LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Lake Valley, 1,032,008 years ago
Sørmur dï Mitgaeard had not been particularly active in the intervening ages. The great black snake had settled in a single place, Lake Valley, and pondered the nature of her existence. She was now nearly four hundred feet long, her flippers almost comically small and the spines on her back more widely-spaced, sharp and ferocious.
Two hundred years ago, she had started up two special projects simultaneously. One was now finished, and the other would soon be. She flew over what had once been the surface of the lake, grazing a flipper against a silvery, perfectly smooth solid surface.
"Now isss the time," she whispered to herself. She raised her head, her throat going through numerous muscular contractions as she forced something out of the depths of her stomach. She coughed something into her closed mouth, which she slowly opened, dropping a living being onto the smooth surface.
It was a serpent, some eight feet long but unusually thick and stubby. It was pure white, with smooth skin rather than scales. It had a stubby pair of arms but no legs; its tail ended in two fins like an eel. Its eyes were round and the same shade of blue as Sørmur dï Mitgaeard's, but lacked pupils.
"I greet you, my ssssson," said Mitgaeard. "Two sssenturiesssss I ssspent conssstructing you to absssolute perfection within my body. You are… Accord."
"I am Accord," he repeated tonelessly.
"Fantassstic," she said in delight. "You, of courssse, may call me Mother." She pushed his chin up with a flipper, looking him over. "Featurelesssss, no flawsss or blemishesss upon your ssssskin, nor shall there ever be… emotionlesssss, yesssss… I have built the perfect being."
Accord didn't respond.
"Wonderful. Behold, my ssson: thisssss was onssssse Lake Valley."
The natural slopes and curves of Lake Valley had been replaced by… nothingness. Where the valley had once been, there was a perfectly circular and perfectly flat area, an inhospitable floor of cold and colorless goo.
"I call it the Matrixsss," Mitgaeard explained. "Or rather, jussst a piessse of it. It's only jussst beginning. Sssssomeday the whole world will be exsssactly like thisssss. Can you imagine it, Accord? Geometric perfection of the entire planet. It will be magnifisssent…"
She looked down to Accord and waited for him to react. He simply said, "Mm-hmm."
"And when we've turned the world into a flawlesss sssphere of gloriousssss glasssss… you and I shall dessstroy it!"
"Make the world perfect and then destroy it," Accord repeated blankly.
"Yesss, precisssely," Mitgaeard spouted, clapping her flippers in delight. "That'sss why I wanted a companion who wasss unfeeling… one with emotionsss would object to the dessstruction of all thingsss."
"All things?" Accord inquired. "Clarify, Mother."
"Yesssssss," she said with a broad grin. "After the world, we take the ressst of the universsse. Then the only thingsss in all creation shall be you… and I."
"…Mm-hmm," Accord said again.
"Tirelesssssly, I've been filling in thisss valley and creating you," Mitgaeard muttered. "I think Sssssørmur dï Mitgaeard shall take a day or two… to ressst." She settled down on the Matrix's surface. "When I am resssted, your training will begin, Accord. You will learn to do what I do… you will be fassster than I, more efficient. And your versssatility will enable you to defeat those who would ssssstop us. Two hundred yearsss, it took me, to fill in thisss sssingle lake. You, meanwhile… onssse you've learned my trade, learned the waysss of battle, you'll take that long to envelop the world."
She closed her eyes. Accord merely stood still and watched her.
"Oh, damn," said a smooth and snooty voice from somewhere outside what had once been the valley. "I missed all of my possible cues, didn't I?"
Mitgaeard took to the air and looked around, snarling viciously.
"Ah, well, there are other ways to make a big entrance," the voice said, from a different direction this time.
Mitgaeard turned toward the new direction, growling deep in her throat.
"See? It works, doesn't it?"
The great black serpent screeched furiously in the direction of the sky.
"Easy, Madam Matrix… it wouldn't do well for you to lose your temper now."
Mitgaeard seethed and growled. "Khan…"
"Indeed. FIRST WAVE OF ATTACK, GENTS! GO!"
Four vibrantly-colored serpents, each one about half the size of Mitgaeard, jumped out from four different directions out of the forest just outside of the Matrix. They each wrapped their coils and arms around Mitgaeard's body. She struggled and screamed, her scream accompanied by a blast of dark energy pouring from her mouth.
The beam of magic sliced off the head of one of the four huge serpents, and its decapitated body tightened its coils around her neck. Mitgaeard shut her eyes tightly and flexed her entire body. Beams of orange light blasted out from the spaces between her scales, chopping the dead serpent and the three living ones into chunks which fell away from her.
"SECOND WAVE!" called the haughty voice. "Second wave, followed by me. Let's go, let's go!"
A flood of serpents, of varying sizes but most of them no bigger than ordinary snakes, poured out of the forest from every possible direction, jumping upon Mitgaeard's body and scratching her frantically with their fangs and claws.
As the masses of serpents weighed her down, another serpent, this one easily as big as Mitgaeard herself, slithered out of the woods. He was a blindingly bright green, with a pale green underbelly. His muscular arms were clasped behind his back as he slithered forward, and at the end of his tail was an enormous quivering rattle.
This serpent had a cobra-like hood with a pair of eyespots: the eyes appeared to have slits for pupils, yellow irises, and purple scleras. His actual eyes were identical to the spots.
Two other giant serpents flanked him, and behind him came another horde of small ones. He casually looked over the struggling Mitgaeard, grinning at her.
"Madam," he said cordially. He was the owner of the smug voice.
Mitgaeard growled. "Khan," she said again. "Why doesss the king of the ssserpentsss bring his armiesss to darken my doorssstep?" She shook her body, causing many small serpents to drop down to the surface of the Matrix.
"Oh, I'm here to save the world," Khan replied. "And I arrived just in time, it would seem."
Mitgaeard opened her mouth wide, spraying black smoke at Khan. He grabbed the two huge serpents guarding his sides and thrust them into the path of the deadly breath. The pair screamed in terror as the smoke clung to their bodies and reduced them to piles of dust.
Khan bent down and grabbed two fistfuls of small serpents. He smashed them against Mitgaeard's face, using the layers of living creatures to add force to his slapping attacks. She opened her mouth, preparing another burst of breath magic, but he picked up another handful of his subjects and shoved them down her throat. She hacked and coughed, the convulsions sending more dead serpents tumbling to the ground, but more emerged from the forest, continuing to overwhelm her.
"Do you like that?" said Khan, reaching out with a hand to pinch her mouth shut. "It's a state of emergency: every serpent in the world is under my command. But just in case, that's not all…"
He pointed toward the sky, and a horde of beings began dropping down from above: heavy winged creatures, most of them made of stone, but some of them metal, and others larger and made of gemstone. The weight of this army pushed Mitgaeard to the ground, and Khan lost his grip on her snout.
"Gargoylesssss?" she demanded.
"Yes," said an immensely deep voice. "Gargoyles."
The biggest gargoyle of all, this one made of jade, dropped from the sky and landed with an immense thud on the silvery surface. Like all gargoyles, he had three-fingered hands, three-toed feet, and a pair of immense batlike wings; his head was bald and he had long, sharp ears, and a smooth face with no nose or mouth, just a pair of slanted red eyes.
"I think she's disabled, Big D," said Khan, leaning back with his hands behind his head. "Don't let her open her mouth! Her magic is concentrated in her breath."
Several of the gemstone gargoyles raced to the front of Mitgaeard's body and clamped her mouth shut.
"Her mouth must open extremely wide to activate her breath weaponry," said the huge jade gargoyle. "Allow her to open it at least enough so she may speak in her own defense."
The gargoyles loosened their grip on her jaw. "My thanksssss," Mitgaeard said snidely.
"Don't think that being able to speak will change your fate," Khan taunted. "It's a foregone conclusion."
The jade gargoyle addressed her. "I am Dignity Omega, supreme justiciar of the gargoyle race."
"Jusssssticiar? Fansssy."
"And stop hissing when you speak!" Khan snapped. "By the stars, woman, who does that?"
"At ease, Khan," Dignity Omega commanded. "Sørmur dï Mitgaeard, you have confessed your intent to destroy all of reality. Ordinarily, my sense of justice would tell me you should be sentenced to death. Sadly, analysis reveals that nothing short of the power of the Old Gods can take your life. Therefore—"
"Oh, you gargoyles and your justice and analysis!" Khan snapped. "Get to the fun part!"
"I'm getting there," Dignity Omega said, his tone not changing at all. "As death is not an option, Sørmur dï Mitgaeard, you shall be imprisoned in Tartaros."
"What, pray tell, is Tartarosssss?" Mitgaeard snarled furiously.
"Oh, it's a magnificent collaboration between the serpent and gargoyle nations," Khan said delightedly. "A prison built along the border between earth and hell. And it was built especially… to get rid… of you."
"No prissson can hold me," Mitgaeard retorted.
"No doubt," Dignity Omega agreed. "But we have plans for making sure you stay. Take her away."
The army of gargoyles took to the air, carrying the immense disabled serpent along with them, slowly making their way south.
Khan picked up Accord by the tail; the white serpent didn't react. "What do we do with this one, friend?"
"I am no friend of yours, murderous desecrator," Dignity Omega replied. "Our alliance begins and ends with the imprisonment of Sørmur dï Mitgaeard."
"Yes, yes," Khan said irritably, "but my point is: what do we do with him?" He shook the dangling creature.
Dignity Omega considered. "Mitgaeard intended to train him. If he is not trained, he is no threat to the world."
"Perhaps, but we both heard her call him her son," said Khan. "We both saw her give birth to him, for a certain definition of the word."
"State your point, Khan."
"My argument is this: blood doesn't lie. If we let him be, he'll end up just like his mother."
"…Agreed," Dignity Omega finally said. "But it would be a grievous crime to kill this creature, an emotionless newborn. And if we imprison him alongside Mitgaeard, she may yet attempt to train him."
"You doubt the effectiveness of the security measures we have set up?" Khan countered. "I told you she has a weakness for… diversions."
"Very well," said Dignity Omega. "Accord, too, shall be imprisoned in Tartaros."
"As you command, my dear justiciar," said Khan with a bow. He tossed Accord in the air, adjusting his grip on the creature. "I'll take care of him."