Once she’d shown Athalan the location of the stockpile of treasure she’d spent the last year accumulating, there was only one place Shirrin could have gone. To the Grand Temple of the Golden Lord. The irony was not lost on Shirrin, that Lord Ethirus would be summoned into the temple of another god, but the logic was sound. It was, in spite of everything, still the holiest place in all of the city. The best place for it to be done. Better to conserve her own strength for what would have to come after the summoning was complete.
The Temple itself was packed full to the brim, the city’s desperate flocking to pray for salvation from suffering. Many of the other temples around Chrysopolis had been converted into field hospitals for the wounded and sick, and if the same had been done to the Grand Temple then it might have proved problematic. Fortunately, no such thing had been done. The Patriarch of the Church was not the sort of man to allow his organization’s crown jewel to be defiled by blood, pus, and vomit.
So the only inhabitants of the Grand Temple were petitioners and priests, two groups of people for whom Shirrin had a minimum of empathy. Clearing the Temple out was easy. A brief ritual involving the sacrifice of two pigeons and a flawless diamond earned her the assistance of a handful of mighty flame elementals. Turning their fires down to mere plumes of smoke, they set upon the Temple with gusto, twirling and dancing and rushing about hither and thither until every single man and woman within had been driven into the streets in a chorus of coughing and choking. The elementals then set up a patrol around the Grand Temple’s perimeter, ensuring no interruptions while Shirrin set to work.
It was oddly simple, as rituals went, at least compared to the sheer scale of the working being performed. For summoning some nameless elemental, it made sense that one would need only to speak a brief incantation and sacrifice a few animals, but to summon a god? The part of Shirrin which had never quite grown accustomed to magic insisted that doing such a thing should have required a ritual lasting a month, rare ritual materials, and vast sacrifice. The part of Shirrin which knew what she was doing found it all quite explicable.
The power for the ritual came from the blood which had been spilled. Three hundred of Lord Ethirus’s own claws had been unsheathed, and slain uncounted thousands in a vast arc across the breadth of Chrysopolis, each slaying sanctified by virtue of the holy, blessed weapon used to carry it out. Such vast sacrifice could move mountains, sorcerously speaking.
As for the requirement of ritual, vast interlocking sigils and tremendous lengths of time spent on perpetual incantation, that was obviated by the context. A common elemental or, indeed, a god, would not normally appreciate being summoned by a mere human. The ritual elements were one part safety mechanism, ensuring that the summoner could not be destroyed at the whim of the summoned entity, and one part attempt at placation, assuring the creature that it was being summoned righteously and for good reason, following strictly the ancient treaties and legal codes of the heavens. Neither was necessary here. A basic chant would inform Lord Ethirus who was summoning him, and all that came next had bee prearranged for years.
Not that the plan would remain as it was if Shirrin could do anything about it. But that would have to come later, once the summoning was complete. Shirrin banished the thought from her mind and focused on the present. With knife and ink, Shirrin engraved the ancient runes and sacred geometry into the very stone of the Grand Temple, and filled in the lines with black sand so that they stood out against the brilliantly shining marble. Standing in the dead center of the innermost circle, Shirrin raised her hands to the sky and began a chant, a single sentence spoken first during the creation of the world and most recently by her.
The air was already charged with power, sodden with death and potential, and from the very first word of the chant that power began to come alive. Wind writhed and the scent of blood was as thick as river-mud, the screaming of the dead and dying somehow more acute than the blades that had slain them. Invisible things moved in a great rushing panoply, their bodies as thick together as fish in the net and yet simultaneously outside of the range of mortal vision.
Shirrin stood in the center of it all, the eye of the storm, and was not perturbed. She repeated herself over and over, losing herself in the rhythm of the ancient words. The eyes of the universe were upon her and Shirrin did not care. A great fountain of power poured down into the temple, currents swirling, and Shirrin did not allow herself to be moved.
Then came the shift. Terrible, crushing pressure like the claw of a bear pressing down on one’s slaughtered chest engulfed the entirety of the temple. The elementals whom Shirrin had set to guard it all fled in sudden fear of a greater predator arriving, something swooping down from the sky whose eye could not be escaped. A stab of agony shot through Shirrin’s brain, her own mind bending against the strain of the forces at play. Her throat gave out. The roof of the temple split open, revealing not the ash-clouded evening sky but a field of stars more brilliant than any nighttime sky. And through that crack emerged a claw.
Gripping, tearing into the roof of the temple as though it were attempting to escape the womb of a dying mother, Lord Ethirus emerged in his full and material form into the world of men. Shirrin had always known the nature of the being that had been the source of her power; but seeing him in the flesh was an altogether different matter. His skin was a brilliant red, layers of scales like shingles on a roof that clicked and clacked in a horrid chorus with every movement. Each finger was tipped with a claw as long as Shirrin’s entire body, sharp enough to pierce stone and strong enough to crumple the pillars of the temple as the god of strength and vengeance pulled himself down into the mortal plane.
The snout pushed through next, a crocodile’s maw painted over with the sickly red of charred flesh. His eyes glowed brilliant yellow, gazing down at Shirrin. As the snout dove down to the temple floor, it became clear that ordinary concerns of mass and gravity had no effect on Lord Ethirus, for his serpentine form moved exactly as quickly as he willed it to, bending and twisting over itself in order to remain within the confines of the temple.
Ten limbs, not able to be categorized as arms or legs, extended from the flanks of Lord Ethirus’s huge and wormlike body, the wiry muscle of them a stark contrast to the bulky power of his torso. Each pair moved independently, folding in postures of contemplation or flexing in displays of tremendous might as soon as they no longer had to do the work of dragging his bulk through the gap between earth and heaven.
Before Shirrin could even complete the work of examining and comprehending Lord Ethirus’s true form before her, he was there, coiled in upon himself and yet still occupying almost all the space under the temple’s enormous dome. Every twitch and slither of his bulk could have swept Shirrin totally off of her feet, and the warmth which emanated from his body turned the temple into a hothouse.
“You have done well, my champion.”
Lord Ethirus did not raise his voice. Even the lowest murmur from his immense mouth was a hammer-blow pressing against the center of Shirrin’s chest. And she had thought he was loud when he spoke inside her mind.
“I thank you, my Lord,” she said, her voice trembling as she tried to raise it above the rushing of air. “Soon the hour of judgement shall be upon us. But I do not wish merely to celebrate my successes up to this point.”
A creature of Lord Ethirus’s size could not help but move ponderously, and the same principle applied to thought. It was with the slowness of an elephant that Lord Ethirus turned his yellow-hot gaze directly down on Shirrin.
“Then make your request, mortal. Speak plainly and I may listen.”
“I wish… to…” Shirrin’s heart felt ready to give. Fear alone, fear and strain would not have been enough; but the sheer presence of the god of strength and vengeance threatened to crush Shirrin’s organs into a pulp. “I wish to re-negotiate.”
At once, a surge of movement. Lord Ethirus shifted, a hurricane wind forcing Shirrin to brace herself as the rows of scales along his flanks ran together into a blur. When again Shirrin opened her eyes, they beheld Ethirus’s head-on, his snout hovering just barely above the stone temple floor.
“You would renege on our bargain? After all I have done for you?”
“No! I have summoned you, have I not? But I have realized something about myself, and been convinced to turn my blade aside. So I shall try to convince you to do the same.”
Lord Ethirus’s jaws cracked open, and from them a great orange glow emerged. Shirrin raised her hand in front of her face, attempting to fend off the furnace-heat. One exhalation and she would be destroyed.
“Chrysopolis will burn for its sins. This city is a den of violence and impiety. The strong visit slaughter and rape upon the weak, and laugh while they do it. They have forgotten all gods but one, and his name is synonymous with greed and pride. For generations I have turned my eye upon this city to see only sin, and sought ways by which I might properly visit my vengeance upon it. You have been the victim of the corruption which this city birthed, and if you still defend this city, you shall burn with it.”
Shirrin dropped to her knees. Partly this was to show her weakness and humbleness in the face of one of the Old Gods. But mostly it was out of true weakness, her legs rendered useless by fear and fatigue, Shirrin seeking the cool marble for a respite against the horrid heat.
“The city shall burn. We agreed upon that twelve years ago, and I cannot hope to turn aside your righteous anger. I could sit in contemplation for a year and I do not know if I would even wish for you to leave this city intact. But please. Spare the people.”
Lord Ethirus’s eyes flickered with something approaching confusion. “You would have me burn the city, but spare those within it? Impossible.”
“Not those within the city. But those without. The terms of my renegotiation are only this: reserve your wrath for the area within the city walls, and nowhere else. Spare the refugees, leave them to their flight.”
Silence. Lord Ethirus’s mouth shut, and Shirrin let out a sigh of relief as the heat went from painful to merely sweltering. As she tried to collect herself and rise from the floor, Ethirus did the same, returning to the air above her. For a long time, the god of strength and vengeance coiled upon himself in silent contemplation.
“I have done everything you demanded of me. Macaria is in ruin; even those who live will be refugees, tossed about by stormy seas of fate. But let them have their lives.”
“I am the god of vengeance. Justice. Not mercy.”
Shirrin’s heart sank. She began performing the calculations: it was perhaps possible that, if the refugees fled with all speed, some of them might survive Lord Ethirus’s wrath long enough for it to be spent. But many thousands would still die. Shirrin wondered if Athalan would even live long enough to shun her for all her misdeeds.
“But today, I act not merely on my own behalf, but on behalf of all the Old Gods. Xalia would never allow me such destruction, nor Morthan so many lives cut short, were it not so. And as I ponder, a thought has come to me, that when we initially dealt with one another, our bargain spoke only of the destruction of Chrysopolis, not all its inhabitants.”
Shirrin laughed, in spite of every rule there was when it came to dealing directly with the Old Gods. Though she tried to stifle it with the back of her hand, the giggles and guffaws continued to spill forth for several long seconds.
“Thank you,” she said, grinning, “thank you O glorious and gracious Lord. I thank you for your just interpretation of our bargain.”
“Indeed. But I believe I remember there being one more part of this that you had to play. You were very specific, twelve years ago, that you wanted me to leave the Emperor to you.”
Shirrin’s grin widened. “Yes. That was correct.”
“Very well then. I consider your oath fulfilled. Be out of my way.”
Shirrin nodded, and with the lacquer of purpose hardening in her guts she raced as quick as her weak legs would allow to the front door of the Grand Temple. She had succeeded, bought Athalan the time she would need to get as much of the city’s population out as could be gotten out. Only one step remained.
As she fled through the gates, a surge of heat followed her. A few of the priests had begun to return, seeing as the elementals blocking them had fled their posts, but they quickly stopped, for a burning red light illuminated their faces. Shirrin stopped, nearly stumbling as she spun about to witness the beginning of Chrysopolis’s end. She had thought that this would be a triumphant moment, the culmination of the great Plan; but as the flames grew ever-greater in their intensity, she felt only a rising sense of uncertainty.
Then the roof of the Grand Temple burst open, the flaming remnants of wood and stone and ceramic hurled into the air. From out of the ruin emerged Lord Ethirus, and somehow he had become yet larger, for the creature which emerged could not possibly have fit within the temple itself. No longer did Lord Ethirus produce thunderous noise, no roars or screams of rage, for the air itself had turned into thunder, and Shirrin was deaf.
Then, seeing that the Grand Temple of the Golden Lord had been utterly destroyed and that its priests and petitioners were scattering to the four winds in unspeakable terror, Lord Ethirus turned his attention skyward. The red of his scales was unsettlingly similar to the sunset sky around him. And yet it could not be mistaken: for the crocodilian armor of his immense frame swelled, then began to pulse, as a glow emerged from within it. With an apocalyptic exhalation, Lord Ethirus let loose the fury of a volcano unto the heavens, a great spewing blast of scalding flame and deathly ash, hot enough that even Shirrin below him could feel it. It was only as she saw the gobbets of flame and clouds of ash begin to arc downwards towards the surface that she got the presence of mind in her to start running.
Lord Ethirus had left her brother to her. Twelve years of plotting and planning, twelve years of seething rage, and the only thing separating Shirrin from victory was her brother’s corpse.
Did Shirrin renegotiate the contract or merely describe an appropriate interpretation of it - one that also was apparently more agreeable to the other Old Gods than the previous expectation. The contract remains intact as it was "written", every jot and tittle the same, every i still dotted and t still crossed. After a little contemplation, the contract remains the same for both parties.
It's still renegotiation in that she changed what Lord Ethirus is gonna *do* for his end of the deal, even if the means of renegotiation was a technicality of language.
*explodes with wild celebration and rampant cheering*
Old God's EXECUTIONER IS HERE.
Dragon RAWWWWRRR!
let's f*cking gooooooo!!!