The Creators Ch. 13

"Mom?" I whimpered.

She glanced at me, and her blissful expression became one of pure loathing. "You get one warning, Justina. Only one. If you ever call me that again, I will kill you. Slowly."

"What...?" I sobbed.

Mom slid out of the water, and stepped right up to me. She loomed over me; her face twisted in contempt. "I was a huntress once. I was a creature desired and feared by all. The world was mine, and I gave it all away for... you. All for a little shit who can't even tie her shoes without needing to be rescued." Mom levelled a finger against my throat. "I wish I could say you turned out this way because I coddled you too much, but I coddled you too much because you were so goddamn weak. I should've left you under some tree in the wildlands and let the wolves have you. Then you would've given someone some happiness."

"Oh, burn!" Diamond giggled behind me.

I just stared into the pits of eyes I'd known so well, those eyes that had shown me love, compassion, and safety all my life, now reflecting nothing but my anguished face. I couldn't meet her gaze any longer. I turned away. She walked past me without a glance back, and headed to the north.

"Where are you going?" Diamond called.

"To find some dick," Mom answered.

"I have some."

Mom sneered cruelly over her shoulder. "You don't have much, Diamond, and what you've got ain't worth the effort."

"But where I'm going does."

"And where's that?"

"The Gratoran Desert. Mommy's raising her holy army from the corpse of the orc empire," Diamond giggled as Mom slowly turned, her interest piqued. "You won't find better dick anywhere else; I promise you that."

"It'll take weeks to get to the Gratoran Desert from here."

"Just over a day by wing."

Mom cocked her head, then shrugged. "Fine then. But if you think I'm going to call you 'Your Holiness,' you're fucking dreaming."

"Friends should call each other by their names," Diamond tittered. She turned to the flock of kneeling Breytans. "Alright, Ladies, do your stretches and jumping jacks, and pop a squat if you need to poop; you've got a long couple days ahead of you."

"Are you not coming with us, Your Holiness?" Jade asked.

Diamond just smiled. "I've gotta go run some errands."

DIAMOND

Justina watched me as she was carried by Jade Tao into the sky. I wondered idly if I had permanently ruined her relationship with her mother, then I wondered why such an idea excited me. Corruption did indeed fetishize pain, and to say I had mommy issues would be a gross understatement. I recalled the way Mom objected when I told her I wasn't going with her to the Gratoran Desert. "But Diamond, you are the bearer of God's enlightenment! You must come with me to share your truth with her children!"

God, it was stupid. I loved my mom, but I wished Corruption had kicked some sense into her brain instead of entrenching her moronic theology. I was the god of water; why the heck would I want to go into the world's largest desert?! What was even more annoying was that she seemed to think my every musing was a message from god. Since apparently God was speaking directly to me, the mere act of picking my nose had divine meaning. After a day with her, I couldn't stand it anymore. I told her that God wanted her to go west, and that I had a holy mission to conduct myself. She didn't even question me. She just hit the jets, and rocketed toward the horizon. Though I had said it to get her out of my hair, I wasn't being entirely untruthful. I was infected with a nagging desire to seek the depths of the ocean, and I knew it was Corruption who compelled it. The darn Sentient had an agenda, there was no doubt about it, but I didn't care. Wherever Corruption wanted me to go, fun would soon follow.

I looked down at my reflection, at my black-eyed face, my expression of innocent jubilance now turned into something sinister. There was a gap in my memory that explained why I had become what I had become. One second, I was opening the final door to Corruption's final realm, the next, I was in a whirlwind of fire and water upon Drastin's glassy surface with my mother in my arms. Every time I tried to remember what had happened between those points, my head began to ache terribly, and my mind sought to find an immediate oasis in distraction. I touched the water's surface with my forefinger, and a ripple shot through the shallow medium like a shockwave. The pulse showed me everything the ripple touched; the fish, the plants, the corpses of the women floating in the water. Guess I was a mass-murderer now. Huh. Fancy that. I wondered what Mother—Passion—would've thought about that? She probably would've disapproved, but she's a dead old whore, so who gives a darn what she thinks?!

I walked across the water until I was standing over the open ocean, and tapped my toe to the surface. The ripple pulsed out and downward, showing me everything for leagues far and deep. A whale and her calf were swimming two nautical miles north. A megalodon was pursuing a great tortoise ten miles to the southwest. A troop of mermaids was promenading beneath the waves with their trusted pod of dolphins. I grinned excitedly, and dove into the water. I shot through the medium like a rocket-propelled harpoon, moving so quickly that shockwaves exploded behind me. I slowed when I came to the troop and their pod, then casually swam up beside them.

"Hi!" I said, my voice carrying through the water. "I'm Diamond!"

The mermaids stared at me, their bodies humanoid from the waist up save for the gills that scored their throats. The leader, a man with a great white beard, blinked at me, and a telepathic message was sent to my mind.

What are you?

I'm a half-nymph, half-elf!

The man blinked again. You're much more than that.

Well, I don't like to brag... I casually checked my nails, ...but I'm also a new kind of Creator. They call me the Water Dancer.

The merman relayed the message to his troop, and there was a raucous and silent conversation that passed between the eyes of the ten mermaids. Finally, he turned back to me. We are... incredulous.

I twisted my wrist, and a great tornadic maelstrom appeared before us all, towering from the water's surface to the sea floor, stretching a hundred yards. Though it tore great chunks from the coral reef and sucked in immense boulders like they weighed nothing, those around me swam in waters so calm they couldn't even be felt.

Convinced yet? I giggled mentally. Or do you wanna go for a ride?

We're convinced! the merman said urgently, his eyes bulging at what he'd just witnessed.

Cool-cool... So, do you guys wanna worship me, or...?

What?

Well, since you guys live in the water, and I'm the water goddess, I figured it would be a natural fit.

The mermaids all looked at each other, then looked back at me. The merman spoke very slowly to me. We already have a water goddess. Her name is Xaya, and she rules the hundred seas and blesses us with bountiful—

She's made up. Total phony, never existed, just an old tale told by ancients too stupid to understand the world.

The merman blinked. She is our most sacred idol.

I reached out to my side, and a great swell of water surged forth, carrying with it, hundreds of bluefin tuna all trapped together within the confines of a spherical water prism. I dumped them before the troop and their pod, and the fish bolted, swimming every-which way, filling the void space with flashing colors and frantic movements. The dolphins rushed after them, gleefully collecting the massive fish in their jaws.

Did Xaya ever do that for you? I asked impatiently, crossing my arms.

The old merman just gawked at what I'd done.

I sighed. Look, clearly you're not the voice of authority, so who is? Where is Voda?

The merman's awed expression suddenly became very hard. I know not of what you speak.

Yes, you do, I giggled. I'd had more than enough of this doddering old bastard. I rushed to him, took him into my arms, and breathed Corruption into his gills. The Sentient power blew from my lips and infected him, rushing into his eyes, nostrils, mouth and gills, contorting his face into a terrible ecstasy. His eyes rolled back, then darkened until they were black pits. When they rolled forward, they were void of any humanity. I grinned and swam back, curious to see how this would play out. One of the mermaids asked him a telepathic question, and he whirled on her, thrusted his trident, and impaled her through the guts. Before any of the others could react, he downed two more with strikes to the throat and chest. Then, they were on him, thrusting their weapons, piercing him as he pierced them, hacking and sawing into each other until limbs were floating in murky clouds of blood, and the bodies were slowly sinking into the blackness below.

The predators were in the periphery now, already attracted by the slaughter of tuna done by the dolphins who now swam frantically around their embattled masters, yipping and signaling to each other, trying to make sense of this horror. And as the sharks waited in the distance, the mermaids continued their onslaught, unable to bring down their corrupted leader as he delivered deathblows to those he had once called 'friend.'

The crimson cloud faded. Only the old man remained, though he was dying quickly. His right arm was hacked clean off, his flipper was shorn and gashed, and his right eye had been gouged out. The left eye stared at me as I approached, the sclera still black with corruption's infection. Though his front teeth had all been knocked out, he still managed a ghastly smile when I floated to his side. I smiled back. I found kinship in that smile.

Where is Voda, you old dead piece of poop? I asked him, and caressed his broken cheek.

Piece of poop? he croaked mentally.

Mom doesn't want me to swear.

Your Mom's a stupid cunt, he sneered bloodily.

I giggled, and took a grip of his white hair. You're not too wounded to die slow.

He hacked blood into the water between us, and roared with silent laughter. I tittered back, and formed a blade with the water. I took my time with him, and though he writhed in agony as the chum was cut away from him, he still laughed with me all the while, sharing in the secret joke only we truly understood. The water around us grew red again, and the sharks moved in to collect the bodies we'd left and the pieces of old man I fed them, but the bastard wouldn't give me anything but his horrific smile and bulging left eye. In the end, I slit his throat out of respect, and let him float away, laughing his last laugh all the way into the awaiting jaws of a great white. The sharks cleaned up the big pieces, and the barracudas cleaned up the smaller pieces, and soon there wasn't anything left of the mermaids but their metallic weapons slowly sinking into the black below.

The pod of dolphins was huddled together in defensive positions, snapping at the predators if they came too near. When the feeding frenzy ceased, the pod dispersed, and swam listlessly about. I watched them passively, not wanting to appear as a threat. Though I was the Creator of water, I did not have an affinity for sea-life, and could not bond with these creatures as mermaids could. The pod leader was an older male, and though I was perhaps anthropomorphizing him, I felt that he shared many of the same traits as the old merman I'd turned into living fish-food. Perhaps this creature had been that old merman's pet. The dolphin lifted its bottlenose, and wiggled back and forth for a moment. It then issued a command to the other dolphins, and they all swam in line behind him. Once in formation, the water-bound wolfpack swam with a purpose directly to the west. I waited until I was out of their sensory range, and then I followed them.

JUSTINA

From our vantage point atop the Gratoran Wall, the Tentigo Tropics could barely be discerned in the distance. It was an immense rainforest that stretched between canyons and along shorelines, seeming to fill-in the brutal landscape around it. No one knew much about the Life Giver, Tentigo, but his rainforest inexplicably persisted on the outskirts of the Gratoran Desert. Tentigo's time was long before Gratora's, so perhaps his rainforest predated the desert that stretched across the landscape, but I doubted it. The ancient mountain range formed a rain-shadow for the western lands, and Gratora's desert had undoubtedly been there millions of years before it was ever named after her. Had Tentigo tried to defy the world's climate, and create a tropical paradise over the desolate land? It seemed like something a Creator would do, but ultimately, even their power was limited by the elements they claimed mastery over.

These were the things that I pondered to avoid the horrible reality in which I found myself in. I tried not to look at my mother as she prowled around the camp, sniffing the air like a hound for the scent of a man. As the sun rose behind the eastern horizon and bathed the Gratoran Wall in brilliant hues of orange and violet, my mother's features became darker and darker in the shadow until they were completely faded, and only her predatory profile was visible to me. Her head suddenly cocked, and she froze. I sniffed the air, but I could not detect what she did. I just watched her as she slowly crept toward the brush, and then suddenly disappeared into the wild with a flash.

"She will be back," Jade said to me.

"So what?" I hissed, tears running down my cheeks. I wiped them away, and looked at the samurai High Guard.

Jade prodded the cooking pot between us, and steam flowed from its lid. "She still lives, Your Eminence. You should count your blessings."

"Count my blessings," I snorted.

Jade frowned at me. "I have lost almost all of my friends, and my mother as well, and yet I do not share in your bitterness."

I glanced at her. "Your mother died?"

"She was killed in Her Holiness's fire."

"I'm sorry, Jade, I didn't know."

"Why would you?" Jade's frown deepened. "I never introduced any of you to her, and she would never have it. She lost her duel with me, and I took her place. To make herself known would be a great dishonor." Jade pointed her chopsticks at me. "But I always sought her wisdom when I was conflicted, and I was often conflicted with Her Holiness. Now I only have my own wisdom, and it is woefully scant. You and I are in much the same predicament, I fear."

"Yes," I muttered, and looked Jade squarely in the eye. "What has happened to my mother has happened to Julia, you know."

Jade nodded. "It was a contingency I planned for; I even accepted it." She fumbled with her food. "But that was before the cataclysm."

"What are you going to do?"

"Whatever Her Holiness desires of me."

"Even after what she did?! Jade, if you follow a corrupted Julia, you are following a monster!"

Jade chewed on a mouthful of rice, then swallowed, and pondered the fire. The orange flames danced in her dark eyes and cast dramatic shadows across her face. "We are not too far from Breyta right now," she mumbled. "If you look to the south, you might be able to see its outline. Breyta—the god, not the mountain—was said to have been born from the fire of that volcano. It is more likely that she simply made it, but she created her own legend, and the word of God is truth."

Jade put down her bowl of rice, and looked up at me. "She created the codes we live by. She is the reason a samurai would rather kill herself than face dishonor. She is the reason we train constantly for war, but always practice peace. What we were before her, no one knows. Nobody knows what any of the winged warriors were before Ofan, Iona, and Breyta. The point I am making, Your Eminence, is that we are no one without our god. If we do not serve to our fullest capacity when the gods are here, then we are but hermits in the hills, wasting our lives in preparation for something that only comes once every few thousand years. Think upon the generations of Breytans who perfected their craft, practiced day in and day out, honed their skills to the most elegant of points, and then watched them dull with age, only to come to the sobering realization that they were one of the lost generations, just caretakers of a purpose they would never realize. How can I let all of their sacrifices be in vain?"

"You've seen what Julia will do when she's filled with that poison," I hissed.

Jade nodded. "It is terrible, but it is her will. I am no one; just a tool. In time, my very morality will be changed by Her Holiness, and you and I will never have a conversation like this again, for there will be no room in me for such uncertainty."

"You can't just do nothing!"

Jade smiled her placating smile. "Are you truly speaking to me right now, Justina Autumnsong, or to the reflection in my eyes?" She stood up, drew a dagger from her hip, and tossed it at my feet. "Diamond is not my god. I am not obligated to heed her command unless my god says so. If you let us take you to Her Holiness, you will be killed this day. Perhaps your mother will be spared because she is a useful weapon, but you are an atheist succubus who once sided in opposition to Her Holiness. I fear that your end will be gruesome."

"Where am I supposed to go?!" I growled, more tears falling upon my cheeks.

Jade looked out over the world that stretched on either side of us, and raised her arms to her sides. "Where ever you so desire. This land is so vast that it is beyond measure, and you are young and unshackled. You stand at the starting line of your life; I suggest you take the first step."

And with that, Jade poured water onto the fire, turned around, and walked toward the rest of her troop without a look back. The bushes to my left rustled, and Mom emerged from them, looking much fuller than she had only a few minutes ago. She walked by me, and as she sauntered over to Jade, she connected eyes with me behind the veil of steam. Those black eyes bespoke no affection, no love at all. The only thing I saw in them was a single little request. Perhaps I had envisioned it, perhaps my grief had taken my mind, but in that little glimmer, I swore I saw something more than just the black apathy of Corruption. It was so subtle that I was nearly certain it was a fabrication, but in my desperation, I saw it. A plea. Run away, Justina. Please.

I nodded to her, and she turned around without even acknowledging me. After wiping away the last of my tears, I took one last look at the Breytans marshalling upon the outcropping of the Gratoran Wall. In my mind, these great warriors were flying to their horrific and inevitable doom, but there was nothing but jubilation in their ranks. Their god was alive, and they were going to serve her. Even Jade, who knew the breadth of the danger she was walking into, made her speech to her sisters with a radiant smile upon her face. She never once connected eyes with me. When she was done, she had one of her warriors take my mother by the waist, then she leapt from the outcropping.

The winged samurai followed after, the silver streaks in their wings flashing as the sun rose higher on the early morning sky. They were all gone in the time it took me to blink. I stared at the vacant outcropping, and fought the urge to go sprinting over to it and call for Jade to come back and take me with her. With Mom. I stiffened my upper lip, clutched my dagger, and turned toward the wilderness.

The mountains of the Gratoran Wall loomed high overhead, stretching thousands of feet up into the thin cold air. I did know what manner of man or beasts were up there, but Mom had fed upon something while she was in that wilderness. My stomach growled, and my primal instincts whispered to me. I took a deep breath, and took my first step.