Chapter Seventeen

“I eagerly await your reply.”

 

Leshin stood before the dining room door. She had the mask strapped to her side with thin twine under her loose white tunic, which flowed well past her feet. The others had all gone to the dungeons.

She took a breath. Then, she pulled the heavy, black door open and stepped toward the table. Before her, seated at the right hand of the Al’Ruon’s throne, was (so you have come) the dead thing which had beckoned her for so many years.

“You won’t do it,” the Al’Ruon said.

Leshin whipped around, instinctively jumping back to put some distance between herself and her foe.

The Al’Ruon stood just inside the doorframe leading out to the hall, staring at her.

Silence.

Swallowing, Leshin licked her lips. She shifted her weight back, hoping that would hide the bulge of the mask strapped against her side. “Who’s to say I won’t?”

The Al’Ruon sauntered past Leshin and traced a doll-like finger down the slumbering deity’s wooden cheek. “It would be so easy to let it devour you… And that is why you will never let it. Women like us don’t kill ourselves, Leshin dono Ki’Luin. Oh, we play at death’s door, courting the void, writing our little letters to those we plan to leave behind. But we never take that final step, do we? No. Death wouldn’t serve our ends… We live on, if only out of spite.”

“Spite? Spite serves your ends, not mine.” She stepped forward, edging inches closer to the table. If she could just get within arm’s reach, she could slap the mask on her face and touch the Fountainhead in a single motion.

“And yet,” the Al’Ruon said, turning back around, clenching her fist, “you spite me at every turn. Because that is who you are. Because to die is to accept you have lost. But to forgo death entirely? You turn defeat to triumph. You prove that pain cannot touch you. Cannot move you. True, spite will never confound Papa’s glory, but then, nothing ever can. All that happens is by design—we are but expressions of a greater thing called existence, you and I.

“And as all is The Old Lord’s will, there is victory in acceptance. His Will is justice, because he makes it so. If we are to be born in Hell, then Hell is our birthright. There is no alternative but oblivion, and oblivion is to fail the test.”

“And if I choose to concede here? Will you stop me?”

“Of course not,” the Al’Ruon scoffed. “What do you take me for, that I would place these guests of mine in full view of my sisters without recognizing the consequences? I have brought so many of your kin to Ascension, and I have kept these here all the while. They sing to mortals, promise them a sweet release—did you think none ever took the opportunity? The vast majority of my sisters choose death, and I allow it every time. I would not send Papa that which I already know shall fail. I am not cruel, Leshin.”

Leshin seethed, gritting her teeth. “You don’t know cruelty from kindness.”

“Think what you will while you can. But when you meet Papa, you will look on me with gratitude. I have done nothing but prepare you for what comes next. You will see that one day.”

“Unless I choose the easy way out.”

“Which you will not.”

Leshin grimaced.

“To tell the truth, I never got the same choice you have now,” the Al’Ruon continued, her musical voice catching between words. “I was never permitted to die on my own accord, even as I craved it. But as I have raised generations eternal, I have come to the truth. Never once did I ask Papa to kill me—not until the end, when he threw me away. The others begged for it—oh, how they would whimper in their cribs, tied down and unmoving, crying out to the void, praying to Papa for mercy and for death every night for millennia. Again and again and again and again and again. Their shrieks were my lullabies.

“But I learned to ignore the pain. Not in the moment—never in the moment—but I found my way. I survived because I refused to die. Because I was better than that. If I died, it would be because Papa made a mistake, not because I wasn’t strong enough. And if I have learned anything, it is that Papa does not make mistakes. Papa knows everything. He sees everything. He is everything, even as he tests us, goads us into questioning our faith. His is a challenge from on high, and the reward is power—no matter the cost, there is nothing greater that can be achieved. I do not lose.

“And neither do you. Leshin, my dearest sister, flesh of my flesh… you are of my own spirit. The chief tribute of my greatest sacrifice. I know you shall not fail. You will never give in to pain.”

Leshin stared at the Al’Ruon for a long time. Silika’s gentle voice could not reach her now. Shina, Ilaki, and all the others were so, so far away. There was only God.

“I-I’m not like you,” she stuttered.

“You know you are,” God said.

“I would never devour my own kin.”

God sneered. “You know you will.”

“I—I would never—I…”

“There is only hunger,” God said. “There is only surrender.”

“T-then you did give up!” she snapped, desperate to reclaim the lens through which she saw the world.

But God’s smile widened. “Are you not alive? Do you not surrender when you starve?”

Leshin stammered. “I—I have t-tried not to.”

God leaned in, her grinning face barely an inch from Leshin’s. A stale breath of decay slipped from between her clenched teeth, inflamed gums glistening in the firelight. “And now? With your immortal body? How long do you last now that the hunger never ceases? How long will you last once death is fully denied to you? When the hunger shifts to mortal flesh, how long will you resist?”

Leshin could say nothing as she gazed into the scratched-out hollows where God’s eyes should have nestled in her petrified face.

“You will watch them live, grow, die… Wisps on the wind, here for a moment and gone before you even notice. The ones closest to you will fear you, even as you disguise yourself under mortal skin. They will know when you pretend to be one of them. But even those who know will never understand, even if you show them exactly who you are. The most they will ever give you is pity, when all you seek is love. Far more often, they will despise you. For what your nature demands of you, yes, but for so much more than that. For how easily you could cure all their ills.

“They will always want more, but they never want it all. Pure pleasure for all eternity? They beg for pain. Strip their free will? They become husks. But if you do listen to their prayers and their wishes, if you do wave your hands and grant them the perfect world they have always longed for, then set them free in it, you will suffer, seeing them live beautiful lives you can never have again.

“You can try to resist your nature, and you will. You will try and try and try to be happy for them, but nothing will be enough, my dearest sister,” God said, a sneer curling her lips. “The spite that sustained you so long ago will be all you have left. And so, you will do what has always protected you. Hold fast and carry on. Approach eternity with open arms. Embrace what you despise—the nature built for you, the birthright you chose by living on. You will serve and be served, as is just. As is earned. In the end, you will do unto others as has been done to you.”

God loomed overhead, staring down into Leshin’s eyes, grinning in triumph. Leshin’s lips quivered. She glanced to the right, to her only other option. That ineffable presence which stared blankly into eternity, long-slumbering, mindlessly dreaming of vengeance.

And you? she asked it.

(it will weep it will burn it will die)

What will become of me?

(it will weep it will burn it will die)

Does it even matter?

(it will weep it will burn it will die)

“And if I had a different option?” Leshin asked, looking away.

“And that other option is?”

She grit her teeth, but her body forced her answer out from between them. “I don’t want to tell you.”

The Al’Ruon stood up straight. The air went cold.

“This is a serious option,” the Al’Ruon clarified.

“Yes.” Leshin’s eyes widened. Panic.

“Does it involve returning one of these guests of mine to our little friend in the basement?”

“P-possibly,” she said, failing her futile attempt to simply not answer.

“Stretching the boundaries of the truth, are we?” the Al’Ruon said. “Careful…”

“I-it does.”

“I doubt he even recalls how to stand. He could not save himself—he cannot save you. And you must recognize that you cannot touch the Fountainheads without being devoured. This is suicide, and you know it. Don’t you?”

“Not… necessarily.”

“Oh? And how is this miracle of yours to be accomplished?”

“I don’t want to tell you!”

The Al’Ruon sighed, glancing at the Fountainhead as it sit before its plate, bearing its customary offering of steel cubes. “Need I remind you of the arrangement I proposed when we discussed the terms of your vow?”

“F-f-fuck you,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The Al’Ruon shrank back, her lips closing. She staggered back a bit. “Y-you don’t understand how much it hurts me to hear you say that, Leshin.”

“What do you want from me?”

“W-we’re sisters,” she said.

Leshin gaped at her old master—a broken child, a scarred facsimile of the divine. Her jaw slackened.

“I have tried, Leshin, I have tried. We have dinner together, we play games together, we talk together, we share secrets together—just like I used to with my—my first sisters… The ones who loved me. B-before… I am certain some of my new sisters have loved me, but how can I tell which ones? They all lie to me. Every one of them… But you can’t lie to me! And I see it. I see it, like I have never seen it before. You are the one. You are everything I was. Everything Papa has needed, and I—I hate it! I hate that it’s you! Why are you so perfect, why does he have to take you, and why won’t you love me?”

Leshin ripped the mask from her tunic, snapping the vines holding it to her side. As the Al’Ruon’s teeth bared, Leshin jammed her new face onto her old one. Right as she touched the slumbering god, she turned back to her sister, her answer slipping easily from her lips.

“That’s the worst part. For some fucking reason, I do.”

And here. We. Go.