A Goddess' Lament

Posted on January 12, 2025

I despised their disregard for my desire to be rid of them. But, no matter how hard or long I raged against them, the memories remained — and remain — obstinate.

It always begins with our youth. Even before we were chosen from among the Ancients to step into Creation, before we elected to manifest into this universe through the Drael, those dark creatures of my own design, there was “us.” Two sides of the same coin, as mortals say. You and I had been together since before we Ancients breathed Time into being. But this memory, beloved brother, is the one by which I mark the end of our inseparableness.

We are but ten years of age to put a mortal equivalence on it, yet the true count of our years is far greater. Though mother rules here as Queen Goddess of the Eternal Depths, you and I are afforded no special favors as her twinned offspring. Like all our kind, we, too, must pass the Gauntlet to be considered worthy of existence and the right to be called Drael, and from the moment we breathed our first in this realm, we have been preparing for it. There are mere days to go before we and the rest of our cohort must pass through the Gauntlet’s colossal golden doors and descend to the lower caverns, there to face all manner of foes, inescapable traps, and obstacles — the deadliest to be found throughout the planes.

Today, as always, the damp air of the cavern deep in the underbelly of Estalar, the deific planar home of our divine city, Iadruthis, resonates with shouts and battle cries. Around us, the hundreds of young Drael that make up our cohort, none older than we, are paired off. The Blademaster stalks between these miniature whirlwinds of violence as he corrects the form of one while praising the viciousness of another. These are the best that the houses of the lesser divines that populate our plane have to offer. In truth, they could have offered nothing less — a Draelic house only permits the strongest to live.

Even at this tender age, we cut very different figures on the field. While your talents are better suited to weapons of the mind and magical force, my enthusiasm for bloodied steel and the thrill of the hunt wins me accolades during these required sparring sessions. You stand before me on the sparring grounds, practice sword in hand. Though its edge is as sharp as that carried by Teraiek, God of Conquest and High General of mother’s armies, it is enchanted to inflict only non-fatal wounds. Unfortunately, you are so ungainly when forced to fight with physical weaponry that it is more likely to damage you than I — and often does.

I cannot see her, but I know mother stands behind me on the far side of the sparring grounds where she confers with the High General regarding our performance. You glance in their direction, and in your eyes, I can see your need to land a solid strike against me while she watches. Failure is not welcome among the Drael — not even among their highest gods — and your desire for victory at any cost is as strong as mine.

You swing, but the arc is wrong. I take a calculated misstep in my footwork as I parry, miniscule but enough to allow you to throw me off balance. The nigh-imperceptible curl at the corner of your mouth tells me that you’re aware of my fakery. Mother would later administer to me a severe punishment for my “mistake,” but the sound of approval in her voice as she notes your improvement to Teraiek makes it worthwhile.

Some hours later, I stand in mother’s War Room at the top of Kixagias, the jagged, towering temple and communal meeting hall of the gods at the center of Iadruthis. A living map of our universe is unfurled on the wall before me. The drawings upon its surface move in real-time, and the branches of the World Tree sway in illustrated cosmic winds. Ever-shifting symbols, a unique marker for each race, reveal the comings and goings of beings as they traverse the roads between the planes. Days from now, once the Gauntlet is behind us, we will be fully-fledged gods — you as the indifferent God of Life and Fate, and myself as the capricious Goddess of Death and Chaos. Then will we be free to venture out into this universe and the countless others. I study the many worlds tucked within each plane, mapping out where you and I will go after our victory, imagining the glorious productions, the tragedies, the comedies, the dramas, that we will enact upon mortals as we play across the multiverse’s immense stage.

An impatient sigh wakes me from my ecstatic reverie. I turn to find you standing beneath the stone arch of the door, a scowl creasing your grayish-blue features. I grin and run to you, confident that you will share my enthusiasm as you always have. I take your hand and try to pull you to the map as I prattle on about the places we could go, the games we could play, but you do not move.

As you rip your hand from mine, your scowl deepens. “I would never have displayed such weakness on your behalf.”

The venom in your voice stings, and I can only stare in silence as you turn and walk away.

As this ghost of you fades back into the darkness of Time, another memory rises to take its place. By human reckoning, we are the equivalent of nineteen years of age. The trials of the Gauntlet are long behind us, and we have fully come into our divine power and resumed our roles as the Ancients of Light and Darkness.

I have just come from a visit with the God of Sacrifice, mother’s Grand Inquisitor, Maryth. As per our usual routine, I find you seated at a long table in the God of Prophecy’s library, surrounded by stacks of ancient tomes. The spicy, sweet scent of our cousin’s favorite incense hangs in the air, its smoke pouring from censors tended by mortal devotees who, for one deed or another, have won his favor and been thus remade into demi-divine servants.

I pull a seat opposite of you. You shift in your chair but don’t look up from your book.

“Maryth has been busy,” I say, giggling as I unload the armful of arrow shafts, fletching supplies, and vials that I carry. I select a small flask filled with glowing amber liquid and hold it up for you to see. “This is one of his latest, and it is pure genius.”

My grin widens, and I lean over the table toward you. “Guess what it does!”

You lift your gaze from the page just long enough to cast a glare my way before dropping it again. “I don’t care.”

I straighten and regard you silently for a moment before sinking into the chair. Your behavior toward me has become increasingly hostile of late, and I have no desire to spark another argument.

“Alright. If you’ve no interest in what I’m doing, then tell me about what you’re reading.” I set the vial aside and prepare my fletching tools.

You hesitate. Then, with a frustrated sigh, you say, “As the Ancients of Light and Darkness, the multiverse is our ho’gath. Its well-being is our responsibility, correct? And gaining an Inside perspective on behalf of our Outside brethren is why we were sent into Creation.”

I nod as I slide the edge of a newly forged arrowhead back and forth along a dampened, hand-sized whetstone to sharpen it. “It is.”

“Well, I’ve decided to familiarize myself with the various life forms within the multiverse. To study their strengths and weaknesses.”

Though your tone starts with condescension, a floodgate soon opens. You push the books across the table and move to the seat next to me, pointing out passage after passage with zeal. Your old self, the brother that I so rarely see anymore, the one I so dearly cherish, shines through as you share with me what you consider the most exciting aspects of each plane. With each recitation, your enthusiasm spirals ever higher, and I’m carried along with it as you talk of places you want to go, the forms you want to take, the planes you want to claim, the things you want to create.

I revel in your fervor, allowing myself to bask in this renewed sense of closeness. But I relax too much and commit what, in your eyes, is an unforgivable sin.

“There are so many of them, brother!” I say. “Think of the fun we’ll have!”

The book you’re holding slams closed and, like falling dominoes, every open tome laid out on the table follows suit.

“I never said anything about ‘we.’” There is a chill to your voice that I’ve never heard before. “Evolution of the individual Self is all that matters, dear sister. Nothing else. The multiverse may require us both in order to exist, but there is no ‘we.’”

With a wave of your hand, the books return to their shelves. You turn to leave.

“You’re wrong,” I call as you disappear into the book stacks. I want to say more. I want to scream at you that, while Creation might only preserve the unique individual and not the collective, we are an integral part of each other. There is light within darkness, just as there is darkness within light. We cannot escape one another, just as we cannot overwhelm one another. Creation itself binds us together in balance for the good of all.

But I swallow the sting of your rejection and keep this counsel to myself. You would not listen anyway.

A new memory swirls to the fore as this one fades. A few short years have passed since our encounter in the library. The distance between us is nearly as vast as the universe and ever widening.

The armies of the Draelic Pantheon stand ready to march upon the gods of Estalar, to wrest from them control of the Great Web, a realm tied to the fabric of Creation itself. If the World Tree provides the universe with physical structure, the Web serves as its central nervous system. From within it, one can unweave entire races from existence, plait into being brand new worlds, or create for oneself an entirely new fate. Such acts are not small things, however, and the Estalarian gods, the Web’s erstwhile guardians, have recently discovered that the manipulation of even a single thread has vast, rippling repercussions. Some have unintentionally unmade their planar realms. A few have even erased their own births.

It is time for this responsibility to be passed to another, and mother desires to install herself as its new keeper. She has been biding her time since the moment I first hid the Drael in the Eternal Depths beneath Estalar, ages before you and I manifested here as her children.

As an Ancient, I could protest, but I choose not to. Mother will make an excellent replacement for the web’s current warden. She is ruthless and cunning, but she understands the importance of balance. And, too, like any doting parent, I take no small amount of pride in my creation, these beings who direct my current of Darkness throughout this universe. What reason have I to deny them?

The greater gods of our pantheon are gathered in the War Room as the attack is planned. Hundreds of thousands of lesser deities await our orders. There should be sixteen of us in total, but you are not among us. Mother sends me, her Dark Hunter, to find you.

It doesn’t take long for me to pick up your energy signature. The trail you leave behind leads me to a small cavern deep in the remote heart of our plane. The golden, heady scent of your magic pervades the atmosphere even before I step into the chamber. It roils and rolls out of the entrance as it fills the winding corridor ahead of me.

When I round the corner and enter the hollow, the scene before me is a bloodbath, and it takes a moment for me to fully comprehend what you — no, what he — has done.

Two versions of you, my cherished brother, are before me. The first lies dead upon the ground, his body mutilated and flayed. A fist-sized hole is punched through the center of the corpse’s chest. From it, the Light Flame’s golden essence seeps out, flowing toward the second “you.” The copy stands a few feet away, one of Maryth’s sacrificial knives in his hand. He pants heavily, hands upon his thighs, as though from heavy exertion. With each second that passes, more and more of your essence flows to him, and your corpse grows increasingly less substantial.

“Thalke…” is all I can manage to say.

The living you straightens, although with considerable effort. “Unfortunately, Neria, Thalke is quite dead.”

Your…his…mouth twists into a cold smile. “Call me Kalthe.”

A wail of rage and despair erupts from my throat. I lunge at this new version of you, my twin, but before I can cross the floor to throttle him, a stalagmite bursts from the cavern’s floor. I slam into it with the full force of my attack and it shatters, knocking me to the ground.

Kalthe laughs. “Creation isn’t going to let you kill me. We’re necessary for it to exist, remember?”

My body aches, but I nod. We agreed to this when we were given responsibility for the balance and well-being of Creation.

“What have you done, Thalke?”

“KALTHE! And I’ve done little more than excise the weakness from my flesh. That me,” he says, jabbing the blade towards the corpse, “was weak. His fondness for you, for all of this, all symptoms of his failure.”

He shrugs and throws up his hands. “I’ve simply fixed that problem.”

He tosses the knife in my direction, and it lands a few inches to my right. “I’d advise you to do the same, Darkness.”

Kalthe turns and steps towards the back wall of the chamber. Golden sigils shimmer into being. The solid rock of the wall dissolves into a swirling portal of light. He takes a step as if to enter but stops. Looking back at me, a wide smile devoid of genuine feeling stretches across his face.

“Don’t look so glum, Neria. You’ll see me again! We’ve a job to do, you and I. And I can’t very well do it without you, now can I? Oh, and should you take my advice…fix the Drael. You’ve created such a brutal, bloodthirsty race. Why ruin them with flaws like familial loyalties and kinship bonds? It’s asinine.”

I watch him slip into the portal.

“Because order is born from chaos, Kalthe. There is always light within darkness, just as there is always darkness within light,” I whisper as it closes behind him.

Ignoring the pain that wracks my body, I crawl over to what’s left of you, my brother, my Light. Naught more than a tiny spark remains, but it is enough. I breathe it in and tuck it away deep within the core of my being.

“There will always be light within darkness, Thalke. I promise,” I say to the you that was as I wrap my arms around myself and give in to sorrow.

The memory fades, and my eyes are wet with tears.

These memories… No longer do I harden my heart against the pain that they bring. I welcome them as a cleansing rain, your light watering the stony fields of Darkness’ heart. You are the balance within me, that which brings order to my chaos. For all his power and knowledge, this is something Kalthe will never understand — and he is weaker for it.