"Reverend Mother?"
"Deference is not in your character, Useful. What troubles you?"
"We could easily become overextended; our people have never been numerous."
"You see the patterns as well then?"
"Yes. Events are accelerating. Something stirs and it is not of our doing."
The woman laughed bitterly. "Not a situation familiar to you."
"Indeed." The reply held no trace of humor.
"Have faith, old friend, and remain focused. Old debts and new obligations-nothing more. So long as we do not seek beyond service and righteousness, we will be within our place. The rest is in the hands of the Creator."
***
Five they were, golden lights in ragged robes, false flesh tattooed with the running of rivers.
"I speak."
"And for these, do I," came the reply as the Speaker of the Wood stepped apart from his fellow Onagir and moved to meet the traveler. "Come," he said, formality melting away with a shrug, "Let us walk as we speak. You heard our call?"
"We always will, noble Speaker. Even if duty did not demand it, affection would."
"Flattering but will it make a difference?"
"Every action makes a difference. Your people taught us that."
The Onagir nodded. "What do you propose?"
"The King lives. That you live proves this. I shall stay with you as Speaker and one who accompanies me shall stand as King until his return. Two to stand with the young twins until they are ready."
"I had forgotten your kinds talent for mimicry. I thank you, the King's role is pivotal to the traditions of our people. What of the fifth?"
"He will hunt the lost." The Eerith's tone was faintly menacing.
"Tell me, land spirit, why would the King be taken? We have few enemies and even less power or wealth. There is no sense to this."
"There may be those who believe him to be of value or who see his scepter as a talisman."
"Ridiculous. He is an old blind man with a battered walking stick. At best they are a symbol."
"It is your people, noble Speaker, who taught us that oft times the belief is more powerful than the fact."
The Onagir nodded. "And so the children are grown and come home again to teach the lessons of the parents anew. Well then, if they have been stolen?"
The wanderer laughed. "We have a thief of our own."
***
Niotrosa (my apologies for the delay in response, I have been ill again)
A study of the religions of the land is a maze which could take a man a lifetime to navigate. To understand them would take at least another lifetime beyond that. In my own experiences, I have had the matter further complicated by the assistance of the Eerith who have, in their typically obscure fashion, attempted to 'explain' the matter to me. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to pass along the bits of string I have managed to weave together.
All power, from existence to life to high arcanum, is ultimately under the authority of the Creator himself. Any exercise of individual power is through authority ceded, delegated if you will, by the Creator to his creation. As confusing as it seems, if I understand aright, this is the basis even of the physical laws of our world. A rock exists, falls to the ground, is hard-all of these things, because the Creator has delegated to it authority over those constituent aspect which make up 'rock'. It is a convoluted way to say that the Creator imbued creation with rules of natural order. Rocks are rocks because they were created so. They fall as rocks, break as rocks, and so on because they are rocks and, should they do otherwise, then they are not rocks. Ah, you see the depths of sophistry these Eerith have driven me too?
The crux of the matter is that men and gods are, at the pragmatic root, no different from rocks. What power they possess is theirs only because the Creator granted it to them, delegated authority. Priest of any given god, exercise their power under the authority delegated from their god to them. The mages of Mir practice powerful magics, that is, exercise authority over their surroundings, because the goddess Miracradasa has granted them this authority. She can grant this authority because the Creator has, in turn, granted her authority over these magics. Think of it as a funnel-the Creator gives to each god (or god-like entity) authority over certain things, he grants them power. They can pass a portion of this authority, this power, to those beneath them and so on. It is possible that there are tiers of gods, power structures undreamt of by us. I cannot say; we only know of those powers who choose to interact with us.
On a more mundane level, the practices of each religion are set by the deity of that religion or their priesthood. Some require rituals, some require sacrifices, some as nothing more than token statements of allegiance. Each, presumably, has their own preferences and/or needs. Lucia, for example, requires that her followers aid the needy and defend the innocent. Miracradasa bases her favor, not on ideology, but on geographic heritage. One is concerned with a creed of behavior; the other, a welfare of a specific people. I would presume that the reasons for this may be found within the nature of the deity itself and would be reflected in the way they are worshipped. The followers of Lucia would never consider offering an innocent human sacrifice (for such a thing would be intrinsically offensive to Lucia) while, I must sadly admit, the history of Mir is not so ethically exacting.
The specific reasons may never be known to us. Again, we can assume human motives based on commodities and variables we mortals do not conceive but these are only assumptions.
It is here that the Eerith have thrown a distressing wrinkle into the discussion. Everything I have discussed previously is commonly accepted among most religious scholars-we are a world of people who serve the whims and wishes of gods (each according to their tastes) in exchange for the boons that they grant. Even the obeah of the shamanistic peoples can be reconciled to this model if one accepts that the natural spirits are delegates of higher gods. But the Eerith fly in the face of this.
More specifically, they present a new face to it. The Eerith are, for practical purposes, immortal and near deific in their own right. They have no physical needs and no physical fears, most especially that primary fear which drives all men-death. By conventional definition, they should be as gods. Instead, they have been slaves and now have chosen to become servants.
They do not believe that all of the gods are entities. Several have insisted to me that they are facets of single entities. The moral creeds of Lucia and the protective nurturing of Miracradasa are faces of a single entity which oversees both, for example. This is not that difficult for me to accept. Certainly, several of the gods could be the same god wearing a different name or face. The disconcerting part of the Eerith belief, however, is that, ultimately, all of the entities we see as gods are actually embodiments of different facets of the Creator itself or of his absence. The Eerith follow a unprecedented merger of many gods and one-a polytheistic monotheism! They are motivated, not to appease any single god, but to please the Creator. When I press them for an explanation of how they can possibly discern what is pleasing to an abstract Creator, they answer me by discussing Valor and the Vision of Albous. Quite honestly, this 'answer' is more of a riddle than the original question. Valor's creed seems to mirror what is commonly considered 'good' but history has shown that Eerithian 'good' is not always a comfortable match with that of humanity and that, in pursuit of what they perceive of as 'right', they are capable of horrors worse than the most avowed evil of men. I trust them only because they seem to have recognized at least a portion of the threat they present and are committed to a passive service. Should they ever acquire selfish ambition.well, praise Mira that Valor's creed forbids it.
The interesting portion of this contradictory mix of mono and poly is that it would answer many questions: why obeah and will can be exercised by the same person, why despite years of war the lands remain fertile, why even with this fertility Qaiyore remains fundamentally rural and 'primitive', even why the gods themselves have an interest in us at all and why most of them seem basically benevolent.
My apologies, young sire, I doubt that I have answered what you asked. I'm not sure that anyone conclusively can. As the Eerith say "You cannot quantitate the transcendent. Gods do not fix within the cages built for them by men." As you requested, I asked them why the gods have not become abusive of the people of Qaiyore. I received two answers: "How do you know that they haven't?" and the marginally more comforting "Perhaps the Creator has a fondness for mundanes. Perhaps you have very powerful protectors who guard against this abuse."
Despite my recent illness, I am still traveling with the southern tribes. It may be several months before I am again in a position to communicate but I will respond as I can. My thanks for your indulgent. Please pass my regards to your father as well.
--Granth.--
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