The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

First Sibling, as usual delighted by anything new, urged her to do far more. However, the woman found that she had developed a taste for some of Second Siblings order. She incorporated First Siblings suggestions, but gradually, purposefully, observing how each minute change triggered others, sometimes causing growth in unexpected and wonderful ways. Sometimes the changes destroyed everything, forcing her to start over. She mourned the loss of her toys, her treasures, but she always began the process again. Like First Siblings darkness and Second Siblings light, this particular gift was something only she could master. The compulsion to do it was as essential to her as breathing, as much a part of her as her own soul.

Second Sibling, once he got over his annoyance at her tinkering, asked her about it. It is called life, she said, liking the sound of the word. He smiled, pleased, for to name a thing is to give it order and purpose, and he understood then that she had done so to offer him respect.

But it was to First Sibling that she went for help with her most ambitious experiment. First Sibling was, as she had expected, eager to assistbut to her surprise, there was a sober warning as well. If this works, it will change many things. You realize that, dont you? Nothing in our lives will ever be the same. First Sibling paused, waiting to see that she understood, and abruptly she did. Second Sibling did not like change.

Nothing can stay the same forever, she said. We were not made to be still. Even he must realize that.

First Sibling only sighed and said no more.

The experiment worked. The new life, mewling and shaking and uttering vehement protests, was beautiful in its unfinished way, and the woman knew that what she had begun was good and right. She named the creature Sieh, because that was the sound of the wind. And she called his type of being a child, meaning that it had the potential to grow into something like themselves, and meaning, too, that they could create more of them.

And as always with life, this minute change triggered many, many others. The most profound of them was something even she had not anticipated: they became a family. For a time, they were all happy with thateven Second Sibling.

But not all families last.

* * *

So there was love, once.

More than love. And now there is more than hate. Mortals have no words for what we gods feel. Gods have no words for such things.

But love like that doesnt just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath.

Yes. Horrible, isnt it?

* * *

When the body suffers an assault, it often reacts with a fever. Assaults to the mind can have the same effect. Thus I lay shivering and insensible for the better part of three days.

A few moments from this time appear in my memory as still-life portraits, some in color and some in shades of gray. A solitary figure standing near my bedroom window, huge and alert with inhuman vigilance. Zhakkarn. Blink and the same image returns in negative: the same figure, framed by glowing white walls and a black rectangle of night beyond the window. Blink and there is another image: the old woman from the library standing over me, peering carefully into my eyes. Zhakkarn stands in the background, watching. A thread of conversation, disconnected from any image.

If she dies

Then we start over. Whats a few more decades?

Nahadoth will be displeased.

A rough, rueful laugh. You have a great gift for understatement, sister.

Sieh, too.

That is Siehs own fault. I warned him not to get attached, the little fool.

Silence for a moment, full of reproach. There is nothing foolish about hope.

Silence in reply, though this silence feels faintly of shame.

One of the images in my head is different from the others. This one is dark again, but the walls, too, have gone dark, and there is a feeling to the image, a sense of ominous weight and pressure and low, gathering rage. Zhakkarn stands away from the window this time, near a wall.

Her head is bowed in respect. In the foreground stands Nahadoth, gazing down at me in silence. Once again his face has transformed, and I understand now that this is because Itempas can only control him so much. He must change; he is Change. He could allow me to see his fury, for it weighs the very air, making my skin itch. Instead he is expressionless. His skin has turned warm brown and his eyes are layered shades of black, and his lips make me crave soft, ripe fruit. The perfect face for seducing lonely Darre girlsthough it would work better if his eyes held any warmth.

He says nothing that I recall. When my fever breaks at last and I awaken, he is gone and the weight of rage has liftedthough it never goes away entirely. That, too, Bright Itempas cannot control.

* * *

Dawn.