CHAPTER SIX
All that Matters
“The most unfortunate thing about this situation inside your heart is that I will not be able to do a demonstration for you of matter manipulation and you will not be able to practice under my guidance. You will have to learn everything like you’re reading a book and when I’m far from you, you’ll have to put what you have learned into practice.” The Other Christian briefly touched the tips of our noses together. “I believe in you. You’ll do beautifully.”
Stroking the side of my face to bring my ear close to his mouth, he began what he needed to tell me. “This world,” he said smoothly. “Is fake.”
I gasped. “What?”
“The planet earth is fake.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that it didn't naturally exist in this place in the solar system. It was moved here and terraformed.”
“You did?”
He chuckled. “I didn’t. I said I wasn’t the god of this world. Another god did the heavy lifting. He moved dirt, made continents, built mountains, planted forests, dug streams, and made a planet where people could live. This planet is not surviving here naturally. The balance of sunlight, breathable gasses, water, radiation, and magnetism is precarious. One tiny variation and the whole thing goes up in flames. Like many other planets like Earth, it’s a place to train trustworthy people to become gods themselves. Keeping the planet in order is the mission of the little gods who were born here before they can move onto other worlds.”
“So people like Pricina haven’t been doing a good job caring for the planet?”
“I don’t know about her specifically, but I do know that no one is doing a good job caring for the planet at this very minute,” the Other Christian explained.
“Was that your job?” I asked, feeling a knot in my stomach.
“Yes. My assignment has been to restore balance to this planet. If I had been able to accomplish everything I set out to do, I would have left already.”
“Left and gone where?”
“To terraform another planet or to work on my own personal world. I’m not from here. I came here because there has been a serious problem the younger gods couldn’t handle. Weaker gods are supposed to take care of earthquakes, tsunamis, meteors, and anything else that might wreak terrible devastation on the inhabitants who live here. They’re supposed to practice caring for a whole planet. It’s what you do as a god before you attempt to terraform one yourself.”
“Those all sound like pretty big problems to me. If you weren’t dealing with earthquakes and meteors then what kind of problem do they call you in for?” I questioned.
He scratched under his eye. “Earth started wanting to flip its magnetic poles roughly five hundred years ago. It needs to do so from time to time. For hundreds of years, all I did was hold the north pole where it should be. Normally, it’s a job done by two gods. One controls the north pole and the other controls the south pole. We didn’t have even two candidates for the task among the little gods here. They thought I could do it alone because of my greatness because of the other versions of me who have mastered concepts more difficult than moving a mountain. I did as they asked and waited for a better solution. The younger ones were supposed to be learning, preparing to control the poles, but I can tell you for nothing, they failed.” He sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “I can feel it now. The north pole is all over the place. It’s splintering. We’re relatively close to where it should be, but it’s not here. Half of it is in Siberia and another fragment in Lapland. The other parts are so broken and fuzzy, that I’m not sure where they are right now. If it keeps moving, it could be devastating to the human population.”
I glanced around, feeling like I should have been able to figure out that much by myself. “Wait, then you know where Tombstone Mountain is? You know where we are.”
“I don’t know the name Tombstone Mountain, but I know we are somewhat near the place of a significant gold stream. I took most of it for myself.”
“The Yukon gold rush,” I sputtered. I was further west than I imagined. “What happens if the poles flip?”
“We want them to flip. The problem is that they’re not flipping smoothly, and the erratic movement and splitting of the poles cause breaks in the earth’s magnetic field. Humans need the field to protect them from solar radiation. I don’t know how far along you people have come technologically since I was last flexing my muscles in the earth’s core, but if your people have come far, it might cause a lot of damage. That’s not even mentioning all the life that will be disrupted.” Then, it was as though he thought of something he hadn’t thought of before. “Why are you so close to the North Pole? Why are you here? You said you were kidnapped many times. What’s happening?”
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“Most recently, I am currently being held hostage by some of your ‘little gods’ and I have been chained up in an empty castle in the mountains for months.”
“Chained up?”
“Literally. They told me I had to learn how to get a metal ring through my ankle without cutting off my foot. I did it, but I am still a prisoner and that was how I ended up eating the rocks off your abs.”
He pulled me closer to him and kissed the side of my head. “My brave girl,” he whispered, sounding so familiar it hurt.
Yet, even though he held me so close, even though I felt warm in his arms and heard his words in my ear, I knew he wasn’t really there. What I saw was a physical manifestation of him, but I was talking to information he’d hidden in his heart. That bit of him took on the appearance of something I could understand, his body. It was the same way his heart looked like a shrine when it was actually a blood pump.
“Do you know where my body is?” the Other Christian asked.
I shook my head.
“The lesser gods are panicking,” he continued, his voice raspy and clipped. “That’s why they chained you up and separated us. If we were together, there would be no reason for us to be tinkering around in each other’s bodies. If we’re separated, we’ll go inside ourselves searching for a means to communicate. They’re trying to get you to repair me and make us a real couple. Most immortals who have shared body parts can communicate without tools.”
Then it made sense. That was how Brandon had contacted Pricina when his head was cut off and both parts of him were locked up. He still had his bond with Pricina because she was his wife. Considering her power, she could have gone to save him. Brandon wanted me to go save him in order to get me closer to Christian. I suddenly hated him a lot less.
I looked at the Other Christian. He didn’t know anything about Brandon. He was only thinking about himself.
I chuckled. “You’re about to tell me how great you are, aren’t you? How you’ve always shown me how dashing you are on the outside and now you’ll show me how magnificent you are on the inside? How even amongst gods, there is no one greater than you?”
He looked at me strangely. “My magnificence is funny?”
I dropped my smile. “No. Your magnificence is not funny,” I said, before letting a corner of my mouth tilt up. “The constant reminders of your magnificence are extremely funny.”
Unlike my Christian back in real life, this version of him didn’t know what to do with my teasing.
“Are you surprised you love someone like me?” I prodded.
“Not at all. It’s very obvious why I want you under my skin and why I want to be under yours. I’m waiting impatiently for the moment when you tell those lesser gods that you are the strongest on Earth and they will obey your every instruction because, without you, their immortality has damned them. I’m sure you’ll find a way to say it so it sounds like you’re flattering yourself instead of cursing them.”
My mouth hung open.
He looked in my eyes and I saw the part of Christian that dared me to be more. It was clear that part of him had never been an act.
He spoke, “I’m going to teach you everything I know about manipulating matter. What I’ve told you so far is only the beginning. Then I hope I’ll be able to deliver your sword, forge an adequate connection between your body and mine, and I can return to my body. If all these things happen, we might be able to attempt to flip the poles and restore balance. It is a very rewarding project because the new balance should last at least two hundred thousand years.”
Had I missed something? “Deliver my sword?”
He smiled. “The stones in your belly. They’re being forged into a sword.”
“I can’t fit a sword in my belly.”
He put his hand on my stomach and then bent down to place his ear against my stomach. “This isn’t a real place. You were not eating stones. You were processing knowledge—too much knowledge for a person to take in at once. I’ll help you process it. The part of me that you’re talking to right now is a part of me I cut from my body. The rest of my body doesn’t know how to manipulate matter. I was put here as a package for you to open. I’m sure you understand. Things in the Red Forest take a shape you can understand. That’s why we’re in a building and you’re talking to me… because I am a shape you understand. It’s very intimate that you turned me into a man instead of a book or a download.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,” I admitted.
“The sword is not a sword, it’s knowledge about how to manipulate matter and how to send messages through particles between two points. One point is you and the other point is my body. Once you understand everything I do, you can send a vast spectrum of knowledge across the air to me and my body can accept it. Once that’s done, we’ll be able to coordinate everything we think and do in a way that is beyond humanity.” He paused. “In other words, we won’t need to be together to communicate through our hearts. We’ll be able to tell each other where we are and make plans to meet.”
That meant he’d be able to rescue me and if not, I’d be able to do more than just make doorways. I’d be able to bring the whole castle down.
“Well,” he asked, “are you ready to start becoming everything I am?”
“I hope so,” I whispered, biting my lip.
“At first, it’s going to feel like you’re carrying every single diamond in Aladdin’s cave. The weight of the knowledge will be unbearable, but as you get used to carrying it and using it, it will become as natural as carrying the calcium that makes up your bones. Listen well.” He drew me closer into his arms and whispered how the different elements worked.