7

You see so many costumes and types of adornment that for a moment you can only marvel at the richness of the local peoples' material culture. Painting, tattoos, scarification; skins and furs; weapons of bone, stone, and polished wood; there must be twenty distinct kinds of people surrounding Stralchus. But all of them have embraced him as their master, and if you could remain in this vision, you know you would begin to see the process of normalization, which the mystics of Orthodoxy love so much: idols replaced by Icons, myths replaced by tales of moral rectitude. If Stralchus could weave Byzantine robes, he would put them all in robes, you know, until his "Ziggurat" resembled any street in the empire.

Then you sense the False Icon again, and its smug satisfaction at "knowing" you. The False Icon seems curious about you. It wants to know what you want…in the end. It does not seem to care what you think about Stralchus and his prison, only about your goals. And it takes what it wants. You feel your mind opening up, and you know you cannot lie…