Shadow Slave

White Abyss glanced at the spear lying on the ground near the old woman. It was of simple design, the wooden shaft polished by countless years of use, the sharp blade carved from glistening flint.

She remained silent for a moment.

“I welcome War.”

The old woman smiled faintly.

Turning back to the fire, she shrugged.

”Kill you? No. It’s not time for that yet.”

The great and terrible War God — the goddess of life, warfare, progress, craft, intellect, and humans — leaned closer to the fire.

”I just happened to be passing by. Think nothing of it.”

White Abyss studied her with an indifferent expression. Behind her, at a distance, her soldiers and priests were trembling in fear, startled by the cruel death of their senior. Paying them no attention, the radiant incarnation of fire took a step forward and sat across from War, with only the dancing flames separating them.

The goddess spared her a curious glance. She seemed to consider something for a moment, then asked:

“A nephilim ruling a kingdom of humans — the first human kingdom, no less. How unexpected. Tell me, nephilim... that child, Kanakht. What did you do to him?”

White Abyss tilted her head slightly.

”I burned him. He is still burning, somewhere within me.”

This incarnation was only a fraction of her. Most of the endless ocean of living flames that mortals called the White Abyss were still contained within the great temple, and at the heart of that temple, a blackened corpse was still being burned by the flames. It had been burning for countless centuries,

endlessly reduced to ash and restored, kept in an immolating cage of rebirth that forbade it from crossing the threshold of life.

That corpse was Kanakht, one of the First Humans — and the first human to have ever become Supreme. He had been cursed by the God of Death, after all, so he couldn’t be killed.

He could only be contained.

War chuckled.

“What a cruel fate. Hasn’t he suffered enough by now? All that agony, all that pain...”

White Abyss glanced at her, emotionless. However, there seemed to be a hint of incomprehension in her gaze.

After a while, she spoke in an even tone:

”It’s just pain.”

Some said that evil stemmed from a lack of knowledge, and that those who knew pain would not visit it upon another. Therefore, pain was the source of compassion. However, White Abyss knew pain better than anyone else in the world, and yet, she was not prone to mercy.

War sighed lightly.

”So, how is it treating you? Playing a god?”

White Abyss frowned, then glanced away with a hint of despondency in her harrowing, radiant eyes.

She remained silent for a long while. Eventually, she said evenly:

“It hasn’t been easy.”

She glanced at War.

“At the start, I wanted to be a good ruler. I wanted to protect my people from the cruelties of the harsh world and empower them to aspire. I wanted them to pursue their passions without holding back, free and unburdened. I wanted to be kind and compassionate.”

The white radiance of her beautiful eyes shone with pristine light.

“And so, I defended them against the Creatures of Corruption. I gave them laws and institutions. I healed their wounds and eradicated their sickness. I fed them, I educated them, I provided for them. No one went hungry in my kingdom, no one suffered the cruel tyranny of need. No one was forced to endure the hardships that they had not chosen to face.”

White Abyss fell silent for a moment, then glanced at the fire.

“But in the end, they did not flourish. Instead of prosperity, there was only rot. They grew lazy, entitled, arrogant, and overcome by insatiable greed.They turned on each other and foamed at the mouth in the frenzy to tear their neighbors down. They were consumed by envy, avarice, sloth, depravity, and malignant pride. It is so ugly... it is so distasteful. It is so unlike what I wanted to give them, and what I wanted them to take.”

She paused, staring into the dancing flames. After a short while, White Abyss said in an emotionless, frightening tone:

“It makes me want to burn them all.”

As she spoke those words, the flames surged, sending a cloud of fiery sparks swirling in the black expanse of the darkening sky. The soldiers and priests who stood in the distance behind her suddenly glanced small and fragile... easily erased with a thought.

War studied the radiant nephilim, a hint of a smile on her lips.

”Why haven’t you?”

White Abyss slowly glanced away from the flame and raised her gaze to the stars.

She remained silent for a few long moments. When she spoke, her voice carried a hint of wistful distance.

“How can I? I have lived billions of lives — all of them human. I know all about how ugly humans can be, how distasteful, how deep they can fall into depravity. How fragile their convictions are, how easily they turn on each other. But, still...”

She raised a hand, as if wanting to grasp the stars that burned in the cold embrace of the void.

“They are so beautiful.”

War raised an eyebrow.

”What is beautiful?”

White Abyss smiled faintly.

“Their desires.”

She lowered her hand and glanced at War.

”They burn so brightly, so desperately. They are so easily extinguished, and yet pursued with such passion. They are so pure. That, to me... is beauty.”

The smile drained slowly from her face.

”Isn’t that your design? Isn’t that why the Flame endlessly wanes, but is never extinguished?”

War laughed lightly and shook her head.

“We never created humans. But, yes — that is the nature of the Flame. To endlessly burn itself and be endlessly reborn from itself, never ending, created from its own destruction.”

White Abyss sighed.

She lingered for a while, then slowly shook her head.

”To tell the truth, I... feel like I desired something as well, once — a long time ago. I longed for something so desperately that no amount of pain, no amount of adversity, no amount of bitter defeats and heartbreaking losses could douse my resolve to achieve it. But I don’t quite remember what it was, and why I strived to accomplish it so fiercely.”

She frowned.

“That was one of the reasons why I defeated Kanakht and usurped his throne. I pitied his people, yes... but I also thought that if I helped them achieve what they longed for, then perhaps I would remember what I desired myself.”

Her expression grew distant.

“But it’s strange. The more I observe their desires and care for them, the less I remember. By now, I don’t think I remember at all.”

War glanced at her with a smile.

“Maybe you should try building the First Kingdom of the Corrupted, instead. You are a nephilim, after all. Those of the Flame, those of the Void — both are your kin, even if no one wants to claim you.”

She scrutinized White Abyss for a moment, then added:

“Although that might be difficult, with that soul of yours. Truly, you are an odd creature. Rarely have I seen anyone stranger than you.”

She sighed and glanced away.

“But even if you are merely a half-baked god, you still seem to have stumbled into the same sad predicament we did. The more we want to help humans, these strange creatures born from the sparks of the Flame, the more we harm them. It took us a while to learn our lessons... but, by now, even the most stubborn of us are tired of hurting them. Of being hurt by them. Of suffocating the sparks of the Flame burning within them.”

War lowered her gaze.

“That is why the Age of Gods is ending. Soon, the Age of Humans will come to replace it, instead.”

She glanced at her spear, then brushed her calloused hand across its wooden shaft.

“I was full of pity for them once, as well. At the beginning of it all, I saw them struggling desperately to survive, to stave off hunger... and so, I gave one of those pitiful humans a spear to help him hunt.”

A pale smile illuminated her old face.

“He took it and used it to kill another human, taking his food and his woman. I gave them fire, and they used fire to burn each other’s homes. I gave them knowledge of how to work metals, hoping that they would create farming tools... but they forged weapons and tools of torture instead.”

War shook her head lightly.

“Ever since I gave that first human a spear, I was their companion. I walked among them, living a life no different from theirs and watching them grow. The spear turned into a bow, a bow turned into a cannon. A cannon turned into cluster bombs and mustard gas. Until, eventually, I watched nuclear mushrooms rise above civilian cities, and meticulously engineered bioweapons cleanse entire continents of all life.”

White Abyss seemed to freeze, looking at War with a startled expression.

Now, for the first time, a strong emotion seemed to find its way into her voice.

“How... how do you know this? You were long dead by the time all these things happened. You couldn’t have seen.”

War simply chuckled.

Reaching forward to warm her hands by the fire, she asked:

”What is time to a god?”