Chapter Twenty-Two
Rescuing Carmaz from the Void's grasp had been Braim's idea the minute he and Ragao appeared in the streets of World's End again. He had ordered her to do it and was surprised when she actually listened and did it, which made him wonder if Ragao was starting to see him as her master, rather than Diog. Braim knew that half-gods weren't exactly the most intelligent of creatures—he had known one, for a brief period of time, back in North Academy that had been little more than an overgrown and overly-violent child—but it had never occurred to him that he might get a half-god servant of his own someday.
In any case, Braim was grateful that he had Ragao by his side, because the Void was deep and dark and he wasn't sure he could beat it on his own.
Then again, Braim wasn't sure how he was supposed to beat it at all. The only reason he had told Carmaz to let him handle this was because of the whole 'natural laws' thing that Carmaz had mentioned the Void talking about. If Braim had to hazard a guess, that meant that his resurrection had somehow weakened Martir's boundaries, thus allowing the Void to enter and wreak havoc on World's End. He didn't want that to be the case, but it fit with what Diog had told him earlier about how his own resurrection had somehow broken Martir's natural laws.
Braim believed that he might somehow be able to drive the Void off with his resurrected body. He figured that he would probably react differently to the Void than the others. Indeed, he might even be immune to its dark effects or at least better able to resist them, anyway.
So when Braim and Ragao stepped into the Void, Braim didn't feel anything. It became dark, almost too dark for him to see, which was why he summoned an orb of light in his hand. Even then, the light orb barely showed anything, while Ragao had averted her eyes, likely to avoid blinding or injuring them.
Braim fully expected the Void to attack him and Ragao the instant he summoned his light orb, but the Void was silent. He looked around the darkness, wondering if the Void had some sort of body he could interact with, but it seemed like he and Ragao were the only two beings in the whole world now. He couldn't even hear his own heartbeat, which would have frightened him, but as usual, he didn't even notice it until his mind told him that he should have heard it. Besides, his heart was still beating, and that was all that mattered to him.
“All right, Void,” said Braim. He kept the fear out of his voice because he didn't want the Void to think he was afraid. “I'm here. Why don't you show yourself?”
Still no answer. This puzzled Braim. The Void had obviously heard him, so why wasn't she talking to him? Was she ignoring him? If so, why?
“Afraid of me, Void?” Braim said again, this time increasing the volume of his voice for effect. “Do you consider me an abomination, just like Diog did?”
Then Braim heard steps from somewhere within the darkness ahead. They were heavy, dragging steps, like someone was limping. It was impossible to tell how far away the walker was. They might have been on the other side of the Stadium or two feet away. Sound seemed to travel strangely in the Void.
Without warning, a portion of the darkness pulled away, like a curtain, allowing Braim to see someone standing two dozen or so feet away from him and Ragao.
It was a large, muscular man, though Braim didn't recognize him. The man wore a black tunic. At least, it looked like a black tunic, until it moved and Braim realized that it was actually the shadows of the Void covering the man's body. The man had a large gray mustache and appeared to be middle-aged, but it was impossible to guess his age for sure in such dark conditions.
“Who are you?” Braim said. “One of the Hollech Bracket participants?”
A feminine chuckle escaped the lips of the man, which deeply unnerved Braim. This is the body of the man known as Zaos. He was easily dispatched when I consumed the Stadium. Now I control his body as easily as a puppet. Not that I need a body, but sometimes I prefer to do this in order to frighten my opponents.
“That is pretty freaky,” said Braim, nodding. “But what about Raya and the others?”
Why should I tell you? Zaos—no, the Void—said. Knowledge is power, after all, and I am not in the business of granting others power. I take away power, actually, because the Void consumes everything at some point or another.
“Yeah, sure,” said Braim. “Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, I'm glad you actually decided to show up and face me. Guess you aren't such a frightened little shadow after all.”
The Void fears nothing, said the Void. The Void fears not the gods, nor the humans or the aquarians or the half-gods or the katabans. The Void cannot feel fear. The Void only creates fear in its enemies.
“Uh huh,” said Braim, nodding. He looked around the shadows. “But I guess the Void also likes to talk, because otherwise I wouldn't be alive right now, right?”
The Void has its reasons for not killing you, said the Void. You are … unique among mortals.
“Yeah, I've been told that before,” said Braim. “Just had someone try to kill me over it, in fact, less than fifteen minutes ago. What about it?”
The Void always consumes everything, the Void said. Yet I also have a sense of … gratefulness, I suppose you would say. Because it is your resurrection that helped to weaken the world's boundaries enough for me to try conquering Martir again. And this time, there is no one to stop me.
“I suspected as much,” said Braim. Then he paused. “Wait a minute … are you thanking me?”
I never said that word, said the Void. I am only acknowledging that I am grateful for what you did. For too long, my desire to consume everything has been denied me by the boundaries that the Powers set around Martir ages ago. I believed Uron would be the one to help me, but then he betrayed me at the last minute. But now, I am once more free to do as I wish, which is to consume the whole world and all that reside within it.
“Not unless I stop you,” said Braim.
The Void laughed, which was a strange mixture of male and female voices that made Braim feel even less comfortable than he already did. You are perhaps the third mortal to tell me that today. Why do you think you are going to do it when all of the others have utterly failed?
“Because you're afraid of me,” said Braim.
The Void stopped laughing. Her expression was blank, but Braim could tell that he had hit a nerve. What?
“You're afraid of me,” Braim repeated. “You heard that correctly. You, the Void, are afraid of me, Braim Kotogs. Can't put it in any plainer language than that.”
I am not afraid of any mortal, said the Void. It is you who should be afraid of me. I am older than Martir, older than the gods, even older than the Powers. My power dwarfs the combined might of the sun and the sea. There is nothing anywhere in the universe that comes close to my power. Why, then, would I ever be afraid of you?
Braim yawned a little. “Because I'm different from everyone else you've faced. I'm the kind of thing that you are afraid of.”
I still do not understand, said the Void. I am not afraid of mortals, not even cocky ones like you. Mortals fear me.
“It's not my status as a mortal that scares you,” said Braim, shaking his head. “You know, for being such an all-powerful entity, you sure seem incapable of sensing implications in a mortal's words.”
Stop insulting me, said the Void. Or I will kill you where you stand, you and your stupid half-god underling.
Ragao actually stepped back, like she wanted to run away, but Braim gestured for her to stay.
“I don't care much for Ragao, but leave her out of this, all right?” said Braim. He tapped his chest. “What you are afraid of is my life. I am supposed to be dead, but I'm not. I came back from the dead—an impossibility by all definitions of the word—and I don't intend to die again anytime soon.”
So what? said the Void. You are not immortal. I see nothing frightening about you.
“Still don't see it,” said Braim. He sighed heavily. “Okay. I'll use simple words and speak slowly so you get it, beauti—actually, you're not all
that beautiful for a woman or for a man for that matter.”
Get to the point, you stupid mortal, said the Void.
“Okay, okay, don't be so rude, geez,” said Braim. “So anyway, you want to consume everything, right? Plunge all of reality into an endless darkness or whatever? Extinguish the spark of life from all of creation and everything?”
If you wish to put it that way, yes, said the Void.
“Essentially, you want to make it impossible for life to return,” said Braim. “You want the dead to stay dead and for life to end. And, under ordinary circumstances, that's usually how life and death work. Except for me.”
Except for you, said the Void.
“Exactly,” said Braim. He gave her the thumbs up. “Now you're getting it. Anyway, you are afraid that if I came back from the dead, then anyone could, right?”
Of course not, said the Void, though she said it a little too quickly. You are the exception, not the rule. There is no other way for mortals to come back to life except through what you did, and that was only under extremely unusual circumstances. The chances of even one other person coming back to life are so slim as to practically be zero.
Braim wagged a finger at her. “There's the catch, though. You don't know that there aren't other ways for people to come back. Until I woke up naked in that graveyard a few months back, no one in the world, not even the gods, believed it was possible for someone to come back to life. What if there are other ways—methods yet to be discovered—that could allow anyone to come back to life?”
The Void shifted uncomfortably where she stood, which was the first visible sign of discomfort that she had shown so far. Maybe there are other ways to come back from the dead. But if I destroy Martir before that happens, then they will never be able to come back from the dead no matter what.
“Can't be so sure about that,” said Braim. “The other methods to return to life might exist in the Spirit Lands, which I know you can't touch. And that's what scares you about me: I am living proof that your consumption of the world might not be enough. Life could come back, despite your best efforts. It would mean you aren't as all-powerful as you think you are. It would mean that you can be beaten, just like anyone else.”
Shut up, the Void said. You treat me like I am a person, like you, with fears and worries. I fear nothing and worry about even less.
“You're definitely not human or a person, but that doesn't mean you don't have any fears at all,” said Braim, shaking his head. “You're just trying to hide your fears because you know I'm right. You know that I'm onto something. You can pretend all you want that I'm not, but the reason you've let me live so long is because you aren't sure that you can kill me at all.”
Braim said those last words with as much finality and emphasis as he could. He looked at the Void as he said that, looking her in the eyes, even as she tried to avoid looking at him.
The Void did not answer right away. Her hands balled into fists, she was making growling noises, but otherwise seemed to have no words at all to answer his accusation. In other words, she was totally speechless.
Then, much to his astonishment, the Void's body collapsed. It fell face-first onto the stone floor of the Stadium. Braim at first thought that this was some kind of trick on the part of the Void, so he looked around wildly, expecting its tendrils to shoot out of the shadows and kill him and Ragao where they stood.
Yet that did not happen. In fact, the darkness seemed to be leaving. Braim could see more things now, such the rules written on the walls, the doors leading to the field and to the box, and even the stone platform that Alira had stood on a couple of days ago when she first assigned the godlings to their respective brackets. The temperature rose as well, back to its normal height, and the smell of death vanished from his nostrils as well.
In seconds, there was no trace of the Void anywhere in the lobby at all. Aside from Zaos's corpse, the only two beings in the Stadium lobby were Braim and Ragao. This time, however, Braim felt good about it.
***