“Their religious ceremonies focus on a central preacher who whips the crowd into a veritable frenzy with invocations of the Holy Spirit…”

  The village of Abyss occupied a small natural cavern, the space augmented by mining rock and dumping it down the abyss for which the village was named. Towards one end of town, there was a gaping chasm which had never successfully been plumbed for depth and was presumed to go down to the primordial ooze from which the Orth had been drawn. Communicating the word “primordial” took a while, before eventually working out the words “from before time.” That the center of the Orth was still the unmade material from which the One God had fashioned Creation only increased Hexa’s zeal to make it down to its surface and learn how the Oozekennen communed with what could well be quintessential reality.

  The buildings were laid out in a grid, either assembled from masonry of mined stone or simply hollowed out columns from room and pillar mining for space. The masonry buildings were occasionally fanciful in their layout, broad windows and open floor plans, while the pillar buildings of necessity had small windows and simple doors to accommodate the great weight of stone they bore.

  In the courtyard of the Temple, the one large building in the cavern, Hexadecimal asked around for somewhere she could stay in exchange for stories of the surface or labor. Ultimately, a male couple offered her a place to stay in exchange for what they took as fanciful tales of a theoretical human-inhabited surface world. They introduced themselves as Herring of Clupea and Lantern of Spinax. Both had full, well-groomed beards of dark hair, as well as long hair bound in queues. Their eyes were blue, and they were stocky. Stockiness made sense in the chill of the Deeps, and Hexadecimal found herself wishing it were not either uncomfortable or complicated to wear a jacket.

  “So tell me, what is Amonite life like?” Hexadecimal asked after she had regaled her hosts with a few stories about the Sevens above.

  The two exchanged a glance, still clearly skeptical of her story. “You honestly don’t know?” Hexadecimal shook her head. “It is a simple and good life. We work, we pray daily, and we attend Temple on Saturdays. Itinerant—” wandering, rootless, “—merchants bring what we can’t produce, for the most part. We buy with the coin brought in by those seeking honorable burials for their dead, where their restlessness will not trouble others. We make offerings of mushrooms and dyes to atone for our sins. What are you interested in, specifically?”

  “Oh, all of it,” Hexadecimal said breezily. “My entire purpose coming down here was to chronicle the seventh kingdom.”

  “We have to confess, our first thought on hearing your story was that you were Oozekennen looking for undeclared taxable income. We have nothing to hide, so we thought we’d delay you in haranguing those who are barely making it as things stand.” His husband elbowed him in the side. “What? If they know there are holdouts they know there are holdouts. There’s nothing we can do. Besides, you’d think she’d pick a more believable story if she was going to be an undercover agent. Send a regular human up, with a body for burial.”

  Hexadecimal happened to be glancing out the window when a woman passed by in immaculate white robes. Her hair was piled high on her head, her stride was purposeful, and her expression was serene. Hexadecimal was immediately struck by her beauty and grace. “Who is that?” she asked her hosts.

  One of them leaned forward to peer out the window, and then replied, “That is Hope of Peace.” Of Peace—! She’s related to Dread, then? Hexadecimal did not voice her question, not wanting to give offense. “She’s the ranking Teacher throughout Gargold. She travels from temple to temple to give advice, settle disputes, and see to it that proper doctrine is taught.” Hexadecimal filed away that the priestesses of the Amonite faith were referred to as Teachers, a curiosity for another time.

  “She’s beautiful.” Hexa felt just a little surprised at the strength of her interest in the Amonite Teacher. There was just something about her which struck her as uncanny, and if Hexa was one thing, it was a creepy little girl all grown up.

  Lantern, the one with the slightly longer beard, laughed and said, “You wouldn’t be the first to observe that. It’s a futile crush, however. The great Teacher maintains a state of perfect ritual purity at all times. See her black gloves, black lipstick and eyeshadow? They represent an oath of purity acknowledging the three routes by which the body is most commonly defiled.”

  “Does she talk to people?”

  “Ritually impure people, you mean? Yes, she does, but she’s a very busy woman. I don’t know that she’d have time for a nephilim.”

  “I… need to go see. If I could interview the leader of the Amonite faith—what a—”she struggled for the word that means “coup.” “—victory that would be!” Excusing herself hurriedly, she rushed out the door, noting absently that it was made of planks of strange fibrous not-wood.

  She couldn’t immediately locate the Teacher, but found something else of interest in her search. Two groups of people were bickering in the square of Abyss, but at first Hexadecimal couldn’t follow the argument because of the overlapping voices in a tongue she didn’t speak fluently.

  “You believe in Scripture—” Hexadecimal confirmed the word meaning with Herring after the fact, along with several other words. “Which is not divinely inspired! Why should I have anything to do with you? You acknowledge a masculine divinity, for the sake of the Name! Who could birth the world but the One God, and the angels made in God’s image would naturally be feminine!”

  “Ah, but you’re blowing it out the wrong end! It says, does it not, ‘male and female she created them’? Why would the One God create people in a more diverse image than that of Her host?!”

  “You say ‘Her’ host but I know that in your services you refer to the One God as God Alone, neither male nor female. Yet we have the understanding to claim the One God as a Mother God. For whose is Creation but women? Whose lineage do we use to trace back to the first people? Our mothers!”

  “People!” Hope’s voice was a clear alto, forceful but not harsh, and it silenced the two crowds. “This argument has been had—to my knowledge literally—every week for years now! It is not a new argument! And what is at its root? Debate of whether the One God is male or female, whether there are two Virtues or four. Hear me tell you now! The One God is beyond all mortal comprehension, to limit the Lord to mortal conceptions of gender is arrogant beyond belief! So one of you says that ‘she’ made the world, and another of you says ‘God’ made the world, you are putting human, mortal, limited terms on the unknowable infinite! Tell me: do you gather to argue over which is the better color, red or blue? Do you gather to debate whether button mushrooms or oyster mushrooms are better? It would be as foolish, as futile, and it would not honor the One God any more! As for the Virtues, what does your scripture say about Virtues? Nothing! The Virtues and their names were handed down by mystics and we simply do not know except that they occasionally intercede in mortal affairs. They do not identify themselves, except by name, it could be in either direction that the Heavenly Host was organized!”

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  The silence that followed was practically ringing after the echoing shouts of the crowds. Hope strode between them, attendants at her heels, and waited as one opened the door to the Temple. She walked in, and with a boom the door closed behind her. The crowds which had gathered to dispute dispersed by singles and pairs, looking back at each other as they left, the wind out of their sails. Hexa hurried past them and tugged on the door to the Temple, in her excitement forgetting to inquire as to the propriety of such an action. She saw Hope at the altar of the Temple, head bowed, the nape of her neck showing between robe and pinned hair. Hexa shook her head. Something about the woman was just so compelling, and yet she was not a woman of wandering desire and she was already drawn to Dread. But then, Dread was inaccessible, an unknown, where Hope was concrete, real, and present.

  Hexa walked up to Hope, who turned at the footsteps behind her. Without thinking, Hexa stuck out her hand in greeting, and received a blank stare followed by hands folded over Hope’s chest. Hexadecimal abruptly felt the same becalmed low the crowds must have, realizing her mistake. Hope was a woman of extreme ritual purity and would not shake hands with an outsider, a nephilim, or any number of other things Hexadecimal assuredly was. And yet, Hope was not unkind about her rejection, and in fact smiled at Hexa, a smile that made her heart skip a beat. “How may I help you, my child?”

  Hexa squeaked, despite herself, but managed a decent monotone to reply, “I wish to learn of your ways, honored Teacher.”

  Hope was unmistakably not being cruel when she said, “Our ways are not for outsiders to learn. Even your Draconic is foreign, you would find our texts incomprehensible.” She studied Hexadecimal’s face as she said this. She wondered what the significance of that was.

  Hexadecimal slumped and nodded. “I didn’t… I wanted to learn of your people, but if you say so.”

  “The way of Amonism is a difficult one, involving the renunciation of many things. Do not take it so hard. You would still be welcome at our services.” Hexadecimal perked up at this, she could learn much of what she sought to know by attendance at their religious ceremonies and inquiring after Herring and Lantern’s personal lives.

  “Will you be delivering a service while you are here?” Hexadecimal tried not to let too much hope sound through her voice at the prospect. After all, if services would be illuminating, services by the prime Teacher of the Amonites would be even more illuminating.

  Hope, however, shook her head. “I will be passing on with the caravan in the morning. You would be welcome to join us, we are making a pilgrimage to the Cavern of Dread, the capitol of Gargold.”

  Hexadecimal noted that Hope had not said she would not deliver a sermon ever, or a teaching, or whatever the correct word was, and so held on to the hope that she might hear the woman speak at length some time later. She bowed appreciatively and said she would gather at the square in the morning.

  Returning to the abode of Herring and Lantern, she asked them what the crowd had assembled to argue about. Herring sat back with a sigh, while Lantern leaned forward and answered her question. “Amonism is divided, between two schools of thought. The first, the more conservative, is known as Dualism.”

  Herring interrupted, “Or Duelism, given their readiness to fight over who’s right.”

  Lantern nodded acknowledgement and moved on. “They believe in two Virtues, with their array of Powers, which encompass the legendary seasons of the Orth and the two means by which one can attempt to understand the One God: emotion and reason. The two Virtues are the Mother and the Queen, respectively.” The Virtues Lantern mentioned were familiar to Hexadecimal, and she nodded understanding. “One needs both, of course, to fully understand the Lord. They believe in a feminine divine, the One God is the Mother God.” Herring scoffed. “We heard from here, they mentioned ‘male and female she made them,’ and that brings me to the second group found within Amonist schools. The Exolineals. As you might have gathered from Herring’s reactions, we fall into the latter group. We believe in the Mother, the Queen, the King, and the Father.”

  Hexadecimal was loathe to interrupt, but she wasn’t familiar with the roots to derive meaning. “Why are you called Exolineals?”

  “A good question.” Why thank you very much! But she didn’t squeak. She was proud of that. “It is because we trace a divine host by both female and male angels.”

  “But wait, that is four Virtues. Why would the One God create a number of angels that would inherently produce discord?”

  “Why would four produce discord?”

  “Because the four elements are forever at odds with each other. Because the Trinity is three and the Enemy makes four.”

  “What is the Trinity?”

  “Does your people’s descent into the Orth predate even the advent of the Savior?”

  “It naturally must, for He has not come yet. Some day He will come to the Orth and return the surface to humanity from the clutches of dragonkind.”

  Hexa’s fingers itched to grab her quill and start taking notes. An entire population which was unaware of the advent of the Savior was something that religious scholars would study and debate for the rest of the current Age! To say nothing of the statement that the surface lay in draconic clutches. But she would rely upon her prodigious memory and return to listening. “I’m sorry, I sidetracked you. Tell me more of the Exolineals. Specifically of the Father, if you don’t mind. I was taught that the Virtue which followed the King was the Jester.”

  “I have not heard of a Virtue known as the Jester. The Father is the fourth Virtue.”

  “What are their elemental alignments, then?”

  Lantern looked at her sidelong. “The Mother is Fire, the Queen is Air, the King is Water, and the Father is Earth. How do you not know this?”

  “I suppose it makes sense that, omitting the Jester and the Knight—I’m sorry, I don’t mean to spout heresy, I will listen and not comment. I just have so many questions, and the Amonites, I’m told, take great pride in their education.”

  Herring piped up, “That we do. Especially our spiritual education, but it’s also been said that most of the skilled craftsmen of Gargold are Amonites these days. The Oozekennen, they maintain their temples, but that’s all they do; they haven’t built new ones in years, and similarly they maintain their temples without elaborating upon them.”

  “That’s very interesting. Why is that?”

  Herring waved a hand. “Who can say? They spend all their time and money that they don’t spend taxing us on maintaining their temples where they moan and wail and nobody can make sense of anything they say or do. Their leaders touch the primordial ooze and go insane and their mutterings are what they make their doctrine. Allegedly, without the self their leaders do what is best for all.”

  They talked into the night, or so Hexadecimal judged from the yawning and stretching of her hosts. At some point they broke for dinner and served up a soup of various mushrooms and fungi, but even then Lantern couldn’t resist showing off his learning to someone who had not heard from a Teacher. It impressed Hexadecimal favorably that this was the reaction of the people to ignorance.