The Creators Ch. 13

JUSTINA

I had never hunted before. Though I was the product of millions of years of predatory evolution, it seemed that I didn't have an instinctual bone in my body. Even if I did, I didn't have the stamina. A life of being a bookworm had made my muscles soft and small, and I was pouring sweat just from walking. From far away, the Gratoran Wall was an imposing monolith that jutted impossibly from the landscape. It seemed somehow mythical and unobtainable, as though it could only exist from a distance. But once upon it, the Gratoran Wall simply felt like an exhausting hike through the woods.

I wiped the sweat from my brow, and rested against a boulder. The forest canopy was so dense that I couldn't see the sky, but I could see down the incline I'd ascended. I'd once read an orienteering book that estimated the rise in elevation of a hill. From my perspective, I was only a fifth of the way up to the tree-line. After all that reading, after all that research and self-indulgent studying, all I'd gained in the end was enough knowledge to despair upon my helplessness. Perhaps if I'd instead pursued more useful avenues, like some fucking back-squats every once in a while, then I would have the tools to climb this goddamn mountainside and... and do what? Live up here forever? There was no pass that scaled the Gratoran Wall. It was sheer verticality from the North Sea to the South Sea, interrupted only by Droktin's Pass. The only creatures that left this place were birds and valkyries. Jade Tao had gestured with both hands at the possibilities my life would take me, but in a sick turn of irony, the truth was that my very short life would end atop this narrow mountain range.

"I want my mommy," I muttered uselessly, tears burning down my cheeks. Tera had been more than just my mother; she had been my entire life up until the last few tumultuous months. Now she was gone forever. Selfishly, I wished Diamond had killed her, for then at least I could carry on with the knowledge that Mom's last act had been for me, but now I had to live knowing that my mother no longer cared for me at all, that when Corruption had taken Mom's pain away, she had taken away her love for me. I had been a parasite all along. It was all I ever was.

I sobbed to myself for another self-indulgent hour before my belly rumbled loudly, alerting me to the sobering fact that I was starving to death. There was another selfish part of me that romanticized dying alone atop the mountain, succumbing to starvation and withering away in defiance of all that happened to me. It was so tempting to not have to change myself, to wallow in my self-pity and stubbornly die as I had lived, for then I could at least delude myself with the idea that I was bound to some sort of code, that my life choices had been my own, and that I would stick with them until the bitter end, but alas, I was hungry, and that hunger drove me to my feet. I looked up the mountainside, and through the dense trees, I could make out the stone peaks of the Gratoran Range. I didn't know anything but hunting, but in the books I'd read, the hunters always stalked their prey from a vantage point. Higher. I needed to go higher.

It was near midday when I finally emerged from the forest, and the world opened up before me. Above me, the jagged snowcapped peaks stabbed straight into the sky, and below me, the great vastness of the Gratoran Desert stretched from horizon to horizon. The forest that had seemed so endless now looked like nothing more than a ribbon upon the open landscape. It sloped downward in a mosaic of lush green, then ended suddenly. The sheer cliffs of the Gratoran Wall made it seem as though a space had been cut from the landscape, a space meant for the gradual gradient of the mountain's foothills, and then the landscape had been haphazardly stitched together from forest to desert. It was just forest for a few miles, then suddenly a faraway desert. The foreground and the background was there, but the midground was missing. I was so mesmerized by the vertigo-inducing image that I didn't notice the woman standing thirty paces from me.

"Stay still," the Ioanan valkyrie said, aiming down the haft of her drawn bow. "Do not move, and perhaps I will not shoot."

I stood rigid and unmoving, my bronze flesh becoming nearly as pale as hers. Like Astrid Skyborne and her mother, this valkyrie was statuesque and muscular, her face featured with stoic nordic beauty, her white wings catching the sun, her body clothed in leather armor decorated with furs. Her hair was red and braided in tails, and her face was smattered with freckles, but her eyes were the same steely blue, and there was no hesitance in her expression.

"It's not often that an eagle gets the drop on a snake," she mused, pacing toward me. "But then again, you slithering whores usually aren't stupid enough to leave the trees."

"P-p-p-please," I whimpered, holding out my hands.

"I thought we scourged the holy mountains from your kind's infestation. Tell me where your nest is!"

"I-I-I-I-I d-d-d-don't—"

"Calm your slithering tongue, whore!"

"I-I-I-I d-d-don't h-h-h-have a n-n-n-nest!" I stuttered frantically.

"Where are you from?"

"T-T-T-Towerhead!"

She cocked her head, and scrutinized me like a bug. "There is no 'Towerhead' on the holy cliffs, whore. Speak the truth!"

I tried to force my tongue into action, but it was as paralyzed with fear as the rest of me was.

"That dagger you have—it is a Breytan weapon," the woman said, narrowing her eyes. "Where did you get it?"

"I... uh..." Where the fuck did I get it?

"Five seconds, whore!"

"...um... I..."

"Four, three, two—"

"From Jade Tao?" I answered with a squeaking inflection.

The woman stopped, casually dipped her bow, and shot me right in the foot. For a second, I only felt the impact. In that blissful second, I stared with wide eyes at the clean split of flesh and bone that had formed in the top of my foot. Then the pain came, and I fell shrieking, clutching my foot and writhing as throes of agony crawled up my cramping leg. Through my veil of tears, I saw the Ionan approach me with another arrow drawn, this one aimed just a bit higher.

"Another lie begets another arrow!" the woman snarled. "Where did you get the dagger?"

"Jade Tao!" I shrieked, "It has her family crest on the hilt! She gave it to me!"

The woman blinked, then glanced down at the dagger. Now that it had fallen from my hip, the insignia of the Tao crest was displayed right on the hilt for her keen eyes to see. She looked back at me, her gaze narrowing even more. "Why would the honorable High Guard ever give a family heirloom to a wretched cave-dwelling whore?!"

"I am not a cave-dwelling whore!" I screamed through tears of pain, my panic taking hold of my tongue, "I am a scientist and a scholar! I was meant to be shut away in some library happily whittling my life away in a book before some fucking asshole came to my mom's house with his dead sister and ruined everything!"

"Quit your prattling nonsense!"

"Oh, fuck you! I was already having the worst day of my life before you came and shot me in the fucking foot!"

There was a twang followed by a thud, and then an explosion of pain in my shin. I screeched as I clutched about the haft embedded in my leg just inches above the one stuck in my foot.

"The next one will be in your eye!" the woman growled, and stepped just five paces from me. "Tell me the truth, or the next lie will be the last filth your slithering tongue utters! Five, four, three, two—"

"I KNOW ASTRID SKYBORNE! I SAVED HER LIFE!"

"Lying whore!" the woman drew back her bow sharply, then paused. She considered me from along the haft of her arrow, then asked, "what is the sigil etched upon the Blade of Iona?"

"It's an eagle atop a mountain peak," I blubbered. "There's a scratch along the eagle's wing from when Astrid disarmed her mother in their duel. She was supposed to get it repaired, but it was a guilty source of pride for her."

The woman's eyes went wide. Her bow trembled in her hands. "What is your name?" she whispered.

"Justina Autumnsong!" I sobbed. "I'm the cousin of the Earth Former, eminent of the Life Giver, and I want my mommy!"

DIAMOND

When I emerged from the vessel, I was in Xaya's cube. Unlike Voda, this place was filled with water. Its vastness was concealed by the murky blackness of its medium, but high, high above, I could see the faintest dot of light. As I swam toward it, I felt the waters shift and contort around me, trying to pull me down, but I paid it no heed. Xaya battled my ascension with the last of her will, and I calmly pursued her, drawing ever closer to the light until the entire world was bathed in its brilliance. The radius of illumination was at least a mile, but it did not intensify to blinding levels as I drew toward its center. It stayed a steady and brilliant white, all of the energy wreathing a single figure that floated in the ethereal water. The resistance of the water lessened on me the closer I got, and eventually, it ceased all together, as if Xaya finally realized the futility of it all. She stretched her arms out to her sides as if in greeting, and watched my approach.

Xaya was a creature I had never seen before. Much like the statues of her kingdom, she had a long reptilian tail, hair made of scaled tendrils, and a curvaceous pale-green body accentuated by patterns of scales that rounded her curves and dotted her brow. Her sclera was a dark green, her aqua irises were slitted by snakelike pupils, and her serpentine hair floated about her head like a crown of reptilian tails, each tendril seeming to act autonomously.

Why have you come here? Xaya asked with her mind, her lips unmoving.

I came here for Voda. I'm not here to kill you.

You could not kill me even if you desired. Only your mother can, and so I submerged my kingdom where the Destroyer could never reach it.

Then why are you so terrified of me?

There are worse fates than death. Xaya studied me carefully, and said, Petranumen, Vitanimus, Elementals.

What?

If you walked into the derelict kingdom of Freedom, then you must know the truth. It was ancient history when I came to be, but not so ancient that the memory was lost. She floated around me. My mother was the first Life Giver after Vitanimus. In a sense, she was the first Creator, as Vitanimus, Petranumen and Joy were—

Oh, I know Joy! She's Hatred now! Yeah-yeah-yeah... 'a thousand years they are as one, like conjoined twins of the sun!' I giggled. She porks like a hyena, I tell ya.

Xaya stopped, and seemed to study my forehead. I see now the nature of your meld. She keeps a secret from you, but I will break it.

Ooo, I love me some juicy gossip.

Petranumen was the Elemental of earth, her lover was Vitanimus, the Elemental of life, and her daughter was Joy, the Elemental of water. In the early days before abstract thought, the astral and physical planes were one, and so when the body died, the mind could carry the spirit on the astral winds. Once abstract thought came to be, the astral plane separated, and death became the end. Vitanimus discovered the power of tethering, and Petranumen forsook her earthly power to become the astral god. Joy donned the mask of Hatred so that she could become an Elemental of fire, and she was tethered to the astral sun to forever connect the two planes. With the astral plane tamed, the kingdom of Freedom was created, but a cataclysm occurred during the blood corona sliver, and the tether that held the astral sun was cut. Joy died, the kingdom was destroyed, Petranumen killed Vitanimus, and you, Diamond Gendian, have already forgotten everything I have told you.

Honestly, I just kind of zoned-out for the last two minutes.

Petranumen could not leave her derelict kingdom, for her guilt was made manifest around it, and it threatened to consume her. It was only by donning the mask of Corruption that she could come to earth, but she could not remember herself. For eons, she blindly attempted to reclaim what had been lost; to meld with the Earth Former—for whom she had great affinity—to bind with the Life Giver, and create a new Creator from their joining, one that Petranumen would possess, as Corruption always possessed the child of power. Then with her infinite knowledge, she could direct the Life Giver to tether the Heat Bringer to the astral sun, and once again create the kingdom of Freedom, and defeat death.

Xaya's voice was so pretty, but the words she said just wouldn't stay in my mind.

She almost succeeded with Willowbud, but something happened. Your mother happened. You became the child of power, but... Xaya narrowed her snakelike eyes, ...but this doesn't make sense. I watched you carry Petranumen in her totality through the astral plane. If your mother bound to Petranumen directly, then why does she persist in you like a Sentient? She brushed away the hair floating before my eyes. You killed her.

Who? I asked, getting bored. All I remembered from Xaya's prattle were the last three words.

God, she whispered.

Did I? I grinned. Well then, you shouldn't be so much trouble. And I grabbed her by the face, and kissed her deeply.

Interlude: Wisdom

CORRUPTION

I opened Diamond's gate, brandished a fishing pole, and cast my line. The bobber plopped into the calm river between realms, and sent a ripple outward. The ripple didn't slow as it grew, but accelerated, moving faster and faster until its edge struck a distant lonely mountain, and then moved beyond. The fishing-line unwound from my reel, following one of the stone paths I had revealed earlier, curving and twisting through the river, drawing a dark line of disturbance until it disappeared into the astral horizon. For a moment, there was nothing, then the horizon line became darker and bolder. Then there wasn't a horizon line, but a vast wall, something so immense that it defied logic. It stretched across the landscape, and hurtled toward me at astounding speeds. I reeled in my catch, and whistled to myself as the realm of Wisdom crushed the mountain into dust, and decelerated before my mother's gate.

Wisdom's iron gate was framed with ostentatious stonework of aquatic life and reptilian women posed in various states of meditation. The massive stonework wall towered a thousand feet about me, and spanned seemingly forever to my left and right. Wisdom was very old, and her realm was vast, the largest of all the Tethered Ones. I discarded my fishing pole, and touched her gate. The perfect black ironwork turned brown with rust, then disintegrated. Keeping one foot planted firmly in Diamond's realm, I stepped into Wisdom.

The jungle foliage that carpeted Diamond's astral floor sprouted from my foot, and spread into Wisdom's realm. Vines flowed up the walls behind me, thorns spouted from their stems, and they began taking root in the cracks and crevices of the stonework, blooming outward and slithering like tentacular appendages, branching and growing faster and faster until they were but dark lines racing across the wall that divided Wisdom from Diamond. Soon, not a single face of the stonework could be seen. Then, the wall collapsed. The vines deflated upon themselves as though nothing had ever held them up at all, crumpled into a long pile where the wall once was, then spread outward into Wisdom. Now there was no divider between realms. Now, these realms were one. I lifted my planted foot from Diamond's realm, and took another step forward.

Wisdom's realm was an immense flatland covered with manicured grass. Her thoughts manifested themselves as trees that towered miles into the sky, higher than most mountains in the physical world. The branches of the trees were not separate from each other, but interwoven neatly and precisely, creating a basket-like shell of wood and leaves that formed around the monolithic trunk. The strange trees formed ovoid shapes in the sky, like enormous basket-woven eggs with trunks planted into the ground. Each thought was so complex that its knotwork was impossible to comprehend, and yet so comprehended by Wisdom that the complexity of the thought formed a simple, elegant shape. The trees were separated across the vast field by miles and miles of distance, but they were so numerous that I could see thousands of them stretching across the flatlands.

I skipped gayly through the alien dreamscape until I came upon a break in the continuity. There was a small hut, and seated outside that hut, was the reptilian creature herself. She was reading from a book, and rocking back and forth in her chair.

"Hello!" I called cheerily to her.

She looked up at me, her reptilian pupils narrowing, and she closed her book.

"Do you remember this place?" she asked me. "It was but a patch of grass when you first came here." She tossed the book at my feet. It was a very old rendition of the Maternal Path. "It originally said, 'on the third day, the Holy Mother created Inanity, and the ignorant knew true bliss,' but I did not become Inanity. There were hundreds more of us that you tried to attribute your third day to, but we all rejected you until Halok succumbed. It wasn't enough that you fed your lie to the masses; you tried to infect the very manifestations of thought with it. In one way or another, you've always been trying to retake what you've lost."

I cocked my head. "I am a stranger to you, Xaya."

"You're the same foolish woman you've always been."

"I imagine you think everyone is foolish, Wisdom, but I am not ignorant of my naivety."

"Are you not? You have been living in perpetuity with the delusion that your plans for salvation would come to fruition with just enough perseverance, with just enough willpower, but you always knew it was in vain. You did not don this black visage to save mankind from death; you donned it to forget your life, to forget the truth that you could not hide from when you walked back into the empty annals of your mind! An Elemental soul can be tethered to the astral plane, but a mortal's soul—even a Creator's soul—cannot be tethered to the astral plane. You will never be able to tether the Heat Bringer to the astral sun. You will never fix the broken bridge. Your dreams of heaven are a fool's hope; they always were."

"Those aren't my dreams. Those are the dreams of a dead woman."

Xaya studied me for a long time, then said, "what do you want, Corruption?"

"Some quality company more than anything."

She glared at me, her lids sliding horizontally across her eyes like a lizard's wink. "Even if you take me, our time together will be but a blink of an eye. Your tether is cut, your realm is gone, and you are melded and bound to mortals. You are already dying."

"That's why I'm here."

"There is no cure for death."

"You told me yourself there was."

"Did you not hear me?! You failed! There is no way to undo what has been done!"

"The failure of Petranumen wasn't Freedom's demise; her failure was much older than that. Vitanimus and Joy thought the solution was forward, but Petranumen knew in her heart that it was behind them, and she was too weak to do what had to be done. I don't seek to fix the bridge. I seek to fill the chasm."

Xaya's face paled. "No," she whispered, "it is impossible."

"For anyone but me, it would be."

"You cannot!" she screamed. "Even if you tear down every wall in the astral plane, even if you stitch it together like some mutilated cadaver, you can do nothing to the plane below! You will never remerge the planes!"