I learned a lot in the time spent in hiding since the day my wife destroyed our house. After I gave Kassandra her gift, I lingered in the secret places between realms; going as unnoticed as I could. While I hid, my wife enlisted as many deities as possible to find me. Apparently, in the realm of the gods, the story went along the lines of Melinoe stumbling upon secret messages between myself and the Dark Goddess Hecate; uncovering a plot against her.
Given the intensity of her reaction, I knew something more was going on beyond what had happened to me. So for her to assume a plot between Hecate and myself, meant the goddess of magic had either made a some move against her in the past, or I was being lumped into a bigger problem, or she was involved with something Melinoe had recognized; possibly the Hesperides. Now, even though Melinoe and Hecate were far from rivals, both were among the oldest living deities and from the same family of old gods and the goddess of magic had long since gone on record to show her disdain for the order of things.
For millennia, she outwardly shunned the system that pitted the divine against each other so a select few could rise with more power afterward; the same system I had ascended into. It was a defiance few were willing to wield in recent times, so with my wife being near the very top of that system, it made sense for the two goddesses to be somewhat at odds. So, it seemed trying to find Hecate made the most sense. If she was the enemy of my enemy, maybe it was worth it to ask her to help me get to the bottom of what my eye was doing. Chances were good that she knew something. Otherwise, why would Melinoe make the association?
Although finding Hecate probably wasn’t the appropriate word since I was growing suspicious that I already had a meeting with her. It was only a question of whether she would still meet at the time and place that Harper’s note had indicated. As it stood, it seemed not. You would think that, as an immortal being, simply waiting in a cafe would be a simple experience, but you would be wrong. I was a nervous wreck. I had been sitting at a corner table, nursing some concoction for over an hour; which was more time spent outside of the hidden places since my wife had tried to kill me over 7 mortal weeks ago. Yet, to a god, that may as well have been 10 minutes. Many gods were still on high alert looking for me, and if it wasn’t for all the changes, I’m sure I would’ve been found immediately.
But that dread paled in comparison to the worry I felt about if whatever it was that made Kassandra cry was due to becoming embroiled in a conflict between Hecate and my wife. Still, as much as I fidgeted in my seat and waited, I knew conflict between the gods wasn’t anything like how it used to be. I had heard the stories of the epic battles between divinities that would raze the earth itself just like anyone else. But unlike many of my present company, I knew they weren't just the vaunted fables of mortals. I didn't need to check any watch to know that the time written on the note had finally arrived. The air chilled despite the tropical weather as a woman entered the cafe. Or, at least, what looked like a woman.
One of the things I learned on the run is that my new eye saw very differently than the one I used to have. Before my time with Kassandra and in the weeks that followed, I had experimented on what my eye could and couldn't see. I learned that in the same way that some creatures see more or less of the light spectrum, this new eye could see more of what felt like everything. Divinity itself was just a recognizable range of existence. I had seen traces of something that was like divinity but wasn't. It had seeped into the deep and dark places where I hid from even deeper and darker places still and, while I could tell it what it wasn't, it was too sparse for me to say what it was.
Yet, as this goddess entered, my right eye saw a shimmering, tendrilled mass of that same other, draping itself over her form, appearing as a swirling void in the approximate shape of a woman. To my left eye, Hecate appeared as a woman who bore a clear resemblance to my wife, but with longer hair that fell in ash grey tresses instead of the silky black I'd grown accustomed to. In the place of the other, she was cloaked in a checkered dress and a black furred shawl and cap that belied a subtle but immense wealth. The goddess strode to my table and sat across from me and held out an empty hand. Silently she leveled an expectant glare at me until my nerves settled enough to work at what she wanted.
I fumbled with the now wrinkled note Harper gave me and placed it in her hand where she unfurled it and narrowed her eyes.
"Did you give this note to her?" Hecate asked in a voice that sounded like the breaking of waves off in the distance; soft but forceful. I shook my head, finding it obvious who she was asking about but still feeling too unnerved by how similar the two looked to work my thoughts into words.
"So, she isn't here?" her words now humming in my chest as if I had swallowed a nest of hornets. This time, I did speak, if only to relieve the pressure in my chest. My voice sounded like an echo of hers, humming in an unfamiliar trill I did not recognize.
"No, my wife isn't here. Though I assume she'd love to be, seeing how her greatest enemy and the holder of her greatest secrets are here." I managed to say. Despite my shock at my voice changing to match my new visage, no small portion of my natural sarcasm bled into my response. Hecate’s eyes widened in surprise as well but she quickly recovered and laughed a hearty laugh that sang of old times and fond memories which felt odd since this was our first meeting. In her laughter, her voice shifted to a quiet burble that reminded him of a stream. When she settled herself, the goddess leaned forward on her hands and sighed contentedly.
"Alright. So how much is you and how much is the husband?" She said, her questioning tone still tinged with the embers of her laughter. My look of confusion was all it took for her features to harden back into a look of placid disdain, which ironically reminded me of Melinoe. When she spoke again, her voice was hollow and tense. It felt as if I had just gone over a waterfall, like the anticipation of falling snatched in a moment and replaced with a heavy resignation to the titanic crash to come; it held none of the softness or mirth of earlier.
"So which are you? You said between us was an enemy and a holder of secrets but you don't seem to know who is who." She leaned forward across the table, the swirls of the other shifting outward like chaotic bubbles the closer she got to me.
"You're right. I guess I don't know. I got that note from a dead girl named Harper from Hesperide Seven. She said a bunch of shit that made no sense and before I could really do anything about it, I start changing. I go home, my wife freaks out and tries to kill me, and I run. I've been running." I could clearly hear the irritation at the whole course of events even in the unfamiliar timbre.
"The only reason I'm here is because this is the only lead I have to some answers. I wouldn't have even guessed who I was meeting if she didn't accuse me of working with you. Which means she knew something of what was going on here. And I'll be honest, I never really bought into the whole "evil banes of existence" that you and a few others are labeled as, but I've been branded as one of you already so I see no reason not to find a way to help, especially if it means survival." I continued. Hecate frowned as she listened but didn't interrupt.
"So you just want answers? How much do you know?" she asked when I had finished. I shrugged.
"I guess that depends on how much there is. Why don't you just start from the beginning with what's up between you and my wife and I can fill in what I know as we go?" I said, getting used to my voice much more quickly than I did with my appearance. It was light and airy, reminiscent of the mountain winds of my time before divinity. The goddess just nodded and began a story I thought I knew.
"So you know peace among the gods wasn't always a thing. Sure, many of us bicker and jockey for power, but nothing like the wars that used to be. That was a very long time ago and only a handful of deities around are old enough to even remember those days; your wife and myself being among them. Back then, divinity was abundant with more gods than you could count. At that time, deities could reproduce like the mortals, and all the gods had families. Those families fought for more influence and control over the mortal realm." She spoke as I nodded along, having heard this much before.
"Very few deities died in those wars, however, because the lengths needed to end a god's existence were extreme and nobody was willing to go that far. Until the War of Heaven, that is." She continued.
"Wait." I interrupted. "There was conflict before the war against the dark gods?" I ask, not surprised to hear the contradiction itself but how soon my understanding of things had begun to differ. Hecate smiled a gruesomely tired smile as if this was a correction she made often.
"Yes. Everything about the divinity you know is predicated on conflict," she said solemnly. Her words struck me though. She hadn't said divinity, but the divinity I knew. I figured she would be aware of the other that clung to her like an affectionate creature, but I wasn't sure if it would be a topic I could openly ask about.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"What you may call a war defending against the dark, we know to be a farce; smoke and mirrors during what is essentially a ceasefire between Divinity and Darkness. Now, the War of Heaven started when some god decided that being one of many gods wasn’t good enough. He declared himself to be the One True God and began amassing power unlike any had previously. Those lengths I mentioned, the ones that no one was willing to go to, seemed to be his entire goal. Before anyone could do much of anything, his worshippers began to kill out the worshippers of other gods, ridding so many of their strength. He and those he recruited to his cause destroyed anyone that didn’t recognize him as God. Thousands of gods were ended; their worshippers scattered or assimilated." I listened as her words felt both like a jarring revelation and an old understanding, gesturing for her to continue.
"In the system that arose, many survivors took different names and became servants of the One True God and were worshiped as angels. God erased his old name and the realm of the gods became known as Heaven. Even after Heaven was established, God's grasp over divinity was far from absolute. Many gods were simply too old, with roots too deep, to simply be plucked up. Almost none of us recognized Him nor wanted to serve him as angels and so we were branded as devils, demons, and dark spirits; forced to survive on the hatred of mortals rather than their worship. So things were for a time: Heaven and Hell in an eternal struggle to claim the souls of mankind, or so the dogma of many mortals went." Hecate paused, taking a slow inhale seeming to try and force herself to relax. I simply waited.
"The things we fought for were simple; a return to the true peace before divinity. We were aided by the Darkness in our endeavors, but so much had been stacked against us. The stalemate between Heaven and Hell would break when the oldest surviving god, a titan branded as a fallen archangel would go missing. Prometheus, or Lucifer, as heaven would call him, simply couldn't be found. God wasted no time in taking advantage of our disorganization and he pushed to finish what he started millennia before. Hell was vanquished soon after and God assumed even more divinity, becoming almost infinitely more powerful than any other being. God was unchallenged and...losing his sanity." She said before her lips curled into a wicked grin that didn't match the tone of her story.
"While the Dark and those who serve her know the truth, to the rest of creation, the Lord of Heaven was afflicted with something, and went on a rampage across heaven and earth, almost destroying it all. Branded demons, respected angels, and unaligned spirits alike fell before a Wrath that no one had ever before seen. But just as suddenly as it began, God's Judgment upon existence ended. What exactly was done to alleviate him is a well-guarded secret, even from us in the dark, but God appointed the three gods who sated him to a council that ruled everything under him. Three pillars of divinity. Buddha, Shiva, and Melinoe. These three had set about rebuilding what was left of the world, and did something unprecedented; something no one could ignore." With this, Hecate regarded me for what felt like the first time, that subtle disdain returning in her gaze, but mixed with a sadness I couldn't place.
"You should be familiar with what happens next. I believe it's your turn to fill me in on how Melinoe made you what you are." I flinched at the sound of my wife's name spoken aloud. even in the hidden places, names have power, but I assumed Hecate had some safeguards against being discovered here, or maybe she was less concerned with being found. In either case, I didn't think it wise to keep her waiting, not with so many answers right in front of me.
"I would say I came to be during the centuries just before that balance would break" I started, trying to find the best way to frame what I knew in this newfound context.
"I was a spirit of small malevolence, native to the eastern mountains whose mortals held fast to some of the old ways and feared the lesser beings who moved among them more than the gods who loomed away in their distant shrines. I thrived as the lord of a particular mountain, feasting on the trinkets offered by the villagers seeking safe passage between the settlements on my mountain. I obliged some, ignored others, and betrayed others still. But no matter what was or wasn't done, the choices had been mine. I knew little of divinity, but I was the god of that mountain: the painted fox of Tomari. Nothing could have prepared me for the chaos that would arise." I continued.
"Tomari was about as remote as you could get, but soon my mountain saw dozens of the once distant gods seeking refuge from something. I traded as I always had: shelter for power. But gods were different than mortals. I found that promises made with the divine had more binding properties, so I started offering to hide the divinity that attracted what I was later told to be dark gods in vessels of my making to be bought back when the danger was passed. This allowed the gods on my mountain to disguise themselves as spirits like me while allowing me access to their power." Hecate's face brightened with a realization of some kind but she, again, chose not to interrupt so I continued.
"I hid the vessels well, but over time I suppose I had collected too many. Whatever was chasing the gods found my mountain. I felt it coming and so I ran, telling and warning no one. I returned to a smoking crater; the entire mountain erased." I said, my tone growing darker as remembered the loss of my home.
"But it wasn't just Tomari; the world had gone quiet too. With nowhere to call home, I wondered a bit and saw much of everything was exactly like my mountain was now. Countless spirits and surviving gods wandered like I did, wondering if the devastation was over or merely paused. After a while of wandering around, I was approached by my wife and she made me an offer. I suspected at the time that she might've been the one who destroyed my mountain since the process she used to make me a god was just an altered version of my vessels in reverse. It appeared she had gathered the remnants of all the fallen deities and offered them to the spirits who remained. Lesser spirits of all kinds claimed the errant essence of many fallen gods and we grew stronger; becoming deities ourselves." I explained.
I had never felt shame about my choice to ascend before, but watching Hecate's measured gaze as she listened made me question how a being like me must look to her. I supposed since it was done by true gods and so many spirits had taken her offer, I assumed it wasn't looked down upon much, but the goddess in front of me was doing her level best to look at me with anything but disgust. I had to admit, given how us new divinities couldn’t breed amongst ourselves like the old gods could; it was easy for one to see how they might view our power as effectively stolen. Our divinity was tied to worship more than it ever had been for them, and I was probably the only being who knew why. Of course, I had just told Hecate, so that made the two of us.
"You suspected her, but still accepted the offer?" She asked with unfeigned curiosity. I raised my eyebrow before I considered she had likely never been weak a moment of her existence.
"I'm young," I said flatly. "And weak. Even with all the growth of the past few centuries, Melinoe claims I barely meet the power of the minor gods of her birth era." Hecate gave me an appraising look and relented with a shrug and a tilt of her head.
"Fair enough. Continue." She said. I resisted the urge to scowl at what was her confirmation of what I had hoped was Melinoe's sadistic chiding. I simply gritted my teeth and pressed on.
"I pretended to be ignorant about the process and did my best to try and make my new life as a god as similar to my old life as possible. But my wife took a liking to me and I wondered if she suspected me as well. She had always said that I took better to godhood than many do; that I had potential to be much stronger. We began to spend a lot of time together, and eventually, she said she wanted to try starting a family. Perhaps if I got stronger, more divine, I could bypass what kept the new gods from reproducing. That's what my existence has been for a while now: get stronger, try to sire a god. Right up until I answered Harper's prayer."
Hecate beamed at me as I finished, the swirls of her cloak of void dancing in what looked like pure delight. She reached up and patted her shoulder gently as if she were assuaging an excited pet. While it did confirm that this other was clinging to her and not truly a part of her, it raised more questions that I desperately wanted answered. Before I had the chance to ask, though, Hecate abruptly stood up; her smile now stretched to an almost manic grin.
"Well then, I suppose we ought to go see this Harper and give her my reward! Come with me." She said brightly, turning to leave without even a second glance. I only hesitated a moment, admittedly too swept up in her confidence to worry about my wife's forces looking for me, before swiftly following after the goddess. It didn't fully occur to me until I walked out of the cafe, fully expecting to see the glaring sun of the early afternoon, but finding an eerie dim expanse of what I thought was snow, but was ash-white grassland shrouded in a heavy grey fog.
"Oh yeah..." I muttered aloud. "Harper is a dead girl."