Announcement
I messed up again >.<
Chapter 21
Kick The Dog
There was a tower out west. Well, not a tower, as such. Not quite. More the idea of a tower. Like someone had been given a toddler’s sketch of a tower, no architectural training, and a limitless supply of brick. It was a hexagonal slab of stone, edged up against the side of the largest of the mountains that made up the Spines.
It wasn’t ugly, in the same way that clay or canvas isn’t inherently ugly. It was utilitarian, in a way that made even something like brutalism seem positively frivolous by comparison. There was no artistry at play here. Whoever had built this tower had not even considered the possibility of artfulness. There had been a need for a tall pile of granite, and so there was.
On top of that pile was a deity. It was not a particularly powerful deity. As deities went, it was a solid D-Tier. Maybe a C-minus on a good day. It was a God of those small little whirling vortexes that sometimes show up in the desert. Once upon a time, a few people had considered the possibility that those had been a thing that might have a deity, offered a few prayers, and back then, that had been all that was necessary. Even without a name.
It hadn’t had any real followers in a long time, but that wasn’t really a problem for a lesser deity. They tended to believe in themselves, and that was enough. Well, it had been enough. Recently, the winds across the desert had picked up, blowing storms of sand and clouds of dust across the fields, and a lesser deity had no real place in something like that.
The deity, little more than a tiny tornado of dust, whirled dejectedly and looked out. It couldn’t see very far. Sand in the air made it hard to see much of anything. Why was it here? It, like every other creature of the weird and magical, had felt the shift in the world. For weeks now, more than a moon, old things had come back. Creatures and ideas that had been old when the little Dust Devil had first been prayed to, generations ago. And now there was a tower. Why was there a tower?
Behind the little deity, as much as the being was said to have a front and a back to speak of, there was some movement that wasn’t sand. That was something, at least. It was hard to make out shapes in the sand, but it was definitely something that walked. It appeared to have arms, and possibly a head. Maybe even a face. What it could absolutely be said to have, however, was a voice.
“You’re not supposed to be up here,” it said. The Dust Devil took a moment to formulate some thoughts, which was an impressive effort to make for a deity that consisted mostly of small changes in air pressure and bits of twig.
“There was not tower here. Before,” it said with a voice like pebbles gently being tossed in a circle. “Now there is.”
The figure looked at the deity. The figure, the Dust Devil thought, appeared to have eyes. At least two of them. “I see,” the figure said. “What are you?”
The Dust Devil whirled excitedly. It knew that answer to that one. “I’m a God!” it said.
“Interesting. What are you the god of, exactly?”
“I am God of Me!”
“Good,” the figure said. “So am I.” As far as the little deity could be said to stand, they stood next to each other, looking out from the edge of the tower. “What can you see from up here, little god?”
“Sand,” the Dust Devil said. That was the best it could do. It could feel its environment a little. Every once in a while, as it had whirled through the eastern plains and deserts, it had bothered a small animal, and even annoyed belief is belief. That belief had allowed it to see a little further. But nobody believed in it now, so it couldn’t see much further than the sand in the air.
“Yes, you wouldn’t really see much more than that, would you?” the figure said. It ran a hand over its head. It could be said to have hair. The Dust Devil had seen hair before. It whirled well, but it made the air a bit lumpy sometimes. “There’s a whole world out there, you know.” The Dust Devil knew. It twirled a little stick. “It’s big and it’s beautiful.”
“Okay,” the Dust Devil said. It didn’t know what else to say, but it had the feeling its input was required, that if it didn’t provide proper feedback, it might be blown off the tower somehow, and it wasn’t sure it could survive the sandstorm, especially now that it seemed to be picking up speed. The deity wasn’t especially smart, but it did slowly connect the dots, seemed to realize that the storm was centered on the tower. “What is tower?”
“It’s just a tower,” the figure said. “It doesn’t matter. Which, I suppose, is the point.”
“Okay.” Characters like that, the Dust Devil knew, were best left to just talk. As a creature of the desert, it was very familiar with people talking to themselves. Especially the broody ones, like the figure, which the deity realized appeared to be wearing a hooded cloak of some kind. It realized this because the figure put the hood up.
“The point is that none of it has a point. Not really,” the figure said. “There’s so many little gods and devils and monsters running around, and all of them have their little plans and ideas.” Well, that much was true. The Dust Devil wasn’t very well respected by other Gods, largely because other Gods didn’t notice it most of the time, but it had absolutely noticed that other Gods would make compacts with mortals. “Divine providence,” the figure said. “Omens and prophecies. This whole world is insane, and everyone thinks they know what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” the Dust Devil burbled. Then it hesitated. “What is going on?”
“It’s all coming apart,” the figure said. The deity, if it’d had a face, would have frowned. What did that even mean? With how many old things had come back, the world felt busier and more alive than ever. Surely that had to be an okay thing? “This world is just… so full of useless stuff. Little deities and prophecies and it’s like… Like someone tried to make food using only spices.”
That one, the Dust Devil didn’t understand. It didn’t really have a concept of taste. It only barely had a concept of food, though it had seen creatures hunt each other in the desert before. It just hadn’t understood. “Okay,” it said.
“There’s too much of you,” the figure said, matter-of-factly. The little deity did not understand. There wasn’t much of it to begin with. The idea of there being too much of it was, frankly, a little ridiculous. “You know, I only came into being recently, and I already know there’s too much of all of this.” It waved its arm out over… well, what would have been the desert. At this point, it was just a brown-grey cloud of sandy noise.
“Understand,” the Dust Devil said. If the strange figure was a recently-born God, it made sense for it not to understand the natural order of things just yet. It would settle down eventually. The figure looked at the deity, and it could be said to have a smile.
“You’re just another symptom, you know,” the figure said. “A world so full of nonsense it’s got a deity of little dust tornadoes. Who even needs that?” It sighed while the Dust Devil whirled a leaf in annoyance. “People here have enough to deal with anyway. And they’re not dealing with it, because they’re distracted by things like you.” There was no malice in its voice, but there was definitely a kind of spiteful annoyance.
“People just part of world,” the Dust Devil said sagely. It was the kind of thing it had seen larger, more important deities say. The kind that would set a shrubbery on fire just to prove a point.
“Yes, I guess they are. But since this world would probably barely even exist without the people in it, having them be less important than their stupid prophecies and beliefs is ridiculous.” The figure seemed to be getting agitated. The Dust Devil whirled aside a little bit, giving the figure space. “Without people, something like you wouldn’t even exist,” it continued. “Bad things are happening to good people all over, not despite but because of all of this mythical… nonsense.”
The Dust Devil didn’t know what to say for a bit. It was certainly not clever enough to understand the laws of causality and chaos theory, nor did it have the overwhelming sense of a more powerful hand of guidance. It didn’t even really have a concept of good or bad. There were just things it liked and things it didn’t. But then, the figure was right, because sometimes things the deity didn’t like happened to it. “Yeah,” the Dust Devil said.
“I don’t really know if there’s even like, some kind of creator god, you know? Like, a proper god.” It didn’t seem to notice the Dust Devil throwing a pebble at its foot. “I guess it doesn’t matter. There’s so much stuff here, you couldn’t tell if there was.” It stretched out a hand. The deity didn’t know what the figure was reaching out for. “It clearly doesn’t care. Things here are just… ridiculous.”
“And?” the Dust Devil said, still a little annoyed about the ‘proper God’ comment. It was a proper God, damn it.
“I don’t know yet,” the figure said quietly. “But it’s wrong. This whole damn world feels like a mistake. A cosmic joke. I can feel it seeping into every fibre of my being, a damned wrongness. It’s in every tree and every shitty little god that hides in their branches. There’s magic in the air and it even tastes wrong. I don’t know how anyone can even stand it.”
“It nice,” the Dust Devil offered as a rebuttal. “Warm.”
“Yes,” the figure said. “It’s warm.” It sat down on the edge of the tower, its cloak billowing more and more as the storm seemed to start closing in around them. “Maybe I’ll start there, then.” It raised a hand to the sky, this time. The figure had a thing with pointing, it seemed. “Let’s cool things down, first. Then we can talk about what we’re going to do next.”
“Talk?”
“Metaphorically speaking,” the figure said. “I don’t actually need you to talk to. I mean, I guess it’s nice to speak to someone, even if it is a mistake like you.”
“What.”
“You’re a mistake, little god. But don’t worry. It’s a mistake that I think I have the power to fix.” The figure turned to the Dust Devil. “Hold still.”
“Fix?” The deity slowly started to scoot away but there weren’t that many places to go. The tower was pretty big, but it didn’t have that many places to go on.
“Yes,” the figure said, knelt down, and put its hand inside the deity. That was an unpleasant experience. Usually, the Dust Devil didn’t care about creatures passing through it. Usually, that didn’t matter at all. Usually, the Dust Devil didn’t feel much of anything. But now, it felt cold. Distinctly and unpleasantly cold.
“No,” the Dust Devil said, and died. It had been a very small little deity, and maybe something like it would be born again some day. But for now, the God of dust devils was no more.
“Yes, the figure said, and stood back up. Now there was nothing to monologue at anymore, and for a moment the figure was a little disappointed in that. It had quite enjoyed having someone answer it. But it had things to do. Not divine purpose. Nothing like that. Much, much worse. The figure looked out over the desert, through the winds and the sand, its eyes fixed west. Everything wrong with this world was out there, and it would all have to go. It had started with the lady with the prophecies, and that had only been the beginning.
The figure could be said to have eyes, glaring out, and a mouth, lips thin and jaw clenched. It could be said to have balled fists and almost hunched shoulders. It could be said to look angry, hateful, and spiteful. It could be said to look almost human.
But it could not be said to have any pity.
But it could not be said to have any pity.
I can't tell if this person is supposed to be trying to stabilize the world, or just kind of omnicidal, but yikes they're bad news for everyone