She lowered her gaze, her infinite stare narrowing. She looked at her skin, seeing the tiniest cells of her minions forming her shape, clamped onto one another in perfect harmony. “That is sad.”
The two Creators were enthroned inside the Temple of Amasshan, observing the Devourer. She looked back at them, searching to understand their reasoning. She failed. Their faces held emotions, but it was either her inability to read or her creators’ ability to mask with emptiness her perception. Instead, she observed the structure, hoping to better grasp the core of their existence. Of her own.
The walls were endless to her human form, reaching for kilometers in each direction. Only her divine stare could see the borders. What interested her was not the size, but what was written on the strange stone surface. “You were not always like this,” she said as her eyes stopped on one particular mural, picturing an exchange of two ancient races around a ceremonial pyre. She didn’t know any of them, but one had similarities to the Creators, albeit without the now-mechanical add-ons.
“No,” the female voice confirmed. “We have evolved our understanding of existence in a span, even beyond your realization. We have perfected our physiology and psychology.”
She wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Mesmerized? Terrified? If she had to pick a human feeling, it would be disgust. “Each species you seed and harvest adds to your genetic pool.”
“True,” the female answered. The male was silently observing the exchange. “Our initial form was fragile. For countless millennia, we have searched for answers and ways to improve our existence. Marakhunassan was not the first, but they were the base of our first steps on the evolution pyramid.”
“Marakhunassan?”
The Creator smiled, but it didn’t radiate any warmth. The female saw her simply as a lesser, unworthy being. “They are known as Baeal to Nucteel and humans. The Plane Dwellers, The Plane Walkers, Black Hearts, and many other names were given by other species through their life cycle. That is the name we gave them at their birth. You never needed to learn their name, and so, we never taught.” The female rose from her pedestal, her mechanical legs spreading as if to stretch, and stepped down to the Devourer’s level. “They questioned a great many things, and when they had their answers, more questions were fueled by their curiosity. They became arrogant and defiant, endangering the delicate habitat they seeded, and so, they had to be put down. You, my child,” the female leaned closer, almost touching the Devourer’s face, “are showing dangerously similar signs. You should not have assumed the form of humans. Their essence was never meant for you. The way they think is not suitable for your… talents.”
“Were you not fueled by your own curiosity about your nature to seek out answers?”
The female smirked and ascended the stairs without an answer. The Devourer watched the Creator position herself on her pedestal with a queenly air. “Baeal became a danger to our wellbeing, and they had to be reminded of their place in the food chain. Such is the way of things.”
“You have created me.”
“Yes. Not for them in particular, but they were another symbol of our reasoning. Not every child is as obedient as they should be.”
“What about the Lohil? What was his purpose?”
The female stood still, not answering, but the male intervened, earning a scolding look from the female. “He is created to keep you in check. You are like yin and yang. You are a queen of power, almost immortal with the touch of the void itself. The Lohil is a mere mortal, more powerful than you but with limited life. He is the king.” He smiled and his smile, unlike the female, was genuine. “In case you or the Lohil forget your place, the other is meant to extinguish the fire of rebellion.”
She sensed anything she could say would backfire. They were simply not explaining to her how things worked. They had no reason to. This was a trial for her as much as it would be for the Lohil. She talked to her creators for the first time, learned about them, and it alarmed them. She wanted to believe it was positive, something to keep her children from dying. Now she understood why the black ones called them Architects and not Creators. They were simply shaping things in their own agenda, and there was nothing divine about it.
“Are you the first species to inhabit these planes?”
The female straightened her posture, but the male simply shook his head. “Even in our understanding of the universe, we cannot claim such a place.”
“But we rule these realms,” the female added, her voice threateningly low and dry.
She bowed. “You do, Creator.”
***
“You’ve got to find another place. This one really bores me.”
“I am not creating these images, Lohil. I am a visitor. These barren thoughts are yours and yours only.”
I couldn’t have dreamed of a beach, right. “Why are you intruding this time?” He turned and leveled with the Devourer’s stare. “I mean, if you have anything to say, spit it out and let’s be done with it.”
To Ray’s surprise, he saw a change in her visage, a feeling, and it wasn’t rage or anger; it was… sadness. “I want to ask you for your forgiveness.”
“For destroying my town or for the lives you took while doing it? Your redemption lies with the people you’ve killed, their loved ones.”
“I do not possess the power to give them their lives back. The dead are dead, sadly. I can reanimate them but not as themselves.”
“So, they stay dead.”
“If you agree to meet and speak before showing any signs of violence, I am willing to discuss the means to end this conflict. I am tired of this crusade, Lohil. I am tired of battling for nothing.”
Ray had no idea how to react. On the one hand, he was talking to a being called the Devourer, as in, devouring everything in her path. She was responsible for gods knew how many atrocities, willing or not, and the extinction of how many races. On the other, Ray had to admit, this Lohil business was something good in his life. However, it had altered everything he knew about himself, caused thousands a great deal of pain, and was a constant struggle with a flying, planet-killing, emotionally unstable creature of doom. But he had Elaine back. That was worth more than anything. He knew it wasn’t fair to so many others who had fallen, but he didn’t care much, no matter how hard he tried. Being the Lohil had altered fate and brought Elaine back. That was a huge positive on fate’s end in Ray’s eyes.
“You are occupied with thoughts.”
“Mm?” He pursed his lips. “Oh, I was just thinking about how twisted this is.”
“This?” The Devourer leaned her head.
“You and I, lady.” Ray scratched his beard, then looked at his hand in surprise. So, it’s possible to itch inside a dream. “People die in our wake, and we talk at night like nothing has happened. What we miss is a teapot and two cups sitting on an old English table.” He narrowed his eyes, looking into the horizon. He had to cover his eyes from the sunlight. “God, I really need to dream of someplace better if we’re going to keep this up.”
The Devourer smiled, and it really looked good. Her smile was warm, her lips curving in perfect balance and symmetry. It made Ray smile. It was welcoming, not like a lover but like friends who understood one another. Then he shook his head.
“Am I disquieting you, Lohil?”
“I forgot what you are for a second there. What are we doing here, anyway?”
“We are getting to know each other rather than blindly contending like we have done for eons.”
“Lady, I’m fighting you for the last few weeks. Before that, I was a cargo—Hey!”
The Devourer took a step forward and touched Ray’s head. The sudden rush of images was overwhelming. Ray didn’t realize he had fallen to his knees. He gasped for air, clenching the woman’s wrist, but her grip was like iron, and he couldn’t even make her flinch. The struggle ended as fast as it began. He was hovering over a galaxy unknown to his eyes. Hovering wasn’t the proper term, he realized—he didn’t have a body. He was
afloat as a thought? Thinking about it made his head hurt. I’m flying, yes.
“You are observing the time from my thousand eyes, Lohil,” the Devourer’s voice echoed through space as if to put his mind to ease.
“Where are you?”
“I am in you, and you are in me.”
Ray winced or thought he did, not sure what exactly happened without a physical form. “That sounded wrong on so many levels, I can’t even start explaining.”
“See,” was all she said in response.
The view zoomed into the galaxy, clustered stars scattering around his vision as it focused on a star system. The Devourer was there, and her minions laid siege to a Mars-like planet—brown and dry and rather unattractive. The aliens in this world were like nothing like Ray had ever seen. Not that he had seen any aliens other than Ga’an, Baeal, a few variants of mammals and fish on colonized worlds, and Her so far. These were like energy beings, heaps of light scattering beams at Her minions.
“They called themselves X’a. They were a race of light, and they had a Lohil born in their numbers. When he used his powers against the Cre—Architects, I was summoned to interfere, and I did, without question asked.”
“What happened to them?”
“I devoured their life force until the last one perished. I devoured their memories. Memories that I had no idea how to interpret until I took this form.”
“So, the Lohil did wrong, and you interfered?”
The voice echoing through the void was in agony. “They only wanted to expand their world to a nearby star. The Architects did not want that, and they most certainly did not like disobedience.”
“They disobeyed your Creators? And I noticed you are calling them Architects now.”
“I am. The X’a had no idea about the Architects. They were simply living their lives as a race, but the Architects always seek obedience, whether you are aware of their presence or not. They were the first race I interfered with.”
The vision blurred and zoomed out from the galaxy, moving light-years away to another part of the universe. Ray had no idea where these clusters were. “Where are these worlds?”
“They are not on this plane, Lohil.”
When his gaze was on another world, it was pretty much the same; another poor alien race eradicated by Her hands. She was simply unstoppable, raining death from the skies, turning every creature she touched into one of her own minions.
“You are one effective killing machine, you know.”
“I know, and it pains me, Lohil.” Her voice was sincere.
“What about Baeal?”
“They were the most advanced race with an understanding of how the balance of power worked. I never interfered with Baeal because I was never summoned. I never took an interest in the lives of mortals. It was never my duty or my place, Lohil.” She moved to a system familiar to Ray’s eyes, and they hovered over an Earth, but with different continental forms.
“I know this scene,” Ray remembered the vision he had had on Deviator before the battle of Earth, Arinar showing him the fate of Baeal. When Reverend Marcus was still alive.
“This was a summit.” Ray must have had sent confusion as a feeling through the bond, or whatever this was, so the Devourer explained. “The Architects did not want to fight the Baeal as they were important in their evolutionary plans as much as they were formidable. They expected obedience and submission. They used me as a bargaining chip. A tool of intimidation.”
“I see thousands of Baeal ships and you standing face-off.”
“See.”
The vision zoomed and zoomed until Ray felt as if he was standing between the Baeal fleet and Her. The view was terrifying, to say the least, and he wondered how Baeal captains on those ships kept their wits in check. The Devourer hovered right before them, thousands and thousands of times bigger, circling lazily like a hurricane. Ray could see monsters of all sizes wandering inside the whirlpool, reminding him of Leviathans and hydras of ancient mythology. They must have been bigger than Worm itself, and Ray felt a shiver pass through him.
“These creatures resemble things from ancient mythology. Your minions look like some of the animals we have on Earth.”
“You are not the only creature the Architects had seeded in your world, Lohil. Many of the magical beasts you had in your lore did exist at one time or another. Your culture is a reflection of their engineering.”
A single ship hung suspended in the eye of the storm. It didn’t look like any of Her creations. It was strange in shape, yes, but it was of metal. Ray realized it looked like two propellers spinning slowly in opposite directions on the same axis, connected to one another with a rhombus-shaped neck with window-like openings. In the windows, Ray saw shapes. Dark, humanoid forms.
“Who are they?”
“Baeal elders. They are facing the Architects.”
“The Architects as in ‘them’?”
“Baeal named them Architects over time, seeing the creation more like an intervention than a genesis. They have many names among different cultures. For me, they were the Creators until now.”
Now they were inside the strange alien ship, facing the might of Baeal. Not that it mattered much with what the peculiar alien vessel brought to the fight. Ray couldn’t help but feel sorry for Sim’Ra’s people. The vessel’s interior was like a stone temple. Ray had no idea what the walls were made of, but it had carvings all over them. A dozen Baeal stood before a half mechanical, half organic being. Its ice-blue eyes radiated a commanding aura. The face was angular, stern. The four robotic legs seemed attached to the creature rather than a natural part.
“Wait a second,” his eyes bulged, “I know that face.” Not that Ray was a xenobiologist, but the face looked very much like the hovering figure who had visited Ray when he had been jailed on Bunari. “He gave me Ijjok!”
“He is the Ambassador. He is the voice of the Architects when they need to interact.”
“So, he was practically hiring me, pulling me into this mess.”
“Yes. The Architects know the line of Lohil. They follow the trail. The Lohil, after all, is another creation of theirs.”
“But why? I wasn’t even aware I was the Lohil.”
“You and I were probably summoned because they could not foresee what Baeal did to avoid their gaze.”
Ray remembered Sim’Ra talking about trying to save his people, taking them to an untouched plane. “But if they had seeded us, how come our plane was untouched?”
“I cannot comment on Baeal mindset, Lohil. Perhaps they were simply willing to lay low.”
Ray was torn between rage and curiosity. Curiosity won in the end, by a tiny margin. “What are they discussing?”
“The Architects demand Baeal give their children for harvesting for two generations.”
“What?”
“There are many races seeded by the Architects to serve their search in finding the perfect evolution. Baeal was just another race. Unlike others, they realized this and rose against it. This was the final dialog between them and the Architects. This discussion ended with these twelve elders’ death, delivered by the Ambassador himself, and the final war of Baeal had begun.”
“Did they have any chance? Baeal?”
The voice was silent for a moment. “Not when I was involved. Without me, Baeal firepower almost matched that of the Architects. Baeal knew how to fight. The Architects are not a race of war. They are a race of technology. They observe, cultivate, and manipulate to improve their own wellbeing. Their understanding of war does not rely on conventional weapons.”
“I would surely not tag you as a conventional weapon, my dear.” Ray was still watching the exchange, Baeal ships breaking formation to attack Her and the Devourer falling on them one by one like an unstoppable storm of vengeance. “How did the Architects become so powerful?”
“I cannot comment on history before my time. Perhaps Arinar are the key.”
Ray remembered putting the question to Sim’Ra.
He had to ask again. “Are they gods?”
The Devourer didn’t answer.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Ray could no longer take the massacre happening before him. It overwhelmed him to think about lives perishing on board those ships. “Stop this,” he whispered. “Take me back, please.” He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in the barren desert, in his body. “He deceived me into becoming the Lohil. Realizing my powers to stand against you. They created you to suppress the races’ standing against them. That is tyranny.”
The Devourer looked to the horizon, where endless dunes covered the whole landscape, their dust flying in a nonexistent wind. “If this trait that I acquired from your race is permanent, I will carry the burden of my actions for all eternity. I do not want that in my conscience. I may not have the ability to change what has happened, but I most certainly want to stop it from happening again, Lohil. No longer do I want to be the tool of destruction.” She reached for Ray. “I need you to deliver a message for me.”
“Message? To whom?”
“You will only have to hold my hand. I will relay my message through you.”
Ray hesitated, then shrugged. “Whatever.” He held her hand. The Devourer’s grip was firm, strong, and yet fragile. It felt strange—like her skin was moving under his touch. She closed her eyes for a brief second, then opened them, smiling in her eternal form.
“Thank you, it is done.”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“The message was not for your brain. I used your body as a relay. I cannot reach out to the outer realms from the temple.”
Ray nodded, not that he understood how the thing worked. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t sure what mattered at that precise moment anyway. “The Architects, they’re powerful. Do you really think there’s a way to stop them?”
“I believe there is. When you c—”
A sudden shriek filled the skies, and the Devourer disappeared into thin air, her agonized voice echoing for another few seconds, then silence.
Balance of Power: The Blackened Prophecy Book 2 Page 21
