“The nature of chaos is that it never wants to stop in any one place long enough for anything to truly last,” Lora said. “The creatures of chaos are by nature unrestricted, destructive because of their extremes and their dislike of order. They are free will and self-determination and randomness, unfettered and taken to extremes. The creatures of that realm are dark and dangerous and driven by chaos’s need for a lack of order, a drive to be utterly unfettered and unrestricted.”
Of all the things Lora had just stated about the old gods of chaos and their forces, one thing stood out to Booth.
“Are.” She didn’t say “were.”
Before Booth could put together what that meant or whether he should ask, Nildeyr made a small sound from where he’d perched with his butt just on the edge of the statue’s base. He hugged his arms close to his chest, as if what he was hearing frightened him.
“I’ve never heard this story before.” Nildeyr’s glance took in everyone around him.
Off to Booth’s side, Arra and Dorri had stepped closer while Booth was lost in Lora’s storytelling. Dorri shook her head as if indicating she hadn’t heard the story, either. Arra frowned thoughtfully. Karon’s expression changed very little, as ever. But he seemed to regard Lora with an increasingly sharp clinical interest.
That was important, Booth suddenly thought. Something about the stories Lora was telling them had put the typically-inscrutable Karon on alert. Lora would keep talking, and Booth would keep listening. But more was going on than was being said, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out.
Not the puzzle type. Damn it.
“I’m not surprised,” Lora replied to Nildeyr. “Many stories get lost until they need to be found again.”
She’s leading somewhere. This is all part of the game’s story.
Calmer now, as he realized he wasn’t the only person who didn’t know the things Lora was talking about, Booth kept listening.
Lora kept speaking. “With the gate opened for it, order entered and imposed itself upon chaos’s disorder. The gods of order, those we know as the Creator gods, locked away chaos and its powers entirely and built upon the skeleton of the patterns which chaos had created and left behind. The gods of order chose from the best of chaos’s experimentations and not only allowed their creations to remain but insisted upon it. And so came into being the garden which we hear of in the Voshellian teachings, a place of achingly perfect order. Paradise.”
Again, Booth’s imagination sketched out a picture for him. This one was simpler and looked a lot like a scene of the Garden of Eden from a children’s bible of his youth—serene forests and lawns and flower beds.
Karon grunted. “But that lasted only until the youngest of order’s gods got bored?”
Lora had continued speaking directly to Booth up until then. Now, her gaze shifted toward Karon. Her eyes narrowed. All around them, the rosy glow of the braziers danced across muted colors of marble inlaid in a geometric motif across the walls. All six of them stood with their feet on the floor’s matching patterns, right beneath the statue’s hidden face.
Or faces, rather.
Lora smiled politely at Karon. “I think by now it should be clear that nothing is so simple as it sometimes seems. Perfect order, you see, is also static and stagnant. Eve was the youngest of the gods of order. Like Lilith, her purview was the manifestation of energy into physical creations. Her garden was a museum filled with beautiful things that never aged or died or changed at all. But Eve had watched from her side of the gate when chaos danced in the world, and she longed to use its power—not all of it, just the right amount—to bring movement and laughter and the beauty of possibilities to her creations. She longed to dance.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Oh.” The shape of Nildeyr’s mouth matched his utterance. “So Eve opened the gate for chaos. Like Lilith did for order.”
“Eve opened the gate.” Lora inclined her head. “But not recklessly. She and Lilith are two sides of the same coin, water drawn from the same well. Apart, they had realized the same thing, that true life can only exist when there is restraint and form while also the possibility of movement and change. Together, the sister gods opened the gate and ensured that both order and chaos would exist in the world. Together, they became the Sister-Mothers of Life and birthed us all.”
A long silence fell. Maybe all of them were simply attempting to think through the same things Booth was. But he also felt uncomfortably like they were waiting for him to speak next.
“So it wasn’t evil that Lifebringer brought into the world.” Booth spoke slowly, working it out along the way. “That’s what you’re claiming? They gave us free will.”
Lora’s smile seemed more genuine, like a reward for Booth getting the right answer.
“For good or for ill,” Lora replied. “It was not a perfect solution, as we have proven time and again over the ages. But it is life.”
Booth continued to feel like he was drowning in information. Karon, though, stared at Lora like his gaze was a scalpel and he intended to slice into Lora’s mind with it.
“You speak of this Lilith as a Sister-Mother,” Karon said. “As if she is on equal footing with Eve, who is a god of order. But if she existed at all, then she was a chaos god. A dragon-god. Would that not make Lilith inherently evil?”
Booth got the distinct sense that Karon wasn’t arguing but rather asking. And that the answer mattered very much. Maybe Lora notice that, too, because her razor-sharp gaze shifted away from Booth and onto Karon. Booth couldn’t say he minded.
“It depends on your definition of ‘evil,’ I imagine,” Lora said. “That’s a debate I doubt we’ll settle in our lifetimes, as it has never been settled in the lifetimes before ours. To be certain, Lilith is chaotic at heart, as nature is not all blooming flowers and growing fields but also hunting predators and winter trees—nature of tooth and claw as much as fruit and sustenance.”
Karon leaned back and took a moment to reply. “If the Crown belonged to Lilith—was made by her, maybe—then she’s definitely capable of killing in the name of accomplishing things. Large numbers of people, even innocent ones. Berwan Dar proved that.”
“She is indeed fearsome and dangerous. Especially if her power is removed from Eve’s steadying influence.”
From off to Booth’s side, Dorri’s seldom-heard voice tentatively rose. “No one has actively worshipped Lifebringer—or either of these alleged Sister-Mothers—for centuries. This buried shrine is proof.”
Lora turned a smile on Dorri. “A silent faith is no less powerful than a loud one.”
Another quiet fell. Firelight flickered across stone and flesh faces alike.
“The Sister-Mothers of Life have long understood the value of stepping back and allowing their children to make their own choices and live with the consequences, ever learning and growing in their own beautiful ways that would never happen if the gods were directing them.”
That sounded like some top-level religious dogma bullshit to Booth. But once again a sense of waiting surrounded him, like they’d reached some climactic moment and this was where he was supposed to draw an important conclusion or make a big decision.
Lora reinforced that sense by looking directly at Booth and lifting her eyebrows, as if prompting him to speak.
“So.” Booth fumbled for what he might be supposed to say. “You think this Crown was made by Lilith. And that it came from here.”
“I do.”
Booth hesitated, not sure how to proceed.
Karon interjected, “And is there any other knowledge you feel might be relevant to this circumstance?”
Lora kept her gaze on Booth but answered Karon’s question. “The gods of order would still prefer to restore pure order and would destroy chaos utterly if they could find a means. And the gods of chaos would of course do the same to order, were it possible. They try every day on scales small and large. The charge of the Sister-Mothers and every living being created by their actions is redemption, of trying and trying and trying again to find a balance between the two which holds and lasts, allowing the strength of both and canceling out the weaknesses of each.”
“A battle.” Nildeyr spoke with awe.
“A war. A war of redemption which has been fought since the very beginning of life.”
And there it was, suddenly. Redemption Wars. The name of the game dropped suddenly into context. Understanding settled across Booth.
This is why we’re here.
“We are soldiers in the eternal war for balance, even if we never realize it.” Lora continued speaking, and as she did Booth recalled voices speaking from a misty darkness.
The opening cinematic. Shit. I should’ve paid closer attention.
He couldn’t decide if Lora’s might have been one of the disjointed voices he’d heard. It was possible. He couldn’t remember much of what had been said. Something about watching for “them” to reappear. Something about an unnamed “she” who might take extreme measures.
He definitely remembered the unseen speakers needing soldiers to join their cause. He remembered thinking how that sounded like a hook for player characters.
And it was. It most definitely was.