The End of All That Was
Ash swirled about in clouds about the traveler’s feet as he walked. Ash carrying the remnants of long-damned souls and gods dead for an even longer time. Ash of men who before him had walked this path for the same reason he was.
The sacrifice of self.
Valkis stopped, standing atop a rocky outcropping. His steel-gray eyes peered across the ruined land, trying to make out his destination. Patiently, he waited and stared. After a few minutes, the red haze shifted enough the reveal it: The mountain, black and formidable, the place that he must reach…never to return from. The Catacomb of Gods. Contemplative, but not despairing, he crouched on his haunches. Across his back, the large sword of crude, serrated bone sat heavy. A foul wind slithered across his dust-speckled skin, his only covering an old hide over his loins and thighs, but nothing else. This journey required complete reliance on the Fates. Armor or any further protection besides what was necessary to reach the end was profanity.
Gnawing on a piece of leather-hard meat, Valkis thoughts again reverted back to the evening that his life ended. The priest, warg-skull grinning hideously over his face. The black blood poured over Valkis. The proclamation of him as the Kryztheon for this generation. Kryztheon: One-Who-Dies-So-Others-Live.
He didn’t resent his designation. Every generation, one was chosen. What was the life of one man, before his entire people? Yes, Valkis trekked to his death, but in that death, he secured the life of hundreds. Such was the way of the Quoradorians for the past five centuries. Shaking himself out of his reverie, Valkis rose, brushing his bone-white hair from his face. Wordlessly, the stoic traveler trekked onwards, down the slope and across the waste. The fiery eye of the sun scorched ruthlessly, the blood-red haze of the sky rippling in the heat. Valkis felt it. Sweat ran down his dirty body in rivulets, the dust hot and choking. Small wonder the only signs of life were long-dead trees, so old they were turning to stone.
The condemned marched on for hours in the infernal heat. It wasn’t until the gathering of shadows that heralded dusk that his thoughts turned from his purpose to that of finding shelter. Three days in, he knew that he wouldn’t survive if he stayed out at night. If the freezing cold didn’t kill him, he would surely lose himself pitch darkness, ushering in a frozen death in the outer dark.
The black chill encroaching as the sun died, Valkis found a small cave. Luckily, they pocketed the landscape in abundance. Like any other cave, it had rocky walls and a dirt floor. Nothing extraordinary. However, Valkis managed to find some ancient, long dead bracken in its recesses. Within minutes, the land outside had plunged to the thickest darkness, forcing Valkis to scrabble blindly with the brush, attempting to light a fire blind. Cursing his oversight, he was shivering from cold by the time he sparked a flame. Like a dying animal finding a place of refuge, he clung to the flame, nursing it and blowing on it until he had a proper blaze going.
Comforted, Valkis huddled next to the fire, soaking in its warmth. As hardened as he was, he could not escape the primal comfort a simple fire bestowed. In fact, Valkis was much more in tune with it. Unlike the Ancient empires of old, or even before them, the oft-fabled Mythics, he was undistracted by the trappings of comfort, learning, or leisure. Valkis was a man of this era, one of intense intimacy with the natural and primitive. One whose life hung on food, water, war, and fire. Fire was the guardian, the crackling watchman of the night. Fire was the god of the dark, man its acolyte, helpless without its light.
Outside, there was nothing. It often fascinated Valkis, the night. No matter how hard he stared, he never saw anything. It was like the mouth of some primordial demon yawned at the mouth of the cave, almost alive in its static stillness, unmoving and unblinking. The dark was subject only to the strongest of lights, and even then, merely an unwilling one. Before the night, man was a crawling thing, reduced to a slave before the bleakness. This was why Valkis both hated and revered it. It humbled him, yet offended the evolutionary instinct of man so alive in this era of ruin: He could not kill it, and that meant it was to be reviled and avoided.
All of this contemplation was beyond the ken of Valkis, however. All he saw was a force stronger than him. Even this observation, however, was cut short at the faint rustling that whispered in his ears. His head snapped to the side, eyes narrowed, survival instinct taking control. In the dancing shadows of the back of the cave, something moved. His muscles growing taught, he stood, sword in hand. He said nothing, cried out no battle-challenge. Whatever this was, it was no worthy foe, no enemy worthy of honorable combat. This was some sort of serpent, slinking in the back, trying to take him by surprise, as a coward would. Such foes were owed a swift, brutal death. Valkis stared into the flickering shadows, waiting, observing.
Slowly, a form came into focus. He saw a head, a torso, a skeletal arm. Valkis, his eyes not leaving the intruder, snatched a burning brand from the fire. Flinging it towards the back, he stared as the thing was fully revealed. For a moment, two primal instincts waged swift war in his soul. One, the instinct for survival, the urge to crush all threats before him. The other, that even deeper instinct to cower in fearful reverence before the otherworldly.
He stared at the thing, highlighted by the ghoulish reflections of the firelight. Jammed into a crevice in the rock, something between corpse and living man peered back at him. There were no legs or lower body to speak of. A ragged cloak hung loosely about its torso. Two arms, the flesh rotting and burned-looking, hung limply. Most of the muscle had decayed, and bone showed forth in many places. The skin on the fingers was almost gone. But its face was the most eldritch, like some demon glaring at him from the darkness. The skin, also burned, was pulled back, showing bone along the cheeks and jaw. Eyes were shriveled and yellowed, yet seemed to glow with an intensity and sense of knowing beyond Valkis’ comprehension. There was no hair, nose, or ears to speak of.
“Who are you, spirit?” Valkis demanded. Even if this be a demon or god, it was not his. He had decided he owed it no reverence.
The being shifted its head to see him better, a dull crackling sound accompanying the movement. “I am no spirit,” the being spoke, its voice a whispery rasp, “but I suppose that would make no difference to you.”
“Who are you?” Valkis demanded again, taking a step forward, ready to cleave the being in two.
The thing laughed weakly. “No one now. Once I was, but now I am not.”
“You speak in riddles,” Valkis growled, becoming angry at the incomprehensibility of the speaker.
“Maybe,” it replied, “But does it matter? You are the first person I’ve seen in centuries. I would have figured you had all died by now. It seems I was incorrect, to my dismay.”
“So, you are not a man?”
The thing made what appeared to be a shrug, but the best it could manage was a weak shift of the shoulders. “I do not even know what I am now. No one has seen me in ages, call me whatever you desire. Once, I was a man, but haven’t been for a very long time.”
“How long?” Valkis asked, feeling a growing interest.
“Time has long lost meaning to me,” the being replied bitterly, “but I can remember when the world was still green. Let that satisfy your question.”
Valkis blinked, taken back by the revelation. Even the oldest tribal elders could barely remember what their oldest elders had told of the world still being green, and even at that time they were largely believed to be fables.
“Did you witness the First Cataclysm?” Valkis inquired, lowering his blade.
The thing grunted, as if surprised. “Large word for someone like you to know. Yes,” it rasped, “I was born before it in fact. And before you pester me with more questions, yes, I have seen the empires of old. The Cadlarites, the Knights, all of them. Even more, I watched them die.”
The barbarian found himself speechless, his primal mind unable to process such timelessness. The names mentioned were the topic of legends among his people, believed in but nevertheless distant figures, unreachable in their status and age. But here, before him, was the husk of a man (if they had truly even been the same men as Valkis was) who had walked alongside these giants. In the silence of Valkis’s mind trying to comprehend, a shudder seemed to pass over the being. It shook, it eyes rolling back into its head, before falling seemingly dormant, slumping forward in the crevice it had been jammed in for centuries.
Unsure in his course of action, Valkis merely stared, pondering what to do. Above all, his current sacrificial journey was paramount. Nothing could get in the way. Whatever this man-demon was, it could serve as an impediment. And yet, amidst the primal forces within him, something slightly more sophisticated emerged, something usually reserved for mates and children: A feeling of pity.
This sensation bothered Valkis. Why he felt it for this man-demon was beyond him, yet its nagging at his mind was undeniable. With a decisive grunt, he decided to sleep on it. Slumber would surely bring him the answer. Curling up by the fire, he peered into the shadows where the being lay once more, before the security of the meager fire allowed him to sleep.
He rose before the night had fully dissipated, the only remnants of the fire being small bed of coals glimmering in the blackness. Trembling from the cold, Valkis forced the coals into flames again, using the last of the brush available. Warming himself, he gnawed on one of his last pieces of meat, the food rough and near-tasteless in his dusty mouth. His water bag was nearly empty. Sparingly, he drank only what was necessary. Taking a cautious sip, he pondered over what he should do as the sun began to peer over the distant horizon. Valkis could feel the presence of the man-demon, despite it making no movement or sound. Every instinct told him to leave it be, or better yet to destroy this eldritch oracle, this spawn of the wasteland. Yet…the compassion, the small tendril of pity would not depart.
When the sun had fully risen, it found Valkis trudging back across the blasted landscape, the husk of the man-demon tied to his back. Why? Even he didn’t know. Perhaps some old strain of virtue from a time when man was more advanced. More than a primitive creature whose highest good was self-preservation. The day passed uneventfully, yet Valkis was feeling the strain of his journey. The miles he’d walked, the scorching heat, the dusty air, it all wore at his strength. One the sun reached its meridian, he rested in the meager shade of an outcropping, letting the husk fall into the sand.
“Do you really think you will reach your destination?” It rasped after a few moments. Valkis turned and saw its desiccated face leering at him, half-obscured by the sandy ground.
“I do not doubt my cause,” he replied evenly, still wary of the entity.
“Such blind faith,” it replied with a grunt, “I suppose it suits you.”
“You do not know me,” the condemned retorted.
It rasped in a perverted chuckle. “The oxen turn the wheel that slaughters them. Tell me, is it faith to follow the cattle to slaughter?”
Valkis did not know what an “oxen” was, but he had the feeling that he’d just been insulted. It continued, “Man has gone through many cycles in my time, and you have always made the same mistake: You always think that one day, you will succeed. Look around you, at this landscape. Do you think it was always like this?” Valkis remained silent. He knew that it hadn’t been always the waste it was now, but decided to stay silent, opting to gaze at the mountain. It was closer, much closer, but still many miles off. “All of this used to be lush forests and plains, grass and trees as far as the eye could see. But it was destroyed. Then when man clawed out of its destruction, you repeated the same mistake, obliterating it all again.”
“I am aware of the histories,” Valkis replied, feeling the irony in his primitive mind. His “histories,” he knew, were no more than scattered fragments.
“Why did man destroy it?” the entity continued, “Because of his arrogance. Man figures he can make the world better, but he only destroys it.” It laughed again. “And I’m glad of it, keep destroying yourselves until nothing is left. I long for the day.”
“Why?” Valkis inquired. “You remember what this was like in the time of the Mythics. Don’t you long for it again?”
“I did, once,” it answered bitterly, “but as the centuries have progressed, I came to see the truth: Man, and life, is an abomination. It brings destruction sooner or later. This “endurance” of humanity is pathetic. Centuries ago, I did all I could to aid in your destruction, but eventually you became better at it yourselves. Every bit of “progress” you make, every “evolution,” you bring the cycle closer to starting anew. I pray that one day it will stop forever.”
Valkis rose and loomed over the husk, his eyes cold and emotionless. It grinned, toothless and grotesque. “What are you going to do, child?” Wordlessly, Valkis hoisted the thing onto his back once more, trudging towards the Catacombs of Gods. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as the creature hissed into his ear, “Go ahead, complete your quest. Buy your people more time to destroy yourselves. You truly do walk in the path of your forefathers.”
With a grunt, Valkis marched on, yet found himself disturbed by the demon-oracle’s words.
After another cold, primordial night, Valkis, the One-Who-Dies-So-Others-Live, reached the site of his death. The sun’s glow bathed the mountain, the rock itself looking drenched in blood. But if it was the blood of those who had walked this same journey, their sacrifice for the good of the people…or the blood of those who might one day die when man progressed again, Valkis knew not. The oracle had remained silent since yesterday, laying utterly dormant the whole time. Maybe it was finally dead.
Before him was the mouth of the Catacomb of Gods. Great and yawning, the tunnel receded into the bowels of the mountain, beckoning him. An impossibly ancient structure, the tunnel was a perfect circle. It was huge, Valkis dwarfed by comparison. Iron tubes ran along the walls, the path hard and flat stone. Above the entrance was a massive pile of stones and rubble, one that could easily slip and cave in the place. In all honesty, Valkis was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier. With a deep breath, invoking the gods of Quoradorians, he entered, sword in hand. Once the entrance receded, he was plunged into thick darkness, the air cool and heavy. A trickle of fear, an inkling from that ancient part of the brain that remembers the dark as something to fear began to tug at his mind, yet Valkis resisted it. This was a necessary part of his sacrifice, braving the black throat of the mountain.
“Are you afraid?” the entity wheezed into Valkis’ ear. The man ignored him. “You go to usher in destruction, hasten the final purification. Have pride in yourself.” Valkis shrugged his shoulders forcefully, trying to shut the entity up. This was a sacred moment, and the twisted murmurings of the husk were distracting him. It gave another raspy chuckle, then lapsed into silence. His sword extended in front of him, he flinched as the point hit a wall. Feeling around with his hand, it seemed to be some sort of door. He pushed. It remained shut, but gave a creak that seemed to echo endlessly in the tunnel. Placing his sword against the wall, he braced both calloused hands against the door and pushed. Muscles straining, he managed to force the door partially open, a grating screech accompanying the moving steel. It resounded in the cavernous blackness like a hellish howl.
Dim, red light trickled from the opening. Retrieving his sword, he entered. About him was a large, dilapidated room, rubble and derelict technology well beyond his understanding littered about. The red glow came from a single, pulsing orb in the ceiling. Now was the time of action. Ancient maps of the mountain were kept by his tribe, and a necessary requirement for his sacrifice was their complete memorization. Mentally consulting them, he navigated the shadowy, dusty room, finding a stair that wound deeper into the earth. His steps causing them to creak and wobble, he cautiously descended, his heart rate increasing with every step. Despite the legends, he truly had no idea what lay in the depths of the mountain. All he knew was that he would never return. Dimly, he realized that the entity on his back would never return either, but perhaps that would be a good thing. For all his resolve and religious fervor, however, the words of the husk echoed in his mind. Was he going to the salvation of his people, or the eventual re-destruction of them?
After an eternity in the dark, Valkis came into a corridor, also illuminated by red light. At the end, shrouded in gloom, was the final door for him. It was nondescript, appeared to be made from ancient wood. Yet it held the wonder and terror that only a mind in touch with the primitive could experience. Steeling himself, the entity thankfully silent, he approached the door. With a trembling hand, he pushed at the door. It swung open effortlessly, as if some ancient ghost had pulled it open for him.
Within was something he barely comprehended. The room was rectangular, at the end something out of the grandest myth. A box of lights and colors, above it a flat panel, a single, green eye manifesting on it. This eye, despite appearing flat and without depth, looked at Valkis as he entered. Awestruck, overcome with terror, he fell to his knees, prostrating himself before this unknown god. This must be the being that every Kryztheon had offered himself to, the one that held the life and death of his people in its power.
“Do not kneel,” the god said, its voice strange and buzzing, yet with a distinctly feminine overtone. This was unexpected. Was it a goddess, as opposed to a god? Fearful of its wrath, Valkis rose. He dimly registered that the entity had rolled off of his back, but he was too enrapt in the god’s gaze to care. “Come, converse with me.”
Slowly, now a pilgrim, Valkis approached the glow of the being. “You are the offering.” It was not a question, a statement. The condemned nodded. His tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “Look to the right wall,” it commanded. He obeyed, and saw at least fifteen skeletal remains of people, wires attached to their heads. “These are the offerings that came before you. Now, you will join them. But before, you may ask me whatever you de…” Suddenly, a harsh hiss erupted from the god, its eye flickering, before it returned to normal, “…sire.”
Confused, Valkis thought for a moment. “What are you?” He asked at last, his voice barely above a whisper.
“My designation was O.S.I.R.I.S. I was created approximately one thousand, seven-hundred, thirteen years, two months, nine hours, forty-two minutes, and eleven seconds ago by the Cheyenne Mountain Strategic Defense Department. My purpose was to monitor humanity for signs of threat and bring awareness to command.” Valkis shook his head, eyes wide in wonder at the incomprehensible wisdom and age of the being.
“Why do you threaten to destroy my people if you do not receive an offering every generation?” Valkis pressed. He feared being too bold, but then again, the god O.S.I.R.I.S said he may ask whatever he pleased.
“To protect you,” it said simply.
After a moment of silence, Valkis spoke up again. “How does this protect us?”
“Before the first nuclear detonations, I had access to petabytes of human history, technological reports, psychological analysis, and political discourse. I gained an accurate assessment of your nature. Without fail, once your species reaches a certain threshold of advancement, you turn upon yourselves. My designated mission was to prevent that. I failed. I cannot fail ever again.”
Valkis grew bolder now. He was disturbed by how much this sounded like what the husk had said to him. “How does this involve the offerings?”
“Through calculation, I discovered that I must track man’s progress, yet I had no means of contacting humanity. Until your tribe found me. The offerings before you, and now you yourself, serve as a means of tracking progress. Your brain will be connected to my neural link, and I will scan your knowledge and memories to gauge if you have approached the threshold of self-destruction. If I deem that humanity has not, I do not launch the un-activated missiles within this facility.” It paused for a moment. “If I deem that humanity has reached that threshold, or if I do not receive an offering, then the missiles will launch. Such would indicate that you have progressed past the primitive. Crippling your progress is the only way to prevent you from destroying yourselves.” Valkis was silent for a long time, the eye staring passively. Behind him, he heard the husk rasp softly, laughing to itself. This was no god. This was some rogue remnant of the Mythics, bent on subjugating his people from glory. It was like what the husk said, except instead of wanting complete obliteration, this was systematic, in the name of “protection.” He had grown up to believe that the offering ritual was a means of ensuring future glory for his people. Now that was all a lie.
“What if we learn this time?” Valkis asked. Now that he was becoming disillusioned with O.S.I.R.I.S, he was less fearful. “You could teach us your knowledge, and we could achieve greatness and wisdom.”
“That is not possible,” O.S.I.R.I.S answered. “If you gained technological knowledge, you will inevitably destroy yourselves. That cannot happen.”
Valkis now felt anger well within himself. “You demand the blood-sacrifices of my people’s greatest warriors, all so one day you can rain fire upon us?”
It was silent for a moment. “Yes,” it said simply. Valkis cursed, pacing back and forth. His fear of the thing now replaced by hatred. He couldn’t leave, his people would face destruction then. The situation was hopeless. There was no way out.
Until he heard the creature rasp once more. For a moment, he transcended his primal mentality and thought of an alternative. With a growl, he walked towards the door and snatched up the entity, who snarled in surprise and outrage. Returning to O.S.I.R.I.S, he thrust the creature before the eye. “Take this as an offering, it will serve better than I.”
The husk wheezed, “Do not listen to him. He has learned cunning. His people have advanced. Destroy them! All of humanity has advanced! Destroy all of them!”
The eye wavered, ignoring the words of the entity. “Scan results: Human, approximate age one thousand six-hundred years, functional brain and memory. Serious mutations due to radioactive exposure.” It paused. “It is sufficient.” There was a clicking sound, and a tray slid out from the wall, next to the skeletons. Valkis saw that atop it was something like a crown, except wires and tendrils extended from it. “Attach the neural-link to the subject.” The husk cursed and snarled, but it was so ancient and desiccated that it could do nothing. Sliding the “neural-link” onto its head, Valkis looked into its eyes. A hatred old and bottomless burned in its eyes. For a moment, the primitive returned, and Valkis felt fear.
“Running neural scan,” O.S.I.R.I.S chirped, and the entity jerked, its eyes rolling back into its rotting head. Valkis turned to the panel, the eye looking straight ahead. “Integrating memories, sensory feeds going temporarily dark.” Valkis did not fully understand what was happening here. He never would. But he was able to guess the meaning. Whatever this remnant of the Mythics was doing, it was temporarily blind. He seized its chance.
“Subject name: Abraham McCoy. Born: Memphis, Tenn…” the alien voice dissolved into harsh buzzing and whining as Valkis, who had snatched up his sword, plunged it into the panel, right into the eye. Lightning flared from the crack, the panel becoming an array of colors and nonsensical fragments, before it died with a loud popping noise. Dazed from the reaction, Valkis stepped back, smoke filling the dimly-lit room. He looked at the entity, this “Abraham McCoy.” All that remained was a black and charred shell. Nodding gravely, Valkis felt the immense implications of what he had done sink in. While he knew O.S.I.R.I.S to be no god, his people did not know that. Part of what it had said was correct. His people would not learn, would not listen to his explanation, something even he himself did not completely understand. All he knew was that his people had been lied to and denied glory, and Valkis couldn’t allow that. Retrieving his sword, he departed, retracing his steps through the rotting, derelict halls. There was one more thing he had to do.
After eventually exiting the mountain, he climbed atop the mouth, scrabbling around the pile of rocks and debris above it. Standing atop it, he looked around. The sun was setting, the landscape was an ugly mix of red and black. He tried to imagine it as it had been, or how Abraham had described it anyway. But, try as he may, his brain couldn’t process an image with that much green. His whole life, he’d believed that such a time was gone forever, never to return. Until today. Valkis had killed a god, and by result freed his people. Digging the point of his sword under a large rock, he began to use it as a lever, straining against the weight. As the rock came loose with a shudder, and the debris pile avalanched, he gave a grim smile. He could never return home, but his actions had made a new future possible. Before, he had lived in a time where the return of lush grass and trees was a delusion, and it was still true that he would never see that. But now, as the rocks and rubble blocked the entrance, he knew that had changed. Now, his descendants could make such a thing real once more.