God of the Abyss

by Rain Oxford

  He shrugged. “That depends on what I judge them of. I can decide that someone needs to be punished and how severely, or I can decide they need to be rewarded. Sometimes I judge that a person can never repent or learn from their actions, and they must be killed immediately. Sometimes I judge that a person is leaning towards a destructive path and I push them towards the right one.”

  “Back in the cabin, when we first met, you said only the gods could strip someone of their magic. You lied.”

  “I could not be sure who you were yet. I didn’t trust you. Besides, I wanted to kill that man. There is little worse in my opinion than a coward who uses magic to control someone’s mind. I let my disgust get the better of me. Had I been thinking, I would have stripped his magic and left him imprisoned; it is a fate worse than death.”

  “Have you tried to judge me?” my friend asked.

  “You have two souls that are fused into one. Your soul and Dylan’s are also connected. No judgment I could make on you would be correct.”

  “So you can see what I am?”

  “You are both a sago and a dragon. I’m sorry, I realize you want a long lost name that describes people just like you, but you are the only one of your kind. There has never been someone who was both man and dragon before, not even on Skrev. In time, you will see that you have the greatest advantages of being dragon and being sago, and few of the weaknesses. Most of them involve protecting your family.”

  “We should get back to it,” I said, standing. “We have to get these gates closed.” Mordon and Edward stood. “Besides, we need to see what Divina did to Emiko.”

  “Dylan,” Nano said. I paused and looked at him. “My magic is weakening.”

  “So is mine,” Samorde said. “I think the gate to Enep was the first to open.”

  I frowned. If it was, Regivus would have known, and he would have told me. At least, I thought he would have.

  “Regivus would be the last to complain. He may treat me like a pet, but he holds himself to a higher level of responsibility than anyone I have ever met. My god would never share his problems.”

  As often as Regivus helped me and my family, that really bothered me.

  I looked at Edward and he nodded. “I am powerful enough at my age, but the connection with my book has already begun to fade.”

  Perhaps Regivus, like Edward, had too much pride to complain.

  “We have all had warning dreams,” Azyle said. “We all sit around here, supposedly safe while our worlds are in danger, because we have faith you know what you are doing. If the gods trust you, we have little choice. Please don’t let us down, because our trust is difficult to earn.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  I flashed the three of us home to find Divina and Emiko sitting at the table reading tarot cards. They weren’t Edward’s card or playing cards, but actual proper tarot cards. Sammy and Ron were reading on the rug in front of the fireplace.

  I stood behind Divina and kissed her shoulder. “We need to figure out what to do with the artifacts,” I said. “Ron, show Mordon and Edward how to control the fire wand and pantacle like you showed your brother how to control the cup.”

  “Air and water are easy to control. Fire and earth are not; they need strength. I don’t know how to control the wand or the pantacle. I do know that these artifacts are each meant to match the user’s magic. Dragon fire is stubborn, so Mordon will have trouble.”

  I knew it was. I had felt his fire many times… and I knew how to calm it. Where his fire was volatile, my energy was calm. Except sometimes it was reversed; when I wanted to destroy, it was him who was calm. We were balanced.

  “Edward, do you think practice will help you control the pantacle?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I have been using magic for more than two thousand years. I can manage.”

  “Good. You practice.” I picked up the fire wand and lotus wand before flashing Mordon and I to the springs. It was a very good place to practice magic. “Sit.” He sat and I sat across from him. I set aside the wands, took his hand, and closed my eyes. “Let me see your fire.”

  I felt the heat creep into me through my hand, not enough to hurt, but it was uncomfortable. His fire was calm. I opened my eyes to see what I thought I would. I was seeing through dragon eyes while his fire was inside me, so I saw everything that my friend was, because dragons could see a person’s soul. How Divina ever could have thought the universe would survive without him I would never know.

  I picked up the fire wand and held it out with my other hand. He touched it and the fire reacted instinctually as if he were being attacked. My vision reverted to normal because I couldn’t hold his fire in me as the dragon magic tried to use the wand as a weapon. The wand was a tool of focus, specifically created to focus dragon fire. His fire must have assumed that since he was using the wand, he was being attacked.

  But he already showed me that dragon fire did more than destroy; it could also heal. As the fire flared out over the springs, I pulled the dagger out of my boot with my free hand. Before Mordon could do anything, I made a thin slice along my arm. He tried to let go of my hand and pull the dagger away, but I tightened my grip. As gently as I could, I poured my energy into him with no intention, just calmness. Or as calm as I could have it when my arm burned.

  His fire did not calm, though, I could feel that much. Instead, he turned the wand on me. Having been burned literally and figuratively many times in my childhood, it should have been instinct for me to run… but this was Mordon. Not even his fire would ever hurt me. My wife could hurt me on accident or in anger, and so could my children or Edward. They were all powerful and anything could happen. But not Mordon.

  Instead of burning heat, healing fire rushed through me, not only healing my arm but old wounds that had healed incorrectly. Now, it did hurt, but I was alive. After what felt like hours, when the fire accomplished what it thought its goal was, it calmed. The fire settled back inside of Mordon to wait.

  “You’re going to make me kill you one of these days.”

  “As if you could,” I panted. “Now, I need in your head.”

  “It is private property, you know,” he said, setting the wand aside.

  “Since when?” I put my hand on his forehead. “By the way, I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said.

  He glared at me. “Isn’t this dangerous then?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. Now hold still and remember what you saw. Remember every word Vretial said in Enochian,” I told him. He nodded and closed his eyes. I focused my energy on his thoughts. Within a minute, his memory played like a movie in my head.

  It was a little blurry in the dark, but I could make out Vretial. He looked bigger from the eyes of a child. His words and mine were clear, and they were Enochian. Everything I had thought I heard in English was correct… until the very end. When I thought I heard “There’s something in the dark,” I was wrong, and for good reason. Enochian was the language of the gods, a language of power. For some words, there was no English equivalent.

  I let go of Mordon.

  “I know what I must do. I know what choice I have to make.”

  Chapter 13

  Vretial

  The story of the gods is not as mighty as we tell it. We embellish our greatness, seeking fear and respect from the people because we are so much more than them. The fact is that our great power does not come with the wisdom to use it. I am the oldest of my siblings, and we may very well be the last of our kind. So it is my story that I keep secret, even from my kin.

  In the time forgotten by all but myself, we were a mighty people. We were powerful, we were unstoppable, and it rained blood. Our blood. The Land of the Gods, the place outside any universe but protected from the void, was once beautiful. It was a magnificence that could never be matched.

  In order to live in this exquisiteness, the gods chose a form to enjoy it in. Some gods were beautiful, some were strong, and some could slip away without being seen. Some could change
their appearance, but most became a part of it. This developed into tradition. But by the time of my creation, the end was already in sight.

  We were powerful. There was nothing in any universe or the void that could rival us, and I grew up believing this. When I looked out over the lands of death and blood, my father put his hand on my shoulder and told me we fight for this. We fought, not for rights, but for more power than we ever needed. However, he did teach me two things that others did not believe in; responsibility and wisdom.

  There were many universes that Iadnah used to experiment with or even just to play in. Several had created living souls in their image, souls that would grow and experience whatever the gods gave them. No matter how the gods created these souls, something happened. Once they were alive, they developed a will. Whether it was a will to live, a will to thrive, or a will to conquer, the Iadnah had very little control over them. Some decided these souls were a poison and killed them off, and some feared the souls because they were unpredictable, which wasn’t the fault of these mysterious living creatures; they never asked to be created. Yet others were fascinated.

  The gods experimented with the intelligence and power of these creatures. It was then that I became intrigued. I convinced my father to teach me how to create them myself, but souls were a tricky thing, and life was difficult to construct.

  Many universes were destroyed as the Iadnah grew more determined and bold in their struggle for power. The more powerful they were, the more power they wanted. I thought it was pointless, but I felt more regret for the souls that were extinguished for no reason at all. Life was all they had, and to have it torn away seemed sad. I was young, though, and my mother told me I would have to learn that nothing was worth the weakness that was regret.

  My brothers were all born of different mothers and I barely knew them. There was no family among the Iadnah, because the forms we took could bleed and blood was the same color whether it was from friend or foe. Our forms did not make us mortal or weak, although we could be destroyed with the right magic. Iadnah magic, which is all that we were, could not be destroyed, only disbursed, so when a god managed to kill another, it was everything that god was that the victor absorbed, not just magic. Including their weaknesses, as they realized too late.

  Still, I was amazed by the souls, so fragile, that seemed to want life more than power. Why were we working so hard for power when they were so happy without it? Others asked that question too, and were jealous. I was jealous of their happiness, but not enough to give up my power.

  The Land of the Iadnah was dying; it was starved of magic by the death and corruption that the Iadnah became. And still they would not stop. They would never stop. In the end, my father taught me the lesson of responsibility. He was against the war, as many were, but unlike our kin, he knew the way to end it. He knew there could be no end until the greed was gone.

  Universes could not be created even by the immense powers of the Iadnah; they were mistakes of the void that could be exploited by us. There was one odd occurrence that was true in every universe; there was a balance that acted against us fiercely. Sometimes the universe would have to be eradicated because of it, but usually the gods could hold it off.

  In the height of the war, a new universe was torn from the void like a hiccup. I knew it to be a baby universe of unimaginable potential, for there would be no war to disfigure it. My father brought my brothers and me to the crack between the void and the new universe. It was in a valley; the last piece of beauty left. We were told to go and rebuild the Land of the Iadnah in the universe. When he left us, I saw to it that my siblings did as they were told, and then I turned back. I felt there was nothing I could give to the universe that was good when in my existence, I had only ever seen destruction.

  Then my father returned with Tiamat. She was not his daughter, but he found that she had been lost in one of the universes at the moment of her creation. What kept her from being destroyed for the earlier part of her childhood nearly got her killed with the other souls. Half dead, the little goddess wobbled from my father’s hands into my arms. She had been injured by a god that had tried to syphon her power, but she was young enough to recover.

  Her form was beautiful, but it was her eyes that convinced me to take her with me. Her eyes were the same as those with mortal souls, but behind them there was power that would tempt any god. I took her to this new universe because she was everything the Iadnah had unintentionally destroyed with their greed. Behind me, my father obliterated the Land of the Gods and everything in it.

  I taught my siblings to make souls, and especially the fascinating people. They enjoyed experimenting with life and while I found it amusing, I never did it. They soon lost the memories of the land we were created in until only I remembered our kin. I told them we were the last of our kind because I hoped we were. Still, I told them of our traditions, including a fairytale my father would tell me about mates. It never made any sense to me then because I always thought we were the most powerful thing in the universe. I was wrong. We were all wrong.

  While we ruled the place of our creation, life was the most powerful thing in the universe.

  When the memories were truly gone for all but myself, I revisited the Land of the Iadnah to find it as vast and empty as the void. All the beauty was gone and forgotten. When the foulness of the void tried to spoil what we created in our new home, I closed the gates between the worlds and created items of power instead. With my sister’s advice, I created them as books. It was an odd request, but I could never deny her anything.

  I tried to guide my siblings when it came to their animals and worlds, but I was not very good at it. My siblings disagreed with me at every turn. It was a matter of opinion, which I had not yet learned. On the other hand, my youngest brother was even worse than me. He thought that giving his people everything they could want would make him more successful. He thought if they had more power, they would be happier. Even I could have told him it was a mistake, and I tried to. Unfortunately, all except for Tiamat doubted me. I was more powerful than them and for that, I was the enemy in their eyes, excluding Tiamat, who understood life like none of us could.

  Avoli’s people were about to commit nuclear war and destroy the entire planet. I didn’t want to see the death of all those souls, so I did the only thing I could; I used my power against my kin. It was no better than what the other Iadnah had done, but I didn’t destroy him.

  And I realized then how badly power could corrupt. I was so much more powerful naturally than my siblings that I couldn’t handle any more. The balance would not allow me to remain as I was, and I could not give up the new world without risking myself anyway. So I had a choice.

  I could take the balance inside me, fuse my power with it, or I could risk destroying everything my siblings and I had built. It was difficult to see disgust from my own kind, but I could not explain my responsibility to them. I was the oldest, the most powerful, and the only one who remembered what must never come to be again.

  For once, I was glad that I only had one sister, and that she would never be willing to procreate. I could not foresee the future as they could, but I was happy for us to be the only Iadnah left.

  The balance inside me was too strong a force to fight, so I was compelled to act against my siblings, even to reopen the gates.

  My siblings created servant/warriors to guard their books from anyone who wished to take its magic. They exiled me for taking Avoli’s world and when I left willingly, they thought I was overcome by their power, but it was the fact that the balance wanted me to destroy them. The balance took so much of my will and mind, forcing me to seek out and thwart my siblings. They were constantly upsetting the balance.

  Until one day, I faced a young, mortal boy and realized the story was no longer mine. The fate of this universe was no longer mine. He looked into my eyes, at all the power and hatred in me and all the choices that I had made… and he was not afraid. He was not afraid of me because he was not afraid of th
e balance. And he would make the same choice.

  The mortal that produced Iadnah energy called upon the very magic of the universe to destroy me, and as he did, the balance released its hold. In that moment, I was shielded by the balance and I could escape. What better way to do so than by becoming what I was always fascinated by? I became alive. From then on, I did my work from the shadows. I also had to repay the boy who saved me.

  If his lack of fear in me and the balance wasn’t enough for me to understand why he was the one, Dylan himself was the answer. It wasn’t only the fact that he was Tiamat’s mate. The mortal’s entire life had been a test of strength, willpower, compassion, courage, and wisdom. From the moment of his conception, he was fighting to live. Even the other gods had felt his power and wanted to kill him.

  They would have killed him for just being born what he was.

  At first, I thought my goal would be easy to accomplish. Equilibrium was required, so I needed to create a soul to balance the tiny infant that faced the universe. Unfortunately, I underestimated life; a person could not be born for the sake of another that easily. Then the universe helped me for once. The soul I created was joined with the strongest kind known; a dragon. The new life was now strong enough to adapt as Dylan had… but it was still not enough. They were separated by much time and space and their powers were still undiscovered.

  I was not the best seer, but I had an understanding of magic that the other Iadnah could not have even begun to imagine, including time. No longer was I working with the balance, which Dylan freed me from, so I had to save him from it in return. Throughout his life, I thwarted the acts of nature that would have otherwise killed him. I was not alone; his father was there as well. Still, it was difficult, and the boy suffered from every kind of pain.

  Soon I realized how strong his soul really was. The things he saw and heard should have made him into a jaded, cruel person, but instead he just turned it around. Every obstacle he faced became a tool, a lesson to be kind to everyone. He learned from every mistake, whether it was his or someone else’s. One thing I never understood was how he protected his mother. I understood that souls had emotional attachments to their parents, but this particular woman was exceptionally cruel and did not deserve his kindness.