A sliver of Azarus’s soul erupted in the cinders of his domain. An aching sense of emptiness filled him as it drained his divinity, becoming something more. With mechanical precision, an unseen hand severed it from the rest of his soul, leaving a tether comparable to twine. The sliver of his soul floated from his chest, an iridescent mote of emerald fire. The tether that kept it attached stretched until it was near non-existent. Despite the separation, the mote remained a piece of him, albeit not under his control.
The mote grew and grew in Azarus’s vision until there was nothing but him and the emerald fire, flecked with gray and gold. On a whim, Azarus moved to reach out and touch the mote, only to find he was frozen in place. Time struggled to keep pace as he stared into the flickering depths of the mote. With a sudden jerk, Azarus’s perspective changed. He was staring at his own face. His jaw was covered with streaks of green and white paint. The rings of emerald in his eyes, the same shade as the flame with identical gray and gold flecks, spun as if trying to draw him in.
Before he could fully examine himself from this new vantage point, Azarus felt a tug, like someone pulling at a rope attached to his waist. He resisted the pulling sensation until it faded. It was unsightly for a god to be pulled this way and that by an unseen power. He still had his dignity.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the pulling sensation returned with a vengeance. It yanked him back, pulling his consciousness from the hall of gods and into the Mirror of Eons.
***
Moka knelt on her hands and knees, eyes squeezed shut, in a small shrine built into the roots of a mythic tree, offering her prayers to the god that saved her. Building the shrine resulted from pursuing a whim, but she was glad she did. She needed all the goodwill she could get her hands on. When she had called out for a savior, she had never expected this outcome. For as long as she could remember, her tribes worshiped the great goblin spirits, ancestors and benefactors of eras long past, given life and form by sacrifice. She had offered her life for the power to right her wrongs, to erase her humiliation and pain with blood. A life for a life.
Her hands trembled, clutching at the hem of her jacket. Unbidden thoughts rose to the surface of her mind faster than she could drown them. They were just images. Afternoons in soft meadows. Evenings watching the sunset from her favorite ridge. Eyes like flawed blue gems. The images sparked a series of memories that ran through Moka’s mind like lightning, each one igniting the next. In an instant, she re-lived her choices and the consequences that followed.
In the blink of an eye, the mental dam she had built to keep herself calm buckled and broke. Pain washed over her like a flood, tinted in a spectrum of pain and betrayal. Drowning her own emotions, Moka reached for a life raft. Her anger came at her call, as though a well-loved, but ill-trained, hound. Like such a hound, it sought to bowl her over and smother her with its particular brand of affection.
With some effort, Moka brought her anger to heel. It was easier to manage than the pain. Once her mind cleared enough, she forced herself to shift her focus to the task at hand. The Lord of Chaos had not sent her here to grieve.
A mote of pure green light descended from the cloud-cover on a ray of fading light. It hovered over Moka for a tense moment. Lost in thought, Moka did not notice it. Like an executioner’s axe, it plunged down through the back of her neck. Ethereal green flames exploded from her slight frame, expanding like a dying star. Ghostly flames burned in absolute silence; flickering tongues of gold and gray fire dancing through an emerald inferno around the kneeling goblin.
Moka jerked upright, her eyes darting back and forth. A startled roar sounded out from nearby, followed by deep vibrations as something large fled the scene. Moka glanced at the altar, and something clicked. She quickly squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head.
Although the ethereal firestorm was silent, a sense of untouchable holiness descended on the shrine. Moka dared not open her eyes at the sound. She could feel her god’s eyes on her.
After a few minutes, nothing more happened. Moka peaked one eye open. Seeing a definitive lack of ethereal firestorms, she tentatively raised her head. The sense of holiness faded, though a small amount lingered. It radiated an air of silence and observation.
Moka let out a small breath, unsurprised to find she had been holding it. A tremor ran through her. It started from her hands, where she clutched the hem of her coat in balled fists, before traveling up her arms and down her spine. She had not expected to pay with her life a day at a time. Far away from the dire straits that caused her to offer her life, the reality of the deal she made was still crashing down on her.
With her god watching over her, more closely than she had expected, Moka did her best to come to grips with her new life. There was not a single second of her day that belonged to her. The quiet peace of resting her head in the safety of her home was a pipe-dream now. Less than a day prior, her dreams had been of building an unusual but happy family. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Moka’s mind churned. Through the chaotic tumbling of her thoughts, she latched onto an idea; the difference between a spirit and a god. A spirit values sacrifice as blood and potential, where a god considered sacrifice to be servitude. She accepted the idea as fact. It did not matter to her; she was as good as dead already. Her life was not hers to do what she pleased. She used those thoughts like shields against the guilt and shame that plagued her. She just had to fulfill her end of the bargain. Then everything would be made right.
The lie felt sweet on her tongue, but left a bitter aftertaste.
Swallowing any thoughts of rebellion against her now lord and savior Azarus, Moka acknowledged there was a fur lining to this situation. She had never been religious, but times had changed. It was the greatest of honors to serve the Unexpected Visitor, the god of Chaos and Death himself. She had known it was him as soon as he summoned her to his throne room. With his might, he propped up the very heavens themselves. Her god was a primordial being with vast powers beyond her understanding. No questions asked.
She had her doubts when he called her, of course, in that split second between accepting his offer and appearing before him. Those doubts evaporated as soon as he revealed himself in all his splendor. At first, she thought him a god of Life, with his looped, green eyes representing growth and eternity.
Then, his aura of cleansing fire had hit her like a physical thing. All goblins knew that fire was chaos made manifest. And, of course, drawn to suffering, He would appear when the humans lit her village as a beacon. When she noticed his sword, it cemented the conclusion. Two six-sided dice, eternally spinning, adorned his weapon. Sword and dice forged as one suited a single deity. Chance and death, combined.
It had distressed Moka that she only noticed his weapon after his eyes. Any goblin worth their spear would tell you that the difference between having lunch and being lunch was seeing danger. Her parents drilled that mantra into her before she could walk.
Moka shook her head, trying and failing to shake loose the deep sense of failure that settled in her bones. She had failed to see the danger and her people had paid the price. Her fingers clenched until her sharp claws cut through her coat and into her palms, parting the callused skin.
After a long minute of silence, Moka admonished herself. The god of Chaos himself, the father of goblins, had promised her a chance at redemption. He wore her people’s war paint across his face, like a declaration to the cosmos. She would dedicate her all to him, leaving behind the pain of the past, so that she might face it again. It was all she could do. This was her path.
Touching her head to the ground, Moka weighed her next words. She had his attention. Now was the time to voice her determination. Opening her mouth to speak, she realized her lips were dry and chapped. She tried to wet them. Her tongue felt like sandpaper against her lips.
“Oh Azarus, the Unexp-” Moka burst into a coughing fit as her god-given Skill, [Course-correct] rang through her like a bell. It nestled in her soul like a knot, tightening of its own according and twisting her perception. She felt a clarity she had never experienced before, urging her to begin again. Her body trembled like a leaf in the wind at the admonishment. The jangling of her earrings was reminiscent of the tribe’s tambourines. “Ahem. Oh, Azarus, the Painted Man, who wears the tapestry of Fate like a cloak. This servant hears you and obeys. I will complete your task. I will die before I fail you.”
As Moka spoke one of Azarus’s titles, the Painted Man, she felt a sudden tightening of the god’s attention around her. Her thoughts flashed to her encounter with him in his throne room. She pictured him in her mind, his worn coat sporting a kaleidoscope of pulsing color that emanated pure divinity. The pattern, chaotic to the point of indescribable, moved without care, representing the shifting nature of Fate. Even the cruel yellow claw of his arch nemesis was present, grasping at threads to twist the future into Order. Azarus was all the elder hobs had whispered of, in hushed tones when the village fires burned low, and more.
Moka felt honored to know his name.
A sense of dim satisfaction radiated from Azarus’s presence. He approved of her prayer. The fine hairs on Moka’s arms and neck stood straight up, her body sensing a vortex of power spring into existence. She held her breath as she waited for the other rock to drop. To her surprise, the vortex dissipated into nothingness after a brief swell. Azarus’s presence reduced, till she could barely sense it. It felt like he was a bird perched on her shoulder, seeing what she saw.
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Moka pushed a short, sharp burst of air through her nose, opened her eyes, and rose to her feet. Through the opening in the shrine, she could see deep orange and red light dispersing through the clouds. The sun had almost set. She quickly patted the loose dirt and debris off her strange otherworldly clothing and set off. Not a single second belonged to her.
She headed toward the mountain peak, the only landmark she had noticed, pacing out at a steady jog she could maintain for hours. Darkness was not a barrier for her eyes, so that did not worry her. However, her task related to a village. Azarus would not be pleased if she set back his plans because the villagers were asleep by the time she got there.
Vaulting over and slipping under the massive roots that weaved through the earth like great siphons, Moka made her way to the forest’s edge. At first, when she exited the treeline, she thought she had found the village. Dark shapes the size of houses littered the mountain’s shadow. An undulating cloud, painted in light pinks and deep blues, rose into the sky like a world-swallowing snake over the tip of the peak.
Even with Moka’s night vision, the shadows of twilight played tricks with her eyes. She cleared her throat with a deliberate, loud cough. Time ticked by as she waited, looking for any movement. None came. Her task and redemption foremost in her thoughts, Moka abandoned caution and approached the nearest shape. When she was close enough to see it clearly, a wry, self-deprecating smile twisted the corners of her lips. She stood in a field with hundreds of house-sized gourds, arranged in neat lines. They reminded her of the magical plants the older hobs would tell stories about, far too large to be natural. Glancing at the tower of a tree next to her, Moka reevaluated what was normal here. After a beat, she shrugged. She would find out soon enough, one way or the other.
The small goblin stepped onto one of the broad dirt paths that separated the rows, gourds looming on either side of her. The empty row was deeper and harder packed than any dirt path she had walked before. She followed it toward the base of the mountain, taking great care to monitor her surroundings. There was more than enough cover for an ogre to creep up on her, let alone a predatory beast. The closer she drew to the mountain, the more she could feel the electric air of impending violence.
Moka wrinkled her nose, breathing in deep. She sneezed, her face screwed into a pinched frown. There was no iron-scent she could find. No smoke. No blood. Nothing but the fresh scent of earth and pollen. She hesitated, her foot hanging in the air, mid-stride, for a moment longer than necessary. There would be a life and death struggle soon. She knew it like she knew her own name. The lack of sensory confirmation made her feel like she was holding an empty fishing line after fighting with a fish for an hour.
Tucking her hand into her coat, Moka touched the pommel of her chisel. It was the closest thing she had to a weapon. It comforted her. She ignored that the comfort was a thin veil, considering the chisel’s diminutive size compared to the surrounding flora. That was fine. Comfort is not what she sought. Violence would come and she would be there to give it a face.
Moka felt a lightness in her chest and a quickening in her pulse. There was a spring in her step. Her hands were restless, clenching and unclenching at each imagined sound.
Before long, Moka’s sharp ears picked up the sound of a dull, repetitive thudding. She wove through the dwelling sized gourds, looking up at regular intervals in case of an enterprising ambush predator. Before she knew it, she was running straight toward the noise. She saw the culprit far before he saw her.
Moka saw a human-shaped shadow raise and swing a stone-axe, easily twice her size, and bring it down with an earthshaking rumble. Again and again, the figure hacked down with a dull expression on its face. Giant. It was the only word Moka could think of to describe the man. The house-sized gourds only reached up to his waist. His arms were unnaturally long, corded with muscle fibers as thick as ropes.
Slowing to a soft-stepped walk, Moka circled around the giant, taking special note of where she could reach and what was vital in that area. The inner thigh looked like an excellent place to bury her chisel. If pressed, she thought she could probably climb up his back to reach his thick neck, right beneath his bushy reddish-brown beard. Chisel in hand, she crept up on him as he raised his axe in a single hand.
The axe fell. Moka sprinted forward. The giant ripped the gourd from the ground with a triumphant roar. The giant’s rumbling cry covered the sound of her pounding footsteps. Dropping the axe, the giant bent over, reaching out both hands, each one massive even in proportion. Moka aimed for his exposed back, ready to finish this before it could start.
The giant lifted the massive gourd, pivoting on one foot to place it in a wooden cart at his side. In the cart were four other such gourds. Moka gaped at the sight. She had mistaken it at a glance for a small hill with gourds growing on it. Upon realization, her momentum bled as her headlong charge slowed to a moderate jog. Azarus’s instructions echoed in her ears. A weight seemed to shift on her shoulder.
Find the hopeless. Change their fate. Go to the village. He had not specified creed or species.
The giant turned, his previous pivot allowing him to catch motion out of the corner of his eye. His dinner-plate sized eyes narrowed as he caught sight of Moka. He raised one great palm, capable of obliterating Moka in a single swipe. His tombstone-like teeth gleamed through his beard in the fading light.
“Hail there, traveler.”
The giant’s voice caused leaves adorning nearby gourds to shudder at the wind of its passing. His tone was polite, bordering on friendly. However, to Moka’s ear, he sounded wary. He glanced up a few times as he spoke, as if checking the cloud-cover to make sure it was still there.
“What brings you to Kinsrest?”
Moka’s ground to a halt, a good fifty paces from the giant. Just out of his immediate reach. If he took two or three steps in her direction, it would eat the distance between them. An impossible thought lodged itself in her brain, and the more the giant spoke, the more it seemed plausible. Was this… a villager? To her knowledge, giants ate anything smaller than them with impunity. Surely, this one did not exactly fit her mental image of ‘hopeless’. Dark circles under his eyes notwithstanding. Plenty of happy gobs and hobs did not get enough sleep, for various reasons.
Shrugging, Moka decided a direct approach was best. Worst-case scenario, she got to release the dark, slimy feelings burrowing in her chest on a target too big to miss. She inhaled until it felt like her lungs would burst. In one breath, she shouted, trying to match the giant’s volume.
“I seek the hopeless.”
Moka grimaced to herself, reaching up to touch her throat. She hoped the giant had good hearing. Or he was an enemy. She did not want to be shouting all day.
A low rumbling shook the earth in rhythmic waves. It took Moka a second to realize the giant was laughing. It did not strike her as a joyous sound.
“Welcome! You have found us,” he said, through a smile reminiscent of a snarl. “Now what?”
Moka drew herself up to her full height and puffed out her chest. She did her best to look down on the giant, despite the height difference. Looking the giant straight in the eye, Moka shouted to him, a hair more quiet than before.
“Now I change your fate.”
The giant’s smile brightened, then fell. Anger flashed behind his eyes before being consumed by a smothering blankness. If Moka did not know better, she would suspect the creature was on the verge of tears. Or a murderous rampage. She had seen it both ways. Having many emotions at once was never a good sign.
“Nay, little one. Leave and change your own fate.” The giant half-turned away from Moka, busying himself with the cart. Although he seemed to talk to himself, his deep voice carried over the distance with ease. “The dead and those soon to join them are the only ones here.”
There was a low hum filling Moka’s ears. Her vision grew cloudy until all she could see was the giant’s silhouette. He almost looked human next to the cart. A dark, twitchy feeling flooded her limbs. The faint scent of smoke drifted past her nostrils. She had taken nearly a dozen steps forward, chisel in hand, before she snapped back to her senses. Her mind processed the giant’s words a few steps later.
“My god has entrusted this task to me,” she shouted, her voice trembling with fury held back by a thread of reason as thin as spider’s silk. A small voice in the back of her mind screamed at her, telling her there was something wrong. She ignored it, stuffing it away with the rest of her unprocessed burdens. “I shall not fail.”
The giant paused his task, his hands lingering on the rope of dried, braided vines he was using to fasten the gourds in place. He glanced at Moka over his shoulder. He seemed to find something familiar in her gaze. His broad shoulders slumped like boulders settling into place.
“Your god is a cruel one. Crueler, perhaps, than even our ancestors.”
Moka heard the pity and resignation in the giant’s tone. She screamed back at him, all her pent up fury tumbling out without care.
“You can not stop me!”
The giant fully stopped what he was doing and turned to face Moka. He drew up to his full height, casting a sinister shadow in the dwindling twilight.
“Perhaps,” he said, his face a stony mask. “Tell me, little one, you have strayed far from your homeland. Which god have you offended that they sent you here?”
Moka swallowed the curse on the tip of her tongue, Azarus’s emerald eyes flashing through her consciousness like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. She would not, could not, fail. Holding her task in her mind like a shield against the rage burning in her chest, Moka tried her best to de-escalate.
“Tell me, fat one,” Moka said, projecting the words through her grinding teeth. “You are a giant, great consumer of civilizations, but you harvest from the earth like a gnome farmer. Who did you offend to be cursed so?”
The giant’s stone-like expression cracked. Where Moka had half-expected anger and the coming of promised violence, she found a deep sadness, like an oozing infection, left far too long.
“I am not a true giant. The blood in me is weaker than water,” he said, his shoulders curving inward. He hung his head, looking down and away as if ashamed. After a second of reserved silence, the giant perked up and regarded her. “Although, a friend of mine has tried goblin. He said they are chewy, like jerky left in the sun for too long. Humans are better. Taste like pork, he said.”
A startled laugh leapt from Moka’s throat. Then another. Wild laughter escaped from deep within her, tears falling down her dirt stained face. Pork! Who would have thought? Her tribe had never partaken in human flesh. Instead, they had traded with them through intermediaries. If only they had known sooner!
Dark emotions laced Moka’s laughter. After a few seconds, Moka’s rational mind surged to the forefront of her consciousness. She cut her laughter off, stuffing her troublesome thoughts into a dark corner to be forgotten.
“If only you harvested humans like you do squash,” Moka said, a wry smile on her lips. She pressed her hand against her throbbing ribs. “And we goblins may be chewy, but you look awfully succulent. Like a walking roast, big enough to feed a village for winter.”
The giant smiled, a shallow, pathetic thing.
“I could die happy if my flesh could feed that thing for an entire season,” he said, looking toward the forest Moka had emerged from. His hand tightened on the haft of his axe, then loosened. A dark shadow of emotion passed across his face. “Come, I will let the elders explain the cruel task your god has given you.”