Three dozen men in a winter swamp at dusk, cold, shivering, and hungry. At the front, the newest initiates swayed, their eyes glassy and their jaws slack, still rapt with the awe of her transformation, their blood still thickening with the mark of her favor. The few who had heard the truth of his voice and thrilled to the echoes of the goddess with him. Ovur looked out from the pulpit over the men who had come to his call. The air smelled of decay and winter, and the ruddy, early sunset bled across the wide sky. For candles, they had smoking torches of wrapped grass and fat. Here, the pews were not carved oak upholstered with silk, but stones and logs stinking of rot and cold. Here, in the lands to which Ovur and his priesthood had fled, the pulpit was not ancient granite adorned with gold, but a low platform of rough wood rimed with frost. And one day, they would be true temples, untainted by lies and error. All through the world, the banner of the goddess flew above great pillars and windows of colored glass. In Kaltfel, the temple was ancient stone, and had been dedicated to some false god before the Basrahip had sent Ovur to remake it as the center of her truth in the new-conquered land. In Camnipol, it was said that her banner hung from the great tower of the Kingspire, goddess and throne made one. The heart of the goddess, her new temple-her true temple-had neither the grandeur of the cities nor the simple dignity of the Sinir Kushku.
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