281, A Transition

Ah.

Yes.

I am here, aren’t I.

Alive again.

It’s been such a long time.

I had sacrificed myself to make a universe.

Willingly. Unreservedly.

I gave myself so that others might live in the beauty of my creation, and that I would no longer need to experience existence alone.

My painting of a man in a white suit was left for Shadow to find. She took that fragment of my soul and slipped it into one of the largest paintings, which was not a painting at all, but a Path to Darkness. Darkness was always my oldest friend. That cacophony that spoke of everything all at once, and called to others to partake. That was Darkness. Not many understood the Darkness beyond the cacophony of pain, and Shadow didn’t either. Not at the time, and probably not even now.

But I had understood the Darkness.

He was, and is, my oldest friend, and I eventually gave my oldest friend everything. I became one with the Darkness, and there was no longer any division between myself and my friend.

But now I was here, wrapped to a pillar, watching myself come back together.

The Sundering continued all this while.

I looked around with singular eyes I hadn’t had in oh-so-very long.

The white leviathan below, my son of so many grandsons removed, looked up at me. He noticed the change in his captive. He recognized me, for he had been planning on this. He had been planning my resurrection, because, of course, my resurrection was necessary for his future plans.

Nothanganathor said, “You wait right there, Xoat, and I’ll put you back in the Dark soon enough, but it’s going to all be better this time. No tyrant gods. No endless murder of all that is good. Only calm, measured Evil that is so small, it is Good. I will be good and evil more than enough for all, and you will make me the God of Magic of the Darkness.”

This sounded unreasonable to me, based on what I already knew.

I was willing to hear him out anyway.

I asked, “Why should I do this for you? You are killing all of my creation, and putting me back together. I don’t want to be back together.”

“Your creations killed someone I loved and cursed me to Obscurity. No one understands me at all, and no one can kill me, either. And so I must undo that horror, and now we are here.”

“Ah.” Of course. I saw it now. I said, “No one can kill you anymore. I see. I understand. I also see you turned your Obscurity into Malevolence, and now we are here.”

Nothanganathor breathed, surprised that I had picked that up that fast. He said, “I did.”

I asked, “Would you like to speak about it? Talk of your pain of existence? Explain your reasonings in my un-creation, and what you mean to accomplish?

Nothanganathor glanced upward, uncomfortable. “I would not.”

I nodded. “The murder of Ara, your wife, still pains you too much.”

Nothanganathor’s eyes flickered with deep need. He quietly asked, “Can you bring her back?”

“Do you feel you deserve her? Would she approve of what you’re doing? How about her sisters? Did they know that you are going to kill a universe?”

No, they did not know; Erick had told me. No one knew what was happening here, and no one ever would for a long, long time.

Nothanganathor was in this alone.

Nothanganathor looked away, back to his Sign of Power. He did not answer, for to answer anything less than truth would harm what he was doing, and he wasn’t stupid enough to lie to me.

The Red Chain Ocean churned on the horizon. Worlds crashed into this place. Chains gobbled treasures and people of all kinds and organized them for later. Everything fell into this infinity, and nothing was left outside of Nothanganathor’s great reaping.

He did not care who he hurt, and he did not seek forgiveness.

“Why?” I asked.

Nothanganathor intoned his Truth, “For the greatness of all and especially me, we tear down what we must to prevent catastrophe and scour weakness, to bring bounty to myself and my chosen people, so that we may all create an evergrowing cycle of betterment for all always.”

I replied, “Dragons are born in selfishness, so that part of you still remains.”

Nothanganathor must have forgotten who he was speaking to, for he spat fire, “You judge me?!”

I merely Looked at the white serpent, as one might gaze upon a wrongheaded child.

That only inflamed him further.

Nothanganathor stared right back, glaring, yelling, “You, who created the greatest evils I have ever known?! You, who made Elemental Evil the best way to gain power?! Nothing exists without power, first and foremost, and this is all your fault!”

“A weak argument. I offered opportunity and mortals created. I forgave the foibles of mortals long ago, Nothanganathor. You should forgive yourself and mortals as well, or you will never become the god that you seek to become.”

“I will be BETTER than those other gods! I will heal the sick and rescue the damned! I will topple the tyrants, becoming a tyrant if I must! One Great Tyrant is ever-always better than a thousand trillion! Have you seen your gods go to war? I have seen your gods go to war. I have seen Sumtir’s avatar clashing with the Gods of Demons and Angels alike, fighting over worlds, a hammer strike against a shield enough to obliterate everything within sight. I have watched the Slug Queen spread through everyone who thought of her. I have watched avatars of gods flay flesh from children. I have seen Shades support tyrants, just because those tyrants advance magic! The fact that this great magic I have created is possible at all is proof that you should not be a universe creator! I have seen more evils than you could ever know, and they are all your fault.”

He was delusional, but we were beyond the need to point that out.

I asked, “So you must kill them all and start again?”

“… I must.” Nothanganathor returned to personally overseeing the dismantling of my universe. “The canvas must be wiped clean, and the painting started anew.”

The Dark Marks that were myself continued to flow into my body, here, chained to the pillar beside Nothanganathor. My power flowed through the pillar, into him, into his Sign of Power. I was not alone in my chaining, but the others were just fractions of fractions of universes, and most of them were not born like I was born, so gathering more of themselves did not matter to them.

They did not matter. Not to this.

And so, I waited to act.

The Sundering continued.

Nothanganathor broke the silence after a long while, asking me, “Will you wait here for when I need you to open the way back into Darkness?” He looked up to me. “If you stay here, I promise I will put you back, but only after I have trimmed away the parts of you I do not want. The horrible parts.”

“What is Light without the Dark, Nothanganathor? To say it another way, if you turn up the light and turn down the dark, then the shadows you have made become the new Dark. That is how it works. There is always a Darkness, no matter what else exists out there.”

“… If I promise to think on this, will you wait here?”

“I will wait until forgiveness comes for you, and no longer.”

And speaking of forgiveness…

Erick thrashed within me, his tiny Dark Mark and all the other ones he touched impelling me to act, when Erick wanted me to act. It seemed like a good idea to agree to his request, considering what Erick knew to be true about the future.

I lifted my hand from the chains and reached outward, into the swirling ocean, targeting the power that a fragment of myself had laid down naught but moments ago, though it had probably been a few hundred years.

White Lightning lanced from my grip, wide as a world. It was More than Benevolence, and yet it was Utmost Benevolence at its core.

But to all others, except for the color, it looked like Malevolence.

White Primal Lightning scattered across Our Painted Cosmology, centered on Veird.

At Erick’s behest, everyone who saw the White Primal Lightning was spared from the Red.

Nothanganathor was stunned that I could do that.

I smiled, saying, “A trifle gift of possibility for you to think about in the coming age, my distant son. May you find peace within whatever enlightenment comes. May you show—”

Nothanganathor was already screaming in outrage, flickering power this way and that as he roared, “How can you move?! You shouldn’t be able to move!”

The Red Chains tripled and quintupled around my trapped form, and indeed, I could not move anymore. I did not need to. I had done what needed to be done.

I was above gloating, too.

Erick almost gloated anyway.

Ten billion other dead Wizards almost gloated, too.

I quieted those parts of myself.

They would have their say later. Now was not the time for them to exist.

… Maybe I wanted to gloat too, though.

“Ahem,” I intoned. “I was not done talking. Anyway. May you show us all the destruction and creation and paradoxes you create on Veird, and—”

“VEIRD! That fucking place! Of course that’s where you centered this… damnable… He has a daughter there, doesn’t he. Yes. And Koyabez…” He mumbled murderous insults as he played at being a demiurge with his stolen Sign of Power, checking on what I had done. I did not feel like finishing my earlier words this time. Soon enough he confirmed what I had done. He shook his head, muttering, “I will kill Veird inside Infinity. It will not last long.”

“No you won’t.”

Nothanganathor tensed further. He had the sense to not fight me on this, as he said, “Then I will become the Arbiter of what remains of the Painted Cosmology.”

“Do what you will. Now show me Veird.”

Nothanganathor studied me for a moment, trying to gain edges where no edges existed. Eventually, he asked, “If I show you what is happening, will you agree to restore the Painted Cosmology how I desire, when I become God of Magic?”

I stared at my horribly misguided child. “That’s not how this works, Nothanganathor. Now show me Veird in your Infinite Cosmology. Show me your measure.”

Nothanganathor was slow about following my orders, but he eventually decided to show me Veird.

It was a good choice on his part.

– – – –

The Sundering finished.

The Sundering never finished at all.

– – – –

I watched them sacrifice my Goddess of Knowledge to make what remained of Veird into a world, because Nothanganathor made it happen that way, working at his Sign of Power the whole time, splitting Infinity how he desired, for he was the Arbiter of Veird.

I said nothing.

I watched.

Not too long later, I watched Idyrvamikor die to his brother and his grandfather. All the while Nothanganathor worked at his Sign of Power, creating the Dragon Curse. He was trying to recoup the loss of his plan to unify all peoples of Veird into one, easily controllable population. If he couldn’t control everyone then he was fine with getting rid of the big players, the dragons.

“Damned Idyrvamikor. That avatar has been buggy all this while. Good riddance.”

For the first time in 25 years, I spoke, “Perhaps dragons ought not be as strong as they are in the new Painted Cosmology.”

Nothanganathor startled. It was as though he had forgotten I could speak. “They’re not that strong.”

Meanwhile, I worked magic upon the Dragon Curse.

My subterfuge against the Dragon Curse went unnoticed.

Nothanganathor ignored me and went back to work. The Rage Wars of the Orcols were on, and the Dragon Curse seemed to be working exactly as he had desired it to work, removing all of the major sources of power from Veird, allowing Nothanganathor even more solitary control over the population. The Curse settled into Kirginatharp and it would remain there for the next however-long.

I would be using that Dragon Curse myself, later.

I spoke many more times over the centuries, much to Nothanganathor’s displeasure.

“Perhaps Shades ought to be more beneficial.”

“Perhaps gods ought to be weaker, except where they are strong.”

“Perhaps some magic shouldn’t exist.”

“Perhaps accretion should be easier, and harder at the same time.”

“Perhaps—”

Nothanganathor roared, “I know what you’re doing! You’re throwing out Authority in order to escape your cage!”

“I am in this cage because I desire to be in this cage while I feel like being in this cage. Please attempt to strangle me down further. See what that gets you.”

Nothanganathor did not interrupt my musings from then on.

I threw out some fun musings, just because I could.

“Perhaps Elemental Dragon should make you smaller.”

Nothanganathor glanced up at me.

I smirked.

– – – –

Erick appeared on Veird, and I watched.

A lot of things happened, all of which were uniquely painful for me for Erick was my anchor for this new life of mine. Mostly, I did not watch. Sometimes I helped where I felt like it.

Soon enough, Debby popped into the Sign of Power.

I instantly said, “I want that one. Give her to me.”

Nothanganathor narrowed his eyes at me. “Will you agree to my terms of becoming my fodder for the new Painted Cosmology?”

“No. Give her to me anyway.”

“… No.”

He said no, and yet, Debby locked into a crystal of Red, hovering unconscious in front of me, instead of drowning into a different part of the Red Chain ocean. She was far away, but close enough.

Nothanganathor asked, “Why do you want her?”

“She was a Champion of the Dark, briefly. She is mine by right of Everything.”

“She was not a real Champion and you have never asked for any of the other Champions.”

“You never took the other Champions so deeply. But you are correct. I should ask for more. I want every piece of Erick’s life you are dismantling.”

“No. I need them for leverage in the future, in case I need to do more damage to him.”

“Set them where I can see them.”

Nothanganathor was slow on the uptake, so I broke a few of my chains.

He doubled up the chains yet again but he acquiesced to my request before I broke them again.

And so, I gained a collection of people that mattered to the tiniest, tiniest piece of me, frozen in Red and stacked to the side. It kept the Erick part of me alive and well. It kept the plan going. Nothanganathor suspected something was up; that I was influencing Veird against him even though I was ‘so very well chained’. He never found any influences in that direction, though, because of course he didn’t. I wasn’t influencing the world against him at all.

Not currently.

He was checking for influence against him in the current era, and for me doing current actions, so of course he never found anything.

He did not think to check on me at the moment of his own Wizardly ascent, way back, 20,000 years ago, and spread across countless different perspectives.

And I never tried to stop what was happening in the here and now, for I had done enough long, long ago.

A plan made over 10,000 years was easily unraveled when a plan began twice that long ago.

Really, though, the bigger plan had begun at the start of Our Painted Cosmology, back in the very creation of it all, and in my joining of the Dark. Nothanganathor didn’t recognize the 20,000 years plan, but he certainly knew of the truly ancient plan, which is why he was so wary of me.

He was right to be wary.

For those that truly knew of me, of Xoat, they had likely heard of me through my family, which still existed out there, which killed everyone that tried to put me back together. They knew my wishes to remain in the Dark. They knew that if I ever came back together I was going to be quite a handful.

Nothanganathor was very right to be wary.

– – – –

I became more Erick in the coming years, when versions of him began Ascending to True Wizard, and Nothanganathor began catching them in his Wizard trap, to eat them. I easily accepted those fragments of myself, into myself.

Nothanganathor spoke to me at around 10,000 dead Ericks, “He’s your plot against me, isn’t he.”

“He is your True Opposite in every way, so it is right for you to be wary. But I did not create him. I am merely here, observing.” I looked upon the wayward child-of-my-soul. “Erick’s trial will be the lathe that makes you a God of Magic, in whatever form that might take.”

Nothanganathor turned away from me and focused on the Ascending Ericks, mumbling, “For the greatness of all, and especially me.”

I watched Erick reach Margleknot.

I saw him come back.

I saw the battles, and the fish-trick kick to Earth, and the return.

And then I saw ten million side realities, captured in Red crystal and floating on the edges of the Red Ocean, that had floated out there for a long while, discharged out of the Sign of Power, like the shedding of great weights, to fall upon Fenrir. Civilizations frozen in time began to unfreeze and lay across the new land and I watched billions die, again, both in the initial fall and the apocalypses that followed as people found themselves set down in environments completely alien to them.

It was tiring to see so much pain.

I do not like pain.

But…

Soon.

Soon, I would not need to witness anything like this, hopefully ever again, but more realistically for just a long while.

I would return to my myriad, smaller lives.

I would fall into the Dark again.

My wonderful Dark.

I missed him, so.

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– – – –

Erick screamed as oppression crushed him from every angle and I felt a phantom recollection of that pain. Erick felt no up, or down, or light, or dark, and I remembered that feeling.

All was Red.

Nothanganathor had moved out of his Sign of Power to deal with Erick directly, and since I had never tried to break out, now was the perfect time for my own plans.

I attempted to move against my Red chains, upon the pillar holding me steady in Nothanganathor’s Sign of Power. I moved… Uh. Hmm. I could not move. Apparently, I had misstepped somewhere, because they were stronger than I thought they were. I should have been able to break them. And now that I moved against them so much, ah, yes, alarms in the Chains; an automatic tightening system. When had those been added?

Hmm.

“… Oh bother.”

And then Mixixofatat stepped into the Sign of Power, like the wishmaster that he was.

Ah!

That was right, wasn’t it.

I had requested a Wish from him when I was Erick. Ah. Yes.

Of course.

Mixixofatat bowed, as was customary. “I greet you, Demiurge Prince Xoat. A Wish has been crafted and will now be implemented. If, in your Benevolence, you find my Wish satisfactory, then I pray that I find my End as good as you found yours.”

Mixixofatat loosened my chains while my captor was busy.

The Wishmaster departed without another word, and I was free.

I would have liked to think that I could have done that myself, but that would have alerted Nothanganathor, or something similarly unwelcome. He had done a lot to those chains, not the least of which was using chains that were crafted from mythologies across many universes.

But a good Wish, fully expended, was sufficient to break them without breaking them.

I stepped out of the chains, and the chains whipped back to the pillar and held there.

Nothanganathor carved deeper into Erick, taunting, “The only reward for good work is more work, so become the ultimate workhorse for the Dark, Erick.”

Meanwhile, I stood before the Sign of Power, poised to take it for myself.

Nothanganathor released a pulse of Red that annihilated every Valkyrie within half of the solar system and obliterated half of Erick’s body.

Inside the Sign of Power, those Valkyries joined the Red Ocean that swirled around the center, where I stood in the maelstrom.

Erick knew pain.

I watched Erick’s first painful real death right alongside a satisfied Nothanganathor.

And then I, and my rapidly-becoming-unhappy host, watched as Erick’s death became something transformative, instead of merely obliterative. Erick twisted Red into his body, accepting it for what it was; an expression of hatred for an unjust universe.