Episode 13: Guardians and Gods

Saying goodbye to the Gogajin village is harder than I thought it would be. I think they like the storage house we built. Its the first really useful thing I've done in a while, and it felt a little like waking up.

Going up toward the holy mountain, the Gogajin let us know they want to hear about our families and...our sex lives, is how it comes across. And I suddenly don't want to talk about anything. Sometimes I'm easy to ignore, and its good.

I know that almost everyone I ever knew in the world is dead. Gone forever. I remember, the cave-in, seems so long ago now, the last time I saw my mom and dad, when the world buckled and crumbled and buried us. I knew they were dead because I didn't hear digging, or anything. I knew bones were broken, dirt getting into where they came through the skin. It was hard to breathe.

But breathing was all I had to do, so I kept doing it.

Later, they let me watch a bit of the news. They talked about me. Days, I spent down there.

...and suddenly the Gogajin are saying goodbye. I say goodbye and want to go back to their village again more than anything. Build houses. Break rocks. Drink mead. Where else am I supposed to go? There's a big scraped-out hole in me where everyone I knew used to be. If I say their names I won't get up in the morning. If I picture them I can't move. Like I'm all emptied out.

I look up toward the mountain, rising higher than the others. Even I can tell the clouds at the top aren't right.

Our Negotiators come back with burns all over them. So that settles that. We start running up the mountain. The Guardian is up there, some kind of crazy Prill stone-master who's maybe going to bury us alive.

***

Kyoshi is climbing past spikes that jab for him out of the rock. Highdive looks bad. I ask Mokuzai if he wants me to toss him up there - I won't make it but he sure can. He doesn't say no - I'd be nervous too - so I heave him up the cliff and over. I follow it with a tree and a rock, but the old tough bastard shrugs them off.

Oh, right. Master of stone. So I'll need to get closer to bring him down.

The earth buckles and nearly tosses me off the damn mountain. I duck my head and keep running. I can't see through the trees - shouting and Rei keeps screaming and then gasping and then screaming again. It sounds like Mokuzai is singing, and the sound of the two old Prill singing at each other batters at my ears. The earth and the sky groan and I groan with them. I keep running, even after it gets quiet. I figure, either they're dead or they won, but I've got to get up there to find out.

Wheezing a little, I come up and Mokuzai is there, asking me something. I just need to breathe for a minute. The old Prill is lying on the ground, not moving, Rei standing over him with that look on her face.

For the thousandth time I'm glad she doesn't use a real knife.

***

I'm not sure why Highdive pissed on the book, but Mokuzai sure got pissed about it. I thought he was going to zap her right there. She looked shredded up, and I can see why she was mad. She keeps getting torn up by people Mokuzai just wants to talk to.

I keep wanting to offer to fix the book...but. But something's a little wrong. I lose time, sometimes. At night when they're all asleep. Suddenly its dawn and I don't know where the night went. There's...like a door, and when the door opens, I go out...and I don't know who goes in.

I've got a guess.

Mokuzai clears the old Prill's head and Kyoshi talks him down. I try to help but it just goes bad. A hammer can't turn a screw. They bark and jabber at each other, and everyone goes to sleep and wakes up again, and suddenly Kyoshi has the gong after some more barking, and...he's the protector of the mountain now? The Prill seems happy with the deal. He walks off, through the mountain, carrying his teapot of sand.

We finally turn to the last leg of this little trip. Up the mountain to try to evict some Kyo-tee-shee. I don't like how excited Rei looks. These Kyo-tee-shee are bad news. When you want one thing all the time, no matter what, and get all excited whenever you might get some more, and never feel satisfied, that's called being a junky. There are always a few down in the mines, trying to cut corners and take things the Biomade doctors prescribe, and then it gets a hold of them, and it never turns out good. Ever. And now we have these huge glowing supernatural junkies following us around, wanting something they can't even explain so it makes any sense. Oh, and sometimes they kill dozens of people with explosions, or golden laserbeams. So that's just fantastic.

Mana. Mana. Mana-mana-mana.

***

We get there, and...its some kind of...theater, someone says. Echoey. And old. There are more stone columns, covered in writing that maybe Mokuzai can read. He doesn't say. It comes to me to try the gong - maybe it'll bring the Kyo-tee-shee out where we can, um, try to evict them I guess. Maybe Kyoshi has a plan. He's the guardian of the mountain now, after all.

The gong kind of works. There are six pillars. Six of us. Six colors. The mana-things we do...have colors. Gold. Green. Red. Blue. Silver. Purple. And so on. And animals - Racoon, Fox, Horse, Flying Snake, Crane, Eagle, appear in those colors on the pillars. We each touch them in unison.

Oh, good. Here they come.

Mastery. I feel like I'm supposed to be in control. I'm supposed to be in charge and to figure out how it all fits, to make it fit, to make everything fit. To make everything make sense. I need to do it right, to do everything right. But it isn't right. Nothing is right. Everything is wrong. I did the only thing I could do - I left. Because I can't control anything. I tried. I tried and they betrayed me to help me, and the killing just got worse and worse, and there was nothing I could do. Everything went wrong, and everyone paid for it but me.

And they tell us we're gods. This is so stupid. How can we be gods? A bunch of flying, glowing idiot junkies are telling us we're gods, and...is this supposed to make any sense?

And more of the eyeless are coming for us. How can they be? We left them behind! We left! I left!

And the eyeless are here...because of us.

***

Its a long time before I realize where I am again. I'm yelling at Rei about something. She doesn't understand. Do any of them understand? We can't go anywhere. Ever. We're not gods, we're a curse. Even the Karians, but us Cheldrun more than anything else. We're a curse. Everywhere we go, things go wrong. Everywhere. People suffer and die because we're there. We're causing the eyeless, weeping tears pouring from faces I knew, faces I worked with, other Mechified, brothers and sisters, turned to demon-monsters...because of us. Because of us.

Kyoshi is shouting and shattering the columns. You won't tell us who we are! The big stupid junkies are leaving. Kyoshi is angry, his sword coming alive in his hands.

But Kyoshi has seen. He should know exactly who we are. I see him look at meat. I see him flinch when I do. He saw the first ships burning their way into the sky, spewing waste materials, slamming into Karia wreathed in flames, burning, killing, spreading like a plague over the planet, devouring, shitting out pollution, enslaving everything, covering everything in filth. Over and over and over. We're a plague. We're a curse.

I feel the door opening. I know that I can go through and leave this behind, but I don't know what will happen then. I move the chunks of column like Rei wants, in a daze. If I speak I don't know what I say.

The Zipsum appear, and Leaps-Over-Lakes changes right before our eyes. The demon rises up and takes hold of him. And I see clearly that we have killed his entire tribe. Somehow we've killed them all. We ate and drank with them, and they judged us not to be defilers. They made a fatal mistake. They should've killed us when they had the chance.

Una rushes him but he's fast, he parries her overhand attack and buries another blade in her. The five others watch and twitter and twitch, weeping matching bloody tears.

No, I know what I have to do. I can't get away from it any longer. They've come for a purpose. I see now that my purpose is wholly evil. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I will not fulfill that purpose, but I will let them fulfill theirs. I sense I have Mana inside of me, and I will pour it out on these stones.

Tanuki can starve, or find another god, because I'm done.