Godkiller - The Lumberjack Journal - 4 - Terrible Silence

I was the first to bear my power. No one knew that The Word of Doors would become one of The Exalted Weapons. Perhaps destruction was never meant to be its fate, and it was I who made it into a thing for killing? Potential is at the heart of what makes a door. A threshold between all things. A thing whose destiny is decided only by what it exists between.

It’s said that a wordbearer knows all of their domain, but it has only granted me more questions. There are libraries filled with the cosmic wonders of The First Tonuge— rather, there were. They all attempt to outline its majesty, but no one talks about how annoying it is. Discovering a Word is like having to relearn magic, reality, entirely anew. Except without a tutor or archives full of texts on the subject.

It’s lonely. At first, you strike sparks. Simple ideas slowly form into world-altering action. I still laugh when I think about how uncomfortable it once was for me to connect two differently-shaped doors. If only it could have stayed that way.

I recall turning the tides at the battle of Xerome. An army of nearly ten thousand mortals, still loyal to the gods, had caught the minor city off-guard. There was no one there to protect them. Each of the Exalted Weapons were fighting the armies of Aeordel and Damnation on other fronts. Alleran summoned me to the front lines of the meager city. I think she did it more out of pity than strategy. Until that point, I had not been used as infantry, but my potential as a weapon had been theorized, and I was the only one capable of crossing such a great distance in time.

I arrived just as the armies had begun to clash. I tried to calm the defenders, but it is difficult to look upon the face of a mortal who knows their gods come for them. You cannot comfort that. Ten thousand mouths bellowed Xerome’s condemnation as I marched through the defenses. The people of the city trembled at the roar, but it would ultimately be an anticlimactic sound.

I climbed to the top of their battlements to overlook the fray. Men fighting men. For the most part at least; there were some bestowed amongst them. It was an odd thing to witness, knowing how in distant lands the world itself frayed under the weight of true war. Their cries were… fearsome. Fearsome, but sad. Men who did not want to be controlled fighting-off men resolved to it.

Something came over me on that battlement. From deep within, I drew forth the unbridled depths of my power for the first and only real time. I transformed their furious cries into a quieter, and much more horrific noise. 

I spoke my Word, loud and true. I could have swallowed them up. Moved the attackers elsewhere. I didn’t. A door opened within each of their throats. For many, I simply created a passage from the inside of their neck to the outside. A painless, arch-shaped wound that killed them in seconds. For those who didn’t have blood, I opened a door to the bottom of the ocean. Filling their body with pressurized seawater.

Pathetic, wet sounds of death filled the air. The will of my body ended the lives of an entire army. The sheer, arcane cost wounded me, but I was too lost in the destruction of life to notice my own pain. No one rejoiced as they fell. The shocked silence was far, far louder than any battle cry. 

It’s difficult to discern friend from foe when killing in such volume. Nearly two thousand of our allies were too deep into the battlefield for me to tell their allegiance. A few hundred of the afflicted on both sides of the fray were powerful, or lucky enough to remain unaffected by my domain. They stood amongst the bodies of their fallen like totems of despair. Some of our soldiers felled a few remaining enemies, but most that survived were allowed to flee.

The war council ruled that I was not allowed to act as a weapon. My power was too dangerous. I did not protest. Unfortunately, that ruling didn’t last for long. To this day I wonder if part of me had done a poor job on purpose, exempting myself from future conscription. Weaponized incompetence in the most literal sense.

I vaguely remember sensing the space inside every one of their bodies. Some hadn’t carried the scent of a travel-weary soldier. I am not sure if it was panic, selfishness, apathy, or naivety that caused me to act as I did. Regardless, when I rest my head at night I still hear that terrible silence.