The Forsaken Hero

The third painting was a scene of war, yet still set in that same realm of light. The dark gods led their chaotic souls against the light ones and their orderly souls.

Again, a story was told through the motionless picture, with the chaotic mortals changing as the closer they drew closer to the gods. The ones farthest away were essentially the same as the orderly ones, only tinted with darkness instead of light. But as they drew closer, their souls morphed, taking on the attributes and colors of the god they followed. A small pinpoint of power grew like a seed in each of them, starting small and almost indiscernible, yet overgrowing the entire soul of those next to their deities. A different, unique horde followed every dark god, matching the same color and attribute of the light god opposed to them.

”The rise of the Dark Gods,” Fate said.

She walked up to the picture, reaching up, but stopped before touching it. Her hand hovered right over the center, where a golden woman stood between the armies, right before they clashed. She wasn’t positioned to stop them; rather stood off to the side, and she alone had no dark god to oppose her.

Her eyes were a lot less bright than in the images before, her face downcast. She looked a lot more like the fate I knew than the one in the Father’s wings.

”The first one? Are those the demon emperors?” I asked, gesturing to the dark gods.

She nodded. ”As the Father designed, we created these souls hand in hand. And yet they chose to leave, to take power by force instead of by love.”

”Then the mortals following them...”

She shook her head, brushing the image of the souls closest to the demon emperors, then ones that were warped in their image. The painting rippled around her fingers like a disturbed pool.

”There were no mortals back then, just the gods and their beloved children. But those who listened to them, those who wanted power and dominion, turned against those who would not. Souls cannot die, so they enslaved them, trapping millions of souls like cattle for their dark gods to reave. Those gods became so powerful that the gods of light could not stand against them, nor their souls against the ever darker souls of their followers. Thus, the gods of light made a choice, or perhaps more accurately, a sacrifice. They split the Father’s realm.”

She sighed long and hard and withdrew her hand. The image stilled again. She turned to me with sadness in her eyes, matching the sorrow of her younger form in the painting.

She continued, ”The Father’s realm held the entirety of existence, all souls, thoughts, and ideas joined together in one. To split was to lose our heritage, and to sacrifice everything that made the gods who and what they were. Those who accepted the burden and made the choice became known as the Divine Council. Those who refused could do nothing but watch as their beloved realm was shattered and dispersed amongst the Oblivion that exists outside of Fate. Eventually, they would come to the fold, broken as it was, or join the dark gods. In time, it became known as the Rending, as much for the pain in the gods’ hearts as the separation of the realm.”

”And the children got split between the realms? Is that what became the world we live in now?” I asked.

”It is. One of the greatest sacrifices of the Rending was the introduction of mortality to those mortals saved by the gods of light. They would live, grow old, and die, only to be reborn. Cursed to live a thousand lives, to meet a thousand loved ones, and to lose it all a thousand times. And we gods were forced to bear witness to it all, to see the same mortals learn, improve, overcome...and regress.”

”But why?” I asked, on the edge of tears. ”Why did you have to do that? If they were immortal before, what changed?”

Fate beckoned me forward. As I entered the room, my tail dragged after me. Her story held loss and anguish unlike anything I’d heard before. It practically oozed from the paintings, saturating the air like humidity, making it thick and sticky.

”Witness the last story of the beginning,” she said, laying her hand on my shoulder and turning me about. ”The First Realm War.”

I gasped as I saw the fourth and final mural on the wall above the door, out of my view before. It showed a world fallen under fire and shadow, with gods, mortals, and demons fighting in vicious combat. Scenes of carnage, blood, and desolation stretched from wall to wall. Demon gates hovered across the sky, cities burning under their shadow. Fate was present, yet again, standing amid the stars above even the demon gates, watching it all with tears in her eyes.

”When the dark gods learned of what we had done, they were furious. They took the portions of the Father’s realm under their dominion and formed the Infernal Realms, taking the name of Emperors. They descended upon our worlds with their followers, bringing blood and destruction in their wake. The gods rose to fight them, throwing themselves in front of the souls they had shepherded for so long.”

”Were the souls mortals, then?” I asked.

She shook her head. ”No, but they were after. The gods were pushed back, losing realm after realm to the infernal invasions. The decision was made to do as the dark gods did, and bestow their power amongst the mortals. Among those blessed with divine power was the first generation of heroes, granted special abilities on par with those of the emperors’ strongest servants.”

I followed her gaze to a figure glowing with golden light, leading a battalion of soldiers against creatures wreathed in darkness. The nature of the painting made it impossible to determine what these creatures were. They weren’t demons, exactly, but neither were they wholly human, either.

Is that...Arantius?” I asked.

”The war was endless, an eternal round of slaughter and rebirth,” Fate said.” But at some point, we realized something. Our children could not handle the strain of divine power. It was seen first among those who served the dark gods. They...became something different, something twisted and fallen.”

”Demons,” I said.

”The first demons,” she said, nodding. ”But it wasn’t so much the power itself, but the direct connection with the gods through which their power flowed. Our children could not sustain such a burden without taking on the essence of their deity, adopting their image, nature, and form. Indeed, they inherited the very gifts and blessings the Father bestowed upon the gods.”

”You mean the attributes? Is that why demons are attributed, then?”

”Yes, but it was more than that. They lost that which made them precious, that of kindness, love, and empathy. All that remained was the darkness that drove the emperors, being hatred, lust, and an endless thirst for power.”

I shivered, drawing closer to Fate. She smiled kindly and patted my shoulder.

”So what did you do?” I asked.

She pointed to a shard in the image, on the far edge. ”The gods came together a second time and decided to make another sacrifice. They gave surrendered much of their power and, drawing on the nature of both fate and oblivion, forged the Cycle of Reincarnation. To do this, they first separated the realms into mortal worlds and the Divine Realms and created the Shards of Omniscience. When a mortal died before, its soul would return to its god and reform immediately. But after this division, their souls could no longer do so. Instead, they drifted through oblivion, shedding their nature, identity, and memories, until they latched onto a new realm and were reborn.”

”And their magic,” I said softly.

Fate smiled, rubbing my shoulder. ”Exactly. This was the only way the gods could preserve their cherished children as they were, and also give them the power to defend themselves from the infernal invasions. The shards were instrumental in distilling magic to mortal worlds and also collecting it again once their souls left, creating a delicate, sustainable ecosystem. In return for the gods’ sacrifice, the mortals worshiped them, giving faith in return for their magic. This enabled the gods to continue to reach out to new fragments of the father’s realm, turning them into new worlds for errant souls to be reborn in.”

”But that also concentrated the power, didn’t it. How could the emperors resist that?” I asked.

”They didn’t, and thus began the Cycle of Divinity, a vicious cycle. Perhaps even a war that extends even until today. The gods create a world, and the emperors invade it. If the world survives the invasion, the gods gain a surge of faith, but...if they lost...”

”They lost everything,” I whispered. ”Not just the mortals who prayed to them, but the shards themselves, and all the power contained within.”

”But it was a sacrifice we were willing to make,” Fate said, ”For what was the alternative? A few of the council argued that it would be okay to allow our children to take on our visages, to become demons of the light. To embody the good just as demons embody the bad.”

”So why didn’t you?” I asked. ”There is so much darkness in this world, even without the demons. Would it really be so bad if everyone were good?”