“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.”

Tupac Shakur

Bethany knew it for a dream that was not a dream.

She climbed into the sky along the rickety wooden bridge and found herself surrounded by darkness, broken only by tiny, distant starlight. The empty vastness without end threatened to swallow her whole.

This was not her world. This was the world of the gods.

Yet there are no gods. Where are they?

The stillness of the void prickled her skin. There was no smell. No taste. No sound. She felt its emptiness press down upon her with non-existent weightlessness.

“You are here for reason, Bethany,” she whispered to calm her racing heart. “Diana gave you this power, so figure out why.”

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and focused on her Oracle Eye.

Come on, Diana. Show me.

The Oracle Eye pulsed, a tiny heartbeat in the emptiness. She opened herself to it and let its warmth flood into her. It was a lighthouse in the darkness, insulating her wandering spirit from the cold nothingness of the void.

She opened her eyes. They were filled with golden light that illuminated the world around her. Yet it was more than just enhanced sight. A metallic taste touched the tip of her tongue, and her ears detected a faint but pleasant hum. The unknown world around her took on a new form as her Oracle Eye combined all her senses into one.

The vastness remained, but now she looked upon it with the borrowed eye of a god. No longer was the vastness empty. It felt like she stood upon the waters of a meadow’s pond, life teaming just below its surface. The life swirled far below, infinitesimal yet infinite, and emitted streams of idyllic light as if they were fireflies against a moonless night. The light flowed around her, tickled her skin, and gave the emptiness a soul of its own.

It brought upon her a sense of profound peace, and, for a moment, all Bethany desired was to forget her life and lose herself in the swirl.

The moment became a minute, which drifted into an hour. Bethany sat cross-legged in the nothing and lost herself in the sensation of the firefly life spiraling around her. As she listened to the hum, she began to sense the uniqueness of each life, and as she did, she felt their light seep beneath her skin and into her blood. It filled her with energy, as if she had devoured exotic, slightly bitter, cuisine, and she grew sated.

The light… it’s not just any life. Each is a player in the contest. If I focus, I can feel their excitement. Their love. Their fear. I can feel them live. I can… I can feel them die. Oh god…

The sudden realization shattered Bethany’s sense of peace, and the energy that flowed within her like intoxicating wine turned sour. She back-peddled away from firefly light, afraid she might vomit.

That light… the players… it’s… I… need to get out of here.

As the thought of escape entered her mind, a vertical sliver of rainbow light flashed in the distance, impossibly far away yet unbelievably near.

Curious, Bethany reached out, pinched the sliver of light between her fingers, and pulled it towards her. A moment later, the light was in front of her, though she didn’t know whether she’d moved the light or pulled herself towards it.

The sliver was now as tall as she was, and it illuminated the darkness in a rainbow hue. She could hear laughter beyond its rainbow, and she realized that it was not a sliver of light at all. It was light cascading through a door left ever so slightly ajar. An exit from the vastness around her.

Glass shattered beyond the doorway, as if a wine bottle had fallen from intoxicated hands, and raucous laughter followed.

Is that… a party? What is this place? Oracle, what did you drag me into?

Bethany looked at the vastness behind her, then reached out to touch the rainbow. Her palm fell flat against solid darkness, and she leaned into it with her shoulder. The door opened another inch, and she stuck her head through to peek inside.

The hallway stretched fifty paces in either direction beyond the door. Its chestnut walls were complexly carved panoramas of fantastical events, occasionally interrupted by old oak bookshelves stuffed with leather-bound volumes of ancient and forgotten knowledge. A half dozen heavy oak doorways, each with a hieroglyphic mark that Bethany could not comprehend, led off the hall into unknowable antechambers. Chandeliers of shimmering diamond cascaded gentle rainbow light and illuminated portraits along the walls. She recognized the painting of the tiny man in the pebble, and realized the portraits depicted different gods.

It might have been a hallway in an English manor, if not for the ripple of unseen power that seeped into every inch of its form.

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The smell of alcohol was pungent in the air. It, and the drunken laughter, came from beyond the double doors at the end of the hall. The smell was familiar to her, though she did not know why, like a word that was stuck on the tip of her tongue.

The floorboards creaked, and Bethany quickly ducked back into the vastness, her heart racing. Holding her breath lest she give herself away, she pulled the door closed until only the smallest sliver of light shone through.

She looked through the tiny crack, like a child spying from her room, as the two gods casually strolled into the hall.

“THE GODS ARE ENTERTAINED, OMOIKANE?”

The deep, regal voice projected every syllable in crystal clarity, as if the air itself dare not impede his words. It echoed off the walls, slipped through the crack in the door, and filled the vastness beyond. Bethany clutched her ears as a trickle of blood dripped down the side of her face, pierced by words not meant for mortal ears.

The god of gods had not asked a question. He had declared his expectation.

I shouldn’t be here. Oh god, I really shouldn’t be here.

As the god’s final syllable faded away, its reverberations knocked a portrait off the wall. It had fallen outside the door to the vastness, face down and frame askew. Bethany peered through the crack to watch, curiosity trumping fear.

The regal voice gave an exasperated chuckle, softening to a whisper to spare the ears of his companion. He reached out and picked up the portrait.

“Of course it was Alakshmi’s portrait. The Goddess of Misfortune’s bad luck extends even to her own image it would seem. See? Cracked along the corner when it fell.”

The figure waved his hand over the portrait, then hung it back on the wall, unblemished.

“Now, Omoikane, my friend, tell me of my people,” the figure said softly.

“The gods are… euphoric, Authority,” advised Omoikane in an elderly tenor. It spoke of endless years of wisdom, though Bethany thought she heard the hint of exasperation behind his words.

“And they replenish?”

“They gaze upon the carnage below and are sated,” Omoikane sighed regretfully. “Like piglets suckling at their mother’s teat.”

“You disapprove.”

Bethany could practically hear Authority roll his eyes.

“I find the practice barbaric,” admitted Omoikane. “And I have counselled you against it before.”

“BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR WORDS, OMOIKANE. I DO NOT TOLERATE INSOLENCE.”

Bethany cupped her palms over her ears as Authority’s commanding voice returned. Three more portraits fell and shattered as his reverberations filled the hall.

“Apologies, my lord. I mean no offense. But it goes against our nature. The very reason for our existence,” Omoikane said, his words softened, almost placating, without deviating from his counsel. “We once knew the joy of creation, and of protecting those created. Now, we watch, and we laugh as those creations are torn apart.”

“Yet in all your years, you have failed to deliver an alternative,” countered Authority. “They do not need our protection any longer. Would you have us fade away on the current of time, forgotten, as they reap what we sowed?”

“Of course not, my lord.”

“And would you deny me my rightful reward, after eons of service to these mortals?”

Omoikane did not answer, and the air grew tense between the two gods.

“What aren’t you telling me, Omoikane?” asked Authority firmly, another question that was not a question.

“They are only rumors, my lord,” started Omoikane reluctantly.

“Rumors offer the first hint of truth, my trusted advisor,” he insisted. “You taught be that early in my reign.”

Still, Omoikane hesitated, and chose his words carefully. “There are whispers of those that secretly deviate from your commandments. The New Order. A secret association of gods that interfere in the God Contest, working from its shadows, to suckle at the source and grow strong. And once they grow strong enough…”

Omoikane let the rest hang in silence.

“They flaunt my holy law?" whispered Authority harshly. “After I imprisoned Oracle for the same, they would still dare? Tell me who, Omoikane, that I may deliver unto them the same fate as our misguided seer.”

Bethany felt her Oracle Eye flare angrily at the god’s declaration.

So Oracle is imprisoned. But she saw it coming. They don’t know the depths she used to hide her gifts in the contest. If they did, I don’t think I’d be here right now.

“I don’t know who they are, my liege. But I feel them move in the shadows, and they recruit others.”

“Al Puch?” asked Authority dryly, as if it were a forgone conclusion.

“I don’t know. Al Puch is a lesser liege, and an ambitious one at that, yet ambition is not a crime. Do not be too quick to accuse, lest you turn more towards the shadow.”

Authority thought in silence for a long while as he returned the fallen portraits to their rightful places.

“You have always been my wise counsel, Omoikane. I shall heed it for now.”

The two gods resumed their walk down the hallway, each step punctuating the silence that had fallen between them. Omoikane opened the door at the end of the hall for his liege and let him pass through with a deep bow. The sound of celebration grew louder as the door cracked open and muted again as it shut tightly behind them.

Silence fell upon the hallway. Bethany waited, breathless, until she was certain they wouldn’t return.

The New Order. Bethany had heard that name before, in a dream. She had forgotten about it. It had been on the first night of the God Contest, when she had collapsed after beating the Impastabull.

The dream came back to her with crystal clarity. The clink of the glasses raised in toast, the smell of alcohol, the sound of drunken laughter, and the exchange of golden coins from bets won and lost. She remembered the two figures huddled in the shadows – brother and sister – speaking of the gift Oracle had bestowed and the price the goddess had paid.

Gods in the shadows? Were they part of this New Order? Was Oracle?

Bethany closed her eyes to recall their words from her dream.

“We five agreed to oppose both the Authority and the New Order, and we cannot fail. To the end of it all. To the end of Eternity.”

She opened her eyes and stared out into the empty hallway. “No, the brother and sister spoke of something else. Something opposed to both the New Order and the Authority. Something Oracle had set in motion. Something that involves me.”

Her heart pounded in her chest, and she looked back into the vast emptiness behind her. “You can just stay here, Bethany,” she muttered. “You don’t need to know any more. You don’t need to go through that door.”

Failing to convince herself of the sensible course of action, Bethany leaned against the door, pushed it open, and stepped into the hall.