Rendezvous in the Romanowskian Empire

41. Beware of the temple of Ishtar

The goddess had black horns for head and wings at her back, which seemed to carry swords. She wore golden linen, matching the gold used to make her statue. One of her feet was trampling a chained lion that she controlled.

I shivered at her facial expression. She had the scariest face with a huge grin stretched across her lips. As if mocking my decision of entering her temple.

Bells and different musical instruments electrified the air with their rhythm, enclosing the area in its own world when it was probably three in the night.

As the women of our group offered their plates one by one, I decided to check around where the music was the loudest.

One look to my right and I jerked my head in the opposite direction, heart beating like crazy.

Shit, what was that?

"Th- Thalia," I nudged her, "What is... happening there?" She looked in my pointed direction and cringed.

Scantily clad women were dancing, so aggressively that any more, and the pieces of cloth would fall off them. Their hairs were open and swung around wildly as they twerked to the beat of the music.

"T- They must be... offering their services to Ishtar," She looked at the golden statue of the scary goddess, "you know... they are dancing to please the goddess," She gave an uneasy smile.

My heart stilled for a moment. Was this the ritual, the priest was talking about?

"Do we have to do it too?" I gasped.

"No, no!" She looked at the wild dancers in horror, "They seem like temple dancers. It's their job, we don't have to do it," I exhaled at that. Although I knew how to dance, their's was just too indecent to copy.

As my turn came, I stepped forward with Thalia to offer our plates. Noticing the priestess to be an old woman, I asked her, "Apologies mistress, but could you tell, why are they dancing like that?"

She looked up, her face judging mine for a while, "foreigner I see," Mumbling to herself, she took the myrtle from my plate and flung it over the goddess.

"Their dance depicts the various forms a woman takes during her union with a man," she said plainly.

I tried to keep my face as neutral as possible at her embarrassing explanation.

When she peeked at my blank face, she sighed, "You visiting for the first time?"

"Yes, we are Greek, that's why..." I informed.

"Hm, so you should know that Ishtar is a Mesopotamian goddess, just like your Greek goddess, Aphrodite," she started.

"While Aphrodite is just related to the affairs of love, Ishtar is the goddess of love, war, consummation, fate, storms and many more.

"You Greeks come here to seek more blessings of Aphrodite, by worshipping her Mesopotamian form, who is Ishtar," she concluded, arranging the fruits at the goddess' feet.
Thalia narrowed her eyes at the old priestess, who was obviously thinking us to be greedy for blessings or something.

After praying, another priestess fetched us back to the hall where now there were more men than women strolling around. It was a bit worrying that the priestess of Romanos wasn't here. She had left us with this seemingly wicked priestess.

When she didn't lead us out but ordered to stand by a wall in one horizontal line, I was confused.

"Thalia," I whispered, "Isn't the offering done?"

She had her hands clasped in front of her, fingers violently fiddling with each other, "T- The real off- offering will start now," she trembled.

"What?" My heart sped up. Before I could ask about it, two voices screamed in my head.