DARK SHADOWS HUNG in the corners of the chapel. The light of a hundred candles littered across the altar did little to combat the impenetrable darkness. Chandeliers hung low and dim, and heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. A priest knelt at the front, before the altar, with his hands clasped and resting across the top. He wore dark robes and a hood drawn tightly over his head. Around his waist dangled several gold trinkets from a rough brown rope.
“Is there a funeral?” Keleir asked, sitting on the front pew with a heavy sigh. He drew his cloak around him like a blanket, admiring the bleak architecture. Keleir didn’t think anything could be as bleak as Yarin’s throne room, but then again, he had not been to the Church of the Vel d’Ekaru in many years.
“I like the dark,” the priest said. He rose. The coal-gray robes washed around his ankles. “At least when I pray. It helps me focus.”
“I never understood the point of praying to the Living God,” the Fire Mage said. “If He is living flesh, how does He hear your prayers?”
The priest smiled and sat next to the future king. “Ekaru priests do not pray in hopes that the Living God will hear them. We pray because it keeps us faithful. It keeps us connected to what has yet to be delivered but has long been promised.”
Keleir turned his eyes up to the marking of a monstrous face formed from a thousand rope knots painted on a red banner that hung from a golden pole. The flag spilled behind the candlelit altar like a bloody waterfall. He knew the mark well, as he’d been born with it on his chest.
The Fire Mage wondered quietly for a long time why he sat in the pew next to the priest. He’d come here seeking answers about a creature he’d lived with his entire life yet knew nothing about. He’d come for answers to Yarin’s riddles, but looking at the man in his gray robes, who side-eyed him in such an eerily reverent way, he doubted he’d get anything other than more riddles.
“You await the Vel d’Ekaru, the Living God.”
“We await the redemption of our universe, and the universes beyond ours.” The priest smiled and followed Keleir’s gaze to the painted banner. “When did you last attend service, Lord Ahriman?”
“I attended as a young boy and as a teen, but Yarin’s religion was not mine, and not my people’s. I remember some of your beliefs, however.”
“Do you know the origins of the First, the Second, and the Third?”
“I know legends.”
The priest smiled. “I’m Brother Povish, by the way. We didn’t get to be introduced earlier during the ceremony.”
Keleir froze, turning a surprised look on the priest. “I didn’t even realize that was you. I was … distracted.”
“It is not your fault, Lord Ahriman. A lot was going on. A lot of blood. It is easy to be distracted by decay. Not to rush you off, my lord—it just seems that you are lost. How may I help you?”
Keleir glanced to the priest and then back to the banner hanging behind the altar. “I need to understand the Vel d’Ekaru. I have come to learn, Brother Povish, about your mighty god.”
“To understand Him, we’d have to start at the beginning, and it is a long story …”
“I have time.” No, Keleir thought, he had very little of that. But if time paid for answers, time he would give. “Start at the beginning.”
The priest clasped his hands in his lap and turned his eyes to the altar to begin his tale. “Each land, each people, has their own legends about how the universe formed. Some are based on science, some on myth, and some on faith. But all legends, no matter what view, begin with one initial spark. One loud bang, if you will. We know that there are universes right next to ours, alternate realities where we exist or don’t exist. We know of three of these realities, for sure. The First, a lush world full of magic, where the life of the planet is thriving and only just beginning to hear the call of destruction. The Second, new to greed and already seeing the toll it takes on a dying world. Then the Third, well-acquainted with greed. They killed their planet. They mined it dry.
“The Three are without name, as no one lived at their birth to name them. They were born of power and light, and the Origin God gave each a soul, locked with a Key. The First Key is the Body of Life, the power to create or destroy. The Second Key is the Hand of Strength, with the power to control the Body. The Third is the Carrier of Power, which cradles them both. When combined, the Keys have the ability to tear apart universes or create them.
“The Origin God created the first universe, though I don’t necessarily mean ours, and from that sprouted others. We could be the hundredth, or the thousandth. As we haven’t found the right combination for unlocking others, we have only the Three. Each universe had its own life. Each a copy of the next, with infinite possibilities.”
Keleir sighed, trying not to seem bored by the origin of the universe. These were not the answers he wanted, and if this marked the beginning of the priest’s tale, he felt that he’d be hours before getting any of the information he’d sat down for. “And what about the Orukes, the spirits between worlds?”
“Imagine bubbles floating in water. Imagine each bubble is a separate universe, a separate world, and the water is the matter that floats between those worlds. It binds them together. The Orukes are the spent remnants of energy that float in that matter. They are fragments of time and space that were lost or ejected at the formation of a universe. They are trapped, tortured creatures without real form. Every now and then, one finds its way into our world, but without any physical form of its own, it is merely a ghost and does not survive long. That is why they merge with a child carried in its mother’s womb.”
The Fire Mage glowered at the floor. “The consciousness isn’t developed yet, so it is easier to take over the form.”
Brother Povish smiled. “Not so easy, it seems. You shouldn’t hate the thing inside you, Lord Ahriman. It is a gift.”
“This is not a gift,” Keleir hissed, touching his chest. “This has brought me nothing but misery.”
“You fight it. Pain always accompanies futility.”
“And I should just embrace it and let it take me over?”
“It wouldn’t hurt anymore, would it?”
Keleir scoffed. He turned his attention away from the man to the heavy curtains blocking out the setting sun. The creature had run him for nearly thirteen years, and for what? He’d murdered. Slaughtered. Killed. He’d brought destruction and war. He’d been exalted and worshipped for it, and Keleir hated it. His only redemption came in the form of a woman who’d braved fire and agony to reach inside and make his soul whole again. He would never be that creature again willingly.
“You were never meant to exist in the first place, Lord Ahriman. You are a vessel for something that has been desired for a very long time. You are a vessel for our redeemer and the savior of our universe, the liberator of the Oruke. It hurts, because you are not meant to be alive.”
The Fire Mage froze, turning his gaze slowly to Brother Povish. “All this thing wants is death and destruction. How is that your redeemer? It would sooner see you flayed.”
“Not I.” The priest smiled. “Others perhaps, like your wife.”
Keleir growled. “And how is that a good thing? How should I accept that and let it win, if it means to murder someone I love?”
“Because it is for the best. You can’t see it. I understand that. My words will do little to shape your view of the matter. Your human emotions cloud you.”
“My human emotions are far more reliable than the instability of a creature not equipped to handle them!”
“What I mean,” Brother Povish began patiently, “is that your sentimentality toward your own life, to the life of the people around you, and to the world itself clouds you from seeing the truth.”
“Then explain to me the truth, Brother Povish. Help me see it.”
“You know the truth. He has told you, hasn’t he? Shown you?”
Keleir gave a tight smile. “I’d like to hear it from something other than the voice inside my head.”
Brother Povish took a deep breath, ending it in a pleasant sigh. He shifted in his seat, as a child would right before receiving a present. The joyful look on his face turned Keleir’s stomach. He felt ill and angry. Part of him wanted to kill the priests for relishing in such a thing, and the wiser part of him knew that road led exactly where the priest wanted him to go. “The Origin God created the universe and its planets, and thus sprouted life. From that life grew plants and animals, creatures that existed in an ever-revolving cycle. It was perfect and beautiful, but then it evolved. From the ooze grew a parasite. It started small and innocent enough, as they always do, until it grew intelligent and strong.
“Humanity, Lord Ahriman, is the parasite of the world. It is a virus that rots what it touches. The world revolves in a cycle, and humans spit in the face of it. They underappreciate and overconsume. Just like the damaging cells of a disease in your body, it seeks out the healthy cells and destroys them. Humans devour everything, Lord Ahriman, until there is nothing left. They are selfish, greedy creatures. Even the best of them.”
“You speak of yourself. You are human.”
“Yes and no. I’m a second-generation Oruke. My father was an Oruke. You are an Oruke, but you refuse to let your human nature be consumed by the righteousness of your redeemer. You think the Oruke is evil, and you hate it because it made you murder, because it craves blood. But you do not realize that what the Oruke does isn’t evil at all. It is a culling. It is the same thing as squishing the beetle that threatens to ruin the crop. Humanity is the beetle—the Oruke is just the gardener trying to keep the crops alive.”
“If your father was an Oruke, why didn’t you worship him as the Vel d’Ekaru?”
“There are many Orukes in the world, but only one of them has lived many times over. The Oruke inside you has seen the end of the Three repeated and has attempted to save it every time. You are the prophesied one. You are the vessel, the body of the Living God.”
Brother Povish grinned. “Why, because you told us so, Lord Ahriman. A long time ago. When you were boy. You bear his mark.”