Gods of Old

"Do you know why we have four temples at the temple ground?" Lady Kiana turned slightly, looking toward the temple plaza.

"One for each element…?"

"A common misconception," Lady Kiana spoke in a relaxed manner. "Our powers manifest in a way that we can divide into four elements, and in rituals, we use them as such as they were made to cater to one element each, but no, that is not the reason. Why would one of the temples be more grand than the others, then? In truth, they are dedicated to four deities."

'So there are four gods…' Maya listened attentively.

"To be honest, I am a little bored of delivering the usual tirade, so let me try something a little different."

Lady Kiana leaned back as if she were preparing for a long lecture.

"Witches believe in four deities… God of Light; God of Repose; God of Storms—or sometimes called God of War; and God of Sky—also known as God of Dreams or Time."

Maya took mental notes of their names and began to imagine what they were like.

"You met them at the plaza." Lady Kiana chuckled.

'She must mean those four statues I was observing.'

Earlier, while she was looking at the statues, Maya was trying to discern the element each represented. Now she knew why she was having trouble; they weren't meant to represent elements.

"It seems arbitrary, right? However, in the Dark Ages, those gods had different faces. They were known as Four Bleak Goddesses."

Maya's eyes opened slightly wider. It sounded rather dreadful.

"They are the same gods?"

"Yes. Like most religions, deities get tweaked over time to be more culturally appropriate. But it doesn't mean they themselves have changed."

'If that was what they were known as, no wonder the head priestess didn't feel inclined to force belief in them. It would be a fruitless venture.'

"Would you like to hear more about that perspective?"

Maya carefully nodded.

In all honesty, she was curious about the witches of the past. They once roamed the world she was born in, and then were suddenly lost from history. Following a religion wasn't something she was very familiar with, but since Lady Kiana took a somewhat academic approach as if offering her a history lesson, Maya wished to know more.

"The one that is worshipped the most, God of Light, is just another name for the Goddess of Death."

'Death?!'

Maya felt chills go down her spine, feeling the weight of revelation pressing upon her. The once majestic garden gazebo seemed to take on a more mysterious and foreboding aura.

"Although death is her domain she is also the god of creation, as there cannot be death if there is no life. She dictates beginnings and ends."

The choice of Goddess being named after Death rather than Life gave Maya an unsettling feeling that the gods they revered were not benevolent figures.

"God of Repose is the one we have twisted the most. Her original name was Goddess of Nil. She is known as goddesses of nothing, of annihilation, anomalies, irregularities… or, nowadays, could be called goddess of glitches," Lady Kiana joked.

Not reacting to the priestess amusing herself, Maya furrowed her brows. The concept of Nil was more difficult for her to grasp.

"Her domain is absolute and utter annihilation, a state of no existence. A complete contrast to her sister who keeps the vicious cycle of life and death, she wants to erase existence itself—life and death, respectively. Even afterlife. And therefore she has domain over all things that break that balance," she paused to take a sip of her tea. "In other words—magic."

"Huh?"

"Yes, that's right. We may have a purpose to keep the balance, but we were initially created to break it." The high priestess chuckled to herself.

"And then there were born their younger sisters that feed on that conflict," she continued. "The Goddess of Corruption. Her domain is conflict and change, so her new face still suits her quite well—God of War and Storms. Through her twisted games, evolution is possible. She's not the one to sit still, and her natural order is to invoke chaos."

Lady Kiana's casual tone as she spoke of the Goddess of Corruption, left Maya feeling a sense of unease. Now Maya began to grasp that those gods ancient witches worshipped weren't there to protect and nurture them, but were rather more akin to cosmic entities that force them into survival.

"And there comes the last sister, the one that preys on all things with guaranteed ruin, Goddess of Decay. Her domain is erosion and ruin. Her other sister may be the chaotic one, but she reigns over true chaos, the state of absolute entropy. She may seem passive but she is absolute and unchanging."

As Lady Kiana spoke of the last goddess, Maya felt her spirit crushed. Although she had announced their bleak nature, before she spoke of the last one, Maya somehow hoped that at least one of them would resemble the image of a loving god.

"I am not sure how she got the title of God of Sky and Dreams," Lady Kiana pondered for a moment. "At least Time suits her well because with time everything comes to ruin. Dreams are an illusion and through them, you cannot achieve change unless you act and inactivity forebodes decay. There is also an affinity to celestial bodies that are generally ascribed to her, so there the 'God of Sky' comes from."

Hearing about the nature of all four of their gods, Maya couldn't help but feel horrified.

"And there they go, fighting each other, none able to prevail over the other. In their bitter stalemate, we thread our existence."

Lady Kiana smiled wistfully. She had left Maya in silence with her thoughts racing.

"So you see, those aren't gods that seek our worship. In fact, they wish for our very own destruction, and often we even have to fight against them to preserve our fragile existence," she smiled. "But they all represent concepts we should naturally face and could never win against. The only way to fight one is through borrowing the strength of another one. So we pray to all of them to never win, or lose. That is the only relationship we can have with gods."

'That's… certainly a unique view on gods,' Maya thought to herself.

"Goddess of Death gives us life, but also takes it. Nil gives us magic, but also wants us to destroy ourselves with it. Corruption incites us into moving, but keeps removing solid ground from under our feet. And, Decay motivates us to persevere while slowly spending us. New names only focus on more positive aspects of theirs. But neither is exactly wrong," Lady Kiana concluded.

Deep in thought, Maya couldn't see how her power was related to those aspects of gods.

"Did I frighten you?"

"Um…"

"There are also Lesser Gods that are related to rather specific concepts," Lady Kianna added casually. "For example, God of Beasts, God of Flesh, Dragon God, and so forth. Perhaps I should describe them more as Daemons, or Spirit Kings."

"Daemons?" Maya's pupils shook. The more Lady Kiana talked, the more sinister concepts came out of her mouth.

"That doesn't necessarily mean they are evil." Although she talked in a reassuring voice, her eyes had a dark gleam. "They are only called upon in rituals specific to their domains. As practitioners of dark magic are often enthralled by them, as a result, they are often seen as synonymous. But I digress…"