The Lost God

Silp the Wyrm

Malik trudged through the sand. His sweaty clothes stuck to him in the oddly stagnant air. "The only thing worse than being hot is being with someone who is complaining about how hot it is."

"You can't blame me for talking. I haven't had anyone to talk to in years. In fact, I didn't really have anyone to talk to before that for a long time either. I mostly had to listen."

"Fine. So talk. Tell me your life story if you must, as long as I don't have to say anything. I have to make my water last."

Silp didn't need to be asked twice. For the rest of the day, she regaled Malik with stories from her time as a god. He rather enjoyed the range of stories, from tragic grave injustices to comical perceived slights.

When the stars began to appear as the light of sunset faded, Malik paused to eat and rest. He sat on the edge of the ravine and let his feet dangle. He put Silp down on the rocky ledge. "Do you want some fruit?" he asked.

"No thanks," she said. "I don't need food or water."

"How do you stay alive?"

"I just do. I'm magic."

"That's all well and good, but even wizards need to eat."

"Wizard's aren't magic. Wizards do magic. It's totally different. Me, I'm magic, through and through."

"So where did you come from?" he asked before taking a long drink of water.

"Far away from here. One day, I awoke in the workshop of the wizard who crafted me. I think I might once have been a piece of old jewelry. Anyway, one day I awoke and that was that. Things were great until the wizard died. I suppose he didn't think about what would happen to me after that. So I set off to find my fortune and ended up being a god, for a while anyway." Silp sighed. "I think I maybe didn't do a very good job."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it was my fault the lake creature destroyed Kipriki."

"Really?"

Silp nodded and drew circles in the dust with one of her claws. "That wizard I told you about who wanted revenge? That was the last revenge I granted. The thing is, that portal would have been a bad thing. It would have allowed the wizards to travel quickly to far flung places and make trouble. Worse would have come from it. That's the problem being a god, you see. Sometimes you have to decide between two bad things."

"Come on," Malik said and picked Silp up, placing her back on his shoulder. "I want to try to get to the oasis by dawn. It's easier to keep on course with the stars out. From there it's a day's walk to Tanku. If you want to sleep, you may as well do it now."

"I don't sleep either. I guess being made of magic isn't as interesting as being made of meat and bones."

Malik walked on through the early night. It became rather pleasant once the intense heat of day abated and the cool breezes mixed with the heat still rising from the sand. Silp chatted on telling stories about the wizard who made her. Close to midnight, with the waxing crescent moon long set, the stars burned brightly without any competition. The North Star hung steady in place guiding Malik back home.

The dark night kept them from seeing the oasis from afar, but Malik could smell the damp earth and vegetation with its sweet fruits before they arrived, even over Silp's pleasantly spicy scent. He found the well, refilled his water skin and settled down to sleep. "Wake me at dawn, can you?"

"Sure," Silp cheeped.

"You don't mind waiting?"

"I'm used to it. I've got plenty to think about. Go on then. I'll wake you at dawn."

Malik was so exhausted that he fell asleep immediately and was still tired when Silp's chirping woke him a few hours later. He blinked his eyes open to find a sky of lavender and gold slowly brightening into a new day.

"You said dawn," Silp said, "but I wasn't sure if that was at first light or when the sun actually broke the horizon so I picked something in between."

"This is fine," he groaned while sitting up. Sleeping on the cold ground had made him stiff. He missed his soft bed. The thought that he would be back in Tanku that evening at first filled him with hope and then with dread. Maj Scoretto awaited him and he had no real plan. All he had to show for his journey to Kipriki was a cute wyrm and stained trousers.

He ate, drank and filled his water skin, his thoughts fretting over what would happen when he showed up in Tanku. He put Silp on his shoulder and set off into the desert keeping the dawn on his right. He was so lost in his thoughts that he blocked out Silp's incessant twittering for the first hour until she crawled up his face cloth and tapped on the lenses of his dark glasses.

"Are you awake in there or can you walk while you sleep?" she cheeped.

"Hum? What?" Malik picked her off his face and put her back on his shoulder.

"You haven't responded to a thing I've said. I was trying to make some plans for when we got to Tanku. You say you have a problem with a certain Maj Scoretto that you had wanted me to vaporize."

"Yes, that's true. You said you could do me a favor."

"Indeed I can." Silp gave him a wink of her lapis eye. "Being magic has a few advantages, one of which is that I can see all the various courses of time. So you have only to tell me where you want to end up and I can help you get there."

Malik stopped in his tracks. "What do you mean you can see all of time? If that were true, why did you let that monster destroy Kipriki?"

Silp looked down. "I thought about that a great deal while I was stuck in that statue. In fact, that's about all I thought about." She looked up at him sadly. "But you see, I can't simply force someone down a path they won't consider. First, someone has to want something and even then, there's not necessarily infinite ways for that to come about. Most of our quotidian decisions don't matter a great deal. Whether you eat a certain fruit or drink a certain wine does not often alter the course of time. So while I could have prevented the destruction of Kipriki, doing so would have meant allowing something else bad to happen. I didn't have any more choice than that."

"So what does that mean for me? What are my options for defeating Maj Scoretto? Will it require us to destroy Tanku too?" He said this bitterly before he took a drink and then started walking again.

"That all depends on you."

"Me? How? You're the magic one."

"But it's your power to choose. I can see all of time, but none of it means anything to me. True, I think some outcomes are more harmful to more people than others, but it's not my will that determines the path someone takes. They still make their own decisions. Those wizards still chose to do something they didn't need to do. I couldn't stop them. So you need to choose what outcome you want and then I can tell you how to get it."

"That sounds simple enough."

"It isn't though. For one, you really have to know what you want, what is most important to you in your heart. For some people, that's the hardest thing in the world. For another, you can't have everything. Sometimes the streams of time diverge and to have one thing, you must give up another. For example, if you wanted to find your true love, you might need to move far away from everyone else you love." After a pause, she added, "Or if you want to stop some wizards, you might need to destroy a city. Whether you'll need to destroy a city to get what you want will depend on what you want."

"What I want..." Malik murmured.

"Think about it." Silp looked up at the sun. "You have a few hours to figure it out."