Regi's Goddess, chapter 4 (Patreon)

I think I am back on track with the computer.  I've suffered losses, but I'm functional again. So on with the story.

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Regi stopped at a door carved with a darting school of itnbo chasing prey through the water. Those who served Oba required privacy, so this stretch of the road was bordered by temple wall on one side and old trees on the other. The air had a fetid sweetness from the spoiled fruit that had fallen to the dirt at the edge of the stone walk. Newer homes had bells that functioned much like the chimes on a Coalition ship, but this home was old enough that an old bell wheel stood near the entrance. He tugged the wheel, and the headstock swung toward them as the bell swung away.

“Whoa.” Dante stepped away from the swinging bell as the clapper sounded. The bell was low and muted, but the door opened immediately, and Alb stood in the entry.

Regi touched his temples. “Exalted Alb a’Oba,” he greeted her. He would have added the rest of her name, but he couldn’t remember the names of both her fathers.

“Regi a’ Divashi,” she greeted him. She turned her body to the side, revealing the second woman. “I introduce Sibja a’Iloxot.”

“I introduce Dante a’Texas,” Regi offered.

Dante smiled and touched two fingers to the crown of his head. “Howdy.”

“Please, enter with the twin blessings of the gods, preferably more of the second than the first,” Alb said with a twinkle of mischief in her eye. It was poor manners to ask the gods to provide more opportunity than challenge, but Regi appreciated that only an exalted could appreciate the difficulty of having too much of the gods’ first blessing.

Regi followed Alb into a parlor filled with carved figures and textiles and books crowded around a large vid screen. His grandfathers had lived in a house very similar to this, but Regi had lived so long in Coalition space that wood carvings and rugs appeared quaint and out of place in living quarters.

“Dante a’Texas,” Sibja said, the first individual to acknowledge Dante’s relationship with his god. “You are the one who attends the dops that remain on the outsiders’ ship.” She settled into a Savonarola chair and studied Dante. She was tall and well-muscled, and she leaned back, displaying her body. Regi wondered if she was attracted to Dante, attempting to show him that she was physically able to defend herself or if he had lost the ability to understand his own people’s body language. He fear the latter.

On the other side, it was a good sign that Sibja recognized that the ship belonged to the Coalition and not Lady Divashi. If the other exalteds would agree to as much, fifty percent of his stress would be eased.

“Yes, ma'am,” Dante said. He looked about the room, clearing his throat and looking to Regi with some concern. Regi hesitated as he lowered himself to a chaise, but he could not interpret Dante’s body language any more than Sibja’s.  After a second, Dante sat on the other end of the chaise, his gaze sweeping the room in a way that spoke of either discomfort or suspicion. Regi hoped it was the first because nothing in Alb’s parlor appeared out of place.

After years away from Kowri homes, it felt foreign and disjointed, but when Regi examined each element, they fit. A good Kowri would have word or stone carvings of favorite gods to commemorate specific moments in their lives, and a devout soul would place those near a vid in order to give the gods a prominent place in the room. One should not keep the air inside so warmed or so cooled as to be out of season with the exterior, so rugs were necessary. Regi could cite the logical reason for each part of the décor, and yet the pieces appeared disjointed to eyes that had grown accustomed to other aesthetics.

Alb settled into a thickly cushioned chair with worn arms. “There are few who would care for the Lady Divashi’s sacred creatures. They do have a deadly reputation.”

“No one gave me a choice about whether or not to do the attending,” Dante said softly, but Regi imagined some condemnation in his tone.

“How horrible,” Sibja said. Her fingers tightened on the arms of her chair. She was, no doubt, plotting the punishments she would impose if the pirates were found in the Empire. “I understand the lawbreakers schemed to use dop poison.”

“They did,” Regi said. “Many cultures use pharmaceuticals to distance themselves from reality or dull pain. We found evidence of a new substance that relied heavily on diluted dop poison.”

“Was that the only ship to produce this substance?” Sibja asked. She had dived straight to the deepest of the waters.

“We do not know,” Regi admitted. “The Coalition has charged my crew with arresting pirates, so when we can get back to Coalition space, I hope we will be charged with finding any others who might be working with these pirates.” Regi’s chest ached at the idea of other ships with other slaves and other captured dops. Neither the Coalition nor the Empire could allow this to continue.

Alb growled. “I am horrified. I have never before said this, but those pirates deserve the full attention of the Lady Divashi and I hope she finds a creative end for them.” She touched her temples with the back of her fingers before she focused her gaze on Dante. “If you wish to have your story recorded, I would devote as much time as required to ensuring that your story is told well. I don't know if Regi has explained the obligations of those who follow the Lady Oba, but I do consider it a sacred duty to ensure that unusual stories such as yours are recorded for history.”

“I appreciate that,” Dante said, but something in the stiffness of his shoulders suggested that he had no intention of ever agreeing to Alb’s politely worded request. Dante trusted Regi with his truth, but he had no trust for someone as respected as Alb a’Oba. Lady Oba’s exalteds were judged by the quality of the stories they left behind just as the followers of Gavd were judged by the lawbreakers they were able to bring to justice. His story would enrich Alb’s private library, and any rejection could turn her away from their cause.

Regi wondered what the exalteds of Lady Divashi were judged by. Theology class had not covered her history in any detail, but he hoped no one expected him to poison any politically significant figures.

Alb peered at Dante, her eyes pale with age. “Exalted Regi a’Divashi suggests your people are respectful of the gods.”

“Not exactly,” Dante said. Regi's guts curled up into a tight ball, and he cursed himself for not better preparing Dante for these questions. However, he had worried that if Dante presented himself as rehearsed and formal, his story would be unconvincing.  Perhaps Regi had put too much faith in Dante’s piety, though.

“Can you elaborate?” Alb asked.

“Different groups have different belief systems, so we’re not quite as unified as Kowri with their single pantheon.”

Alb chuckled and Sibja gave her an amused look. “Perhaps Regi has been overly generous in describing our people,” Sibja said, “or perhaps he was simply young and naïve when he left the Empire, but I assure you that we are rarely unified in anything.”

“That's a little reassuring. I was starting to think my people were coming off as pretty cantankerous in comparison. So are there Kowri who don’t believe in Gavd and Divashi and the others?” Dante’s pronunciations of the divine names had improved dramatically over the last week.

Alb wrinkled her nose. “I believe the translator is malfunctioning. What does belief have to do with the existence of Gavd or Divashi?”

Dante glance over to Regi, and Regi spread his hand, inviting Dante to continue. These two needed to see the size and scope of outsider belief. Only then could they present to others both the differences and the striking similarities. Dante cleared his throat. “Among my people, some believe very strongly in one God some worship another or even a group of gods or Buddha, which I don’t quite understand. But they see God's fingerprints on their life. But others dismiss that belief as superstition and see that same god-touch as nothing more than luck. We tend to associate good luck with God more than you folks seeing as how bad luck is the first gift of your gods.”

Sibja opened her mouth and closed it without speaking. Alb found her voice first. “There is much confusion about which luck is inspired by the gods and which is inspired by a lack of watching where one walks on an uneven path,” she said slowly, feeling her way around the words. “However, the existence of the gods in undeniable. One can scan an individual to determine whether the gods’ energy is present.”

“My people don't have that,” Dante said. “We are significantly behind the Coalition in technology, and the Coalition appears to be significantly behind you. I'm pretty sure that means we’re at the back of this horse race.”

Ignoring the illogical reference to huuman horses, Regi said, “At one point, our people used the temple challenge because we had no other way to determine who might be touched by a god.” Regi turned his attention to Alb. “I suspect that Dante’s people are less like us today and more like what our people when we lived on only two or three planets.”

“That would suggest that his people are exceptionally young and likely foolish. Our people were.” Alb’s voice had a dreamlike quality, and her gaze grew unfocused as she was lost in some memory, perhaps of a tale from one of those ancient adventurers who revered the Lady Poque above all.

“I would not disagree with that, ma'am.”

Sibja pounced on that wording. “Does that imply that you agree that your people are foolish?”

“It means I don't have enough evidence, and I don't want to be forced into arguing for a side when I don’t know the truth. So I am choosing to remain silent.”

Alb laughed, and Dante jerked as the loud sound startled him. “If you have sense enough to say that, then your people are less foolish than Kowri were at that point in our development.”

“Then what do you mean by saying that your people are not as united as Regi implied?”

Alb looked to Sibja, but she had a sour expression on her face. That expression revealed the direction of her thoughts, and Regi’s stomach soured. “The heretics,” Regi said softly. He had read of them, but it was not a topic for polite conversation, and he did not want the exalteds to associate huuman diversity of belief with the heresies, so he would rather avoid the topic. If Kowri believed huumans lived in a way that emulated the bad behavior of such rogues, the exalteds would move against Dante.