4. Secret Amor
Ardex stepped through the cold fires around Tresmo. As one of the few beings who could do that, being God of Fire and all, the sentient tree seemed the perfect place for a secret meeting.
He couldn’t say the fighting was going well. The gods were more powerful; their enemies had greater numbers. The gods held back out of mercy for the life they created; their enemies had no such squabbles. Ever since they revealed that life force is what kept them alive, their enemies had only one goal: extinguish as much life as possible. Keep the war going as long as possible, and make it mean, and violent, and too terrible even for the God of Death.
He lied to himself, claiming that was the reason for these meetings.
A large firebird flew overhead. She carefully examined the surroundings, then, within a heartbeat, crossed the cold flames and joined Ardex.
“Late again,” he said.
“Happy to see you too,” responded Ruby. She unfurled her wings to show a diamond, the largest and shiniest of the ones they’d stolen from the jeweler rhino. “A … gift. For you.”
“I …” Ardex hesitantly took the diamond. Worth a thousand gold coins. Enough to bribe a few Amor guards and perhaps win the war. But he knew the gift wasn’t to be spent, wasn’t a transaction of money. “Thanks, my … dear. This energy will come in handy.”
To your eyes, dear reader, a diamond looks like a dead piece of stone. Millions of years of pressure, from the dirt above it, created a compact and heavy jewel. But that takes energy. It takes energy to squash things together, to rearrange the particles inside, and in the case of diamonds, they let gravity—and a lot of time—apply that energy.
Energy, however, can never be lost. Only converted. So, one might say that the diamond still contained all the energy that had been needed to form it. A kind of battery to be used later.
That’s what made it valuable. Even with the best machines, and the strongest arms, nobody else had the energy to create the pressure needed for fake diamonds.
Ardex and Ruby stood not far from each other, but neither did they touch. Only the endless crackling of the endless fire around them, and a slumbering Tresmo, disturbed the silence.
“Something worries you,” said Ruby.
“It’s the thieves,” said Ardex immediately. “First a big fire. Now an entire temple collapsed. If we ruled Amor, well, those filthy criminals would have been wiped off the street already. Rules are rules. Laws are laws. What they’re doing is endangering innocents.”
Ruby looked away and stroked her own feathers. She finally met Ardex’ fiery gaze with one of her own, and stepped closer to touch him.
“Forget the thieves,” she said, “and let’s talk about … us.”
Ardex froze. He raised his paw as if to step back, then thought the better of it. “I can’t. We have a duty. Us gods will not sleep as long as innocent beings that we created are scared, or unsafe, or—”
“Every single positive change in history,” whispered Ruby, shuffling even closer. “It had to be achieved through violent revolution. Rumors say you once killed and suppressed meat-eaters. What did it take to change that? To give everyone equal freedom?”
Ardex sighed, steam blowing over Ruby’s face. “A violent protest by the meat-eaters.”
“The Trusks, who built Amor, had a monarchy. A single leader, often a mad one that took away freedom. What did it take to replace it with the Amori Republic? Where, at least, multiple beings get a vote?”
“You’ve made your point. I can’t … see or control large movements in history. I can eradicate a filthy set of criminals blowing up parts of Amor. I want to feel … useful.”
“Then use this diamond to get us freedom, one way or another. A city without walls; not needed. Safe skies for the birds. Clemency, perhaps, for … so-called criminals who made on silly mistake.”
“No. Laws are laws,” he said firmly. “If you have any information about these thieves, Ruby …”
“Hush, dear, let’s—”
Ardex, a saber-toothed tiger and eldest of gods, was not small or weak by any means. But standing next to Ruby, they looked like equals. Their eyes were on the same level. Her wings could wrap around his stripes, while his tusks wrapped around her beak.
Something snapped. A twig? Tresmo awoke?
Ardex and Ruby immediately split apart and looked around.
Through the fires they could see a shadow. Someone on the other side, perhaps a fox, watching them—or at least trying to. Ardex tapped into the web of life and could feel raw power and energy pulsating from the presence.
They remained statues until the fox disappeared, and they finally dared breath again.
Ardex had never loved any of their beings before. He had, on occasion, called his siblings naïve or foolish for creating demigods at will.
But now … with strong and passionate eyes looking back at him, a bird born from fire …
_Two massive life forces, dear reader, one a fire-spitting tiger and the other a fire-spitting giant bird, were bound to attract each other, getting closer and closer. It didn’t even take energy. It didn’t take any will. The union of Ardex and Ruby just happened by immutable law of the universe.
Ollimo had studied the remains of the temple for days. Most of the building was actually intact. Only very specific pillars were cut to pieces in an unnatural way, and the entire floor was lower than it should be.
He puzzled together how the thieves had done it. Some creature, with the ability to dig, had removed the foundation of the temple. Probably for hours, through the night, they’d carefully weakened and loosened the support of the temple.
Then, another creature, perhaps a Bearchitect, had identified load-bearing pillars. By simply destroying those, they’d correctly guessed, the entire roof would come down. Still, it was very risky. The temple was more likely to stay upright or to collapse on top of them, and they were lucky to escape.
The first theft, from the jeweler, was harder to figure out. They had to save themselves from their own fires. Were the gods involved? Perhaps a firebird, who were attracted to heat, because they could suck in that energy? Knowing what to look for now, he’d cleared all the debris and discovered a tunnel dug below the shop. That’s how they escaped while the fire burned.
Ollimo felt he shouldn’t be doing this. There should be a group of beings investigating suspicious events. Just like there should be a group fighting fires, instead of two elephants doing it out of their own passion. At least, the jeweler should be by his side, but the rhino still “didn’t care, whatever” that his entire fortune was stolen.
The elephant was pushing the fire truck uphill on his own. His father had stayed behind because some weird chameleon passionately offered him a deal that was “too good to ignore”.
Somewhere in the distance, a bird crowed, a raccoon reluctantly responded, lights turned on and off as if Amor shapeshifted into a dance floor, and eventually the fire alarm was raised once more.
Ollimo took the final steps to their home. Father hadn’t reacted yet. He filled the barrels again with water from the aqueduct, then turned around to see the fire. This time, it raged on the city walls, most likely incited by Ardex while fighting.
And still his father didn’t respond.
“Father?” Ollimo nudged Olfaman. “The alarm! Fire! We must go!”
“Don’t care,” he mumbled. “Whatever.”
“But … no, you do care. Innocents might be in danger! If the wall collapses, the gods will conquer Amor!”
Olfaman shrugged and went back to sleep.
“Father?” he said again, his voice sounding smaller each time.
No response. Even when screams from within the city echoed over their hill, even when the fire had clearly lost control and Ollimo had to leave now, his father pretended nothing was happening. Or, at least, he had no desire to get up and do anything about it.
Ollimo went back to Amor with fear shaking his tusks. It was terrible to see father so lifeless. To see the being with the biggest heart reduced to one without a heart.
It also seemed as if anyone that came close to the thieves lost the will to live. Perhaps he should give up the investigation and let them do whatever they liked, for his own sake.