You are my priestess,” he told her simply. “My devoted. I am already everywhere, little blossom, and few are those who resist me. What need have I for temples or acolytes, when I already have the world?” He shifted his grip on her again and straightened. Still two hands remained at her waist, rubbing soothing circles through the fabric as though hoping to rub away the marks his nails inevitably must have left, and he reached to cup her face in his two free hands and bent his head once more to press his forehead against hers. “I have you, my flower. I need no temples, I need no other priests or priestesses. I need only one.”
She felt how he shifted, felt how he pressed against her in turn, and realised suddenly that he was already half-hard under that thin bit of cloth. Around them, the shades were growing more animated, pressed eagerly against each other, pressed closer and closer to the dais, perhaps sensing the god’s excitement. All Lily could do was try not to squirm, not wanting to add fuel to the fire.
“Alright, fine,” she cried at last when Savrosil tilted his head as though to try to do something she knew she wouldn’t be able to push away from, “fine! Enough! You don’t have anyone else to ask, I get it! You want me to go to Silverdale! What exactly do you want me to do there?”
Savrosil hummed, sounding perhaps just a little disappointed. As his priestess turned her head away, rejecting the kiss, he pressed his lips instead against her neck, mouthing at the skin there until she used her free wrist to tug at his hair, drawing another groan from him.
“Focus,” she snapped. “What do you want me to do in Silverdale?”
Without moving away from her neck, Savrosil sighed:
“There is a person there, my darling, that I need you to ruin.”
Somehow, the way he said that had the hairs on the back of Lily’s neck standing on end. Savrosil wasn’t a vengeful creature – at least not as far as she knew. If he wanted someone ruined, he really must’ve been driven to the edge.
Suddenly she felt how he shifted his grip again, and the next moment he lifted her up and turned her around to look across the room. There on the wall across from them hung a large mirror in a golden frame, and this the god directed his priestess’s attention to. In a flash, the reflection of her on his lap changed, faded into the somehow less vivid colours of the mortal world; as though seeing through a bird’s eyes, she could see Silverdale far below, recognising it only because of the sheer cliff-face it had been built on the side of.
“There is a temple in Silverdale,” Savrosil murmured to her, his lips brushing against her ear. “A temple to Inrifael the Peace-bearer. It is the high priest in this temple that I ask you to bring to heel.”
If the hairs on the back of Lily’s neck had been standing on end before, it was nothing to how it felt now when his words nearly froze the blood in her veins.
Inrifael the Peace-bearer was not some minor god, not someone lesser who had ascended. No, he was one of the Great Ones, the one who was believed to have brought Order to Chaos and who brought an end to the hunger of the Void. His high priests were said to be steadier than mountains and impossible to influence or sway from their chosen path.
More importantly, the high priests only rarely left their temples and didn’t mix with outsiders. Of Inrifael’s followers, only novices or full-fledged acolytes were allowed to interact with people who weren’t sworn to their order.
The image in the mirror changed again, showing Lily an entrance carved into the very cliff-face; above the grand doors was Inrifael’s mark, the eight-pointed star. Again it changed, this time showing her the face of a man with sharp features, wearing a circlet with a single diamond shaped like the eight-pointed star. While she’d always struggled with figuring out the ages of other species, she reckoned by his grey-streaked hair and beard that he must be at the very least middle-aged, perhaps in his fifties – but then again, she could be wrong. She certainly had been many times before.
Savrosil held Lily close, two of his hands roaming restlessly over her body, running over her thighs, fondling her breasts, running through her hair. He rolled his hips with slow and deliberate motions, pressing his hard cock against her.
“This man,” he sighed, burying his face in her hair, “this insect, has come to believe that no mortal afflictions can touch him. Lust in particular he claims to be above. You, my flower, must remind him that he remains mortal, no matter which god he serves. Break him.”
“Plenty of people like that in the world,” the halvling ground out between clenched teeth, trying desperately to pretend that she wasn’t affected by his touch. “Besides, lots of priests decide to take a vow of celibacy. Why should this one be any different?”
“Because, my darling, this one was mine, and Inrifael stole him from me.”
She blinked.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lily could almost hear her brother furiously scolding her, telling her that she’d land in trouble far too big for her one day if she kept going on the path she was on. She hadn’t exactly thought that he’d ever be proven right – especially not in the sense that she’d land smack in the middle of a god-feud.
“You have a feud with the Peace-bearer?” She turned her head and craned her neck to give him an incredulous stare, his wandering hands all but forgotten. “How the fuck did you manage that?! Isn’t his whole thing that he doesn’t get into petty feuds with other gods?”
“What god, save another of the Great Ones, would dare speak against him?” Savrosil laughed and trailed one hand over her cheek. “I will not do so – but I can ensure that the priest he stole is brought back to the fold and dragged back down to the brothels where I found him. I can ensure that he will remember who gave him joy, in those fleeting moments before it is ripped away from him again.”
For once, Lily felt at a loss for words. She wanted to argue that this was too much, that she simply couldn’t match a high priest of Inrifael, that Savrosil was expecting too much of her, that he was putting her in unnecessary danger by just dropping her into a fucking god-feud! But the words just wouldn’t come. What could she even say to convince him? Hells, what could she say that would convince him and that wouldn’t make him just turn her into a shade right then and there? He wasn’t asking her, he was demanding this – and one didn’t just refuse the demands of a god. No one was that stupid.
“A high priest of Inrifael,” she managed at last, trying for a touch of desperation in her voice. “Savrosil, how do you expect me to even meet with him?”
“Once you are in Silverdale, I will guide you,” he promised. He waved one hand, and the reflection in the mirror was once again of her straddling his lap, his arms wrapped around her, his hands restlessly wandering. “You are the only one who can manage this, my blossom. I would not ask this of you if I did not know that you would succeed.”
Bullshit.
“Say I do it,” Lily forced out, feeling a tremor run through her as his searching fingers found sensitive flesh. “Say I do it and that I succeed. What’s stopping other acolytes in the temple from just hunting me down? Hells, what’s stopping the Peace-bearer himself from just annihilating me on the spot for daring to sully one of his precious high priests?”
Red pupil-less eyes met hers in the mirror, and Savrosil’s smile widened.
“Inrifael’s own wrath will ensure your safety,” he told her. “The oaths taken by his priests will ensure that he will disregard your presence. And if his dear high priest is sullied so easily, what filth may cling to the rest of that temple? No, my darling, you do not need to fear – so long as you leave the temple with all due haste once the deed is done.”
Another shiver went down Lily’s spine, though not from his touch this time. She understood, or could at least guess, what he was implying. One rotten apple spoils the bunch, after all. And with Inrifael’s distaste for disorder… No, it was unlikely that the temple would be standing for long.
She’d already been avoiding Silverdale for a long time – nearly six years, if she counted right. But that had been for somewhat different reasons, mostly having to do with the honestly accidental breaking of the mayor’s family and with a little bit of petty theft. This was very different. If anyone in the city figured out that she had anything to do with what promised to be an incredible mess…
Well, spending time in the gaol was not quite on the map as a punishment. It would likely have more to do with her head saying its goodbyes to the rest of her.
“You’d better be sure that this won’t come back to bite me somehow,” she ground out, turning just enough in his hold that she could grab a fistful of white sleek hair and pull on it. “If this goes wrong, I won’t be able to go within even ten miles of the city for the rest of my life!”
The god groaned and rolled his hips more insistently.
“Of course, little flower,” he gasped. “Do not take me for an amateur! No one will even know you were in the city, if you only do as I say!”
Squirming a little for good measure, Lily pushed at his arms to try to free herself, snapping at him to let go. In her thoughts, she was already going over how swiftly she might reach Silverdale, and if she’d have the opportunity to travel with her friend’s caravan on the way. It would still make for a better cover than anything she had at her disposal otherwise; it wasn’t a disguise, but it was a place to hide.
After all, hiding was one of the things she did best.
Finally Savrosil released her, if reluctantly. His smile still looked hazy, but the look in his eyes was mildly reproachful; he never did like being denied his little delights, and he had yet to claim anything more than this from his priestess. But Lily had kept him at bay so far – although at least he pretended politely to not notice how unsteady her legs were when she climbed off the bed, only waved for one of the shades to support her as she descended the dais.
“Be swift, my flower,” the god called after her as she walked towards her abandoned pack. “Be swift and be wary! Inrifael may be a stickler for the rules, but do not forget that those are often built to be in his favour!”
Lily huffed and made to answer as she reached out to pick up her pack – only to blink and suddenly find herself no longer within the hall, no longer clad in that flimsy revealing dress, but outside on a road atop a hill, gazing out across the vast expanse of the world before her, wearing her worn old travel-clothes and leather armour.
And there, at the edge of a cliff, only perhaps half a day’s journey away, she could see the walls and the rooftops of Silverdale.
“Fucking warn me before you pull that,” she snapped aloud at the empty space around her. “You could at least tell me you’d be sending me all the way here!”
In the silence, she couldn’t hear more than birdsong as an answer; but if she strained her ears, she thought she could catch the faintest hint of a familiar laugh.