Purity of Mind

Chapter 22: The Tenth

I was, at this point, somewhat accustomed to things I'd previously thought to be legends turning out to have been real all along. But there was a difference between that and what I was hearing. "There's no such thing," I said.

King held out a hand, palm up, and suddenly he held a circle of complete darkness. It was a blackness more total than any I'd ever seen, to the point where it took me a while to realize he was holding a sphere rather than a circle. It was as though he hadn't just removed the light but also removed anything that the light could have possibly reflected from. "In the beginning, there was Void." He said, quoting the scriptures.

"There are five elements, divided among the gods," I replied, trying not to stare at the demonstration. "Void's not an element, it's just the nothing that was there before! It's never mentioned again anywhere in the scriptures." I hoped. I hadn't actually read all of the chapters, but I'd been exposed to the teachings far more often than I'd have preferred. I was pretty sure that it would have come up. I mean, sure, every now and then a Void cult sprung up, promising power from the nothingness that had somehow escaped the gods, but none that I knew had ever claimed to be Void personified.

"Oh, I know all about the scriptures," King said. Mercifully, he moved his hand, and the disquieting nothing vanished as though it had never been. "Believe me," he continued, "I turned to religion in my darkest times just like everyone else. And just like always, it had no answers. But there's an interesting tidbit about those first Gods: There were ten of them."

Ever since I'd been told that other places taught The Ten instead of The Nine that I'd grown up with in Opal, I'd wondered how that extra god had been explained. I'd been told that it hadn't, that the tenth was only mentioned in passing or implied by the missing husband to the Lady of Subtlety. Now I was seeing the effects of that - with a missing tenth god, people could fill that gap with anything they wanted. In this case, King was obviously some sort of self-hating Mind.

The demonstration, as surprisingly disturbing as it had been, could have been done with simple illusions; trivial for a Mind. With the sort of power over his own thoughts that he had, who knew how he'd altered himself? Mind magic could be turned inward; I'd done it many times to calm myself down. King was just operating on a larger, more terrible scale.

If King noticed my frenzied introspection, he didn't let it stop his speech, though I doubted he'd have done that for any reason. "The Lady of Rains, and the Lord of Oceans," he continued. "The Lady of Breath and the Lord of Winds. The Lady of Soil and the Lord of Quakes. The Lady of the Hearth and the Lord of Blazes. The Lady of Subtlety... and the Lord of Lies." He grinned as though that explained anything.

"Not exactly a trustworthy source." I managed.

"You have no idea," King spat the words with surprising force, "how right you are. I spent years of my life tracking down the so-called 'Book of Lies', the alleged missing chapter to the scriptures. There were dozens, and all they had in common were the title and their adherence to the theme of not saying a single word of truth. Useless, until I realized who the true Tenth God was. Even the *name* of the Lord of Lies was a lie, you see. The gods did not destroy the Void, they only displaced it. It is still there, still waiting. Some people think that the Pure are the gods reincarnated. If the elements can do it, why not Void? It's the perfect complement to the Pure of Mind. It's a necessary balance. Mind created life and, well, Void takes it."

"You're insane," I said. I'd certainly thought so before, and learning of King's specific delusion had only cemented it.

King chuckled. "You're not the first to say so. You probably won't be the last. But, really, you're the one ignoring the blatantly obvious truth about the Void. I mean, I realize we're underground and you can't do what I'm about to say, but still, it's easy. Go outside at night! Look up! What do you see? It sure as shit ain't the elements. It's Void. Pinpricks of Fire outnumbered by vast, unthinkable, Void."