CHAPTER 1246: KHOSROW'S FANE I

Magic stormed around them, pulsing and whirling, and in a flash of black and blue light, Storm Herald, alongside her escorts, were spat back out into the Void. The engines thrummed, and the arks cleared the river gate to make way for the arks following them in the convoy, while they in turn followed N’chezzar’s enormous ellipsoid, the cloud-like trail it left behind rolling harmlessly off Storm Herald’s hull.

Leon stared out of the projected window, not paying much attention to the convoy as they cleared the spherical portal within the enormous circular teleportation gate. What he now saw was far too captivating to keep an eye on that.

Khosrow’s Fane was a titanic temple dedicated to the long-dead Great Lord. It had been built on the highest hill of a demiplane that was larger than Voidshore’s, but still much smaller than any proper plane. Still, a city of hundreds of thousands had been built around it.

The perfectly rectangular temple itself had been built of gleaming white agate banded in gold. The roof glimmered with tiles of Lumenite, and the massive shining doors were wrought from golden Aurichalcum. Powerful ancient runes had been carved into the door, while beautiful painted friezes ran along the entablature surrounding the temple. Leon guessed that the friezes were scenes from the war that ended the Primal Age, given the number of quadrupedal Primal Gods and cloud-like Primal Devils he saw in them, and how often the men were shown triumphing over them.

His awe at the sheer beauty of the building was dealt a significant blow when he saw in the friezes enormous dragons falling to the blades of men, and other ancient beasts fleeing in terror, including—and placed in a blatant position of prominence—a raptor surrounded by lightning.

The courtyards surrounding the fane were filled with beautiful fountains of white marble and jade through which some gold-colored liquid flowed.

‘Surely not ambrosia? Surely?’

The fountains and the many statues in the courtyards—including two dozen that were of such size that they towered over the surrounding city—all depicted mankind in triumph. Weapons were raised, their armor gleamed, and at their feet lay their fallen enemies. In none of the fountains or statues were these men and women shown in battle; they were only shown after the battle, when they’d already won.

Around the fane was the rest of the temple complex, built contrastingly out of onyx, obsidian, and sparkling black granite. Purple banners and curtains streamed from every archway and covered walkways, shielding those beneath from the light from above—and there was quite a bit of light shining not just from the temple but also from what appeared to be an artificial star, much smaller than any Leon had ever seen yet still more than enough to provide all the light the demiplane needed to function like a regular-sized plane.

Surrounding the fane’s hill was an artificial lake, perfectly circular, and filled with crystal-clear water. Rainbow carp swam through those waters and rushed throughout the city through the canals that cut the city into perfect sections. These canals and the lake itself were crossed by bridges of Lumenite, while larger bands of Lumenite arched through the sky. Smaller demiplanes encircled Khosrow’s Fane, carved into innumerable arkyards designed to accommodate an armada tens of thousands of arks strong.

The city that blanketed the demiplane spread from the fane like ripples on a lake. It was the ideal small-feeling city, as far as Leon could tell—there were no grand, shining towers reaching for the sky, nor were there great domes, arenas, or theaters; there wasn’t a single building taller than five stories, which put the roof of even the largest building in the city at a lower height than the tiles of the fane’s lowest courtyard.

Still, every building in the city was eye-wateringly opulent. Marble, jade, gold, and silver gleamed everywhere. Magnificent murals, frescoes, and mosaics filled the city with color, joining the bright flowers and gold-leaved trees that filled every park and the median of every boulevard. Some of the largest gardens and parks even had wildlife prowling through the grasses and trees; deer with silver antlers, lions with gold dust sprinkled into their manes, even a herd of pure white horses half again as large as even the largest draft horses that Leon had ever seen.

Wealth radiated from the city like light; wealth and power. Magic had so saturated the air that if a mortal were born here, Leon wouldn’t doubt it if they reached the fourth-tier by the time they turned twenty without even training. He had yet to even taste the air as the convoy still pressed through the river gate, but he could already feel his lungs quiver in anticipation of sampling the magic-rich air down in the city’s shining streets.

He had to admit it; he was impressed. The sheer opulence wasn’t his usual aesthetic, but this temple city still struck him in a way that he was unprepared for.

[Close your mouth, boy, you’re starting to drool.]

Leon blinked, the voice of his feathered Ancestor pulling him from his reverie.

[I don’t drool,] he rushed to respond.

[Tell yourself that. Harden yourself, Leon; it’s just a bright city with more material wealth than sense.]

[Maybe. But is it so wrong for me to appreciate some architecture or city planning?]

He could almost see the Thunderbird face-palming while a long, drawn-out sigh echoed through his mind.

[Nothing associated with Khosrow is worth appreciating.]

A deep scowl flashed across Leon’s face for just a moment before he ruthlessly suppressed it.

[Did you ever see this place?] he asked after several quiet seconds.

[It was built after my time,] the Thunderbird rasped. [Few of my blood were ever that welcome. I dealt the mortal blow to Khosrow, and it took a long time for his grave keepers to forget that.]

[Grave keepers? Is Khosrow’s body here?]

[I don’t know. I don’t care. The man deserved to die screaming for his betrayals, forgotten and unmourned. Life is ever cruel to remember the undeserving while those whose names ought to be damned are held up as paragons of humanity.]

[That’s assuming you have shared values,] Leon pointed out, his words coming without judgment. [If you value honesty, then betrayal is terrible. If you value ambition or victory, then sometimes, anyone who can deliver victory or who acts on their ambition is a hero, regardless of their methods.]

The Thunderbird audibly scoffed, but when she spoke again, she didn’t disagree. [Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps I should have foreseen what happened sooner. He’d acted against all of the Primal Beings; it should’ve been obvious that he’d act against the Ascended Beasts, too. But he brought us words and assurances in the beginning, engendering trust, making alliances. And then, after the last of the Primal Beings had been laid low, Khosrow’s armies sacked Heriphon. Maronis, daughter of the Sun-Chasing Wolf, was beheaded, and her body was impaled over the planar citadel’s gates. Chaser was one of the first to ally with Khosrow at the beginning of the war, and for his loyalty, he was one of the first to be betrayed.]

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More than two hundred years ago—and Leon had to blink several times in shock that so much time had passed—she had explained to him the circumstances around her death. That night, in the depths of Nestor’s lab in the Forest of Black and White, a powerful distrust of anything to do with Khosrow had been instilled in him, and it remained despite his appreciation for Khosrow’s Fane as a settlement.

[Is that why you attacked him?] Leon asked, his mind turning to the words she’d chosen to use that night.

[I waited too long,] the Thunderbird morosely stated. [Many of my friends had already met their ends by then, but not all directly at Khosrow’s hands. Red-Tail was ambushed on his way back to his Kingdom in what eventually became the Great Strand of Lux—not too far from here, as it so happens.

[Breidoc took the name ‘Plane-Breaking Ram’ for his victory at Green Glen, saving Khosrow’s flat ass after three years of siege; when Khosrow’s forces came for him, they tore off his Void horns and used them to crucify him. He lived just long enough to hear his family be tortured to death.

[And Lorok! Son of Morok, son of Gorok! The Mountain-Boring Ant! His mind turned Khosrow’s citadel in the Nexus from a middling fortification into an impenetrable redoubt, whose stout walls held off a hundred Primal Devils in the darkest days of the war! Even Planerend, who earned his name many times over, challenged the walls of Antira and was turned back! Lorok and his Million Sons were chased into their mountains, and the mountains themselves were set alight! My friend’s line ended that day, and his legacy is now nearly forgotten…]

Leon silently listened, fascination causing his eyes to turn back to the reliefs and friezes of the fane. Despite the distance, his power and twelfth-tier senses let him scan the stories those carvings told with ease. He saw a carving of a hero holding a charging ram with black horns from rampaging through a group of women and children. He saw a large bird with a red tail, its talons dripping scarlet, shot from the sky with an arrow of light. He saw Khosrow himself—or a shining figure that he assumed was the Great Lord—feeding refugees while in the background, a dozen mountains burned.

The Thunderbird continued, shame creeping further into her voice with every word. [By the time my Clan was able to act, I’d nearly run out of friends. Bennu, firstborn of the Phoenix, and the only one of her children to have been born before she ascended—Bennu and I many times took wing and terrorized the skies of our enemies. The Heavenly Wolf, a surly grump at the best of times, but loyal to a fault. If I could count on no one else, I could count on him. And Cait Sith, the most frustrating feline I have ever met! We clashed a thousand times out in the planes, but with the aid of Var, the Hawk of Reconciliation, we made peace and became the best of friends! She attended six of my weddings, and only slept through four of them!]

It had sounded like a smile had started to creep across her decidedly inhuman face, despite her beak making that impossible. After a brief pause, however, that tone had been lost entirely.

[The war left us scattered. It took us too long to even hear what had happened, let alone verify it and make a plan. Khosrow came for me first, his armies and fleets charging into my territory with fire and fury. My friends and I feigned weakness, retreating when they pushed. I lost much, but our plan was sound enough that I was willing to pay that price. Khosrow himself led the charge, and on the Great Plain of Hossith, we ambushed him. He killed my friends and mortally wounded me, but I lasted long enough to lay that bastard low!]

Pride finally leaked into her voice, pride and relief.

Leon, taking advantage of another brief pause, asked, [And the loss of the Great Lord turned his armies back?]

[As far as I know, yes,] the Thunderbird said. [Death is… it took me a long time to become aware again. Even then, it took an even longer time to get my bearings. Thousands of years passed before I learned the status of my Clan. I won’t deny that I felt vindicated when I first saw my grandson on his throne, hailed as the Storm King. Some deference had to be paid to Khosrow’s Law, especially since the Canticles of Hormizd were taken more seriously back then, but my Clan had never been stronger! And the lines of Cait Sith, the Phoenix, and the Heavenly Wolf had survived the war!]

[I’m kind of surprised myself,] Leon replied. [It doesn’t sound like Khosrow’s persecution of the Ascended Beasts after the war was something that would be so quickly forgotten. Did his armies just give up after his death? Did they present no threat to the Clan?]

[In a sense, yes, they gave up, and no, they weren’t a threat. In other senses… no and yes. Many followed the Great Lord’s teachings—true ideologues—others followed Khosrow for personal glory or promises of wealth and power. But without Khosrow himself there to mind them and keep them united, they bickered and warred amongst themselves, keeping them too disunited to ever present a serious threat against my Clan. That didn’t stop some of them, however; a few devastating wars were waged before the First Storm King was killed and my grandson took his place, but Alios was one of my most competent successors, and met every challenge with strength and brilliance unmatched in the post-Primal Age universe.]

Leon couldn’t help but smile. [Sounds like I have big shoes to fill…]

[You’re doing well so far,] the Thunderbird said reassuringly. [Keep yourself from being blinded by the superficial majesty of a city built to glorify one mad traitor and focus on the reconstruction of our Clan! Make friends! Gain allies! Have children! And always curse the name ‘Khosrow’!]

Leon's throat rumbled with a stifled chuckle. [I’ll see what I can do. But… since we’re on the subject, there is something I’ve been curious about…]

[… Well? Do you expect me to read your mind?]

[Are you saying you can’t?]

[I’m telling you to get on with it!]

A snort of amusement, no less felt despite how quiet it was, broke through Leon’s stoic defenses. [Khosrow. Why did he do it? All that he did, I mean. Why then? Why tear down the universe as it was and rebuild something new?]

A pause long enough for Leon to suspect the Thunderbird was going to ignore the question followed. But she eventually said, [He declared a new Age of Mankind. He declared that the shackles imposed upon humanity by the Primal Gods and Devils were to be broken. He demanded death for all those who had abused humanity in millennia past. He presented himself as a savior; he knew the message would take root in the slaves and playthings of the Primal Beings. But… knowing him personally… he only wanted power, and he said and did whatever would give him the most.]

[It seems to me that there’re easier paths to power than taking on the beings that dominated the universe since its beginning…] Leon said.

[He chose a hard road, yes. But you need only look down to see what that bought him. I ensured he did not live to see the world after the war, but his legacy lives on. He is venerated, even worshipped as the Great Lord. Shining cities are built in his name, and the power structure you labor within still abides by the rules—mostly—that he laid out. The universe you walk within was shaped by Khosrow; that was the power he wanted, and he achieved it. It is his loss that he does not still rule as the Great Lord of Humanity to this day…]

Leon stared down at the radiant demiplane, his eyes occasionally flickering up to the tiny sun slowly orbiting it. He couldn’t tell how it was made, but magic pulsed from it on occasion, adding to and sustained by the thick currents of magic ejected by the Nexus that swept through this part of the universe and powered the river gate behind the convoy. He didn’t have much better luck with any of the buildings on the demiplane, as widespread enchantments ensured that while he could get a detailed look at the exterior of just about everything, anything within a building, whether shed or palace, was beyond his senses.

But what he could see still dazzled the senses. He wondered if the Great Lord would’ve been happy with this legacy, or if he’d obliterate the universe again to start anew.

‘I suppose it’s irrelevant,’ he thought. ‘He’s dead; not much he can do about it now…’

As the last of his convoy emerged from the river gate, he couldn’t help but wonder what the Great Black Dragon’s perspective was. However, just as he started mustering the power to try and summon his other Ancestor to his soul realm, messages started flying between the arks and the demiplane, assigning arkpads and clearing a path to the Lumenite-borne arkyards. The detail had almost been lost given how captivating Khosrow’s Fane was, but a large defense fleet patrolled the demiplane. Khosrow’s Fane was defended by everything from tiny corvettes and frigates to gigantic supercarriers and dreadnoughts. The defense fleet alone numbered nearly a thousand, and that didn’t even touch the hundreds of other arks of all shapes and sizes passing through.

Leon almost felt foolish for not doing so yet, but a quick scan revealed that Miuna’s jellyfish hadn’t yet arrived, though he spied a few large arks whose whale-like designs reminded him unpleasantly of Terris’ fleet. Regardless, it seemed that he was going to have some time to explore the fane before Miuna arrived, and maybe find out more about the Great Lord that had so impacted the universe, and who his Ancestor so reviled.