Weaponsmith - Chapter 136 (Patreon)

“Wobbly-woo,” replies Hineni, pointing at the god of death, who sits upon his high throne, distant from the happenings of the world. He takes extra effort not to swear, so that he doesn’t upset fake Seltsam. “What is this?” asks Hineni.

The air around them shifts, spinning around and around the strange throne-room that they’re inside of. Vapors of fog drift through the air in sharply elongated trails that seem to have mouths and eyes, neither of which grant sight nor sound to their possessors.

“I told you,” replies the god of death. “When you were beckoned, child of mine, that you were best off under my behest,” explains the god.

“I thought you were just being dramatic when you said that whole ‘child of mine’ thing,” replies Hineni, shrugging. “I figured because, you know, I have ash-magic, which is under your domain.” The man scratches his head. “I didn’t assume that you were being literal.”

The man stands there with his hand on his hips, staring at the skeletal, unmoving god of death, who never leaves or stirs from his throne. Hineni stares at the decrepit, mostly fleshless corpse. “How did you even… you know…?”

“Your mother was a generous lover,” replies the voice from the quivering distance.

“Ugh. Gross. I’m gonna be sick,” says Hineni, wishing he hadn’t asked.

“Right?” asks Eilig, sitting next to him. “See? This is what I had to deal with all the time watching you.”

Seltsam giggles from behind them, causing Hineni to look over his shoulder at the noise that feels odd for her to make. Seltsam isn’t much of a giggler, as far as he knows. Eilig leans into his ear. “Sometimes during our girls' nights in the library, we looked at the secret books in the library together,” she explains. “She's still kind of new to this stuff, so I’ve been trying to, uh, familiarize her with the ways of the world.”

“…Wait, ‘secret books’?” asks Hineni. “I didn’t know we had any -”

“—  Child,” whispers the god of death.

“What? Oh, right,” replies the man, looking back towards the literal cosmic embodiment of death, who is also apparently his father. He sort of lost track there for a second. “Sorry. Getting old, I get distracted now and then,” explains Hineni. He points back at the throne. “What is this?!”

— The sky above their heads thunders.

“War,” replies the ghostly entity. “It came as I felt, leaking, dripping through the hearts of men like poison.” Nothing moves on the throne, save for the wind that billows the tufts of long, white hair that hang loosely from the skin-taut skull. The whispers of fog around them sharpen, as if pointing at him like a series of accusing fingers. “And you, my child, poured it into their blood.”

“Wobbly-woo,” replies Hineni. “Why can’t you gods ever just make a straight sentence?” he asks. “It’s always poetic gunk.” He shakes his head. “I made weapons, so what? There are thousands of weaponsmiths in the nation making weapons for the military.”

“Yes,” replies the man on the throne. “But they are all not of my blood. They are inferior.” The fingers point towards him. “Even you, despite being of my blood, have made only inferior weapons.”

“You watch your mouth,” replies Hineni. “These were some damn fine pieces. Rhine and I worked our butts off.”

“They are weapons of the Owl-God,” replies the spirit on the throne. “They carry her… quaintness,” it explains. The wind intensifies. “Yet none of them carry the true power of death that I have needed you to create, Weaponsmith Hineni, chosen of the Owl-God.”

Hineni narrows his eyes. “Why’d you send the horse?” he asks. “Not a great move.”

The wind howls, spirits reaching out and touching his face. “To retrieve what was mine and to make a point of it.”

“I literally lived in the same city as you, half an hour away. There’s no way you didn’t already know where I was the whole time,” replies Hineni. “You could have just… picked me up.”

“Correct,” replies the god of death. “But then I wouldn’t have made a point of it.”

“Of what?” asks Hineni. “Again, get to the substance of this conversation, or I’m taking my family and leaving.” He looks up at the foggy, cloudy sky above their heads. “I have a fight to break up between my wife and a frog who is apparently…” Hineni blinks. “- Ah, hell.” He looks back at the god of death.

“She, like you, is of my blood,” explains the god, referring to Nekyia — the big-frog.

“You and the old lady were really going at it, huh?” asks Hineni, looking around himself at the spirits of the dead that circle around them, as if they were trapped in the center of a churning maelstrom. “Why did you never bother going for her?”

“Because she is irrelevant for my ambitions and my point,” explains the god of death. “What I want, Weaponsmith Hineni, Chosen of the Owl-God, is death.” The ghosts swirl, and despite the fact that the man on the throne never moves, the aura of his presence seems to intensify. “I want the people who stole my son to be dead. I want the horse-god to be dead. I want the world that I inhabit to be dead. I want every crying, crawling, suckling infant in the world to be DEAD.” The skull, for the first time, moves, turning his way. “And I want you to be dead. Only in total, absolute death, can everything be exactly as I want it to be.”

“Noted,” replies Hineni. “But here I am, very much not giving a -” He stops himself, turning back to look at fake Seltsam for a moment. “- heck about it,” finishes Hineni.

“But here you are,” replies the god. “Because I have need of your hands in order to fulfill the rest of my work. That is the only reason you are not dead, together with all of the others who will be soon.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, minus one war, there’s a whole world of living people out there,” says Hineni. “Not including the other gods, who will definitely have a problem with your fun idea for the future.”

“They are but flies on the canvas of my masterpiece,” explains the god, the wind swirling around them.

“Very poetic. Can we go?” asks Hineni.

“Death brought the end of the owl-god and brought its child to you, leading you to the ways of weaponsmithing, death,” says the god. “Death tore your mother from me and birthed the rival that will fight the owl, causing a wave of death. Death brought you from nothingness and made you into a man of minuscule, but at least some, value.” The fog encroaches on them. “And yet here you are, still not seeming to grasp the weight of the situation, Weaponsmith Hineni, chosen of the owl-god,” says the god of death. “This world that we live in is of my own creation. It is a world of death, painted black in the festering ink of my well.”

“At least I think I know what your favorite word is,” says Hineni, stepping forward towards the throne.

“This is a game that I have made. You are but a piece that I move at my own behest.”

“Gotcha,” says Hineni nonplussed. “Again, though, can you just… nail it down in like… two sentences?” he asks. “I’m not that smart, you know? That’s why I have people to be smart for me.”

The hacking, hoarse voice up from the throne laughs coughing as if it belonged to a dying man. “You are like her, your mother,” says the spirit. “She was a headstrong fool too.”

“No,” replies Hineni. “My mom was a harsh woman, but sharp as a tack.” He shakes his head and looks around the fog for any spirit that strikes him as familiar. “Bless her soul, wherever that woman is who gave birth to me,” says Hineni. “But the woman who raised me and who you killed is my mother, and my dad is one of these ghosts here, presumably. Not you.” Eilig holds a hand against the side of his face.

“I killed both of your mothers and will kill both of your fathers,” says the god of death. “When all spirits have gone quiet, then I too will stop and there will simply be full nothingness — forever.”

“You could also just… not do that?” suggests Hineni. “Life is fun, you know? Maybe you should get up and try dating again, old man. It’d do you some good.” Hineni plants a finger into his palm, tapping it. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“I want you to kill everything, everyone, and I want you to turn it all into ash.”

Hineni gestures broadly at everything. “Yeah, I bet you do, but… you know. No,” replies the man. “Getting married soon, you know? I’d invite you to the ceremony but uh… you’re kind of a drag, honestly.”

The foggy vapors leak towards him. “I wonder if you will feel the same, when I take back what is mine,” says the voice.

“What? Me? Go for it, old man. Blow up your own plan.”

“It’s okay,” says a voice from next to his ear. Eilig gets up, and he feels a soft kiss press itself against the top side of his head.

The vapors grab hold of Eilig, pulling her away, her body becoming translucent and vague slowly as she drifts. Hineni grabs for her, but his fingers simply move through her, as if she were a ghost.

“Eilig!” calls Hineni, swiping after her.

“— It’s okay,” says the fairy, holding out a hand as she drifts away towards the foggy wall that he can’t move past. “Your big sis is always gonna keep an eye on you. Don’t worry.”

“Give her back!” yells Hineni, pressing a hand into the fog, but it simply thrusts his arm back out.

“You killed her before,” says the god. “You saw it, and yet she returned to you. Are you not curious in the least?” asks the entity. “After her death, I promised her return, on the basis that she guides and nurtures you towards my will. But it seems that my faith in her was misplaced, like it was in so many others.”

Hineni’s mind races. Didn’t Eilig return to life because of the returned magic of the house? It’s true that he killed her as a child, during his eruption, but — wait, is this who she promised to never tell him anything? The god of death? Eilig was in on it from the start too?

— The man snaps his fingers.

Nothing happens.

“That won’t work here,” says the god. “Go back to the world and do as I will tell you to do,” orders the entity. “And then, perhaps, I will give you a token prize for your participation.”

Hineni narrows his eyes, charging towards the fog a second time, only to be thrown back. In frustration, he snaps his fingers, waiting for a spark to come out, but none ever do.

“EILIG!” shouts Hineni, as the fairy fully vanishes into the mist.

The skull returns to its original position. “Go. Weaponsmith Hineni, chosen of the Owl-God,” says the entity mockingly. “You will leave here and return to your illusion, and you will finish the work I have for you, this time with more zeal,” orders the god. “I will no longer tolerate these childish tokens of war such as swords and axes.”

His vision begins to become blurry as the realm of the dead slowly fades away as he leaves.

— A hand moves down onto his shoulder, as someone from behind him whispers into his ear. Seltsam. “D- do it a third time,” she says, holding him upright. “Remember?” she asks. “One, two, three!” chants the librarian behind him, sounding embarrassed as she counts.

Hineni blinks as everything goes dark.

Right.

A single snap of his fingers reverberates, the echo cascading down the empty, infinite halls of non-existence. For a time, nothing happens. The repetition travels down long, distant corridors that the eyes of the living are simply unable to comprehend, bouncing and resounding around the various corners of the ends of life.

And then, after a moment, the darkness becomes broken by a yellow glow — an eye.

First there’s one, then there are two, and there are far too many to count, each appearing after the other with every snap of the finger that travels along towards total nothingness. Eyes fill the void, re-illuminating the fading darkness from one end of eternity to the other.

The illusion breaks.

The fading spell of the god of death falters as the god atop his high throne sits now beneath a heavy, all-blanketing night sky that is full of nothing but an ocean of endlessly glowing eyes amongst the hissing void.