by N. M. Howell
As the tears began to flow, Eduard was lifted into the air; he was slammed back and forth until he wished for death, barely conscious and in absolute agony. Something inside of him trembled; it choked him and burned his insides. It was the black star cast by the prince and now someone was controlling it. Standing over him was a beautiful woman with brunette and a white cape. She looked furious. He managed to raise his hand in an effort to cast a spell, but she stomped the hand to the ground, crushing every bone. Eduard writhed with pain.
“You have not the slightest idea what you cost me today, boy,” she said. “I cannot use you because your brother’s magic became mor’lumière and yours became soufflumière. Combined, you now possess borglumière. You do not know the displeasure you cause me now.”
She reaches down to grab him and drags him by his hand. At that time she had not the followers and reputation she would later gain, but what she did have was a cruel heart and as she dragged Eduard through the streets she was planning the unspeakable torture she would treat him with. The both could not resist her and merely kept his eyes on the body of his father.
“What do you want of me?” he asked.
“For the time being, I want you to suffer. The rest we can get to later, but don’t worry. I did not create you simply to watch you die. I may salvage you yet. Or at least parts of you.”
“I am in pain and I need help.”
“I daresay the power you’ve stolen from me will be returned.”
Then the sky burst open in an explosion of lightning and sound and color. A void appeared suddenly in the clear morning sky and a face showed itself. A great, magnificent face, not human or creature or anything describable. Meeygra screamed, spun her cape, and disappeared. Eduard stared up in his agony at the void and the face within it.
“Who are you?” he asked, not knowing whether to fear or not.
“I have been many names. I have been many deeds. But this and the last age of man have known me as the Almighty.”
Chapter 10
Once there was peace on the earth. Once there was joy. In those olden days such things as fellowship, courage, and honor were universal. The people of the world were one and knew no other way. But such times would not last.
The Almighty reigned in Heaven, fair, kind, and strong. He loved the people of the earth and often walked among them, bringing miracles to lands that already knew contentment. In those days it was not uncommon to glimpse him atop the mountains watching over all, or drifting over the sea to guide ships to safe harbor. It was a bold and happy time in the age of all being, and evil - though indeed already in the world - was merely a gust on the land, broken and shamed by everything good and warm.
In Heaven above were the Warriors, formed by the Almighty as protectors should that ancient, chained terror ever rise again, a foe so old and so devastating that the Almighty had been sure to bind it in the cosmos before the realms were ever given life. The Warriors were fierce and honorable creatures. They had no true form and appeared as whatever they pleased. They, too, often came among the people and although procreating was forbidden, the Almighty encourage fellowship and celebration between Warriors and the people.
Pleased with the way of the world and seeking a reward for the good faith and loyalty of the people, the Almighty set his mind to a new plan: he would appoint select creatures from the land and give them the power of Heaven. He chose first among humans, a beautiful woman who had slipped from a promontory the morning of her wedding. She had been immeasurably kind, patient, and eager to love and provide. He held her soul in the palm of his hand and breathed on her. She became the first human Warrior.
Time passed. A millennium came and went. The woman had done well in Heaven, but the Almighty was disappointed. The woman did all she could, but she was only human. She had not the strength or the spirit of a true Warrior. She was a poor imitation. And she knew it. She had continued to serve, but had recognized her failure long ago. For centuries, her heart grew blacker and blacker until she became a sad, bitter, angry thing. Her heart and mind and spirit were being torn apart by her inability to combine her truly human nature with the condition the Almighty had forced on her. She wanted so badly to be good for him and to prove he had not made a mistake, but the pressure of her thousand year failure was crushing her. She had very nearly grown insane. The Almighty decided to cast her out.
“Laoren, come,” he commanded.
“What does the Almighty need of me?” she asked, unbelievably beautiful as she knelt before him.
“You have been with us here for more than a thousand years. You have served, and loved, and been as true as your heart could bear. You may be the most worthy human to walk the earth thus far and I have cherished you. But your time here is done. You must leave Heaven.”
A group of Warriors were walking past the open doors of the Hall and heard the Almighty’s pronouncement. With heavy hearts they went on their way to spread the news, but two stayed behind. The two entered the Hall.
“What?” Laoren asked. “Have I not served you well enough? Can I not redeem myself? I must be allowed to make up for my shortcomings, I know I can please you. I realize I am but human, that my spirit and my ability are far less than you deserve, but it is all I have to give you! Increase me, give me the capacity to belong and I won’t let you down, I swear it!”
“Peace, Laoren,” he said. “There is nothing that can be done now, outside of your banishment. Take pleasure in this second life I give to you. You can return to the earth and begin again.”
She was in tears. She had never been hurt so deeply, so thoroughly that the pain burned through her very being. There was nothing she wouldn’t have given to be spared this, to be given just one more chance. Even in her life on earth she had never felt this. Unwanted.
“How can I start over? The world I knew has been gone for centuries, everything and everyone I ever knew and loved. My family, my friends, my betrothed. There’s nothing for me to go back to! I do not know this world or its people. Unlike the other Warriors, I haven’t been able to cross between Heaven and Earth. I spent thirty years in that world and more than a thousand here. How can you not want me here? I beg of you, just one more…”
“Enough,” said the Almighty, calmly, almost a whisper, as if it mattered little or not to him. “You cannot change my desire.”
“This is most unfair,” said Throdan. “You cannot banish one who has been of such service. For a millennium she has kneeled at your feet and given as much of herself as her nature would allow. You must have known when you plucked her from the earth that she would be limited, through no fault of her own.”
“I have decided.”
“We beg you to reconsider,” said Traega, rushing forth. “This woman has only Heaven in her heart. She is our friend, and the friend of many other Warriors. Let her remain here, if not as a Warrior then as a help to one of us. She belongs with us.”
“I have decided.”
“We will take responsibility for her,” said Throdan, eager to save his companion. “There is nothing in Heaven or earth we would not do for this poor soul.”
“She is dearer to us than you imagine,” Traega continued. “She is a joy to us. Please do not take her from us. You yourself chose her. You esteemed her so highly that you shook the very promontory she stood on and caused her fall.”
At this Laoren looked up. It was impossible. She could not believe that he had murdered her and then lied to her every day for a thousand years. She stopped crying, stopped feeling. She looked up at him.
“You murdered me?”
The Almighty stood and with thunder and fire he stepped forth and shook the very walls with his judgement.
“I cast you out.”
He raised his hand and a great light started in his palm, but Throdan and Traega placed themselves between him and Laoren. The Almighty lowered his hand. Nothing was said, but he knew that they had decided to go with her; so great was their friendship that they could not bear to be away
from her. Throdan turned, knelt, and took Laoren in his arms.
He took flight, Traega just behind him, and bore the silent Laoren from the Hall. Away and down they flew through the great walks and towers of Heaven; by golden river and ivory gate they passed, under silver arch and stone parapet, through pearl rain falling beautiful and thick, and through topaz clouds larger than the highest mountains of the earth. The three Warriors traveled on and on until they passed the barrier of Heaven and soared down through the sky, finally landing on the earth.
Throdan and Traega, as the Almighty’s most powerful Warriors, possessed magic. Vierg’lumière. They had landed in a land of brilliant snow and a towering castle of ice and white stone. It was truly beautiful, but also deadly cold and so the two Warriors began conjuring shelter and food to protect Laoren. And there they sat for many days, while Laoren lay despondent, eating little and talking only in her nightmares. And she was not alone in her pain. Throdan and Traega were also mourning the loss of their home, the place they had lived for many ages of the earth, every day since they were created. Though they retained their power, the moment they silently declared their allegiance to Laoren they began to feel diminished. A certain glow left them and they no longer felt as Warriors.
And one day, after three weeks of quiet hurting. Laoren spoke.
“I have been fooled and broken. I am neither of this world nor of Heaven. I have given the long, fragile years of my life to a being who has now cast me out like a child tired of his plaything. No matter. I will be a servant no more. I will not fear or submit. I am no one’s slave.”
“It was despicable,” Traega said, rising from her seat. “And though my heart longs for Heaven I would not dare to return to his presence. Arrogant bastard! To cast out one so pure as yourself! I deny him even one more moment with his name on my tongue.”
“I would deny him his very nature were it within my power,” Throdan roared. “You worshiped at his feet for so long and see how he’s repaid you. I pity him, to be so blind and foolish and ignorant as to let you be lost to Heaven. Would that I had the power to punish him.”
Traega laughed.
“You speak well, my friend,” she said. “If only we could.”
“No,” said Laoren, sitting calmly on the pillows on the floor. “No, that is not our wish. Punishment is not enough. Pain is not enough. Excruciating suffering is not enough. We must murder him.”
“I am ever behind you, Laoren, but we do not have the ability to kill him,” said Throdan.
“Then we will take the ability. You are the two strongest Warriors of Heaven and by the despot’s own words I am the worthiest human. If we want retribution, we have but to seek it.”
“If you can tell me how, friend, then you need have no doubt of my allegiance to your wishes.”
“Answer first. Do you both love me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes,” echoed Traega.
“And do you both hate him?”
“Yes,” he said again.
“Yes,” Traega echoed again.
“Then hear me now. While we soared through Heaven and the cosmos, my mind was fast at work on machinations for revenge, for no sooner had you flown me from his presence than I sold my soul to hate. A thousand years I spent in his Hall, following him as his shadow, fulfilling the terms of my oath. ‘Little Red Shadow’ he called me, his personal joke. No one would ever attack him, thus there would never be a need to give my life for his. But in that post he showed me things, great spells and artifacts containing unimaginable power. But the greatest secret he ever told me was of the source of his power.”
“Impossible!” Traega exclaimed. “Nothing that moves or has breath has ever known that!”
“Do not doubt me, my friend. The great fool trusted me. It is the souls. Every soul in Heaven is a piece of energy, empowered by something brilliant and hot in the cosmos. Every soul that enters his realm gives him power, as do the souls of those on earth who truly worship him. We will cut off his strength. Seduce the souls we can reach and so ensure a limit to his power.”
“But what of the souls already in Heaven?” Traega asks. “They are innumerable.”
“When we are strong enough we will break Heaven and we will have those as well.”
Traega and Throdan stood silent, unsure of themselves. Yet Laoren sat still, confident and seething, already becoming the great commander she was destined to be.
“I have but one more question,” began Throdan, “And then my spirit, my blade, and my magic are yours, dear friend. If we do this, it will shake the foundations of all Creation. The tyrant will know. What promise have you that we will survive long enough to gain the power to destroy him?”
“We will build new heavens. That is old and powerful magic and he will not be able to attack us there. Only one force in all Creation is powerful enough to besiege a heaven: the blue stones.”
“They are a myth.”
“They are very real. He would have us all believe they are not real, but I have seen them with my own eyes. He stole them from a great foe he locked up before the earth was born, but he knows not how to use them. Without them he won’t be able to touch us there.”
“Then I pledge myself to you, Laoren,” he said, kneeling and taking her hand. “Let us wipe him from the face of the cosmos.”
“I am yours, dear woman,” Traega said, walking near to her. “Many long and happy years have I known your friendship. Many centuries have I trusted you. I trust and love you still. I gave up Heaven for you and for you I will break Creation.”
And so the pact was sealed by three friends who had been bonded in love, but now set forth in hate. Rage and audacity took them, the great vendetta to which they had set their spirits rose inside of them and ate them alive. Traega and Throdan grew so vile and hot inside that their magic turned dark, heinous, and a silent but fatal crack appeared in the fabric of life. Mor’lumière was born into the world. The two Warriors joined hands over Laoren and gave her the black magic, too. All through the night they plotted and dreamed, not merely of the death of the Almighty—though, indeed, they desired it greatly—but also of a new beginning of the world, for they were not upset with the people, not in the beginning. At first they wanted to save them. At least the ones who sought their salvation. That was their mission: to rid the world of a tyrant and show the people a new light they did not know they could have.
The next morning, the sky broke in a cacophony of thunder and screaming winds. The sky was a thousand colors that all shimmered like pearl across the earth. The land writhed and sighed as three golden discs began to shine from somewhere in the cosmos. The discs grew and grew until they exploded into being and pushed the entire earth on its axis. A terrible fear spread over the earth, but also a tremendous awe, for never before or after was anything so beautiful seen by the eyes of man or beast. It was as if the sky was alive with diamonds, as if pure joy and beauty and promise were raining against the earth from on high. Laoren, Traega, and Throdan showered everything that breathed with the gift of happiness. Whether history will admit it or not, and regardless of countless lies handed down through the centuries, this day was the happiest and most whole the earth would ever know.
The Almighty was furious, but as Laoren had promised, an ancient edict prevented him from assault. Their heavens were impregnable and were soon taking souls in droves. Traega’s heaven took the wealthiest men and beast, beings who were hardworking and dedicated beyond the scope of the peers, amassing great fortunes through sheer force of will. Throdan took the brave and the strong, great warriors who had served their kingdoms with outstanding loyalty and unimpeachable honor, men and women mighty in courage and heart. Laoren took the outcasts, pariahs who had been marked when mor’lumière came upon the world. These beings did not have magic, but something inside of them was different than other men, not evil but somehow outside of the norm. They were branded grotesque by others and could have no place in the Almighty’s Heaven. Laoren gave them a home.
A life age of the earth passed. Sixteen thousand years.
The Almighty had grown bitter and furious for many long years. So great was his envy that he could no longer sit by while the three rebels found love among the people. He still had great numbers of followers, but great numbers was not enough. He wanted them all. So he took the long journey to the pit and found the great evil. He tricked the entity into telling him the secret of the stones, and when he’d learned it he returned to Heaven. And declared war.
At that very moment the three rebels were together in Laoren’s heaven. They had begun to find so much joy in their new stations that revenge was fading from their hearts. They would never stop hating the Almighty, but somewhere within the many years that had passed they found comfort in each other. And they loved the souls of their followers dearly. They vowed they would never stop hating him, never think of him with soft thoughts, but he was beyond hurting them now. Or so they thought. They were together when the Almighty cast the first stone across the sky. It collided with Throdan’s heaven, obliterating every soul within. Millions of content souls, innocent souls, were erased from existence. The Almighty struck that heaven first to remove the threat of the brave and strong people it held. He did not cast another stone yet, for he surmised then that the victory would be his and he knew that to unleash so much power in the sky at once would burn Creation. Laoren and her friends were stunned, heartbroken. They wept in the sky. There was nothing left but to declare war.
And history knows well what happened then.
