Gathering of the Chosen (26 page)

“My brother deals with what happens
after
a mortal dies. More specifically, with their spirit,”
said Diog. He sounded like Braim's confusing his duties with the
Ghostly God's to be very offensive. “I deal with the body itself
and how it must be treated. What happens to the spirit is none of
my business or interest.”

“I see,” said Braim. He looked around
again, but still didn't see the assassin anywhere. “So what are you
going to do to me? Why am I here? Does that assassin work for
you?”

Diog leaned on his shovel. “That assassin
does indeed work for me, following my every order to the
letter.”

“So you're the one who has been trying to
kill me ever since I got to World's End,” said Braim. He pointed at
Diog. “Why? What are you trying to accomplish?”

“Nothing terrible,” said Diog. “As the God
of the Grave, I am simply trying to fulfill my duty, part of which
is ensuring that the dead
stay
dead.”

Braim gulped. “Hold on. Are you saying
that you have been trying to kill me because I'm not supposed to be
alive?”

“Of course,” said Diog. “I see that you
have finally figured it out. I was wondering when you would.”

“Can't say I saw this coming, to be
honest,” said Braim. He stepped back, but looked over his shoulder
again just to make sure that that assassin actually wasn't there.
“I thought that the gods in general were just interested in me.
Not, you know, trying to kill me.”

“My fellow gods don't want to kill you,
but we gods are hardly homogenous, as you most likely know,” said
Diog. “The Godly War that split us apart the first time is proof
enough of that. Besides, the other gods don't really understand why
I want you dead. I would have recruited them, but the other gods
bare no ill will toward you, so I have had to work entirely in
secret to accomplish my goals so they would not find out and
object.”

“Right,” said Braim. He smiled, hoping
that he might be able to reason with the obviously mad god. “But
why do you want to kill me? I'm not doing anything wrong. I just
want to figure out who I am and what my purpose is in this world.
Is that such a bad thing?”

“The laws laid down by the Powers at the
very beginning of Martir state that everyone who dies
stays
dead,” said Diog, his tone as firm as a mountain. “Humans,
katabans, aquarians, and, yes, even we gods, cannot break this law.
It is the governing law that regulates all living creatures on this
world, and I was made responsible for ensuring that it was never
broken.”

Diog pointed at Braim with one rotting,
shaking finger. “You are unnatural, Braim Kotogs. You should not
be. You died thirty years ago. You should still be lying in your
grave in North Academy's graveyard, not standing before me like
this. And all unnatural abominations such as yourself must
die.”

“Hold on, Diog,” said Braim, holding up
his wand defensively. “Can't we talk this over a little, like
rational beings? I mean, even if what you say is true, that my
resurrection was unnatural or went against some law created by the
Powers or whatever, that doesn't necessarily have any negative
consequences, does it? Martir sure seems fine to me.”

Diog made a strange breathing noise that
might have been an annoyed grunt. “You don't understand. You are
mortal. You don't see—or feel—what I see and feel. Your
resurrection has completely smashed the natural laws laid down by
the Powers centuries ago, before you were even a thought in the
mind of destiny. Have you never wondered why you feel so depressed
and heavy all the time?”

Braim scratched the back of his head,
where that darkness from before was still creeping up his spine.
“Well, yeah, I have wondered about that. But the Ghostly God told
me he thought that it was just Uron's remnants that were affecting
me.”

“My brother knows nothing about the
natural laws that rule this world,” said Diog dismissively.
“Especially the ones that govern the dead. The truth is, even your
very body knows that you should not be. It is demanding that you
take your own life so that your unnatural abomination of a life
ends for good.”

“You mean it's trying to make me
suicidal?” said Braim with a gulp. “I've never been suicidal
before.”

“Because you have a strong will to live,”
said Diog, tapping his chest where his heart should be, though
Braim wasn't sure that Diog had one, considering how much like a
rotting corpse the god resembled. “Your will to live is stronger
than the natural reaction of your corpse to your unnatural state.
And I believe that you will continue to fight it, which is why I
had my servant try to kill you.”

“Your servant?” said Braim. “Are you
referring to Four Arms the assassin?”

“Yes,” said Diog, nodding. “But please do
not use such a childish name with which to refer to her. She is
properly known as Ragao, the Half-Goddess of Darkness.”

“Half-god?” said Braim. “Sounds
familiar.”

“It should,” said Diog. “When Uron
attacked World's End some months ago, he led an army of the Powers'
unfinished and abandoned creations from the Void. My siblings and I
slew the whole lot of them after Uron's banishment to the ethereal,
but I kept this one hidden from the others in case I should ever
need her. A wise move on my part, if I do say so myself.”

Braim remembered where he had heard the
term 'half-god' before. Aorja Kitano had had a pet half-god named
Zeeree, but Braim forgot about that quickly enough in order to
focus on the current situation.

“Half-god, eh?” said Braim. “Is that why
she's not much of a talker? Can't say anything?”

“Her speech capabilities are very limited,
but she can still understand my commands,” said Diog. “Not only
that, but she is an even more obedient servant than the
katabans.”

“Is that why you didn't use a katabans,
then?” said Braim. “Let me guess, you were afraid that any katabans
you hired would be interrogated by the other gods and forced to
spill the beans about your plan because the katabans cannot deny
the orders or requests of any god, right?”

“Correct,” said Diog. “It is a shame I
will have to kill you, because you truly are a smart mage.
Nonetheless, the natural laws must be followed, no matter how I may
feel about them.”

“Then why didn't you just have Ragao kill
me here?” said Braim. He looked around for the half-goddess again,
but still didn't see any evidence of the assassin anywhere. “I
mean, this seems like a pretty isolated place, and if Ragao could
kidnap me right from under Alira's nose like that, then I don't
think it would be hard for her to just kill me outright.”

“Because Ragao has already failed to kill
you twice,” said Diog. He sounded supremely disappointed by that.
“Instead, I ordered her to bring you directly to me so I could kill
you personally.”

“Oh,” said Braim. “Is that why she
vanished after she took me here? I thought for sure that she had
gotten scared and run away so she wouldn't get beaten up by me
again.”

Though Braim spoke confidently, in truth
he was terrified out of his mind. He knew exactly how powerful the
gods were and how outmatched he was against Diog. There was no way
that he could beat Diog in a straight fight, even if he had
intended to try. He just hoped that the other gods or Alira might
be able to track him down and find him before Diog killed him.

“Ragao isn't afraid of anything,” said
Diog. “That's actually why she's so incompetent, however. She
doesn't understand that some things should be feared. She just
attacks and attacks until she is too wounded or tired to keep
fighting. Even then, the only reason she fled yesterday was because
I ordered her to. Otherwise, she likely would have kept going until
you and your fellow godlings killed her outright.”

“We almost killed her?” said Braim. “I
thought mortals couldn't kill gods.”

“Half-gods do not have all of the same
strengths and immunities that we full gods do,” said Diog. “I
suspect that Ragao, like her fellow half-gods, were from an earlier
stage of our development when gods
could
be killed by
mortals. In any case, the nature of half-gods is irrelevant. What
is relevant is this.”

Diog gestured at coffin lying in the
depression in the floor. That was when Braim realized that it was
the perfect size for his body, which didn't make him feel any
easier about his current situation.

“This is the coffin I made for you, the
one in which you will die,” said Diog. “Based on your shocked
expression, I can tell that you didn't see that coming. Odd, seeing
as you are a necromancer, but perhaps your resurrection amnesia has
made you forget important things like that.”

“So you made a coffin, just for me?” said
Braim. “How thoughtful of you.”

“Do not mock me,” said Diog. He slammed
his shovel into the floor, creating a crack where he struck. “You
have already mocked the laws that the Powers created by returning
to life. Must you also mock the one whose job is to enforce those
laws?”

“You get offended way too easily,” said
Braim. Then he looked over Diog's shoulders at the five thrones
behind him. “Say, what are those thrones? They look kind of like
the thrones from the Temple, except smaller.”

Diog glanced over his shoulder before
returning his gaze to Braim. “Those thrones are the headstones of
the gods that died at Uron's hand. I crafted them myself after
Uron's demise, in order to honor them all. Including Skimif, even
though, like many of the gods, I never respected his authority very
much.”

“Why are they here and not in a
graveyard?” said Braim. He looked around the room uncertainly. “By
the way, where are we, exactly?”

“In my castle,” said Diog. “Located on the
once-inhabited island of Ysa in the Northern Isles. As for why the
thrones are here, that is because there is no graveyard of the
gods. Until Uron's attack, there was never a need for one, seeing
as we gods cannot grow old and die.”

Diog then struck the floor again and
cursed. “Yet another being who broke the natural laws. The only
good thing about your resurrection was that your resurrection
brought Uron's death, who was a far worse threat to Martir than you
ever were.”

“Great to hear,” said Braim, taking
another step back. “Because we agree that I am not as big a threat
as Uron, I think we can also agree that kidnapping me and killing
me is a really bad idea. Just send me back to the Stadium and I
promise not to tell the other gods that you are crazy.”

“They already think I'm crazy anyway,”
said Diog. “But the truth is, none of them would understand this.
You coming back to life is like Grinf getting burned by a fire. It
should not happen. Your very presence has changed Martir in ways
even I do not yet understand. That is why I must kill you. It is
the only way I know of that can reverse the damages you have
wrought to this world.”

“Listen, Diog, I don't know what kind of
'damages' I may have 'wrought' to Martir, but I bet I can fix them
if I win the Tournament,” said Braim. “You might not know
this—okay, you probably do—but I'm a godling and I am in the Skimif
Bracket. Assuming I win the Tournament, I will become the God of
Martir, which means that I can use my power to help Martir.”

Diog shuddered. “Why do you think I have
been working hard to kill you? If your mere presence on Martir has
been enough to wreck with the natural order of things, then what
might happen if you become the God of Martir? Such an unnatural act
might end up destroying everything or breaking it irrevocably,
which is really the same thing no matter how you look at it.”

“If my mere existence is such a terrible
thing, why'd you wait so long to try to kill me?” said Braim. “I've
been alive for a couple of months now, you know. Could have killed
me anytime during then.”

“Because I wanted to wait and see if your
resurrection would actually cause any problems,” said Diog. “Unlike
some of my siblings, I do not like to rush in before gathering the
facts first. And I have enough facts to prove that your
resurrection has had nothing but the most negative of effects on
Martir.”

“Such as what?” said Braim. “I haven't
seen the sky turn red or the sun fall into the sea or anything, so
I'm not sure what I've done that's so wrong.”

“You broke the law,” said Diog. He gripped
the side of his head, as though a terrible headache had just come
upon him without warning. “You have not done much more than that
yet. However, that doesn't mean that your existence will not cause
more trouble. The world does not know what to make of a being like
you. And if natural laws such as that can be broken, who is to say
that other natural laws cannot be broken as well?”

Diog sounded paranoid to Braim, which
combined with his godly power was probably not a winning
combination. In any case, Braim knew he needed to figure out a way
out of here quickly before Diog got bored of talking to him and
decided to kill him outright.

So Braim said, “All right. Well, if you
wanted to kill me, why'd Ragao try to kill Raya and the others
yesterday? I wasn't even anywhere near her at the time.”

“Because Ragao was trying to lure you
out,” said Diog. “I am aware of your friendship with Princess Raya,
so I believed that putting her life in danger would bring you
out.”

“We're not exactly 'friends,' per se,”
said Braim, “but whatever. I guess it didn't really work, seeing as
I'm still alive.”

“But soon, you won't be,” said Diog. He
held out one hand toward Braim, a hand that no longer shook. “Soon,
you will return to the afterlife, where you deserve to be, and the
laws will be intact once more.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that,”
said Braim. “But you know that Alira and the gods are probably
looking for me. They'll probably find me very soon, and once they
do, they won't be happy to find out that you're trying to kill
me.”