The Creators Ch. 12

"Congratulations, Bound One," Brandon whispered, "you're alive."

"Oh my god," I said quietly, the enormity of it only allowing a small sound from my throat. I was alive. I had a body, and it was mine, and it was flesh and blood and soul like it was supposed to be. I touched the tips of my fingers to my thumb, and realized that I couldn't remember what it felt like to feel nothing. All those of years of floating between life and death felt like a bad dream that was already fading from memory.

"I love you," Brandon said quietly.

"I love you," I replied. It was strange how little the phrase meant to me. For most couples, the speaking of those three words was a landmark moment in their relationship, but for me, it seemed like we were just speaking the obvious.

"Now..." Brandon sighed, then groaned as he sat upright, "...what the hell do we tell Mom and Dad?"

"We don't; problem solved," I laughed. Brandon did not share my mirth. His blue eyes were narrowing as they focused on the butterfly in the window. I looked inquisitively at the insect, wondering what Brandon was curious about. Then I saw the cityscape behind the butterfly, and the sapphire light that illuminated the clouds on the horizon.

"Did we do that?" I asked. Brandon didn't respond. Then I felt it. A rush of cool wind blowing through the canopy of the arboretum, followed by the sound of thunder. But it wasn't thunder. It was the flapping of wings. Thousands of them. Millions of them. The birds flew overhead, cawing and screeching, moving in one direction, and at an incredible pace.

"Brandon, did you make those?" I asked, trying to keep the concern from my words.

"No," Brandon said in a hushed voice. He was shaking.

"What?" I asked, "Brandon, what..." then I saw it. The sapphire that lit up the distant clouds was brighter than ever, creating silhouettes of the stone towers before it. Then it wasn't just light. It was a sun. Its radius was miles wide already, and growing; an expanding blue orb silently consuming the thinning silhouettes before it and birthing a great impulse of debris that preceded its growth. The wave shot across the landscape, levelling buildings, outdistancing its infernal parent, bearing down on us with frightening speed. I plastered myself to Brandon, my heart galloping in my chest, mortal fear singing its true horror in every part of my mind. The wave traveled across the estate, blew out the windows in Julia's temple, pulsed across the grassy mall, and slammed into the arboretum. Then, there was sound. A roar that vibrated in my skull, ruptured my eardrums and burst the vessels in my eyes. The trees of the arboretum flexed and bent, then tore from their roots. An enormous baobab upended and crashed into the courtyard below, another slammed into our maple. We were tossed against the wall, our bodies pinned by some great wind, the maple flexing in the throes of its battle. The sun was getting bigger. I could feel the heat of it now, and even when I closed my eyes, I could see its light through my lids. I reached out blindly, and felt a hand grab mine. Through teary slits, I saw my brother. He was looking at me, his body buffeted by the infernal gale, his face peeled back with the force of it. I think he tried to say something, but I couldn't hear. Then, I couldn't see. The light became so great that it seemed to infiltrate the backs of my eyes. The world became an image of high-contrast; Brandon's features were just the black shadows in a white ocean, then it was just white. Then it was nothing. I was blind. I was blind, and deaf, and pinned to the wall by the pressure of a sun that was being born on earth. I could feel myself perspiring despite the wind, I could feel the sting of the inferno, then I could feel the drops of sweat evaporating like steam. Through it all, I held Brandon, and he held me, our hands tight in their grasp, telling each other that we weren't alone in the horror of the end. Then, there was another. A strong arm wrapped around me, and another around Brandon, and we were hoisted together upward. Cool air touched my flesh, a free breeze caressed my face, and I screamed into the wind. I was deaf and blind, unable to see my savior, nor hear my euphoria, but it didn't matter. I was alive. I. Was. Alive.

JUSTINA

"I cannot feel my face, yet I am not alarmed; should I be alarmed that I am not alarmed?" Jade mused. I was in the commons area of Julia's temple, where the two-thousand Breytan warriors lounged and moved with exaggerated lethargy. Those who hadn't succumbed to the sleep of Sara's opium were stoned out of their minds, Jade amongst them.

"Just relax, Jade," I replied.

"That certainly isn't difficult," Jade chuckled tiredly. "What sickness did you say this is?"

"Dopasomnan; it's a cerebral infection that targets your dopamine receptors," I lied. I wasn't sure exactly how Lucilla wanted to play this, so I refrained from telling Jade she was poisoned by her allies.

"A brain infection," Jade nodded. "That would explain the auditory hallucinations."

"That shouldn't be one of your symptoms," I frowned.

"Is that so? Well then, can you hear that?" Jade asked me. I cocked my head and listened. It was a low buzzing, then it was a rumble, then a stampede overhead. It sounded like a great migration of birds was flying above us, but it was summer.

"Must be Brandon," I muttered. Then there was another sound. It was a deep sound, a feeling in my chest more than anything. Jade looked at me, and I looked at her. The sound approached at breakneck speed, growing louder, deeper, shaking the temple's foundation with its force. My teeth chattered, my eyes blurred, my skull felt like it was splitting with noise. The roar reached its deafening crescendo, then went silent. No, not silent. There was a high ringing in my ears, and when I touched my hand to my ear, there was blood. Without any noise to match the action, the great metals doors of the commons blasted open, splattering the women in their circular path, and giving entrance to a mighty wind that shattered the window directly across from it. I could actually see the air moving through the wind tunnel between the door and window, then I saw what the air brought with it. Glass shot through the medium like horizontal hail, slicing the Breytan warriors to pieces. They screamed silently, clawing desperately for something to hold onto, their bodies losing parts until they finally lost their grips, and disappeared into the wind of sharp edges. Their feathers, viscera and limbs flattened against the wall surrounding the blown-out window, creating a frame of horror. Blood traveled like writhing veins outward from the frame, the tendrils compelled to snake by the driving air. The lucky Breytans had been in the protection of the western wall when the wind hit, and they stared in abject horror as their sisters were blended into the current, screaming silently by, too many of them still alive, too many horrible realizations carved across recognizable faces. Then we saw the light. It was behind us and obscured by the wall, but we could see it growing brighter, casting shortening shadows upon the mall outside. Jade grabbed me, and pushed me along the wall, not daring to step from it lest we get caught in the lethal current of sharp edges. All the Breytans in the commons area followed us, trying to mold themselves against the metal surface. We were the lucky survivors, but some were luckier than others.

One woman's head was smashed to jelly by a flying shield. One woman panicked and attempted to take flight, only to get caught in the wind that ran traffic through the temple's corridors. She tried to flap back against the wall, but her wings were nothing but bones with dangling gore, and soon after, her body was nothing but separated arms and legs, added to the window frame. It was getting lighter outside, well past the point of daytime. The wall that was our salvation was beginning to get hot. We all shuffled along its surface, following the High Guard as she plodded her course through the temple. It was getting brighter. The wall was getting hotter. Jade moved faster, daring to lift a shoulder from the wall and brave the current of sharp edges. I stayed flat against the wall until it was unbearable, then I squared myself behind her, and ran. Soon, we were all running. My small frame allowed me to stay out of the wind's way, but the Breytans had wings, and many weren't as fortunate. One by one, their bodies betrayed them, the wind catching their feathers and hauling them into the blender, turning the proud warriors into mist. Decades of memories, of experiences, of love and hate and a perspective wholly unique, all culminating to three seconds of horror and agony. But I couldn't think about that. The wall was so hot that I couldn't even be near it anymore. I gave it a foot of berth, and silently hoped that Jade would catch any shrapnel that went our way. I could smell cooking flesh, and I knew some of the Breytans had refused to leave the wall's protection. It was so bright that the world had become one of black and white contrast. Now, I could feel the heat in the air. It was a dry heat, like that of an oven, and I was terribly aware that the steel temple had become just that. We were sprinting now, hunched forward, staring without seeing. I periodically dared a hand against the wall just to make sure I was close enough to it, and I took Jade's belt in my other hand. The woman behind me grabbed my tail to keep her direction, then her hand was a weight on me, and I knew that was all that was left of her. I was blind. The world was white. I shut my eyes, but it was still just white. And hot. So hot. My feet burned against the metal floor, the calluses singed away, the pink flesh beneath tortured with every footfall. My back was burning. My shoulders were burning. I hunched against it, screaming, screaming, screaming. Then, sweet blackness. Sweet cold. I tumbled down a flight of stairs, not caring that I bruised and battered myself along the way. I collapsed into the familiar arms of Jade Tao, and I wept.

ASTRID

The uplift of air from the sun caught my wings, letting me hover above it without flapping. I was high above the clouds, and the shockwave had opened them beneath me, presenting a circular window with which to view Armageddon. The great sapphire ball grew steadily, consuming the metropolis. It looked like a slow process from so high in the air, but my binocular vision revealed that the infernal circumference was expanding entire city blocks in a second. No one was fast enough to get out; not Brandon, not Justina, not Diamond, and not Mistress. Not Willowbud. I prayed that Angela was safe from the Heat Bringer's fire. I vainly prayed for all the people I'd just named, for there was the slightest chance of hope, but one person was surely dead, as evidenced by the color of her lover's infernal wrath. Lucilla Flitari had passed from the world, and the world would pay for her passing.

"Justina," Tera whimpered against my chest. She'd come to me when I walked alone through the tunnel, my mother's body draped in my arms. Then I felt the rumbling beneath my feet, and I picked Tera up, and launched us in the air. Were I not Ionan, I doubted I could've out-flown the great mass of air that precluded the flame. The shockwave turned Mistress's temple to dust, imploded Julia's cathedral, and uprooted Brandon's arboretum, then the fire came to erase what it's forerunner had left. In my white-knuckled flight, I hadn't even realized I still held my mother's body. My arms was locked around it like a vice, and it took considerable effort to relax the muscles, and let her fall. She descended gracefully from the heavens, her eyes staring back, a look of peace behind their lenses. Her lifeless wings caught the wind and spread one last time, then she was lost in the fire. May your ashes fly on the Heat Bringer's wind for eternity.

I shielded my eyes from the earthbound sun, pulled Tera tight against me, and flew away. She wept into my bosom, but I was done weeping. It was not for lack of grief, but simply because there was so much to grieve for, that I didn't know where to start. Instead, I focused on the positives; I was High Guard of Iona now. My deserved birthright had finally come to pass, and all it had cost me, was everything. My god was dead, my mother was dead, and the world was on fire. I smiled bitterly to myself. Mistress would think this was hilarious.

Interlude One: Tell Me Your Story

PETRANUMEN

The Untethered One was trying to make herself small in the armchair, but I was no threat to her. Now that the worst had happened, I did not feel compelled to send her away. I had been torn from my meld, and our separation had done incalculable damage in both worlds. I slid my fingertips against the window, watching the faces pass me. It had been long since I wept for the souls I could not save. Now their perplexed portraits only deepened the pit of Guilt, like a dull spade digging into me, scraping muscle from bone. The wall between me and oblivion was fracturing; the thing they called 'Corruption.' The valley floor had crumbled and fallen to the abyss, leaving only the spires to hold the realms apart, and I could feel cracks forming in the columns. Not much time. Not much time at all.

"Where do they go?" I echoed the words Vitanimus had said all those epochs ago. "Why do they go?"

I was not asking Diamond, but she answered anyway. "To heaven?" she asked quietly, her voice shaking with fear. I smiled at that. What a curious creature this daughter of Passion was. Tear tracks marred her pristine portrait, fear tinged her emerald eyes, but there was an undeniable spirit in her.

"We are in heaven, Diamond," I sighed, sitting on the bed. "This is what it was supposed to be before the worlds broke."

"What do you mean by that?" Diamond asked, holding the Maternal Path against her chest like a shield.

"Mind and matter used to be one," I said, looking at my reflection in the window. "What you call 'the astral plane' was once a part of the physical world."

"How did the worlds break?"

I didn't answer, but watched the faces go by in the window. There were fewer now. They still came continuously, but the cataclysm was done, and the great herd it had created had faded into the nothing. Where did they go? Why did they go? That question was Diamond's answer, but I did not want to give it to her.

"Please tell me... God," Diamond said, her voice small.

"Do not call me that," I said with equal smallness.

"Then what I should I call you?"

"The first ones of language called me Petranumen," I muttered. The name meant as little to me as 'Chaos' or 'Corruption.' It was a label, a simplification to the point of deception.

"Please tell me, Petranumen."

"Why?" I asked. "You have completed your mission, Untethered One. You and your mother have torn me from Willowbud, and damned me to this eternity. Why should I give you more?"

"I was just trying to help," Diamond said, curling her knees up before her. "I didn't know who you were. Please tell me your story."

"You are holding my story," I scowled.

"You said it's a lie."

"And I would like to keep it that way," I muttered. Diamond nodded and stood, still holding the Maternal Path against her. She took five shaking steps across the floor, then strode through the threshold without a look back.

"Wait," I whispered. She stopped, and turned slowly around. I always thought pride was a foolish emotion, but it infected me nonetheless. Sentient life emitted pride like a miasma, and it saturated the walls of my kingdom like chitin. I would be relieved when an abomination finally took the mantle of Pride, and removed it from me, but there was no such creature yet, so my pride had compelled me to gamble with loneliness, and the Untethered One had called my bluff. I was never much of a liar.

"Only if you tell me your true story," Diamond answered. I nodded, and she came back, and I could not conceal the relieved smile that stretched across my face. She sat across from me in the chair, and waited expectantly. I cleared my throat, and began.

"In the beginning, there was no astral plane, for the mind and body were one. Thoughts would percolate from mankind's sentience and take shape in the cognizant winds that blew ever-present overhead, filling the world with the power of the mind. That was where I was born. I began life as a thought. I was an idea that sprouted from the virgin soils of sentience at the dawn of man, and the awakening of worlds. I was wild like my mothers and fathers, who thundered across the plains with spears in hand, but without language in their mouths. We were pure. Our hearts beat to rhythms that echoed in the mountains, that drummed in canyons and whispered across plateaus. We were children. The world was brutal, dark, and untamed, and it was innocent. They did not have a name for me, as titles and labels were still things of the future, but to say they revered me would not be an overstep. For the world of my parents was governed by the prison of rock, and that governance was ever-present in their minds, and so I was born of it, the manifestation of earth itself. You can call me 'Elemental,' but to them, I was a liberator. I could turn unpassable fjords into plateaus and unassailable mountains into passes, and my parents, those who had been slaves to the contours and epochs of time and stone, were set free. From their cages they went, venturing into new lands. Lands of forest and jungle, and life, where new thoughts rode the winds of cognizance; thoughts of creation, of progress, and of destiny. His thoughts. That is where I found him, another like me. He was wild like I was, untamed, unbridled and beautiful. He created herds with a wave of his hand, filled the sky with a blow of his lips, and raised forests with a click of his heels. Our people mingled and merged, not creating a hierarchy, but learning of each other, understanding each other. His people had hooves and horns, antlers and claws, and mine were of brawn and build, distance and strength. We did not define the races as you do, but realized our sameness more than our differences. There were eyes and noses with which to see and smell, ears and mouths to listen and to taste, and skin to touch and feel... to touch and feel.

I had never known the senses that compelled my parents, for I was an idea. My interaction came through the medium of other ideas; the idea of water, the idea of sun, and the idea of life. The worlds were one, yes, but I was a prisoner to the cognizant winds, just as my parents had been prisoners to the ridges and cliffs of our homeland. He set me free. For upon our meeting of smiles and stares, he dared a hand on my shoulder, and my breath... my breath caught! I had never known breath, but it surged into my lungs, filling deliciously before the cadence of my newfound heartbeat. I felt the sweet caress of his palm on my flesh, and the sensation was overwhelming. I ran away, feeling grass and rock beneath my soles, feeling wind across my nudity and exhilaration in my chest. I had thought I'd known joy before, but it was a lie. I screamed the primal joy of life with my mothers and fathers, and rejoiced with them. That night, our people danced as we were meant to; before the roar of a great fire, beneath the blanket of stars. Their silhouettes shifted with the thunder of drums, and their bodies spoke with greater understanding than their tongues ever could. My eyes met his across the blaze, and I smiled. Then I vanished into the woodlands, giggling with the knowledge of what was to come.

I was bathing in a stream. The moonlight touched the calm water with a dazzling of white light, and it reflected upon my flesh in pastel patterns. They danced like aqueous snakes along the long column of my neck, between the ample protrusion of my bust, over the flat of my belly, and down the soft lines of my pelvis. My white hair and eyes marked me as an Elemental, the pale smoothness of my flesh spoke of youth, and the blush of my cheeks and nethers betrayed my desire. He was watching me from the bushes, as pale and white-haired as I was, with a face carved by the hand of some master, and a body chiseled with the same care. He had a tail that wrapped about one muscular thigh, and between that thigh and the other, I saw his want.