When Swords Fall (Nihilian Effect)

Part 1
The Arrival

         “This is Kyo Hitame with more breaking news. Following the announcement of the calamity on the Hope Moon Base, we have received reports of an attack on the Deiman city of Draleigh. There has been no successful contact with the city itself, but neighboring areas described the scene as a horrific mushroom-shaped cloud towering into the sky. We can only imagine the death toll at this point in time. The gods have yet to release any statements on these incidents.”
         “You hearing this, Ray?”
         Ray stared at the radio in disbelief. When the broadcast finished, he shook his head at his coworker, Tom.
         “What in the world could cause an explosion of that size?” Tom asked. He had stopped mopping the small museum’s outdated floor tiles and was leaning on the handle. Confusion covered Tom’s face, as Ray expected it covered his own. “There is nothing man-made about it. No missile could do that, regardless of what the radio says. It had to be some god power.”
         “I don’t know, man,” Ray said, resting his elbows on the counter between them. “I have a hard time believing that gods who have always demanded peace would do something like this out of the blue.”
         Tom shrugged. “To be fair, shit’s been tense for months.”
         Hoisting the mop over his shoulder, he picked up his mop bucket and carried it into the back room.
         The lights flickered as a rumbling boom shook the old building and dust sprayed the front windows. Ray rounded the counter and made his way between the several dozen historical display cases that littered the room. Passing the gift shop, he threw the front door open expecting to find an explosion like that of the one that had been announced on the radio.
         A tall man sporting an assortment of armor from different cultures stood in a small crater in the center of the dirt parking lot. Light from the setting sun illuminated his clean-shaven face and the scar that crossed over his left eye.
         Ray recognized that face. So did the lingering tourists who had remained beyond the museum’s closing time; they began snapping photos. It was the face of a god.
         “Algemeth?”
         The god’s long dreadlocks whipped around his head as his attention snapped to Ray. His focus changed to something behind Ray, and Algemeth grimaced, then started walking along the front of the building. Ray looked over his shoulder at the statue of the goddess Lianandra before chasing after the god.
         “Sir! Uh, I,” He was not sure if that was the correct way to address a god, but he rolled with it anyway. “All the glory to the creators.” he added, just to be safe.
         Algemeth raised a brow at him sideways but did not respond.
         “Did you hear about the explosion? Do you know what is happening?”
         The god stopped and glanced at the screen of a phone he held in his hand, an older Nomad model. He nodded. “Yeah, and I’m about to do something about it.”
         “What do you mean?”
         Algemeth motioned with his head, and Ray followed his line of sight to the monument ahead of them.
         Four massive stone swords stood in a circle, points stuck in the mountain top. Each blade was five paces wide and several stories tall, casting enormous shadows across the museum and the parking lot. The Swords of Peace monument, a sign of the gods’ agreement not to start or allow war, and the reason Ray had a job.
         It took Ray a moment to follow what it was that Algemeth was implying.
         “Whoa, sir. If you break the treaty ….” To be honest, Ray did not know what would happen if the treaty was broken. The world had never known war. There had been battles throughout history, but the gods had never allowed a situation to escalate beyond a few skirmishes. Ray probably did not even know what a true war was.
         “You don’t have to tell me what will happen.” The look Algemeth gave Ray made him want to sink into a ball and crawl away. Ray’s reaction must have been apparent because Algemeth took a deep breath and placed a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “I apologize. You have nothing to fear from me. It is just not a good day.”
         Ray understood. First trouble on the moon base, then an attack on a major city. He could not blame a god who had demanded peace for being a little perturbed.
         They stood there together for several minutes while the god stared at his phone. Around them, tourists whispered and took more pictures from a safe distance. Ray kind of wished he could step back and join them, but at the same time, it was not every day that a god showed up to your mundane job. He might take offense to that, though, if Ray told him how boring he thought his job was, considering the gods had made the treaty and the swords for humanity’s own wellbeing.
         “So, what are you going to do, push them over or something?”
         “I haven’t decided yet,” the god said, looking up to the swords.
         Ray cleared his throat. “Ya know, if you do destroy them, I’ll probably be out of a job.”
         “Oh, don’t worry. If I do, I’ll destroy one.” Algemeth winked at him. Shoving his phone in his pocket, he started toward the circle.
         Ray watched him go, followed at a distance by the tourists.

         Passing between two of the swords, Ray entered the circle to find the god standing close to one of them. Algemeth’s face was raised toward the hilt, eyes closed, his hand on the blade. His sword.
         He rubbed his hand up and down the blade and patted it a few times. “It has been too long since I was here last. The little things you forget to appreciate.”
         “Sir?”
         The god did not answer right away. His eyes were still closed.
         “Hm? Oh, sorry. Just remembering the joy I had making these things, right out of the mountain itself. It was when we were just starting out, before anything else had been done. Plans were being made, and we felt we needed some sort of symbol of our agreement.” He grimaced again after that last part.
         His eyes opened, and he lowered his hand. Looking past Ray, he said, “I think I need a drink. Does anyone have any alcohol?”
         Tourists that had been hiding around the edges of the swords murmured among themselves.
         “I do,” one man said, producing a pair of beer bottles. He handed one to the god and the other to Ray. Ray raised a brow at the man as he handed it to him. Alcohol was not allowed on the monument grounds, but he was not about to tell a god what to do. After watching Algemeth twist the cap off and take a swig, he did the same.
         “Ah. Thank you,” he said to the man, then put a hand on Ray’s shoulder again. “C’mon, let us sit.”
         The god led Ray to a secluded picnic area near a fenced-off cliff away from the tourists.
         “This wasn’t here last time I was here,” Algemeth said, sitting down on one of three logs that had been laid down and sunk halfway into the ground around an unlit fire pit. He took another swig and rested his elbows on his knees. The armors around his waist clamored against the log with each movement.
         “Well, to be fair it has been a few years. Things change.”
         Algemeth snorted. “That they do. Sometimes too much.”
         Ray nodded and sat on one of the other logs. “They don’t have to,” Ray said with a hint of pleading in his voice.
         “They already are.”
         “But you can still stop it, right? If the treaty is broken, things will definitely change, and not for the better. I have a bad feeling that the world will not go back to the way it is for a long time.”
         “That is kind of the point. You might not have seen it, but I do every day. Just beneath the surface. Lianandra plays nice and coy, but it is all an act to keep you all ignorant of what she really is and does. And if the only way to do that is to start a damn war, well then that is what I aim to do.”
         The ferventness of his words caused Ray to fall silent. He was not afraid, but did not know how to reply. Even if his side of the argument sounded right in his own head, who was he to tell a god they were wrong. Gods were supposed to be all knowing and wise.
         “Ray?” Tom yelled from the direction of the museum. He threw up his arms as he approached. “What the hell, man? You just left me to clean by myself.”
         “Oh, sorry, Tom ….” Ray motioned to Algemeth.
         “He is my companion for today, if that is alright,” the god said.
         Tom’s eyes widened. He stuttered and nodded as he backed away. “Oh, hi! Um, sure, yes. No problem. I can cover for him, my lord. I mean … your majesty. Um. Sorry.”
         He turned and speed-walked back to the museum.
         Ray and the god sat together watching the sun creep toward the horizon. Neither said a word until after it sank out of sight. Ray grabbed some wood from a nearby pile and started to make a fire in the pit.
         “So how long have you worked here?” Algemeth asked out of the blue.
         “About six years.”
         “That is a long time to work at a place like this. Do you enjoy it?”
         Ray hesitated in the middle of making a pyramid out of the wood. He could not avoid telling him now. He considered lying, but felt that the god would see right through him.
         “Not a very exciting job, I would think.”
         “Heh, no. I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Ray rambled on, “The monument is an amazing piece of work. Everyone loves it. We appreciate all the work you and the others have done, truly.”
         “But I can’t blame you for wanting something more.”
         Ray nodded, pursing his lips. He composed a small fire spell to ignite the wood and sat again.
         “I can’t say I would enjoy seeing it every day, either. As much as I enjoy my own work, everything gets old eventually.”
         “Except the gods.”
         “Sure.” Algemeth snorted again. Ray was not sure what to make of that. “Nothing lasts forever.”
         Sliding to the ground in front of the log, his armor clinking, he took another sip.
         “Look at this world we live in, for example. I barely recognize it from the untouched utopia it was when we first arrived. And you people, don’t even get me started. You have grown, merged and divided, learned, believed … you would think that having your creators here beside you would keep your beliefs straight, but no … you changed them too.”
         Algemeth looked up into the darkened sky where a few stars were just starting to show. He waved his empty hand around at the landscape beyond the cliff. “Even the planet itself has changed. Did you know that there was a time when there wasn’t even magic? I’m sure you do. I’m sure it is in the history books somewhere, that calamity.”
         “Yeah,” Ray said and took a sip himself. “That was a mess.”
         “Nah, this. This here is a mess. That was a right bit of turmoil, don’t get me wrong. But this is a mess.”
         The god leaned toward Ray, resting on his elbow in the dirt next to the fire.
         “That girl,” he began.
         “What girl,” Ray interrupted.
         Algemeth’s brows furrowed.
         “Lianandra,” he said as if it was obvious who he was referring to. The goddess Lianandra. “She has been a pain in my ass since day one. She had to have things her way, her design, or she would pitch a fit. Most of the time we just went along with it because it didn’t matter, but there were those days … let’s just say that you people are lucky I consider our creations to be more than just lesser beings.”
         He chuckled. Ray felt that a god joking about annihilating humanity was not exactly humorous from his own human perspective, but laughed along anyway.
         The god laughed harder. “I see it on your face. Don’t worry, I never would.”
         Relaxing a little, Ray chuckled for real.
         “Sometimes I get the feeling she would, though, with all the shit she has pulled.”
         “Like what?” Ray asked.
         Algemeth stared at him, then waved him away. “Nah, I’ve probably said too much already.” He went to take another sip, but the bottle was empty. He glared at it. “I can’t share all of our godly secrets. Do you happen to know where we can get any more of these around here?”
         “I think we have a few in the back, ones we’ve confiscated from tourists.”
         “Are you sure you won’t get in trouble for all of this? I wouldn’t want you to lose your job.”
         “Don’t worry about it. It is my honor. Besides, it isn’t every day you get to drink with a god.”
         Ray ran to the rear of the museum and whipped open the door.
         “Taeus help me!” Tom shouted, leaping up from his seat in the break room. “What is your problem? You scared the shit out of me.”
         Ray rushed past him to the fridge. “I’m sorry, again, Tom. He wants more and I gotta get back before he gets impatient and leaves.”
         “I can’t believe this. You are so lucky, man. What is he like?”
         Pausing, Ray looked over his shoulder at his coworker. “He’s cool. A little frightening, but cool.”
         “You better get his autograph or something, or no one is going to believe this.”
         Ray bolted out the door with his arms full random brands of beer bottles and back to Algemeth and the fire. The god was staring at his phone again when Ray arrived. He set the load on the ground behind the log the god was resting against—cringing as the glass clinked and clanged loudly—and passed him a bottle.
         “Where was I?”
         Taking one for himself, Ray returned to his seat and twisted the cap off. “Lianandra, changing the world,” he said and took a swig.
         Algemeth downed half the new bottle before continuing. “Right. The world has changed, the world will change. It is only a matter of time, really.”
         The god’s sentiment was not encouraging Ray about their situation. The gods were beyond powerful. Something like war would have little effect on them in the long run, but humans ….
         “Many of us will die if this happens, but you gods will go on regardless.” Ray paused, realizing what he had just said aloud and who he had said it to, and looked at the god out of the corner of his eye. Algemeth did not seem offended by his words.
         “Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do. I’ve seen my share of bloodshed. I’m not a fan of war more than anyone else, probably even less so, but sometimes it is necessary.” He took another swig that finished the bottle. “If it helps, I plan to be down there fighting right along side everyone.”
         Algemeth pointed his hand toward the sky, palm up. Ray jumped as fire lashed out from the god’s fingers and became a sword in his grip. A wicked, jagged blade with odd curves, it looked much more complex than its massive stone monument counterpart. Still, it was huge for a sword, larger than any man could even think of wielding.
         He opened his hand, and the sword vanished into the darkness. “We do what we must. We will make it through this. And if not, the universe will continue on without us.”
         They fell quiet again and watched the stars in the cloudless sky. The crickets chirped, hidden somewhere in the grass nearby. They both finished another bottle. All of the tourists left before Algemeth spoke again.
         “What do you do in your free time, Ray? What do you do for fun?”
         “I play a lot of music. Guitar.”
         “Good choice. You have kids?”
         Ray shook his head. “Never met that right someone.”
         “You can’t wait around for the perfect person. You have to go find them.” Algemeth chuckled and cracked open another bottle. “Have some kids, before everything goes to shit. Everyone should have something to leave behind.”
         “Wouldn’t that be irresponsible? Bringing kids into a time of war?”
         The god leaned over and patted him on the knee. “Lighten up,” he said with a stern smile before standing and stretching. Again, Ray found it hard to argue with a god.
         “Did you … do you … are you a father?” Ray asked. Thinking about it, it was a silly question, but the way the god talked about having kids made Ray curious.
         “You mean besides you ugly lot?” the god said sarcastically. “I was, a long time ago.”
         The mood grew so heavy that Ray could feel it in the air like a thick fog, and he knew he had to lighten the conversation.
         “Speaking of … I really appreciate all of that work you did,” he said, pointing to his scaly legs sticking out of his work shorts.
         “Oh, right! You are one of mine! That makes this whole thing all the better.”
         The god smiled, but even in the darkness, Ray could tell that it was only on his lips in the light of the fire.
         “I’m sorry, I need to step away for a minute,” Algemeth said as he stood and pulled out his phone.

Part 2
The Fall

         Ray awoke to the sound of shouting. He sat up and realized that he had slept on the ground next to the fire. His face was full of dirt, and his head pounded from all the alcohol the night before, made all the worse by the noise.
         Whoever was shouting had drawn a crowd around the monument. Ray struggled to his feet and wobbled toward the commotion. Pushing through people, he found Algemeth and a slender woman with four white wings standing amid the stone swords. The elegant, form-hugging dress she wore was a stark contrast to his rough armor.
         “Whatever happened on the moon base, Lian, it wasn’t any of us!” Algemeth yelled, throwing up his hands.
         The woman thrust her finger at him. “Well, someone did.”
         “So you destroyed a city based on assumptions?”
         Lianandra looked around at the crowd and smiled kindly, calming herself a little, before returning her focus back to Algemeth. “What else was I to think? You have been aligned against me from the very beginning. Don’t deny it.”
         “We against you? Tell me who was it that created the eidolon behind our backs? And you’ve been toying with the dervanni since the moment you found out they existed!” Algemeth growled. “I have every right to hold something against you.”
         She snorted. “Hold all you want! You three talk, but I have yet to see you take any action.”
         A dark aura surrounded Algemeth. His face turned grim and he clenched his fists. Locking eyes with the goddess, he punched the stone blade that represented her sword in the monument, and her jaw dropped.
         “Now you have,” he said and started walking out of the sword circle. The crowd backed away from the monument ahead of him.
         The stone sword that he had punched creaked. It began to sway outward, away from the other swords, the stone base cracking and splintering as the two pieces ground together. The top portion fell over the cliff and landed on the side of the mountain with a crash that rumbled in Ray’s feet and filled the air with dust, and birds.
         “What! What did you do?” Lianandra shrieked.
         “What do you care?” Algemeth shouted over his shoulder. “You never liked it to begin with.”
         He left her there dumbfounded in the crowd, staring at what remained of her portion of the monument.
         Ray’s nerves were a bundle of steel after what he had just witnessed. He chased after Algemeth and caught up with him in the dirt parking lot where he had first arrived.
         “So that is it?”
         “That is it,” said the god. He turned and placed a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Remember, we will make it through this.”
         The god’s assurance comforted Ray a little, but it did nothing for the nervous knot in his stomach about what was coming.
         Algemeth stepped back and held out his arms. They transformed into wings wider than any bird’s with long brown feathers that brushed the ground. He nodded to Ray, then rocketed into the air without flapping.
         Ray watched him soar toward the horizon, and the moment Algemeth was out of sight, Ray bolted into the museum. It was time for him to make a change; Algemeth had convinced him to do something with his life. He tore off his name tag and slammed it and his copy of the museum’s keys on the counter in front of Tom, who was reading a magazine.
         “Stop doing that, man!” Tom shouted, having been startled again.
         “I quit.” Ray turned and strutted toward the exit with a bounce in his step. He was done wasting his life working a mundane job. He was going to follow after his creator.
         “Wait, what? Ray, wait! Don’t leave me here alone, man!”
         “Sorry, Tom, but I’ve got a war to fight.”




This story has ended, but it is just the beginning.

Nihilian Effect is a rich, expanding universe, the product of influence from many great science fiction and fantasy books, movies, and videogames. When Swords Fall was written in a way that it could be read standalone, but it is a small part of a much larger puzzle.

Check out the rest of the Nihilian Effect series at: http://www.KalSDavian.com/Books


If you enjoyed this story and want more for free

Pyrem Down, a short story in the Nihilian Effect saga, is available for free at the link above.


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