7. No Space
What had Ardex ever done to that Hespryhound? He thought it a hundred times, but found no answer. Had Hanah purposely turned the beast against him? No, she wouldn’t do that. But he also didn’t understand her secrecy and why she didn’t already help them all back to the Heavenly Palace.
He crested the next hill, sped up by firemagic. The Hespryhound didn’t seem to care. When Feria made him, born out of magic and love, it was a cute puppy that wanted to hug all day. It was also her first resistance against Father, as he had expressly forbidden it. He kept saying Zyme: gods should not, just for fun, create life on their own. They had to help where needed and let nature be.
Still, he let the Hespryhound live. Even let him grow to a monster that now almost bit off his tail, with teeth like swords.
“Hanah,” he tried again, panting. She was always just ahead of him. Her ears pricked up, but she didn’t turn around or respond. “Tell the beast to like me. Let’s talk!”
And so the trio ran, like a procession, to the Impossible Wall of Darus. Just before reaching it, Hanah took a sharp turn, to where the ocean started. Ardex saw it too: the gate waited for them in those waters.
Why was she doing this? Why not leave the gate in one location? One that’s much better hidden than, well, an open clearing? Or …
“You can’t control the gate, can you?” he yelled at Hanah. Once they reached the shore, he would have nowhere to go. The Hespryhound already breathed in his neck. If only there were trees, or any strong plant, to climb. Ardex was sure he’d win a fight, but he didn’t want to hurt Feria’s magical pet. This had to stop now—and preferably with his entire family returning home to Father.
Hanah jumped on the gate and finally looked at him. “I don’t have as much control as I’d like. Just as I have no idea how the Hespryhound got here.”
Ardex looked disappointed, narrowing his eyes. He already prepared for a fight. “So you can’t ask him to stop attacking me?”
“Oh. No I can. I thought you two were playing, like old times.” Her sand creatures appeared and made a path towards her. The Hespryhound followed, subconsciously, and let Hanah gently touch his forehead. The creature calmed down, much more sweet now, and playfully rolled to her, even though he was several times larger than the small red panda.
Ardex caught his breath. “You thought … running for my life … was a game?”
His attention kept returning to the gate. So close. If he made a surprise leap, his sister couldn’t stop him. What would be the next object? It seemed to happen in order, so now Gulvi’s Heavenmatter would appear. It took a while before he remembered what it was. The dolphin was still very young when they were banished. He had little, and wanted even less, besides playing all day with Hanah.
Hanah spoke loudly and sharply. “When will you understand I have no bad intentions? I care about you, I help you, but do me the honor of listening to me: leave me alone.”
“You know how much we want you with us. How much we want to return to the Heavenly Palace. Why don’t you give the gate to us? Why must we stop our experiments?”
“I don’t control the gate!” Frustrated, Hanah tapped the stone dome around the purple lightning strikes. “It appears somewhere, disappears, and then I have to feel its new location. Those objects also randomly fall out of it.”
Ardex was too curious not to stop closer and ask. “Did … did you test it? Did you … go back home?”
“No. I can’t go back. There is no place for me there. It took me all this time, all my magic, just to make it. For you.”
He tentatively extended a paw. Hanah did not shy away, but also didn’t come closer. He gently stroked her cheeks. Always his little sister, no matter how angry she was.
“You move too quickly. You want too much. Let life invent itself. And if you can’t … go back to Father and try it again elsewhere.”
“You think he’ll take us back?”
“Yes. He is angry with me.”
“Why? You’re the sweetest Goddess I know. And I know all the Gods!”
“Then you do not know me at all.”
The gate lowered. It seemed to speed up. Was he wrong? Would Gulvi’s object not appear?
No, he wasn’t. Just before the gate reached the size of an ant, a huge splash of Fartherwater fell onto shore.
Gulvi had started clearing a large underwater space. To be honest, he’d always found those Solidlings annoying weeds in “his ocean”.
Darus thought the Movelings were held back by the Solidlings. They needed space and sunlight. So they decided to clear them all out.
Bella dove onderwater, saw nothing, and regained hope. The others had removed all plants. After a long discussion with Eeris, about how they didn’t respect her plants, she understood that they had to at least try this.
She brought the plants to shore and planted them in the ground. She still hoped they’d grow there. But she had hoped that for a million years, and still no plant grew out of water.
“Are you sure this will matter at all?” Gulvi asked, reaching the next location through his network of rivers.
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Bella mumbled. The small group of remaining Movelings was scraped off the ocean floor and brought to the empty space. It felt weird in her paws, as if they weren’t real animals, but clay that could fall apart any moment. And she didn’t dare take them, like the others, between her teeth.
This place held enough sunlight for all. Enough oxygen. And now, without Solidlings, more than enough space. This will work, Bella told herself repeatedly. She told it to herself when she placed the Movelings, when she watched from afar, and when night fell and their puddings had done nothing more than sink to the ocean floor.
“Well, add this to your book,” Darus sighed. “_Movelings are unthankful and refuse to grow, even when given ample space.”
“Not so negative, wolfybolfy,” Eeris said. “Write this down: it’s not the fault of the Solidlings. They are not at fault. And the gods promise to never again pull these sweet plants from the ocean, for then I will be furious.”
Bella’s expression hardened. “I think I decide what enters my book.”
One pudding shot ahead.
Gulvi dove after it. He turned into his shining dolphin form to help the others track the Moveling. But it stopped just as quickly as it started.
“You scared it!” Eeris yelled.
“Scared?” Darus said. “These beings have no ears, no mouth, no brains, how could they be scared?”
“Fear is one of the first things beings will learn,” Bella said. “If you don’t fear being killed … you’ll be killed pretty quickly.”
Gulvi didn’t respond. He suddenly turned purple, pink, red, as if his light had swallowed a rainbow. The colors followed his heartbeat. It illuminated the entire surroundings, despite it being midnight. Bella raced to Gulvi, afraid he had fallen ill or hurt himself.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Gulvi smiled his widest smile and muttered something. His spell allowed the other gods to see it too: small currents running through the water, like rivers inside the ocean, each a different color. Like a powerful spell cast by a fish magician, traveling through the water in slow-motion.
“My Fartherwater! It’s here!” he squeaked, voice high like a baby. His object allowed him to see memories. The past and perhaps some future. If you purposely saved a memory here, it was saved for longer and with more accuracy, but anything could appear if you knew how to manipulate the Fartherwater.
That’s how it played a sequence of images from the past millions of years.
Their planet was still barren … but when they had just arrived it was far more barren. Now they had their Throne, rivers, mountains, and colored bacteria blankets.
The Movelings were still small and weak … but years ago they were even smaller and weaker, not moving at all.
Something even gods could forget.
“They’ve already grown a lot,” Gulvi said. “But it takes a while. It won’t happen in a few heartbeats, and that has nothing to do with the amount of space.”
Bella swam past, her head filled with sad or funny moments from the past centuries. The endless jokes from Darus and the stumbles of optimistic Eeris. Not a single memory was dedicated to Ardex’ angry glare or her frustrated yelling, for it had never made a difference. The failed attempts and the games, those had brought them this far. She wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
How much they had achieved already. How far they’d already come. Even now, that odd pudding race had given answers, just like Ardex’ silly idea to spit a flame at the water.
Only one body of water was left. One location that contained Movelings on which they could try the final characteristic of life.
She was eager to do it.
It surprised herself. The images showed what they could achieve if they just tried. How silly she was for wanting to flee back to the Heavenly Palace, just days ago. Stupid, stupid, stupid, especially for the Goddess of Wisdom.
What would they do back home? Float around all day without goal? Do the next boring mission that couldn’t fail, just because Father wanted it?
Maybe Darus was right with his Zyme. Life is never safe, never perfect, never answered. The challenge of staying alive, best you can, is exactly the game you want to keep playing.