Blessing

He began to chant and weave spells that reached the trees and curled around the many Gods...

THERE WERE A hundred Gods in the grove, but only three of them remembered their names. They were Gods from all centuries and nations. There were Gods of the sea and earth and sky and stars, and strange God-beasts that had no names in the tongues of men. There were Gods that had no form, and Gods that had human form, or animal form, or both.

The oldest ones were weathered lumps of rock or dust that had all but passed away where once had been towering monoliths and monuments where their people had bowed before them. 

But now their people were gone and many of the Gods slept against the advance of time. They had kept their watch on this holy grove for a thousand years and none would disturb them. 

But one day, a man came. 

He was tall and lean and gray and had a face like a toad. He stood before Mother Ghar, and said in a loud voice:

“I have tried to find this grove for a long time, oh Gods. I have tracked your names through the ages, and how you moved throughout the nations and empires. A God among you once blessed me with life, life for a hundred centuries, and now I suffer in endless pain. My time, and life, are almost over. A hundred centuries are too slow a time, and I die even slower. But before the end I will destroy you, oh Gods, for the curse you have brought on me, and pass away into time.” 

But the Gods said nothing, and the wind whispered like spiders among the trees. 

He began to chant, low and long, and weave spells that reached the trees and curled around the many Gods.

“You have felled trees and burned cities, oh man of Roc,” said a voice like birdsong among the trees, and the man of Roc knew that it was Mother Ghar. “But we are Gods, and we do not change, even through the ages, and the empires, and the kings. You will not find what you seek here.”  

“I have seen many things,” the man of Roc said. “I have watched the feeble light of many Suns wither and die. I have seen the destruction of many empires, many men. Old Earth, Charys, V’oz, Khuzeth, as time and time again men skipped worlds only to die in the next. Life and death. Life and death. But not me!” 

His face twisted, and now he looked like grasshopper. 

“Now I will see the Gods themselves die.”

He began to chant, low and long, and weave spells that reached the trees and curled around the many Gods. The chants of old nations and older times filled the grove which had not heard them for eons. Fire grew from his palms, and lightning flashed as the man tried to topple time itself. 

But They began to wake. The sleeping Gods that had not woken for hundreds of thousands of years. The Jackal-headed giant raised his great head, and opened his yellow eyes. He remembered his name. 

“I am Nyet,” He said aloud, and whispered it again and again. The God with the seven heads of a snake stirred and hissed. The God who had no form that men could describe trembled and knew and stretched. All throughout the grove Gods rose from thrones, and remembered. 

But the man of Roc did not know what it was he had done, and kept chanting. And then Nyet spoke, and the man quaked from the raw power in his voice. 

“We thank you, oh man, you of the hundred centuries. You have awakened us. You have taught us what it is to be free again, and for that we bless you.” 

And all the other voices joined to his to shake the ground. 

The man of the hundred centuries fell to his knees. 

“And so we will bless you, mortal,” said Nyet. “We will give you that which man has sought after for millennium. No more will you live for a hundred centuries only to die.” 

The man was cowering, trying to crawl away. Nyet spoke on. 

“You shall have eternal life. You shall be one of the Undying. We, the Gods of heaven and earth, bless you this way.”

Mother Ghar whispered through the trees, and her voice came to the man. 

“You shall never again come to this grove. You shall have your own land, to rule as you see fit. But you shall never again converse with the Gods. Farewell, immortal. Your empire awaits.”

The man stretched out his hand toward her, imploring. “No. Please. No. Please…” he whispered.

The man screamed as he disappeared. Once. Hopelessly. 

Then all was quiet again, and the green Gods kept their wood.