by Samit Basu
Kirin ignored him and walked on. And then, to the west, he heard voices, shrill high voices that chilled his blood; he knew those voices, he had heard them before, sweet and musical, singing their strange songs as their owners ripped out chunks of his flesh with their charming little pointed teeth.
A little round red man appeared out of nowhere at the mouth of the cavern in front of him, squealing happily. More chubbies popped up beside him, their round eyes shining with excitement.
Kirin knocked them all out with well-aimed stalagmite fragments, and walked on.
‘You were wise not to kill them,’ said the unwaba, who seemed to have recovered his composure. ‘They will offer you a painless, happy death after you close the portal.’
Kirin walked on without comment, efficiently meeting all further chubbies with flying rocks, until he reached the portal of the Desolate Gard. A massive dome of white light that rose out of a pit in the ground in a vast cavern, bordered by a hemispherical cage, bent iron bars as thick as a man’s waist meeting in a silvery sphere on the roof of the cavern, a broken lock. He looked around, at the cavern’s walls, which seemed to have been painted in blood and bright coloured fur.
‘Some ravians evidently tried to escape, and were followed,’ said the unwaba. ‘Did they reach the other side of the portal, I wonder. It does not matter, really. Destroy the portal.’
But Kirin stood, motionless, in front of the ravian portal, and his mind was far away, an Age away, and his eyes saw not the Desolate Gard, but Asroye, wide, beautiful avenues, marble buildings covered under a spreading wave of light.
His musings were disturbed by a large bat that flew into his face, flapping its wings frantically. Kirin cast a transformation spell on it distractedly, intending to turn it into a mouse or anything less fluttery, and almost jumped out of his skin when the bat transformed into a large, muscular, mostly naked man. Kirin recognized his old friend Djongli, but a conversation of any kind was rendered impossible by Djongli running out of the cave, flapping his arms and squeaking excitedly. Not one to be troubled too much by such an everyday occurrence, Kirin shrugged, set the Infinite Infant’s basket down on the cave floor and turned to the unwaba.
‘What now?’ he asked.
‘Now you destroy the portal, your last great task,’ said the unwaba. ‘And then, with infinite regret, for I love you dearly, I watch you die and keep your promise to the gods.’
‘I don’t remember actually promising to die,’ said Kirin. ‘And I’m not sure Zivran even wants me dead. In fact, the only person who really stands to gain from my death, unwaba, is you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ The unwaba jumped off Kirin’s shoulder lightly, his old age and frailty showing no signs of bothering him.
‘You want me dead because I know about you. Because my presence limits you, and your ability to control this world. I know your weaknesses. You wish to move on, whisper in the ears of people more interested in ruling, and killing and conquering, people who will not question you or argue with you, people who do not know how insignificant you were before the old gods, who do not know you are physically weak and not all-knowing as you claim. I slow you down, and could be a threat. Besides, you have no intention of letting the Baby of Destiny rule anything, do you? You don’t want anyone else to influence her.’
The unwaba chuckled. ‘I could not have put it any better myself, Kirin. And that is why you cannot be allowed to remain alive. Be happy, though: your death buys the lives of Maya and Spikes. I had to bargain hard with the other gods to spare them.’
Fire flickered on Kirin’s fingers.
‘Don’t be a fool. I cannot be killed,’ said the unwaba. ‘I am still a god. If I die, the other gods will know, and this world will be discovered and destroyed. Zivran will sense any event that might harm the Infant; the death of her guardian would, of course, count. Should any harm befall me or her, Zivran will come to our aid instantly and all your labours will be in vain. Calm yourself, Kirin! Do not make this any more difficult than it has to be.’
The fires on Kirin’s fingers and in his eyes went out. ‘You win, then,’ he said simply.
‘I know,’ said the unwaba, with infinite malice. ‘Now destroy the portal.’
‘I have one more thing left to do before that,’ said Kirin. ‘I just had an idea; one of those rare ideas that are mine, and mine alone. Something I learned from the gods, in fact.’
‘Indeed. And what have the gods taught you, young man?’
‘That nothing is sacred, and there are no real rules,’ said Kirin. ‘The gods have taught me how to cheat.’
He picked the unwaba up and tossed him into the portal. The unwaba yelled in surprise and anger, and his tail wiggled furiously in mid-air as the light washed over him, covering him completely in brilliant white, and then he was gone.
Kirin raised his hand, and the Infinite Infant’s basket rose and floated towards him.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kirin, ‘but I was really tired of having other people make up my mind for me. And now the only way I can set this world free is by sending you through the portal as well.’
‘Ey-mum-mum-mum,’ said the Baby of Destiny gravely.
‘It was an honour to have met you. You’re going to rule the gods one day, aren’t you? Good luck. When you do, please try and keep even the lowliest of your creations happy. Try and be kind to everyone, especially the powerless.’
‘Boop!’
Kirin moved his hand, and the basked began to float into the portal. But just as it was about to enter the dome of white light, Kirin hesitated. Even with the future of the world at stake, could he do this to an infant? What if the Baby of Destiny was too young to travel through portals? What would happen if she died?
And then he heard a woman’s voice in his head, musical, powerful, deep.
Relax, she said. I’ll be fine. I’m the Baby of ****ing Destiny.
Kirin nodded weakly, and the basked floated through the ravian portal into a world far away.
Kirin raised both his arms then, and the moongold spheres holding the portal together spun as they rose. He snapped his fingers, and they shattered into pieces, and the portal’s light went out. Kirin stood in the darkness, exhausted but smiling. The world was free.
He swayed and would have fallen, but then heard the unwaba’s voice again.
Your death buys the lives of Maya and Spikes.
He knelt swiftly and summoned his chariot.
* * *
Kirin leaped out of his chariot and raced towards his hut, his heart pounding.
The hut was empty. Kirin stood at the door, feeling huge, ragged breaths burst out of his lungs, wondering wildly what to do next.
‘You all right?’
Kirin snapped around. Spikes stood behind him. The pashan looked worried.
‘Sit down,’ said Spikes. ‘Something happened while you were gone.’
‘Where’s Maya?’ Kirin managed to ask.
There was a pause that stretched into centuries as Spikes rubbed his nose.
‘I don’t know. In the village, I expect. Listen. The imps and Picsquids are missing. Something’s wrong,’ said Spikes finally.
A huge knot dissolved in Kirin’s heart, and he leaned against the wall and shut his eyes.
‘You look ill,’ said Spikes. ‘Speaking of Maya, you really shouldn’t run off without telling her. She’s not very happy with you.’
In the middle of comforting a distraught, imp-less Pygmy Lion, Maya was surprised when Kirin appeared out of thin air beside her and swept her off her feet. She protested mildly when he hugged her hard enough to squeeze the life out of her, but seemed pleased enough.
* * *
‘I think the unwaba knew what you’d do,’ said Maya afterwards, as they lay side by side on the beach, sipping dangerous-looking red drinks out of coconut shells. ‘I know you never liked him, but he was a sweet old thing.’
‘That’s very generous of you, given that he tried to get me to kill myself,�
�� said Kirin.
Maya waved her hand dismissively. ‘Why would he tell you what he could or couldn’t do as this world’s new guardian if he didn’t want you to react to it in some way? He was testing you, and you passed. He wanted you to throw him through the portal. Think about it; this way, the unwaba gets his revenge on the gods that forgot him. He let a world get away, and now he’s far away with the Baby of Destiny, and no one can touch him or blame him. Maybe he wasn’t lying when he told us he loved this world and wanted it to be free. Maybe all this was his way of helping us escape the gods and the Game.’
‘Thank you for trying to rob me of my one well-deserved moment of satisfaction. But yes, I suppose that’s possible. We’ll never know the truth,’ said Kirin. ‘And we should be used to that when there are gods involved; we can only see what they let us see. The worst part of all this is that everything that happened with the unwaba could be a lie, a joke. Maybe we aren’t on a new world at all. Maybe they’re still sitting around us, laughing, playing their Game. We have no way of finding out.’
‘Well, I choose to believe we won the day, saved the world and defeated the gods,’ said Maya. ‘And now I can go back to believing that the gods don’t exist, and that we were free all along, and ruled our own minds. It’s easier, and makes me feel happier.’
‘Even if we have escaped, if all this isn’t a part of some even larger Game, they won’t let us get away so easily,’ said Kirin. ‘It’ll set a bad example. They’ll hunt us. They’ll find us again, one day. What happens then?’
‘Another adventure. And that’s the only way it could ever be. What were you expecting, a happy ending? Any ending is the end of the world, Kirin, even a happy one. If we didn’t know that things were going to change, for better or worse, why would we want to go on? Now stop worrying.’
Kirin was not initially entirely convinced by this piece of wisdom, but when Maya took his clothes off in a no-nonsense sort of way, there was no question of any further argument.
* * *
‘I have to leave,’ said Spikes a few days later.
Kirin and Maya looked at him in blank astonishment.
‘I was expecting some sort of reaction,’ said Spikes. ‘But this is better. I’ll be off, then.’
‘Wait!’ cried Kirin. ‘What do you mean, you have to leave?’
‘None of the words are particularly difficult,’ said Spikes. ‘It’s time for me to go to Imokoi. I am supposed to be the ruler of the pashans, you know. I can’t stand here and watch you laze around until the end of time.’
Kirin and Maya stood up, brushing sand off their bodies. ‘Do you want us to come with you?’ asked Maya.
‘No. That would mean trouble,’ said Spikes. ‘Besides, I will need some time alone. It’s time for me to have children.’
‘You’re a girl?’ Kirin gasped.
Spikes made a strange barking noise and Kirin and Maya stared in wonder. They had never seen Spikes laugh before.
‘No. If you must know, it is time for me to find a suitable mate and assist her in the creation of an egg. If you’re thinking about hugging me and weeping, don’t,’ said Spikes. ‘We will probably meet again, though it’s best not to make plans.’
‘I won’t know what to do without you,’ said Kirin.
‘You don’t know what to do when I’m here either,’ said Spikes kindly. ‘But if you manage to get yourself into serious trouble – which you will – I might turn up.’
‘I’ll try and send a message to Imokoi when I plan to get into trouble,’ said Kirin.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Spikes. ‘I will always know exactly where you are.’
Maya hugged Spikes and he patted her head awkwardly, trying not to crack it. ‘I will miss you too,’ he said. ‘Now stop being sentimental’
‘Do you have to go right now?’ asked Kirin. ‘Stay for a while. We’ll arrange some sort of large-scale debauchery in honour of our heroic deeds. A proper Spikes farewell feast.’
‘No,’ said Spikes simply. ‘Goodbye, now.’
Seeing Kirin’s face, he relented, stepped forward and gave him a quick hug. And then Spikes walked off down the beach, leaving deep grooves in the sand, pausing occasionally to eat a rare and beautiful insect.
Kirin and Maya watched Spikes until he was a small dot in the distance. And then Kirin sighed deeply and threw himself down on the sand, and Maya sat down next to him, a hand on his shoulder.
‘Since we’re feeling this way anyway, there’s another conversation we need to have, Kirin.’
Kirin looked away. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m asleep.’
‘The holiday’s over now,’ Maya said. ‘And it was lovely, but it’s time for us to return to our lives.’
‘You can never really go back, Maya. This is our life now,’ said Kirin. ‘And I can’t find a single thing wrong with it.’
‘If what the unwaba told you was true, Kol needs us more than ever,’ said Maya.
‘Kol will survive. It always does.’
‘Kirin, I want you to come home with me. I’m not going to live as long as you are, and I want to spend all the time I can with you.’
Kirin looked away. ‘Kol isn’t my home. I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not ravian or rakshas and I’m certainly not human. Besides, our faces - ’
‘That’s just an excuse and you know it. We defeated the gods, Kirin. There’s nothing we can’t do.’
‘Neither of us is going to live very long if we go back to Kol, Maya,’ said Kirin. ‘It’s a miracle that we’re both alive now. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life solving other people’s problems. We’ve done our bit. We’ve already helped save the world once. It’s a new world now. Let it take care of itself.’
Maya stood up. ‘We’ve already done this once, and that was bad enough. This can only end one way,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘I suppose it’s for the best. We were never going to settle down in happy domesticity anyway. Not with our way of living. It wouldn’t have ended happily either. You’d have had to watch me grow old and die.’
‘It would be easier to bear than life without you,’ said Kirin. ‘Please don’t go. Why would you want to live the rest of your life doing what other people have taught you is right? Didn’t the unwaba teach you how wrong that is? We have to find our own way, Maya.’
‘We’re descending into drama,’ said Maya with a sudden smile. ‘Listen to us! This isn’t the end of anything.’
‘We have all the time in the world, unless this world decides to end too,’ said Kirin, lying bravely in turn.
‘I’ll come back and visit you from time to time, when I’m not too busy. You should drop in any time you can, too. All you need is a hood.’
Kirin laughed and agreed, and they told each other yet again how much in love they were, and how nothing could stand between them and eternal happiness, but they both knew something had ended right then.
Maya left the next morning for Kol. And as Kirin watched her sail away in a dolphin-drawn boat, waving until she disappeared into the morning mist, his heart was full of sorrow and joy. Because though he’d known they could never have lived happily ever after, at least they’d lived as happily as they could have, together, for a while.
Epilogue
The gods gather around the GameWorld, murmuring excitedly. The control crystals are thrown away, the new-fangled rules forgotten. Their faces are alight with excitement. Some cast spells on the north, beginning a fimbulwinter that will sweep across the earth. Others brew eternal summer in the south. Others pull on invisible ropes, and great snakes of metal and lava burst forth from the bowels of the earth. The sun and moon are extinguished, and three new ones of diverse shapes and sizes are set in their place. The world is changing every second; new mountains and islands strain and shudder, flames shoot across the sky and the seas boil. Great lizards of bone leap out from under the skin of the earth, cascading dust and mud.
The dead walk the earth, in armour new and ancient, and with each lurching step t
hey honour the gods, with each feigned breath they grow stronger, and there is much rejoicing. Zivran presides over the board, all-seeing, all-knowing, a curious smile drifting across his noble features. He draws the gods’ attention to a solitary figure standing in a charred forest. A Hero, no less. A splendid young man, physically almost flawless apart from an ugly gash on his throat.
‘What shall it be?’ asks Zivran. ‘Should he rescue a princess? Slay a dragon, or other monster? Win a battle? Find treasure? Avenge his father? What do You desire?’
‘All of them,’ suggests a drunken mountain god. Zivran catches Stochastos’ eye and tries not to laugh out loud.
‘Very well,’ says Zivran. ‘Let Us Play.’
Asvin drew his sword and stared at it. Sunlight flashed along the blade as he held it close to his face and studied his reflection. The image he saw was handsome, radiant, perfect, bursting with vitality. Yet he could not shake off the suspicion that something was wrong; if he looked at his arms through the corner of his eyes, they seemed pale, slightly grey, a lot thinner than the robust brown, bulging sinews that presented themselves to a direct gaze.
He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs in his mind. Who on earth was Asvin? His name was Avi the Strong, and he was a wandering warrior who ground evil empires to dust under the rather worn soles of his trusty sandals. And now he was journeying west to the kingdom of Purani, to rescue the extremely voluptuous princess Bimola from the clutches of her evil cousin, a shape-shifting sorceress named Erkila. No, not Erkila, where had that name come from? The sorceress Infitada. That was it. And after that he had to avenge his dead father Thoseus…no, that wasn’t it. His dead father. And then he had to kill a few dragons, find a priceless jewel in a desert cave to which a mysterious beggar had given him a map. The beggar had looked strangely familiar – his name, he’d said, was the Grey Falcon. He’d said Fox at first, but it was Falcon. Storm a mysterious castle after that, drop in for a battle if there was time, and scale a tower to spend the night with another princess.
