When people in the Western world turn their mind to thoughts of deities the most popular depiction is that of an old man—the long beard, the white robes, the blinding golden light over his shoulders are all familiar images enough—and if they push their minds to the east the familiar marble busts of curly-haired men and women come to the stage, or back several thousand years beyond the birth of Christ, to remember the barbaric and mighty gods of an older heathenism.
In fact, only one of the true gods resembled anything Norse. His name was Heimdlon, the fourth god, and he was the tallest.
However, the common human has a fairly accurate idea as to what a god does, which was generally something along the lines of interfering with the affairs of mortals until one did something unexpected and then saying, to hell with it all, and avoiding all things beneath them until it seemed whatever divine plan put in motion could no longer continue unassisted.
Heimdlon was working his way out of the second phase, rekindling his interest in the vast universe and all that was held within it with the glowering resentment of someone who really has no desire to do something but knows it is a necessity, and while he did so his thoughts cast through the known plane like a great fishing net.
It is another popular conception that god, who or whatever god may be, has infinite, unconstrained omniscience. This is true, to an extent. Heimdlon knew the universe with the kind of unnoticeable familiarity one knows their own body; you’re well aware of the shape of things and how it all fits together, and feel every sensation there at once from the toes the top of the head, but you only really focus on one bit at any particular time.
He settled his attention at last upon a dusty, yellow planet, a single pearl in a long necklace of gas giants and rocky orbs crawling with creatures. Dominant species: small, bipedal, diurnal, and a fragile sense of self importance more than enough to make up for the distinct lack of useful furs, claws, or fangs. They had the tendency to piss him off.
After a moment of squinting through time and space, Heimdlon turned his focus from the desert planet Legin and asked: “Is the sergeant still wandering these sands?”
A second voice joined his, high and lithe and silvery as water, and the third god appeared to answer: “Yes.”
Heimdlon frowned, and paused to rub at the course hair covering his jaw. While he looked for all the world like a giant one foot out of Norse mythology, towering and pale with hair somewhere between blond and strawberry, the Torngarsuk was an older creature, shifting between earthen forms. Sometimes he took the shape of a man with a high cheekbones and delicate antlers of red maple growing proud from his head—other times, she was a willow-haired woman the color of clay, wrapped in shawls of beard moss and feathers. Now, she came to stand beside Heimdlon and she looked upon the desert planet with disinterest.
“Boring,” Heimdlon muttered. She arched a brow and flickered slightly, blurring around the edges as if slipping into another shape before she replied.
“His path is no more boring than yours, tuurngaq. He is being punished. Punishment is meant to be boring if it is to be effective.”
“Bah. Deserts are for the cowardly—real punishment is cold, freezing cold.” The fourth god paused, a gleam in his eyes. “It is winter winds that strip the fat and flesh from your very bones.”
This the third god pondered as she stared down at the sandy planet; one hand tugged the moss tighter about her shoulders, but her skin showed no sign of cold as she waited in silence.
“You say this because you are from the snow,” Torngarsuk said at last. “Your Hell is cold because in the cold you were created.
This was truth he could find no rebuttal for.
Torngarsuk left not long after, deciding there were better things to do than watch a ragged man make his way through the desert; her interests lay more with that which was green and growing. The third god was one of the seasons, following the path of things born and living and returning to earth, not those who scribbled out all but the middle of the cycle.
Burden had always been a sore spot for her—but for Heimdlon? Burden was the worst thing a god like him could ask for whether he would admit it or not. How grand it was to watch a mortal walk the same path, none of that eternal damnation/salvation to feel satisfied with, just endless miles of cracked dirt and sand to walk and a dilemma to make for every mile. Truth be told it was a better hell than [INSERT] to be forced to live the same years repeated, but there was none of the priceless gratification of knowing the soul had ended up one way or the other. Right or wrong, heaven or hell, that was all that really mattered in the end. So he waited, and he watched, and perhaps he even conspired for after a while he decided to pay the man a visit and he was just preparing himself for the journey (he was already there, or course, the way he was already aware of the whole planet. It was just a matter of thinking himself there a bit more thoroughly.)
The problem with that was not everyone wanted him to meddle.
Picture if you would one of those big, glass cylinders in any good monster movie, the ones used to make the hideous beast in some well intentioned laboratory. Imagine raw meat, sticky with viscera and sliced into fine orange and red pieces, and fill the cylinder to the brim with it. Add a dozen rolling eyes the size of dinner plates and a dozen toothy maws to match, and shatter the glass to let it all spill forth in a towering mass: you have the second god, a creature so ghastly and ancient it did not bear a name.
BURDEN MUST SUFFER HIS PENANCE, it said, and those filmy eyes narrowed as Heimdlon opened his mouth to argue. WE MUST NOT INTERVENE. IT IS NOT THE WAY.
“Why not? There’s not a point to it—he’s never going to leave.” His words were spoken carefully, as if he was worried of provoking the glistening creature now before him. “There is no end to the punishment.”
“It’s not a real hell. Not in the fullest sense.”
THERE IS NO FIRE AND BRIMSTONE, THAT IS TRUE. THERE IS HIS PATH, AND THERE ARE ONLY HIS CHOICES. THERE IS ONLY BURDEN. THAT IS HELL ENOUGH.
“You guys aren’t thinking about this the right way,” piped a new voice. It belonged to the smallest god, one so new to the world it seemed to appear to them as a child; to others, it was a force to be reckoned with, and it controlled the strings of the universe as easily as if it was playing a mere game. “Burden isn’t stuck in the desert, he’s only there until they reach the camp, and if he doesn’t reach the camp he starts over. You know, wakes up in the sun, wanders around a bit until a soldier picks him up. But once they reach camp he goes onwards.”
The fourth god shook his shaggy head at the fifth. “He never leaves, he only walks a greater circle than the desert. He still returns to the sand.”
AND HE ALWAYS WILL, the second god concluded with an air of finality, the kind that comes with being considerably stronger than everyone around you who might be in opposition, or perhaps just having a lot of teeth and a voice like nightmares dredged from the bottom of an ocean made of tar.
Fifteen rations of water had been lost to the unforgiving desert sun, leeched away in sweat and blood and even tears. Four clips of ammunition and a set of explosives, detonated in a skirmish that claimed the lives of two strong soldiers. In the shadow of a captured fort, a single shot took the life of a third.
Burden tapped a button on his wrist and narrowed his eyes against the bright glare around him as a small red light flashed. The sleek carbon shell of his suit had long since become rough and weathered from the dust and grit blowing around in the ever present wind, and as far as he could tell no other part of the suit functioned besides the arm mounted transducer. Hell, he didn’t know how to work anything even if the suit was straight off the factory line and in mint condition, but the men of the squad said the tech could locate their camp and that was all that really mattered to the lost crew. 60 hours remained and keeping a jagged course to the southeast meant that red gleam was flashing brighter as the miles slipped past, but with thirst slowing his men and Abraham’s suicide haunting their minds, it was slow going. Deciding to send a scout before every new route adjustment didn’t help pick the pace up either, but he’d learned his lesson the first time the company found itself facing the unforgiving automatics of an enemy patrolling a barricade.
A shadow crossed his arm and the sergeant looked up to squint at its owner, a thin scout nervously tugging at the cloth tied around his head. They spoke briefly for a moment—nothing but desert—and Burden turned to draw the group farther east.
As they walked, tall skeletal cacti could be seen to the distant north, yet another orchard long since dried up. Hours had been wasted earlier trying to search the plants for water, a fruitless venture, and now the thirstier members of the crew only looked upon them with distaste. Seven tired soldiers passed through the shadow of a desert rock, dragging their feet in the sand.
Heimdlon thought it was exceedingly clever—the men were half blind between the glaring sun and the exhaustion creeping through their bones, and what was one more camo-clad figure stumbling in their midst, anyways? Wasn’t like anyone was really keeping track, and who really cared if one of the soldiers was half a foot taller than the rest.
Barely half a mile passed before Starleech crept up to Burden’s shoulder and murmured in his ear that something wasn’t right.
Upon materializing in the desert the god had somewhat disguised himself, transforming from a deity of considerable stature and a long, tangled beard to a nondescript, scrawny man; he’d kept some of the height, lost the facial hair, and shrunk those massive viking muscles until his newly suntanned arms were thin and lanky. The face he wore was unremarkable shaded by unbleached, sweaty hair, and contorted into a familiar tired squint. From his scuffed boots to the tattered headscarf tucked around his head the god had made like a roman well enough, if his gun was nonfunctioning and his dog tags were stamped with something unpronounceable.
Burden cast his eyes about the lot and lined them up, and told the scout to figure out what the matter was.
It was short work and Starleech knew his companions well: a question here, a well known joke here, once even grabbing the arm of a soldier to inspect a recent battle wound. When asked for his planet of origin Heimdlon’s answer brought titters down the line of men and a muttered bullshit.
“That’s the one, sergeant,” he returned. “Everyone else known and accounted for—we haven’t seen Earth folk around here since… ever. Ain’t seen one ever.”
The sergeant exchanged a look with the man, and then glanced along the row at one he considered his second in command, the soldier native to the dusty globe. Jack dipped his head imperceptibly as his hand slid towards the shiny gun holstered in his belt.
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