Lord Zee
Cyclone
The sound of the waves had always remained regular, almost like breathing. Even the shifts in its rhythm had been steady and gradual, a slight respite from the jarring, erratic fluctuations that seemed to be everywhere and in everything. Everywhere and everything. The very words seemed unpleasant, unnecessary. But, as it had been forced to admit, they could not be avoided, and it had to come to terms with them. It could not change what it did not understand.
Osveril walked on beside the murmuring sea, its steps more uniform than the waves and tides. Smooth, square footprints were trodden into the damp sand at constant intervals, but not a grain was lifted from any of them. It marched on by night and day, never perceptibly swerving from its perfectly straight path. Sometimes it clambered up and down dunes; at others it found itself wading through the shallows. It did not seem to mind, nor care.
It walked on. And it thought.
This universe of force and matter had shown itself to be slightly less chaotic than what the visions conjured by Mother Beauty had led it to expect. There seemed to be a constant, if vague, proportion between the magnitude of changes and their frequency. Small ones, like the motion of minute bodies, were fast and ubiquitous. Those were the worst of all. Larger masses only slid over one another rarely and gradually.
It was probably an effect of time. Time, Osveril concluded, was there to regulate these exchanges and transformations, imparting to each the speed and quantity that fit it best. Clearly, it was not doing its work well, and would eventually have to be changed or replaced. Or removed entirely. A truly pure world would have no use for such influences. For now, however, there were more pressing matters to attend to.
Substance would be the first to be reduced to a state free of taint. Inevitably. Everything here flowed through that filter. Not at all like the Gap, which erred in excess of media. In a way, it pondered, this would make the first steps of the cleansing much easier than they would have been elsewhere: since matter was so crucial in the life of the cosmos, it could easily focus the bulk of its efforts on its structures. Many of the minor facets would then probably collapse, having lost their foundations in reality.
Besides, it sensed that most of the impurities lay in this great universal stratum. All these aberrant shapes of concreteness, supernumerary bulks of substance, wayward, pointless vectors of force. The more Osveril perceived, the more surprised it was that all of this had not yet collapsed and suffocated under its own diseased weight. Clearly, there had to be pillars and supports built to sustain this mass, skeletons blindly reared by Mother or the other gods.
It did not take the Hollow Absolute long to find them. Or, rather, it. There was something just beneath the smothering blanket of the manifest, something robust, yet elusive. It knew its senses were not made to grasp this sort of construction, but it could dimly guess at its full shape and purpose. The web gave integrity to the space over it. And - order. A malformed, limping parody of pure order, put there by someone who did not know any better. Yet it could now be certain that someone had, for all their being unsuited to such a task, attempted it. You're not the first.
This discovery complicated matters. Osveril knew it was not yet strong enough here to affect those laws with anything approaching precision, and precision was key. Nor could it neglect them, as their continued existence was a threat to anything it could create. Indeed, if they allowed itself to remain intact outside the Womb at all, it was only thanks to this fleshly shell it was now bound to. At the same time, their presence was a sign that, somewhere, there might be divine minds more malleable than Mother. Minds that could be made to receive the grey absence, and enter the final vision of Purity.
Purity. What is Purity?
Osveril stopped.
When it thought about making the cosmos, its matter and its web of substructures pure, the terms were as clear as it was meet for their subject to be. Things could not be allowed to remain as they were, and measures had to be taken. This was all. There could be no doubt about this verdict, no appeal to it. However, as soon as it lowered its attention from the whole to the singular components of this great directive, it found them lacking at the very core.
Purity was the centerpiece of more than merely its desires, since those latter were not distinct entities unto themselves. Nor even its duty, which was one with them. Purity was, quite simply, itself. Ever since it had faced destruction in the Gap and been born as the new Void - perhaps before as well, but it could not remember - the carapace it inhabited had tinged its emptiness with that meaning. If Osveril was anything at all, it was Purity.
What am I?
Mother had been able to answer this question, and, at the time, it had replied to her own. She had been satisfied with the universal summation, and did not need anything else. But it could and had to understand in full.
Osveril raised a hand and swiped a finger through the air, cutting the world. This time, it did not let the void close upon itself, but pried it open and pushed it apart. The sky groaned at this outrage, the breeze, which was just then rising from the sea, shimmered at the edges of the anomaly in a flurry of displaced motion, the soil at its feet, unexpectedly relieved of its burden, heaved liquidly. Within there was none of this. Only a weak echo of the space the formlessness did not occupy, and even that soon faded.
Despite its stolid and unfeeling nature, a pang of something that might have been remembrance coursed through the Absolute as it cast its spinning perception into the emptiness. This was not what the old absence had rested in, incapable even of suspecting that there could be anything. It was clean, and this cleanness defended itself with almost touching determination.
It gestured again, and a ripple of unstable voids tossed a handful of sand into the rift. The grains scattered as they flew forward; then they were still and grey; then they were gone. It followed their rapid deterioration with interest, its mask tipping forward in satisfaction. Clean. Pure. There could be no question of it. The cycles within, which had until then pulsed discontentedly, hovered perfectly still.
And yet, something was amiss. If Purity was so easily found, why had it, who Was the Void, been so perplexed when it had first sought it? Why was it still not ready to march forth and consume all this ocean of matter with numberless mouths of hungry, cleansing emptiness, but stood meditating before this single tear in the cancerous skein?
What else is pure?
Once again, it seemed entirely clear. Here, before Osveril, was Purity. Nothing else, no other nothing, was necessary.
Or was it?
Purity is universal. It must be.
This cosmos, in its current state, did not contain more than faint traces of it. But there could be potential. Things that were malleable, like the minds of order-seeking gods. It was itself breathing proof of this - standing with a solid foot in the world of matter, yet nurturing the yearning for what was untainted in the coils that were inside. To reduce tractable substance, as well as that which resisted, to complete absence would risk being wasteful, and risk and waste were impure.
It cannot be bound, for it must bind all things.
This was not the Gap yet?. Other laws, it had felt it, were at work here. More diversity, more flexibility, more adaptability were needed to fulfill its mandate. No one constant, however perfect, was enough. It demanded more, for Purity and for itself.
This, then, was the second answer. Osveril was potential. Superior to that which was in the world, as it could – would – realise itself, and all else, alone.
Realise into what? The first question remained. What was Purity here?
Osveril cast its senses back into the world, feeling, seeking. Matter was everywhere, but in one point, especially, it jutted up in harsh, defiant lumps. Rocks. The forces in the water had hewed off an unknown portion of them, but their bulk stood still. It seemed to the Hollow One that they were waiting, patient in the agony of their position, to be mended.
Leaving the gaping void behind itself, it moved a few steps towards the stones. There was life crawling all over them. Small and ubiquitous, like the equally microscopic changes. It could probably perceive the shapes around itself just as well by touching life alone. So much of it to purge. All in its own time.
It raised a hand, and the particles of dust it had called forth in the Womb flowed out from it, then from the arm behind it, the shoulder, the entire body. The grey cloud was so thick it seemed to be an extension of the Absolute’s form, swelling monstrously into a pulsing, wavering mass. But that only lasted a moment; once again, the dust wove itself into threads, then grasping tendrils stemming from the immobile claws.
Moved by a single will, the innumerable specks wound through the air towards the rocks. The filaments were solid, many-faced and eager. They spun around the eroded boulders, circling ever tighter like hungry snakes. The dust began to scatter as it touched the stone, spreading upon it like the tiny motes of life. The darker, wave-scarred grey was swallowed by this new, alien tide.
Each grain of dust was a perfect, angular shape. And each angle was an impossibly sharp edge. Innumerable fragments of Osveril gouged the universe, shearing away all that was foul and superfluous. Sparks of void flickered through what had been for millennia. Now it was not only the sky, but stone and life that groaned as they were ground together, pierced, sheared, erased.
It could feel the rocks changing under its influence. Not only in shape, nor only in substance, but in how it stimulated the cycles. Or, more precisely, did not stimulate them. The deeper the filaments burrowed into these clots of existence, the slower became the gnawing, drilling motions of the essence in its frame, which mere instants before had still been just barely endurable. It reacted to the potential that became truth.
In a blink, it was complete. The tendrils drew back, gathering themselves from the unrecognisable faces of rock and winding into the fissures whence they had emerged. In their wake, they left Purity.
The stones were no longer ungainly growths moulded haphazardly by fickle elements. They were intricate structures of rigid, perfectly chiseled rhomboids, symmetrical both in and between themselves. Long, narrow slits ran through these figures, giving both them and the whole they formed the appearance of fragile, yet stable grids. No excess, no lack. Exactly as much as necessary.
Within, the rocks were hollow. Not merely empty for the wind to blow through. The indistinct, inchoate shadows of voids, stretched into the realm of form - a necessary concession - to leave no figment of space among these forced walls, filtered through the many identical openings.
As Hollow as their maker.
Osveril contemplated its handiwork. All of the demigod, both outside and the non-existing inside, were, for perhaps the first time since its coming into being, pleased. It drank in the origin and the goal, the beginning and the end of all its striving. How close it was. How simple reaching it had been, after all those doubts and questions. A wave of the hand, a projection of will, and Purity had come.
Purity has come.
…
has Purity come?
The rotations, which had almost become immobile, suddenly jerkeв back into motion.
A multitude of flaws, previously hidden, now leapt to its senses. The shape was impure: too many edges, not enough faces. The substance was impure: the stones of the world could not be relied upon to be suitable vessels; their composition itself was flawed. The core was perhaps worst of all: why had it given shape to the void? How could it have believed that this was in any way necessary?
Absence
given
shape
No, this was justifiable. But the rest? Incomplete. Imperfect. Impure.
It had been mistaken when it had thought that there was nothing but gods in the universe. Yet this was more alarming. It proved that it could be mistaken about itself.
This could not be allowed. No more.
Osveril struck the staff it was carrying - it was carrying the staff, it remembered - into the sand, and moved a step backward, leaving it standing. Its arms folded into right angles, hands snapping into a predatory, menacing position. It seemed ready to spring on something, like a feral creature, and sink its grey blades into yielding flesh, but it remained still.
For the third time, dust flowed out of its body. Not in a steady, quickening stream, however. It breathed in, and the small grey clouds hung immobile in the air. It breathed out, and new myriads were exhaled from the joints and cracks of its shell. In and out, slower and slower, longer and longer. The strands of dust became mist, then walls, then a vortex. Then it did not inhale anymore. Air whistled out, stirring the inexplicable soundless storm that raged around it. When there was no more air, came dust; and when there was no more dust, no one could have seen what came next.
The grey blight rose as a towering pillar, high into the darkening sky. Clouds shrank from it, and a wind died against it. Time and again, a cold, dim light seemed to shine through its crawling walls.
Slowly, excruciatingly, Osveril tightened its grip on the world. Incorporeal arms were mangled and severed by substance, and the void screamed for them. And more of them came. They crushed and stifled, forcing space to withdraw and be replaced by waves of nonentity. There would be no half-measures. The Absolute would be hollowed out in full.
The storm lasted for as long as Osveril was out of breath.
***
When the last of the dust had withdrawn into the purified shell, it was night again. Of the major, rare changes, this alternation in the heavens was the one Osveril preferred above all. With the tremendous source of energy overhead hidden behind the horizon, its surroundings became much less flooded with vibrations of heat, and the pitilessly scorching light became stunted and indirect. Darkness, however relative, was a relief.
Yet this time, as the triangular mask swept from side to side, regaining its bearings, it was clear that something was different.
There was no relief in the dark, as there could be no relief at all. Relief was a sign that it was weak before something, and sought to rest from the struggle. Weakness was impure, and so was relief.
Weakness will be purged.
The absence of a face came to rest on the void it had opened before. Before, it had awakened memories, as fond as they could be, of the timelessness before being. Though Osveril did not know the meaning of that word, it had been pleasant. A recollection of peace amid the gibbering havoc that advanced from all sides.
Now, there was no memory, only awareness that such things were unnecessary distractions. It was not anymore what it had not been, as it had repeated more than once, and clinging to that was hindering. All it needed was knowledge that this void was pure, and of where it could be found. Everything else was superfluous. Memory was impure.
Memory will be purged.
It was not only thoughts that had become so distinct and transparent. The senses which were cast outwards from the Absolute’s presence were so much sharper, more focused, more certain of their purpose. It felt all the threads of the great, aberrant design laid bare before itself, open to being taken, one by one, and tugged to see how strong was their potential. Whether they could withstand Purity, or were fit only for annihilation.
And Purity itself would be found. All in good time.
Time. When had it first thought of time? Soon after encountering it, as was meet. It and life. Both things that had to be altered, but which it could not reach itself. Not alone.
The staff still stood where Osveril had left it. It had been just outside the circle of the grey storm, and continued to pulse, unperturbed, with amniotic light. It lifted the gnarled stem and passed its hand along the jagged surface, this time tapping it slightly with the tip of a finger. Something was inside it, altogether unlike the exterior, but what exactly it could not detect. Complex, for certain, and capable of shaping life. There seemed to be only one way to discover it, the same one it used in the search for Purity.
The probing limb met with an even surface, then several yielding spots, crammed tightly together. Access to the workings of the core? It pressed one of them, marked with a circular symbol. Parallel lines appeared on the flat - screen? - above, then were almost immediately replaced by a dozen of rectangles. It tried another of the spots - these must have been buttons, then. One of the rectangles grew larger than the others, blinked, and the lines closed over it again. And thus for all of them.
The staff was missing something. It did not have anything to work with. No life.
Osveril lifted the tip to its mask. There were traces of purity of purpose in the thick, robust spike. Odd for Mother, though irregularity was to be expected from her. It could be improved.
Not before the full extent of its functions was clear.
Life was all around, but not all of it was suitable for the first test. A safe margin was preferable, and in this case it was to be sought in physical extension.
A step, and the staff was thrust, with a single fluid motion, into a heap of fresh seaweed gathered by the rising waves. Spiral-like patterns enclosed in a square flashed briefly on the screen, then the entire shape shrank to almost invisible proportions.
A second step in the opposite direction, and a small, winding shape, unprotected by the sand it had so arduously burrowed into, was chipped just deep enough for the staff to take effect. Once more, the square appeared and shrank, now containing a slightly different scheme. And another one for the clam Osveril pried open. Another for the swimming forms that were brought into reach by skein-twisting void. Another for the large, carapace-bound creature that had crawled out of the water to scavenge. And another. And another.
It did not stop until it began to dawn.
When, satisfied with its work, Osveril examined the screen again, part of it was now dark with the diminished catalogue of signs. The first experiment had then been successful to a point. Life was there to be moulded.
The Absolute pressed a sequence of buttons. Some of the squares grew to fill the screen for a second, the patterns within them superimposing and combining into something new.
Suddenly, the lower end of the staff vibrated, as though to expel something stuck in its interior, and a small body fell onto the sand. Osveril hollowed out the space between its hand and that form, and lifted it into the focus of its senses.
The body was alive, or, rather, it had been a moment ago. It was too small, frail and undeveloped to endure the world without protection.
As was I.
It needed a womb.
This, then, was how life would be reshaped. A birth brought on from outside, in manifold imitation of the coming of Osveril.
The Absolute closed its hand, void wisps consuming the stillborn creature. It did not resemble any of those whose likeness it had gathered. A combination of them? This would be ideal. If even some living things had a measure of potential in them, it could select their best traits and build new entities from them alone. Perfect vessels for Purity.
Osveril sounded the sea for one last time, then turned away from it. There was much more to evaluate and correct, and now it knew how. Piece by piece. Step by step. Life by life.
The Void That Is walked on.
