The Destroyer Book 3 (59 page)

"I guessed that was their fate when you referred to them as the Dead Gods." I took another bite of food and followed with a sip of beer. One of the servants remained in the room and he filled the empress's glass with the wheat brew.

"Eventually they got the knack of creating less intelligent creatures. They graduated from plants to animals. Nothing that came close to matching humans, at this point, but simple beasts of the land that could reproduce and eat each other or other plants. Some of these they allowed to change and evolve throughout many cycles of the Gods sleeping and waking."

Another group of servants entered and produced small cups of chilled fatty yogurt sprinkled with dried squash seeds, cinnamon, and slices of sour tangerine. It was a refreshing palate cleanse that accompanied the water quite nicely. After the empress and I finished the small bowls she continued with her story.

"Eventually the three of them created humans on a single planet. They didn't realize what they made at first. It wasn't until much later, after a few shifts of the two Gods sleeping while T'Orend watched, that they found that the humans had flourished. They built their own meager civilization out of mud huts, herd animals, and crude paintings on the sides of cave walls. Still, the Gods knew they had created something that might flourish and they set out to craft other intelligent races."

"Like Elvens?" I asked.

"We came much later. I do not believe that your world has any of the old humanoids left. Perhaps you may have heard of goblins, drakens, ogres, orcs, dwarves, half-humans?" I shook my head. "Ah, they made hundreds, perhaps thousands of different ones. Most have died out, though there are worlds that are home to some of these creatures.”

"We have stories of fairies, dryads, kenku, lizardmen, and catmen. But these are just fables to scare children." I recalled the various tales I had heard during my childhood.

"Those tales are based in truth. Those creatures may have once lived upon this world. Some still may. The Gods were quite prodigious with their creative exercises. This all happened more than five hundred thousand years ago. The old races could still exist, scattered on other worlds. Especially this one since it is so far removed from the main web the Radicles weave."

"Kannath's warriors told me a bit about the Radicle, but I am not sure I understand it correctly." I felt the pain of Kaiyer's death again and fought down the urge to cry until it turned into mild anger.

"By the end of my account, you will have a much better understanding." Telaxthe swallowed half of her beer in a large gulp and then continued her story.

"The humans expanded rapidly and the Gods decided to make themselves known. Perhaps they were vain creatures, and intended to have their creations worship them, or perhaps they didn't realize the consequences of revealing their powers. The outcome was to be expected: the humans loved their creators and worshiped them. This did please the Gods and they lavished more affection on that race over all the others." I sensed a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"By this time, the humans had built advanced civilizations, but they also knew disease, death, pain, suffering, and a host of other complications that come with life." She looked to me and I nodded in understanding.

"The Gods looked at the humans' pain and shared in their agony. Using T'Orend, they debated for many cycles, which for the humans was thousands of years, until they came up with a solution that they felt would free them from the agony of living with risk."

"The Gods figured that all of the problems facing the humans stemmed from their short lifespans, combined with the enormous amount of work they had to do to survive. If their existence was made easier, they would have more time to devote to their creators, and to other more pleasurable activities. This would end their strife and suffering and allow their beloved race to enjoy the short time they had. So the Gods created another race to be servants to the humans."

"The Elvens?"

"Yes. The Gods had become truly skilled by that point. They wanted to make a race that was strong, long living, intelligent, and beautiful. Above all, they wanted the new species to obey their masters with unquestionable devotion."

"Wouldn't the Gods be their masters?"

"Unfortunately, that was the beginning of the path that would spell death for the trio." The empress sighed regretfully. "If only they had done that. But instead, they made it so that Elvens felt a compulsion to always obey their human masters. I can't imagine what that must have felt like, to not ever have a choice, not even the ability to choose death over obedience."

The first set of servants returned carrying soup in fine Nia porcelain bowls accompanied by garlic crusted bread. The soup tasted like it was tomato and asparagus. I didn't think it was the season for tomatoes and guessed that the chefs must have procured the red fruit from the castle's greenhouse stores.

"It did not take long for the humans to become jealous of their servants. Why should these new children live longer than us? Why should they be stronger and more beautiful? The humans beseeched their creators. It didn't help that our kind held a unique connection with the planet and the Elements that surrounded us. We could control these powers and bend them to our will. Of course, our will was really just the command of our masters.

"Finally, the Gods relented and gave humans access to the powers of the Elements. It sedated their complaints for hundreds of thousands of years. Humans were now much more powerful than their Elven servants and began to live extremely long lives. It was the latter benefit that started to unravel the relationship the Gods had with their creations. The humans and Elvens only existed on one of the God's many worlds. Since they made children much quicker, but lived as long as the Elvens, they came to overpopulate that single mass of earth. The humans beseeched their Gods again, asking for a solution to the problem.

"So the Gods used their powers to connect all of their worlds together with a system to travel between them. They put many doorways on each of their planets and taught their creations to open them. The humans and Elvens rejoiced and built beautiful shrines to contain these doorways. They called the structures the Radicles, since these shrines represented the seeds of new life for the human race.

“The Radicles were difficult to use, even for these powerful humans. A sect of their kind dedicated the entirety of their long lives to learning how to move others to different worlds via the Radicles. They passed this knowledge to their children, who in turn learned more and passed the knowledge along. After generations of this process, the knowledge of the Radicle came to be imbedded into the very blood of this sect so that their descendants knew, almost instinctively, how to use the Radicle before they knew even how to speak. This sect made an interesting discovery . . .” she trailed off as more Elven servants entered. I was so engrossed in the story that I had only taken a few bites of the delicious soup and considered asking the servants to leave it, but the scent of the main entrée was so tempting I allowed them to take my soup.

They cleared the entire table and then set down small silver trays of roasted duck spiced with peppercorns and oranges. Telaxthe and I each had our own small bird, and the servants quickly went to work with knives and forks; slicing the perfectly cooked meat into small edible pieces. New glasses of rose wine were poured and a new pitcher of water was set before they left the empress and me alone again.

"I should explain that I use the term 'human' quite loosely. From what I can understand of the scraps of records from that time, these powerful humans did call themselves the O'Baarni. It meant many things in the old language, but amongst my people it meant 'masters.’" She smiled slightly and then took a few small bites of duck before washing them down with the wine. I followed her example and agreed with her earlier statement that I would be delighted by the food.

"This sect of the O'Baarni realized that while someone was passing through the doorway to another world, their bodies and minds briefly touched the same place the three Gods dwelled. At first the Gods did not realize what the O'Baarni knew, and they were oblivious to the small experiments their creations were doing to see if they could end their travel in the Gods' domain. It wasn't until thousands of years later when the O'Baarni had inhabited all the worlds and wanted more power that the final conflict came to be.

"Not everyone could use the Radicles, only this specialized sect could use the devices to send themselves or a few through. Soon they invented a method to allow anyone to pass through. It involved sacrificing an Elven, then casting their mind and skull in a block of tempered amber. These globes carried power far beyond what the humans had seen before. The invention of these Ovules allowed massive armies of humans to climb into the realm of the Gods and wage a war for power."

"The Gods struck against their creations by making terrible creatures of destruction. First, they crafted demons that dwelled deep in the depths of each planet. These creatures possessed a hunger to kill all life that wasn't a God and harnessed the Elements almost as well as an O'Baarni. They reproduced quickly and the O'Baarni found themselves defending their own worlds from this horrible threat instead of challenging their Gods." I nodded and felt the fear of the empress's words. Demons were most certainly part of the legends I learned as a child. Although, in the tales I had heard, they inhabited a hellish land and were the polar opposite of the benevolent Spirits of our loved ones that watched over us.

"Hundreds, maybe thousands of years passed while the demons, O'Baarni, and Elvens fought. Eventually it appeared that the O'Baarni and Elvens would win the war, so the Gods crafted their final warriors. They made this last race almost as powerful as themselves and they gave the creatures intelligence that surpassed that of the O'Baarni and Elvens. They wanted these creatures to be their generals, so they gave them free will and the ability to create their own races."

"That seems like a bad idea," I said.

"It was. Their last race was dragons. Horrible winged serpents with malevolent intelligence and ruthless cunning. At first they served the Gods and organized the last of the demons. The O'Baarni were pushed back and lost entire worlds of population. Then the O'Baarni began to win again, and the Gods questioned their creations. The dragons betrayed their creators, much like the humans, and they all sought to inhabit the realm where the Gods lived."

"Weren't the Elvens betrayers as well? Since they were allied with the O'Baarni?"

"Yes and no," she replied with a smile that seemed to indicate she wasn't upset at my interruption. "We were created to serve humans. We loved our Gods, but were compelled to follow the instructions of our masters." I nodded at her words but I believed she was omitting parts of the story that might reveal her people were not entirely peaceful.

"At last, the Gods began to lose and it appeared that the O'Baarni would smash into their world and attempt to murder them. In the final hours, T'Orend contacted a small group of Elvens on the original world and begged them to retreat deep into the core of the planet. The God gave these Elvens instructions to live for a hundred years and then reemerge to become stewards of the land. To exist peacefully, and to watch over humans as protectors. These Elvens did not question their God; they just did as instructed and retreated within the belly of the planet.

"When they finally came to the surface, they found that the world had changed dramatically. In places where there was once land, there was now sea. In places where there had been sea, there was now desert. They discovered Radicles overgrown with foliage or under water, unable to be used. My people prayed to their Gods and asked for guidance but no voices returned. They were alone, this small tribe of Elvens, but they vowed to do as T'Orend asked and become stewards of the world."

"What of the O'Baarni, what of the dragons and demons?" I asked.

"The Elven tribe found humans. They had no recollection of what had transpired. They did not have the power of the Elements at their disposal anymore. Also, perhaps because the Gods were now dead, or perhaps because the humans forgot their place, the Elvens found no compulsion to follow their commands."

"How did they know their Gods were dead? Maybe they were just refusing to answer?" I had been so focused on her story that I forgot to take more than a few bites of my duck. I did so after my question and the food was still pleasantly warm.

"Part of T'Orend's words seemed to indicate that their time had passed and it would be up to the Elven people to herald in a new age of prosperity. This was perhaps ten or twenty thousand years ago, on a completely different world than this one where you and I currently dine. But since that time there has been no contact from any of our Gods. So we call them the Dead Gods."

"What about the demons and dragons?" I asked again.

"Demons have been spotted a few times, according to our history, but they do not seem to be as powerful or intelligent as the legends led us to believe. Perhaps the passing of the Gods diluted their power as it did with the humans. I will speak of dragons soon." I nodded and nibbled on a bite of the multicolored salad that accompanied the duck. The empress refilled her wine glass and then topped mine off before continuing.

"This became a dark period for our people, as well as for the humans. Our kind chose to abandon or destroy the knowledge we had acquired by serving our masters for so long. We decided that the best way to protect the humans was to enslave them and make sure that they never learned of the magic that their ancestors possessed. Our single tribe split into hundreds of other tribes, then grew and multiplied over the years until we came to be the complete owners of the land." The empress had only eaten half of her duck but seemed to be done with the entrée. She took a healthy swallow of wine and then filled her glass again.