An Empty God

By Edward Eaton

Dravpruk reigns over his lands, carving out seas, shaping mountain ranges, dallying with nymphs and satyrs, and sometimes chasing off giants or hunting trolls. It is good to be a god. When the first humans spread across his lands, Dravpruk's life becomes complicated. Does he antagonize the other gods by making war against these primitive human creatures? Or should he try to understand humans? How does a young god survive with so many obstacles in his path?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dragonfly Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781949187694

Edward Eaton

Edward Eaton has studied and taught at many schools in the States, China, Israel, Oman, and France. He holds a PhD in Theater History and Literature, and has worked extensively as a theater director and fight choreographer. He has been a newspaper columnist and theatre critic. He has published and presented many scholarly papers, and has a background in playwriting. He is also an avid SCUBA diver and skier. He currently resides in Boston with his wife Silviya and son Christopher.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

I.

I am.

I am a God.

That much I can say.

That much I know.

That much I remember.

I forgot much more than I could ever remember.

I forgot most of my past, though I retained vivid memories of my existence, mental pictures now hazy around the edges. There was an order to them, though understanding the order of a God’s memories was much like understanding the order that leaves fell from a tree. There might have been a meaning in it, a pattern to it, but there were so many leaves on any given tree that even Gods would not bother trying to figure out the reason they fell as they did.

I am young.

I am old.

I am older than mountains.

I am older than some stars.

I have seen many stars born in the heavens, popping into existence as new pricks of white in a black vacuum.

I was certainly younger than some stars, for I watched many celestial companions either die in a fizzle or flare out as great supernovae.

I am older than most seas, but younger than the great oceans.

I am younger than many Gods.

There were wila and satyrs in my infancy, so there must have been gods before me to have created them.

I have had many children. Some of them I fathered. Some I bore. Some of them I knew. Some I did not. Some of them were Gods. Some were not.

As far as I knew, those that might have been Gods were long gone. Destroyed by other Gods, by giants, or by fell beasts who dared to rise against the Gods. Killed by happenstance. Devoured by time. Or simply withered by inaction, lethargy, or indifference.

Most of my children were mortal.

At least, as far as I can remember. They are certainly dead by now.

Some of them were part of my story and of my memories.

Most were not.

One problem with immortality is that events, seemingly significant at the time, are diminished, subsumed, or forgotten.

I might well have loved my children. Some of them. Most of them, for all I knew. Perhaps I raised them and praised them and nurtured them and guided them.

It is also possible that we ended in strife and violence.

I am sure that I loved some of them some of the time and hated some of them some of the time. That is the nature of parenting among men and wila and satyrs and beasts under the Sun or under the seas. It is also the nature of parenting among Gods.

If there is any aspect of parenting, at which the divine have excelled over man and beast, it is the ability to fail abjectly.

When a parent falls out with a child, the family may be torn apart. Perhaps in the cases of kings and lords, wars may be fought and nations brought down. If a God and his Godspawn fall out, entire species could be wiped out or whole civilizations laid waste.

In my fury, I have rained down destruction on my lands and creatures. Perhaps I have done it many times.

It is possible that at some point I did so in conflict with a child or even a parent.

I do not remember.

Sometimes, I feel the need to remember, but cannot.

I have forgotten.

What relationships I had were brief compared to the length of my life.

Children grew. If they were Gods, they left. If they were mortal, they died. Friendships could not last. If a friend was a God, eventually someone got tired and restless. It might take an eon, but one of us would leave. If friends were mortal, they died. Perhaps worse, they aged and withered. There was no joy or beauty in infirmity and frailty.

Lovers?

I loved many times, though few loves remained in my memory. The pleasures of divine love could last an age, but what was one age among countless? Even less could I retain the love of a mortal, who aged and died in the fraction of a blink of an eye. I may have loved with the ardor and brilliance of a thousand-thousand stars, but in time passion waned and made way for new passions, new ardors, which in turn faded and made way for others.

Each love, each passion, was as overwhelming and all-consuming as the last.

Each love, each passion, unique.

Each love, each passion, indistinguishable from the others. Forgotten. Gone. Naught.

I had also forgotten the future.

I cannot remember what children I might bring into the world.

I cannot remember the wars to come, the triumphs, the civilizations to rise and fall, the shifting lands, which mountains will crash into the seas.

I cannot remember the sun burning out.

I cannot remember my death, my end.

I must die.

Or, perhaps it is best to say that at some point in time I will still exist and the very next moment not exist.

All beings, mortal or divine, lived or would live and would die or have had died. I couldn’t remember my death, if ever I knew of it.

I think I could.

I cannot now.

I have forgotten.

* * *

I had parents. I suppose.

I did not love them. Or did I?

I had no reason to love them.

Simply begetting a child did not inherently merit my love. I have seen too many parents consume or abuse or abandon or otherwise mistreat their children to think that. Then again, I had no reason not to love them. Simply begetting a child did not inherently merit indifference. Many parents were considerate, kind, and caring.

I did not know them, or, if I did, I have forgotten them, forgotten whether I loved them or had reason to love them.

I have decided. I did not love them. There it is. For good or ill, it is always better for a God to be decisive.

Were my parents Gods, as well? Were they both Gods who met and loved and joined together and shook the grounds and the heavens in passions that resulted in me?

Was my father a giant who roamed the lands, violent and clumsy and oafish? Did he ravish and seed my divine mother and then wander off, forgetting, forgotten? Perhaps he was consumed by her.

Was he a handsome satyr, glistening under the sun, proud and erect? Did he chase my mother across the lands and fields, wear her down, tire her out and mount her, crowing and whinnying at the moment of my conception, only to die, as mortal beings were apt to do, long before I clawed my way to life? Perhaps my mother chased the robust satyr, wrestled him to the ground, taking him and his seed inside her.

Was my mother some lonely wila, bound to a river, a rock, or a glade? Did she offer herself to my father, or did he take her? Did she tease and draw him to her pleasure? Did he corner her and ravish her? Was she consumed by the fiery glory of my birth? Did she, her life, her memories become a part of me? Did she live and crawl back to her prison and her charges to heal and to forget me, much as I have forgotten her?

I do not know.

Do all beings require a parent? I simply do not know the answer to that.

At some point, there had to be a first satyr, a first wila, a first flower, a first tree. What came before them? Philosophers might argue that they were fashioned by some God. I have created some creatures, but not all that have roamed my lands were given spirit through my touch. But whence came that God? Whence came the God that begat that God? At some point, there had to be a being, an entity, an event that simply came into being.

First, nothing.

Then...

...something...

...or was it everything?

Nothing.

Not black. Not silence.

The absence of color implies color. The absence of sound implies sound. Black, color, sound, silence. Those are something.

Nothing.

Naught.

Then awareness and the cosmos.

It must have been magnificent. But, of course, there would have been no one, divine or mortal, to see. At least, to see from without. Perhaps there were those who saw from within all of creation appearing with them at the center, perhaps as the cause, spreading out until the great tsunami of creation broke against the furthest reaches of the universe then ebbed and flowed back towards its point of origin.

I must have been there.

The cosmos remains constant.

Every rock and tree and man and God, everything that lived and died, would live and die, must have existed in some form.

Perhaps I was aware of this moment. Perhaps I caused it.

Perhaps everyone was aware of that one instance.

Does that drive dreams? Or fuel nightmares?

Perhaps creation was the result of every consciousness crying out at once to demand existence.

When was it?

Who was it?

Was it I?

I do not remember. I do not think so, though.

No, then. It was not I.

If one God could simply come into being, then why couldn’t other Gods?

Perhaps I simply began. Perhaps I willed myself into existence and had no need of parents, neither father nor mother.

This much I know: I was born, or, at least, I did begin.

Once, there was no I.

Then I was.

I.

At some point, long after the creation of the universe and the forming of this world, long before now and even longer before what will be, I became and took form.

This much I know.

This much I remember.

* * *

I remember little of my first moments.

Perhaps I was born on a mountain top. Cushioned by snows. Soothed by winds and storms. Cooled by frigid blasts of air. Warmed by great eruptions that must have come with my birth. Swaddled in lava and nursed by fire.

Perhaps I was born in the raging seas, my birth throwing the waters against the lands, sending great waves that might have flattened mountains and turned plains into vast swamps.

Did I rise from the dank depths and burst forth onto the surface in a great tempest, that survives only in legend and in our deepest and most secret horrors?

Was I born in a gentle glade, cooled by breezes, shaded by trees, lullabied by beasts and wila and satyrs of the fields and forests?

I have never been drawn to the navyatsi, those solitary wila of the deep who find their mates by tearing great holes in the hulls of passing ships and dragging sailors to the bottoms of the seas. There, they ravish the poor men while devouring them. They must seek out sailors, fishermen, or poor unfortunates who might be caught in water, because their own males have long been consumed by them.

The lava-born ovniki were beautiful, both male and female at the same time, but lived only for moments in their mountain caverns, reaching out to the skies above before bursting into an explosion of molten rock and iron, being subsumed by their parent, impregnating the mother, and then being reborn in a roaring cycle of glorious fiery violence.

I preferred the glade, the beasts and plants of the lowlands, so I must have been born there. At least, so I have told myself. I have so convinced myself of this that it must be true.

The Gods of the seas and the Gods of the mountains found pleasure in storms and violence. They were angry in their solitude. They sat and waited while their fury simmered, and then lashed out and destroyed.

I?

I have been many things, feeling all of mortal emotions, as well as the emotions of Gods. I preferred the calm and tranquility of the glade, the joy of the forests, and the beauty of the fields and plains. So, I must have been born in the peaceful and beautiful glades of my lands.

I am a God.

It pleases me.

It.

Must.

Be.

So.

* * *

I gained awareness in a glade filled with flowers and cushions of grasses overhung by towering trees, surrounded by a gently flowing stream.

That was where.

I came to being alone.

If I had a mother, and my mother had been a Goddess, perhaps she had grown tired of me during the pregnancy. At least, she bore me. Perhaps she was wasted by the birthing.

All births are violent. The birth of a God is all the more so.

Did she kill herself by ripping me from the safety of her womb? Did she survive the struggle? Did she flee to some distant land to rest? Was she still there?

Did I ever meet her?

Would she have known me?

Had my mother been mortal, then she had likely been destroyed before I wailed for the first time.

As it was, I was alone soon after my birth, or rather my apotheosis.

Who could nurse me?

What beast could survive suckling me?

A human baby could disrupt an entire household.

The thrashing of a divine child could lay waste to an entire land, fill the forests with molten rock and shake the grounds. The shrieking of a divine child could shatter stone and beat the birds from the skies and blow away the clouds.

All those beasts and beings that could have, must have fled my infant self, though I am sure many were extinguished in my first moments.

I have slain many creatures over the course of my existence. Some severally, some individually. I have removed entire species from this world, most often in a rage but some for vengeance over some slight, or to right some wrong, or to remove some vile cancer, or to eradicate some depraved creature whose very existence was an offense. I regret few of those acts. Impulsive or not, it would have been what I wished at the moment. I do regret any destruction caused through carelessness or inadvertence.

How many wila had tried to herd their charges away from me? Fly! Flee! Or this child will surely tear you apart with his cries!

How many satyrs called out to their brethren? Run! Faster than the winds, lest he catch you and crush you!

How many beasts looked to the skies and reached out to their Gods, crying, begging, praying. Come, oh Divine, and give us succor! Protect us from the fury of this child!

How many creatures of the underworlds cowered and called down winding tunnels to dark lords, demanding in their fearsome tongues that those foul Gods shake the grounds and shore up a collapsing world?

What manner of flora or fauna might have ceased during my infant tantrums, I simply do not know. If I ever knew, I have forgotten.

They are gone, the memories and animals and plants and lands of my birth.

They have crumbled into the dusts of time and spread across the world to become part of new time, new beasts, new plants, new memories.

How long I lay there in my supposed glade as a mewling infant, I do not know. Perhaps it was a millennium. Perhaps only a day. For me, it was nothing. At the time it might have seemed an age or an age of ages. Later, even when I could remember, it seemed like no time at all. In that time, I grew. I aged to that age that I told myself I would be. Then I stopped.

Eventually, in my birth-glade, I grew calm.

As I calmed, I grew aware.

My first sensations, as I lay and stared at the skies above, were of the grasses and trees and rocks growing to fill the wasteland my infancy had created. There was a tree near me that I noticed right away. I watched and listened as it grew from a seed to a sapling to a vast tree that stretched out its branches to the sun and to the clouds, shading me when it was hot and covering me with a blanket of leaves to keep me warm when it grew cold. It was home to thousands of generations of insects and birds. Colonies of smaller beasts lived among its roots and under its shade. The tree was an entire world to these creatures. They loved there. They raised families, tribes, entire civilizations there. They fought battles and wars. The tree was invaded by new beasts that strove and failed and were vanquished or succeeded and were victorious and thrived, only to fail or be conquered later. After a time, a great time, the tree grayed. The branches drooped. Its denizens died off or fled. It slowly expired, its leaves flowering one last time, its bark crumbling, and its trunk finally turning into dust.

When the last bit of bark drifted away on the wind, I turned my attention outside the small glade. The beasts had returned to the land to hunt and feed. Great herds roamed the lands, grazing and galloping. Fierce predators ran them down and fed noisily. Beasts mated and rutted. Newborns wailed. The aged withered and passed.

I heard the cries of death drowning out the screams of birth. Violence bellowed. Storms roared. Time inched forward with an eternal screech that made me want to tear out my mind, for I heard and saw everything as I had yet to learn how to ignore sights and sounds.

Above all else, constant, was music. There was the song of the tread of feet. The hum of sleep. The melody of breath and life. The growth of each blade of grass was a symphony unsurpassed by the creations of man or God. Perhaps the only music more beautiful than the song of life was the music of the ever-singing wila, who would sing to the skies and the Sun, thanking them for the breeze and the night and the light. To the clouds, thanking them for their beauty. To the ground, thanking it for its gentle firmness. They would harmonize with the planets and challenge the songs of the stars. More importantly, I would listen to the wila who tended to streams and danced among the trees and looked after the beasts near to where I lay and grew.

I remember one song. It was clear and happy and perfect. Perhaps it was the first song I ever heard. It was a song laughingly sung by a wila to a newly grown forest as she guided the branches upwards towards the Sun’s rays, beseeching the leaves to drink in the light, urging each leaf and blossom to burst into flower. There were no words. I remember each note, each sound. No language was ever so beautiful and compelling and deep and perfect. Each trill, each scale, each crescendo said a thousand things to a thousand ears, all of which heard and understood the beauty and grandeur of the song. I remember all that, but cannot reproduce or recall it, for it lies in the periphery of my memories.

I hear it, but when I try to focus on it, it flits away to another point just out of thought, teasing me.

I wondered where the song came from, for it was lovely and soothing and stirred me in ways I did not yet understand.

I sought out the song and located it a short distance away. I leaped towards it, only to find that it had moved on. This confused me. The song had been there, at the very spot just a moment before.

I heard it again, located it again, and leaped towards it again. Several times. Each time, it had moved on.

More than once, I lost it. I waited, I know not how long, until I heard it again in an impossible direction or right next to me.

I knew not who sang. I knew not what a wila was. I only knew that I heard a song that made me feel. I heard a song that made me want.

I listened carefully. Did the song move because I approached or for some other reason?

I leaped to another part of the forest, far from the song.

The song still moved.

If I could anticipate where the song would be, I could place myself there.

I crawled after the song, knowing it was close. The music was so loud it practically overwhelmed me. I could smell it in the air. I could see the notes twisting and dancing through the trees, darting from one light beam to the next, skipping off leaves and filling them with life and color.

I stalked the song and placed myself ahead of it.

Presently, I saw her.

She danced naked about the trees as she kicked and spun and sang. Her legs were long and delicate, though her hips and breasts were plump and round.

As she swung her head, her dark tresses, bright yet blacker than black, shook drops of perspiration that burst into flowers.

Beasts danced with her.

Birds circled her and whistled to her tune.

Even the trees swayed, happy for her joy.

I was entranced.

I longed to dance with her, to sing with her. I felt stirrings that I did not understand, though I knew that they were strong.

Beautiful wila! I called out to her. Come to me!

She heard me. She stopped her singing and dancing and listened to my voice on the wind.

Come to me, beautiful wila, and dance for me.

She must have heard youth and innocence in my voice. She clapped her hands together and laughed. Her flesh flushed from brow to toe.

She shooed her beasts back into the woods and began to approach me, her hips swaying and her arms outstretched.

Who would dance in the trees and joy in the morning light? she sang. Who will sport with me and tease the Sun and the stars? Step forward. Come to me.

Even more aroused, I stood up.

Wila were clever. They were, perhaps, the cleverest of beings.

My wila saw at once my lust. She must also have realized I was a God, and that I was too young to control my urges.

No doubt knowing that she would surely be consumed by my rapine, she turned and fled into the forest with a great and fearful cry, begging the trees to hide her, for the winds to carry her away, and for the beasts and birds to fly and flee.

She called out to older Gods, imploring them. "Give me wings! Speed my flight! Shield me from his ardor for it shall surely consume me! Have mercy on me as I have cared for