SPIRE OF THE BELOVED
FIRST REALM OF THE DIVINE DESOLATION
301st YEAR OF THE AWAKENED ERA
ALL-SPACE
THEY CALLED HER 'The Beloved'. It was Her only Title and in this era She had no name, although she knew what it had been, so very long ago. A name meant an identity, a name meant an encapsulation of a personality, a shorthand that contained within it everything one knew about oneself.
Within All-Space, so ran the Command, there were no names. There were only titles for the powerful, occupations for everyone else. All within served the Word, encased and absorbed in the Word there was no need for names and no need for self. All were simply pale fragmentary murmurs of the Echo, that which was merely the reverberation of the True Voice. There were no 'bibles' in All-Space for the Beloved was the very living flesh of The Word, on Her Skin the Word walked and breathed and worlds prospered or died with a single glance or whisper.
If the Lord Remnant was the Body of the Word, She was the air and blood that moved it. As He Spoke the Word, She was his Voice. Five million utterly fanatic and supremely dangerous Inquisitoria awaited her smallest Command, although few had ever heard her proper voice. Billions upon billions of The Endless awaited the Bidding, when the Beloved would send the Great Tide to purge the Void that could not Hear nor See, yet none of the Endless had ever seen her make the smallest gesture.
Once She had been real flesh. Since the day of the First Lord Echo Remnant – Her first and only true love - she had been augmented and implanted until true flesh became only a memory and a shell and she knew data and numbers and lives and deaths on scales no mortal mind could ever hope to attain without screaming shrieking madness upon insanities. Her Inscribed Skin was only a façade encasing a soul flayed and burned and raped by the deaths of entire civilizations, of the shrieks of murder and blood and fire and darkness. They were only numbers now, no names, no faces or voices to say they had ever been. So thorough had been their eradication even She had begun to doubt the veracity of a past She had witnessed first-hand.
The Lord Remnant was now in his 81st Incarnation and loved Her most sincerely, She knew that with certainty. As all the rest had, so too did He praise Her and use Her, venerate and defile Her.
This, She'd concluded, had always been the way of prophets and their treasures.
In Her Spire the Beloved was kept safe. In Her Spire, She saw all, heard all, knew all necessary to, as they said, "Align the Straight Logistic" to hasten the Day. She worked tirelessly they knew. She did all ceaselessly, Her Benevolent and Selfless Eye always on her loyal people. Adored and venerated, sacrosanct and inviolable, Perfection Personified, She was so near to the True Word, She was practically worshipped in its place.
She remembered stepping onto an encased balcony to lift a hand in Benediction when the greatest of the vessels of the Endless, the Eternal Note, rose to pierce the Scissure and enter the Lie, where life crowded together against the crushing darkness of the Void. The Eternal Note, one vessel that could end a civilization with a single shot. Through her Ears she heard the Lord Remnant speak, He touring the Stagings and 'invigorating' His First Waves.
As She returned to the interior of Her Spire, the Beloved listened and recorded and sifted and heard Him speak of things like 'mercy and open-heartedness' a little too loudly and a little too long – that which She immediately analyzed in exquisite detail. Most peculiar that He manifested these qualities so late in this latest Incarnation.
Satisfied after a few moments of analysis, She summoned five Omens. Purposefully they marched into Her Presence, their reflections on the mirror-sheened floor in perfect step. They stopped as one and waited wordlessly.
"When the Word and Deed cannot agree," She intoned solemnly, "where does the mind go?"
"Into Corruption." All five said in perfect unison.
"Requisition a swift vessel. You have My Leave to pierce the Scissure. The Continuity must not be broken." A slim finger pointed. The Omens bowed and began to turn. They froze when She Spoke again.
"Who is Immune?" She asked although She knew the answer already.
"Only She Who is The Word."
She dismissed them with a flick of a finger.
The Omens marched away with a singular purpose.
The Beloved had spoken directly. Nothing would or could dissuade them.
The Beloved smiled. Eighty-first and counting. Only She and the Word was forever.