Cult of the Great Deeps

Also: Culto Grandi Abissi, Culte de la Grande Mer

Under the sacerdos Ruidero there are amongst society those that worship, in most case secretly, with the culte.

A society that accepts only those suitable, probably useful, certainly those that are influential, into its quiet little congregation. If the nereids are assumed to show its possessor as a cultist to the majority of citizens, then so too is the culte little more than a society for the rich and the indolent, a place of pleasures and decadence that chases increasingly elusive thrills.

To the agitators the culte is the secret ruling comite of the aristos, aristos-within-aristos that not only keep close the many secrets of Parquet, but which orchestrate and rule every aspect of the citizens lives. Especially the crueller, more terrible aspects. But not the good aspects, the culte according to the agitators has nothing to do with them. The late Ingvar Garboorg was the most outspoken of these, persistently and against all good sense laying Parquet’s common buggery as a result of the culte’s slippery fingers. Ingvar (whose angry orations often touched stickily upon the subject of buggery) was found dead not a year now gone of a surfeit of practise-quality Parquet anal-racing snails. Even her fellow agitators don’t sound convinced when apportioning blame for that to the culte.

What is true is that in a society willing to gossip about anyone, to slander everyone, and delight in any rumour with a salacious whiff about it, few care to discuss the culte, and to change the subject when it is brought forth by the naif. It is assumed that there is a temple beneath the many known temples of the caelum. That there the culte meets masked in the grand tradition of masks in Parquet, but a tradition that takes its seed from this one. Stories, if rarely discussed, remain widely known. Conflicting as they are the secrecy of the culte ensures that where stories contradict each only reinforces its mystery. The most accepted, meaning those that agree, believe the culte to have been a Troges conceit, but one they themselves purged or had cause to pass into obscurity. It cannot be denied that Ruidero (the latest in a long line) when called sacerdos is named that for being the priestess of the culte.

The cult of the great deeps, le culte, doubtless merely the harmless society of the naughtily important members of Parquet society. Almost certainly that, no matter what tales one hears. Not that anyone would spread such tales because, well, you never know who might be listening do you?