“What I don’t understand Vitor is why we should be concerned about our physical forms. We’re going to possess the powers of the gods themselves are we not? What point or purpose would there be in things like ‘expanding the lifting capacity of our skeletal structures by ten and a half percent’?”

“Truly Helgon? You, of all people, do not see the value of expanding the capacity of physical forms?”

“I am afraid, in this instance, I do not. Were you speaking of the sort of increased capacity an automaton is capable to achieving then, yes, of course there might be value, though even there I see that being more of a useful pursuit with the aim of distribution amongst our populaces.”

“And we will not be sharing any of these augmentations beyond this conclave.”

“I am suggesting nothing of the sort Vaingloth. Where Helgon’s experimentation is focused on creating more useful servitors…”

“It is not. I said our populations. Not slaves.”

“We shall be gods to them. What practical difference would there be?”

“Our people are one of our treasures Vitor. If you see them only as slaves then you value them far too lightly.”

“We are not discussing that again. We have already agreed, we may do as we wish with our ‘populations’ with the caveat that they are not to be gifted with any qualities which might allow them to pose a meaningful challenge to us.”

“Is that not exactly what Helgon has specifically pledged to do?”

“It is not Vitor. My people will not be able to rise up against us. Any design I implement will be denied their own divine sparks. Should I even attempt such an endeavor, the safeguards Vaingloth, Kurst, and Insikir have proposed would warn the rest of you with plenty of time for you to contest their creation.”

“Your proposal, on the other hand Vitor, we do not see a means to control as readily.”

“It will not require oversight or control if it’s distribution is limited to our ranks alone. As for Helgon’s claim that it is only a minor improvement, I direct you to Hashel’s corroborating report. The mere ‘ten percent’ improvement is on a per soul-annum basis.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning that we will be harnessing the power of quite a few souls over quite a few years. The increase basis is nearly irrelevant compared to the maximum sustainable upgrade capacity.”

“You don’t seem to have finished the calculation there.”

“No Helgon, I did. That space is empty because there is no limit.”

– High Accessor Vitor making a case for the other to-be-Neoteric Lords to hand him the keys to their physical forms and capabilities.

You didn’t tell Malgenia that she couldn’t have something. Or that she was wrong. It was a rather fundamental lesson for Malgenia’s Deaths, so much so that it was never directly taught to us. We all absorbed it readily on our own. Or at least all of us who lasted more than a day or two in her service figured that out.

Responsibility knew that. 

She’d been one of Malgenia’s Deaths for longer than I had (by a month), so I knew she was just as terribly aware of how important it was not to disagree with our Neoteric Lord.

And yet there she stood.

Telling me “no”.

And meeting my gaze with a proud defiance which could only be answered with the sort of casual and effortless destruction none save Malgenia could bring?

I should be furious with her.

I’d made plans!

I needed her!

She was making a mess of everything! Just like she always did!

Malgenia wouldn’t have shown more the barest flicker of irritation though and so I should have had to hide my anger completely.

Except for one tiny little thing.

I couldn’t have been happier with her!

And hiding delight, it turned out, was a bit beyond me.

“I am sorry My Lady,” Responsibility said, casting her eyes downward as the happiness I felt lit Malgenia’s eyes and tugged at the corner of Malgenia’s lips.

“No you’re not,” I said, which in hindsight probably sounded a lot more threatening than I’d meant it to.

“That’s a lie,” Beauty said.

“I don’t think it is,” Inhibition said. “She finds it funny now, but at the time I believe she was too caught up in the moment to considering torturing Responsibility like that.”

“Of course I didn’t want to torture her,” I said, “she was proving she was exactly what I needed!”

“The first is not precluded by the second,” Reason said. “You two do have a rather unique relationship after all.”

I refused to grace that with a response, turning my attention to my new favorite Death.

“Which would make Clarity what then?” Beauty asked.

Turning my attention to my new second-favorite Death.

“My Lady?” Responsibility asked, probably surprised that I hadn’t already struck her down.

“Am I now?” I asked.

“Always!” she said, without thought or hesitation.

Which sucked.

That was not what I needed.

“Come with me,” I said. We had to be somewhere a lot more secure than one of my buildings in a city that I controlled if we were going to continue the conversation I needed us to have.

I turned and started walking towards the nearest spot I can think of which fit that description, Malgenia’s bedroom, hoping against hope as I did so that she would refuse me again.

Sadly, she didn’t.

She didn’t even ask where we were going, and I felt my bubbly grin drooping into a frown.

How had I gotten her to fight me in the past? 

Punching her in the face had a host of problems.

Drowning her would have faced similar ones.

Even something simple like jabbing her with a fork when she was sleeping, or throwing knives at her were definitely out of bounds (though to be fair, I’d only ever thrown knives back at her in the past, being the first to throw a knife would have been a novel tactic to employ).

No, if she was going to fight me, it needed to come from her.

Which wasn’t totally out of the question. Our confrontations had started off with her stabbing me after all. It hadn’t been a bad stabbing, just a minor puncture wound into my right lung, but it had set the tone for our relationship which followed. 

I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I loved her? That was true of all the Deaths of course. We were all united by the devotion we shared to Malgenia. However, if you place a group of children together in an environment where almost any sort of injury could be repaired via our proctors healing magics and couple that with the oversight of a Neoteric Lord who found casual bloodletting amusing at best and unnoticeable at worst, the culture produced among the Deaths proved to be rather more violent than the ones we read about in our histories.

Responsibility had been special though. She’d always taken extra care to express her displeasure with me, and I had answered in kind.

Especially when she was taking too much of Clarity’s time.

We didn’t have an official division of either our custody of Clarity or how much of her attention we were entitled to. It wasn’t the sort of thing I think either of us were capable of evaluating rationally.

“I’m not even going to tease you about that,” Beauty said. “We were all there, and I don’t think any of us did any better.”

“I don’t recall being that much in love with any one person?” Inhibition said.

“That’s because we were all in love with you, you silly goose,” Reason said.

Thinking about Clarity soured my mood even further. It wasn’t just that I missed her. I missed fighting over her too.

And yes, I know exactly how stupid that sounds.

“Wasn’t going to say a thing,” Beauty said.

“My Lady, where are we going?” Responsibility asked.

And my grin returned!

No one asked Malgenia to explain herself. Either she chose to speak to you or you didn’t need to know.

But there was my Responsibility, making the meekest of requests! She was doing so much better than anyone else would have!

“You are thinking dangerous thoughts all of a sudden,” Reason warned me, sensing the hope that had started blooming within me.

“Yep,” I said, my pulsing quickening as I stepped close to the edge of an abyss I knew it was inevitable I would one day cast myself into.

“Good,” Beauty said,

“About time,” Inhibition agreed.

It’s not often a good sign when the voices in your head give up on counseling restraint. Fortunately our gods can always provide us with the sort of wisdom that would take lifetimes to develop.

I am with you, always, Diyas said. And if you would dare the razor’s edge now then allow me to say, I am more than done with waiting too!

Manic zeal is, to be quite clear, a terrible mindset to make decisions in. To be fair to my god however, she had been waiting lifetimes for payback against the Neoterics, and to be fair to my sister Deaths, none of us were the Death of Patience nor the Death of Caution, so our susceptibility to the allure of a mad, zealful idea was limited at best.

“I would show you my Garden my Dear Responsibility,” I said, turning partially to meet her gaze.

Responsibility’s normal skin tone is a radiant light brown. Watching her go as pale as Malgenia did, I am sorry to report, merely amplify my glee.

I am a terrible person.

But then I wouldn’t be where I was if I wasn’t.

So I was glad I was terrible.

But Responsibility probably didn’t deserve that.

I’d have to let her stab me a few times more.

She deserved it and I did too.

“Y-y-yo-you–your….” That she’d lost the capacity for coherent speech wasn’t surprising. We all knew about Malgenia’s Garden. It was her personal workspace. Even her brother wouldn’t bother her in there. It was literally a holy site to her power and her power was death.

“I am sorry My Lady, truly sorry,” Responsibility said. “May I explain myself?”

“No,” I said. “Not here.”

I expected her to wilt at that.

I would have.

“No. You didn’t,” Beauty said.

Responsibility didn’t either. She drew in a calming breath, squared her shoulders, and fell into step behind me without further complaint.

I needed her to complain though. I needed her to fight and push back and to hate me. 

And she did.

She was walking into Malgenia’s garden, but that was only because I’d given her no other possibility. Her defiance was limited to choosing how she met her fate, she couldn’t change what her fate would be.

Or that was what she had to be thinking.

We couldn’t oppose Malgenia, we could only choose how whether to die loving her or to accept the resentment we felt.

That was what she’d taught us since we were capable of forming words and thoughts.

It was a lie that took a lot of work to ensure we believed it fully.

And it hadn’t quite worked on Responsibility.

Not anymore than it had worked on me.

The real trick was going to be getting her to see that.

You’d think that would be easy.

She believed I was Malgenia.

All I had to do was just tell her right? Just explain everything and she’d have to accept what I was saying. Surely!

Maybe. Or maybe that would shatter what little resiliency her psyche had.

Malgenia’s Deaths were not the most well-adjusted of individuals, and I knew Responsibility. She’d built her identity of being one of the world’s nascent demi-gods just as much as I had. Take that away and all sorts of madness could arise.

Heck she might even decide to obliterate her promised Neoteric god.

It wouldn’t be an unprecedented act after what I’d done.

I mulled over that as we walked in silence to Malgenia’s Garden and thought I’d found an answer, or at least an approach to take, as I waved aside the divine wards and led Responsibility into the abattoir that was one of Malgenia’s favorite places in the world.

All I had to do was…

“Who are you?” Responsibility demanded as the wards fell back in place, isolating us from everyone else.

In her hands killing fires had blossomed and in her eyes was the most beloved hatred I could have ever hoped to see!

“It’s just a test. A simple one. All the kids have to take it. It’ll help us teachers know how special you are so we can teach you how to be the best you can be.”

“I already know what I’m going good at.”

“Malgenia put that frog down and take this seriously.”

“Okay.”

“What? Why did you pick up a dead frog?”

“I didn’t.”

“Do not lie to me I see it there right in front of you!”

“I’m not lying. It wasn’t dead when I picked it up.”

“So it just happened to die in your hands? Did you squeeze it really hard?”

“No. I just touched it.”

“Frogs don’t just die from being touched.”

“Not when other people touch them.”

“You’re saying you can kill frogs with your touch.”

“No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I can kill anything.”

“You are not one of the Blessed of Death, Malgenia.”

“I know.”

“Death blessings are very special. Only very responsible people are given them. You can’t pretend to have something like that. People will be very upset.”

“I’m not pretending. I don’t need a Blessing.”

“Then how did you kill that frog.”

“I asked it to die.”

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s what makes me special. Do you want to see?”

– Death Touch Malgenia’s last conversation with her Elementary studies teacher.

When I was one her Deaths, I’d always thought Malgenia had a supremely subtle wit. So many of the things she said which were earth-shatteringly momentous to us would be couched in the most understated of quips. What I learned later, after she was gone, was that she hadn’t been subtle or witty, she simply didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered to engage with any of us as though we really mattered at all.

Don’t get me wrong. She was also delighted with us and she did cherish us. It was just that she cherished us not for who we were but rather the sort of things she would learn from our deaths. We were delicious and delectable presents she would get to open only once, and the more she knew us in life, the more fascinating she would find our passing. At least to a point.

Which had puzzled me from the moment I found that lurking in her memories. 

Malgenia was gone, saving her hadn’t been an option even if I’d been misguided enough to attempt it. What I had that remained of her were fragments and puzzle pieces, which was much the same state she’d left the gods in, except for the part where she was ultimately a mortal woman and finite in a manner the gods had never been.

Where a god like Diyas was still capable of thought and speech and personhood, what was left of Malgenia had lost all of those things. Her will, her vital force, her awareness, none of those were left in the pieces of her which haunted the dark corners of my mind. 

I could see bits of her past and could hear echoes of her thoughts, but there were questions she would never be able to answer. Questions like “why, after almost an entire world had died, was she still searching for new revelations in anyone’s deaths, much less the deaths of those who’d sworn their hearts and minds to her?”

In a sense that had been my greatest gift to her. She was at last beyond the veil she had always wished to peer though but which her position as a Neoteric Lord would have forever denied her. It was my curse upon her that what had passed beyond the veil could no longer understand the gift she’d been granted, nor why she’d striven to reach it for so long.

Someday I would see her again. I wasn’t immortal and I had no desire to become so. Would I forgive her then? I had no idea. I definitely wasn’t ready to yet, but I’d loved her once so clearly I was fool enough to do almost anything.

 “She’s spending a lot of time not doing what she came here to do. Do you think we should let her continue?” Inhibition asked.

“If she didn’t spend ninety percent of her time in her head, we would get lonely,” Beauty said, which wasn’t why I let myself get lost in my thoughts so much. It was just so much nicer to think about things than to actually do them.

This isn’t something you need to rush, Diyas whispered to me. If you’re not ready yet, then let yourself take the time you need.

I can’t, I said, speaking only to her. Vitor will start to suspect if I don’t choose a candidate soon.

Vitor thinks his sister is mad. Erratic behavior will provoke his annoyance, but not his suspicion. Diyas was right about that. I knew it. But I also knew I had to act sooner than later.

Why?

Why?

Because I am afraid to.

Communion is an act of faith. Sharing what is true about ourselves, even when that truth doesn’t do us credit. It’s a dangerous thing to have faith in other people. Malgenia proved that the communion we offer can be twisted against us to the most horrible of ends.

But with my god? For as willing as I am to push back on her, that communion, that honesty had to underlay everything else about our relationship.

Because I’m afraid to do this, I said. I’m afraid to become what she was, and I know if I let myself give into that fear, I’m going to collapse into a ball so tiny and dense that I’ll never be able to do anything but run away from all the things I saw her do. All the things I could do.

Pushing forward for yourself may be what you need, I ask only that you listen and give yourself the grace you give to me.

You’re a god.

And you are my Blessed. The Blessed of Healing. Accept that you need healing as much as anyone does.

Isn’t that a miracle you can just give me?

All healing is miraculous, but some takes longer, and some will only happen if you let it.

Someday, maybe in some other world, things will be that simple.

I didn’t say that Diyas. Arguing with one’s god was occasionally productive but I knew down into Malgenia’s bones that it would not be in this case.

“So are you going to tell her today?” Inhibition asked. She wasn’t referring to Diyas. She was talking about Death of Responsibility, whom I had been studiously avoiding staring at.

Sometimes Malgenia’s airy disconnection from reality was quite handy. Avoiding Responsibility though was something I could only do for so long.

“What would you wish be done with the illustration you are making of me,” I asked Death of Clarity.

What?

I couldn’t just walk up to Responsibility and drag her away. Malgenia always moved in languid circuitous circles around every idea and whim she had. At least when it was convenient for her, so who was I to pass up a similar convenience.

“It will not be worthy of you My Lady,” Clarity said, her eyes downcast and affixed on the sketch pad in front of her.

“It only matters that it be worthy of you,” I said, as though there was any doubt it would would be.

We’d studied historical artists a few years earlier. Our instructor had broken down the techniques of the great masters of the unfallen world and had shown us the masterpieces which Malgenia retained for her personal viewing pleasure. I’m not going to say that each and every one of them were talentless hacks by comparison to Clarity, but I would have flushed every one of their great works down a sewer drain before I would have given up one of Clarity’s hastiest sketches. 

“May my hands reflect as much of your glory as they can hold,” Clarity said, notably not answering my question, because we weren’t really meant to give direct answers to Malgenia when a show of deference and devotion could be made instead.

Had Malgenia ever gotten tired of that? I hadn’t seen memories to suggest either alternative but I had to imagine she had. I’d been listening to statements like that for less than a hundredth of the time she had and I was already sick of them.

“Be honest, you were sick of statements like that even before they were directed at you,” Reason said and I couldn’t argue with her, though I would have done so without reservation when I was living my own life.

“Your hands are a delight and a gift beyond measure,” I said. “They will never fail you.”

It was a very Malgenia sort of thing to say, which I dearly hoped would cover up the true ardor which lay behind the words.

“Show me the image when it is fully rendered,” I said. “You need not wait for me. This is your invitation.”

Meaning Clarity was free to seek me out whenever she felt she’d completed the piece she was working on. Which she wouldn’t do despite how much I wished she would. Malgenia’s presence was a dire aura to be held within. We all craved its touch but it was so intense, even spread among all her Deaths, that we couldn’t bear it for long. The prospect of facing it alone daunted almost all of us, and while Clarity was many wonderful things, a glory seeker was not one of them.

I rose from the seat I’d taken on one of the tree roots to pose for Clarity’s drawing and moved to inspect both the arboretum and the passions I’d commanded the Deaths to pursue.

Many of the Deaths were reading. Filling our heads with knowledge wasn’t a universal pursuit among the Deaths but was a predominant pastime for many of them. Of the remainder, most of the rest were engaged in various physical endeavors; complicated games of hunter and prey, distance running, wrestling, and the ever-popular magical duels. In truth most of the Deaths who were reading were studying topics which would enhance their arcane repertoires, but more than a few were ready for more practical tests of their capabilities.

Responsibility was not one of them though. She was part of the small group of Deaths who pursued their passion through meditation.

I’d asked Responsibility about that once, since I had never found meditation to do anything except leave me with nothing to quiet the storm of voices in my head (and that was before there had been literal other voices sharing the space with me). Her response had baffled me then and continued to baffle me.

“We don’t look for silence and stillness in meditation. We look for action and resolve and where peace ends.”

I tried punching her in the face a week after that while she was meditating and that had not been a brilliant idea. I mean, I got the hit in but just the one. It was a month an half before the last of the bruises faded away. Apparently helping her find where peace ended was not what she had been looking for.

Part of me was entertained by the idea of greeting her like that again, but the rest of me found the idea revolting. Hitting her when she was free to hit me back was one thing. Hitting her as Malgenia was so wrong it was nauseating.

So I did something even worse to her.

“Hello my Death, will you walk with me?” I asked her. She wasn’t mine of course, but Malgenia rarely addressed us by our given names.

“Me My Lady?” she asked, eyes snapping open and a flicker of abject surprise rippling across her face.

“Hmm, yes, I do believe so,” I said, as though I was tasting the idea to see if it remained palatable.

“Of course My Lady,” she said rising to her feet so quickly she nearly cracker her head on an overhanging branch. 

I began walking, leading us away from the other Deaths, much to their nervously repressed dismay. We were all terrified of Malgenia appearing but her departures were far worse. The absent sun leaving our lives to wallow in the darkness of her absence.

Responsibility kept up with me, walking two paces behind me as an unthinking show of deference. The arboretum wasn’t large, according to Malgenia’s definition of large, but we were still able to wind among it’s trees for a quarter of an hour before we came to one of the many fountain features where water summoned across the planes was piped in to sustain life on our dead world.

I spent a few minutes at the fountain, swirling my fingers across it’s surface lightly and tuning out the Deaths in my head before turning to Responsibility, who I’d left waiting pensively behind me.

“Oh. Yes, you. I believe you are ready.” It was the same speech Malgenia had given to me and I had the rest of it burned into my mind, ready to go with perfect inflection and timing, except for the unthinkable occurrence which transpired.

Responsibility interrupted me.

“I am so sorry My Lady,” she said, standing firm, and defiant, and completely terrified. “But I am not.”

“We should be considered the quality of the departed populations in the areas we will affirm our control over.”

“The quality? Tallgrim we have already discussed population size, species mixture, and the residual degree of devotion which can be extracted by each of us given our alignment with the regions we control. What other quality would you have us consider?”

“I believe Tallgrim is speaking of the piety the dead souls which will infuse our domains. He’s, would it be fair to say ‘concerned’, or perhaps expectant?”

“Expectant of what? The dead will be dead.”

“Yes but they will…”

“They won’t Tallgrim.”

“I assure you Malgenia with that many souls liberated at once and with no afterlife for them to proceed to? They will, they absolutely will, exert a sizable aetheric influence on our lands.”

“How sizable?”

“Sizable that they might be enough to call a second Plunderer into our existence, Vaingloth.”

“No. They  will not.”

“And you say this why Malegenia?”

“Because Tallgrim’s vision of our future is incomplete.”

“Is it now? Then pray tell us all what I have not accounted for.”

“Why, me of course.”

“As puissant as you are, I believe a world’s death may prove to be more than you can enspell on your own. Is it not likely Tallgrim is correct and you will require the aid from one or all of us to balance the influx out?”

“I shall not.”

“But your people, your city, they would…”

“What people? What city? You all have been busy dividing up the world between us, but have I asked for any principality of my own? Have I shared any plans for the population I will preserve? Do you imagine preservation is something I seek at all?”

“Oh, uh, no. No, I suppose not.”

“Without a city, where will…”

“I shall reside with my brother.”

“You will? But we haven’t…”

“Would any of you feel safe enough not to attack me if I was left on unsupervised on my own?”

“…”

“There is still the matter that holding the dead of the world is beyond anyone, no matter how talented they might be.”

“Yes. That is true Tallgrim. Which is why I shall not be holding any of them. You say there will be no more afterlife, and that is partly true. While you all scavenge the pieces of our dearly departed deities, I will collect the pieces of the underworld. I shall not have a city because I shall not need one. The living I leave to you, and the dead you shall leave to me.”

– High Accessors Tallgrim, Vaingloth, Malgenia, and Vitor at the Neoteric cabal’s meeting where the minor details of the end of the world were debated.

I liked meeting with my Deaths. It wasn’t always easy, but we’d been friends since I was able to form words and pass the first tests our teachers had put before me, so avoiding the Deaths would have been unthinkable. 

Well, most of them.

Death of Clarity was lovely and I would use all of Malgenia power to smite anyone who spoke poorly of her, but Death of Responsibility and I had a bit of a rockier history. I mean, I loved her too, in theory, but that hadn’t stopped either of us from seriously trying to kill the other on a number of occasions.  Certainly we always made up afterwards, but she presented a unique challenge in terms of maintaining the facade that I was our beloved Neoteric Lord and not the girl who’d once submerged Responsibility’s head in a bathtub until Responsibility had passed out. In my defense, I’d thought I’d successfully drowned her and had only discovered my error when she’d woken and hit me with a pipe wrench hard enough to fracture my skull.

How is that a defense?

I’m not sure Insight means for us to take her seriously Beauty.

I ask again, how in the Fallen Heavens was SHE the one Diyas found a bound with?

What? No quips about how broken my brain is? I really shouldn’t have to provide my own punchlines, but thus went the life of an ersatz Neoteric Lord.

If you respond, you know it will just encourage her. Death of Reason wasn’t wrong there, but Beauty clearly knew that I was going to continue as I was, encouragement or no.

“My Lady! You have returned to us!!” Death of Contemplation drew me out of my overcrowded head with her gleeful announcement. She also drew the attention of all of the other Deaths who were presently studying in the Arboretum.

“Lady Malgenia!” they shouted in a chorus I almost joined by reflex.

As a Neoteric Lord, Malgenia had many tasks and responsibilities which demanded her attention and so could only spare fleeting moments for her most precious of daughters.

Or so we’d been told.

In truth, from what I could find in Malgenia’s memories, and what I’d seen demanded of my time on a day-to-day basis, Malgenia could have spent years basking in the undivided attention and adoration of her principal food-sources and had simply chosen not to, despite the bliss it induced in those who’d been selected to serve serve as eventual sacrifices to sustain her existence.

It wasn’t that she felt any guilt or remorse at our eventual fates either. From what I could tell she legitimately was fascinated with each and every one of us. Which wasn’t too surprising. If Malgenia had found any of her Deaths wanting, or even simply uninteresting, Vitor made sure they were ‘decommissioned’ and replaced with a more suitable candidate.

Given the fact that Malgenia’s immortality was rather different from the other Neoteric Lords, I had to concede that Vitor’s actions were at least self-consistent given the complete absence of moral or ethical boundaries required to become a Neoteric Lord.

“Is it to be a test today My Lady?”

“Will we be performing for you My Lady?”

“Shall we feed you My Lady”

“Do you wish us to leave you in peace My Lady?”

“May we tell the others of your arrival My Lady?”

Yeah. That’s how we all spoke. It’s how I would still be speaking if not for the whole thing where Malgenia had killed me.

She says that like it makes her special.

To be fair Beauty, it does. It just doesn’t make anything remotely close to unique.

I continue to question whether we can really call this death. It was an argument Reason had raised several times, and I had to admit it was a convincing one on a theoretical and practical level, but then I remember exactly how awful what Malgenia had done to me was, and what I’d done to her in response and, well, ‘killed’ and ‘dead’ were much simpler and more pleasant terms to describe what had happened, so I was sticking with them.

“You may follow your passions my flowers,” I said, hoping my repetition of Malgenia’s frequent saying was convincing enough.

How could it not be?

Okay, points for Beauty there. The Deaths where highly trained in many arts, but ‘questioning Malgenia in any manner whatsoever’ was decidedly not one of them.

The Deaths in the arboretum nodded, each beaming with earnestly felt glee and scampered back their current projects consumed by excitement at a chance to show off whatever they’d learned since I’d last visited them.

Or at least it had been how it was for me. I was praying to any god fragments who would listen that one or more of the Deaths would be more sensible than I was.

They’re hiding it well if so, Diyas said, which shouldn’t have been comforting but given that she hadn’t ruled out the possibility it meant that some hope remained.

So, who am I going to kill out of this lot? I asked my mental chorus and Diyas.

None of them, we all know that, Beauty answered, because Beauty has made it her job to not let me get away with any dramatics at all.

For which, I was more grateful than I ever let her know.

Pretending to be Malgenia is easy after all the time I spent worshipping her. Easy enough that slipping into her thought patterns seems dangerously likely. What the world specifically did not need was another Malgenia to rise in the place of the one we’d cast down. 

Avoiding her thought patterns is dangerous too though, since it anyone more observant than my Deaths were to notice a significant slip up, they’d start asking uncomfortable questions like ‘who are you really’ and ‘what have you done with my sister’ and ‘would you like to end what little is left of the world or shall I just destroy you utterly like the martyr you were supposed to be’?

You know.

Fun sibling stuff like that.

She really doesn’t want to do this does she? Inhibition asked, which drew a hum of agreement from the other Deaths in my head and silent interest from Diyas.

Okay. No. I don’t. I admitted. 

I’d sunk into ‘Malgenia mode’ because it was what the still-living Deaths expected and because she wouldn’t have taken this seriously.

When she’d picked me out as the next candidate for Assumption, Malgenia hadn’t put me through any special exam, or shown all that much interest in the selection. She’d wandered into our dormitory one day, glanced around and said something like “that one seems especially luminous”. I hadn’t been glowing, or particularly well put together, having been woken up by Death of Literacy dashing into the room two minutes before that, but it hadn’t mattered. From that moment forward my fate had been sealed.

A month of preparation with the others, a month of solitude with Malgenia, and an hour all alone before the ceremony. That had been how my old life had ended and it was the window we would have save the next victim of Malgenia’s hunger for endless life.

Or I could just die myself.

Except you can’t, Reason reminded me unnecessarily.

Because refusing to take another life would expose my deception and would lead to, among other thing, all of the Deaths being ‘decommissioned’. 

Oh, and killing me would unleash the necromantic aether Malgenia had stored up. Which would do more than kill the few people who still remained on our destroyed world. Malgenia had gathered up all the souls who’d died in the Sunfall and all the energy their deaths had released (or rather all the energy which hadn’t been consumed by the Beast). She’d then spent several lifetimes gathering up any deaths the other Neoterics overlooked, which, it turned out, was rather a lot of them. Enough that, without a commensurate amount of life aether to balance it, the physical structure of the world would die if it was all released at once.

So, in theory, I could kill one girl every couple of years, or I could kill the world. 

Great choices right? Definitely a splendid idea to replace the Neoteric Lord who’d been doing the job originally. I wasn’t hating my life choices at all.

“Might I draw you My Lady?” Death of Clarity asked and my attention was firmly removed from spiraling around inside my own head.

“That would be delightful,” I choked out, struggling to make the words sound as unencumbered as I could. It was hard to be around Clarity. I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t speak to her. Not like I had before. It hurt so much. She’d been a friend when I didn’t deserve one. She was so gentle and she loved us all despite our myriad flaws and foibles.

Malgenia’s Assumption ritual would proceed flawlessly with her, Diyas said and I very nearly burned out our bond in a flash of hatred.

Except I knew what she was really saying. Gods are funny like that. If they mean something, they can make that meaning staggeringly clear if they want to.

Because I love her, I said. Because the prospect of joining together into one life is something both of us would accept.

You wouldn’t even need to consume her soul like Malgenia would have. She could join your chorus, no matter how self aware she was.

Despite how her words sounded, Diyas wasn’t encouraging me to pick Clarity. 

She was reminding me what I needed to fight against. 

The ritual couldn’t proceed as it had. Not again.

We needed a new answer.

The ritual would work too well if it was someone I loved, which meant I knew exactly which of the Deaths I had to pick.

Across the room and behind a lovely pair of stonefruit trees, Death of Responsibility sat, watching me with eyes that were going to hold just a hint of horror before the day was out.

“So tell me sister, what do you really think of Vaingloth’s proposal?”

“Why it’s the most depraved bit of heresy one could imagine is it not brother?”

“Well that all depends I suppose. He never did outright say he intends to betray the gods, did he?”

“But then he did not need to. Not with the bait he offered.”

“Bait tailor-made to your interests I believe?”

“And yours. He seems well versed in our fields of devotion.”

“Worrisome?”

“Highly.”

“So we will deny him.”

“You believe we have that choice?”

“He may own many and more souls, but not ours.”

“Not our souls, but perhaps our hearts? I saw the gleam in your eye when he hypothesized about a world bereft of divine limitations. Tell me, did you start plotting your first experiments the moment he broached the idea or have you waited until now to allow ideas to start percolating before your mind’s eye?”

“As though the prospect of death on so grand a scale failed to capture your attention.”

“A whole world, or as close as matters, and then an eternity of liberating souls and doing with them as I pleased? Do you know why he came to us?”

“Because he must bring the other High Accessors on board or his plan will die stillborn in the womb of his mind as he dies on a pyre of divine retribution?”

“Not at all. In fact, he will not approach many other High Accessors. A score, or perhaps only a dozen if he is properly paranoid. No, we were specially selected.”

“And why would that be dear sister?”

“Because if I had caught of wind of this and he had failed to include me, I would have killed everyone else involved.”

“You would have contested with a dozen other High Accessors?”

“No. Of course not. I wouldn’t have risked a contest. I simply would have killed them.”

– High Accessors Vitor and Malgenia deciding to join Vaingloth’s cabal to overthrow the gods.

My people love me and I wish to all the absent gods that they wouldn’t.

That’s not a wish that I’m supposed to have. Not when “my” city was purpose built to provide me with an adoring populace I can slaughter at will. I’m supposed to be blissfully content. Should I show signs of not being perfectly blissful or perfectly content people begin to worry. Important people. People who are afraid I would kill them in an instant despite the tiny, inconvenient little fact that the moment they discovered why I was neither blissful, nor content, any one of them would end me before I could form a single thought.

That is but one of the many problems with being a Neoteric Lord it turns out.

To be fair, many people would take exception to that complaint, and they would be entirely correct in their opinion of my complaints validity. Neoteric Lords live with comfort and security undreamt of nearly anyone in the history of the world. They are inviolate and supremely sovereign. Eternal forces able to sculpt the remains of a dead world into whatever form them desire.

So why then, you might wonder, am I trapped in a charnel house of deranged martyrs who are subject to my every whim? 

Because of all the Neoteric Lords, my hands are the bloodiest.

“She’s being dramatic again,” Death of Beauty said, her voice firmly inside my head though she wasn’t making any attempt to pitch me over the edge of the balcony I was perched on.

“Thank you for the update. I imagine she’s also breathing too, and perhaps it is dark outside?” Death of Inhibition said from the other side of my Very Private Very Personal Sanctum. She wasn’t really there of course – but projecting outside the confines of my head kept us all as close to sanity as we could claim to be.

“I’m not being dramatic! I’m speaking the unvarnished truth, these hands have killed a lot of people!” I said, dramatically and with dire and overwrought emphasis.

“Yes but they weren’t exactly yours when they were tearing hearts from test subjects or vivisecting the living were they?” Beauty asked. “Any more than they were mine when she decided that she lacked an understanding of how the Broken Spirits destroy the mortals they encounter.”

“Don’t try to take her crimes onto yourself Death of Insight, you don’t want to get into a misery competition with the rest of us,” Death of Reason said. “I promise you I will win.”

I liked Reason. She had a unique gift for making me feel completely terrified of what she might do despite the fact that she was as much a ghost as any of the rest of us.

Oh, you’re ghosts now? I suppose that puts you beyond the bounds of my blessing. I guess I will begin drifting in the aetheric tides until a new Blessed emerges to carry my essence.

That was Diyas.

My god.

Holder of the domains of Healing and Life.

And even more of a drama hound than I am.

“It’s such a waste that one of us couldn’t carry you instead”, Beauty said.

“Indeed, but it does mean we are spared a whole host of unpleasantries,” Inhibition said.

“What could be worse than being trapped with our eternally teenaged sister?” Beauty asked.

“Pick any moment from before we met her,” Reason said.

“Or, most likely, any moment from the next five minutes,” Inhibition said.

“Wait, what’s in the next five minutes?” I asked. My head was pretty full, what with there being a half dozen or so of Malgenia’s other sacrifices living in there, not to mention almost all of a fairly major god.

Only ‘fairly major’?

Would you prefer I describe you as the most powerful and expansive and amazing deity to every hold dominion over the world? 

Ick, no. 

I didn’t think so. So let me stick with ‘fairly major’. I’ve already thrown off the programming to worship one overly powerful person in my life, I don’t think I can truly be in communion with you if I let myself fall back into that sort of worship again.

I do so enjoy our chats. I’ve never had a mortal worship me best by not worshipping me at all. I think I’ll keep you.

With that spiritual crisis averted, I turned my thoughts back to Death of Inhibition’s oblique warning. My attempt to wrack my brain for the memory of what fate might be impeding for me was interrupted by said fate hitting my door with a few perfunctory knocks before strolling into my Personal and Private Sanctum with the sort of distracted nonchalance that only one person in the world was capable of possessing.

My brother.

Or, her brother really.

“Vitor, isn’t the sky a lovely shade today?”

“It’s the same shade it’s been for centuries now Malgenia,” he said without looking up from the papers he was carrying.

“Of course it is. That’s what makes its lovely.”

I wasn’t crazy. 

Okay, that might be stretching the truth a bit.

I wasn’t the sort of crazy I was portraying myself to be. 

I was Malgenia’s sort of…well crazy isn’t the right term for it. She was perfectly in control of her mental faculties, she simply chose to present herself as being more detached from reality than she truly was. 

As best as I could tell from rummaging around in her old memories, it was a defense mechanism. She was mostly just bored and enjoyed the discomfort her adopted persona inspired in people. That her brother and fellow Neoteric Lord had grown used to her oddness meant that I was locked into being odd as well, at least for as long as I wanted him to think Malgenia was still the one driving around her body.

“You have another Assumption coming up next year don’t you?” Vitor asked, ignoring me exactly and precisely as I hoped he would.

“Do I?” I asked. I absolutely did, and I absolutely had no intention of going through with it, but that wasn’t why Malgenia would have said what I did.

Where the impending Assumption represented a murder I was willing to kill to prevent committing (yes, I know), for Malgenia it was a triviality of almost no importance.

I mean, true, Assumptions were the means by which she maintained her immortality, and she did spend years picking out the most properly worshipful of her hand grown crop of acolytes, but the death of just one person? Far beneath the notice of the Death Touch Neoteric Lord.

“Have you picked one yet?” Vitor asked, still buried in his reports.

What was so important that he couldn’t spare a glance at his own sister? Well, I was dying to know, but showing any of that would have changed me to simply “dying” so Malgenia’s distant disinterest remained firmly in place.

“Does it matter?” I asked, slumping against the balcony’s railing as though the effort of asking the question had completely exhausted me.

I knew my Malgenia performance was convincing by the low growl of frustration it drew from Vitor and the fact that he finally looked up from his reports at me.

“Is it…yes, it’s important! You know you need to make sure there’s a compatible Death to draw on. If one of those little leeches isn’t willing to accept you…”

“If one of my flowers refuses me, I will simply take another, and another, and another. It was delightful to see them fall like that, one after the other.” Was I putting on too much of a performance? Was I giving away my real feelings for Malgenia by exaggerating how awful she was?

No.

Not in the slightest.

If anything I probably needed to be more terrible, but there was limits to what I could manage even as a deception.

Vitor groaned at my performance, having expected something of the sort before he even knocked I was sure.

“Your ‘flowers’ are not easy to create you know.”

“Am I not the most lovable of the Lords?” Even Malgenia would have drenched those words in sarcasm so I didn’t hold back either.

“No.” Vitor didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. We were both monsters and we both knew it.

Ahem? Care to rephrase that? Diyas wasn’t asking a question or making a suggestion. She really didn’t like it when I blurred the line between what I’d done and what Malgenia had been responsible for.

Which was, I had to admit, smart.

“See, she’s not always overly dramatic,” Reason said.

“Give her time,” Beauty said, reserving judgment.

“So you need me to pick a flower to pluck,” I asked, distracting myself from the chorus in my head and mollifying Vitor, to a degree. “What sort of flower should it be.”

“I don’t care. Just pick a compatible one. One compatible one. We don’t want a repeat of your last misadventure.”

“Why I thought it was a delightful diversion,” I said and exerted heroic effort to resist vomiting on the floor from the intensity of the lie.

“Three flowers gone, and you barely functional for a month afterwards? That was delightful to you?” Vitor asked, genuinely annoyed I thought. “Mal, we almost lost you there. You cannot take this as something frivolous. Assumptions are the foundation of your eternal life. Need I stress the ‘eternal’ part? One close call like that in two centuries is one more than we can afford. This next Assumption and all the ones that follow from now on need to be simple and easy.”

“And fun?” I asked, perking up. Malgenia was a role I’d studied for years and so her mood shifts were as easy to simulate as they were to predict.

I’d loved that about her once.

Sort of shame my change of heart on the matter had been what one might call dramatic.

I felt the collective groan from my mental chorus, Diyas included, and let the smile at that beam out towards Vitor.

He was in a difficult spot. On the one hand, refusing Malgenia a chance at “fun” was going to produce a cranky Malgenia, and literally no one, mortal, Neoteric, or god wanted that. On the other hand, allowing Malgenia her “fun” was likely to produce the exact sort of results Vitor had excellent reasons to strive to avoid.

“Provisionally,” he replied, choosing the path of tact and greatest safety.

And then he fled.

A few centuries, it seemed, were capable of imbuing wisdom even into someone thick headed enough to become a Neoteric Lord.

With his departure though I was left with a challenge.

“Finding someone else to be even more absurdly dramatic too?” Beauty asked.

“Finally putting together a plan for how we can escape before Vitor inevitably figures out that none of us are the sister he’s known for centuries?” Inhibition asked.

“It certainly won’t be exploring the nigh bottomless reservoir of power Malgenia left us with access to,” Reason said, smug only because she was absolutely correct.

“No. Vitor was right,” I said, which disgusted them as much as it disgusted me. “I need to pick the next girl who’s going to die for me, and then I need to somehow convince her not to.”