Blackhand

by Matt Hiebert

  “It is not over.”

  Blackhand placed his hands on either side of Ru’s graceful head. The god’s skin seemed made of pearl.

  “None of this was meant to be, foolish god,” he said. “The universe is ready to die. And you must let it.”

  Blackhand squeezed.

  “It will not end!” Ru screamed. His body glowed and changed shape. Shards of light erupted from his torso and three eyes.

  In a flash, Ru disappeared and in his place an expanding silver sphere took shape. The sphere grew so large that the ceiling and walls exploded to accommodate its dimensions. Blackhand was slapped across the room. The globe was identical to Yuul’s form, but a hundred times larger. Blue lightning traced its smooth surface.

  “IT WILL NOT END,” the gigantic sphere insisted.

  The invisible weave that held the world together sprang from the naked air and seized Blackhand’s limbs with immovable force. The entire world pitted its might against him and quaked at the expense. The force lifted him several feet above the floor, his arms thrown out wide. Parts of Ru’s castle collapsed to dust from the cost. The law had been broken.

  A shimmering tentacle emerged from the great sphere and moved towards him. Paralyzed, Blackhand summoned more power, asking for the strength he needed to snap the blasphemous bonds. The universe answered. He could do it.

  But it was too late.

  The tentacle touched him and coldness began to fill his body. Stone seemed to spread from his center outwards. He realized he was being turned to amber. First his organs, then his limbs. He watched his black hand solidify and turn burnt yellow. The change spread up his neck into his face.

  There was no stopping the transformation. Ru had broken too many laws. Blackhand had no power against such violations. He had lost. As his last moment came, a name arose within his memory like a forgotten dream. Not understanding why, he spoke the name aloud.

  “Aran!”

  The amber pierced his mind and he felt it crystallize….

  Sirian Ru regained control of his form and returned to substance, his missing arm restored. He stood before the amber statue and admired it. Every detail was in place, every molecule had become resin. Even Blackhand’s transformed limb had petrified. The violation of his own laws had been worth the cost.

  Blackhand was dead.

  Disappointed he would not be able to eat his enemy and absorb the myriad of experience such a creature must possess, Ru picked up the amber form, raised it above his head and smashed it on the floor. A million yellow-red fragments scattered across the chamber, mixing with the debris from their battle.

  “It will end when I say it ends,” Ru said.

  Then something took his breath. The Agara sword pierced his chest from behind.

  Yuul twisted the weapon and pulled it out, destroying the organs keeping Ru alive. Clear fluid splattered to the marble floor like water. Already drained from committing his crime, Ru could do nothing to halt the wound.

  It had taken two days for Yuul to scale the exterior of the castle. Several times it had almost fallen. The young god arrived at the pinnacle seconds after the flying monster had collided with the structure. The black sword slid to Yuul’s feet the instant it entered the room as if handed to the god by fate. No further guidance from the Lanya was needed. Yuul’s moment had arrived. It knew what to do. It would not be swayed by Ru’s beauty again.

  With death upon him, Sirian Ru turned to see his killer. It was a Thog. No, not a Thog. In the center of the stone something else looked back at him.

  Yuul.

  Ru did not marvel at the surprise. He was not amazed by the irony of the situation. He did not have any final words. At that moment, he was thinking about the last two thousand years of his life, the time he had spent building a world. The time he had spent alive.

  He remembered the first time he drew breath, the first time he saw through eyes, the first human being he consumed. Beautiful. From there his memory rushed back to the beginning of time, reviewing his existence as a formless god.

  Oh, the things he had forgotten!

  Then Ru knew death.

  Yuul watched as Ru’s entire body flashed away in a divine kaleidoscope of experience and dreams, desire and will, until nothing remained. The young god felt the death as if it were its own.

  Hands shaking, Yuul dropped the dripping black blade to the floor.

  What had it done?

  Seeing Ru die wounded Yuul far worse than killing the Thogmaster. The dreams and desires of a god, transcending a thousand dimensions, millions of years, were all lost to darkness in a blink; flushed down a drain as if they never existed.

  And by Yuul’s hand.

  The god in Thog form fell to the floor and curled into a ball. Its grief descended to madness. There was no escaping the guilt. What prize was worth this pain?

  All of this, all of this, by its hand.

  A rumbling arose from the roots of the world. The castle wobbled upon its trunk. The atoms in the room came apart, their glue now dissolved. Matter became smoke and then nothing at all.

  Yuul shook itself from sorrow long enough to see what was happening. Everything was coming apart, evaporating like colored smoke.

  So it was true, Yuul thought. Ru did keep the world alive.

  The young god laughed, but tears streamed from its stolen eyes.

  The castle collapsed. Yuul was torn to pieces within the tumbling mass of debris. Great steel branches snapped and fell to the surface miles below, crushing Ru’s factory and the remaining Thogs beneath a city of cannibalized stone and steel.

  Light disappeared. The edges of the world began to steam. The entire wedge trembled and its surface became as loose as sand. Matter dissolved into mist. The universe was at last coming to an end.

  Then the Lanya executed their plan.

  Since the day the world shattered and the universe dimmed to a cinder, the warrior-witches had waited. Hidden in the mist, they had watched the Lover of Life walk the earth, devouring the souls of men. From their spires, they had watched his younger rival flail against the barrier between spirit and flesh, only succeeding in manipulating the minds of the devoted from afar. They had occasionally stepped in to aid the kingdoms of Man but would return to legend when the balance of play had been restored.

  Throughout it all, they awaited the arrival of a single moment in time, a single second when all they had built would come to use. They were diligent and they were patient, always knowing, always knowing what they would have to do when the game ended.

  And now the final move had been made. It was time.

  From their island on the far side of the world, all the Lanya, save one, emptied their souls into the splitting seams of the earth. Their flesh became spirit and they stitched what had been torn. With their lives, they bound the frayed wounds where Ru’s laws had fled.

  A shimmer of gold moved throughout the world as their essence filled the fractures. Light returned to the sky.

  The Lanya died and became more, their ancient lives fused with the energy that held matter together. As they had practiced many times before, their souls melted into the law of reality and they became the world itself.

  The trembling ceased. The world continued. The law had found new judges.

  Epilogue

  Now she was the only one. The gods and new being had performed their drama and the curtain had fallen. Her sisters had played their role and were now a part of something greater.

  Their sacrifice had saved the universe. Life would draw another breath.

  The Lanya queen looked out upon her empty city. No need to hide any longer. No one left to see them. No one left to see.

  She had waited centuries for the gods to err. At last they had, and it cost them everything. Just as it had her.

  It was the young god’s folly that set the final game in motion. It was only right the deity paid the same price as Ru. At least Ru had started with good intentions. Yuul’s motives were wholly selfish.

&nb
sp; She became concerned when the Thogs first appeared, but they had been expected and could be destroyed. Once the altered Abanshi came into the existence, however, she knew it was time to intercede. The cost would be great, but the alternative, far worse.

  Yes. It was time.

  She had followed a course of probability and saw the board could be wiped clean while preserving what remained of existence. A drastic conclusion, but one without alternative. The transformed Abanshi could never defeat Ru. The old god would not allow it. Bringing an Agara into the fray showed how desperate Ru had become. Once the god and the Abanshi finally faced each other, she knew the old god would break his own laws to win.

  Around that predetermined fact, she built her final stroke. She had put Yuul in play, having the god wait for the right moment to strike after the Abanshi had failed. Unseen. Unexpected. A hidden piece upon the board.

  After the Abanshi’s complete merger with the god, she worried he would forget his love for the woman and remain adrift, lost in his conversation with Ru. Had he not been enraged by her murder, he might never reenter the world. He might never come to the Lanya queen and plant the seed she needed to begin the next step.

  Oh, he had been the wild element, indeed. After his creation, she had watched him from afar, a white flame cutting across the landscape, lost and without a plan. Dangerous. He tossed away the lessons he learned from the game and leaned too heavily on his divine might. He was not a king. Only a warrior.

  When she finally met him face to face and saw how the god permeated his cells, she knew if the merger was complete, the change would transcend his existence. It would create a new life form. His power would bridge generations. Even his offspring would carry the flame of a god.

  Many things could have gone wrong, but they had not. Her plan had worked without flaw. The gods and monsters were gone. Right or wrong, the world belonged to Mankind once again. At least for a while.

  She left her castle and then she left her kingdom. Looking at its spires one last time, she stepped upon the earth and commanded her island to sail away. The city floated into the clouds and disappeared beyond the rim of existence.

  Turning, she began her journey into the world. Everything had bloomed. It was time to tend the garden.

  The twins in her womb would be there soon. She wanted to make sure everything was in order before they arrived.

  Beneath the ruins of a fallen castle,

  a demon trapped within a sword

  screams for freedom,

  while the young god

  entombed beside it,

  weeps.