Chapter 34—Calling

There was neither cold nor heat. There was neither sight nor sound. There was just an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and distance from everything else. There was motion? The ebb and flow of some sort of tide, infinite and unending with no beach to break upon. There were the depths or the void, and life within it because what was death? There was black, except for a single white flame pushing back the abyss.

The flame sat as if upon something—an unseen wick, letting it have “life.” There was no candle that could ever burn out; no frightful end, nor a beginning. Although, there was a near silence that was almost deafening, loud for the absolute emptiness yelling back. There was almost silence, except for the whispers underneath, the murmuring of a familiar song. It sang of the white flame and the places it would go. It spun the white flame's tales of fulfilling its dreams. It promised the white flame that there was far much more to see if that flame for just one moment willed itself to see it.

It willed its eyes open, finding galaxies sprawled out around it. Swirling vortexes made homes for multicolored stars, each one blinking, brightening, fading. The flame saw that it was not alone, finding that the motion in the dark was life, wisps moving in perpetuity around distant stars. It watched this living darkness collapse into shapes, forming things with four limbs, and some with six, standing tall while others were no bigger than it. The bodies tread in the shadow of stars, watching the life within them with rapt curiosity. The white flame willed itself toward a star of its own. Deep inside it saw a world of people farming and growing, building lives oblivious to a coming storm. A man of sorts rolled on clouds and struck hard against them, flooding their lands, drowning crops and farmers. Those that lived raised their hands in prayer and the man parted the clouds, shining green light down. The man brightened and the white flame grew ill. It moved to another star, and then another, finding different scenes but sickening the same. It traveled deep into the cosmos until stars were distant blemishes. There, the song of its journey was at the loudest, and it turned, finding a ripple in space. The white flame stepped through, growing legs like the living dark, balancing itself with arms stretched out. It was the flame no more, but a shadow body housing it, human-like in vague recollection of what humanity was. The shadow followed black glass steps through a forest of ethereal trees lit by a twilight horizon. Great stone doors awaited in a mountainside on the other end, left slightly ajar as if to let the shadow in.

It continued, down a long dark hall lit by glitter in its walls. Another flight of stairs took it to a smaller door, and it pushed it open to a veranda overlooking a forest. Three others waited in this room. One was a woman sprawled on a chaise, with a body of shining onyx illuminated with little stars beneath her skin. She lay in a dress of storms with tendrils falling from her head and into the floor. Another was a man—more of a shadow himself. His dark body was thin with particles flowing off. A wolfish smile made the Shadow double take, for one moment he was man, and the next he had a frightening lupine face of lightning. The last was a woman with skin of gold. It did not shimmer but she made up for it with stars twisted into and hanging from jewelry; eyes that glistened in a swirling mix of colors. Her hair was a nebula in and of itself, much like the bed of flowers around her. The Shadow made a soundless gasp and this last one turned those eyes its way.

"Oh! Look who has returned!" She said and the others turned their heads. The lounging woman smiled warmly, easing the trepidation in the Shadow’s flame.

“It’s my little one.” She said like a mother welcoming her child home. “How long has it been?”

The man snickered. “You can’t ask her that question. What is time to them compared to time to us?”

“Oh be silent, you. I want to know how long she thinks it was.”

“I do too!” Said the woman in the flowers. “I bet she has seen so many exciting things.”

“I wonder what places she has gone to hunt.” The man’s face changed again.

“Well, let’s have her tell us, shall we. Starting with a name. What is it this time?” The motherly woman asked.

The shadow thought and found the tail of a memory. She followed it and found the name waiting, almost decayed. "Fang." She said, and the room smiled.

“Fang!” Said the man. “I think that’s a name to honor me!”

“How very frightening!” Said the woman in the flowers. “But she has always been partial to that.”

“Fang is delightful. I bet you chose it yourself.”

“I did.” Fang said. “Fangs are sharp, and dependable. They let beast fight and are the key to survival. I am Fang because I want to help others survive. I’ll keep tearing through the city until people can rest.”

“There’s a city this time!” Flowerbed chirped. “She has gone very far.”

“But how far dear?” The lounger asked.

“All the way back to where I first died. I went back to New York and found out what killed me.”

“The hunt!” The wolfman howled. “You have sank your teeth in the most delicious meat. You have tasted the truth!”

“I don’t think I have.” Fang shook her head. “Not all of it anyway. I came so close but then…" Then, before the white flame, there was flesh, and that flesh was frigid. She had died, again, and the only thing she could do is run back here.

“There, there.” The lounger said. “Do not let it bring a tear to your eyes. You are older now, and there is quite a bit we can tell you.”

“You can remember your name! You have grown little Fang of beast.”

“That is not her name! Fang is much better.” Flowerbed barked at the wolf.

“I don’t think it is, but that doesn’t matter. She has a name, and she can remember.”

She could remember her own, but not theirs—not these unfamiliar faces she was sure she met before. “Who are you all?” She asked.

The man laughed. “That’s a good question. Who am I? The Hound in the Dark? The Wolf in the Shadow? What is my name?”

“Who am I? The woman so pretty as a rose with thorns laced with poison?”

“Who am I? The mother of darkness? The one who birthed those that lurked within it?”

“Who are you all?” Fang asked again, and the lounger smiled softly.

The man jumped ahead of her though. “I am Okoropos, the wild hunter of the strong. When my name was known I fed on fat gods, plump after eating whole civilizations!”

"I am Lileyaha." Said the woman in the flower. "And when my name was known, I was feared for my beauty. I was called a temptress who lured you away from the light."

“And I am Ma Roo’di.” Said the lounger.

“Ma Roo’di, Ma Roo’di.” Okoropos chanted.

“I am the mother of the dark. I am the mother of fear. I am the one who made the nightmares that kill god dreams.”

“I’ve met you all before, haven’t I?”

“Multiple times, my dear.”

“Where are we right now?”

“On the other side of the Dark Expanse. In the Twilight Grove.”

“The home of the Second Society!”

The room laughed.

“She truly has gone far!” Okoropos nodded. “You’ve gone back to that world. What do they call it now?”

“I only know the name Naras Radda.” Ma Roo’di answered.

“That’s certainly not it. It’s Gaea! Nay, Terra!” Lileyaha shook her head.

“It’s called Earth.” Fang answered, and the room nodded.

“Earth! What an interesting name.”

Ma Roo’di shook her head. “I am not impressed with it. The name is young.”

“But you’re surely not surprised, Ma Roo’di. The Third is ever forgetful. Some even run from memories.” Okoropos replied.

“I think Terra and Gaea sounds familiar, but I never heard of Naras Radda.” Fang said.

“Of course not. Ma Roo’di is just very old.” Okoropos snickered.

“Old like the world though, dear Fang. But never as old as the Mother World herself.”

“Is it possible for me to go back?”

“Back to Earth? Why would you want to?”

"I have to! I lost everyone. King and Ace don't know that the princess is there, and we still have to prepare for the God Eternal."

"The God Eternal!" Okoropos howled. "So that's the name it has now. That wretched thief of prey.”

“In my time they called it the Cannibal Glutton. Always eating, always feeding on its kind.” Lileyaha sighed.

“You all know of it then? Does that mean you know how to stop it!”

Ma Roo’di sighed. “The answer isn’t no, however, it’s never a simple yes.”

“To understand Fang of beast we must go back. Back to Naras Radda, and the Era of the Wild.”

“The Era of the Wild?”

“It was a different time on Earth. When the third was still infantile and stupid.”

“On Naras Radda,” Ma Roo’di started. “The Third Society gazed upon the living light of the first and ask the same question we of the Second did. They asked what this strange light was, and the light spoke back.”

Fang nodded. “The light told humanity to gather and share its knowledge, but the land was different in our time. People didn’t know how big the land was.”

“So you know a part of the story?” Ma Roo’di smiled. “But tell me girl, what do you know of the Era of the Wild?”

“Nothing.”

“I suppose the third is still woefully forgetful.” Okoropos shook his wolf head.

“In that time, the scattered tribes of the third didn’t know what to do when the light went silent, so they poisoned it, killing each other as bribes against their affront. From this the gods were born, wild like storms and just as destructive. Drunk on the third’s light, and desperate for more.”

“When they were fed on their tribes they stalked the world. There were always more tribes to eat and more monsters hungering, terrifying the Third who desperately cried out for help. When the light was the thing they fear they cried into the darkness and hearing their pleas my pack emerged to feast!" Okoropos grinned.

“Wild gods roamed the land and spread as quickly as the third did. Civilizations could not grow so long as a light on the horizon was actually a beast. Okoropos was a hunter, not a savior, so one small civilization cried into the darkness again, calling upon Ma Roo’di to bring the era to an end.”

“Ma Roo’di, Ma’Roodi.” Okoropos chanted.

"Ma Roo'di." Lileyaha began. "Oh, great Ma Roo'di. The light bears its fangs and we do not know how to push it back. Our lovers die. Our children die. Our cities die Ma Roo'di. Please, what can we do?"

“And so that desperate Era was brought to its end when I stepped into the world. I taught the Third to wield the darkness; weave it into nightmares to terrify their gods. I taught them to tame the beasts, and the Era of the Wild became the Era of the Tamed.”

“What makes the eras different?” Fang asked.

“That’s simple. It’s the state of the world. The Era of the Wild was marked by wild gods and their threat to the Third.”

“Then the Era of the Tamed was marked by what threat?”

“The third’s threat to itself.” Lileyaha frowned. “I was born in the Era of the Tamed, not as I am now, a child of the Second, but actually a child of the Third. I lived in a beautiful place—a palace that looked out happily onto a beautiful garden. Every morning I would gaze out of my window, and in the evening I would meet people from distant lands. I loved them all so much. I loved the many different faces. More than anything I loved those who were my age, who viewed the light differently."

“In the Era of the Tamed.” Ma Roo’di spoke. “The wild gods were returned to order, once more capable of teaching the people. Those who traveled did so to share their knowledge, but the Third still did not quite accept the size of the world. Some tamed more gods than others, and that meant their knowledge could die to someone else’s whim. Gods were not teachers, but weapons, and the one who had the most was the one who ruled the world.”

"My father was not like me." Lileyaha shook her head. "He heard of foreign places with kingdoms of Gods and became jealous. That is until he noticed how I often fell in love. He noticed that some people did not simply see the light, but became it. They were the Scions—the descendants carrying that light’s knowledge into the future, and if he could not find wild gods to tame then he would enslave them instead.”

“And he did!” Okoropos barked. “Using the soft heart of his dear daughter he found those who viewed the light in this strange way and chained them. He sent these slaves to other kingdoms, stealing their light to make it his own.”

“My terrible greedy father. So many of the people I loved disappeared, and it took me too long to realize what he was doing. The parties became torture, and I cried and cried until I cried into the dark.”

“Ma Roo’di, Ma Roo’di.” Okoropos chanted.

“Ma Roo’di, I heard tales of ages long gone pass. They say the dark is something to fear, but it was from the dark that we learned to save our world. Ma Roo’di, if these tales are true please help me, I don’t want my father to enslave anymore.”

“And so I emerged from the darkness again and offered Lileyaha a special key. If her father and those like him were so desperate to enslave the light, I would show her how to turn people away.”

“I became the first Dark Disciple.” Lileyaha continued. “And I weaved the darkness around the hearts of the Scions, blocking off their knowledge, letting them hide from the world."

“The third fears the dark until it is a place where they can hide.” Okoropos said.

"And many feared it. They feared the temptress who moved through the land. They feared the princess who could whisper words that blinded you to the light. They feared how she weakened their kingdoms, and so they stopped enslaving Scions, and the era came to an end."

“Does that mean that the Scions eventually replaced all the wild gods?” Fang asked.

Lileyaha nodded. “Eras are made of the ages within them. Ages passed and passed until there was nothing still wild to tame.”

“What followed the Era of the Tamed?”

“The Era of the Dawn.” Ma Roo’di answered. “Perhaps the time the Third clings to the most. When gods stood high above empires, offering blessing for their prosperity. Oh how did that go again? Some of the Scions thought that ruling would be best. They thought that in this way they each could be a face to teach the Third, and for some time that worked. It was the Era of the Dawn because that era closely resembled the First. The Ascension of the Third was said to be eminent. There would be the Dominion at Dawn, the Twilight Grove, and… Oh, Lileyaha, what did the Third call it?”

“The Garden of Eden.”

“Yes!” Ma Roo’di nodded. “They would make the Garden of Eden, but not all Scions were happy with the way this place would be ruled. Why should you get to rule it, after all, Fang. Why not me? Why not Okoropos?”

“I would personally find ruling very boring.” Okoropos shook his head.

Ma Roo’di laughed. “The Era of the Dawn was sullied by that mindset. Empires turned to war against each other, millions dying for the promise of their gods.”

“How has so much of this happened? I heard bits of it from New Dawn, but not in this much detail.”

"A good question. You should also ask, why did they forget the names spoken into the dark?"

“Ma Roo’di, Ma Roo’di.” Okoropos chanted.

“Except, no one knew Ma Roo’di anymore. No one knew to cry to her to stop the warring gods. No one knew of the hunter Okoropos or the temptress Lileyaha. These were the names of devils, and for the sake of the light you must never speak them.”

“Dr. Gupta said that the Second stopped the gods multiple times…”

“In the Era of the Wild there were many to hunt. In the Era of the Tamed there were many turned into weapons against a neighbor. We were the ones who silenced these threats, but the forgetful third would always make them anew.” Okoropos hissed.

“As ages went on and gods became demons, they became other things as well.” Lileyaha nodded.

"Then how did the Era of the Dawn end?" Fang asked.

“With the most unfortunate thing humanity remembered.” Ma Roo’di answered.

“The prey thief!”

“The Cannibal Glutton.”

“The God Eternal.”

“Gods become demons, and gods become legends.” Ma Roo’di said.

Okoropos started, "Long ago there was a wild god who found itself worshiped in several civilizations. The color he took was plentiful that way. It was the color of the morning star, a thing they could so easily pray to. But the thief would not save them. It ate one after the other until there were no lands that thought to worship it. That's when it started hunting other wild gods."

Lileyaha went next, "Long ago there was a champion god. He was unlike any other, able to slay the gods who turned against their people. He was not wild, but an ordered force meant to stop them. He was meant to keep this world safe. Maybe he was even the first Scion?"

Ma Roo’di continued, “Long ago, now forgotten, there was a god who was meant to rule the world. Unlike the ones we know now, he is a true god, the One True God, waiting for his chance to sit the throne again. He is the true creator of the Garden of Eden. He will purge the warmongers and save Third kind!"

“So people prayed to it, didn’t they? They begged the God Eternal for salvation and it was reborn. If all of New York fell to it this time, it must have killed a horrific amount of kingdoms.”

“It did, on a scale the Third had never seen before. In a way this monster did save them, killing off the other gods and the people that worshiped them. However, there was no end to this destruction. Not when their shine fattened the Cannibal Glutton with ideas of their own demise. What if your neighbor brought the ruin back? And with the others dead, what god remained to rule over Eden?”

“How did humanity survive without the Second?”

Okoropos cackled. “They didn’t.”

“What?”

“They didn’t.” Ma Roo’di repeated. “The Third Society witnessed their end. Their savior did not hide its true nature for long. It could level kingdoms with a swing of its hand. It could flood lands simply by stepping into oceans. Why would it ever be satisfied with worship and prayer? Alone, the Third could not survive that. Even with the powers taught to them in the battles before. The Third Society went extinct.”

Fang shook her head. “But I’m alive right now, and even if I’m different, there are plenty of people out there who have lived a normal life. The woman who killed me was one of them.”

“That my dear, is what brings us to the end of the Dawn and the start of the Dusk. In the Dark Expanse—the void prison of all light—the Dominion's gates opened, and one of the first descended to the quiet world. The Gods were great terrible things to humanity, but to the First, they were just rogue bits of magic woven into machines. This transient of the First, Yhirhava took hold of the God Eternal and uttered a phrase that changed the Third’s fate. Let there be light.”

“In the light,” Lileyaha chimed. “Humanity found the wisdom to live again. They saw what brought upon their end and prepared for its eventual return. Some built their own Edens, fleeing the world to tiny pockets resembling the dominion and grove. Some remained, made the same mistakes, forsaking their lands once again. Others still bowed their heads, certain that if they worshiped the One True God, it would reward them upon its return.”

“And in the dark, dead lights stirred, drawing in the souls hoping to find peace in other colors. They fed and grew knowing that if they grew strong enough, they could be the One True God. They would kill the Cannibal Glutton and rule the Third where it fell.”

“It truly is Eternal.” Fang frowned as she listened, hoping that these stories would speak of a true hero, striving to make the world better. There had to be more than opportunists, right? There had to be more than people who ran or thought that if they stayed they'd somehow win in the end. There had to be someone better than what humanity had come to know, lest the Era of Dusk be humanity’s last. “Someone had to make a plan in all this time, right?”

“Hmm, maybe so?” Lileyaha looked at Okoropos. He bore the head of a wolf with fully bared teeth.

“Ma Roo'di, Ma Roo'di." He swung his head toward the woman. She waved him away but smiled at Fang.

“I think it has been tens of thousands of years since I last heard my name. Third stories don’t speak of me anymore, but something strange happened twenty earthen years ago. A little one found her way here, wearing the body of a thing of darkness. She sat with us and the first name she learned to speak was my own. She left one day, then came back suddenly bearing an offering of light.”

“Proof she could be a dark disciple.” Lileyaha nodded. “Proof that the light was no deception to her.”

“She brought a friend!” Okoropos howled. “A child who was always meant for the hunt.”

“And so I asked this little one where she learned to make an offering, when an offering was the final lesson of those taken on by Dark Masters. The little one told me that she took my name to worlds of light; had whispered it into the crowded darkness.”

“Ma Roo’di, Ma Roo’di.” Okoropos chanted.

“And when it was spoken, she reminded the light what it feared and the darkness what it longed to be. She learned from the living dark what it meant to become a thing determined to erase wretched light, then returned to retrieve her final lesson from me. I gave her that, and three keys.”

Fang looked at the back of her left hand.

“The power to control the dark. The power to grasp the light. The power to give it a command. It would make the Umbra of the Dark Expanse hers to control. With such a power, a plan would surely follow. She only needed to keep one question in mind.”

One question? The question. That forever incomprehensible whisper. She had heard it during her fight with Celine and still couldn’t decipher what it said.

“I don’t remember it.” Fang shook her head.

“And knowing you, you would not let anything but Ma Roo’di repeat it. You could have reached out to the darkness, but no, I suspect only your shadow boy would have done that.” Okoropos snickered.

“There’s nothing to worry about.” Ma Roo’di rose and strolled over to Fang. The woman stood tall, having to kneel to meet her eyes. “What is your Dark Name?”

What is the name the Umbra should attach to? What is the name that should be whispered into the dark? Ma Roo’di, Ma Roo’di. Okoropos. Lileyaha. Shadow...and? Fang couldn’t help but smile.

“Empress.” She said, and the room laughed.

“How very suitable!” Lileyaha smiled.

“Truly. She has seen the darkness and light and decided she was meant to rule in both!”

“Not rule, Okoropos, lead.” Ma Roo’di stood, holding her hand out. The white flame in Fang’s chest darkened, making her body feel strange. Ma Roo’di spoke, and her voice filled the room and the furthest reaches of the void. Galaxies went silent as they heard this long forgotten breath, terrified and excited, uncertain what all of this would mean. "Through this Dark Burial old birth is discarded. For this rebirth, I pledge a new name. She is Empress and she is Fang, she shall rule above all in the next era. Her Devil name shall be, Empress Fang...”