282, 2/6

Back, back, to the moment of change, and then, to right afterward.

– – – –

“What happens now?” Oozy asked, under a cracked sky, where illusions of sunlight and blue had been broken in the touch of the Fractal.

“I don’t know,” Fallopolis said, on her knees, on the white stone pillar that was Ascendant Mountain.

Rozeta’s white wrought human body lay scattered in white chunks upon the ground.

Melemizargo lay broken and bleeding on the ground north of the mountain, taking up a whole mountain-sized bit of land with his bleeding draconic body.

This was after the Valkyries had been taken from Fenrir and Veird.

This was a good time to appear. It wouldn’t make sense if Erick were to appear later, for he would be punishing people for things they had not done, and that was not who he was.

Erick had no problems doing what he did next.

Erick descended, as a person, and in one quick move he removed the lingering Mantle of the God of Magic from Melemizargo’s shoulders, rendering him a simple black dragon. He also shrunk the guy down and healed him and set him upon the white pillar like a flop of a sleeping, half-comatose dragon. It would be a minute before he woke up enough to react to anything.

Fallopolis reacted faster than her former god, yelping and standing upright, launching backward, and then, blessedly, wonderfully, she cried out, “Oh thank My God! You’re back!”

Erick had allowed her to keep her Championship, but it was almost nothing right now, since the Mantle of Magic was inactive.

Erick smiled at her. “I am. Took me a few thousand years, but yup. I’m back. I heard most of what happened already. It got really bad, but now that future never happens. Not even in the multiverse—”

“Wh—” Melemizargo came to, rapidly righting himself and looking around, and looking scared. His eyes did not glow; they were simply white, with slitted pupils. His claws did not shine; they were simply white, like normal claws. He was a black dragon, about 50 meters long, which was rather normal for a dragon. He wasn’t even a Wizard, let alone a god. He realized this fast, and then he realized the source of his current reality, too. He narrowed his eyes at Erick, yelling, “You did this?!”

A gold-rimmed spear of adamantium came out of the sky and tried to kill Melemizargo, but Erick caught it about a meter from Melemizargo’s neck, rapidly moving the attack from Sininindi back and away. Erick glowed a bit gold in that action.

Erick could have heard voices praying to him from far, far away, if he listened. He would get to those later. Erick unlinked Time from this space, giving him all the time he could ever want, and stopping the flow of prayers. He had stuff to do here, and now. Every single god of the Painted Cosmology was losing power in the transition, which had happened 38 days from now and also hours ago and also 10,000 years ago.

He called up to the sky, “Sininindi. Please come down here. Everyone else, too.”

They all appeared as fast as they could, which was appreciated.

Phagar, Rozeta, Koyabez, were the main gods in attendance.

Koyabez looked Melemizargo over, and was a little sad.

Rozeta frowned at her father, and then the bags under her eyes got deeper as she looked at Erick, and Knew everything.

Phagar knew everything, too. “Unexpected. I was prepared to walk into my own End when I felt my Mantle fade… But that has been undone. Hmm.”

Aloethag, Atunir, Sininindi, Sumtir, and the others just watched.

Oozy and Fallopolis stood back, also watching, not sure what was happening. They were the only mortals in attendance, and that was fine. Mortals needed to be present for this sort of thing, just as much as the gods needed to be present.

Erick spoke, “I’m rather new at this, but with my presence here, the Red out there in Fenrir should start dying on its own. Is that correct?”

Rozeta said, “Yes. It’s failing everywhere. My son is also… he’ll be fine.”

“Good! Problem One solved. Nothanganathor is no more. The problem of outside forces turning us all against each other is done. Let us forgive most all transgressions and move on to a better future.”

They all Knew what Erick knew, in a basic sort of way; that Melemizargo had been replaced as the Prime God of the Painted Cosmology and the Dark. But they still had a lot of questions. Concerns, really.

“My father?” Rozeta asked.

Erick said, “Sure. Let’s get to that.”

Melemizargo stared. He was the biggest one here, but he was also perhaps the smallest. He didn’t mist around like he usually did, either. He simply stood there.

Erick began, “The Painted Cosmology still needs a God of Magic—”

Tension filled the air, so Erick stopped talking.

“No,” Rozeta said. “I see what he did in the future you made never-was, and no.”

Phagar said, “I agree with Rozeta.”

Sininindi said, “We should kill him now for what he has done to us throughout the centuries.”

Perhaps Erick was a bit too mortal right now, because he had been interrupted, though he had a lot more words to say about Melemizargo than simply giving him back the Mantle.

Erick said, “I agree that Melemizargo has made some missteps, but I ask you now to stand in judgment of the whole person.” That’s what he was getting to; a Pantheon consensus was necessary for this sort of forgiveness, and this sort of forgiveness did not come with no strings attached. Erick said, “Melemizargo went insane from the loss of power, and also from knowing he and everyone else was in a trap. He didn’t actually break the trap or break the world, when he could have, and no, I don’t expect you to respect someone who decided not to kill you, because it would have killed him, too. I do expect you to look upon his otherwise mostly-normal stint as the God of Magic before Nothanganathor came along and Sundered the Painted Cosmology.

“I was there for a while, looking through Xoat’s eyes, through the eyes of many different Wizards, and what I saw was a pretty normal era.

“Melemizargo definitely got too personally involved and that gave him blind spots, and that cursing he did at the beginning doomed him to a downfall, and the universe went to shit while he was in charge. But we need a God of Magic, and he’s a good God of Magic, and the God of Magic isn’t the biggest god in the Painted Cosmology anymore.

“I am.”

Melemizargo couldn’t feel that particular Truth right now, surrounded as he was by all the other gods, so he bristled a little. Fallopolis and Oozy had similar reactions. The other gods, except for Rozeta, were still kind of unsure.

And so Erick pulled his Mantle on a little bit tighter, instead of having it float all the way off of him—

– –

Erick stepped into a conversation of gods, spanning eons and blinks at the same time, along different vectors of argument and counterargument. They were all harboring very, very large doubts, about all of this, whatever this was, but Erick went through each of them, set them down without setting them down, and had a long chat about all of their various concerns.

When it became evident that Erick was exactly what he said, they wanted to talk about moving forward, and what to expect, and Erick gave them general ideas.

He ended by saying, “I don’t really want to be the biggest power around, so with regard to the Pantheon and the Universe, I’ll appoint lower gods and step in to prevent catastrophe, and that’s about it.”

– –

Erick continued, back in the real world, “So we still need a God of Magic, and Melemizargo is good at the job, even though it will be a lesser job these days.” As Erick let those words hang, Melemizargo breathed deep, likely realizing much of what had happened.

The gods had concerns, but not too many; Erick had already spoken to all of them about this, just now.

Erick continued, “Melemizargo. I want to make you God of Magic again, on probation, because we have a lot of work to do, and yet you did fuck up a whole lot in the past, and when you rapidly declined in power you spiraled into a danger to everyone. That won’t be happening again, now, or ever. Details to follow. Do you still want the job?”

Melemizargo made a rapid decision of his own, then asked, almost for clarification, “Are you the new Prime God of the Painted Cosmology?”

“I will be soon enough. I need to go visit Xoat and his family and talk to them. I’m reasonably sure that Xoat thinks that I’ll have this job for however long I want it and then pass it on to someone else…” Erick’s thoughts drifted back to when Xoat had been him, and he had been a mote in Xoat’s existence, watching the Painted Cosmology through memories. He said, “I think we need to remake the whole Cosmology, and things are going to be different this time. My main duty is going to be appointing new gods and ensuring that the Painted Cosmology is never broken again, and that Xoat is never again reconstructed. He and the Dark are as one, and they like it that way. I’m rather sure that if we get creation wrong that they’d both be fine with Xoat coming back out for a while, for us to try again. I would rather not try again, though.

“I want to get it right the first time.

“You’d be the God of Magic again, Melemizargo, and it would be a smaller role. You’d basically be helping people learn magic, and you wouldn’t be appointing gods. You would be the ‘God of Magic’. Not ‘Dark God of Magic’.” Erick said, “I’m the God of Benevolent Dark, or however people end up calling me.”

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Melemizargo didn’t get a chance to speak because the fae started to appear, like people stepping out of reality to stand upon the stone—

Xoat stepped into the area, instantly drawing everyone’s attention. The world was dark and full of visions in his presence, and Erick had to support Oozy and Fallopolis’s existences before they were obliterated at the mere sight of Xoat. As Erick saw Melemizargo start to disintegrate, too, Erick helped support his body, and Melemizargo had a lot of emotions at that rescue.

And then Xoat spoke, and Erick needed to separate space from him to not overwhelm the mortals.

“Are you ready to be my carving knife, Erick?”

Erick said, “I’d like a few more minutes to sort out some back end work, please. Get everyone on board that I can. That sort of thing. See you in a better location for it, too.”

“Sure. I should talk to you about some of this Margleknot business, too. I’ll be in Ar’Cosmos.”

Xoat stepped away, and the fae left with him.

Reality returned to something more normal, but it was still full of gods.

Melemizargo instantly said, “Give me a quest to fulfill while I am on probation.”

“I object,” Sininindi said, “On principle. He lost power and he killed because of it. He will seek to gain more power, too, as is his nature as a dragon. He will cause problems no matter where he is in the hierarchy. AND HE TOOK EVERBLESS.”

Erick would speak to Sininindi about Everbless, personally, soon enough. But for now he sent a few thoughts her way that contained multitudes of information which boiled down to the news that Everbless was in Margleknot right now, living with about ten thousand other world trees that did not become Margleknot. That whole situation was kinda complicated, but not really. It was like Treehome, but for world trees who were problematic and needed to learn how to live again. It was a halfway house for wayward World Trees, and it would be good for Everbless.

Melemizargo had changed him, though, into something Dark and Radiant, and he needed to learn how to deal with that, too.

Sininindi still had her objections after that silent sharing of information, but she was a lot calmer.

Others still had problems.

Atunir said, “I object to Melemizargo’s reappointment. We had millions of years as a universe before Melemziargo fucked it all up in his first 10,000 years as God of Magic.”