Chapter 116

"Who are you?" Rehny voiced his thought. The being who'd touched the back of his neck was nowhere to be seen once he turned in search of them.

Them?

The voice that was both masculine and feminine confused him, he was certain of the being's sex with one syllable then uncertain with the next as his name got repeatedly mentioned. The voice was deep and raspy and at the same time it held a lilting melody that oddly reminded him of... Lamical.

Yes. It was her voice tangled and encased within another. But how? He wondered at the relevance of the question. Here he was, naked and kneeling on white marble while around him darkness reigned. A God's hand was definitely at play, but which God? His last memory was a sword plunging into him, a sword wielded by Vayin Vigon. The bastard had killed him. He observed his torso and found not a mark on his naked pale skin that had once carried scars that formed a mosaic of the frequent campaigns he'd fought beside Vayin Vigon.

The whistling. He'd focused on it and in so doing he'd brought someone, something, into being. A whisper, close to his ear. "Oh, such falls and tumbles in your thinking Rehny, such tumbles and fa-" Rehny abruptly jerked in the direction of the voice to find... Nothing.

Rehny sighed. "Look, I know you're a God, or something along those lines and you find yourself in a position where you can flaunt your mysterious ways and stir something along the lines of awe from me.

But you're wrong. I don't give a damn about your mysteries and its likes. In fact, all it does is annoy me. So, if you'll please get to the point of me being here, I'll very much appreciate it."

A laugh answered his words. Deep and rich. The richness was female and it reminded him of the first time he'd tried to approach Lamical by walking towards her in the pouring rain to where she cowered beneath a cobbler's shop. His swagger, that had been born of what he assumed to be an attractive gait that had involved one hand pressed to his side while the other swung with each step, had ended in embarrassment as his front foot slipped on the mud and his bum hit the ground. He could still recall her laughter. Rich and beautiful. Rehny fought the overwhelming wave of grief the memory brought, it was odd that even in death she haunted him.

"Love is a beautiful thing, it offers a window into another world you never knew existed and you stay glued to that frame, peering into the endless beauty. Reveling in the feelings of belonging." Rehny turned to observe behind him where the words came from but the speaker continued from his front, footsteps pattering on the white marble he knelt on. "And the scene changes. What was bathed in sunlight is shrouded in gloom. White clouds fade to grey, thunder roars to drown the singing of birds. Then the rain drops as endless as your tears. And the window no longer beholds love. It shows what remains once love is dead." Rehny turned his head to face before him but found the speaker gone once more.

"Who are you to dictate what love is?" Rehny asked.

From the left of his head the speaker spoke. "I have the authority to do so. I did devour the Goddess of Love after all, ah the pleasure. Millennia with her locked within me, I toyed with her in ways that would make the other Gods weep for their precious Nyawe. Tell me, Rehny, what would you give to hear the Goddess of Love moan? Or weep?" Rehny trembled. The speaker moved and the voice came directly into his right ear. "I thought back then that devouring her would make it easier for all to venture into the void. What better way to feed than to eliminate Love from life? I was certain I will have them all. Instead her absence only brought about spite from the pompous Goddess of Order-" The being's voice was becoming increasingly laced with frustration and Lamical's voice receded to the background, lessening as the male voice became bestial. Rehny closed his eyes, not daring to search for whoever was speaking.

"The God of chaos became a brooding imbecile. The God of time sought solitude, seeking to escape reality. And the Goddess of depth found comfort in slumber. All under the guise of keeping me locked. I made a mistake to fall for their trap, I should have devoured them all including the one who'd been banished, whose memory lives no more even with me." A cold tap on his naked shoulder. "Open your eyes."

Rehny obeyed, he opened his eyes to finally see who spoke squatting before him. And with the sight came pain. He saw Lamical take Vayin Vigon's hand during their marriage ceremony. He remembered her last words to him, brief yet finalizing in their brutality. With the pain came the realization that he was a very little man who could only find escape in one way. In one simple way. All he had to do was walk into the void. End himself and advertently, end the grief that was numbing in its weight. What was life? It served no purpose. In the God's dark eyes all was clear, all could be seen within those black holes that passed for eyes. There was no joy, there was no comfort in relationships, there was only endless turmoil and there, at the end of it all, in the sharp toothed smile of the God before him, he saw a way out. A comfort from the grief and pain that tired him so much. He was so tired and the God offered release from it all.

Rehny started to lean forward towards the God, slowly. "I am Locha. The bringer of the endless night." Rehny felt himself fading as he neared, the God's ice cold breath made him feel like his wrists were slit and blood was leaving him. Life was leaving him. But wait, am I not already dead? "I choose you Rehny, for others see me and they see fear, they see me and materialistic loss is all that compels them towards me. No. With you I am more, I am bigger and more devastating." Only the male tone of the God could be heard.

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He neared the God, Locha. Felt himself drawn to the beauty of release. To the call of death and the denial of life. Locha resembled her, but where Lamical was love Locha was.. Nothingness. It was a new promise of love, a new window where the gloom, thunder and rain were things he loved. What then was he to fear? There would be no loss if loss was something he loved.

"I will revive you Rehny, Lamical will be yours. The realm will be yours. You shall be with her once more and none will get in your way." Locha said, his sharp toothed smile odd yet perfect upon Lamical's symmetric face. "Give me your life." The God commanded.

Rehny paused. An inch away from Lamical's face, the blue eyes had been replaced by dark orbs, the whites of the sclera were completely black. Her full cherry lips were a corpse's grey and her hair that was always a brilliant golden hue was as dark as the darkness surrounding him. The new love was beautiful to Rehny's eyes, a feeling akin to his tortured soul. How could he refuse?

He recalled Lamical standing above him at the Nula Anyl. The same look on Locha's face was what she'd held as she'd advised her daughter to give the order that would have Rehny fighting the whole Royal Black Guard. What good was his life anyway? If she'd been so willing to throw it away why shouldn't he do the same thing?

Rehny opened his lips to speak but then, within the darkness of Locha's eyes, a magenta spark briefly came to light and the memory of Lamical laying on his chest within the meadow they frequented brought itself forth within his mind. Just that, an image of his back leaning on the barked stem of a tree, the shade shifting with the wind and Lamical pressed to his side. Her hand twirling his chest hair from beneath his open shirt, a smile whenever their eyes met. Her leaning up to kiss him.

Pain assailed him with the thought, numbness retracted and the grief renewed.

Still. He held on to the memory.

The God's face twisted into an angry snarl. Locha's darks orbs sparkled with that vibrant light purple hue once more and Rehny recalled himself smiling out of embarrassment as he raised himself off the muddy ground. Lamical's laughter engulfing him.

"Give me your life, Rehny." Locha said. The female part of his voice was slightly louder than before.

"No." Rehny answered.

The magenta spark lit up in one of Locha's eyes, becoming brighter. "I offer freedom from the pain."

A flood of pain hit him. He recalled himself weeping in bed, all the nights he'd done so blurring into one image that spoke only of the grief of loss. Of the inability to eat or to sleep due to a life of separation from his reason for living.

He focused on Locha's dark orbs as his face contorted and tears streamed down his face, as he did so he searched for a memory within himself that would remind him of the time before the loss of love. Locha let out a growl of rage and stood up. The God became larger, his skin turned grey and peeled away to reveal decaying strands of flesh. His face elongated, the nose became but two slits and the mouth widened and ran from one sharp pointed ear to the other. The dark hair became spikes of black glass that stood on end and long fingers studded with iron claws wrapped themselves around Rehny's neck, lifting him off the ground.

"I hold your soul at the gates of Tabrimas, if you deny me I will plunge you into darkness for I have stolen you from the fate that awaits you after death. I will torture you for millennia and you shall know nothing else but the pain you wish to embrace." The God's voice was bestial, raspy as the creature's long and purple tongue darted out of its mouth and ran along its fangs.

Rehny struggled to speak but Locha's choke hold prevented him from doing so. Seeing this, Locha placed Rehny on the ground and stood before him, the Binorian reaching only to the God's hips. Rehny looked up Locha's length, taking in the decaying flesh and skin, the spindly elongated limbs and hideous face. He looked into those depthless black eyes and spoke two words. "Fuck you."

Locha let out a roar and made to swipe for Rehny's head. As the claws came at him, Rehny looked the God in the face, seeing the contorted hideousness that was synonymous to what he'd felt for the better part of his life whenever he'd seen Lamical with Vayin Vigon. He realized then that love was void of such a feeling. It was not love. Love is pure and untainted with malice. Grief had nurtured hatred within him, spite grew from this and it did nothing but torture his soul. Twisting him to resemble the God that stood before him now.

Rehny recalled her face as she ran to him in the rain while he unsuccessfully tried to swipe mud away from his cloak. Her blonde hair plastered to her scalp from the rain, the joy evident in her face. He felt within him now what he'd felt then. And with the feeling came a new thought, riddled with the grief he'd held onto for so long but with a touch of a new kind of release that was the opposite of what Locha offered.

“I forgive you, Lamical.”

The darkness abruptly faded away and an endless expanse of magenta curled itself all around him in flowing waves of thick beautiful clouds of smoke that morphed from purple to pink. Rehny watched as Locha's eyes turned into the same magenta hue as all that was around him, the claws disappeared and in the place of the bringer of endless night was a naked woman of such divine beauty that had Rehny falling on his behind.

"You did that with her too." The woman said with a soft smile. Her voice was like a lover's caress to his mind and her purple eyes that were on him bore holes into every barricade he'd placed to ward himself of love. Rehny struggled to speak but couldn't. His heart was beating too loud and his body was sheathed in sweat. Excitement got the better of him at the sight of the naked woman whose caramel skin changed to black, then white, then copper and her thick flowing hair changed randomly as well to colors ranging from the green of grass to the blue of the sky. He blushed as her head lowered to observe his groin. As the shades of her skin changed so did the symmetry of her face and body yet she maintained her identity of divine beauty.

The Goddess stepped towards him. "I am Nyawe, I do not have much time. He will emerge once more.

I need-"

"Take it!" Rehny said.

The Goddess frowned in what he could only frame as the most feminine way and Rehny spasmed as wave after wave of pleasure rocked his body.

"STOP... DOING.. THAT!" He struggled to speak and forced his eyes shut but the image of her was burned to his mind.

"Apologies, my true form isn't applicable with mortals. What will you give me?" Her last word had a male tone to it. Rehny panicked and forced his eyes open. The Goddess of Love was before him but she struggled to maintain her form, a dark tendril started dancing through the magenta clouds all around him and the feel of the Void slowly returned. Rehny could see the sadness in Nyawe's purple eyes, the brief period of freedom he'd bought her wasn't enough to free her from Locha's hold and even as he watched the darkness fought back the tendrils of color.

"Take my love." Rehny said. The darkness vanished and blinding magenta light engulfed him.