Just Like You

Chapter 5: In the palace

Standing alone in open countryside, but also an easy walk – no more than ten thousand paces – from the centre of Taa An, Luxalia’s most populous city, the palace was by far the largest building of any kind in the Great Land, possibly the oldest and undoubtedly the only one intended to inspire certain thoughts and feelings in the minds of those who saw it. Its architects had responded well to urgings from the early priests that it should appear imposing, with a suggestion that it had existed since the beginning of time, but not too grand. Grandeur could suggest that Luxal ought to be worshipped, and that had not been the reason for inventing him.

Even though it was useful to say he had created all the natural things in the world, implications that he was some kind of divine being were carefully avoided. If people thought of him in that way, they might start to believe he was talking to them directly rather than through the priests, and there was no telling what sort of trouble that could lead to.