66. Hope

  The Siege of Atla lasted for months.

  Outside, the battle for the Realm was bloody, dirty and cutthroat. Dozens of worlds changed hands, and Lord Loshi was left with a fraction of what he once held. The factions ripped his domain apart and choked on the spoils of war.

  But Empress Nadia? She never let up the siege upon Atla, endlessly testing the wards, developing new techniques to bring more and more of her power to bear.

  Until finally the day that the Worldfather said “I’ve seen Hope.”

  And on that day, everything changed.

  ~~~~~~~

  I sat beneath the peach tree. I reached out into the future, and I plucked another of its fruit.

  “Thank you,” I said to the tree, and a gentle wind rustled its leaves.

  I bit into it, savoring the fruit as the juice ran down my chin. I closed my eyes and allowed the sweetness to be my world for a moment.

  When there was nothing left of the fruit but the pit, I put it into my pocket, and I pulled out the one that was already there.

  Grow?? It asked. Time to Grow?

  “Yes, it’s time to grow,” I told it. “But not into a tree. You, my child, are meant for another destiny.”

  Grow? It asked, less certain.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be beautiful.”

  And then I began to work magic upon the seed.

  ~~~~~~~

  Atla had been quiet for a while now. Toorah was worried. The statues didn’t work, and the childlike voice in his head didn’t wake him in the middle of the night like it used to.

  The strain of the siege had gone on for so long.

  The secrets that the goddess had instilled in her priesthood remained, and even without the statues functioning the faith was strong. Parents continued to come to the church for counseling. Orphans and abandoned children continued to find their homes in the institutions that Toorah helped create. But the god responsible was frightfully absent.

  “Wait! No! Don’t go!”

  The voice from Atla cut into Toorah’s world suddenly in the middle of the sermon, so loudly that the teen covered his ears.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Children of Atla,” the Worldfather said. “I have seen Hope. I leave her in your care, and I pray that you watch over her with love. You might not see me again. I go now to end this. If I do not return...Be well.”

  And those were the last words that the Worldfather spoke. Toorah faced his congregation in the silence that followed, and he swallowed.

  “Well, you heard him,” Toorah said. “The siege is ending, one way or another. I suggest we pray for his success.”

  The congregation took his advice, and so did much of the rest of the world.

  The Worldfather was going to war, and he wasn’t certain that he would be coming back.

  ~~~~~~~

  She unfolded herself beautifully. As I bestowed unto her my knowledge and understanding of the universe, the little seed became something so much more than a tree.

  Grow? Time to grow? It had been asking for months.

  And yes, it was time to grow. But this seed was not a peach tree. I helped it form itself into its true shape as I’d once taken the confused consciousness of the world and shaped it into a mind ready to comprehend complex truths and understandings of the multiverse.

  The peach pit became a world, and I vanished into it.

  ~~~~~~~

  Empress Nadia tsked as the latest adjustments to the attack failed to make a difference. She’d been studying the defense for months now, and she was close to developing its counter, she was certain.

  If nothing else she could simply continue until the world-core was depleted, she knew. But she wasn’t that patient . That it would leave her personal demesne barren of life was only part of the equation; she didn’t want to leave herself exposed after she had dealt with the soul.

  A gap opened in the shield, so small that she wouldn’t have sensed it if she hadn’t been so attuned to it. She fired a technique immediately, even as something came through.

  The object was small, a sphere the size of a building, made entirely of peach wood. And it withstood her attack without a single scorch-mark.

  “Nadia,” the voice of the hated one said. “It’s not too late. It’s never too late. Turn back. Try to do some good before the end.”

  “Is that a vessel to escape me?” she asked, scoffing. “Don’t think that you can! I shall chase you no matter how far you flee. And don’t think that I will simply allow your home to go unpunished! Even if you escape, the people who raised you will suffer! Let them know now and forever that there is no hope.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I’m sending them away,” the voice from inside the peachwood shell said.

  On the world of Atla, obscure formations which nobody quite knew the functions of began to activate all at once. The worldspirit screamed as he realized that he’d been tricked, and the dimensions began to converge.

  The veil between worlds shifted and surged and changed . And the world of Atla slipped through to somewhere else, leaving behind its moons and a single vessel grown, not made, from a peach pit.

  “I came into this life thinking that I had to put an end to yours,” the voice from inside the vessel said. “but I know now that entropy will do that for me. Goodbye, Nadia. You’ll never catch me.”

  And then the vessel shot off through dimensions into another universe.

  Nadia screamed as she followed in its wake.

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