The Ascent of the Nebel
Ea Nebel stared up into the morning sun again, pacing the chilled and snowdusted rock. The Iron Boar observed her with patient tension. Time was very short.
She knew that the Bridge of the Sun would open to her, if she only called out to it. The Monarch of All would hear her voice. She now bore a Shard of His being that was not hers, and if He did not wish for her to deliver, He would have come to take it. But Ruina had blazed on ahead, and Ea Nebel had no time to row that merry solar stream. She needed something fast, something that could convey her out past the Ring of Shadow, to the Sun and the Moon and between the stars all under its own power. She needed to conjure something up. What?
Her boots had dug a pattern into the snow as she paced. The flame in her heart was out, but she still had enough heat in her veins to do this task, that much was certain. The Gnosis had not left her. How would she do it? Her trials had exhausted her heart and body, and she longed for sleep. She could scrawl a deep glyph, but she didn’t know what to write, and formulating a clear vision of it in her mind would take too long in any case- she might as well fly up in the shape of a bird. And Grief was in no mood to dance.
None of it mattered. She could do it. This was a feat, not a riddle. Ea Nebel looked up, tightened her muscles, screwed her eyes shut, shook her head and kept pacing. She could do it- there were many ways to do this- and yet she…
‘Some voices ought never be heard, as some sights ought never be seen.’
…She was scared. It was a fear she could feel in her gut. Ea Nebel barely knew what she’d heard, but she remembered the sound. She was too exhausted to face such things again. She couldn’t bear the thought of any more pain. Not while the heart-wounds of her trials were still fresh and bleeding. It made her stomach crawl.
But she had to, and she would. What would comfort her in the abyss of outer space? Ea Nebel was fearful; she needed to feel powerful. Dangerous. Mysterious. Strange. She would take strangeness by the throat, and then no strangeness could threaten her. She dragged her boots in the snow, turning her trail of pacing into the seed of a rudimentary glyph, and began to sing.
So stand beneath
The starry beams
Of foreign lights, and
Fever-dreams
Then turn your head
To tongueless teeth
In new-moon nights, and
Heavens deep
The sun can burn
Only in turn
When day is dry, and
Hollow sky
Fall in your bed
Don’t dream in dread
When chasms rise, and
Demons fly
She let her voice taper off. Now it rose before her, called down from some void behind the stars, its hundred filamentous arms radiating up from its core and meeting high in the sky like steepled fingers without joints, perfectly spaced. Against the white of the snow, it was as dark as she was. Ea Nebel pushed its fractal tendrils aside and stepped onto its center, admiring the subtle bulges of hidden teeth like an echinoid. She took hold of two translucent, spiraled appendages, allowing them to wrap around her arms, and shouted a goodbye at her faithful boar as the creature spread its arms and was lifted off the face of Galbar as if it were a bubble and the atmosphere was a bowl of water, buoyed up by earthlight, like the seed of a dandelion.
The sky grew darker and darker. Ea Nebel’s hat melted over her face in a smooth charcoal-black faceplate and helmet, fed with pipes. The Dusk Kite turned its outer face to the Sun, pulling her along by her arms, and began to pulse. Its filaments were innumerable, branching like a basket-star, like a fern, its body like velvet. Every tentacle was longer than the tallest redwood in the giant lands of the north, yet barely thicker than her arm at its base. It ate daylight, and she could see the glow of it, travelling softly up and down its primitive veins to its core like rivers to a lake, breaking up into colours as it was digested. No eyes, no heart, no brain, no gut, no lungs- only those rivulets of luminescence, dripping to its core. So weightless was its impossible body that the solar wind slowly blew it away, out from the sun, away from Galbar.
Ea Nebel frowned. She squeezed the ribbonlike arms that had crept up her sleeves and wrapped all the way up to her shoulders. Hidden organs around her blazed with a spray of refocused light, and shot her forwards to the Sun.
“SHOW ME THE WAY!”
A gust of solar wind rocked her, and she saw a long, straight ray of gold stretching from the Sun before her to Galbar far behind her. She sailed down into the Bridge and was immediately hurled back by the gale, the Dusk Kite curling up around her and flipping around and around as she was blown down towards Galbar, eventually falling out of the beam. She recovered her senses and clung to the creature as it unfurled its arms once more.
The solar wind could only blow her away from the sun, but the veins of the kite were flashing like a heartbeat.
Ea Nebel propelled herself forwards with the kite’s own power, following the Bridge from outside its dangerous current, swiftly exhausting the stored radiance. The wind of photons began to push her back again, and she sailed into the golden beam once more, travelling not up but across it, tumbling out again as swiftly as she could. Once more the kite replenished its store of stolen daylight.
She launched herself forwards again, sailing over the Flow, skimming over the dark surface of Time as she advanced through Space in leaps; tacking back and forth through the golden stream of sunlight before each jump, smoother and smoother, losing less speed each time the gale forced her back, spinning the radial kite around its central axis without ever flipping over and tumbling down the stream, gaining more and more speed…
And then she was just flying, the splayed-fern tentacles swept back around her and trailing far behind in a tail as she skimmed over the golden stream below, a sleek, black meteor diving towards the Sun faster than any living thing could ever dream to fly over the face of Galbar, now far behind.
Upon the bridge itself was Ruina, having teleported up to the bridge itself in lieu of anything more fanciful. She moved with both haste and purpose, and Ea Nebel would see her push open the grand doors of the palace with ease. Ruina left them open wide, knowing that they would close themselves in time. The guards that stood around the palace now were interesting. Did He feel as if He was under threat of some kind? Hopefully they wouldn’t impede her mission.
Entering into the main plaza of the palace Ruina took a few moments to look around briefly, casting out her divine senses in hopes that she would find the blinding radiance that was The Monarch of All. Unfortunately, she did not find Him this way, and thus resorted to something that would be simpler. Speaking up, Ruina spoke in a way to cause her voice to echo throughout the winding halls of the palace. ”I come seeking an audience. I bear news regarding my assigned judgment.”
She’s here.
The Dusk Kite spiralled into the beam of gold and shot over the golden tiles of the bridge as the doors began to swing shut in its path. The creature burst through the crack between them as they swung, throwing them wide, exploding into the palace atrium in a wild spray of tendrils and pulsed photons, and Ea Nebel tumbled from its arms, landing mostly on her feet in a field of staggered and recovering guards. The panicked Kite wrapped its filaments around the marbled pillars of the Palace and flung itself out of the atrium, into the open space of the plaza, leaving Ea Nebel to follow on foot, never daring to turn and look at who or what might pursue her.
“I’m here! I have the Shard!” Her coattails swished around her as she came to a stop in the plaza, standing almost side by side with Ruina. She turned her head wide and searched for the Monarch, faceplate dissolving back into a hat, but all she could see was the Kite mooring itself to a colonnade and drifting upwards in a curled-up bundle to rest, like a sea-lily, like a sleeping buoy. Then it grew quiet, and she met eyes with the goddess at last.
As the Dusk Kite burst into the palace Ruina turned on the spot to glare at the interruption. Readying a bone blade for something to begin attacking her, the guards, or both, Ruina found herself somewhat relieved when it was not an attempt to disrupt her report in some fashion. Releasing the bone blade and allowing it to retreat into her arm, Ruina turned her attention away from the beast as it scrambled around and instead looked down at Ea Nebel as she proclaimed to have a shard with her. Why did she have this? Ruina’s best assumption was that He had directed Iqelis to tell Ea Nebel or told Ea Nebel personally to retrieve it, and thus she paid it no mind. At least for now.
Nodding a greeting at Ea Nebel out of courtesy Ruina turned her attention away from the demigoddess and looked around once more to try and find The Monarch of All. When she couldn't, Ruina merely resolved to wait. A few moments later a thought crossed her mind as she recalled a detail from the trials. Ea Nebel had referred to Iqelis as her father. The same Iqelis that she was about to condemn to death. Perhaps it would be best to say something to Ea Nebel…
Turning to face Ea Nebel again, Ruina spoke softly. ”There is something that I would say. You referred to Iqelis as your father, yes? I must apologize then, for I am about to condemn him to death. I was told to judge him and his trials, and he has failed. The Monarch will not be pleased to hear this failure. I am sorry.”
Ea Nebel held the gaze, then looked down at the smooth floor. It was tiled in jasper and chalcedony. She shook her head, aware of the silence. “Ruina… Don’t you see? There was no trial. Neither for me, nor for my father. This was pure punishment.” Now she looked up again, arms loosely folded. “The Divine Iqelis struck down what the Emperor lifted up. He showed that it was possible to rebel. That was why he had to be humiliated, cornered… hurt where he was most vulnerable, even if it meant sacrificing the Emperor’s own grandchild. An example had to be made. With witnesses. And it had to be done without even lifting a finger Himself. That is the root of royalty: power without effort.” She rubbed the toes of her shoe over the unwalked tiles, once boots, now slippers. “So you were fed a lie, and you became His hammer. My father subjected me to cruelty because you were there to watch him. That was the heart of it all. My father is paraded as a weakling and a monster, alive only by His mercy, and the ties of family between us are… wounded. Between you and me. Me and my father. My father and my mother. It was the perfect plan. Now it is done, and we are afraid to rebel. The Emperor’s will has been carried out. All without even raising his hand.” She stared out, to the colonnades around them, the fountain-monument at the centre of the plaza, the distant height of the halls that held the Throne. “Even I am forced to come and grovel before him now, while he withholds my birthright. This is what it means to be a subject.”
Ruina remained silent as Ea Nebel spoke. Perhaps her words had wisdom to them, but there was possibly something that she had never been told of, and even if her words held some wisdom Ruina found it wise to reveal another part of the story that further complicated things. ”I will not dispute what you say, but I will offer up a wrinkle to it: Iqelis has attempted to exert his will upon me before.”
Ruina turned now to look upon the moon, and gestured to it briefly before speaking again. ”The moon gained its scarring by his hand, but if my designs had gone as intended the scars would’ve been by mine. I had announced a test of the moon, just as I had announced and performed a test of the oceans across Galbar. The holes that were there, and the ones that appear at random? They were and are the result of my trial.” Indeed, Ea Nebel recalled the whale bones, a field of emaciated carcasses in dry silt.
”When I moved to test the moon Iqelis appeared and told me not to hold back, inferring that I did in the first place. I informed him that I did not hold back in my tests and questioned why he was so eager to see the moon tested. I suspected that he wanted to start a conflict with Yudaiel, and told him that I would have no part in it.”
Yudaiel. Grief recalled the mushroom. She had been given no choice in such matters.
Ruina looked back down to Ea Nebel now. Her gaze was as steel as she continued. ”Iqelis spelled out his view of things, and I told him that my trials were mine. I also told him that I would never accept the mantle of pawnhood. And then I told him that if he wished to see conflict begin that it would be best to start it himself. In response to this Iqelis called me a fool and asked if I thought I was anything but a pawn. Claiming that he was attempting to guide me, as he described, along currents more favorable, I could tell that I would have to fight or flee. I chose to flee, since I was not at full strength. I warned the other deities and hid myself for a time to recover.”
Ruina raised her arm and once more produced a blade of bone. Looking across the surface of it, Ruina spoke again. ”This suit could not produce these weapons at first. I found a remaining piece of my once sister and removed it to fully become the master of this suit, and following that I infused it with all of the destructive power I could muster. You can sense it, I’m sure.”
“...”
Ruina lowered her arm towards Ea Nebel. Surprisingly, there was no threat to this motion. The bone blade hovered just before her, radiating raw destructive power. Ea Nebel could tell that being struck with a weapon such as this would devastate the corporeal form of even divine beings. She frowned at it, saying nothing.
After a few moments passed, Ruina would retract the blade into herself and lower her arm before speaking again. ”I did this explicitly to defend myself from Iqelis’ machinations. Even if what you say is true, and these trials have all been a display of punishment to remind us all of our place… I would hesitate to say that Iqelis is undeserving of such punishment.”
“...That’s why He chose you, then. You’re afraid.” Ea Nebel finally turned her face away, looking down at the floor. She was quiet, almost mumbling. “Scared hearts are easy to goad. They lash out. If you ever felt yourself losing control, you would wash that blade in my father’s blood. You wouldn’t hesitate to do that, would you, Ruina?” She looked up to where those bright green eyes towered over her, and it was once again clear that she was not talking to herself. “Is it because of your sister? Are you afraid that your brother would hurt you, too? Or are you just scared to die like she did?”
”I chose her for her loyalty, daughter of Iqelis. A trait that your father lacks.”
A voice came from behind Ea Nebel, the voice of her grandfather resonating within her mind as the light from His wound made her cast a shadow upon the floor. He stepped out from behind Ea Nebel, circling the two goddess in silent steps on the hard floor as His lower hands pushed their fingertips together. The great Monarch of All had made himself known, and His eyes rested solely upon the half-god herself as He continued his motions around the two of them, the multicolored cloak dragging on the floor behind Him. His voice came through again before either of the two could attempt to speak, a cruel voice descending upon the two of them.
”Do you believe that I am but a tyrant who prays upon weak hearts? A monster for a ruler? I can be, if that’s what you so desire. It would be an interesting change of character, if I say so myself.”
Ea Nebel released some of the sudden tension resting taught in her spine, and flung out her arm, flourishing her sleeve. Once more she was draped in the sheer layers and puffed silks of imperial regalia. Only then did she curtsy. “There is no more need for such things, Sire. I understand the courtly game. I suppose I should thank you for teaching me a lesson I shan’t forget.” Ea Nebel held the curtsy, but did not lower her gaze. She could almost have been smiling.
Ruina had been about to respond to Ea Nebel’s observations when The Monarch made himself known. Ruina chose to remain silent, and instead gave a silent nod of recognition to Him. As the conversation reached a point of pause, Ruina spoke up to deliver her report on events that had happened. ”Greetings, Monarch. I have done as was requested of me, though I would’ve liked to have heard it from you directly rather than Iqelis. I have watched the trials and I have deemed them a failure. He tested Ea Nebel on things that were already natural to her, frequently without any form of time limit, and at the end of each test he promptly fed Ea Nebel the answer he wanted her to learn. Not once did he challenge her to use her abilities in a new way, an unconventional way, or did he ask her what she had learned. Iqelis has coddled and sheltered her consistently rather than allow Ea Nebel to present herself independently of him. That being said, Homura and I are in agreement: Both of us find no reason for Ea Nebel to be destroyed. I feel that she has suffered enough under the whims of Iqelis. That is my report.”
”I did instruct Iqelis to not hold back in his tests, however…”
The Supreme One looked to Ea Nebel, an inquisitive glare rummaging through her mind as a simple question entered her mind. It was invasive yet it pried not upon needlessly forcing the question into her soul - a mere suggestion that she should answer to Ruina’s accusations. His voice was nothing more than an echo that traveled the length of her mind.
”Do you believe your father held back out of love for you, child?”
The answer was immediate, visceral, almost visible, a thought like an image like a snarl of bared fangs: If he had withheld his fist from his child, would she have jumped?
”Then there is my answer, Ruina. Iqelis shall be spared for the time being, until he inevitably tries to cross me again.”
The Monarch of All turned towards She Who Tests and allowed Himself a brief moment of silence as the two locked eyes. His arms crossed behind His back and the King of the Gods let out a disarming laugh at the two of them, allowing the tension to release itself. Almost as if He knew that the air was too thick to walk through, the Monarch of All let a hand out to Ea Nebel and Ruina in a gesture for them to take His hands in that moment. Yet, it was becoming too bright for one soul amongst them - the mortal in flesh who stood in the palace grounds that were not made for such primitive beings. Ea Nebel could, perhaps, have felt the heat of the blinding palace lights chewing at her, gnawing at her mortality despite her divine nature doing its best to keep her together. It was a slow and gradual heat, but it was making itself known, yet the Monarch of All did not seem to notice, or if He had, He was ignoring her suffering.
”Ea Nebel, do you have the shard of Aletheseus?”
She nodded, and reached into a small purse, raising a hand-sized fragment pulsing with blue spectral fire over her palm. As she did, the crushing sun-heat of the Palace fell on her, fluttering her gown like air from an oven, immediately breaking into a sweat. The Divine Shard of Fortitude had given her strength to endure the solar gale for as long as it could, but it would soon be time to surrender its protection.
”Excellent.”
The Monarch of All’s voice was riddled with happiness as He took the shard from Ea Nebel’s hand and held it close to His light-bearing chest. There was a brief moment before the inevitable pull clutched the shard, dragging back into His body and filling Him with a vigor that had not been seen within the divine being. It was the feeling of power flowing through Him that made the Monarch of All let out a pleased sigh, as if He could breathe once more. Ea Nebel’s own breaths were already growing laboured.
In a swift flick of His hand, the supreme being summoned guards, marching past them, dressed in ornate armors and weapons that radiated divine power. He looked to Ea Nebel and gave her a final trial for her to pass to claim her birthright, speaking softly as a parent to a child.
”Make your way to my throne. There you will receive your birthright, child.”
She nodded, silently choking on air. Her skin had taken on the translucence of warm wax. Ea Nebel took a step, then another, and began to walk, maintaining both her posture and her stride- but slowly. Very slowly. In the moment before her veil fell down around her face, something like a skull was visible beneath it, white as marble.
As the instruction was given for Ea Nebel to make her way to the throne room, Ruina actually stepped forward with something notable to say. ”Come with me, Ea Nebel. I shall guide you.” Ruina had been there before, coming into existence behind the throne. Regardless of why she had been there, Ruina knew the way, and began to lead Ea Nebel.
However she could tell that something was quite wrong by now. Ea Nebel was already under a bit of strain from simply existing in the divine realm, but now as Ruina looked back, her sister was quietly struggling. Looking up to the perpetual light that surrounded the palace, Ruina was able to quickly guess as to why. Though the question of why it took this long for things to become dire puzzled her briefly. Perhaps the shard of fortitude had been lending aid? And thus with it’s loss Ea Nebel was now worse for wear? Unfortunate, but not something that could not be helped. Turning and walking behind Ea Nebel, Ruina paused for a moment to focus.
With the sound of shifting flesh and bone, and a bit of a grunt from Ruina, a wing grew from the left shoulder of Ruina’s suit. It opened gently, revealing that it held a structure much like a dragon’s wing. Tough opaque flesh stretched between malleable fingers, and with a gentle motion Ruina stretched and lowered the wing to shelter Ea Nebel in its shade before speaking softly. ”Come. I will ease your burden, you have suffered enough. It is not far.”
And with that, she urged Ea Nebel further into the throne room.
Together they walked through hall and pathway, following that long, straight route to the heart of the Palace. It was wide, airy, and tall; such was its lofty height that it gave the impression of a mountain, and such did Ea Nebel struggle on its steps that she may as well have been climbing one. Her veil had once again swollen into a featureless round plate of black, and new layers were creeping down from it, one after another, each thicker than the last. She disappeared under bulky heat-armour, and her footsteps clanked on the porphyry floor.
The grand doors of the Imperial throne room were open, flanked on both sides by their ceremonial guard. At the top of the steps, the unidentifiable black figure under Ruina’s wing hunched over and stopped, resting her hands on her knees. A thin white liquid was boiling out of the seams of the suit.
Slowly she raised her hand, and nudged the back of two fingers against the arm of Ruina’s sheltering wing. She could have no more shade. These last steps would be taken alone.
As Ea Nebel pushed against the shade of the offered wing, Ruina hesitated for a moment before realizing what Ea Nebel wanted to do. Nodding, she took a moment to place a reassuring hand on where Ea Nebel’s shoulder would be before pushing her forward slightly and withdrawing the wing in silence. With a wet slithering sound the wing would retract into Ruina’s form, and she would ascend to stand beside Him and await her arrival.
The figure rose from the shade of its sister. Whatever glories of Imperial majesty lay before her went unseen. All she saw was sunlight, a river of golden fire sweeping over her and into her, blinding as it burned. Even her armour swirled and warped with the heat, returning to shapelessness. She did not see behind her a second light emerging, a white light growing and dividing into four smooth, sleek blades, light like brilliant pale crystal hovering behind the back of the ghastly walking sarcophagus she wore, perfectly steady against the gale of the Sun, two on each side, like the spreading wings of a white moth…
But the wings weren’t steady. One flickered, wavered, like a candle disappearing and reigniting in a breeze. It flickered left and right, now on her one side, now on her other, an uncertainty, an error, until finally it crossed over from her left side to her right. As the chrysalis-figure fell at last to its knees before the Throne of the Sun, four white vanes stretched out behind it: three on the one side, and one on the other.
“Ea Nebel, First of the Demi-Gods, Daughter of Iqelis and Homura, Maiden of All Tombs, you have completed your trials as were given to you by your father and, under affirmation of both Ruina and Homura, you have become worthy of becoming wholly divine. As such, I bestow unto you: the Shard of the Grave.”
The Monarch of All spoke loudly, so that all divinity may hear, and a single shard floated between two of His hands, sat perfectly within the light of His chest. As the winged figure came forth, He allowed the gem to slowly descend to her, and the sounds of spears clattering into the ground could be heard behind her. It was then that the Monarch of All raised His trident before bringing it down to rest atop her head, and after speaking a single, indiscernible breath to Ea Nebel, the Monarch of All swiftly brought the trident up and slammed it into the ground.
”Now, Grief, I name you First of the Grave! Come and become a great lord of my realm!”
And then she rose, and there were no wings, no hideous shell, only herself. Her body was as it had always been. She stood up, her black gown trimmed with filigree gold, a thin cord clutched in her hand, and let the Shard rest in her palm: a tiny crucifix of polished bone, as smooth and pure as ivory. She set it around her neck, and it disappeared beneath black satin, cool against her skin.
“Sire, you have honoured me.” She lifted her head and looked up for the first time since abandoning the protection of the lost Shard, then curtsied. “I accept with gladness. As I have been ruled, so too shall I rule in kind.” A tiny smile. “Grandfather.”
”Go, my child, and let my will be done!”
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