THE PRIEST
by Chris Eisenlauer
Published in the United States of America
by Chris Eisenlauer.
Copyright © 2017 by Chris Eisenlauer.
All rights reserved.
First published September 2017.
Cover by BetiBup33 Design Studio.
The Last Times Have Come . . .
All of civilization has been boiled down into a crucible, one last city where religions scramble to claim converts and affirm their Truths before the end arrives.
NOX
GODDESS OF THE TRUE DEATH
The city wasn’t what it once was. Through the busy comings and goings, through the street vendors and their insistent hawking, through the veneer of what appeared to be a thriving metropolis, Phaeax couldn’t help but see dilapidation and decay everywhere he looked. Every street had its share of loose, cracked, or missing cobbles. Everyone’s clothes, even those of the wealthiest, were threadbare, frayed, or showed evidence of mending. It seemed that the very character of color was failing a little more each day. Dust spun in taunting whorls, carried by winds that ate away at the mortar—both literal and figurative—of human achievement.
It didn’t matter. Everyone, and therefore everything, would succumb to the True Death. Phaeax had sworn his life and his death to ensuring this, and soon, the tallies of the Divine Accountants would reflect this as well.
Lost in thought over the message he carried and all that it implied, Phaeax didn’t notice the gang of priests blocking the way. He felt a hand, belonging to one of the four men who’d accompanied him, upon his shoulder, shaking him from his reverie.
“Lord Phaeax,” said the Gray, so identified by his cassock of the same color.
When Phaeax looked up, he saw the garishly-outfitted priests of Kesh, who in spite, or because, of their raiments of many colors, blended in with their surroundings so as to be nearly invisible. There were seven of them in total, led by Nilsum, one of the faith’s three head priests.
Nilsum stepped immediately in front of Phaeax, his six subordinates fanning out on either side of him.
Stallkeepers pulled in wares from free-standing tables. Passersby gave a wide berth and began to form a human cordon, a makeshift arena for the brawl that was about to ensue.
Phaeax stopped and held out a hand to halt the Grays. His was a Black Cassock, a sign of his rank.
“Look here, brothers,” Nilsum said. “We’ve got some of Nox’s boys—one of her chief boys at that—who appear to be lost.”
Phaeax grinned. “Feeling rather brazen, aren’t you, Nilsum?”
“Your Black Cassock doesn’t frighten me. You bleed enough and you still die.”
Ignoring Nilsum, Phaeax said over his shoulder to the Grays, “Do you know why Nilsum is so brazen?”
As a group they shook their heads. One replied, “No, Lord Phaeax. Why?”
“He knows the message we carry. I imagine he mistakenly believes that, if he can forcibly convert the lot of us, he can somehow prevent the inevitable.” Phaeax’s eyes drifted back to lock onto Nilsum’s, causing Nilsum to wince.
“Forcible conversion,” Phaeax said, his eyes narrowing. “Grays require explicit permission from Nox herself whenever they leave the temple, but not Black Cassocks.” And then his right hand was in motion, a blur no one could follow. A closed fist sank into Nilsum’s stomach, an open Y-hand cut into Nilsum’s throat, the back of a closed fist circled upwards, crashing into Nilsum’s nose and popping it like an overripe boil.
Nilsum toppled, gasping for, and grasping at, air that couldn’t help him. He landed hard and unmoving on his back, his throat swollen, his nose a sickening red pulp. Nilsum’s subordinates stared, stunned for a moment, before advancing and engaging.
Phaeax altered his posture slightly, began to use both hands now. Another of the Kesh priests fell before him.
A Gray took a punch that dizzied him and split the skin of his brow. Blood flowed instantly and copiously, fouling his vision, and losing him his fight.
Phaeax grabbed the offending Kesh priest by the head, and drove a knee into it. The man’s eyes rolled up to whites, and he dropped like a sack of stones.
Another Gray had his own knee kicked out from under him, the joint visibly failing, but he clung to his opponent, bringing the Kesh priest, too, to the ground. The Gray took hold of the other’s ears and drove his head repeatedly into a reddening cobblestone.
The fight lasted less than a minute, and though some of them needed support, the only ones left standing were Phaeax and the Grays.
Phaeax, whose only contact with the Kesh priests had been through his fists, stood over Nilsum.
Nilsum didn’t or couldn’t move, but his bloodshot eyes were open and darting erratically, as if searching for some sign of succor that wouldn’t come.
“The Divine Accountants’ tallies aren’t a secret,” Phaeax said. “And any fool can see that we lead all priesthoods in forcible conversions. You said my Black Cassock doesn’t frighten you, but how do you think I got it?”
Phaeax knelt down until he was crouching over Nilsum. A dark shimmer began to radiate out from him, from which Nilsum flinched. Their eyes were locked once again. Phaeax drew closer and the dark shimmer grew in intensity.
Nilsum jammed his eyes shut and cried out, “No!”
Seconds later, the sound of retreating laughter coaxed Nilsum into opening his eyes again. He forced himself into a position which allowed him to see that Phaeax and the Grays had continued on their way, leaving behind seven bloody and broken priests of Kesh who still lived. The crowd had begun to break up and disperse, with many praising the priests of Nox as they passed.
• • •
Nox’s temple was of white marble. Broad steps led up to columns that lined its front and which formed a kind of facade. Its high walls described a square with a portion of its middle open to the sky and where its mana tree grew. There were bigger temples and smaller temples and most adhered to the same or a similar design aesthetic, with cosmetic differences revealing the divine occupant’s individual taste or artistic sensibility. Nox’s temple was simple, spare, and of sufficient size to house a full complement of forty-four priests along with herself.
The two Grays standing at the main gate needed no urging or direction when they saw Phaeax coming. One pushed the gate open and joined the other in helping to usher the injured inside. The gate opened to a foyer. Immediately beyond, there was no wall, but steps led down to the mana tree. Halls on the left and right led to the temple’s interior. The Grays went right. Phaeax acknowledged them with a quiet, “Thanks,” and proceeded left, heading for Nox. The gate closed of its own accord. Only a temple’s priests could enter its gate, and only gods could circumvent that otherwise inviolable natural law.
• • •
Phaeax wasn’t sure when his worship turned to lust. What he wanted she freely gave to all except him whom she favored. She was known as the child goddess, last and youngest of the gods, yet older than all of mankind. She would remain when all the gods and their followers were gone, and if she had her way, Phaeax would be by her side. This was her promise to him. It was the source of his strength and his torment.
He walked the marble corridor to her chamber, his boots clicking with swallowed echoes, his stomach a nervous tumult. It was worse every time he came this way, and he marveled at his waning discipline. He would have to master himself.
There was no door to her chamber, only a gossamer curtain, and he found that his timing invariably coincided with her dressing, though the coincidence seemed to be unique to him alone.
“Mistress,” he said through the curtain.
“Is that you, Phaeax?”
“Yes, Mistress.” His voice broke and he stared for a moment.
The curtain did little to conceal her as she fastened the shoulder strap of her simple, black gown. She stood just under five feet tall. Her skin was as white and perfect as the marble that surrounded her, her hair a cascade of smooth and flawless obsidian that merged seamlessly with the black of her gown. They called her the child goddess, and her supposed youth was apparent, but she was no child.
He swallowed hard and continued, “Karm, the Succession God, has formally requested that you serve as his Witness.”
“Indeed,” she said.
He could hear the pleasure in her voice.
“Come here, Phaeax.”
“Mistress?”
“Yes, yes, come here. And call me by name. I’ve told you countless times now.”
Phaeax stepped slowly through the curtain, “Mistress, such familiarity will surely prove disruptive.”
She smiled, bright and genuine. “You use the same argument every time.”
She stared at him, trying to penetrate his stoic expression, then couldn’t suppress a giggle.
“Everyone already knows that you are my favorite so there’s no sense being covert about it. Besides that, your Black Cassock marks you as Exempt and illustrates to everyone your elevated status in my priesthood. Even if you still wore the gray coat of your juniors, you would still warrant special attention. You have earned my recognition, and I cannot help but admire you.”
Phaeax was silent.
“These are the Last Times,” she said. “Many of my fellows refuse to acknowledge this despite the ravages brought on by the Six Gods of War, despite the crumbling oasis this city has been reduced to. Some know the Truth. I know the Truth, and Karm now knows it as well. This is a great day for us.
“But, as these are the Last Times, chaos will seep into our lives more and more, and we will accept it so long as it doesn’t interfere with our task. My priests will accept this familiarity. They will have no choice, and they will have little time to form judgements. You forget that your example stands with or without my special attention. Of all my priests, only Tenes could be jealous, and though he, too, is Exempt, he is much too old for such sentiments.
“So,” she said, sighing, “that is why you can, and will, refer to me by name.”
He grinned unaffectedly. “Yes, Nox.”
“Good! Now go fetch Tenes and prepare for the march.”
Phaeax nodded. “There’s one more thing. There can be no doubt that Kesh and his priests are aware of Karm’s decision. We were set upon by Kesh’s priests on our way back.”
“I see.”
“As you say, the Last Times are here, and this shift in the Divine Accountants’ tallies will upset any balance, real or imagined, existing between those who oversee the business of death.”
She nodded. “What is it you propose?”
“Standing authorization for forcible conversion.”
“Very well,” she said. “But frivolity will not be tolerated, nor will instigation. See to it that the Grays understand the importance of using the rite responsibly.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
She shot him an angry look.
“Yes, Nox,” he corrected himself.
She narrowed her eyes. “No compromises. You can do no wrong in my eyes, but this request is just as binding as any other tenet. It’s just that it applies to you alone.”
Her lips curled into a seductive smile, making Phaeax both blush and shudder.
“Hurry and go,” she said, pushing him back through the curtain, her hands upon him producing waves of chills that had nothing to do with fear or the temperature of her skin. “I’m anxious for the Accounting.”
KARM
THE SUCCESSION GOD
Phaeax, Tenes, and a total of thirteen Grays escorted Nox through the streets, she upon a plain, open palanquin supported by four of the Grays. Shopkeepers gawked, pedestrians stopped and stared. The city was full of gods, but it was unusual to see them outside of their temples. Rumors and panic would spread quickly, and perhaps already had.
Several blocks away, Phaeax observed three men in various states of undress as they tore at their clothes, ran in aimless circles, and screamed unintelligibly. There was no obvious cause, and no one paid them much attention.
Elsewhere, a woman in faded finery stood facing the side wall of a yellowed building, banging her head into it with clockwork regularity, despite the blood that drizzled down in streams. A man in comparable dress lay at her feet, the fingers of his right hand wrapped tightly around a knife handle with its blade buried in his chest.
Their route took them very near a vendor, whose eyes were wide with fever or madness, and who was busy destroying his stall with a length of heavy timber he had difficulty lifting.
“Can you hear him? Pulling at his chains?” Tenes said with a grin to Phaeax.
Tenes was stocky and weathered. His hair and beard were gray, but years had done nothing to dull his reflexes, his strength, his endurance.
Phaeax stared straight ahead, pursed his lips, and answered soberly, “Yes. Yes, I can.”
The grin dropped from Tenes’s face. He sighed and nodded, glanced almost surreptitiously at Phaeax, then resumed his forward gaze.
As they came in sight of Karm’s temple, it became clear that Karm and his retinue were not the only ones awaiting them. Standing with Karm were Ahurimanda and Kesh, both accompanied by a number of their own priests. Phaeax could see that, despite his injuries, Nilsum was there.
Tenes grunted. “This might get sticky,” he said.
Nox smiled. “Now, now, Tenes. Let us have faith in what remains of civilization.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Tenes said.
“Besides,” she continued, “if circumstances so warrant, I can always serve as Witness for more than just Karm today.”
Tenes and Phaeax, both grinning, shared a look.
The Grays lowered Nox’s palanquin. She stepped down from it and took the lead of her procession, with Tenes and Phaeax immediately behind her, the Grays behind them. When she reached Karm, she ignored his two callers.
Karm was dressed in opulent silk robes of deep red and lustrous gold. Upon his head was a small boxlike hat of polished black wood with a fine, inlaid scrollwork mosaic of iridescent seashells.
“Karm,” she said. “I am here as you requested.”
Ahurimanda, God of the Two Fates, was dressed in several layers of thick silk, dark and of uncertain color. The silks covered his head as well, except for his face, over which was a mask that corresponded with his disposition, always either benevolent or malevolent. His priests were dressed similarly, with helmets that boasted rotating faceplates, so that, like their master, they always showed their true selves. At the moment, Ahurimanda’s white, cameo features were pleasant, reassuring, comforting. His priests’ were the same.
“Nox,” he said. “While I’d hoped Karm would choose otherwise, I respect his decision. It’s quite a boon for you.”
Kesh, a male figure of nearly transparent gelatin, snorted.
“And quite a blow to the both of you,” Nox said, glancing at Kesh momentarily for emphasis.
“There is still time to reconsider, Karm,” Kesh said, his voice, as always, sounding trapped in a chamber half-filled with water. “Don’t let the unsophisticated child walk away with so much.”
“Nox!” Phaeax said, breathless with rage and seeking permission to act.
She held a hand out to calm him.
Kesh snorted again. “One of your chiefs seems to have a discipline problem.”
“He—as one of my chiefs—was invited here,” she said. “You, I believe, are intruding. Ah, yes, here are the Divine Accountants. Let’s get this underway, shall we?”
Karm acknowledged the new arrivals, each identical, robed, hooded, and bearing an abacus.
“Yes,” he said, and the Divine Accountants began calculating. Karm took a deep breath, stood his full height, and assumed a dignified posture.
“Do you have anything you want to say?” Nox said.
Karm licked his lips. “For so long, everything went so smoothly. Everything seemed so right. My worshippers strove in life for rebirth into ever more prosperous circumstances and I had results the world over, my tallies some of the strongest. The Six Gods of War changed everything when they annihilated themselves along with a sizable percentage of the population. After that . . .” Karm shook his head. “How could the world recover? Even then, I wondered. There was no population boom to balance all that death. Cities began to waste away to nothing. Everywhere, it was the same spiral of decay. And here we are, in the Last Times with no future, only a fleeting present.”
Nox listened attentively. When Karm finished, she nodded, but then thought for a moment and frowned.
“Karm,” she said, “did you ever wonder if your own doubt played a part in the onset of the Last Times?”
Karm blinked, cocked his head, frowned himself. He looked at her questioningly, then cast his eyes down as he rolled her question over and over in his mind.
“I’m sorry Karm,” she said. “The time has come. I acknowledge your diligent efforts. Your numbers are graciously accepted.”
She drew closer to him, rising up on her tiptoes, a black shimmer radiating from her like a dark corona.
“In these last moments,” she said, “remember the happy times if you like. You will know pain, suffering, and the very ennui of existence no more.”
She reached a bit higher, turned his head gently with her right hand, and kissed him on the lips.
With her kiss and his willingness to let go, Karm collapsed dead. The divinity he’d shared with his priests was a fatal thread connecting them all. They, too, dropped dead when their master did.
The Divine Accountants continued tabulating for hours, while Nox waited. Ahurimanda took his retinue and left, but Kesh remained behind with his own.
KESH
GOD OF TRANSCENDENCE
“Why do you torture yourself, Kesh?” Nox said.
His arms folded haughtily across his chest, Kesh shook his head.
“He was foolish,” Kesh said. “It was but a small step from his Truth to my own.”
“Oh?” she said. “Where do they go, Kesh? Do they live in the clouds? Do they join the stars in the night sky? Or do they go to a pastoral underworld by way of their graves?”
Kesh sighed. “As usual, your insight and intelligence are as stunted as your physical growth. They transcend the physical plane!”
“Do they, though?” she remained perfectly calm despite his agitation.
“Of course they do! You offer nothing! I offer hope!”
“Hope?” She made a point to look in all directions. “Does hope have any place in this world? You offer a lie. I offer Truth and everyone can see it. Granted, it is a hard Truth, but this world proves it more and more each day. You call me a child, but it’s you who’s unsophisticated and naive.”
“You ignorant bitch.”
Nox smiled.
“The end will show—”
Phaeax, had been standing by with tightly clenched fists, trying his best to quell his outrage, but this last insult was too much to bear. He moved with sudden speed, driving one of those fists into Kesh’s glistening stomach. His fist sank deep, doubling Kesh, silencing him, and causing the god’s colorless eyes to go wide.
“Open your mouth again,” Phaeax said.
Tenes and the Grays gawked. Nox looked on with interest and amusement, a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.
Kesh’s priests weren’t sure what to do. Their god had just been assaulted by a rival’s head priest. Such things were not unprecedented, but the combination of Nox’s words and their own god’s apparent weakness was sufficient to raise serious questions about Kesh’s Truth.
“You dare, too!” Kesh said, sputtering and backing away through his priests.
Phaeax made brief eye contact with Nox, who nodded subtly.
Standing before Phaeax now, more resulting from the dynamic of Kesh’s retreat than any concerted effort, were Kesh’s three head priests. Nilsum was at the right of them, staring at Phaeax with haunted eyes, his head twitching left to right.
Over his shoulder Phaeax said, “Tenes,” and he proceeded towards the three as if they weren’t there. Looking past him and radiating black, Phaeax took hold of Nilsum’s head in both hands and twisted it with a degree of violence that stood in sharp contrast to his controlled demeanor. He passed through the head priests as Tenes arrived to engage the two remaining. The Grays, too, seeing their seniors act, acted themselves. From all of Nox’s priests, the the black corona began to shine.
Kesh had backed up the steps of Karm’s temple to the gate. With one hand nursing the unfamiliar pain shooting through his stomach, he struck the gate with his other, causing it to fly open.
“Stay away from me,” Kesh said, in a low, guttural, threatening tone.
Phaeax responded by increasing the pace of his pursuit. Kesh turned and tried to run, but was shoved from behind and sent sprawling onto the slick, polished floor. The only light came from the open gate, and Phaeax’s shadow loomed large over Kesh as the god attempted to right himself and face his assailant. Kesh rose, and felt Phaeax’s fist a second time, this time upon his jaw, then a third time against the opposite cheek.
Again and again, the priest’s fists came.
Kesh’s face lost what little definition it had, so that his features ran together and dripped to the floor. Phaeax continued the beating, nearly slipping on the colorless blood, but Kesh, led in a dance by Phaeax’s fists, began to laugh.
“You can hurt me, yes, but you cannot kill me, let alone convert me.”
Phaeax stopped, took a step back, his breast heaving from exertion. His rage was spent, but not so his purpose. He knew from the way his blows glanced off of Kesh’s gelatinous form that only a fraction of the force was being transmitted.
“I can hurt you. I can kill you. And I can most certainly convert you.”
Kesh started laughing again, spat onto the floor, straightened to his full height.
“No, you are just a little man, following a little girl, whose only defining trait is impertinence.”
He wiped a hand across his face, further smearing his features, and despite the eye contact he’d been maintaining with Phaeax, Phaeax, suddenly, was no longer there.
Dim light from above caught Kesh’s attention, but as the line draped down and was wrapped double around his neck, he felt the pressure between his shoulder blades help cinch the garotte’s grip.
Kesh gasped silently and clawed uselessly at the air. Phaeax was behind him, his knee pressed against the god’s back, his hands clasping either end of the taut, faintly glowing wire. The black aura poured off of Phaeax like furnace flames, consuming the last of Kesh’s strength and will.
Kesh dropped to his knees, then fell flat on his face, dead.
When Phaeax was finished, he saw Tenes standing at the threshold.
“You . . . You did it,” Tenes said, full of awe or fear or both. “I didn’t think you could, but you did.”
Phaeax stood and stepped clear of Kesh’s corpse. “Either of us could have.”
At that, Tenes assumed an inscrutable expression and nodded slowly. “Maybe,” he said, but unconvincingly.
They descended the temple steps together, and the Divine Accountants renewed their tabulations.
VICE
THE PROCURER
Once the fighting was done, the neighborhood containing Karm’s temple seemed calm, quiet, peaceful, and especially idyllic when the sun began to set. However, as Nox and her priests made their way through the darkening streets, chaos asserted itself as the norm. Several fires flickered, lighting the night sky sporadically until they, too, victims of the Last Times, sputtered and died with no real consequence. A number of corpses littered the streets. More and more people were losing their minds as the reality of life and death resolved itself into just two ultimate possibilities: Nox’s True Death or one of Ahurimanda’s Two Fates.
Ahurimanda’s faith offered some degree of hope, but no one would know for sure which of the Two Fates they’d earned until judgement. It was easier to just know with Nox, but the Accounting would not be finished until one alone remained. In the meantime, everyone who lost his or her mind, became an unwitting adherent of, and gave strength to, the god on the hill, straining at his chains. The end had been encroaching slowly for the last fifty years at least, but once the Lunatic God broke his chains, time was up.
On arrival at their own temple, Nox rewarded her priests for the day’s Accounting with freedom to do as they would for the rest of the night. Most of her priests took advantage of this rare boon, with only a very few deciding to remain at the temple.
“Come on Tenes, let’s celebrate,” Phaeax said.
“No, I’m too old for carousing. Besides, behind the temple walls, away from all the noise, the night is pleasant enough, and the song of the mana tree’s leaves on the wind is all I need. Well, that and a bottle I’ve been saving for a very long time.”
Phaeax grinned. “Save a drink for me, if you can.”
“We shall see, young Phaeax. We shall see.”
Phaeax took his leave with a number of Grays into the city. Though they left together, Phaeax soon broke away from his fellows and continued alone.
• • •
Within a few short minutes, Phaeax came upon a figure, cloaked and hooded, which seemed to move invisibly through the night crowds.
“Most cannot recognize me outside one of my many establishments,” the figure said in a voice that might have belonged to a man or a woman.
“Most aren’t looking for the level of discretion I am,” Phaeax said.
“Which is it then that powers your preternatural perception? Your desire or your need for discretion?”
Phaeax shrugged. “Desire alone has decided the rise and fall of empires. Anyway, what do you care? It keeps you in business, doesn’t it?”
“It does, but maybe not for very much longer. I believe we’ve run out of empires, and I’ve seen the most recent tallies. Very impressive day’s work. I can see why you sought me out. Come this way.”
Phaeax followed. The location was always different, and the one waiting for him was always the same, at least in appearance. He suspected that some glamour was involved. Indeed, it couldn’t be otherwise.
He spent two hours coupling with her and another just holding her while they lay there naked. Eventually, the same dark disappointment overcame him and brought him back to harsh reality. He dressed in his Black Cassock, stared longingly at her on the bed for a bit longer, and left.
Outside, Vice awaited and took the handful of coins Phaeax offered.
“Still not satisfied? I assure you that every curve, however slight, has been meticulously reproduced. The face and the body, too, are perfect reproductions. But—and I suspect this is the problem—she is not her. Tell me, what is it you wish to achieve?”
Phaeax sighed. “Release.”
“My dear boy, if I were charging you by the instance and not by the hour, I’d have retired long ago, if ever it was in my makeup to do so. Release, you say?”
“Goodbye, Vice.”
LORD MURDER
Despite the hour, the streets were noisier than when Phaeax had set out. Chaos and panic continued to prevail, and the bodies went unnoticed or ignored. There could be no question that the Lunatic God would snap his chains very soon now. Phaeax didn’t care. It didn’t matter. It changed nothing. And, more importantly, it had no impact on his mood, darkened by what he could not have.
He pushed through the temple gate, closed it behind him to silence the clamor, and passed through the open foyer into the yard that housed the mana tree. On a stone bench beneath the softly creaking boughs, he found Tenes with his bottle.
Tenes perked up at Phaeax’s presence. “You still want that drink?”
“If you can spare it.”
“I can.”
Tenes held the bottle out. Phaeax took it, drank from it.
“Never seen numbers move like they did today,” Tenes said.
“Well, these are the Last Times.”
“Yes, yes they are. Still, not sure exactly what I saw in Karm’s temple.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re awfully good at what you do, Phaeax.”
Phaeax snorted. “You trained me, Tenes.”
Tenes’s eyes sparkled. “Did I?”
Phaeax scoffed. “You’re drunk, old friend.”
“Who are you?” Tenes said.
“What do you mean? Tenes, you’ve known me since I was twelve years old. I’ve lived inside these walls ever since, learning everything you’ve had to teach.”
“It’s true,” Tenes said. “You entered this temple fifteen years ago. You devoted yourself to your training and advanced quickly and believably because of that devotion. Even so, no one in the history of the priesthood, besides you, ever received the Black Cassock in ten years. No one has ever done what you did today. So tell me: Who are you?”
Phaeax shrugged, shook his head, but couldn’t bring himself to break away from Tenes’s penetrating gaze.
Tenes just stared, his eyes still sparkling enigmatically. Finally, he started again. “A long time before you were . . . born there was an adjunct god who served death. He had a cult of killers who were a match for any priesthood. He was called Lord Murder and he operated according to his own code or to flippant whim, no one ever knew which. Maybe they were the same. I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Lord Murder was legendary. Unbeatable. But one day, he just disappeared. All his cultists turned up dead. As he was an adjunct god, there were no tallies to check with the Divine Accountants, so there was no way to confirm one way or the other if he was really gone. Eventually, people forgot about him. His legend faded, just like everything else once we entered into the Last Times.”
Phaeax shook his head again. “Tenes, why are you telling me about Lord Murder?”
Tenes chuckled, reached for the bottle in Phaeax’s hand, retrieved it, and took a drink.
“Why . . . When I was a boy, twelve, just like you were when you entered the priesthood, I saw him once. This was before the Six Gods of War ruined everything, when just about everybody felt about Nox the way Kesh did. Back then his opinion wasn’t unique. She and her priests have had to, and so have, consistently proven her Truth over the years.”
“Okay,” Phaeax said, still confused by the turn of the conversation.
“Have you ever heard of Tai Sun Sen, the Immortal? Probably not. That day, when I was twelve, I saw Lord Murder end his life. Tai Sun Sen was different from the rest of the gods. He taught anyone who’d take the time to learn to be physically immortal. He called it cultivating the breath. His priests were more than formidable. They challenged the natural order with what they’d achieved. His following had always been small, but had started to grow.
“Lord Murder, who never appeared the same to more than one person, challenged him publicly. They boxed, they wrestled. Lord Murder plied him with knives, with bludgeons. Nothing worked. Finally, realizing that the source of Tai Sun Sen’s immortality was in the breath he cultivated, Lord Murder produced the Ghost Wire and strangled him from behind. It wasn’t a quick thing. Tai Sun Sen struggled and thrashed, but Lord Murder had held his knee to the Immortal’s back, further tightening the noose and making himself unreachable. I watched the light go out of the Immortal’s eyes and it terrified me. The dread there, bordering on utter emptiness, spoke to one Truth, and I saw him, with no breath left to speak, mouth his last words: ‘Nox is Truth.’
“That was a hundred and twenty-six years ago. Lord Murder disappeared shortly after. Needless to say, that incident decided and defined my religious career.”
“That’s a great story, Tenes, but I still don’t understand what it has to do with today.”
Tenes snorted. “I haven’t thought about it for years, but back then, I often wondered if Lord Murder was influenced just as I was on that day.”
“That certainly would be a boon to her cause.”
“It would indeed. You are the best student I’ve ever had, Phaeax. You’ve been just as good a friend. Remember, though, you are a priest of Nox. If you by chance forget that, make sure you don’t forget that I am, too, and always will be.”
“Alright, Tenes. I’ll remember, but maybe we should both try to get some sleep.”
“You go on ahead.”
AHURIMANDA
GOD OF THE TWO FATES
Two hours before dawn, Phaeax awoke. Someone had spoken his name. He sat up clear-headed and alert, and despite the darkness, he saw that he was alone in his cell. He dressed quickly and set off through the temple for Nox’s chamber.
• • •
A pounding at the gate startled Tenes to wakefulness. He rose from the stone bench—his makeshift bed beneath the mana tree—stretched his back, and walked the short distance to the gate to open it.
“What is it?” he said rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Tenes,” a refined voice replied with some surprise. “How fortuitous . . . and good of you to answer at this early hour.”
“Aael?” Tenes said.
It was indeed Aael, Ahurimanda’s head priest, wearing his benevolent face.
“It’s too early.”
“Never so in our line of work. I need your help with something. Would you come with me?”
“Now?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Let me call you some Grays.”
“I believe this to be beyond the scope of what a lesser priest, even a group of them, could accomplish. You can see,” Aael said, glancing over his shoulder, “what it’s like out here.”
Tenes peered through the early morning dark to see rioters in the distance, corpses strewn everywhere, vendor stalls smashed, buildings defaced and crumbling, variously-sized bonfires smoldering on and off the streets. He grunted, took a deep breath, and stepped outside.
“Are you alone?” Tenes said.
“I wasn’t when I set out,” Aael said, politely waving Tenes ahead of him.
Tenes descended the steps to the street with Aael close behind him. When he started to speak again, Tenes found his words cut off by a rope tightening around his neck, then another pulling from the opposite direction. He saw that Aael was now wearing his malevolent face, as were a number of his juniors emerging from the shadows at the other end of each rope. Tenes tried to loosen the coils crushing his throat, but his fingers could not find sufficient purchase.
“You see, Tenes,” Aael said, “the Grays don’t concern us, you Black Cassocks do. We heard what Phaeax did to Kesh, but our Lord God Ahurimanda has taken precautions and cannot fail.”
Awareness shot through Tenes like an arrow. Despite the competing forces acting on him, he shot a wide-eyed look back towards the temple. Rallying himself, he grabbed one of the lengths of rope with both hands and pulled as hard as he could. The three men holding it were overwhelmed and yanked off balance. He whirled, kicked Aael a solid blow, sending the priest sprawling, wound the loose end around his left arm, and took the other in both hands as he started back up the steps for the gate. He heaved the rope as he went and managed to knock those men to the ground as well, though some still maintained their grip. He pulled and twisted, as he reached the gate, and managed to free the rope. With both loose, he removed them from around his neck and re-entered the temple, sounding the alarm bell as he did. He hesitated then. Aael could easily take any number of Grays himself, and he wasn’t alone. In fact, Tenes had no way of knowing just how many of Ahurimanda’s priests were present. Maybe all of them were there. The Grays would be outnumbered regardless, but Tenes had to do something about Aael. Nox was not completely defenseless. And there was Phaeax.
• • •
Though the marble corridor offered no hiding places, the shadow, creeping in the dark, was nearly invisible. Still, Phaeax saw it.
He stopped and called from behind, “This is a breach of professional etiquette, don’t you think?”
The shadow stopped, too, turned.
“One can only assume that your intentions are less than charitable.” Phaeax cracked his knuckles, rolled his head upon his shoulders to loosen the tension in his neck.
“Do you think you can stop me?” the shadow said.
“I do.”
The shadow began moving towards Phaeax. “Just because of Kesh?”
“Oh?” Phaeax said. “Do you have any doubt that Kesh was the rule and not the exception?”
“You exceed your station, priest.”
Phaeax pursed his lips, looked around to acknowledge where they were, finally locked eyes with the the figure that now stood before him. He shook his head.
“I made you come to me,” he said, “and I’ll make you bow.”
Ahurimanda laughed. “Do you think that you scare me?”
Phaeax smirked, causing Ahurimanda to recoil in spite of himself.
“Be Damned, then!” Ahurimanda cried, attempting to cleave Phaeax in two from head to toe with the edge of his right hand.
Phaeax snatched Ahurimanda’s wrist with his left hand, stopping the god’s momentum instantly. At the same time, he drove his right fist deep into Ahurimanda’s midsection, exactly as he had with Kesh.
Ahurimanda bent double and coughed wetly against the inside of the malevolent face he wore.
Phaeax couldn’t suppress his laughter. Still holding Ahurimanda’s upraised wrist, Phaeax twisted it outward and drove his boot into the side of Ahurimanda’s head, sending the god sliding upon the smooth marble floor.
“Perhaps you should have joined your priests on some of their proselytizing missions. Don’t come into this house and presume to be its master.”
Phaeax walked a half-circle around Ahurimanda so that he now blocked the way to Nox.
Ahurimanda propped himself up with one arm, rose, gained his feet.
Phaeax launched forward, his fists hard against every yielding target. Each blow was like a tug on marionette strings as Ahurimanda was impelled by the onslaught, slip-sliding with erratic prompts upon the polished floor until he tripped over his own feet and was prone once more.
Phaeax, hand on hip, stood over him, staring with raw contempt.
“Do the Last Times justify this?” he said.
Ahurimanda rose to his feet once more. “Don’t they?”
The alarm bell at the gate sounded then.
“Don’t you have any pride?” Phaeax said, shaking his head. “Resorting to trickery? To murdering one of your kindred in her sleep to prove your own Truth? Pathetic.”
Far down the corridor, and from their various cells, the Grays stirred, rallying to the alarm bell’s call.
“In days gone by,” Ahurimanda said, “murder was a thriving business. Then we entered the Last Times, and people stopped caring. Death comes for everyone, that’s not new, but moment-by-moment reminders of the end of all things have a way of quelling even the fiercest of passions. Men have struggled throughout their existence to eradicate murder only to have murder abandon them when the end was in sight. Tonight is special, though. We are on the cusp, on the threshold of that imminent end. I have prayed to Lord Murder, who cannot have left us entirely, and I will not be denied his favor.”
Phaeax clicked his tongue, made a move towards Ahurimanda to begin the beating anew.
“Wait! I can offer you Paradise in place of Damnation. Every man has his balance sheet, but I am judge. Paradise can be yours.”
Phaeax shook his head. “You offer nothing that I want, nothing that will last beyond daybreak. I’m going to forcibly convert you, and with you every last one of your adherents. All that will be left in this city—in the world—will be madness and the True Death.”
Ahurimanda stared at Phaeax for a moment with his unmoving, demonic cameo eyes and finally started to nod. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you. You’d sentence everyone who’s ever lived, who believed in something more than your—her—damnable nihilism to oblivion, to an eternity of nothingness.”
Phaeax was unfazed. “Yes. That sums it up nicely.”
“Have you not witnessed wonders? Does the very existence of your own goddess not speak to you of something more than mere emptiness at the end of it all?”
“We’ve all lived the wonder,” Phaeax said. “We’ve all played our parts. The one thing that every living thing has in common, is that they die. Even gods, as we have seen. The world has wound down. No one knows what will happen when it ends, but if you still believe in second chances, all I can tell you is that you should have tried harder and paid more attention the first time around. Our time is done.”
“Only if you get your way.”
Phaeax snorted. “My way . . . That’s the second time you’ve made that mistake. I serve Nox. It’s her way. Now her servant, who exceeds his station, is going to end you.”
Phaeax took a step forward and Ahurimanda seemed to lose his mind. He cried out, swinging his arms with wild abandon, his hands threatening to split Phaeax from any angle at any moment. Phaeax hopped back nimbly, avoiding the first two swipes. As the third swipe came, Phaeax caught Ahurimanda’s wrist again, twisted the arm to turn the hyperextended elbow towards him, and struck it so that the arm bent opposite its design. Ahurimanda reared, screeched, and succumbed to a kick that sent him once more skidding to the floor.
Echoing footfalls preceded Tenes, running as fast as he could up the corridor. He saw Phaeax first and realized that Ahurimanda was the mass coming to a stop at his feet as he arrived.
“Is he . . . Is he—”
Before Tenes could finish, Ahurimanda rose up, spinning, one arm lifeless and broken, the other a swift sword, drawing a neat line through him. Immediately, flames rose up from beneath Tenes, and he began to sink through the floor into them.
“Tenes!” Phaeax cried.
Despite their close proximity, Tenes was already a world away. The cut, though bleeding, left him intact. The flames however, began to char and consume him instantly. He cried out, but his voice made no sound over the roaring flames that claimed him.
Phaeax took a deep breath, composed himself, walked to Ahurimanda, who was laughing, laughing, laughing. Phaeax took Ahurimanda’s good arm and broke it before shoving the god bodily into the wall, which silenced him.
The flames did not dissipate.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, old friend, but know that your torment will be short-lived. You were right about me, but you needn’t have worried. Nox is Truth. I will see to it myself that Ahurimanda’s Truth is subsumed by her own.”
Phaeax thought he saw a faint smile on Tenes’s face, but the flames ate the rest of him then and vanished as quickly as they had appeared. There was nothing left of Tenes, no ashes, no blood.
Ahurimanda’s blood, however, was everywhere. The god himself was a wet heap against the wall. His laughter had quieted, but hadn’t stopped. It was like a motor in his stomach that sputtered and jigged, but just wouldn’t quit. When Phaeax reached down, grabbed his robes with one hand and struck him in the face with the other, the god laughed harder, regaining his volume by degrees.
Phaeax stared down at him, sighed. The cameo mask was lined with cracks and a piece forming the lower left jaw had fallen away.
“Hmmm, Kesh was sturdier than you, but maybe you’re just too contrary to die. I’ve got just the thing.”
Through his laughter, Ahurimanda managed to say, “How is it that you can lay your hands so easily on gods?”
Phaeax placed his hands together as if in prayer. When he pulled them apart, a glowing wire was suspended between them, fastened to the middle finger of each hand. There was enough slack to enable him to double wrap it around Ahurimanda’s neck, but loosely.
“What are you . . . What are you doing?”
Phaeax knelt down close and squeezed between Ahurimanda and the wall, so that their shoulders and then backs were touching, all the while keeping both hands over his right shoulder and gently tightening the loops around the god’s neck. The black aura erupted from Phaeax, curling and shimmering and stealing all the color Ahurimanda had spilled throughout the corridor.
“Was the answer to your prayers unclear?”
Phaeax waited a moment to let the meaning of his words sink in, but didn’t allow Ahurimanda to voice an answer. He stood straight suddenly, pulling the Ghost Wire taut. There were two thumps and the corridor was filled with Divine Accountants.
STRAUSS
THE LUNATIC GOD
Nox sat in the middle of her round bed, holding the white sheet to cover herself.
“You should have roused me sooner,” she said.
“My apologies,” Phaeax said. “While I have no doubt that you can defend yourself, I didn’t want Ahurimanda coming near you.”
She looked at him slyly for a moment, said nothing, then her expression sobered. “Are the Divine Accountants finished?”
“Not yet.”
She shrugged, shook her head. “The Accounting doesn’t matter. You know what this means, though?”
“Yes. The chains can no longer hold him.”
“If by some strange quirk he is able to take my life, this world, what’s left of it, will become a breeding ground for endless chaos and perversion.”
“Not the best way to punctuate mankind’s passing.”
“No,” she said. She frowned. “You have done so much already, but I must ask one last favor of you.”
“No need to ask. I know what must be done.”
She stared at him in silence for what seemed an infinite moment. “You are, and always will be, my favorite, Phaeax.”
Phaeax smiled, bowed. “At your service. Till the end of time.”
“Soon,” she said. Despite her victory, almost total now, she could not manage a smile.
• • •
Phaeax descended the steps of the temple. Grays and Ahurimanda’s priests lay dead everywhere. Farther out, some Grays remained. In place of Ahurimanda’s priests, they fought madmen, not to claim them, but to defend their own lives. Besides the Grays, madmen were all that was left of humanity.
To be driven insane, now by mere proximity to the end, was to worship Strauss, the Lunatic God. With each new adherent, Strauss had grown stronger. Phaeax cocked his head, listened for the chains, was reassured only partially by the distant sound of them. There were fewer than usual that rattled, fewer that needed to be challenged. He quickened his pace.
Nox had described perfectly what he now saw in the streets: endless chaos and perversion. Some of the madmen ignored him, some sought to engage him. Anyone who drew too close was felled by a single blow to the head. There was no time for sport.
The poor, poor Grays. They defended their faith admirably, but their going would be ugly. Phaeax would make sure that end was clean and didn’t linger like a suppurating sore.
• • •
Phaeax crested the hill at dawn. Standing at the middle of a great stone disk, etched with elaborate symbols and flush with the dusty ground, was Strauss, the Lunatic God. The ancient canvas strips used to bind his arms to his torso lay in a pile at his bare feet. His arms, despite their eternity of imprisonment, were thick with muscle and lined with scars that suggested a script long-forgotten. His hair was blond, thick and bushy, like a lion’s mane. He snapped the final chain connecting the collar around his neck to one of the thirteen anchor points spaced evenly around the edge of the stone disk, then turned slowly, rubbing his left arm with his right hand, to acknowledge Phaeax’s arrival.
“Do you know who I am,” Phaeax said.
“I do,” Strauss said, in a deep voice, clear and steady.
Phaeax flinched. “For the Lunatic God, you seem quite sane.”
Strauss snorted. “I am the cup from which all men drink. I am empty, but in so being, I am replete.”
Phaeax cocked his head. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means,” Strauss said, shaking his head, “that you cannot beat me.”
“Many have made that claim, but none have been able to support it.”
“I’ll be the first,” Strauss said. “And the last.”
“We shall see,” Phaeax said, grinning.
• • •
The fight lasted twelve hours, ending finally when Phaeax broke Strauss’s sinewy neck. At that moment, with the sun sunk halfway into the horizon, the city, the hill, the barren land for as far as the eye could see, were racked with the onset of recurring quakes.
Phaeax limped down the hill, back into the city, where he had to navigate smoldering fires, collapsing buildings, and great, hungry cracks yawning through the desolate streets. Everyone was dead now. Only he and Nox remained.
THE END
Nox started, turned, saw Phaeax standing behind the curtain at her chamber’s entrance. She stood exactly where she had the morning before, when he’d brought news of Karm’s abdication, but he’d been through quite a lot since then.
His Black Cassock was dusty and torn in several places. Blood had formed a dark glaze around his left knee. A cut had nearly closed his left eye.
“You are, and always will, be my favorite, Phaeax,” she said with a shaky voice, “but before I give you leave to enter, you must tell me the truth.”
He stared at her for a long moment, saying nothing. She wore her customary black gown which contrasted so well with her perfectly white skin. She never looked more beautiful to him than she did just then.
His staring brought a flush to her cheeks. She pursed her lips, but remained patient for an answer.
“Did Tenes tell you?” he said from behind the curtain.
“No. He was loyal to us both, and I shall miss him.”
Phaeax nodded.
“Though I appreciate every convert you’ve brought me, you are too good at what you do,” she said. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am, or you wouldn’t be asking.”
“I want you to say it.”
Phaeax sighed.
“My name, one of them, anyway, is Murder, Adjunct God of Death.”
She nodded nervously and waved a hand, bidding him to enter. He did.
“You have fucked me in effigy hundreds of times. And every time you were tender.”
“Did Vice tell you that?”
“Yes. Does that bother you?”
Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.
“Good. It was news well-received. I have never been with a man or a god. To be intimate with me is to die the True Death and I don’t like things half-done. But you are Lord Murder . . . What am I to think?”
“You are right to be leery. I confess: in part or in total, Tenes had guessed the truth. As a boy, he witnessed my fight with Tai Sun Sen, the Immortal. You may recall that, as he died, Tai Sun Sen embraced your Truth, something that affected both Tenes and me in a similar way. It brought Tenes immediately to your door, but sparked in me the ambition to meet the biggest challenge conceivable. Like Tenes, from that moment, I was a firm believer in your Truth. But what if I could murder death?”
“Just for the challenge of it?”
“For the challenge of it and the statement it would make. But I realized, if I moved overtly and succeeded, I would just be supporting your enemies, which would not do.”
“So you assumed the identity of Phaeax and entered my priesthood.”
“Yes, but before I could do that, Lord Murder had to disappear and be forgotten. In that time, Tenes grew old and gained his Black Cassock. The Last Times had begun without anyone realizing, and, since I felt a certain kinship with Tenes, I decided to enter your priesthood while he was still chief. I have been loyal to my vows, and to you, for the last fifteen years, maybe especially so these last five.”
She swallowed hard, clutched at the folds of the gown covering her breast. “And now?”
He shrugged. “I walked that tenuous line for ten years, sure of my ultimate purpose, but my Black Cassock changed things, brought me into direct contact with you every day.” He shook his head. “Or maybe I’m lying to myself. Maybe I lost sight of that purpose as soon as I entered these temple walls. Even before I took my vows, I worshiped you. More than that, I—”
“Shhhh,” she said, putting a finger to his lips and silencing him.
She unfastened the shoulder strap of her gown, let the garment fall like a splash of ink to the white marble floor, and stood naked before him.
His eyes widened, his heart pounded. He stood still as she reached for him, unbuttoned his cassock, and let it fall as her gown had, leaving him naked from the waist up. She studied him with her eyes, before gently exploring his bruised and broken skin with her fingers.
Their eyes locked.
“We both want this,” she said. “Have wanted this for a long time. To gods, years are nothing, unless even one is spent pining for something you can’t have.”
He nodded with increasing fervor.
“Take off your trousers,” she said, “and hold me.”
He kicked off his boots and complied.
Her skin was cool, but like a balm in treacherous summer heat, not the cold of death itself.
She directed his hands to her breasts and had to bite her lip when nearly overwhelmed by the impulse to kiss him. He held his breath as he slipped inside her, since neither of them knew for sure how far they could go before their intimacy proved fatal. She gasped and blinked and bit down again on her lower lip.
Still standing, they settled into a rhythm, their rough, synchronized breathing the only sound. She pulled his right hand to her throat, manipulated his fingers around it.
“I don’t . . . want . . . to be . . . alone,” she whispered between breaths, pleading with her eyes.
He tightened his grip slowly, gently, while drawing her to him, and kissed her on the lips. Consummation struck with finality, like a hammer that smashes suns, bringing about the end of all things, which was the birth of all things.
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