Styphon's Voice On Earth shivered, tossing and turning on his thick goose down feather mattress. Sesklos' body was covered by a mountain of quilts and furs and still the chill cut through his thin flesh into his bones. He had awoken quite suddenly from a dream where thousands of white-robed skeletons chased after him. His breathing was shallow and he could feel a lump the size of Grand Master Soton's fist inside his chest. Was Styphon Himself reaching out from his lair in Regwarn, trying to revenge himself for Sesklos years of faithless service? "Forgive me, Styphon!" he called out, in a rasping voice.
"What is it, Master?" a querulous voice asked from outside the gilded door.
"A bad dream, Tythos," Sesklos replied. A long and rasping cough shuddered through his thin aged body. What would his fellow highpriests think if they were told that he prayed to Styphon in his sleep? His body shuddered again, this time from revulsion, not cold.
Highpriest Tythos was one of the godless non-believers who had made Styphon's House rich and powerful. He did what he was told, was not bothered by qualms of conscience or belief. Why weren't there more of him? What had happened to the upper priesthood of his youth as a novice, priest and later highpriest, when they were all like Tythos? And how had it changed on his watch? The Daemon Kalvan! It was Kalvan who'd rent the Temple asunder with his heresies and theft of the fireseed secret.
That was where it all had started, when the true rulers of the House of Styphon had been maneuvered into dealing with the true believers! He leaned over the bedside and spat into a spittoon. "A curse on all True Believers!" he called out loud, not even realizing it. And a special curse on that daemons spawn Kalvan. Roxthar, too, and his legion of followers! Sesklos was still awake enough to keep his thoughts of Roxthar to himself. He had heard rumors that some of Roxthar's white-robed acolytes were purging the Great Temple of Balph itself. How could this be? How had this vile True Believer elevated himself so high and so fast? It was true that even Archpriest Anaxthenes, the most ambitious and cold-blooded arch-priest of the Inner Circle, feared Roxthar's wrath.
And, even worse, Styphon's Own Voice on Earth now feared the sniffing noses and sharp teeth of Roxthar's hounds. After ninety-one winters, had the gods cursed him with so long a life that he would live to see true believers fill the Inner Circle? If Sesklos survived the coming winter and lived through another, he was sure he would. The question that disturbed his sleep tonight was: would he die in the kind hands of old age, or upon Roxthar's unholy rack?
Sesklos had a sudden vision, as though he were a bird, flying higher than any feathered beast had ever gone, peering down below at the Five Kingdoms, boiling with fire and black roiling clouds of fireseed. Bodies lay in courtyards, stacked like cords of firewood. The only creatures alive and moving in all this chaos and destruction were the white-hooded followers of Archpriest Roxthar.
His body went into spasms. I have to stop this madman. But how? He curled up, pulling his thin shanks together, trying to keep the chill at bay. There had to be a way to stop Roxthar. Or, Dralm-damnit was Roxthar really in the service of Styphon! Had they all been wrong about their god? Sesklos felt his head spin. If they were wrong and Styphon was a true god, had Styphon sent Roxthar to manifest his anger with his false priesthood?
I must be sick, Sesklos thought, to even think such thoughts. If any of the gods were real, this "Investigation" Roxthar was promoting would be like a picnic compared to the rewards he-and all the other non-believers who paraded in Balph as priests-would receive in Regwarn!
"TYTHOS! Bring me another brazier; I need warmth. And call my healer."