Vol.5 Ch.23.2 – Truth Laid Bare II
I was seeing the threads of fate. How? Why? And why now? I needed time to process this, needed time to figure out what to do with that information. But time was the one thing I absolutely did not have.
“Hold on,” I said, both to gather my thoughts and to get a good look at this being, at Shub-Niggurath in Syr's body.
She looked back over to me and I looked up at her.
“If you're this strong, why do you need them?” I asked, feebly pointing at the portal that was growing clearer by the moment. But instead of actually looking at the portal I was staring at Shub-Niggurath, or rather slightly above her. There were four white threads, one connecting to Syr's spirit, one connecting back to me and two shooting off into the sky. But in addition to those there was a fifth, though calling it a thread was inaccurate. It was a pulsating red tendril that reached into the back of Syr's neck. I was beginning to wonder if her analogy of threading a hair through the eye of a needle might not have been far more literal than it had seemed at the time.
The only question was what to do about it. Even if I could move, as far as I knew no mortal weapon could even affect the threads of fate. If it could, all you needed to do to kill someone would be to swing your sword vaguely over the top of someone's head. Or maybe...
“Ah,” she said. “I suppose we do still have a bit of time before the conjunction.”
She gestured at the portal, at the army arrayed on the other side.
“This is a dowry,” she said.
“What?”
“Creation consists of countless worlds,” she said and I could tell this would be another long lecture. “Some are very similar to each other, some are quite different. There might be a world that is identical to this one except that you are a woman in that world. There might be a world identical to this one except that Princess Annabella,” she gestured at the kneeling Anna, “is a crossdressing prince rather than a tomboy princess. There might be a world where Athena Chose you and you retired to live peacefully with Maggie Farmer after killing the Dark Lord Absalom.”
My heart skipped a beat at those words. Not only because of the implication but also because it meant she now knew far more about me than I was comfortable sharing. Was that why whatever had given me the ability to see the threads of fate had waited until after she'd beheld me?
“But in general, worlds like this one are very rare,” she continued. “We call them Sanctuaries.”
“Sanctuaries?” Athena asked and I was slightly concerned to find out that this was knowledge not even the gods had.
“My kin have managed to breach into many worlds over the eons,” Shub-Niggurath explained. “But the White King does not allow such worlds to remain for long. They are excised from Creation like cankers before they can spread. But sometimes small pieces of these worlds survive. These shards eventually find their way to one of these Sanctuaries. You have all seen these before.”
“Dungeons,” I breathed.
“Indeed,” she said. “Shards of other worlds, captured and preserved to provide an opportunity for growth to the people of this world.”
“That doesn't explain why you need them,” I nodded at the army beyond the portal. “Why not just open a portal to the Outside?”
She tittered again. “It doesn't work like that. This is still a Sanctuary. It can't open a portal Out of Creation. The White King gave the gods of this world only just enough rope to hang themselves with, not enough to doom the entire Multiverse.”
My head was spinning trying to parse her words. White King? Multiverse? Creation? But she didn't afford me the luxury of thinking her words through.
“So no, even with Zeus' power I cannot open a gate Out of Creation. But I can do the next best thing, which is to open a portal to a world already taken over by my kin.”
“That still doesn't explain why you need their help if you're so strong,” I said.
“Not everything is about you, Felix,” she said and the scolding sounded uncomfortably like something Syr would say. “I can feel the threads of destiny all but choking you but there are much bigger things happening than our little play.” She gestured at the portal again, not at the armored warriors but at the man on the throne behind them. “They call him the Uncrowned King. What his ancestor once tried and failed to do, he is destined to accomplish. He will summon forth the Thousand-Masked Emperor, the Crawling Chaos. And to do so, he will take a bride.” She gestured at herself, running her hands down Syr's ample curves. “And for his dowry to a goddess he will gift me an army, to shatter whatever resistance this Sanctuary may muster. An army of demigods, all clad in armor and wielding weapons millennia more advanced than what this backwater world could forge.”
She threw her arms wide. “And once he has summoned forth the Crawling Chaos in his world he will come into this one and open a path for my Everything. No longer confined to this body I shall be able to unfold my entire being within creation.”
“You just said you can't open a portal to the Outside.”
“True,” she said. “I cannot. Neither can any other god of this world. But when the Uncrowned King comes into his birthright he will have the power. Only he can wrench open a Sanctuary to allow my manifestation and the White King has made his Sanctuaries too stable to excise them from Creation. True Existence within Creation, finally within my grasp!”
“So all that talk of bringing salvation to your followers, was all of that so much bullshit?” I demanded and Wilhelm, who had seemed so certain of his loyalties before, was now keenly regarding her.
“Of course not,” she said, sounding almost upset at the accusation. “The world I promise my worshipers can only exist with me as its sovereign. I am the only one who can stabilize the world enough to let my children roam free.”
Wilhelm relaxed at that. Shame.
“However...” she continued, turning away from me and looking back to Syr, “once I am fully manifested within this world I shall no longer have need of this body. And not only shall I give it back, I shall elevate my daughter into the deity she was always meant to be. Syr will be divine, more powerful than any of the godlings of this world. She will be a singular in a sea of plurals, just as her mother is.”
“I don't want any of this!” Syr sobbed. “I didn't ask for any of this.” I could only imagine what was going through her mind right then. Not only was her mother an Outer God but her birth, her entire existence, had only been meant as a vessel for that Outer God.
Shub-Niggurath slowly walked over to Syr and placed a hand on the girl's cheek, not caring that Syr didn't have a body to actually hold. Then she said, quite gently: “Sweet Syr, none of us get to choose our parts in this play. And though you may reject your birthright, I love you, my darling daughter. In time you will come to understand that I am doing what is best for you. And if those mortals you care so much about stop resisting I see no issue in keeping them alive for you.”
“Never,” Syr hissed. “They will oppose you to their dying breaths.”
“Then they will die,” Shub-Niggurath said matter-of-factly. “Once you are the goddess you were meant to be you will find it within yourself to forgive me for that. Even if it takes centuries.”
“I hate you,” Syr said, her voice dripping with venom. “With every fiber of my being I despise you.”
“I understand,” Shub-Niggurath said, not at all taken aback. “I love you regardless. And I always will.” She stood back up and looked around the room, the crimson hues of dawn hinting that the sun was about to crest the horizon. “Now then, the alignment is almost upon us. Any mortals who wish to join my cause may speak up now or they will be forever silenced.”
I would love to say that the Royal Guards were so unshakable that even in the face of certain death they did not lose heart but sadly not. Most of them did hold firm but two of them didn't.
“I don't want to die.”
“Let me live.”
Shub-Niggurath gave them both a beatific smile and walked over to them, then, one at a time, she hoisted them up, freeing them from the Divine Presence. Once she had them both standing she gave both men a soft kiss on the forehead and they took their places next to Wilhelm, who had apparently been released from the Divine Presence as well.
“Now then, shall we resume culling the extras?” she asked her now three companions.
“Hold on,” I said, trying to stall her, to keep her from killing anyone else while I thought of a way out of this mess.
“What now?” she asked, slight annoyance in her tone.
“I mean, it's not often I get to talk to an Outer God so I thought I'd ask something I always wanted to know.”
“Go ahead then,” she said.
“I already figured out that the grafts your cultists put on people and beasts are part of your flesh.”
She gave me a very small nod.
I continued: “I also get that less sentient creatures deteriorate if such a graft is placed onto them.” The canker horses we'd faced in the courtyard of that Dark Lord had basically been steaming carcasses on legs by the time we'd fought them.
“Also correct,” she said. “It takes sentience to withstand my gifts.”
“Then why do they work on goblins?” I asked.
She tilted her head, again in that bird-like way.
“I've fought a lot of goblins in my career as an adventurer and so I can say with confidence that they're dumb as a sack full of rocks,” I said. “They're malicious, yes, but they're also dumb as shit. Any horse I've ever met is smarter than a goblin. So how come horses practically melt when one of your grafts is placed on them but goblins seem perfectly fine?”
“Ah,” she said, finally understanding what I was getting at. “There are two layers to it. The first is that the goblins are not perfectly fine. The grafts approximately halve their life expectancy. The paler green color of their skin is an indication that their bodies are struggling to accommodate the grafts. They are faster, stronger and more fertile but all of that takes a toll on their bodies. But as goblins are driven to procreate first and foremost, they still kill for a chance to make themselves more fertile.
“The second layer is that terms like sentience and intelligence do not properly apply to goblins. Strictly speaking, goblins are not sentient at all. They are driven by instinct more than most animals. At the same time, their instincts involve cruelty and schadenfreude, both of which are usually signs of sentience. Whatever being created goblins clearly took all the worst traits of sentient creatures and implanted them into beings with all the self-awareness of a swarm of tadpoles.”
“So even you don't know where goblins came from?” I asked.
“I can tell you that they aren't any of my kin,” she said. “For all I know they came from the moon.”
I almost smiled at that. I'd heard those children's stories as well, that goblins came from the moon, but then I noticed Poseidon struggling to his feet behind Shub-Niggurath.
Ever since we'd freed him Poseidon had been somewhat of a disappointment. For being one of the three strongest Olympians he certainly didn't seem too powerful so far. Sure he'd managed to hold his own against Bres well enough at first but Bres had still managed to gut him in the end. But right now he was the only Olympian capable of fighting off the Divine Presence. Once he was upright he took hold of his trident and pointed it at Shub-Niggurath.
On the one hand I wanted to keep my face neutral, to stop her from noticing him but on the other hand I didn't want him to kill Syr's body. There had to be another way and I was certain that red tendril was part of it.
In the end it didn't matter though. Before he could lunge at her she turned around to face him.
“Poseidon,” she said, contempt dripping off her words. “I had expected you to be the first to fight off my presence but I had honestly expected it to happen much sooner. Apparently your little vacation weakened you quite a bit.”
“You sure love running your mouth,” he growled. “Far too much, really. Because you said some interesting things there. The reason killing doesn't help with possessor entities is that they can normally just jump to another body. But if your cultists had to go out of their way to breed you a perfect vessel that means killing this body will stop this madness.”
“Please don't,” I all but whispered.
“This is bigger than you, Tailor,” he growled at me. “And it's bigger than your friend, too.”
I was about to snap at him but Syr stopped me. “He's right, Felix. I'd rather die than have her despoil the world.”
“Go on then, strike me down,” Shub-Niggurath taunted, throwing her arms wide. And behind her the portal began to ripple alarmingly, as if it was about to open.