There Is No End Here — 13
I got through that audience somehow.
At the moment I'm installed in a manor a little removed from the royal castle. It was built to confine someone, and it shows: the place is laid out so that slipping outside is no easy thing.
That doesn't mean I'm locked in.
It's more that— no. How am I even supposed to explain this?
"Oh— ohhh! My skin's smoothed back out! My body's gone back to my twenties!"
"I haven't put a comb through my hair once since I came of age. What is this sheen?"
"My skin used to itch and go raw no matter what I did, and it doesn't itch anymore?"
Three a day. The moment I said I could bestow blessings, the kingdom started bringing me candidates it had picked out. This is only the third day. The first day there was nothing but men I took for soldiers, but word must have gotten out somehow, because the next day, and the day after that, the number of people who looked like nobles kept growing.
Receive my blessing and the old grow young, the sick are healed. Even someone suffering from something like atopic dermatitis came out of it cured.
And the reactions, as you can see.
"I believe!"
I'm going to lose my mind.
No— believing is fine, isn't it? I can already see it. Once I cross into another world, I'll multiply the blessed and build a following of my own. But right now, it's a bit much. Hyungkesuni, bent over her magic in the corner and writing for all she's worth, keeps looking worse and worse. Stress her like this and she might get a bad idea halfway through. Slipping some strange spell into the summoning magic, for instance. And then, when I'm summoned all bright and delighted, I go pop and burst.
So once she finishes the book, I'll need time to test it. Finishing the book takes time, though, and getting it into someone else's hands takes time as well. I can't afford to draw too much attention and end up colliding with the Church of the Holy God.
"You don't have to change your faith, you know? I'm not blessing humanity because I want your worship."
Every time I say it, their faith only deepens.
Why?
I gain nothing from them believing in me. They could simply go back to their lives and do whatever they feel like doing. Most people come out of a blessing looking so much better that they're free to throw themselves into all the things they never got to do.
"Don't waste your time believing in me. Do the things you've always wanted to do yourselves. The time you humans are given to live is short."
So why are they looking at me with those shining eyes?
"Ah, don't you know? This is what's called humanism. The subject shifts back from god to man."
That's the sort of thing the faded man prattles. As if I don't know the Renaissance. I was taught it was a return to ancient Greece and Rome, so why is he bending it until it suits him? Humanism in that age only took hold because the Black Death had made people scarce and precious. Say, the way things work now, that a god has spoken from on high, and faith in the god only swells.
So here, it's better if they look at my blessing as nothing more than an upgrade. Pick a needless fight with the divinity already in place and the losses outweigh the gains. Above all, the climate is terrible for it.
The Kingdom of Anselus is ruled by a king, but like medieval Europe, the roots of its rites lie in the Church of the Holy God. Tisha in particular has a famous tale of receiving a blessing from that church's god, and so, among the nations around here, Anselus takes a certain pride in being the one that believes in the Holy God best of all.
And what happens if the person at the top suddenly starts believing in a different god?
It wouldn't be strange if they caught a révolution on the spot.
This is an early modern age with magic in it, so crushing a rebellious populace wouldn't be difficult. The neighboring countries, though, would take it as their cue and come piling in. A pretext for attacking a kingdom on the rise is sitting right in front of them — who hesitates at that? Anselus is living through a golden age under the reign of Tisha and his descendants. One nation's golden age is nothing short of a disaster for the countries around it. Give them a chance to cut it down, and they'll act at once.
So instead of letting them worship me, I tell them to indulge their desires.
"Go invent whatever excuses you need and do the things you've been putting off all this time. That's what I want from humanity."
No.
I told them to live as they desired, and they ran outside rejoicing that they had heard the word of a god. From where they stand, they're leaving in order to carry that word to the people at once, sharing as they go how light their bodies have become, how their skin doesn't hurt anymore — every way in which they've improved. They must have been middle-aged men and women. Watching them laugh and dash off like children, they look like people who have only just come of age.
Thud.
"Bold of you, saying a thing like that."
The moment the door shut, Hyungkesuni sneered.
Mm!
I think I'm going to live.
Yes. Raising me up as a god is strange. I'm not a god, so an attitude pointed at a monster, like this, is the healthy one.
"Does that mean you want a blessing, Hyungkesuni?"
She flinched at my words, and the hand that had been writing stopped.
Ah.
I think I jabbed too hard.
"Don't worry. I won't take your warmth. What humanity calls a blessing is, from the start, simply holding me inside you. Holding me doesn't mean your warmth is stolen."
Hyungkesuni glares at me.
"Since when have you used the word humanity? In the place Yasle made, you never talked like that. If anything, you seemed like a girl who didn't know the first thing about the world. Or was all of that an act?"
Half a year in the same room, and of course she'd have a sense of it.
First, to take the lead, I'll press her once.
"Your hand has stopped, Hyungkesuni."
At that, Hyungkesuni put a terror-stricken smile on her face and dropped her gaze again.
Good. Just like that. Writing the book is what matters most. I'm only in this room for that.
"If I'm to satisfy your curiosity, Hyungkesuni, it's because you wished for it."
"What?"
Hyungkesuni startles and stares at me. Why the look? As if she hasn't the faintest idea.
"You called me an outer god, didn't you? So that's what I became. You're the person in this world who knows me best, aren't you?"
The god you wanted. She called me a god, so I'm toying with her. What would work best? If I mean to drive in a nail called guilt, which nail fits?
Ah. Right.
It means nothing to me, originally, but ordinary people believe a name carries great weight. A name is only a mark for calling one person out of many, and yet they load it with far too much meaning. The belief that names hold power turns up in every culture. It's one of the things they all share. It will be here too, so I'll use it.
"You gave me a name I could be called by."
Heehee.
Her face goes stark pale, all at once — the look of someone who has just realized that the reason I became an outer god lies with her.
In truth, I'm only a monster that absolutely needs human warmth.
When she asked me what I was, before, has she forgotten what I told her? Remember that, and she'd know I'm only saying this to torment her.
I forgave her. I spoke it aloud, so it is true. If I had lied then, every effort I've made until now not to lie would come to nothing, wouldn't it? It's common enough for a single lie to bring everything down. A genius who could weave every lie into one organic whole might manage it, but I can't. Call the impossible impossible, and only then can you look toward what comes next.
So I forgave her. But tormenting someone I like is still allowed, isn't it?
Look.
She's writing into a book the secret art of summoning that can loose me upon every world!
How could I not adore her?
Right?
Hyungkesuni was silent.
She's writing the book so diligently that I give her a little wave — hang in there — and sit down in the chair.
What the Kingdom of Anselus is doing weighs on me.
The king sent someone to make inquiries at the branch of the Church of the Holy God in the Anselus capital. Along with the account of Tisha, he had them write out why the contract Tisha made has not disappeared, and even the tale of the god of the earlier contract speaking in condemnation. All of it.
I'm glad this isn't a place with electronic administration.
The king sent the inquiry by letter yesterday, and no reply has come back. It's a letter in the king's own hand, so an immediate answer isn't impossible, but given the matter itself, it's far more likely to have to go not to the branch but to the central authority. The king and his vassals both know that.
They have something else on their minds.
I can't read thoughts directly, of course. I only infer from what they say. But the words I spoke — that humanity ought to be free — seem to have struck them hard. They gathered a great many people and debated, then chose, from among them, the ones kindly disposed toward me, and sent those to me.
So today makes the third day. Nine blessed in all. That number, of course, leaves out the royal family.
A blessing changes a great many things. Violet hair, skin white as new snow, an improvement in the body's abilities. And exactly one person: a special power.
Send them back to the royal castle and the changes are written down, the differences checked. I already know the results for the six who went before them. The king is reading that report.
Grown markedly more vigorous; judged to be the result of the body having grown stronger.
No signs of mental contamination.
They're checking more thoroughly than I expected.
Well. Of course.
A person who rules a country can be a fool. A person who is making a good country of it has a much harder time being one. And the more they examine, the deeper they'll sink, because when I truly bestow a blessing, I don't go out of my way to twist anyone's mind. At most, I slip in the method of summoning me, a very little at a time. That is all.
That's right. I'm placing Yasle's memories into every person I bless. Even so, unless someone is sensitive, plenty of them never notice that anything was put there at all.
That's why the book matters.
Yasle's memories are dangerous. Mishandle them even slightly and Yasle's hatred may surface, and the sheer volume of that feeling is enormous. The volume needs to go on a diet. And whatever danger might be lurking in it has to be cleared away, just in case.
Wouldn't it be better if people turned violent, you ask?
No.
People have to think rationally. Act on emotion, and emotion is what stops you. Only when madness is committed through reason alone can a person be ruined without limit or end — because they are being rational, and so the feelings follow along without the least discomfort.
The faded man's memories are full of people like that.
From the world wars to the Cold War. And on, past even that.
Yes.
That is why I take no mental measures at all with the people I bless.
I believe that once a person gains power, they will surely deliver their warmth to me.
So I would rather they thought of me not as a god, but as nothing more than the wrapping on a blessing. That way, after they've used me all the more efficiently, they'll look with their own eyes at the blood on their hands.
Heehee.
I go over beside Hyungkesuni and poke her, poke her again, like an editor waiting on a deadline.
"Write faster. Faster."