Many Years Ago Jarah looked her daughter in the eye and said, "Remember, child: The Gods are under our control." Lillah stared, her pale face tear- and sweat-streaked. She swallowed back her fear. "Yes, mama." Jarah smiled, her heart breaking. Lillah's bravery was strong, despite her few years. She was on her first birth. How many mothers could say that their child was truly their own? How had those seven years gone so quickly? Jarah still thought of Lillah as a babe, nestled against her breast and sleeping the emphatic sleep of the newborn. Lillah had been a bright, happy child, a streak of light in the darkness of a world falling apart. The Unraveling had happened; the End of Times. The end of the world. Lillah had been born in time to see that. That she would stand strong against that reality made Jarah's matronly heart swell with pride. Overhead, the sky--already a prism of dark colors, each clashing among violent black clouds--seemed to crumble. "There's another dead," she said, stepping out from beneath the rock, worry thick in her heart. Dying now meant she would never make it back to the world. They had too little time left. If the world broke, no one could ever return. That was the cold reality. The broken sky quivered, then began to realign itself. Wind tore about her and Lillah, nearly knocking them to the grass-covered hillside as it congealed into a solid form. "Lythra," Jarah whispered, shocked, the Goddess of Despair feeling an apt choice at this moment. "Who is controlling you?" She looked at token on her vial, clicking it through the options. Some of the sigils were gray, an indication that the deity was already in the mortal realm. One of them was blood-red. Her hand trembled. Lillah looked at her with fear and worry. "They killed Kurnos," she said to her daughter, her voice hoarse. "Don't you mean dismissed?" asked Lillah. She had learned much from her mother in their short years together. She knew enough that gods didn't die...usually. "Deicide," said Jarah. "The killing of the gods." "Who would kill the gods or goddesses?" asked Lillah, a streak of blood on her forehead congealing in the cut from when a piece of a boulder exploded beneath the theopolemic between Tlemnon and Anylla. They had been fortunate to escape to this place in the steppes--far enough from where most of the fighting was happening. Jarah glanced up at Lythra, who now had enough air to form three legs. This was no normal Invocation: There were multiple teka pulling the Goddess of Despair here. "Those who want to stop reincarnation, love. Those who think we deserve only one life, and a short one at that." Lillah's eyes diamonded with tears. "Why?" "That much, my love, I cannot understand myself." Jarah watched Lythra's claws shimmer into a windy reality. While she could only guess how many teka were operating together--and how much ichor they had claimed to be able to manifest Lythra this way--Jarah knew that the deities would remain for less time. The teka involved would likely die to keep Lythra there. That kind of devotion could only be found in one religion: The Terminus Cult. They were keen on stopping the constant recycling of souls. Only by keeping all of humanity in the AfterWorld--or so they believed--could peace ever be permanently attained. Fortunately for her, Jarah had a way to stop them… The earth to Jarah's left split with a gut-watering crack. Lillah almost fell. Jarah grabbed her daughter, steadying her. "Stay close to me," she said. Lillah nodded against her mother's side, eyes closed. About them, the wind howled. "I'm scared!" she shouted. "I know!" Jarah gave her a squeeze. "Stay strong for me. We'll find shelter--" Before she could finish her poor excuse for a promise, the crack that had opened near them surged. The ground roiled with what looked like maggots, all a fiery orange. They spasmed, pulverizing the stones nearby. It sounded like a pot of grease sizzling, only louder. Dust drifted up from each new abuse, only to whip away toward Lythra. The Goddess of Despair--where terror and grief intersected--had finished her formation. Jarah remembered then, the first thing she'd learned as a teka: When mortals fought, creation died. Someone had brought out Orgos, God of Rage, his size and power more than she had ever seen done. Whoever was fighting the Terminus Cult was equally committed. A guttural groan tore through the air, louder than the whirling wind or the crushing rocks. In a burst of sound that she felt more than heard, Jarah and Lillah slipped and tumbled over, landing in a painful heap on a stony precipice. Like a mound of writhing snakes, each a searing orange that turned and writhed on top of each other, Orgos rose to engage with his hated enemy, Lythra. Of course, he only hated her because the different teka insisted he did. The two would fight because they were forced to. There was nothing more powerful than fate or a teka, so far as a deity was concerned. Jarah reached about to the small of her back. There, tucked in tightly on her belt, was the Blade. If she could just find one of the teka Invoking the deities and spill their blood on that Blade, she would break the connection. It would liberate the gods and save the world. At least, that was the assumption. She had cornered more than one theologian to demand if her hypothesis was correct. Most thought she was right; some thought it would do nothing. A few thought it impossible--that the goddess or god would intervene to protect the teka. Some argued it would destroy the world, an idea that made Jarah laugh. With the Unraveling happening anyway, what did they stand to lose? Kill the teka, kill the god… Deicide. Jarah swallowed. She'd never done that before. Lythra reached out with one of Her right hands and grabbed Orgos. Her left claw sharpened and drove itself into Orgos' main mass. The Goddess of Despair wrenched her claw free--a two-pronged claw with a joint in the middle at least as tall as Jarah--tearing a gash in Orgos' writhing body. A spray of orange worms and the dark ichor of a god cascaded down, drenching the area with its viscous fluids. Jarah gasped and covered her head, the heat from the ichor burning at her flesh. In a panic, Jarah grabbed Lillah and hurled herself from the rocky precipice, leaving the verdure behind her to melt in the puddle of a God's blood. Not too far away, Jarah had crossed a shallow stream to get to where she thought she and Lillah might be safe. She returned to that same stream now, splashing in to quench the stinging pain. Her fur-lined hat slipped off her head. The thick fibers of the fur had caught a great deal of the scarring ichor, protecting much of her face. The large overskirt that went from shoulders to her knees likewise absorbed the danger. She had not put her hands back into their leather gloves after using her token--a mistake she now suffered for. The pain in her hands glowed, and she could swear she heard her skin hiss. A quick glance to Lillah showed that she was untouched; her mother had shielded her from the acidic blood. The water calmed the pain and washed the ichor away easily. Lillah was crying, clearly scared by what had just happened. Standing up from the stream, Jarah felt much of her outer clothing slough off, molting into the stream with a gurgle as the ichor choked in the water. She ignored it. The cold bite of the wind made her teeth chatter. "Don't worry, my sweet. We'll solve this. Come, they can't be far." As the theopolemic clashed, she and her daughter scurried to find one of the teka in control. Theomancy relied on proximity emotion. The teka had to be close. Out of the corner of her eye, Jarah saw Orgos lose another chunk of himself to Lythra's claws--her other five hands swung down in punishing arcs, smashing away more and more of Orgos' form. Lythra lunged at him, her two forefeet landing with an earth-trembling crash. Her human-like hands reached out, grasping. The large claw, each snap sending a miniature gale outward, thundered as it swung in. Orgos opened a hole in Himself, letting the claw pass through uninhibited. Not connecting with her target threw Lythra off balance, and she fell into Orgos' multi-tendril embrace. Hot pseudopodia, like flaming tongs of a whip, spun about the Goddess of Despair, catching themselves in her wind while melting her. The hole in Orgos' center sealed tightly, burning through her arm and sending the claw crashing toward the earth in a mist of dark ichor. The ground vibrated with the Goddess' pain and fury. Hands, each finger longer than a horse, grasped at Orgos' amorphous being, tearing away chunks in geysers of ichor. Not too far away, armies raged, cannon belched, gunarchers fletched, and soldiers' qiang pierced through ranks of enemies. On this hillock, only the howling of the wind, the mourning of the gods and the tremors of their power could be felt. Lillah tugged at her hand, pointing. "Momma! Look!" Jarah turned, staring in the indicated direction. There, nestled in a nearby valley, was a collection of people, dressed in acolytes' robes, standing in a circle. In the center was a large saucer, filled to the brim with ichor, which simmered as they Invoked the necessary emotions. They were controlling one of the deities. "Come on," said Jarah, scurrying forward with her daughter close by. "We can end this." Behind her, she heard Orgos rage. She spared a glimpse over one shoulder and saw a tendril the width and length of a tree formed off to one side, sweeping toward Lythra at a blinding speed. The goddess took the blow with one arm, the limb severing at the shoulder. The mass of whirling colors and wind from which the limbs came shuddered at the impact, and a gush of ichor spiraled away from the lost arm. This limb, too, dissolved in a gush of air upon striking the ground. Puddles of ichor hissed as they bubbled and eroded the battlefield, chewing at rock and grass with equal relish. Orgos' tendril, however, had not finished the attack without damage to it. Where the pseudopod had connected, a massive crack formed, shattering the length of the stiffened form. From each crack jetted more ichor, the dark fluid falling like rain. If she didn't end this quickly, she'd drown in an acidic flood. Redoubling her speed, she charged closer to the ditch where the acolytes huddled. Wind whipped her hair as she ran, making her shiver again; she ignored it--ignored where the ichor had melted through her clothing, leaving sensitive skin exposed, ignored the cold heat in her hands where she could almost feel scars forming. She had to stop it. She had to kill the teka in the act of Invoking a goddess or god. That was the only way. Her only hope. Lillah stumbled, skidding her knee on the ground and crying out. Jarah's momentum was enough that Lillah's hand tore free of her mother's, Jarah taking three large steps before being able to stop. It wasn't much. Only a moment or so. But Lillah's cry broke one of the teka's concentration--they were now almost in their midst, there was no way they couldn't see the would-be attackers as they came down the hill--and Jarah saw an instantaneous decision flicker over the female teka's face. The hand of a goddess--the palm bigger than an emperor's tent--stretched toward Lillah, the edges shimmering as air created the form. "No!" It was a worthless word shouted more to deny reality than stop what was about to happen. Jarah reached out, straining to get to her daughter. Lillah held her hands out. Their fingers almost touched. Then the hand closed around her and Jarah felt the air rush free of her lungs as her daughter was swept up into the mouth of a goddess. The swirling vortex that enveloped her little form soon bore Lillah from sight, the wind rushing past Jarah also freeing tears from them and robbing her mouth of air. She felt the pressure of suffocation pushing into her chest. Panic and despair--the delightful flavor that Lythra so relished--surging through her. Lillah disappeared from sight. Jarah dropped to the ground, her grief so sharp that she each body-wracking cry stabbed her heart. Lillah was gone. Dead. Stolen. As much as Lythra relished the despair rolling through Jarah's body, it was nothing compared to the surge of rage that Orgos suddenly received from the same source. Orgos lurched forward, unhinging his jaws. With a mouth large enough to swallow half a dozen horses, Orgos bit through Lythra's turbulent midsection, tearing the windy iteration of Lythra in half. Yet the goddess didn't disappear--her teka wouldn't dismiss her. That meant the teka who had ordered Lythra to kill Lillah were still trying to get the goddess to fight. They were nearby, just behind her… Without pausing to think, to consider, Jarah regained her feet, unsheathed the Blade--that familial heirloom about which she had heard so much--and dove at the hunkered teka. They were distracted, trying to get their goddess to obey when they died. The first lost her throat, the second was unseamed about the belly. The third lost a hand when he put it up to stop Jarah's bloody retribution, then was kicked into the ichor-holding saucer. His body instantly started to sizzle as he screamed and writhed in the torment of his body being dissolved. In a pique of fury, she drove the Blade deep into the man's chest, pinning him in the large saucer. Ichor splashed over her, over the Blade, over the man. She didn't care. The remaining three teka fell back, their concentration too shattered to matter to Lythra, who lay on the ground, hemorrhaging her ichor onto the steppes. Two began to run, their eyes wide with panic. "Come on!" said one to the final teka, a woman who stared at Jarah with contemplative eyes. The woman took a step back when her friend tugged on her sleeve. "Leave her, Honu. It's over. Let's go!" The woman called Honu, without breaking eye contact with Jarah, retreated a half dozen steps before turning and running away. Sobs overcame her exhaustion and pain, and Jarah sank to her knees, hot tears coursing down her now-scarred cheeks. A wordless scream of rage at the injustices of the world broke from her, a cry that seemed to echo and reverberate over the battlefield. A dim sense that she needed to protect herself, to wipe away the ichor, pushed its way forward. It was only then that she saw the Blade. Driven almost up to its hilt in the sternum of the dead teka, strings of blood and ichor swirled up its blade and handle. From wherever the ichor touched the green metal of the Blade, a light began to glow. The body, rapidly melting with a horrendous stench to accompany it, sank lower. Jarah swallowed, looking over at the corpse of a goddess as it, too, began to glow--no, almost burst--with the same quality of light. A loud crack, one that was powerful enough to make her think that the world had just broken in two, shattered the air. The Blade billowed out a bright light, and then Jarah could remember nothing else.
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