Chapter 827 – Days of Rage, Hour Four

The simplest problems are the most complicated. Such a question of how to work a spell, or how to design a state, or how to win a battle, how to give chase to a lover, how to wage war are things to be planned, to be put into practice, to be given thought, and then to be executed. Once. Twice. As many times as it takes. For they are not problems, but mere issues to be handled.

In the same way that the greatest difficulty in running a marathon is the first day of preparation, and by the day of the marathon, the habit carries enough momentum in itself to solve the issue from its own inertia. Problems are exacerbated by their own conception and the fear of the effort required to carry through the consequences of their solving. Whereas the worth of a man is not solely carried by the status of his enemies, how can a man without any enemies ever be trusted to stand against something? How can a man who fights only ants be called upon when the war is against giants?

For the real battle to fight is within oneself. Before a plan, before the notion of tackling an issue is even considered, one needs to win the battle within themselves. The little doubts that exist in their mind need to be expelled. Doubts large and stifling or doubts tiny and niggling. There is no such thing as success that doubts itself. You look, you see yourself on the pinnacle of the mountain, and then you simply start. A good start is excellent, a bad start is good, and no start is worse than all. The man who simply decides to pick his foot up and take the first step is the man who will reach the pinnacle long before those who pretend to themselves that the fact they are waiting for a guide is an act of cowardice.

That miniscule amount of delusion, enough to satisfy the mind and conceive of victory, needs to be injected every time one goes to fight a problem. It needs to be confidence reasonless, existing entirely for its own sake. The idea of one failing needs to be relegated to the realm of fantasy. To being nothing but a damn, sorry, joke.

That is the universal first step, taken before any first is truly even worked out: pure, blissful, delusion in one’s own ability to succeed.

And then anything becomes possible.

No problem is large enough to defeat, no concept is impossible to understand and break down into smaller parts. The only use of impossible should be in the context of giving up.

- Excerpt from the Private Writings of God Arascus, of Pride.

Running through a cloud of dust, Saksma keeled over and coughed, breathing heavily through the heavy smog of concrete and tarmac and brick and steel and everything else that the Skysplitter had annihilated in its coming. Of Doschia closed her eyes and saw the image of that massive blade cutting apart the sky. A monolith of steel larger than a skyscraper, and as wide as a city block. It did not cut through the manufacturing district, crushed under its sheer weight as it left a ravine in the ground. A valley shaped exactly like a blade, steel and brick still visible at the bottom, all crushed into a single tight mass.

The blade had stayed there for a moment, unmoving, as the first cloud of dust had swept through Hallin. Concrete fog that bit at the back of the throat and stung the eyes. Where it not for Helenna constantly tugging at her wrist as the Goddess of Love raced towards one of Hallin’s many parks, then Saksma would have just stopped and stared.

By the time they reached the grass, Saksma the blade had started to vibrate slightly. When they got to the centre, the sword had began to hum. The hum started as the rumble of a tiny bumblebee and it grew into the rolling notes of an avalanche rolling through villages, and over valleys, and riverbeds. Every few moments, it would change pitch as if that massive hunk of metal which had just stabbed itself into Hallin’s industrial district was actually trying to sing a wordless tune.

Hallin fell to that tune. Slowly at first, glass was the first to crack. In the windows of homes and the windows of cars. Some failed immediately, transforming into faint mists, other spiralled with cracks from the corners until they shattered into larger pieces. But everything fell under that song. The entire city shook, slowly at first. Roof tiles were the first to fall, they slid off their holds and cracked on the pavement.

The evacuations started then, Saksma couldn’t even say a word. Helenna was already on the phone to everyone of importance in Hallin, ordering the emergency declarations of evacuations and for every citizen to flee their residence. The grey-brown fog that fell over Hallin rose from the Skysplitters position, and then swept swallowed the city. But Saksma saw enough to know what would happen. A building cracking, a fall toppling forwards onto fleeing people and crushing cars underneath. One of the cities larger tower blocks crashing downwards, knocked over by the failure of its own foundations. “Helenna…” Saksma said quietly.

And the fog swept over them. Thick enough that Saksma’s own hands became nothing more than silhouettes. “I’m here.” Helenna’s voice came from the position where the Goddess of Love had planted herself. “Don’t move, I’m not digging you out of rubble.”

Even if Saksma wanted to move, where to. What for? She had her capital slowly crumble and now, she knew exactly what she was waiting for when the wall of smoke would recede. “Helenna…” It was all she could say.

“It lasts for about an hour, and then they pull the sword out.” Helenna said. “Don’t move, you will only crush someone under you if you start running.” Saksma hated that Helenna made sense. She wasn’t the size of Fer or Arascus or Fortia, Allasaria and Irinika were both half again her height, humans only reached up to their hips. But if Saksma sent off running now, the picture of herself slamming into a man and cracking the back of his head open, or even worse, a child, was all too easy to see.

So she stayed, and it was even worse when the Goddess of Love was proved right again when the crowd of fleeing people started slamming into them. An older man at first, his hand wrapped around his wife’s wrist ran straight into Saksma and fell over. “Who’s there!” He shouted.

“It’s me.” Saksma said. “Saksma. Don’t move from here.” She had to help somehow. And yet, what could she do? Another person ran into them. Helenna raised her voice.

“EVERYONE!” Saksma had never known that the Goddess of Love could boom like that. “EVERYONE WHO CAN HEAR ME! COME TO MY VOICE! YOU ARE IN THE PARK! DO NOT RUN! WALK TO ME! DO NOT CAUSE A CRUSH!” And so, Helenna kept on shouting, as Saksma felt her knees start to give out. She coughed. She fell to her knees, she was pathetic. What exactly was she supposed to do here?

“Helenna…”

“Not now Saksma.” Helenna answered quickly and kept on shouting to the general mass of silhouettes around them. The people were silent, listening to the Goddess of Love. A few children cried, those that where too young to know exactly what was going on. “THIS IS THE PARK! DO NOT MOVE FROM HERE! WALK TOWARDS MY VOICE AND DO NOT PUSH! THERE IS SPACE FOR EVERYONE!”

Saksma’s tears had ran out after thirty minutes. They dried up leaving faint, stinging marks on her cheeks in five. The constant swirl of her own city’s dust stole the moisture. Even over Helenna’s voice, she heard the collapse of stone, the cracking of more glass, the tumbling of steel. And above it all, she heard the tremendous weight of the silence from the crowd around them. She could feel gazes passing over her. The utter desperation of souls burning with hope, and knowing that hope only came from the fact that Helenna, no matter what she was thinking right now, refused to stop talking. Even when her throat started to crack, her throat became raspy from the smoke, she kept on going.

The blade stopped, a minute later, Helenna did. “Stand Saksma.” She finally said, the vocal cords strained as if she had come out of a housefire. “Stand, it’s not a good luck for you to kneel right now.” Good look? What did good look even matter? In the matter of an hour, no less than two, a city had been destroyed. And yet, Saksma somehow forced herself to stand. Helenna had kept on talking throughout out all of it, and Saksma had cried. And she had a duty to do now. Just as Helenna had said, rulership was not always pleasant.

The Goddess of Doschia wanted the fog to remain forever. The damage in her mind, she didn’t want to acknowledge. Was it even her fault? Would Hallin be standing if Saksma had never joined the Empire? Or would Hallin be buried under Tartarian ash right now? With a mercy as cruel as twisting a knife already stabbed deep into someone’s heart, the fog did pass.

There was no Hallin anymore.

Not the city she remembered from just today, at the very least. The centre was gone, reduced to nothing but broken rubble. The manufacturing district was a freshly carved out sheathe in the planet. The only thing that remained standing where a few light poles, their foundations cracked but the flexibility of steel keeping them standing, if at angles. And the city’s suburbs in the distance. “Citizens of Hallin!” Helenna called out. “We have just been attacked by the Skysplitter blade!”

Every set of eyes, no matter how much fear within them, turned to Helenna as if her voice was the only thing real at this point. Even Saksma stopped to look at the Goddess she called a friend. “And we still live!” She took a deep breath. “I understand what I am asking right now, and I yet, I ask it because now is the time to act. Sit here if you cannot move, but if you can, then follow me to dig through the rubble. Every single second we lose here is another second that someone has to stay underneath that.”

It wasn’t the words, it was the fact that Helenna was the first to move. She actually took a step forward, and that step awoke those of the crowd who had to move. Some stayed behind, some turned and returned to the rubble as if their city had not just been destroyed. “Helenna…” Saksma said quietly as she caught up to the Goddess.

“I called a Clerical auxiliary division as soon as I realised it was the Skysplitter, they’ll be here soon.” Helenna said dryly.

“How?” Saksma asked.

“It’s not a matter of how or what or why.” Helenna shut down the line of questioning before Saksma could even answer. “We can talk of me being cold-blooded all day and I’ll agree, I’ve seen the Skysplitter before, and I knew what it would do, I’ve watched men turn on each other because they saw monsters in the corner, I’ve helped men turn on each when they did see monsters in the dark.” Helenna sighed. “But none of that is really important.”

“What is then?”

“It is that I am Divine.” Helenna said. “Not the strongest, nor a magician, nor with any mass powers or anything to assist with, but I am Divine nonetheless. As are you.” Helenna took a pause as she waited for the massive crowd of people who had come to her voice in the fog rearranged themselves to allow her to pass. “And we can both lift a man with one arm, and move a rock that they will not be able to move. And that is the reason, because we are here, and we are needed, and some people can fail, but we cannot.”

Saksma looked around the ruins. She almost understood, almost. She had to move because it was her duty to move. No matter how much she did not want to. “Is this not failure?”

“This is loss.” Helenna said. “Not failure.” She poked Saksma in between her breasts, straight into the heart. “Failure is in there, and I do not allow people to fail on my watch.”

Saksma took a deep breath and nodded as the way to the ruins of Hallin opened up. The crowd parted, intent on letting the pair of Goddesses pass. They had lost, but they would not fail. Helenna would not allow her to. And, more importantly, Saksma would not let herself fail either.