Chapter 331: Interlude: The Emissary
In Jeviel Fidelos’ world, there was order.
Heaven above, Ayther below.
His office reflected this, with its white walls that left no room for shadows. Its pristine, diamond-wrought bookshelves were burdened only with holy texts and not a speck of dust. Its lavish "window" allowed him to view anywhere in the city where Heaven had placed its monitoring devices, whenever he wished. To stare out into chaos from a place of perfect order.
That was what the model on his desk represented, and it was just one of many little luxuries that made his time in this backward corner of Ayther bearable. On it, the globe rotated under a stationary heaven, with little illusory clouds that even indicated the weather.
Hell wasn’t depicted at all, since it was presently a little over a third past the horizon, visible to those on the other side of the continent, but not to Ayther.
A minor tempest was working its way across the northern peninsula of Thera, and he knew it was so because the sphere reflected information sent from Heaven’s own forecasters.
There were never storms in heaven, just the occasional summer rain - well-planned in advance - and nothing heavier than the slight amount of mist that gusted up from the world trees - except when ashfalls sometimes came from Hell.
Weather was a thing of transience. Of chaos.
Of Ayther.
As Jeviel contemplated the globe, he wondered if he should have been a meteorologist, but there was a certain excitement to where he was that no amount of watching would fulfill.
He stood in a place of calm because to these savages - even the ones who claimed some modicum of divine heritage - he was the storm. The arbiter of Heaven’s will, and its wrath.