Several more decades passed by. Ötzi had aged, the hair on the head, and the long beard has turned gray. The body became weak, decrepit. Motso looked the same as he did thirty years ago, except that his beard has grown. But now his mind was clouded, and he began to spend more and more time alone, studying the possibilities of the sphere. Secret human sacrifices began in his honor, and a few years later, the sacrifices became public. The city no longer shone with its former grandeur, and mothers on the other side of the city frightened their children, because rumors spread that there are no Gods, but real devils - pariah who came down from heaven to kill and eat people, and if you do not listen to your mother, you will be sent there. And the city received a new, though not official name "The City of Chernobog".
One day or night, since it was difficult to tell the time of the day, Motso sat on his majestic throne. Around him lay a mountain of corpses with their entrails turned inside out. Blood was dripping from his mouth, his body was getting weaker, and he was losing weight. Ötzi came up to him, dressed in a white raincoat, with a straight posture, but empty eyes, as if they had long ago had been struck by cataracts. He stepped over several corpses that lay in his path and looked at his childhood friend with a lifeless gaze:
"You're a smart man, Motso. You and I have lived a long and beautiful life. But instead of passing your legacy on and leaving with dignity, you're trying to hold onto the power. You lie to yourself that after you die, the earth will stop circling the sun. We both know, it’s not true. I can't bear to see you kill the people I spent my entire life, people that I taught from the age of 5, people I imparted everything I know myself. But now, a new generation has come, the light in their hearts no longer shines. You don't see how with the death of their mom or dad, they change, how hatred and anger sprouts in their eyes. A person should not live in a world where he is surrounded by death. Have the dignity to leave in peace, leaving behind good. Or die like a tyrant, which once you despised.”
"What do you mean by that?" Motso's voice was thick and gruff.
"I'm leaving, and taking the children, whose lives you haven't ruined yet.”
Ötzi calmly turned his back on Motso and began to walk away. Motso's hands gripped on the wide arms of the throne, his eyes reddened, and his body trembled with inexhaustible anger. There was a stench, and pools of blood had already dried on the floor, permeating the stones. He looked at the sphere, then at his friend, then back at the sphere, his eyes watering. On the threshold, Ötzi turned to look at his friend again and said:
“That meat, I didn't get it on the hunt.”
And Motso saw the last person close to him disappear to never return again.
***
For the next few years, Motso did not leave his personal cabinet. He constantly studied the sphere and its possibilities. As it turned out, it can not only teleport, control gravity and heal wounds. The sphere could do very fine work. Motso fully learned the code of his body, and repeatedly tried to implant other people's organs. The process was very complex and painstaking. For it was necessary to know not only your code, but also the code of the victim. He tried several times to perform surgery on himself, but he knew that he would need help if it involved things like the heart, lungs, liver, and so on. However, trusting, in his opinion, feeble-minded people, was not a possible alternative.
As he continued to study the structure of the sphere, he came across even more interesting information about the blacksmith, who was named as Krugis. Apparently, he foresaw that something terrible would happen and the only device on Alaval that created these spheres would be destroyed. Therefore, in the secret depths of each created sphere, Krugis left precise instructions on how to recreate this mechanism. Motso was infuriated by the thought that if someone accidentally gained access to the sphere and solved the code, they would be able to match the power and capabilities of him - the great ruler of the Divine realm. What if Rod and his subordinates find out this information? Then the war will be surely lost.
Motso was also concerned about returning to his homeland, but every day looking at himself in the mirror, he became horrified: his eyes were sunken, his skin was pale.
"They just won’t recognize me… And what will you say, Pelleas?”
Then Motso clenched his fists so tightly that the crunch of bones resounded throughout the restroom, along with a soft sob.
"Ötzi was right. He was always right. My time is running out. I remember, the shaman once told us that the true Gods can control nature and human destinies? I wonder if it was true. And if this is true, who controls the destinies of the Gods themselves? Is everything really a foregone conclusion?”
Motso came out of his castle, stepping over the corpses of the people who had been sacrificed to him a week ago, and looked down on the nearest city, which he had created in time immemorial. The place stunk, and everywhere you’d look, you’d see only disease and chaos. The people passing by were no different from him. Guards in strange masks and impenetrable black robes flanked the stairs leading to the main entrance. Their heads moved synchronously in the direction of Motso's movement. He was not able to watch the scene outside the castle for long and returned back to his office. He stood in front of the mirror; scratched his black beard and saw that even his own eyes had changed: the conjunctiva was red, the pupil black. The body had been feverish for six months, if not more.
A few days later, a strange man came to the castle, who introduced himself to the guards as a seller of apples and gold goods. Motso was called, and he went out to the throne room, where the old and blackened throne overlooked the ones below it. Chernobog stood next to it, about fifty meters away from the guest, and put the palm of his right hand on the back of the throne. He squinted at the salesman. He was an ordinary white man, six feet tall, bald, dressed in rags, obviously not for the weather, burly, strong. Without waiting for the ruler’s permission, he spoke:
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“I'll be honest with you, my lord. I'm not a salesperson at all.”
“Then who are you? An assassin?”
“No. I'm a messenger from Alaval.”
Motso's face changed. For some reason he felt scared.
“Where is Pelleas?”
“Dead, Milord.” The messenger said, bowing his head.
“What happened?”
“The war was lost. Your planet has been destroyed. I came here to tell you that you have nowhere else to return.”
At these words, Motso fell to his knees. The messenger's face did not change. There was no fear nor excitement in it. He sounded like a tavern servant saying "here's your tea."
"Where is your sphere? If you're really a messenger, you must have teleported here somehow.”
“Pelleas teleported me.”
"Why didn't he teleport himself? Why you?”
“I was the commander-in-chief of the army in the war. We went to the last battle, against Rod. But he was too strong.” The messenger spoke slowly, measuredly, without haste. “He directed all the power of his black sphere into us, and we could not resist it, because only you and him have spheres of this level.”
“What happened next? Speak faster!”
“To repel the blow, my lord,” he thought for five seconds, as if trying the ruler’s patience, and then continued. “We sacrificed our own orbs. They shattered into small pieces. Like a porcelain vase. Only Pelleas's weapon did not break, only cracked and lost its strength. The power was enough for only one teleportation. Pelleas was on his last breath and decided to send me. Now I am here.”
“What happened with him?”
“I think he terraformed the planet and then died, leaving the survivors to live on.”
“And what do you want?”
“I? To return to my homeland. But this is no longer possible.”
“Then I will go to Rod and destroy him.”
“This is also unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Well, first of all, judging by your appearance, you can't even kill a rabbit. And secondly, Rod was able to defeat a trained army, consisting of a thousand warriors, by that time, hardened in battle. And you don't even have combat skills.”
“Aren't you afraid to cheat me? Did you forget where you are?”
“To be honest, I think, I am in some kind of a cesspool where the descendants of monkeys are bullied. So to say, I have nothing to fear. I went through the war. And you were sitting here. You are the only one afraid in here,” he thought for two seconds and then added, “my lord.”
“Look at him! He decided to laugh at me! Die then!” Motso shouted in rage, not holding back the drool in his mouth, and launched the sphere at the offender.
It rushed forward, breaking the speed of sound. There was a pop, and then a cloud of condensation appeared. The messenger's face instantly changed to a serious one, and all he had time to do was bend his arm and make a block in front of his head. Motso was sure that the impudent man would be torn to pieces, but then he saw how the commander-in-chief simply held the spinning sphere in his palm, and then with a slight movement moved it to the side. It crashed into one of the castle’s towers and destroyed it.
"I came to help, not to fight.”
Motso got to his feet, and went towards his quarters, no longer looking at the salesman, he said:
"Live as long as you like, but don't touch me."
Then he disappeared. The commander-in-chief turned to the guards, bending his arm at the elbow and extending his palm vertically, he said:
“Hey, what’s up hard workers. My name is Daimonion. Can you show me my room?”
The Guards didn't move. Daimonion continued sullenly:
“Yeah… you all seem to be a bit wrong in the head here. Well, I'll find the way by myself. And forget about the invitation to my tea party!” He paused. “It seems pointless to ask for a tour of the castle either, doesn’t it?”
The guards stood like a terracotta soldiers.
“Well, okay.”
Daimonion went up to one, especially tall guard, and continued in a whisper:
“Listen, tell me, who are you protecting him from? The people outside the castle can hardly walk.”
The guard was silent; it didn't move.
"Do they feed you properly? Or do you wear masks so that others can't see the bags under your eyes?”
Nothing.
“It's like I'm talking to a wall. Word of honor. Okay, good-bye, hard workers. I'm going to find a room.”
Daimonion behaved like a man who, with his jokes, inadvertently tries to wrest from people some formidable force that can bring them out of the state of stagnation, so that they at least try to shove his jokes in one place for him. However, nothing happened.
***
Over the next year, Motso began more and more to think about what he might leave behind. He less often went out, for he was ashamed of his deeds. He met Daimonion only once during all this time. He asked him to become his adviser and permission to work with people. Motso gave the go-ahead.
In his cabinet, he continued his deep research of the sphere and discovered that there was a block in its system code that allowed owner change only once every three thousand years. And then he thought: "My time is running out anyway, and the last thing I can do is put it in good hands." In a week, Motso redid the code and went to his second, oval cabinet. The windows looked out on the cave walls. With the help of the sphere, he chipped off a small part of the ground and turned it into a tablet. Then he made an inscription in a dialect that only Ötzi knew: "What controls the fate of humanity in this world? He himself? Or is it already a foregone conclusion?" Then he looked at the sphere and said that it was time for them to say goodbye, with the belief that the next owner will be more worthy.
Leaving the castle again, stepping over a mountain of decomposed corpses and breathing the acrid stench into his lungs, Motso moved to the southern part of the castle along a small path on the fortress wall, hiding it behind high merlons. The guards followed him. He reached the tower; lowered the wooden bridge that led to a small space in the cave. Daimonion was already there, but Motso paid no attention to him. He stood in front of a diamond-encrusted coffin with a glass lid. He coughed some blood to the side. The guards watched in silence.
“Someday a man in a white cloak will come here.” Motso started without addressing anyone in particular. “His name is Ötzi or Belobog. I trust this sphere to him and his desires, because only in him I see the light. When he comes, you will immediately recognize him, perhaps, as a child, Ötzi was your mentor or teacher. He has a white beard and no hand. Give him the tablet, let him read the phrase aloud. Do not let others in.”
He opened the lid of the coffin, climbed inside. The sphere flew behind him and touched his right hand. Next to his left hand he put the tablet with the inscription.
“Deactivation.”
Motso's eyes began to close, guided by only a small ray of hope that his friend would come and change everything. The man, who should be considered God and who should be treated with great respect. Daimonion was silent and closely watched what was happening. The guards closed the lid of the coffin and a day later they embalmed the body.