Seventy-Nine: Field Survey
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.” The Archbishop’s gaze rested on Lilith like still water in a mountain tarn. Her voice drifted like incense. “You’re sharp, child. It’s a crucial question. We should truly discuss it.”
“Faith among the Lamter has waned.” Her words fell like embers dimming in ash. “No doubt. Even we who sit in the Majestic Court are no longer the saints who prayed on ridges and under pines.”
“Perhaps, when the last bishop bathed before the first blade of dawn, dressed, and walked by sunlight into the deep woods to call the God of Mountains, and then died—” Her sigh moved like winter wind through firs. “We lost the right to speak His name. Grief threads my voice, and longing for an age even dragons feared flickers in it. Yet it doesn’t mean the Lamter have lost their yearning for the God of Mountains.”
“When war’s fire lifted from the land, when new races split from the ancient elves, when Kuri finally had a chance to pull its soil from the smoke—” Her eyes lowered like shutters under rain. “We could no longer find the God of Mountains’ True Name. We never wished for forgetting, but flames devoured the past, and left only the gray of oblivion.”
Lilith’s throat tightened, like a string drawn too far. She wanted to comfort, but the years stretched like glaciers. When the last spark of war died on this continent, humans might not even have been born. Words would not come.
“What does a True Name mean? Why is it so important?” She hesitated, then let the question fall like a pebble into a silent pool. The Nameless One had told the Little Dragon about the weight of a god’s true body. Yet the White Dragon still didn’t know what a True Name stood for. Everyone stressed its importance like bells in a storm, but no one said why.
“True Name,” the Archbishop murmured, like a reed catching wind. “Even a babbling infant can learn its sound, yet the greatest mage can’t define its heart. A True Name is a magical idea. It marks the essence of all things upon the earth. Call fire’s True Name, and fire answers like a fox from brush. Call water’s True Name, and water rises like a spring from stone. Almost all magic on this land is an adaptation or weaving of different True Names, like threads into cloth. Most True Names are hard to know. To add a word to that lexicon takes scholars who toil like night lamps burning without rest.”
“But a god’s True Name is different.” Her tone firmed like a staff planted in soil. “Gods are the sources of power on the continent. Everything of theirs carries magic. A god will tell their faithful their True Name. When a believer calls it, the god lets down blessing like rain from high clouds.”
“So a god who loses their True Name loses most ways to descend blessing.” Her words clicked like stones in a stream. “Such a god can hardly answer prayers.”
“So the God of Mountains hasn’t sent an oracle in nearly a century?” Lilith asked. Her voice moved softly, like mist along a ridge.
“Yes.” The Archbishop’s nod was a leaf bowing under dew. “In the years gone by, countless Lamter left the shelter of the Holy Mountain, and cut their own paths in forest and plain, like axes biting green seas.”
“Yet we don’t believe all Lamter lost faith.” She straightened like a pine against wind. “Elves are children of high peaks and deep woods. Wherever we go, some remember the direction we came from.”
The Little White Dragon could feel her resolve, steady as bedrock. She frowned and went quiet, like snow settling. She knew the elder, and all the bishops still holding the Majestic Court, kept faith in the God of Mountains. Otherwise, they wouldn’t guard a peak that spears the clouds.
But Lilith also knew the Majestic Court couldn’t decide whether the God endures. She had learned the world’s marrow. This is a land ruled by thought and vow; what most people believe is what stands, like stones set by many hands.
Even if some Lamter keep the God of Mountains in their hearts, she felt more ordinary elves, walking toward new lives, had left mountains and woods behind, like footprints swallowed by city dust.
The Majestic Court had been unmoored from Lamter for too long. As an outsider, the Little White Dragon might know the present Lamter better than they did. A thought rose like a bird from brush, and Lilith asked:
“Archbishop, forgive me, but how long has it been since you left the Majestic Court?”
The question stunned her, like a bell struck in a quiet hall. She sank into silence, then slowly answered, words like drops from an old eave. “Many years. I settled here long ago. The God of Mountains’ followers have dwindled, but many tasks still wait, like weeds after rain. So I haven’t gone down the Holy Mountain in ages.”
“You mean I should see how the Lamter live now.” Her eyes cleared like dawn. “See how common folk who turned from the God of Mountains make their homes on this soil.” The elder was keen. Lilith hadn’t said it outright, but the meaning flew like a kite in wind. The elf cleared her throat, leaned to Tal and another bishop, and whispered a few words, soft as moss.
Tal’s face creased like bark. He snapped a look at Lilith, like a hawk lifting its head. The Archbishop’s gaze quieted him like snowfall. He swallowed his words, sighed, and nodded.
She nodded back, rose, and patted her robe, dust lifting like pale smoke. “These old bones have lingered on the Holy Mountain too long. It’s time to go down and look.” She flexed the limbs hidden under her wide robes, like roots testing soil, then offered Lilith a hand.
“Come. Let a young outsider lead me through Lamter. This old woman’s going down for a field survey.” Her smile warmed like morning sun on stone.
Lilith took her hand. With that steady support, she rose like a sapling finding light. “I don’t know Lamter that well either,” she said, playful as a flicking tail, “but I have a reliable guide. She should be waiting at the door.”
