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Asantrea: Origins

The Prophet of Venium

©2021 Bruno Hirschkoff

*

83_ "Bring ye forth your forgotten, your lost, your despised and your reviled. 84Bring them forth unto me, for the divine light of Ysion shall bathe and cleanse them, and I am HIS mortal instrument upon the stones of the Golden City." 85And the forgotten, the lost, the despised and the reviled came forth to Arahan with the very hope in their hearts denied unto them by the Temple to Ysion. 86And to the forgotten, the lost, the despised and the reviled, Arahan spoke with the voice of the God, and they heard him and followed him._

Book of Pelonius 7:83-86

_ _*

Venium, 52 Arahanius Domini (AD)

*

The harsh light of Kesh and Aror, Asantrea's binary suns, beat down with merciless intensity on the city of Venium. It was an ancient place on the coastal fringe of the continent of Ambriel, and seemed to have grown from, rather than being built upon, the rocky shores on either side of the narrow ocean strait that it straddled. Squat, small-windowed buildings of sandstone, cob and mud brick clustered and crowded within its defensive walls. Within the city, the maze of sandstone-paved streets, shaded from the midday heat with canopies of palm fronds, were quiet and muted.

Four centuries had come and gone since Heladian sandals had first trodden the pavements of Venium under the Imperial standard. They had come in their galleys across the Mare Internum with gifts of olive oil, wine and bronze, and had rapidly become a feature of a city that defined itself by its strategic location and trade connections. Within a generation, Heladian soldiers patrolled the walls of Venium--a slow and peaceful conquest it had been--but a conquest nonetheless--by an Empire just beginning to flex its muscles and extend its reach around the rim of the Mare Internum.

Now, the red and gold standard of the Heladian Empire fluttered from the flagpoles and hung over the city gates.

East of the city on a dusty, arid hillside, two ageing men spoke; a portly and well fed bear, and a tall, effortlessly charismatic wolf.

"Arahan, _listen _to me, please!" begged Pelonius. "You barely escaped Venium with your life last time, do not test the Heladians' patience any further! It is not worth your blood!"

"Pelonius, my friend," Arahan placed his hands on the Urssa man's shoulders and met his gaze, "Venium is filled with lost souls. You know I must return to them. The Heladians have reduced the proud citizens to barely better than slaves; they must be made to see that their lives are worth more than the oppressors' whips at their backs and the derision of the Ysionites who used to welcome them within their temples. They must feel the hope that I feel. The hope that I have shown to you, my friend."

"What hope is there to be gained by anyone, if you get yourself killed?"

Arahan gave a gentle smile, a particularly charismatic quirk of the Lupa man's lips that had brought more than a few followers to his side all on its own. "What passes, shall pass. I would not resist--you know this already. If the Heladians destroy my body, all they shall do is break the cup that holds the water. They cannot destroy the water. The Ysionic scrolls tell us as much, if only the priests would return to teaching the people to read and write as they are supposed to."

Pelonius took a breath as if to rebut, but he had known Arahan for nearly thirty years already. Plenty long enough to know that when the Lupa merchant-cum-prophet was set in his course, there was no point in attempting to dissuade him from whatever insanity would follow. All those years ago, their first venture together had been Arahan's pioneering of the trade route from Apos to Messa--a treacherous journey by sea along the southern coast of Valasea and up the Mare Ossium; the aptly named Sea of Bones.

At first it had seemed to Pelonius that Arahan had simply hurled himself and his tiny ship into the maelstrom of deadly currents and rocky shores with naught but faith in his god, Ysion, and prayers to Lakesh the Storm Goddess to guide him. But when they had returned unscathed barely two weeks later, with the ship groaning with the proceeds of their mission, people took notice. And when he repeated the journey time and again, they began to believe in his talents. Arahan had been born in Apos, a tiny and impoverished village which at the time of his birth was rarely even drawn on maps. But his navigation of the Mare Ossium changed that. With a sea route open and navigable to Messa, and onward to Venium and the Mare Internum beyond, Arahan brought hope to his people and cemented Apos as a strategic trading port between the Lupa nation of Forlasea and all the other coastal cities and towns that dotted both shores of the narrow, treacherous Sea of Bones.

In time it had become clear that Arahan had known precisely what he was doing--using the ocean currents to his advantage and deliberately using a small, robust vessel with a deep keel and a blunt prow that rode over the waves instead of being swamped by them. Many a larger, more powerful ship had foundered and broken up in the pounding surf. But his legend had already been seeded, and like many similar tales, grew ever grander in the retelling. Arahan himself had laughed at versions of his story told in taverns which featured sea monsters he had supposedly befriended and beseeched to guide him through their realm - or even bargains struck directly with Lakesh, the Storm Goddess herself.

It was thus that Arahan, then barely more than a youth himself, began to garner a reputation. He became known all along the Mare Ossium, and over the years that followed had amassed a fortune of which even the Merchants' Guild in Zeiram would have been jealous. But Arahan had no intentions nor desire to use his fortune to induct himself into Forlasean aristocracy. Instead, he had used his influence to challenge the teachings of the Priests of Ysion. Over many centuries the Ysionites had become ever more aristocratic and corrupt; Ysion was the god of teaching, knowledge, wisdom, peace and forgiveness. But the Ysionites no longer obeyed his scripture, and had ceased admitting the poor and common people to the halls of learning that adjoined the temples. There were many thousands who were ostracised by their ever less-charitable teachings and Arahan was precisely the instrument of salvation they so desperately craved. Having come from nothing himself, Arahan was galled by the assumption that he would embrace the trappings of wealth himself--and instead lived a modest and simple life, spreading his own interpretation of the teachings of Ysion among a growing legion of followers--whores, thieves, pirates, the destitute and desperate, as well as the poor and the common people. He preached forgiveness, piety and self-sacrifice, the redistribution of wealth and the rejection of worldly power, and taught his people to read and write, and to understand philosophy and commerce. His message resonated, carried forth on the strength of his reputation and his charisma, and his legion of spiritually empowered followers grew throughout his life.

"Think back, Pelonius. When have I ever valued my own life above others?" Arahan persisted, breaking through Pelonius' memories.

"Never, of course. You have lived by that philosophy all your life, as have we, your faithful," the Urssa man conceded. "But this time it is different, Arahan. You must believe me as I believe you! The Heladians are already riled up by your speeches in the marketplaces. They've heard you preaching the true word of Ysion, they've seen the way the people respond to you, the way they are empowered by you. Just this last tenday, they've arrested hundreds and executed many of the lower classes for little more than echoing your words, or attempting to enter the Ysionic temples, as is their right."

"Then the time is ripe," Arahan said grimly. "Now is the time. No longer shall the people suffer, Pelonius. I have prayed endlessly to Ysion. He has heard me and assured me that he stands ready at my side, as always. Come, my friend. I must pray, and prepare. We shall march, ten thousand strong, in peace and unity to the doors of the Ysionic temple and demand they do only what is required of them by their god. I am Ysion's mortal instrument."

With a helpless grunt, Pelonius followed Arahan from their vantage point in the hills, back towards one of Venium's satellite villages.

*

"Let it be heard by all, in the name of the Emperor, that the following is so decreed!" bellowed a centurion from the balcony of the Governor's residence.

Governor Aspis did not know the centurion's name. He did not need to. Such matters were beneath him. But he stood alongside the soldier, exerting his power through his presence alone to the milling crowds in the square below. Most had been corralled into the space by roaming legionaries, and had not known the reason until this moment. It would quickly become apparent, Aspis thought. The populace of Venium were a motley bunch; the city was a melting pot of cultures from all around the region, and in the crowd the Equid Governor could see Caprin, Lupa and Urssa people of all shapes and sizes. Here and there a pair of antlers revealed a male Cervid. Around the milling crowd, Heladian legionaries--mostly Caprin and Equid themselves--stood out for being notably cleaner than the masses, and dressed in their gleaming iron breastplates and plumed helmets.

The centurion had paused, only for long enough to ensure he had the undivided attention of the people gathered before him. Those who were attempting to slip away from the square found themselves faced by whip-wielding legionaries. The centurion took a deep breath.

"It is decreed, in the name of the Glorious Emperor, that speaking against the rightful rule of Heladia over the city of Venium is, from today onward, to be considered sedition! The punishment for sedition shall be death! So it is decreed! The following citizens of Venium are declared enemies of the Glorious Emperor: Balthus, a corrupt financier. Abzal, a charlatan medicus. Porthus, a street preacher. Sarri the Red, she who operates the Crimson Flame whorehouse, and all of her whores and their clients. Any citizen found sheltering, assisting, patronising or associating with these individuals shall themselves be named enemies of the Glorious Emperor. Any citizen who assists in the arrest of a listed individual shall be rewarded."

The centurion rolled up the scroll he had been reading from, turned to Governor Aspis, and snapped his arm upward, fist clenched, in a stiff salute. The Governor dismissed him. Stepping forward to the edge of the balcony, Aspis regarded the crowd. A hushed murmur had rippled through them, but they were thoroughly enough subjugated after centuries of Heladian rule for him to be confident that no major uprising was in the making. He stood in silence for a long moment, before bellowing out a _Hail Quintus! _and turning on a hoof to disappear within the Governor's residence again.

*

Arahan and Pelonius did not reply to the Governor's hail. The Lupa prophet and his Urssa adherent watched in silence from the back of the crowd. Pelonius could almost hear the machinery of Arahan's thought process clicking and grinding within the Lupa man's head. In a crowd of ordinary people, Arahan stood out. In his early fifties, he was an old man by the standard of the day, but he had an aura of calm about him that drew stares and commanded respect - he looked for all the world like a kindly old professor, or even the Forlasean depictions of Ysion. Pelonius had heard whispered rumours on many occasions that he genuinely was_ _the mortal son of the god. Arahan denied any suggestion, however, that he was Aethyrborn. Pelonius laid a hand on his arm.

"Do not, Arahan. Whatever you are thinking, do not."

"Who says I am thinking anything at all?" Arahan replied.

"_I _do! I have known you long enough, Arahan!" Pelonius insisted, squeezing Arahan's arm. "Every one of the people listed there was one of yours. They are tightening the net, and we are but a school of fish at their mercy. What difference can one fish make, if he leaps out of the water into the boat?"

"Sedition. They would happily execute Balthus or Sarri for such words, but would they execute me so easily? The gold I pay them in taxes lines their coffers, Pelonius, whether they like it or not. They may despise my words, but they cannot have one without the other. Tomorrow, my friend. Tomorrow, I shall speak. Come, we must return to the village and prepare."

"Arahan. Arahan!"

The Urssa man's harsh whisper drew the attention of a legionary, who approached with a hand on the hilt of his gladius. Pelonius did not know where to look. To his right, the legionary shouldered through the crowd. To his left, Arahan's back disappeared into the throng. The Urssa man drew back the hood of his robe and presented himself, arms outstretched, to be searched by the legionary.

*

Sarri jumped at the sound of a knock on the bolted door of the Crimson Flame. One of her streetgirls had heard the Governor's announcement in the square, and come running to her right away with the news. It was a grave turn of events, and suggested that within her close network of courtesans and cutpurses there was a traitor; one who had revealed her connection to Arahan to the Heladians.

The auburn-furred Lupa woman growled as the knock came again. It certainly wasn't a legion of soldiers; they would have kicked the door in by now. Cautiously, she peered through a hidden peep-hole she'd had installed beside the door.

Arahan!

Her heart fluttered. Silently, but with joyous urgency, Sarri opened the door to admit the prophet, and Pelonius with him.

"Sarri! Ysion's blessings, I am gladdened at the sight of you," Arahan said, gripping her shoulders and leaning in to nuzzle both her cheeks in greeting.

Sarri returned the gesture awkwardly, having been halfway towards kneeling before the man she all but worshipped. Her crimson fur--her namesake--glowed in the flickering light of the candle she held. She had so much to say, but her tongue seemed to be made of lead, suddenly.

"I gather you have heard the dire news?" Arahan said. "We must get you out of the city! Balthus, Porthus and Abzal are already safe, as are their families."

"I...I cannot leave," Sarri protested. "My girls...my friends and contacts through the city, they all are in danger, my lord! It would be a betrayal of them for me to flee."

Behind Arahan, Pelonius frowned in concern. But the prophet himself seemed unperturbed.

"I understand. This is not the first time you have had to flee. But have faith, for this shall be the last time it happens. Gather as many together as you can. Call in as many favours as you are owed, and use my name where they are not freely offered. I am beside you like a brother, Sarri the Red. It is the duty of a brother to protect and shelter his sister, is it not?"

Warmth flooded Sarri's chest. Not for the first time in the years she had known Arahan, she undressed him in her mind.

She had seen him in the fur only once, almost twenty years hence, but it has stuck in her memory ever since. She had, back then, been a fugitive in the sprawling Lupa city of Zeiram, living on its streets by her wits after her family fell out of favour with the ruling matriarch of her home province. Her red fur marked her out as having noble blood, which only made her family's fall from grace harder to disguise. Those years had been hard on Sarri. Then she heard Arahan speak at one of the city's marketplaces. Usually when a preacher spoke to the people, they did so in the richer quarters of town; places where the wealthy and influential would hear and spread their message. Not Arahan. He walked the filthy alleys, spoke to the common people, and offered them hope. Sarri had presented herself to Arahan as a streetgirl. He had accepted, but had paid triple her fee without so much as removing his sandals. Sarri had been shocked by his refusal of her body, but he had placated her in his way, with a gentle speech about humility and conviction.

Sarri already knew how to read and write, but she attended the classes Arahan offered to get closer to him. They had formed a friendship over the weeks that followed, and when the Zeiram city guard came looking for her, he had harboured her. It was then that he offered her passage to Venium. Sarri had been reluctant to leave at first, but then, the life she was living at the time was a far cry from the one she had been born to. What was there to lose?

It had been aboard his ship that Sarri had seen the prophet in the fur for the first and only time, and only fleetingly. But she had seen all of him, and her gaze had been hungry. And in that moment, perhaps a moment of weakness for Arahan, he had succumbed to his worldly needs. His lovemaking had been tender, but urgent, the way a man might drink after being lost in the desert for a week. They had been swift and silent, and Sarri's heart would forever belong to him, even if they never met again. Twenty years later that brief dalliance still fuelled her fantasies and caused warmth to bloom in her groin.

With the benefit of hindsight, Arahan's offer of passage to Venium had been the greatest gift he could have granted her. Venium was, although under the Heladian yoke, still a city of opportunity for many. Sarri knew she would never be a noblewoman again, and after a time, she found that she did not miss the expectations of status. The Crimson Flame became her new focus, for she had learned in her time on the streets of Zeiram that a streetgirl hears more about the intrigue and politicking of the upper classes than almost anyone else.

Ysion's balls, if only Arahan would forgo his celibacy with me once more, _she thought. _Even at his age, he is...

"Sarri. Soldiers."

The words snapped Sarri out of her reverie and firmly back to the present, and the danger they faced. The flat tone of the young courtesan from one of the brothel's curtained windows betrayed her own thoughts as to their chances of escape. Flickering torchlight glowed through the silk drapery. Sarri's blood turned from fire to ice in an instant.

"Arahan. Please. Come quickly. I have a tunnel we may use to escape. Ari, gather as many of the girls as you can and get them to the tunnel. Go!"

Sarri the Red leapt into action. She led Arahan and Pelonius to her bedchamber, hammering on the doors of her employees as she went. The Heladians were hammering at the door of the Crimson Flame. They would not be as patient as Arahan, she knew. They had mere moments to be gone before their escape route was betrayed.

The tunnel was a near-seamless hatch in the floorboards beneath a luxurious rug in Sarri's chamber. The Lupa woman kicked the rug aside, and fished around in her cleavage for a key. Arahan looked respectfully away. The key Sarri produced did not unlock the hatch; rather, it unlocked a strongbox hidden behind a tapestry on the wall. It was in there that Sarri pulled a lever, which opened the hatch.

The soldiers were inside. Sarri's chamber was crowded with her working girls, in varying states of undress. Most recognised Arahan, and those who did not were quickly made aware of who he was. Sarri finally wrenched the hatch in the floor open, revealing a dark tunnel beneath. She gazed up at Arahan, and faltered.

"Someone must remain, to close the hatch and cover it. If the tunnel is found, we are all done for. It would be easy enough to follow it."

The Heladians were moving from room to room, kicking down doors in their search for Sarri. Ari, the girl who had alerted them to the soldiers' approach, stepped forward.

"I will stay, Mistress."

"Ari, no! They will kill you!"

"There isn't time to argue! You must go. I have nothing to lose. You have everything."

Sarri's eyes stung with tears. She tightened her jaw and embraced Ari, momentarily. It was all the time they had. Already, a dozen of the Crimson Flame's courtesans had entered the tunnel, led by Pelonius. Soon, only Arahan, Sarri and Ari remained.

"Go!" Ari insisted, her voice quavering.

Arahan touched Sarri's arm. Reluctantly, she released the young courtesan and hurried down the steps into the tunnel. Arahan took both of Ari's hands into his own and stared into the girl's frightened but determined eyes.

"Ari the brave. Your selflessness shall be eternally rewarded. I shall meet you soon, at the right hand of Ysion. Thank you."

And then he was gone.

Ari sobbed, just once. But she feverishly moved about the empty room, closed the hatch and laid the rug over it. Moving to Sarri's strongbox, Ari drew a dagger from her mistress' drawer, jammed it into the lock and snapped it off. Finally, she re-hung the tapestry over the strongbox.

Heladian fists, shoulders and hooves hammered at the bedchamber door. The raised, angry voices of soldiers filled Ari's ears. The door shook, cracked, splintered and finally collapsed. Four legionaries charged the room, torches and gladii in hand, and seemed momentarily confused to find only Ari, and not their target.

"Well. What have we here? A pretty flower, all alone," one legionary leered.

"We've no interest in killin' you, girl. Tell us where your bitch of a mistress is and you'll escape with your life," said a second.

"We might even _reward _you," scoffed a third, lifting his kilt to expose himself to Ari.

"Aye, how's that for a deal, girl? You tell us where Sarri went, and you get to be our plaything for the day. That's what a Lupa whore like you lives for, ain't it?" the first legionary snarled, sheathing his gladius and taking a step towards Ari.

"Mm, I can smell 'er," the second laughed, lifting his head and flaring his equine nostrils.

Two legionaries advanced on Ari. She remained still, with her back against the wall. Adrenalin flooded her body and her heart hammered in her chest. This was it. They were off their guard, expecting little more than a meek, defenceless girl.

The broken dagger grasped in Ari's hand drove to the hilt into the neck of the legionary to her left. He attempted to whinny in pain, but the blade had severed his windpipe, and all that emerged was a gargling splatter of red. Choking on his own blood, he clawed at Ari's arm and collapsed to the ground, eyes bulging with fear. His fall wrenched the dagger from his mortal wound, and Ari rounded on the second legionary. Too late. The odds against her were insurmountable, even if she had been a trained and armoured warrior.

Three Heladian gladii pierced Ari's body, and she crumpled to the floor, her blood flowing forth to mix with that of the fallen soldier. She did not cry out, did not scream. She simply fell, and moved no more.

Arahan guide me, carry me forth into your divine realm, bestow upon me the blessings of Ysion, and forgive these men.

*

Arahan, Sarri, Pelonius and a dozen of Sarri's girls huddled in the pitch darkness of the escape tunnel. They'd moved some distance from the entrance, but not far enough to escape the sounds of violence that filtered down to them. Sarri held her hand over her mouth to muffle her grief, and Arahan embraced her.

Silence followed the scuffle, and before long the refugees in the tunnel could feel an updraft of air, being sucked upward into the Crimson Flame from around them. Arahan offered a heartfelt prayer and a blessing to Ysion, committing the soul of Ari to the care of the God of Light for her journey through the Void, for surely she was dead.

"They have put the building to the torch," Arahan murmured. "Come, we must move, we must be out of the city before the fire is extinguished and the tunnel discovered."

"The next legionary I see, I am going to gut him," Sarri snarled.

"Those men were only following orders. Their deeds were unforgiveable, but violence begets only more violence. They do not realise the evils they commit."

Sarri gathered herself slowly, taking deep breaths to steady her nerves. Eventually, she pushed away from Arahan and moved amongst her surviving courtesans, touching and embracing each in turn.

The tunnel did not lead to the city walls. Far from it, it was instead a secret passage that connected the Crimson Flame--itself a venue with centuries of history--to one of the city's Ysionic monasteries. The stark divergence between what the priesthood preached and the activities they pursued behind closed doors was not lost on any of the escapees. It was beyond a doubt that a dozen wanted citizens, Arahan among them, could not emerge from a secret passage into the very heart of the city's Ysionic priesthood. Their only option was to hide, to lie in wait, and emerge at the tunnel's entrance at the Crimson Flame once the legionaries had dispersed--and pray that the tunnel was not found in the meantime.

*

"Abzal! Abzal! Come quick, Arahan brings survivors!"

The _medicus _surged to his hooves in jubilation upon hearing the words, called to him by one of the hundreds of the prophet's followers sheltering in the scattered villages that surrounded Venium. A Caprin man native to nearby Goza, Abzal had fallen afoul of the Heladians in Venium only through sheer chance and bad luck. But Arahan's cause, and his words, had struck a chord with him. So he had continued to offer his skills without charge to followers of the Son of Ysion, while his flock of adherents grew ever larger, spreading his teachings wherever they travelled.

Dirty, exhausted and dishevelled, Arahan led a group of perhaps a dozen courtesans towards the village. His arm was linked through that of Sarri the Red, and Pelonius walked at his other side.

Abzal rushed out to greet them, along with others bearing water, bread and fruit.

"Abzal, it is good to see you made it safely out of the city," Arahan began, embracing the Caprin briefly.

"I...I have no words to express my gratitude, Arahan. You have saved so many. Are you injured?"

"I am not, praise Ysion, but several of Sarri's girls may have cuts and bruises, and all of them need clothing and shelter. Others have wounds that no amount of stitches or bandages may suture. All we have to offer is kindness and compassion."

"So it shall be," the _medicus _glanced over the dishevelled group. "Some of you I already know. I believe I have treated some of your ailments before."

"This is true," Sarri replied. "You came highly recommended by clients of mine, and it is always in one's best interests to build and maintain good networks."

"Of course, my lady. I am humbled by praise from one as beautiful as you."

"If you're flattering me to try and get me into your sheets, it shall not work. Not this time, Abzal. Ari... my..." Sarri choked.

"Ari sacrificed herself so that the rest of us could live, sir," one of Sarri's girls explained. "Ari was the bravest of us, she was like a daughter to Mistress Sarri."

"I should have stopped her," Sarri wept.

Abzal's heart broke for Sarri's loss, and it was with nothing but the purest decency that he helped her into the village inn, which had been purchased for a full month in its entirety by Arahan to accommodate refugees from Venium. From there, regular overland caravans carried people to Goza, and from there onward across the Sea of Bones to Messa, Ulilla or Apos. Many of the merchants and sailors who carried Arahan's passengers were themselves adherents of the prophet's words, and so financing such a massive movement of people rarely presented a challenge. It was to Apos that Sarri was to travel, along with her girls and a good many other Venium escapees, as soon as they were well enough to attempt the voyage.

Another new start.

*

The atmosphere in the audience chamber of the Governor's residence was tense. Governor Aspis drummed his fingers on the table behind which he sat, reading for a third time over the report presented to him by the centurion whose legionaries had been responsible for the torching of the Crimson Flame.

"Five buildings have been razed to the ground. A legionary has been killed by a whore. Precisely _none _of the fugitives declared in the square have been arrested. Is this accurate?"

The tone of the Governor's voice was icy. His eyes flicked upward from the parchment to the centurion, who stood stiffly to attention. Aspis saw the movement in his throat as he swallowed heavily.

"Yes, sir."

"What are you? A soldier? Or a coddled and brainless sack of _samad _who rose to the rank of centurion by bending over for the right people?"

The centurion was silent.

"As I thought. Centurion, report to the Quartermaster in the armoury. It is his decision, based on your reports and performance, whether you are demoted to guarding a night-soil cart, or get your guts rearranged. And let me be clear, if he chooses the latter, it will be at the point of a spear of bronze, not one of flesh. Never have I seen such incompetence. Get out of my sight. Move!"

The centurion beat a hasty retreat, and the silence that followed was broken by Governor Aspis hurling his wine cup at the door.

Moments later, a knock sounded.

"Enter, damn you."

"My lord Governor, I must once again beg your indulgence."

"What do you want, priest?"

Ordinary Zatik bowed and scraped his way into the Governor's presence. Aspis had disliked the slimy, conniving Ysionite the moment he'd met him, several years prior. He had precisely none of the charisma needed to become an actual priest, and so he was relegated to administering punishments of varying degrees of brutality upon members of his own order, many of which were imposed by the Heladians. He was also, under Heladian law, required to obtain the Governor's approval for any punitive action that involved citizens of the city.

"I thank you for your valuable time, my lord. I shall be brief. The false prophet Arahan is once again in Venium, subverting the word of Ysion to gather around himself an army of thieves, whores and beggars. He preaches that the poorest shall receive eternal succour from Ysion, and the masses rise up around him. Ordained clergy are regularly accosted in their own temples by the stinking masses who Arahan and his followers have taught to read and write against the orders of the Glorious Emperor. They are laughed art, pelted with rotten fruit and humiliated."

"I am intensely well aware of this. Did I not only today order the arrests of a range of Arahan's known associates?"

"Yes, yes my lord, for that we of the Order are truly grateful. The blessings of Ysion shall rain upon you. I believe, however, that we misjudged the complexity of this charlatan's network of blasphemers in the city. Other chapters of my Order have reported for some time that he is active in their jurisdictions also, but I now believe that Venium is the heart of his malignancy."

"What would you have me do, priest? Kill him for telling the poor they're not completely forsaken? Then there truly would be an uprising!"

"It matters little to me, my lord Governor, only that he and his blasphemy be removed from the equation. It is... hurtful to the financial and spiritual standing of my Order that it continues."

Aspis mulled over his options. He was in a foul mood, and killing a man who'd been a thorn in his side since his ascension to Governor sounded extremely appealing.

"Very well. If this 'prophet' shows his face in Venium, you may arrest him. I would prefer it to happen quietly, away from his supporters, but I trust you understand this. He is not to be killed in public."

"Yes, my lord Governor."

"Very good. Now would you leave me alone? I have more important matters to attend to, such as consuming the remainder of this amphora of Athonian wine."

Zatik bowed and scraped his way back out of the Governor's presence. There were long-held plans to action, strings to pull and rewards to be offered. Soon, Zatik reasoned, he would be lauded as a hero of the Order, and ordained into full priesthood for his role in putting down such a threat to the true faithful.

The part about not killing Arahan in public escaped his notice.

*

"Citizens! Friends! My family. Hear me, if you will. The Light of Wisdom be upon you all this day, as every day, and may the warmth of Ysion grant you peace. I am Arahan. You know me. Yes, even you, centurion! How fares your wife, my friend? Has her illness passed?"

The centurion paused in mid-stride, suddenly aware of a thousand eyes upon him. Reluctantly, he nodded. How did the bastard remember him? It had been months! He received a few conciliatory pats on the back from members of the crowd, and felt utterly disarmed. The crowd had been gathering since dawn. Most of them were not well known to the city guard, but that meant little; the denizens of the streets of Venium were little more than vermin to the Heladian occupiers at the best of times. How exactly Arahan had slipped inside the walls of the city once again without being detected was beyond the centurion, but it was his duty to keep the peace, as his predecessor had spectacularly failed to accomplish only the previous evening.

"I come to you all today to speak of peace, and of happiness; the only true wealth in all of the world. Be ye not a-feared of the words of our friend, the Governor! He has within him, I know it, a good heart and only the best of intentions! But I implore you, my people, to not live in fear. The reign of Ysion is eternal, and He grants blessings to all beneath the suns, and not in exchange for appeasing his self-proclaimed representatives! The priests of the Ysionic Order would have you believe wealth is the path to Ysion's blessings. I say to you that this is untrue! None benefit so much as those among you who have the very least. Those of who whose only resource is cunning and kindness. Ysion's love shines in you as the warmth in your hearts, and grants you power greater than any that can be coerced with sword or spear or coin!"

Susurrations of agreement rippled through the crowd.

A short distance away, a legionary shoved Pelonius away, having searched him fruitlessly and in the most demeaning way possible. The same legionary who had searched him the day before. The Urssa man straightened his robe and cautiously moved towards Arahan. The crowd were lapping up the prophet's words. For many of them it was the first time they'd heard him speak in a public place such as this, and it was here that his charisma truly shone the brightest.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pelonius spotted a squad of legionaries he did not recognise. They stood out. They were Equid, like most of the Heladian soldiers, but seemed uneasy and tense. Their eyes were furtive, surveying the crowd, and hands rested on the hilts of gladii. Never was their attention drawn far from the speaker who had the undivided attention of almost everyone in the crowd.

There was a tension in the air that Pelonius had never noticed before, a palpable friction that seemed to emanate from the unfamiliar legionaries. The square was becoming a tinderbox, and there was Arahan standing in the middle of it like a glowing ember. On the opposite side of the square, as far from both the legionaries and Arahan as he could possibly be, Pelonius glimpsed a gaunt, robed figure. An Ordinary of the Ysionic priesthood. A centurion stood beside him, but he was not the captain of the legionaries who were on active duty--the man Arahan had addressed. Pelonius spotted a moment of eye contact between the four nervous legionaries and the centurion with the priest. The centurion raised his hand and made a gesture.

Pelonius moved. He raised his arms to call a warning to Arahan, and his eyes met with those of the prophet across a sea of his enraptured followers.

The four legionaries closed in on Arahan, their steel drawn.

Pelonius heard his own bellow of grief and rage as if detached from himself. A gladius glinted in the sunlight, and another, and another. The circle of steel tightened around Arahan. The prophet fell beneath four Heladian blades. Pelonius' saw Arahan's eyes bulge, his jaw slacken and his soul flee his body, in the instant before he fell to the flagstones.

*

The silence was deadly, and deafening. Pelonius' roar petered out when his lungs were empty, and the Urssa man fell to his knees, overcome by horror and grief. The four legionaries who had brought down the prophet suddenly found themselves in a very compromising situation. The crowd was unarmed, but they were maddened by rage and shock.

Fruitlessly, Pelonius gathered what remained of his will to try to dissuade the crowd from violence. But this had all been planned. Meticulously so. Four legionaries, within moments, were beaten and trampled into the flagstones alongside the man they had slain, and in response, the city garrison was called forth and martial law declared.

Everything was a blur, to Pelonius. It all happened so fast.

The Heladian garrison were swift and brutal in their retribution for the deaths of their compatriots. Pelonius was spared, although he knew not how. The very last thing he remembered was the sight of a ring of Heladian legionaries surrounding the body of Arahan, trampling him beneath their sandals.

That night, the golden streets of Venium ran red, and a martyr rose.

*

The death of Arahan was the stone that begat a landslide.

In the weeks following his murder, the true scale of his following became abundantly clear not only to the Heladians, but to the Ysionites as well. Ordinary Zatik was executed by Governor Aspis for his role in the tumult, an outcome Aspis was quietly pleased for. The Ysionic temple of Venium closed and barred its doors to all after Arahan's followers, organised by the legionary captain who had been on duty in the square at the time of Arahan's death.

A period of uprising followed. Arahan's body was never recovered in the wave of blood that flowed in his wake. Pelonius, Sarri the Red, Abzal the Medicus, Balthus the financier, along with those others Arahan had evacuated from Venium, retreated to Apos. The Forlasean chapter of the Order of Ysion was splintered and fractured by Arahan's reformism, and the refugees from Venium found solace in those temples which had split from the Order, in Apos, Ulilla, Messa, and Goza.

In the ashes of the Crimson Flame, it was said that the writings of Ari the courtesan had been found. The stack of singed parchment sheets told of Arahan's life from Ari's perspective. Rumours spread that she was, indeed, the daughter of Arahan and Sarri the Red. A version of Ari's texts was transcribed in the months that followed by Eibed of Apos, a former Ysionic priestess. She then transcribed the stories of Arahan's other disciples, including Pelonius, whose account of Arahan's life was the most detailed and complete.

Less than a century after Arahan's death, the Eternal Capital of the Heladian Empire, the distant city of Vinegress, was sacked by a barbarian revolt. The Empire was reeling, rotting from within even while it was attempting to defend ever more unstable and fractious borders. The occupying Heladians were forced to relinquish Venium only nineteen years after the death of Arahan, and a succession of losses followed on all fronts.

The Empire crumbled, and in its wake, the followers of a humble but outspoken Lupa preacher from a tiny fishing village on the south coast of Valasea rose to a whole new prominence, under the banners of a reformed Ysionic Order, and under the name of Arahan.

*

High above and beyond Asantrea, in a realm beyond the ken of mortals, the great river of Aethyr experienced a moment of tumult, as if a vast stone had been cast into its ethereal flow. A splash manifested as an explosion of sparks, purple and green and white, and ripples raced outward from the point of impact. Countless threads of Aethyr were severed in the violence, the souls they had held to the river sent spiralling into the Void to be cleansed by the Farseer.

Still further beyond, the Seilyrian Gods took note of the great splash of Aethyr as one might take note of a cold breeze whispering across the back of one's neck.

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