The Summoner by Sevastian

benign.
    It was impossible to distinguish the parade from the crowd. The throng pressed through the main street of the city, flowing toward the outer gates and the burial grounds beyond. In its center, large litters carried statues of the four Light aspects of the Goddess. Drummers pounded, pipers played and the shimmer of tambourines sounded above the din of the revelers. The litters and their statues bobbed above the crowd, held aloft by the press of people The costumes rivaled any Tris had ever seen. There were “nobles” and gaudy ladies, river merchants and legendary heroes, together with no few revelers costumed as the Lady’s aspects; grown women as well as children in the flowing white robes of the Childe; revelers of both sexes in the seductive garb of the Lover; others, male or female, in matronly attire as the beneficent Mother. And dark‐cowled specters in the scarlet robes of Chenne, Avenger Goddess. But Haunts was a night for the Dark Aspects as well, and on this night, darkness held sway. Even more partygoers preferred the painted finery of the bitch Goddess, Luck, and they tossed candy coins and painted cards to the crowd. Others swaggered through the streets in the tawdry glamour of Athira the Whore, needing no skill to mimic the rolling, drunken gait. Like dark shadows in the torchlight, gray‐cloaked partygoers played the role of Istra, the Demon Goddess, appearing insubstantial as wraiths in the wavering light and wafting smoke. Hunched figures old and young took on the visage and tattered rags of Sinha the Crone.
    One goddess, eight aspects—four Light and four Dark. Tris had always suspected that the aspect a person venerated said as much about the person as it did the kingdom and traditions from 47

    which they came. Margolan was partial to the Mother, although many within its borders also worshipped the Childe aspect. Isencroft, on Margolan’s eastern border, gave homage to Chenne, the warrior. Principality, to the northeast, home to caravans and mercenary companies, traders and roustabouts, was partial to the Lover. Eastmark, Principality’s southern neighbor, venerated the Whore, a favorite of gamblers and paid soldiers. Dhasson, to Margolan’s west, encouraged adoration of all of the Lady’s faces, save for that of the Crone. Dhasson’s reluctance to embrace Crone worshippers was natural, given its southern neighbor, Nargi, whose sour‐faced priests ruthlessly enforced the Crone’s ascetic doctrines. Trevath, Margolan’s southern neighbor and frequent rival, shared Nargi’s veneration of the Crone, but in Trevath, known for its mines and fine carpets, such worship was much more practical, serving to enhance the power of the
    king.
    The Dark Lady was the patron of the vayash moru, the undead who walk the night. Few mortals gave homage to the Dark Lady, though her name was a frequent oath. Of the eighth aspect, the Childe’s dark mirror aspect, even fewer spoke. Worship of the Formless One had ceased generations ago, and now, if the most terrible of the aspects was mentioned at all, it was with a nervous glance and a sign of warding. Nearly all of the residents of the Winter Kingdoms made at least nominal reverence to one or more of the aspects, although Tris heard that some followed the old ways in secret, the belief in the spirit and power of the rocks and trees, the streams and dark places under the ground.
    Those ways, it was said, were the ways of the Winter Kingdoms a millennium past, before Grethor Long Arm invaded from the eastern steppes, spreading his influence as his reign in Margolan prospered and his power grew. His mages were more powerful, and his wealth and power seductive enough for belief in the One Goddess of Many Faces to gradually supplant the old ways, though elements of the superstition and blood sacrifice of those ways lived on, in the cruel worship of the Nargi, thinly overlaid with the trappings of the Crone.
    As Tris watched from his bier, a young girl