This is a prologue I wrote earlier this year….and just re-wrote. It may or may not appear at the beginning of the book I am writing. It actually might appear at the beginning of some short stories I may write (there are a lot of stories in my head). Anyway, here is a bit of background on what happened approximately 500 years ago (no one knows for sure how long ago, because of what happens in this story). Originally this was about fear, and not knowing fear until a goddess asks you do to do something you don’t want to do. But really, the book isn’t about fear. So, this is the most recent version of what may or may not be a prologue.
Everyone else remembers it as the day the world was saved. I remember it as the day I killed a goddess.
I can still see them in my mind, nearly five hundred years in my past. Hordes of demons on the battlefield. That wasn’t a big deal by that point in the war. We had fought so many demons by that time that a few thousand here and there was something we mostly ignored. It was the demon lord we couldn’t ignore, that brought us to the final battle. A God, a Fae Lady (and really, what are the fae lords and ladies but different kinds of gods), hundreds of their followers, and me.
Purple mist surrounded the thing that was the demon lord. Like oil it slicked my skin, filled my lungs, and coated my eyes. I held my breath. I closed my eyes. And I prepared to die at the claws and teeth of the demon lord in front of me.
That’s when I heard Demos, God of Battle and Bravery, laughing. He and the Lady of Time, Longevity, and Life were standing over the dead demon lord. But she wasn’t laughing. She was looking at the fallen. People of all ancestries were lying on the battlefield. Elves, dwarves, feyschelm, humans and more. All dead. All but me and and a god, and the fae lady. As beautiful as she was, it was the purple mist, flowing from thousands of dead demons into the demon lord, that I could not stop looking at.
“My friend, fear not. When I struck the killing blow to this demon lord, all the evil in all the demons that served it seeped from their bodies. It will use his dead body as a gateway to the Fifteen Hells. See, even now, the oily taint of evil is leaving your skin and your lungs.” Demos saw the relief on my face, and laughed again.
“Come, brother, let us talk.” Alas, she was not talking to me, for I am a mere mortal. The two gods walked to the other side of the hulking mass of evil that was the Demon Lord Xychalbule and began conversing. They thought I could not hear them. But then, I’m no normal mortal.
“Demos, look there. More demons. Another Demon Lord has found us. I fear this may have been a trap. Surely you can feel the drain. Every death of our most powerful worshipers drains us, weakens us. I must seal the moons from the planet. Or the demons may control this source of magic, and we cannot allow that.”
“My lady, I feel you are right. But, I cannot kill you for I love you. Though we are of different people, and some would say opposites when it comes to valuing life, I love you.”
It was the Lady’s turn to laugh. “Fear not, Demos. The ritual takes too long. You will have to hold that horde off. Our ally will have to make the sacrifice.”
A goddess wanted me to kill her. A goddess I too loved. Before she even got to me, I could feel the tears flowing down my face. I looked down at the ground, where my tears mixed with the blood of my friends. When I finally had the courage to look up again, the Lady was lying on a gathering of magical swords and armor from the fallen. A goddess had gathered all the magic around us, and created an altar, in the time it took me to look down and back up again.
I could see Demos killing demon upon demon behind the altar, but there were so many. Even He could not defeat them all. She smiled at me, imprinted a thought on my mind. I knew what I had to do.
I lowered my head, charged, and impaled the Lady with my horn. I wasn’t just there the day she died. I was why she died. The most beautiful, loving, being I had ever met was dead. There’s more to the story, of course. The moons and world were sundered, the gates were closed, and the world was saved. But for me, that day isn’t about saving the world. It’s about death, and sacrifice. Hers and mine.