Chapter 10
As they had planned Seth and Sara returned to the inn. They went immediately to the dining hall and waited for Felix to appear. As was customary Felix appeared shortly after their arrival, and they sent him to prepare for them a dish of his choosing. They spoke quietly from time to time often exchanging flirtatious smiles. When their food arrived they thanked Felix graciously and consumed their meals quickly. After they had finished they sat for a few moments relaxing. The inn was deserted of guests. Everyone had gone out to venture in the streets to enjoy the festivities. Felix returned shortly and accepted their compliments to his meal as he collected their plates. He left them once again alone in the dining hall taking with him their dirty dishes. A Bell rang somewhere in the building above them and it was followed shortly their after by Sasha striding quickly through the room. She smiled and waved to them in greeting as she passed heading for the lobby. Her muffled voice could be heard speaking to someone on the other side of the stone wall, and listening carefully Seth heard the inn’s door open once again after the voices had stopped. Sasha returned around the corner this time carrying a large leather sack in her hand. She brought it to the table and placed it at Seth’s side.
“A man has just delivered this for you Seth.” Sasha stated in her eloquent voice.
“Yes I was expecting it.” Seth replied honestly.
“Would you like me to have it taken to your room for you?” Sasha asked then, always the host.
“No thank you Sasha I can get it from here. However we plan to retire momentarily, could you see to it that we are not disturbed?” Seth asked.
“Certainly.” Sasha replied sharing a quick smile with Sara. “Well then if you will excuse me I have a lot to see to this evening.” Sasha said.
“Of course don’t let us keep you.” Sara answered quickly in her soft angelic voice.
With that Sasha turned and strode out of the room. Seth looked to Sara who was in turn already looking at him.
“Guess we should get to work.” Seth stated and then added as an afterthought. “That is if you want to help. I’m sorry I assumed, I should have asked earlier.”
“That is fine love, if I can find a way to help you, I will do what I can.” Sara answered her voice full of love.
Seth pushed back from the table. Grabbing the bag he rose and waited for Sara to do the same. Sara rose and stepped nimbly around her chair beside him and they walked together down the hall towards their room. Seth retrieved their key and unlocked the door. Allowing Sara to enter in front of him he followed her through and closed the door behind them. Seth tested the door after he locked it assuring himself it was secure. Satisfied, he carried the bag to the seating area where Sara now stood waiting patiently. He joined her in quick order and untied the leather straps securing the top of the bag. Pulling the mouth of the bag open wide Seth peered inside. Assured of its contents Seth then flipped the bag over pouring its contents to the floor in a jumble. Scroll cases and scrolls littered the floor along with several books of varying sizes. Seth eyed the pile with uncertainty, not sure of where to start. Sara on the other hand immediately kneeled upon the floor and went about sorting the items into piles. The first pile consisted of scrolls without cases. The second was comprised of scrolls that were in cases. Finally, the last pile was a short stack of books stacked neatly with the largest at the bottom, and smallest at the top. Sorted as such the task did not seem quite as daunting as it had before and Seth seated himself quickly next to Sara the piles arranged in front of them.
“I guess we can start with the scrolls.” Seth stated noting it was the biggest pile.
Sara nodded in response and she took up the first scroll within her reach and unraveled it quickly to begin reading. Seth followed her lead and he too picked up a scroll and revealed its contents. They read each scroll entirely, pausing between scrolls to exchange details of the Goddess or her followers they had deciphered from the ink. After they had completed the unprotected scrolls they moved on to those in cases. After each document they would share details of its contents and compare those details to others they had previously read. They finished the scrolls contained within the cases in quick order and moved on to the books. Most of the books were small consisting of fewer than fifty pages. Only two of the books were larger volumes each containing several hundred pages. They started with the smaller books and found immediately that the tomes were divided into small sections, each dealing with a specific subject. This allowed them to skip portions they did not need and go directly to the pages they sought. The small books were finished very quickly after this discovery and all that remained unread were the two largest of the books. They each selected one and opened it upon their laps. Flipping through the first few pages they were each surprised to find the books were indexed in a similar fashion to the smaller tomes. The book Seth held was a collection of short histories of the gods. Each god it seemed had its own section within the book and Seth was able to quickly locate the pages pertaining to Ishanya and he began to read them. Sara’s book was not divided as such and she found references to Ishanya in several places in the index of her tome. She flipped to one section, and after she finished it she would return to the index to locate another section. She followed this process until she had gleaned every ounce of information contained in the book about Ishanya. Seeing that Seth had not yet finished she decided to once again scan through the index for anything else that might be useful. Running her fingers across the page she found a heading that caught her attention. The words read “The Heavenly war” and noting the page number Sara flipped the pages until she found it. She read through the passage quickly fore it was not lengthy, and as she finished, Seth too had completed his task. They each closed their books and placed them back on the floor. It had taken several hours but finally their task was completed. They each took a moment to organize their thoughts before sharing the information they had learned. It was Seth who spoke first.
“Ok so up to this point we have read that Ishanya is at best an unpredictable Goddess. She generally has few followers throughout history. Those she did have however were very loyal to her and many of them in the past were blessed by her. Her blessings were for the most part blessings of physical strength, speed or agility. Sometimes the blessing was a combination of the three. Each of those was a physical blessing bestowed upon a worshipper without the gift to control magic. Instead they were given abilities to enhance them in battle. Though I think none of those qualities are what the Goddess has in store for me.” Seth narrated his last sentence barely a whisper.
“Why is that love?” Sara asked, compelling him to explain.
“Borrik said that Ishanya told him that one day I would reward him with strength and a long life. If I am to be able to reward him with such then I see it unlikely she will bless me with a physical trait if I choose to serve her. Besides I also apparently have the gift, and being such I think I am better suited to one of her other blessings. From what we read she has only blessed a few of her followers in the past with gifts of magical power. I think this is due to most people with the gift choosing to serve the more popular gods of magic. But what we do know is that those she did bless with the gift were very powerful, but if I interpret what I have read correctly it is almost as if their powers were unreliable. It is almost as if she chooses to channel her power to her followers as she sees fit, not as they require it. Those she had blessed with her power were also intended for battle however, and their various blessings were more powerful than those of other gods. So it would appear that though she has not blessed anyone in several hundred years, as far as these records show that is, that her blessings are very powerful. I wish we had more information to go on.” Seth said finishing his narration.
“I think I found something that puts it in better perspective.” Sara said a small glimmer in her eyes.
“What is it angel?” Seth asked.
“In this book it tells of a war in the heavens. It is a war in which the gods fight for dominion over our world. But they do not fight one another openly, instead they use their powers to bless those of their followers to wage war here. It also mentions several theories as to why the gods’ gifts vary so much and why some gods no longer have many followers. Let me see if I can summarize it without losing the details.” Sara paused for a moment gathering her thoughts and recalling the passages she had just previously read before starting anew. “The gods’ power, the book states, is determined by how many worshippers the god has. Each of the gods worked together to create our world giving all living things a portion of their power bringing life to the world. Each god seeks to regain the power that each living creature contains. They gain claim of the power through worship. The more followers they have the more powerful the god becomes. The god then chooses to bless some of its followers with that power which in turn usually brings more followers. However a god can choose to retain his power instead of giving blessings. I guess they would do this to bide time while the other gods struggle with one another, wasting their strength so to speak. I think this is what Ishanya has been doing. As the more prevalent gods have been warring
