Chapter 171: Jack o’ the sea (part 1 - edited)

“Every seaman is not only a navigator but also a merchant and also a soldier too.”

William Pett

Lessons were never really over with the bishop, who seemed determined to redeem the Lodestar Church in my mother’s eyes single handily. He sat down with me every day to improve not only my understanding of how to heal the body physically but my understanding of the world, both the physical and the spiritual.

“The Anemoi are the gods of the winds and all the races on the compass continent—a god for each compass point, the four cardinal kingdoms and the four ordinal kingdoms. The first of the main eight is Njal for the northern Kingdom of Tramontana. He is the giant god and represents the attribute of strength. Working alongside the apex mythic beast, the white wolf Ulf they defend the compass continent against the ice giants of the north, ensuring they never travel further south and freeze the whole world over.” He started to explain the eight gods of the Lodestar church. “In times of need, you can pray to him and receive a temporary boon of strength. However, it will often come with a commensurate loss of strength afterwards. It will only be awarded if you have prayed often and he finds your cause worthy of a boon.” He continued opening up an entire area of reality I was unaware of. How would that even work?

“Have you received a boon?” I asked, intrigued. Was this indeed a gift from a god or a pseudo-psychological symptom? Or was it even a system-sanctioned reality? It was impossible to know without questioning further. As always, when discussing the church with the bishop, I struggled to understand fact and fiction. The border between the two stretched thin because I had been reborn on a new planet with a god-given system made so many of my former assumptions questionable. Formerly I had believed in the Christian god, but he or at least my understanding of him, was more of a hands-off one. He left our lives up to us as a representation of giving us free will. The idea that you could receive an immediate response from a god of the compass kingdoms with tangible benefits was inspiring, worrying, and every other emotion in between.

“I’ve never needed a boon of strength for that; you must ask Sir Jacques.” The bishop replied. “But I have been able to call on boons of my own. Now if you save your questions for the end, perhaps I might even answer them before we get to them.” He answered before suggesting I wait a while before asking any more questions. I nodded my agreement, although my mind was still buzzing with questions. There was so much to unpack in this conversation.

“The second god of the Lodestar church is  Pavel, the dwarven god of endurance. Aligned with the North Eastern Kingdom of Greco, Pavel fights alongside the apex mythic beast, a rock serpent of the mountains with metal scales, Zmey Goynych. They guard the northern mountain range that splits the compass continent against any ice giant raids that have managed to slip past Njal and Ulf and defend against any of the base races from rising from the depths.” The bishop continued.

‘How active are they?’ I wanted to ask. However, I kept my mouth shut, waiting for the end of today’s lecture while trying to remember the list of questions growing in my mind. ‘Could they be petitioned too?’ ‘Was it possible to receive multiple boons from different gods?’ My inner thoughts did not halt the bishop’s flow of words now that he had gotten started.

“The third god of the Lodestar Church is Feng Po Po, the Pixie god of dexterity. He burns out as often as the apex mythic beast of the east, the vermillion phoenix, Fenghuang. However, bonded together, they are also reborn again and again. This is just as well, as they have to battle against the Huodou, demon dogs from the depths who would swallow all fire burning humanity back to the age of innocence and beyond. Or drag us down to the depths with them. They reside in the Eastern Kingdom of Levante.”

‘Is that for real? What else is hiding in the depths of the Lodestone? How much of this fear-mongering encouraged the laity’s trust in the Lodestar church and its gods?

He left no room for interruptions as he continued what one of the founding texts of the church was.

“The fourth god of the Lodestar Church is Vayu, the Gnomish god of the mind monitoring the southeastern kingdom of Scirocco. Deep in the jungles is the apex mythic beast, the elephant Pundarika, a mammoth elephant that dwarves not only the gnomes but any other who come close to it. They say an elephant never forgets, and the grudges this one holds help hold back the Rakshasa, crushing them beneath his feet whenever they set to step out of the Lodestone within which they hide.”

I gave up attempting to catalogue the questions I was squirrelling away in my mind. I would get to them later once he finished delivering his lecture. It would probably be impossible for me to differentiate between fact and fiction without seeing them with my own eyes.

“The fifth god of the Lodestar Church is Shango, the beastkin god of senses. He is watching over the Southern Kingdom of Ostro. He is a chimaera god with elements of each best kin tribe. The apex mythic beast of the south is the Impundulu, a type of eagle it can call lightning. Together they bring thunder and lightning though they control the air.”

I would have to check out the church in more detail to see if any artwork depicted these gods. If not, maybe it was time to introduce stained glass windows somehow.

“The sixth god of the Lodestar Church is the halfling god Naseem. God of charisma, he contends against the song of the sirens who would draw all of humanity into the depths of the Azimuth ocean. The apex mythic beast of the southwest is a sea serpent immune to the hypnotising effects of the Siren’s charisma; it dines on them regularly.”

That was not worrying at all with the Liberian waters to our south. However, Captain Kashif never mentioned any difficulties. Or at least not yet. Maybe when the trade route grew busier, it would attract trouble.

“The seventh god of the Lodestar Church is the Neriad God Zael of the sea, representing clarity. It is said that he rides a turtle the size of islands beneath the waves keeping at bay the krakens that would pull the islands into the ocean.”

This was less a lesson, and more a horror story of what could be found beneath every wave and stone.

“The eighth god of the Lodestar Church is Elven god Era. He represents vitality. It is rumoured to exist deep in the depths of the Elven wood in the Kingdom of Maestro. The apex mythic beast of the northwest is not fauna but flora. The original Elendil tree has evolved to true sentience. It is the tree of the life but is willing to end any intruders for the elves to live safely in its shade.”

. . .

The question and answer session that followed was reasonably straightforward. My only fear was that I missed a question or two I had meant to ask. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world as he was not going anywhere, and I could always ask him another day.

“Question 1. Have you ever seen an Anemoi?” I started with the simplest.

“Not in living memory have they been seen.” But, then, unafraid of the questioning, he answered honestly.

“Question 2. Then how do you know they are real?” What was this whole belief system based upon? If he had not seen them in person.

“Historical evidence shows the existence of the base races pushing into the compass kingdoms, and many sources detail how the Anemoi stepped forward to push them back. The lodestar church has collected all such evidence cross-referencing it to prove its integrity as much as we can prove anything.""" He answered unwaveringly in his belief.

“Question3. What boon did you ask for? Why? And did you receive it?” I remembered my earlier question about the validity of such beliefs and whether a boon would work.

“I asked for the magic to help heal a disastrous mining accident where my mana was not enough to help all who needed it, and relief would be too slow to arrive otherwise. So, yes, I did receive it. It helped me stabilise those who needed it, but it left me without magic for a month and damn near killed me anyway. Still, I would probably have died without it and would not have been able to heal the number of people I did.” He seemed proud of his efforts and still sad they had been insufficient.

“Question 4. Why do the Anemoi match up to the kingdoms that they represent?” It had not escaped my notice that the gods, kingdoms and attributes were suspiciously well-aligned.

“Ah, this is a little like the chicken and the egg conundrum. Which came first?” He evaded answering straight away.

“I thought you were going to answer my questions?” I was not too fond of redirection. However, I was not going to fall for the misdirection.

“I will, to the best of my ability, but there are two different schools of thought to answer this question. The egg theory is that the Anemoi came first, and their race is descended from them. The chicken theory is that the races came first, and the Anemoi arose from them. So who knows who came first?” He shrugged, no longer trapped in the paradox such was the power of faith.

“But what do you believe?” I asked, understanding the two schools of thought but wanting his opinion.

“I believe they were here before the advent of the fall of the lodestar, but whether that was as mere mortals or gods that I believe, is lost to the trials of time.” He clarified.

“Question 5 What do you mean fall of the lodestar?”

“According to our belief, there was not always a system, nor was there always a lodestar.” He answered.

“What was there before? Where did the Lodestar come from? Why?” I wondered what the world would be like without them. The system was omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. What had the world have been like without it?

. . .

“Before the Fall of the Lodestar, there was no system. The world was a war ground where base races, beasts and the noble nine races fought for every foot of space. Finally, the eight Anemoi had enough of the war and pulled down a star from the heavens, the Lodestar. Under its guidance and Light, the base races were driven below into the Lodestone while the gods created the eight compass kingdoms. Each kingdom, with its race, was surrounded and separated from one another by the human kingdoms. Those who fought alongside and for the eight noble races. Humanity provided the barrier between the races to ensure no more war.”

“Does every race believe that?” I asked, slightly sceptical about the human-centric version of creation.

“Depending on your race, the origin of the world varies. But there is a commonality of themes and beliefs enough to support the truth of it.”

“Is there no war?”

“No, there are border skirmishes between the human kingdoms and excursions from the base races hiding in the lodestone depths, but there has not been anything like the actual age of war. Especially since the borders were formalised by the bearing roads and circumference wall held in the sand sea of storms in the continent’s centre. Even the collapse of the emergent Compass Empire merely returned to the eight kingdoms rather than causing an outbreak of war.”

His answers raised more questions than answers.

“What are the bearing roads, circumference wall and sand sea of storms?”

“To answer the last first, the sand sea of storms is a desert that is all that is left of the centre of the compass continent. It was caused by the fall of the Lodestar and was the start of the end of the age of war. Its fall stopped all war, and in its wake, the system’s rise meant the end of the age. But it also had a cost to the earth it landed on. A desert formed, struck by lightning, that was death to all. It hit the sand and slowly grew until the circumference wall finally bound it.”

Okay. That was not strange at all. I couldn’t begin to guess what truth and fiction were or how the two interweaved.

“The circumference wall was grown from the sand to contain it, and the bearing roads were likewise grown from it in turn along the cardinal and ordinal directions, slowly expanding until they reached the coast and stopped. These roads have formed the official borders of each compass kingdom although the separate kingdoms still sometimes dispute their new borders.”

“The roads grow?” I asked. “How?”

“We not know it was one of the last acts of the Light of the Lodestar church.”

“They are man-made?” I ask, impressed by the idea of a road that built itself from what he was saying. How was that even possible? Who knew? Magic! Wait for the Light of the Lodestar Church. Was their pope the ultimate road construction worker? “How did the Light make them? And why was it one of the last acts?”

“The Light, along with the four kings, disappeared at the formation of the Compass Empire. Their disappearance was the main reason for the dissolution of the empire back to its founding compass kingdoms.”

“What about the apex mythic beasts? How do we know that they are real? Have you seen them?”

“Historical accounts prove their existence.”

“What about the mythic beast of the west? Wouldn’t we have seen a giant turtle, as we are the most western isle out there?” If there was one fact that the islanders were most proud of, it was the fact that we were the most western point in the known world. That we were on the edge of the compass; if there were a mythic beast anywhere in the west, surely it would be here where we were.

“And where were the Nereids? Did I need to dive deeper?”