He exhales softly.

“Your wife, does she know?”

"No," he says too quickly. It's difficult, difficult to keep a secret from Galora, harder still when she is your wife. 

But his every day - every moment calculated, that he spends near anything that could connect him to the great work - he has been so careful-

“You have died seven deaths alone. Seven times have you buried your corpse with your own hands.” He sighs, squeezing his shoulder. “Tell her, Ambrose. You isolate yourself prematurely.”

And he draws him into a hug.

...He leans into it, a little hesitantly. 

Ophel is so warm.

"And what of you, old friend?" The questions comes easily, now. 

…

He pulls away after some moments, his eyes so tired so tired–

“I… fear I find myself in a position where I require much from you. Information, guidance. A guard.”

Ophel turns and climbs the steps of his throne again, and sits down heavily upon it. He leans against the side, wearied, his fingertips pressed to his temple.

“There is something I have sought for many decades. Recently, I have received confirmation of its existence. I know that you have delved into ruins, and into the lost Arts. I know that you have learned much that should have stayed dead and forgotten.”

His Holiness turns the full force of his gaze upon the wizard.

“What do you know of the Desmoterion?”

He steels himself, and does not quail. 

The Dawnfather could reach down and with His hand shatter the mighty spells Ambrose has wrought to hide and guard his thoughts - but He probably won't. 

And is there really anything to lose now?

"...I thought it was a myth. Or a metaphor, maybe. I know one of your predecessors declared it blasphemy to speak of it - and then even that decree was scrubbed out of history. The Prison of Gods? The Forbidden City? How is that even possible - where is it - how can you lose a whole empire -"

The Most High raises a hand. His rings glimmer like stars.

“A band of adventurers seem to believe that they have found it. I need you to take me there, Ambrose.”

He's been here before, too. He's old enough not to trust his own assumptions. 

Spellweaving breaks that habit, too. Make the wrong assumption about what a new incantation does and you might not live to speak another.

"Found what?"

He levels him with a stare.

“The very place gods die.”

The Citadel is a deserted place, now. When they step through, they can catch a glimpse through a high window of the yoke of the heathen, parts of the town burned down and not rebuilt, still dark and lonesome. 

Their footsteps echo in high halls left barren, swirl up dust, crush gloomy cobwebs. 

There is a room here within a room within a room, and a forbidden passage like a cave, and a place so full of the dust of ages that it chokes. 

There is an arch of a curious make, unfamiliar, pitted, of grim stone. 

Through it lies-

-A windswept place under a foreign sun. 

The side of a mossy hill where strange insects whine, sun gleaming on purplish carapaces, crumbled marble like chalk under their feet. 

And below them a valley like a bowl, and the skeleton of a city that should not be. 

…

They stand there upon the cliff, looking down at the city lost to time.

Empires fall and civilisations crumble. Those toppled columns could once have been a temple. The rubble at the perimeter could once have been city walls. 

They are not the first mortals to have come here since this place was forgotten. There are disturbances in the dust. That is a good sign.

An old feeling begins to stir from its long slumber. His heart beats.

“This is the place.”

He murmurs an old old charm like a song.

"This place has known strange magic."

Like a veil, many times folded.

It unbalances him, sends a strange shiver up his spine. 

Closer to the centre, the city is more intact. 

This thoroughfare once, visible from their hill, was the Street of Gods. Hundreds and hundreds of temples clustered, foreign stones reassembled on foreign soil, huddled and crumbling like the bones of flocking birds. 

The tombs of deities. Foreign and heathen gods, both good and evil, forgotten. Laid to rest here, lining the path ahead like a parade.

The adrenaline floods his heart. He reaches up and clutches, only for a moment, only when his companion has turned away to peer at some ancient inscription.

There is little time to waste.

He walks.

"Incredible," he mutters. 

There are drifting whispers, of course, of old gods, dead gods. 

To see the city of them - dozens? hundreds? it confirms and disconfirms a hundred theories - to put it like that seems to diminish it, somehow.

 What is the true nature of the gods? How many of Them are there? What are They, really?

No mortal knows. 

Yet. 

He watches the Most High, very closely. 

Statuesque. Impossible to read.

He treads the straight path and does not falter. There is only one temple he seeks.

“There.”

Plain grey stone like castle walls. The door has long since rotted away, and the doorway sags around it.

There is little left here. Smashed statues and cracked altars. The idol of the goddess has been dragged away. 

Ancient red paint is daubed on the walls, illegible. 

From his sleeves he draws out a long thin scroll. 

"Ambrose's Perspicacious Palaeography."

𝐹𝑂𝑅 𝐻𝐸𝑅 𝑅𝐸𝐵𝐸𝐿𝐿𝐼𝑂𝑁 𝐴𝐺𝐴𝐼𝑁𝑆𝑇

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑅𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇𝐹𝑈𝐿 𝐴𝑈𝑇𝐻𝑂𝑅𝐼𝑇𝑌

𝑂𝑁 𝐻𝐼𝐺𝐻

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐿𝐼𝐺𝐻𝑇 𝐸𝑇𝐸𝑅𝑁𝐴𝐿

𝐺𝑅𝐸𝐴𝑇𝐸𝑆𝑇 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐸𝐿𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑇

𝑃𝐴𝐸𝐿𝑂𝑅 

𝑇𝐻𝑅𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝑂𝐹 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑊𝑂𝑅𝐿𝐷

𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐻𝐸𝐴𝑇𝐻𝐸𝑁 𝐺𝑂𝐷𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑆 𝐼𝑂𝑀𝐸𝐷𝐴𝐸

𝐼𝑆 𝑆𝐻𝐴𝐶𝐾𝐿𝐸𝐷 

𝐶𝐴𝑆𝑇 𝐼𝑁𝑇𝑂 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐷𝐸𝑆𝑀𝑂𝑇𝐸𝑅𝐼𝑂𝑁

𝑂𝑁 𝐸𝐴𝑅𝑇𝐻 𝐴𝑆 𝐼𝑁 𝐻𝐸𝐴𝑉𝐸𝑁

“The rightful Authority?” He whispers, mutters to himself, but even quiet words desecrate the long-dead space. 

Greatest and eldest.

Something is wrong here. Something does not slot cleanly into his understanding of the worlds.

He is growing distracted. His treacherous heart grasps at other things, things beyond the mission.

Iomedae.

The Lord shackled Her.

But…

Pelor walks with him still, knowing his intent, knowing the blasphemies that take root even at the core of His Church, in Ophel’s own spirit, there is something missing here, there is something…

“Ambrose. Others walked here, only some days ago. Where did they go?”