“No. I won’t be here when you get back. I’ll know you did it successfully if… certain things happen. But I need to be able to say, honestly, that I know nothing of what you did within the Raringa’s walls.” Oh, yes; that was the big domed building. I could feel the truth of its name, spoken over centuries by many mortal voices, shaped by many mortal thoughts. “Seat of warriors”? I was not sure what that meant. “Just go, and do it, and like I said, apology accepted even if I never see you again. Especially if I never see you again. All right?”
“Um. OK!” He still did not like me, but at least if I did this, it would mean I had been good some, and not all bad. “OK, I am going now.”
“Good luck, godling.” That was a nice thing for him to say! I grinned as I dissipated myself. I was getting better at dealing with mortals!
It was extra easy to go through the domed place’s walls and into the big room with the circle of cushions. Nobody was looking at the pile of scrolls, so it was extra easy to put the boy’s scroll in among the rest. Then I stayed for a while, trying to figure out what the women were saying, but it was boring stuff about something called tariffs. I got tired from hearing it, and finally left.
The boy was gone like he’d said he would be, which was sad. But I had learned at least that bad things could be countered by good things! So then I decided to go find Ia. Maybe I could apologize to him, too, do him a favor, and be good again!
It was sort of hard to find him. I could feel other siblings of mine all over the planet, all glowy-bright and magic-smelling, but Ia’s glow was sort of subdued and fuzzy. He was close by, though, so I took shape again and ran to catch up, trying very hard not to bump into any mortals. That was hard because they were everywhere and kept bumping into me. I made sure I bumped into them gently, at least.
He was at the edge of town on the roof of a small building, looking out over the city with his arms folded. He reminded me of Papa Tempa, standing like that! I appeared beside him and said, “Hello?”
He didn’t even look at me, though his jaw flexed the same way the mortal boy’s had. “I told you, Sibling. You don’t know enough to be here safely. Must I force you home?”
“I… I want to learn how to be safe!”
“Not at the mortals’ expense. Learn it elsewhere. And grow up.”
“But…” How could I make him know what I was thinking? He was all bristly and fuzzy; I couldn’t mesh with him and share thoughts in the way I would have in the gods’ realm. I wasn’t even sure if it was polite to speak as gods spoke in this realm. I had to use words. “That’s why I came here! I want to grow up!”
Ia shook his head. “This world has suffered much at the hands of our kind. It does not need more gods who will view its lives as playthings.”
I gasped. I had never thought of it that way! The Planet Where Gods Die was also the Planet Whose Mortals Were Killed by Gods, Lots. “But mortals die all the time anyway, don’t they?” Then Ia turned to look at me.
OK. I will tell you now why Ia is scary. He’s really scary. He is one of the scariest godlings ever and I did not know this before I met him, and he gets really mad so that is why I’m telling you how not to make him mad and why you should be careful.
Remember waaaaay back at the beginning of the story when I told you about EXISTENCE and MAELSTROM and NOTHINGNESS? And I told you the nothingness is the scariest part because at least if existence kills you there is something, and at least if the Maelstrom kills you there was something, but if the nothing gets you then it is like you never were in the first place?
Oh, I forgot that part. Sorry! OK, if the nothing kills you then you become nothing. You go away, from whereness and whatness and thenness. You stop being. You never were. Nobody will even get the griefs, because there was never anything to remember. Understand?
I don’t know why not. I explained it fine.
Anyway, that is what is in Ia. He is negation; not just the end of something but the never-was of it. That was how he’d made the bad thing I’d done in the market go away; he made it never-be. He looked at me and suddenly I saw beneath the mortal shell he wore, and the fuzzy outline of him that had warned me against looking further. Now he let me see past the shell, and all the nothing of him was right there. Waiting. So scary that even the mortals nearby stumbled and looked around and started walking wider circles around us, with big scared looks on their faces. They could feel the scary, same as me, even if they could not see the scary of him or know what it meant. They could feel that the scary was super really extra mad.