The calm water was stirred but briefly as Cain’s knights passed by. Waves the size of a man rose up for a time, then they stopped entirely. Minutes, seconds, then finally, a change occurred, a hand reached out from the water and clawed its way onto the land. The hand was at first feminine, but a moment later it was not. The figure to whom it belonged crawled free of the water inch by inch.
‘Alive? I’m alive?’ The voice of a woman raged in his mind, yet her manner was that of an excitable child. His head ached like a bell had gone off beside his ear, he could not stomach her here.
‘Be quiet,’ He muttered in thought.
‘Hay, we’re alive now so give me back my body,’ Said the female voice.
‘It was mine first,’ the man complained as he leaned his back soberly against a bear sized stone.
‘Yeah but...you gave it up?’ The girl tried to persuade, but the man only sighed. He ignored her, well and truly this time, and then turned his gaze towards a distant sight. Crystalline masses, one by one, ten by ten, a hundred by a hundred, filled the sky. ‘Oh, light show?’ the girl gleefully exclaimed. Yet the man ignored her, even now. He dared not look away from that sky full of crystal light.
“What...is that?” The man muttered in disbelief. Glittering even far beyond his sight, like a star in the fabled night. Black was the sky, had no one noticed the change? Why did the agents of Cain not see this sky? Were they blind? Or, perhaps. “Am I...being shown this?” Rudolph muttered as the thought entered into his mind.
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Rognir opened his eyes, the sky was filled with crystalline lights. The time had come, the time he had awaited until this moment. Ash trembled in the air, he sensed Metatron forming his blade.
“You’re wasting your time,” he uttered softly, but did not expect the man form Cain to heed his words one bit. Indeed, Metatron was focused, he glared towards Rognir in utter silence. He beheld the sky before him with an aching heart and swung his sword. Sparks filled the air, his sword struck a steel-like body of Ash. This body, however, did not look one bit like a weapon, rather, it was a person, a woman. Then, just as Metatron backed away, the sky underwent yet another change. Stormy winds so thick as to be visible gathered towards the crystal masses, raging gusts came screaming from the streets. They crashed into the crystals one after the other. With each one hit, a crystal changed colour, but it was more than this.
“No, no, no, no, no, no...this can’t be happening, damn it,” Metatron whispered in a mix of frustration and disbelief. He refused to accept it, the truth before him, the reality he beheld with his own two eyes. Shapes formed within the crystals that were glowing. These shapes, to a human, were familiar yet unfamiliar forms. Like babes cradled up in the womb was their posture, yet they were full grown men and full grown women.
Metatron’s blade crashed into the stone ground, chips of rock scattered in the wind. He beheld those figures. Naked, most, not all, female forms appeared within the crystal masses like babes waiting to be born. Melany, Amelia even the matriarch, Nymph, with a long enough glance, he could spot them all. The Ash of these individuals formed the “core” so to speak, for every crystal, but what came next was gluttonous, unfocused, unimpeded, yet more of the same.
Ash stormed in at a volume so great it roared in the wind, whole buildings collapsed under the pressure. That Ash enveloped the crystals, they became spheres, like miniature moons, that quickly filled the blackened sky. Metatron never once turned his gaze away. From the beginning until now, he watched it all. The Harvest had begun. Even the eyes upon his wings opened to behold the spectacle. That black mass above, it was not the sky, that much he knew, it was Rognir, it was the god who stood before him. Rather, it was the Ash that composed his being, and it formed a giant curved sky that was camouflaged to the outside world.
He sighed as he faced that twisted sky. Each of those 128 crystal masses was, in fact, a Beacon, no different in truth from the one they had come to this distant land seeking. The kingdoms of men believed the Beacons a means to summon the Gods, and this was true. They also believed the price to pay was their mortality, their very lives, this too was true. However what were the Beacons to the gods? Why make them? Why gift them to mankind? Metatron knew the answer, rather, Cain and Abel had long known. He turned his gaze towards the woman clad in black as she approached. Her ghostly figure stepped forth, Beacon held in hand. There, within that Beacon, was Beatrix’ slumbering figure. She let him see it, then tossed it into the sky. Ash cocooned it, fed it, allowing the “Seed” within the Beacon to grow...to mature, to become like her. Not an immortal, not an angel, not a devil nor a spectre, something similar, yet all its own.
“Einherjar,” Metatron muttered as he beheld her. Her actions, flaunting even Beatrix, who slumbered within a Beacon, to show him the futility of his actions. Cain and Abel hunted the Beacons for one pure and simple reason, the gods used them to create these beings, these Einherjar, who were in function gods lesser and subordinate to themselves. They appeared on every battlefield throughout history to harvest the “worthy” and make them Einherjar. The “unworthy”, however, could become sustenance, their Ash would fuel the rebirth process and nothing more. Heroes lived forever, cowards vanished in an instant, such was the saying, and ultimately for Beatrix to be here, for her Beacon to be amongst their number, could mean only one thing. “Beatrix’ Beacon...she already used it?” Metatron asked the woman before him. Indeed, he had begun to suspect it, but now he had seen the proof with his own two eyes. Their quest was for naught, all was futile, because the Beacon, their goal, was long gone. The woman smiled, she stepped forth, her Ash raging free from her form.
“Indeed, my descendant had used up her Beacon even before the Sanctuary’s fall...in fact, that is why we are here.” Her words were honest, but spoken with the glee of a sadist. She hated this man. Unlike Rognir, she did not accept the necessity of war, even though it fed the gods, even though it strengthened them, she did not accept this barberism. Metatron glared at her. This woman, this potent figure. For an Einherjar like her to exist, she must have been maturing for at least a few centuries...maybe longer. He chuckled, half demented.
“Can it really be?” He said sarcastically, “Am I in the presence of royalty?” The woman’s figure ceased its advance, she cast upon the distance a solemn glance.
“They took notice too quickly,” She muttered, “i haven’t the time to deal with you.” She raised her hand. The heavens roared, Ash clustered, a wolf-like form appeared from the storm. Metatron could only shout out her name, a name he’d thought he’d never have a face to connect to, not in this lifetime, nor any that succeeded it.
“Dire!” Dire of Fenrir, one of the fourteen original Matriarchs, cast her brow upon the trembling Metatron. He did not retreat, not even in the face of her city shattering might. She glanced back at him but briefly, what was his life? He was but a fleeting thing. Among mortals, the difference in classes was small and yet vast, but for the gods, the difference was like a lake before the sea. She was exactly that far beneath Rognir, he was the sea, yet she was also that far above a mortal, for they were a puddle beside the lake and nothing more. Her Ash, when unleeshed, would erase him from this world as effortless as can be. Yet she did not fire, she did not set free her great power. Something stopped her.
Metatron bled, a blade pierced his chest. He turned back, stared into the eyes of his would be killer. The blade was formed of flesh, tendrils of organic matter coiled around a hand until it formed itself a sword. Rudolph stood there, his shirt long lost to the wind. His gaze firm upon Metatron’s form. He didn’t care one whit for the Ash and the storm, not one bit did he care about the gods who appeared before him now. All that mattered was killing this man. The gaze of a person so convicted met with Dire’s own, and so she lowered her hand. She turned away from them, from this place. Her duty lay elsewhere. She had no stake in this conflict, and so she chose, quite simply, not to participate in it.
