7/03/2019
Rain gently tapped me on the head as I trudged between the trees. The lamb pranced gaily ahead of me, his sodden coat not seeming to weigh him down at all. I scoffed. Of course it didn’t weigh him down, he was young. The young always have that extra energy to carry them in their blissful gambols. Meanwhile, I’m hiking through the woods with every bone and stiff joint creaking like the aspens in Fall. Ah, well. Soon both of our journeys would be over. I had spent the last three years carrying out the previous directive of my goddess. Her last mandate had been a weighty one. Literally. I had carried water for three years to relieve the suffering of a village drought.
“Ach, don’t eat that!” I cried to the lamb. We had entered the clearing where the altar lay. A small stone slab on the ground with a ring of wildflowers surrounding it. The lamb was currently eating the wildflowers. I scooped him up in my arms and knelt in front of the stone slab. “I have returned.”I placed the lamb on the altar and held him down with one hand as I slid out my dagger from its sheath with the other. “Tsk, don’t worry, love.” I cooed in his ear. I raised the dagger high. “I return to you, O goddess, and continue on the path laid out for your followers.” I plunged the dagger deep into the earth beside the lambs head. He let out a startled bleat before I released him, at which point he stood, looked at me reprovingly, and ambled off into the trees. I stared after him wistfully. “Oh to be young and free again.” A shimmer in the air above the altar caught my attention.
“My child.”
“Hardly a child anymore, goddess.” I turned toward the gently radiant figure next to me.
“True, but you have nearly completed this life’s journey. Should you not be joyous as the lamb?”
“I worry.”
“About your final task?”
“They say it is always the most difficult...and I did just finish carrying water for three years.”
A gentle laugh came from the trees around me. “My child, physical labor is sometimes the easiest of all.”
“Ah. Now I am truly worried.”
“You know my realm and my ways.”
“I do, Daya.”
“Then why worry? Though it may seem difficult you must know that in the end it will be to the best benefit.”
“Of course.”
“Are you ready?”
“I think so.”
“This will be your last.”
“Yes.”
“Very well then. Approach the altar and hear my final word.”
I hesitated a moment, but glancing in her eyes brought a surge of resolve as it always did. I stepped onto the altar and knelt down. “I receive your requests and carry them out in fullness knowing that my every action on your behalf brings a better future for those I affect. Direct me now, Daya, to my last and greatest act in this life, that I may transition to the next in peace knowing I have been a vessel for greatness.” Warmth flooded my body, and I relaxed into the familiar cocoon of loving kindness. Daya’s voice echoed from every direction, emanating from the trees around me and within my own head. It carried a power and finality I had never before heard, and sent a shiver down my spine as I drank in her strength.
“Your final task is this. You will journey three days to the East of here. There you will find a small village.”
An image blossomed in my mind. I could see the spire of the tiny church, the crumbling buildings, the dusty fields.
“The village holds a few precious souls. Seventy-two to be precise. Your final task is to eliminate the village as they sleep on the third night of your journey.”
“Wait, WHAT?” I sat up shocked beyond belief. “I’m to- to-. WHAT?! Goddess I don’t understand!”
“The̴n̶ ĺ̵̤̻̥͖̮̫̩̩͕ḯ̸͍ś̴̜̻̩t̴̛̳̓̏̄̾̒͌̏e̴̝͈̣̓́n̷̢͕͖̤̅͐͛̾̔͛͐̀͋.”
The power of her voice knocked me back down to the ground.
“I have seen what is to come, and there is little I can do to change it. Giving you this as your final task is the most I can do in my current power.”
“But, murder?!” I cried out. “You are the goddess of mercy!”
“Would you like to see what will be if you choose not to fulfill this final request?”
“Yes!”
Another image rose suddenly in my vision. I saw the town again, it was night, everything looked the same as the first time I saw it, but out of the darkness sprang a piercing scream. Then another, and another, and another. The whole village was screaming, shrieking, wailing. The sounds came as if torn from their tortured souls. And suddenly I knew. Grief overwhelmed me. Tears streamed down my cheeks as vision after vision arose of the final moments of each villager. I shook with the pain and terror they each felt until darkness swallowed me.
…
I awoke with damp leaves pressing into the right side of my face. My goddess crouched on the earth across from me, her usual luminescence dull and flickering. I righted myself, and whispered, “I accept.” She looked at me. No, into me, and I looked back. I could see the pain in her eyes. I knew she was as tortured as I at the lack of options. I stood slowly.
“I accept. I will fulfill your final request, goddess.”
“Then let me show you what will be.”
The town came into view yet again.
“I will be with you, and as my gift to aid you in your final task I will guide and protect you so that you may see it through to completion.”
“I will be with you, and as my gift to aid you in your final task I will guide and protect you so that you may see it through to completion.”
I could see each villager come underneath my blade, and I wept at what would be. But now I knew. I knew that a quick, silent death was so much better than their alternative.
“As your life has been lived fully and you have faithfully followed the path you set upon at my request, when you have completed the final of the sacred tasks I will release you from this life. Your spirit will take flight for the glories you have earned, and in that moment I will inhabit your body as my vessel for the new age. With my power it will become young and strong again. And in a fully physical form within the world once more, I will have my full power restored. When the terror reaches the village mere moments after I am restored, I will greet them. And then, child, then they too will learn that death can be a mercy.”
The music I wrote to:
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