“First things first. Who are you?”
The massive creature chuckled, and the rumbling shook more dust free of the chamber’s high ceiling. The fangs quivered as it spoke.
“Curious that you asked who, rather than what, I am. However, since we are safe within the black palace, I can tell you. I am Sashlu. The goddess of fate. I have had many names and worn many faces. But my function has always been the same. To serve as the thread that holds existence together and gives it meaning.”
Akamori blinked, trying to process that. He was just expecting a name. But this goddess had just slapped him across the fate with everything else. His mouth worked, but it produced no sound while his brain reeled from so many revelations back to back. He cleared his throat, realizing that this was the literal divine embodiment of the very thing he’d grown to dislike so much.
“Oh. Great. Fate. I had to meet the literal divine representation of the very thing I hate the most. I make my own decisions and decide my own life.” He wasn’t sure if disliking fate would be seen as blasphemous or not.
The creature loomed closer and he could make out details more clearly. Its cluster of eyes formed a circle. Eight in total, and they all looked like small stars set against the black of night. As she exhaled at him, her breath actually smelled like raspberries. The contrast was so heel turn he almost thought he was hallucinating. Again, that thunderous wave of soft laughter. Sashlu had a really mild personality so far. That or she thought he was hilarious.
“Yes. Let’s go with that. Whatever gets you to sleep, cupcake.”
He stared blankly. All his bluster bled out of him like an animal trussed up to be skinned. He narrowed his eyes at her in disbelief, “Did you just call me cupcake?”
“What?”
“What?”
A moment passed and the massive creature rumbled another laugh. Even as soft and subdued as it was, it still made his teeth rattle. He braced his feet as though he were leaning into a storm gale.
“To answer your first question, yes. I’m aware. Fate is not a concept many find easy to accept or make peace with. Some over dedicate themselves to the concept of what they think their destiny is while being fully ignorant of what their threads actually hold for them. While others are happily and blissfully ignorant. Content to walk their paths wherever it may lead without a care for how they got there. And then there are those who fight desperately to avoid it, while still walking to its beat. And yes, I find you funny, but also I’m very mild-mannered. When you are the divine manifestation of the web of fate, you learn to take things in stride.”
“Well,” Akamori started. “At least you’re a good sport about it.”
Sashlu bowed her head in agreement. A couple more hairs toppled loose and clattered on the stone floor.
“Time has a way of taming one’s personality. In most cases. But I suspect we’ve spoken enough about myself, and now you’re wanting to know more about you?”
She’d framed it like a question, but he got the sense she was also shifting the conversation. The frustrating part was that she was right. He sighed. This stuff was so confusing and such a chore. But also something that had to be faced. Alright then, on to the next question.
“What is with everyone speaking to me like they know me? And what is Bahumet’s stance?”
Sashlu’s wings fluffed, one scratching the other. A few glittering, dark burgundy dragon scales bounced to the ground. They sounded like coins jingling off the stone floor of what he was coming to think of as the spiderbat cave. Sashlu’s fangs quivered and Akamori’s skin contracted into goosebumps as something primal quaked with fear deep within. Sashlu’s head canted as though reading his emotions and the beast winked out of existence. From the darkness strode a woman wearing a white dress. She had dark skin, dark red hair, and had more eyes than a human shaped had looked designed to house. Two smaller eyes sat beneath the two normal eyes one would associate with a humanoid. Then another pair sat just above those occupying her forehead. Her eyes were jet black, with glowing hints of fire in them. Her dress was an off white and looked woven from spider silk.
Despite the creepiness, she somehow pulled off beautiful in a divine way. A small smile creased her lips, and she inclined her head. “I assumed you might find this form less unsettling. Now, to your questions.”
Compared to the way her voice had been thunderous and oppressive, now she was more muted. Like a spotlight viewed from behind a keyhole. Pinhole of light that shone through a humanoid shape. She walked around him as she spoke, and though he left the helmet on. His ears still ached, and he was pretty confident they’d been bleeding from their initial exchange.
“The latter first. Bahumet’s stance is a combat style designed by the first and most powerful brood of Kronis.”
“Kronis?”
“The god of time. Though, it might be easier to think of him by the name given to him by humankind, Midgardzormer. He was a powerful elder dragon who brought his children to the stars. His own world fell into conflict. Bahumet, the first son of Kronis was the most powerful of his brood. A god of the void, Bahumet was a destroyer. But he swore to be more than that. And so he became an agent of change. His stance was a combat style that favored power and speed. It is rarely taught, as few remember it well enough to instruct in it however some of its principles live on in lesser forms and styles used by living dragons. But you possess something unique no one else does.”
“What?”
“His soul and memories.”
He reached out a hand that glowed with a rainbow of color and touched his forehead. The magic poured through his body like water. Spreading movements and skill into every muscle from head to toe. Everything tingled, like an oxygen starved limb waking up. He gasped at the sensation, the sudden influx overwhelming him for a moment as he fell to his knees, panting heavily. The sound of his breathing was loud and raspy inside his helmet.
Everything made sense now. The way his father was teaching him, the forms and katas. It was the foundation of Bahumet’s Stance. But he didn’t just possess the basics and fundamentals now. He was a master. The master. He knew it as intimately as two elder lovers. “Whoa…”
Sashlu smiled as she stood back to regard him. “Whoa indeed.”
He looked up at her, slowly pulling himself back up to his feet. “What did you do to me?”
“I reconnected a few strands of your soul to your body. The first of a few gifts.”
“Why?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
She gave him a knowing look. “For the trials to come. I must make you ready to face your current enemies so that when the time comes, you are ready for the real fights.”
His brows furrowed, “Real fights? Then what have I been doing up to now?”
“Training and growing.”
He pouted at the thought that nearly dying on Hidros was simply just another day in the gym for him, as far as she was concerned. “Sure hasn’t felt that way.”
“Not every hero comes from humble beginnings. But the best ones usually do.”
“Why?” He asked again at the risk of sounding like a broken record.
“Sauridius is a threat, yes. But what lays beyond him and his children’s schemes is nothing but darkness and despair. Threats in the void that would undo all of creation. A fate that has fallen to other shards of existence.”
“Doesn’t seem to be a lack of abundance for assholes looking to ruin other people’s day.” Akamori groused.
“And thankfully I have my chosen champions ready to see they don’t get their way.” Sashlu extended her other hand, and magic poured into him. Raw, hot, unfiltered flame roared into his body. It burned away weakness, doubt, and strengthened him. His body went rigid, unable to resist the flow. Every cell became energized. Every muscle fiber thickened. Fire roared from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Eventually, the glow of the magic faded within him. His armor had grown with him. The dark blue alloy now had streaks of red in it. His blade had also grown again. Now several centimeters longer than it had been previously.
“What did you do to me?” He gasped again.
“I’ve made you truly a destroyer.”
His helmet peeled back, and he rested his head on the cold stone floor. “I don’t want to destroy anything.”
“For some things to change. Others must end. That is the path you walk. You will determine when things must end and then end them.”
Deep within his chest, he could feel the hot, angry magic resting next to the cool and patient water, the dark and cold void, and the light and whimsical air. He could also feel the gold marks on his soul and body. And deep beneath all of that. The dark presence of… him. Accepting that it was attached to him and the legacy it carried was something he’d tried to forget and push out of his mind. But if he looked deep enough inside himself, it was there. And the stronger he grew, the weaker the barrier between them became.
He shivered under the chill, and Sashlu gave him a comforting smile. “Be at ease, my child. What you fear now is simply a lack of information. But all will be clear when the time is right.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say, hiding out in your black palace in the armpit of the void.”
“Interstice.”
“What?”
“This is the interstice. The juncture between aether, soul, and dream. Not a true plane, but more of an intersection of all of them. But not just the planes, but also the shards. The home of the web of fate. I am… unable to depart this place.”
“The shards?”
“Yes. Your reality is not the only one. In the beginning, there was a singular world whereupon creation was made. But events transpired that split that world. It now exists as anchored shards of a whole. Like pieces of a broken mirror. Reflections of the same reality, viewed with different perspectives, times, and rules. We dwell within the Prime shard. The Interstice was created when the first shard was truly destroyed.”
“Who destroyed it?”
Sashlu gave him a wry smile. “That… can wait for another time. You have more immediate threats to focus on.”
“Fair enough then.” Akamori’s brows furrowed as thought about her own fate. “Did you know you’d be stuck here?”
“Not initially. Once my ability to touch the web of fate manifested, yes.”
“And you still came?”
“Indeed. It was the only way.”
“Only way for what?”
“To buy enough time.”
“Is it like a failing of gods to be cryptic and talk sideways?”
Sashlu chuckled again, her voice more melodic than the rumbling thunder of her previous form. “I sometimes forget how fleeting the mortal perspective can be. I suppose that’s why your soul is shaped the way it is. Something I’ve always pondered. Perhaps this cycle will reveal the answer to that question.”
She turned and looked over her shoulder as a doorway opened at the top of a staircase on the opposite side of the spiderbat cave. He looked at the stairs that climbed to the exit and sighed.
“More stairs.”
“Yes, well, can’t skip leg day now, can we?” Sashlu teased.
“Wait, have you spoken to Sirsir?”
“Not yet. Soon. But now our time has ended. You have what you need and events conspire to force your exit. Go in confidence. And remember, you are my chosen. A member of my hand of fate. There is naught you can’t accomplish.” Sashlu offered him a sad smile. Like a mother seeing away her first born as he left the home for the first time.
His sword thrummed pleased behind him on his back. Our enemies will soon come to know their folly.
“Oh, uh. Yeah.”
You are distracted by what lays within you. Don’t. Focus on the task ahead.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have a dark dragon’s spirit inside you and people calling you a destroyer.”
What is one being’s act of creation is an act of destruction to another? In order to make anything, something must first be changed. This act just as easily constitutes destruction, even though the end result is for the better.
“You’re trying to convince me with a semantic argument? You really have grown.”
As your power grows, so too does mine. We are soul linked. This is just one of my cycles we’ve walked. Though I daresay this may be the last. It is too early to tell yet.
Akamori frowned, climbing the stairs and unable to shake the feeling of an unbearable weight that grew heavier with each step. With each revelation he received, more and more he felt like he was both standing in a massive shadow, and constantly being ensnared in chains, holding him down to a destiny he didn’t want. Well, not completely anyway. He wanted to stop Sauridius, but everything after that felt like vague ideas he wanted nothing to do with.
The light at the top of the stairs washed over him. A small headache blooming behind his eyes after having adjusted to the darkness. He turned back to regard Sashlu with a frown. As the massive rune and glyph etched double doors shut, the goddess turned to wink at him teasingly.
“Fuck fate,” he said.