In the darkness of the man-made cave, the steady blows of metal on stone were heard. After a few minutes, they became more frequent and seemed to become stronger. Such a pace could not last long and the blows subsided for a while. Then they started again. The man who worked here was not used to physical labor. People of his wealth and position do not need to work with their own hands. But his actions had a certain sacred character and it was not allowed to delegate them to a more competent employee. Although the body unaccustomed to work is not the only problem. The lack of light was incredibly depressing. From a practical point of view, he has long been used to it. For hundreds of hours spent here, the man learned by heart all the turns of intricate moves, sudden pits and protrusions that tend to drop an unprepared traveler, as well as the uneven terrain of his workplace. Although he still had to be touched often to check the changes that occurred after the next series of effective strikes, and make adjustments to the following actions. But he could not train his mind, for all this quite a long time. It wasn't that he was starting to panic or had other strong manifestations of fear, and yet he was uneasy. On the other hand, perhaps it is not the darkness that is to blame, but the very essence of his occupation, which brought unpleasant thoughts every time he visited this place. How can one not be sad if he was cutting his own grave in a monolithic rock, and his sharp mind could not turn away from the topic of inevitable death and further posthumous existence. The man has already turned more than sixty years old, only thanks to magic he felt himself, even if not at the dawn of his powers, but not at their sunset. But this did not change the fact of the feeling of approaching imminent death. Even if soon in his case meant forty years. What is it compared to eternity?
As soon as, at the beginning of another working day, or rather, a working night, he started digging, his thoughts remained very positive. His mind had not yet had time to plunge into the darkness of the tunnels, along with his body, but remained outside, immersed in the daily bustle of personal affairs and heavy reflections on state affairs. It took about half an hour to focus on these productive topics. Then his mind would inevitably stumble over one of the many ideas that logically developed into awareness of his own mortality. Sometimes he got confused, starting to think about the grave being dug right now, sometimes remembering subordinates and friends who sacrificed their lives for the good of the empire. The man would like to think that he would do the same, but he wasn't sure. Other times he came to this idea in a more roundabout way. One way or another, the idea of his own meeting with the dark gods began to loom before him. Then his brain began to work at full capacity, contrary to the wishes of his master. Thoughts multiplied, dragging each other along with them, like an avalanche descending from the mountains, threatening to bury a person under it. Consciousness, with a bright ray of light, snatched out of oblivion images of an old man dying weakly in his bed, realizing the inevitability of what was happening, then, wandering through the afterlife, a pathetic shadow – a fragment of his personality, losing memories and reason every year, and, in the end, crushing eternity of emptiness and darkness of nothingness. Of course, everything can be different, but the man was imagining exactly that. And among these and similar thoughts there was one specific, special thought. This thought did not come immediately and not every time, but it certainly brought unprecedented bitterness. The heart seemed to skip one beat, which made the next one become painfully strong, and tears welled up in his eyes. And thank the gods that this thought immediately left him. Surprisingly, the man could not say what kind of thought it was. Maybe his memory did not want to fix the painful experience, or maybe it was not a certain idea that can be expressed in words, but a mood or feeling. In any case, the answer to this question was completely uninteresting to him. He soberly assessed the situation and understood that the whole thing was not worth a damn, both in comparison with the problems of others and in comparison with what he had experienced. In his eyes, it all looked like a nuisance, not an existential crisis. At least now, when there were still decades of life left before being on his deathbed.
Finally, tired, and considering his sacred duty fulfilled for today, the priest gathered himself, preparing to leave. It was also good that not only the highest servants of the church, which he was, but also ordinary monks who performed the role of servants were allowed to enter the temple where he was now. It is they who will clean up the tools, the rock cut down by him and the rest of the mess. Carrying a basket of stone crumbs on his hump would not add to his happiness or health. The priest walked slowly, leaning on the wall with one hand and putting the other in front of him. As a sighted person, he could not completely trust his memory and sense of space. Before that, he had tried several times to walk without hands, but a broken nose and a few extra hours spent in the maze of local passages, not from the first, but from the second time outweighed the feeling of pride, forcing him to use his hands. Speaking of labyrinths, in general, the priest even liked the idea of this temple, its architecture, atmosphere, surroundings and history, even if they caused a lot of inconvenience. The temple was located inside a large lonely mountain, overhanging all the surroundings. Its slopes were steep and lifeless. It was surrounded by a tall and dense, pristine northern forest that grew within a radius of several kilometers. It did not expand, but also did not give up it's positions under the onslaught of the rest of nature. Not a single animal, large or small, entered it, and those brought by force - soon died. But not only they left these places. First the sound, and then the light began to fade gradually. They were still present here, but every year their influence became less and less. Waving the pickaxe, the priest perfectly heard its blows on the stone, but he knew that at a distance of ten meters the sound suddenly disappeared. The light was completely extinguished inside the temple itself. No torch, no lamp, nothing could disperse the thick and viscous darkness that settled in a string of man-made passages. Outside, the sun was still trying to resist the divine influence, but it was getting worse and worse. The day began to look like night, and at night it was impossible to see the fingers on the outstretched hand.
These changes took a long time. The priests of the dark gods found this mountain about two thousand years ago, when Karshan was just founded and was actively expanding. Naturally, it did not have divine properties then, but was an ordinary piece of stone. Until the moment of this discovery, no temple had been founded yet, since a special place was required for the first and main sanctuary. And they chose this mountain – Gatal. The territory immediately and forever became a secret for everyone except the highest dignitaries and some statesmen. Ordinary people have never seen the scenery. Meanwhile, the clergy of the new cult began slowly but surely to create a temple here and perform the necessary rites. Moreover, only in the dark. Yet they are servants of the dark gods, whose power is more powerful in the dark. After the first and only human sacrifice, nature and even the laws of the universe around began to change. And the tunnels inside the rock multiplied and multiplied thanks to the hardworking hands of generations of monks. If there were no invisible presence of the gods in the sanctuary, it would have collapsed under its own weight long ago, due to the huge amount of mined rock that weakened the man-made vaults inside the mountain. Inside there were no elaborate statues, bas-reliefs, stained glass windows and other attributes of large cathedrals. But some kind of natural power and primitiveness more than compensated for their absence. And during the services, such divine grace was generally overshadowed, which was never felt in other places. The only problem is that only one person could experience this joy at a time. After all, in principle, only one clergyman could be present in the temple at once. So the man was here alone right now. All the pontiffs were buried here, so he dug his future grave here.
That is, as he was "digging", he had already emerged from the darkness of the dungeons and was heading towards the two waiting companions. More precisely, to subordinates. They stood about three gigantic heshts. In fact, the pontiff was so sick of riding these animals that he would gladly exchange his steed for an ordinary horse, despite the difference in price and the damage to authority. The truth is that even for riders of average height, the huge size of mounts is no longer convenient. And the priest could be called low without the slightest reservations. On the other hand, you can't drag an ordinary horse even ten kilometers to the temple. Heshts after all is one of the creations of the goddess Clio, who is part of the local pantheon. But even they weren't too comfortable here. The concentration of the divine aspect in their aura was nothing compared to the local one. But the comfort of the Heshts did not greatly concern their riders. After all, otherwise they will have to move on their own. And such high-ranking people could not allow this in any way. Among other things, having learned the identity of one of them, many would be very surprised. Sorcerers rarely obeyed ordinary people. On the other hand, how could the head of the empire's intelligence agency travel alone? In this case, he will be kidnapped by any passing foreign magician. Accordingly, all officials of the ministerial level did not leave the cities without an escort. He didn't come out either.
- Have you finished, Your Eminence? – Asked the man who came out, the second rider, his personal secretary Telep.
Mimhog gave him a frown. The mood was already striving to break through the level of the baseboard, and the subordinate was also adding fuel to the fire. But in order to understand how it came to this, you need to start with events that are sufficiently remote in time. In his count's family, Lurie, the future priest, was born the seventh son and could only claim something of the value of silverware in terms of inheritance. In addition, sad physical conditions did not allow choosing a military career. And he really wanted to pursue his career. Among people, such individuals are not often found whose ambitions go beyond a well-fed and quiet life, and the young aristocrat, in addition to this, had an intimidating passion and the ability to learn, which greatly stood out among numerous relatives. Unfortunately, his position actually left him with only one way to move up. As often happened in similar cases, he was sent to church. And there he showed his skills perfectly. Substituting some, and pleasing others, he jumped from one rank to another, like a flea, only hungry not for blood, but for power. It is worth admitting that the father's money, which was sent to the right hands on time, also played a significant role. Mimhog had no doubt that if he did not have the status and resources, he would have reached his post many times longer, and maybe he would have remained an ordinary monk at all. Anyway, after ten years of serving the gods, he reached the rank of bishop. In addition, it should be understood that bishops can be completely different in terms of their powers, although nominally this is not the case. He became bishop of the city of Cornut, a city directly subordinates to the church. Let it be a small town inhabited by fifty thousand people, lost somewhere in the endless expanses of the empire, but his power here was real. Already in this position, his opportunities turned out to be no less than his father's, which he did not fail to take advantage of. So soon his non-attached relatives quickly began to occupy key positions in the city. Although formally, such behavior was not approved by the church. There was even a rule that, starting their service to the gods, they had to give up their last name and take another name. Because of this requirement, Falik Lurie turned into a Mimhog without a surname. But the loss of a kind of name did not diminish the bishop's desire to promote family interests. And in any case, they usually turned a blind eye to this, since the same church benefited from it.
Naturally, he was engaged not only in nepotism. In fact, he was the least interested in it. He was much more inspired and excited by the possibility of managing at least something significant. Before that, he already had some experience, since his father, who saw the young talent, gave him command of one of the villages that belonged to them. Due to his ebullient and active nature, he initially broke a lot of firewood, which had to be corrected by adults. But at the end of this period, which lasted from thirteen to twenty years, the village of Irt turned into an exemplary one. No, of course, no one got rich there in such a short period of time, but the harvests really became somewhat larger, and the leaning houses were replaced with something much more pleasant to the eye, even if the old contents remained inside. But once in the church, his only occupations were intrigue and service to the gods. And he didn't like either of them very much. He considered the struggle to be an unpleasant thing, firstly, and secondly, absolutely necessary. He did not like excessive personal risk, as well as the need to commit bad actions towards good people. On the other hand, what can you do? He can't go to the rank of a novice. And secondly, he was never inspired by the worship of the gods. He certainly did not deny their existence. In principle, there were vanishingly few such madmen, since both magicians and priests could prove the existence of gods. However, there is a catch here. There is proof that the gods exist, but it was no longer possible to prove the existence of their activities. Previously, it was believed that they have two types of interaction with people – help in everyday life in exchange for rituals, prayers or sacrifices and the organization of posthumous existence, afterlife and other things. In the first case, the testable result existed, but it was so low that all the rituals became more of a decoration than something significant. But the quality or at least the existence of an afterlife was not possible to check at all. And what kind of afterlife is this? Thinking about this, Mimhog envied the Elverum people with white envy, whose gods promised eternal feasts, or at least the inhabitants of Niilam, whose afterlife was a copy of the usual one. The dark gods promised only a long existence in the form of shadows, gradually losing fragments of their personality until they completely dissolved into all-encompassing nothingness. Or something similar. But the problem is not in the evidence or their absence, not in the impact on life or death, but in the fact that it was extremely uninteresting for a man. He lived here and now, he wanted to achieve everything in his lifetime and pass on what he had acquired to his children, and not deal with things imposed on him. He's just not that kind of person. This was the first reason for his irritation. Now, at a critical moment for the empire, he was engaged in some kind of nonsense with his own digging of his grave, since all pontiffs should be buried here. In addition, Telep also addressed him as a priest, reminding him of a fact of his biography that he could not forget. But Mimhog has long received the title of duke for his productive service. And it is necessary for the incompetent secretary to point out the position of the pontiff, which has become hateful, instead of any other option of treatment. If he were smarter, the man would think that he was mocking. Just then the second reason for his anger surfaced – the ridiculous secretary. It cannot be said that he was too bad in some way, but his abilities clearly did not correspond to his position. His goal is to serve as the head of a small town. But there is no way to dismiss the guy, after all, even if incredibly distant, but a relative of the emperor. Fortunately, Telep is quite conscientious and honest, and the position of secretary is not the position of the first deputy, so a little more than a formality.
After the chief scout of the empire, in absolute silence, mounted his hesht, they, without hurrying anywhere, directed their horses to the only road from the temple. You won't save a lot of time on a couple of kilometers of a fast race, and immediately after they were already waiting for a portal to the capital.
- Well, Telep, where did your report stop? - The priest asked. Because of the night work, his usual schedule went down the drain. So he would wake up at eleven o'clock in the evening in the capital, check if there was anything requiring his urgent attention, then go with two companions to the temple, listening on the way there to a report on the events that had occurred or on the prepared operations. But he did not have time to consider everything before his arrival, so he learned a significant part only on the way back. And then to the capital, to the native walls of the second chancellery, or sometimes to the imperial palace.
- So, one second, now, here: "attacks have become more frequent throughout the empire, which can be tentatively attributed to the activities of the cult of the green hand."