The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - By N. K. Jemisin Page 0,130

air. I had never realized, before now, what it meant to live in a universe that had lost one-third of itself. The Gods War had cost us so much more than mere lives.

No more, I vowed.

Around me the chaos had stopped. I did not want to talk, to think, but a sense of responsibility pushed insistently against my reverie. At last I sighed and focused on my surroundings.

To my left stood three shining creatures, stronger than the rest, more malleable in form. I recognized in them an essence of myself. They stared at me, weapons frozen in hand or on claw, mouths agape. Then one of them moulded himself into a different shapea childand came forward. His eyes were wide. M-Mother?

That was not my name. I would have turned away in disinterest had it not occurred to me that this would hurt him. Why did that matter? I didnt know, but it bothered me.

So instead I said, No. On impulse, I reached out to stroke his hair. His eyes got even wider, then spilled over with tears. He pulled away from me then, covering his face. I did not know what to make of this behavior, so I turned to the others.

Three more to my rightor rather, two, and one dying. Also shining creatures, though their light was hidden within them, and their bodies were weaker and crude. And finite. The dying one expired as I watched, too many of his organs having been damaged to sustain life. I felt the rightness of their mortality even as I mourned it.

What is this? demanded one of them. The younger one, the female. Her gown and hands were splattered with her brothers blood.

The other mortal, old and close to death himself, only shook his head, staring at me.

Then suddenly two more creatures stood before me, and I caught my breath at the sight. I could not help myself. They were so beautiful, even beyond the shells they wore to interact with this plane. They were part of me, kin, and yet so very different. I had been born to be with them, to bridge the gap between them and complete their purpose. To stand with them nowI wanted to throw back my head and sing with joy.

But something was wrong. The one who felt like light and stillness and stabilityhe was whole, and glorious. Yet there was something unwholesome at his core. I looked closer and perceived a great and terrible loneliness within him, eating at his heart like a worm in an apple. That sobered me, softened me, because I knew what that kind of loneliness felt like.

The same blight was in the other being, the one whose nature called to everything dark and wild. But something more had been done to him; something terrible. His soul had been battered and crushed, bound with sharp-edged chains, then forced into a too-small vessel. Constant agony. He had gone down on one knee, staring at me through dull eyes and lank, sweat-soaked hair. Even his own panting caused him pain.

It was an obscenity. But a greater obscenity was the fact that the chains, when I followed them to their source, were part of me. So were three other leashes, one of which led to the neck of the creature who had called me Mother.

Revolted, I tore the chains away from my chest and willed them to shatter.

The three creatures to my left all gasped, folding in on themselves as power returned to them. Their reaction was nothing, however, compared to that of the dark being. For an instant he did not move, only widening his eyes as the chains loosened and fell away.

Then he flung his head back and screamed, and all existence shifted. On this plane, this manifested as a single, titanic concussion of sound and vibration. All sight vanished from the world, replaced by a darkness profound enough to drive weaker souls mad if it lasted for more than a heartbeat. It passed even more quickly than that, replaced by something new.

Balance: I felt its return like the setting of a dislocated joint. Out of Three had the universe been formed. For the first time in an age, Three walked again.

When all was still, I saw that my dark one was whole. Where once restless shadows had flickered in his wake, now he shone with an impossible negative radiance, black as the Maelstrom. Had I thought him merely beautiful before? Ah, but now there was no human flesh to filter his