Chapter Thirty-Seven: What Gods Dream
"So, Harry," Dark Eyes said, looking at Harry seriously, the inky pools of his eyes drawing him in. "The first step. Your entire plan depends on you being able to it. Do you think you can?"
Harry bit the inside of his lip.
"I honestly don't think you're ready," Dark Eyes said. "You're barely even a demi-god, and this is one the most advanced skills gods can acquire. It's too big of a leap… I think you need to wait a couple years. I have a suggestion for you."
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"Kill yourself," Dark Eyes said bluntly.
"What?!"
"It would be the utmost level of commitment if you returned to Origin now, said goodbye to your friends and killed yourself." Dark Eyes raised an eyebrow, looking at Harry skeptically, clearly questioning his level of commitment. "Once free of your mortal body, you would return here and I would train you intensively until you have full control of all your potential powers. Then we move to the first step."
Harry was shaking his head.
"No?" Dark Eyes asked. "Let me explain to you fully. There is a big difference between a free god and a mortal god. In our natural form, we have powers beyond that of the material. We can create, we can change. Your mortal body may hold you back, restrain you. On the other hand…" He frowned thoughtfully for a moment. "As gods we are beyond the physical world, and therefore cannot be a part of it. Because of this incredible power, fights among the gods need to be avoided at all costs. Every god is restrained by rules, by a code of conduct. If any god ever steps over the line he is pulled back by the others, no one god is strong enough to resist the entire power of any of the others combined. Because of the code, you can't meddle in the affairs of the other gods… for instance I wouldn't be able to kill any people of the other gods, or interfere in their lands or planets. And it's also frowned upon to directly involve yourself in the lives of your people too much. It's not against the rules, but if the other gods don't like it, they can call a meeting and vote against you. We can only help in small ways. If there is need of it, I advise the current Queen of the Silents in decisions. Of course we all make exceptions, but that's the basics of it."
"But I don't intend on involving myself in the lives of my people just a small bit. I intend on involving myself a lot," Harry pointed out.
Dark Eyes sighed, and rested his forehead on his hand for a moment. "That is the tricky part. Especially since the portals involve all the races and all of the planets, and your people are the only ones capable of providing them. Meaning even though they are your people, your decisions affect everyone else."
"So my hands are tied," Harry said logically.
Dark Eyes shook his head. "Not exactly… being in a mortal body exempts you from the code. You don't have access to your complete power, so you're allowed to become part of the story, as long as you don't tell anyone you're a god. If you do, then it's cheating, because you can then order them all about. Many of the gods have reincarnated themselves now and then over time, and lived among their people. It's an interesting experience. You age with your body, die with it and then return to Sky's End. You can decide to remember who you are, or you can decide to forget."
"So as a mortal, I can interfere all I want because I'm outside the rules," Harry clarified. "Then I can't kill myself, I need a body."
"This is going in circles," Dark Eyes said dryly. "We're back to the fact that you're not powerful enough as a mortal."
"There's absolutely no chance?" Harry asked. "Can't I even try?"
Dark Eyes looked speculatively at Harry. "Well you've got one huge factor in your favor," he said decisively. "Come along Harry."
He got up and Harry followed, leaving Dark Eye's place, back through the dark blue door into the large chamber of the doors. Dark Eyes led Harry to a thick, reinforced door of stone. It had a huge lock on it, and was chained securely closed. Dark Eyes picked up the lock, running his fingers over it. It clicked open. The door started to shake, rattling despite its weight, as if some terrible beast waited impatiently on the other side. With a push the door swung open, and the air was sucked out of the room.
On the other side of the door was the Void.
Casually Dark Eyes walked through the door and into the Void. The wind seemed to part where he stood, not a hair on his head was out of place. Harry frowned, perplexed, and followed. Whatever Dark Eyes was standing on didn't exist for Harry, and the wind hit him as never before, trying to rip him to pieces. The door closed behind him and disappeared. He flapped his wings, trying to stay close to his grandfather. The wind fought back, insistently pushing him away, but Harry was winning.
Dark Eyes watched him for a couple minutes. Harry had never been in the Void this long, but fortunately he had the stamina.
"Exactly," Dark Eyes said. His voice was clearly audible.
"What?" Harry asked, getting tired of being confused.
"You just made my point," Dark Eyes explained. "Even though you are mortal, you can withstand the Void. If other mortal gods tried to enter the Void their bodies would disintegrate like any regular mortal." He looked around the Void. "You can see why we created Origin and the planets."
"Yes."
"It has its uses," Dark Eyes added. "It's the ideal condition to create."
"What now?" Harry asked.
"Fall asleep," Dark Eyes ordered.
"Here?" Harry said. "That's impossible." The wind was pounding him, he was covered in biting ice and if he stopped pumping his wings he would plummet into nothingness.
"It's the only way. If you can't do it, you're not ready. You're going to have to wait; your people are going to have to wait."
Harry shook his head. "They can't wait."
"So try," Dark Eyes told him. "But if you can't do it, you'll have to go to Origin, kill yourself, train, and then return here. Then you can be reincarnated and wait until you're grown enough to complete what you started."
Harry could tell by the tone of his voice that his grandfather didn't have much confidence in him at this point in time. He's probably right. He does know what he's talking about, after all. But I have to at least try. I don't want to have to wait, and I don't want to have to kill myself. If I kill myself I lose my body, and I can't return to it. I would never be able to return to my friends or my life, and I still have things to do. He looked to the task before him. This is impossible.
"If I stop flying, I'll fall," Harry stated. He could feel it all around him… infinity. Never ending Void. Never ending chaos.
"Then fall," Dark Eyes said. "Surrender."
If there had been air, Harry would have taken a deep breath. Clenching his fists, steeling himself, he folded his wings tight against his body. He was torn away immediately, spinning, falling. Dark Eyes dwindled away and disappeared in the distance. Harry squeezed his eyes shut. Behind his eyelids… Etilon plummeting… lack of control… memories of losing himself. His instincts screamed at him to fight, to survive, to save himself. Harry tried to relax, limbs flopping about. He peeked. He didn't know where he was. There were no planets to be seen no sign of the way back. No escape.
Harry kept falling. Sleep, he told himself.Yeah right. Try sleeping in an industrial freezer while somebody punches you in the stomach… that would be hard. And the Void is much, much worse. Harry realized his grandfather was probably watching him from somewhere (probably his nice comfortable warm armchair next to the fire) and waiting, ready to bring him back and tell him he had failed. No, Harry thought stubbornly. I won't!
He filled his thoughts with images of the people who had whispered to him in his sleep, ran their words through his mind. I promised them.
The wind lessened slightly. He peeked again, and then blinked his eyes open. He was beginning to glow again. Very faintly, but the blue-violet aura on his skin was shielding him. As he watched, it faded slightly and the wind increased.
Harry repeated the process, focusing on the need of the portal guides, and then peeked quickly— he was glowing brighter now, the wind stilling. Sleep now, he reminded himself.
Eyes closed, cradled in the Void, Harry surrendered.
Time passed.
Harry dreamed.
He was back in a dream he was very familiar with— flying, soaring over a shifting landscape. He enjoyed effortless flight for a few moments before looking closer at the ground below him. It was plain rock.
'Hmm,' he thought. 'What was I doing again?'
The ground shifted now, becoming mountains similar to the mountain range of the Pit. They built up higher and higher into the sky, into the cold air. Stars passed above, guiding the moon through the sky, then the sky lightened dramatically and the sun shone beautifully on the mountains, now covered with a layer of ice and snow. Another moon passed as he flew. Another sun.
He lost track of his body; he was no longer flying. He now explored the landscape directly, passing through caves and valleys and over the tips of the mountain ranges.
The sky above was a pendulum: light, then dark, then light, dark, light, dark, light…
Harry was sleeping peacefully on a solid, pleasantly cool surface. He blinked his eyes open and sat up. Around him were mountain ranges of incredible height, snow… am I awake? This is the place of my dreams.
He got to his feet and looked around. Harry felt intimately familiar with everything he laid his eyes on. He had been here before.
A sudden presence behind him. Harry turned around. Dark Eyes.
Dark Eyes had an indecipherable expression on his face. His head was slightly tilted, his brows down as if concerned, but the side of his mouth twitched upward. He looked intrigued, surprised, amused and proud, all at once.
"Not bad, Harry. Not bad at all. I can help you tweak it a bit over time if necessary." Dark Eyes looked around the landscape. "Welcome to your own planet. What will you call her?"
Realization rushed back to Harry— the planet was familiar to him because he had created it. He had set out to do the impossible and achieved it. "I don't know," he replied.
"That's alright. You've been busy." Dark Eyes was nodding his head. "Very, very impressive, Harry."
"How long have I been… busy?" Harry asked.
"Relative to what?" Dark Eyes asked. "You know how Sky's End is. It is separate and everywhere, all at once. On Origin, several months have passed."
Harry tried to work this into his reality. The puzzle pieces just didn't fit. I made a planet. Several months have gone by. Right.
Harry knocked politely on the Lavender door in the chamber of doors. It kept trying to open for him, but he didn't want to just barge in. It was high time he pay a visit to his mother, but she wasn't answering. Finally he went in. The front room was empty, but one of the doors was open and he peered through it.
His mother slept inside, lounged on a high bed of sorts. She was bearing a beautiful dress, as if she were just taking a short nap. She opened her eyes then, seeing him. Still half asleep, she smiled widely. "Harry."
She got to her feet, running her fingers through her loopy curls to arrange them, even though they were perfect already. "Sit down," she said, ushering him back to the chairs in the main room. "Do tell what you've been up to. I wasn't able to find you for a while there."
"I was in the Void," Harry told her. "I made a planet."
Lily had been getting a glass of sweet juice, and nearly dropped it, sloshing liquid over the edges. She peered at him curiously, trying to gauge if he was serious. "You… wait, what?"
"A planet," Harry repeated, trying to get used to the syllables. "Mine."
She discarded the glass and sat across from him. "Harry, that is… wow. I've never made one, myself. Too big of a responsibility. There are too many broken hearted people to take care of as it is."
"Sorry I didn't tell you before," Harry said. "I wanted to just do it. I didn't know if I could." He remembered Dark Eye's suggestion that he end his life, and wondered what his mother would think of that. She had been so adamant that he have a normal mortal life, she had sacrificed her own closeness to her only child for the sake of that one thing alone. He'd almost thrown it away. Harry doubted Lily would have forgiven her father for that one.
Lily was looking for words to use. "Well that's very unusual," she finally settled on tamely.
"Extraordinary?" Harry prompted teasingly.
"Very," she confirmed. "What, pray tell, do you intend on doing with this planet?"
"I'm going to steal the portal guides and put them there," Harry said in a logical tone.
"Well, Harry," Lily said delicately. "That would be against the code, I know it's probably never been explained to you, but—"
"Oh, I know," Harry interrupted. "You're forgetting something, though. Why did you leave me on Earth and return to Sky's End?"
"So you could be mortal," Lily finished, then frowned.
"Exactly," Harry said, seeing that she had understood. "Nobody can complain, because I'm going to achieve it as a mortal."
"That's quite a weighty task," Lily told him. "It's extremely difficult to have an impact on the world as a mortal. That's why it's allowed. It's too much work, so nobody tries. To the gods it's too much of a hassle to be born, take the time to grow up and be deprived of their powers all the while."
Harry shrugged. "Well I'm going to try. I began to understand some of the voices, and they were portal guides. Dark Eyes thinks I'm meant to be their god."
Lily's eyes narrowed. "Dark Eyes, hmm?" she said dangerously. "Father never understood my decision. He's probably trying to push you too quickly."
"Don't worry, Mother," Harry said soothingly.
Lily sighed. "Harry, there's something you didn't mention."
"Yeah? What?"
"I've been hearing from Enna a hell of a lot," Lily told him. "Someone must have told her that the Goddess of Love was responsible for bonds like the one you two had, so she's been talking to me."
Like the one you two had, Harry repeated silently. "Oh. That."
Lily waited. "Well? What happened?"
Frustrated and embarrassed, Harry gritted his teeth. This is going to be awkward. "The bond broke," he said. "But I didn't do it."
"I never thought you did," Lily said.
Harry paused, feeling immediately better. She believes in me. Nobody else did, but she believes in me.
"It has to do with Lush," Harry said. "Remember her?" Lily nodded. "Do you remember how she stared at me really intensely?"
Lily's eyes were narrowing again. "Yes…"
"Lush is… fixated on me," Harry explained. "She says she loves me, and thinks that I don't belong with a mortal… so she tried to 'fix' it. I don't really remember what happened. I get flashbacks now and then. Since Lush is Wrath's daughter, she has a degree of control over Wrath's flame. So she just fired it up so that I wasn't in the right mind to protest."
Lily threw her hands up. "That's… rape, Harry!"
"Yes, I know," he said, then added a very sarcastic, "She apologized, later."
"The nerve!" Lily snorted in a manner quite unlike her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was embarrassed," Harry admitted. "Can you fix it?"
"No," Lily said. "It's usually a one shot deal. The bond isn't meant to be fixed. It only works with two people who are highly compatible. Enna may love you and know it's not your fault, but it's still going to stick in her mind and it's still going to be between you always. Simply the fact that the bond was broken once means you two will never be that compatible, ever again."
Harry absorbed this stoically. "The bond was helping us so much," he told her. "I was getting calmer and more in control because of her, and she was so much less scared. Now that the bond is gone, we're struggling."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "That's fascinating… that never occurred to me before." She hesitated before continuing. "I don't want to get your hopes up Harry… its unlikely, but if Enna can work through her feelings, the bond could be restored. She would have to let go entirely. Let go of the sadness of being separated from you, and all the anger she has for Lush. I don't expect she can do that. It's not in her nature."
"Creating a world on my own was impossible too," Harry pointed out. "But I did it. So you never know what can happen."
"Speaking of your planet," Lily asked. "What's it called?"
Harry shrugged. "I haven't the slightest idea. I don't want to give it some awful name and get stuck with it."
"If you don't name it, everybody else will call it something," Lily told him. "Believe me, when word gets out people are going to be talking about it. And no doubt they'll call it something atrocious."
"I know."
"Well, what does it look like?" she prompted.
"High mountain ranges with caves and plateaus, lots of ice and snow… deep valleys with not much in them. It's barren now; I have to stick a couple plants and animals in there. I ran out of steam."
Lily laughed. "Yes. Alright…" she pondered over the name. "Lots of ice… something with frozen in it maybe… you know a lot of the planets aren't even named, they were sort of thrown out there. Origin was easy to name once the other planets were created. Earth took some brainstorming if I remember correctly. I was very young, then."
Harry's mind boggled for a second. My mother was around when the Earth was created!
"Something freezy sounding, maybe, but not exactly. Fraizha?" she suggested, pronounced 'fray-zah'.
Harry shrugged. "Sounds alright to me."
"Fraizha, then," Lily said, proud. "Aw… little god-ling… I got to name your first planet."
Harry rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "I don't think I need any more planets. One is enough."
"Just kidding," she said. "Do you need to rest?"
"I just slept for the last couple months," Harry told her. "I'm… refreshed."
"What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?"
Harry grinned. "Plans. Big plans."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Lily asked.
"Maybe."