“And the air tastessogood!” screeched the one called Fear.
At this the fates ceased their screams and began to laugh. When their terrific laughter died down, Power said, “This happens from time to time. We make worlds and we end them. We are forever at play in the sky, making mortals and breaking them and reshaping their existences. It has always been this way. But sometimes, a lesser star, such as you lot, accidentally makes a world. And we are to right such a wrong. First, we will strip your children of their magic.”
He held up a hand when the water woman opened her mouth to ask questions. “Magic is the source you have given your children. Their access to you will be cut off, and you will no longer speak to them. It is too easy a life. If they want to have that magic back, they will need to pay a price.”
Many of these words were foreign to the four little gods. Earth, Fire, and Sea were confused and could not keep up, but Air did. That god saw things before their family did, and that god began to grieve.
“And then,” Power continued, “we will put our own children into this world, and they will be at odds with your children.
“We will love them just the same,” protested the man of fire.
Power shook his head and beckoned forth Fear and War. “My brethren will put fear of the unknown and the need to hold dominion over the unknown into the minds of our children, and there will be an endless turmoil.”
“And,” sung the spindly skeleton called Hate, “when they do not succeed, I will step in. I am always successful at turmoil.”
Power rolled his eyes, except he had no real eyes in his sockets and so his head only gave a beleaguered canting as he let Hate finish. “Greed, you may speak.”
Greed also stepped forth. “I am like Hate in that I do not do very much to be a success. Just a whisper of ‘more, more, more’ in ourchildren’s ears and they will want more, and they will take it from your children.”
“And finally,” Power spoke, “I bring you the last of the reigning five fates. The rest of these behind us are variations, and they have might to them, but it is these five who answer only to me, the king of the fates. They are the mightiest save me. You have met Hate, Fear, War, and Greed. Now I give you Death.”
From the back of the cluster, the palest of the skeleton men emerged, gliding instead of stepping. “I greet you, little ones,” he said, and there was a bizarre kindness in his voice. “I know you must be sad to lose your world and your children.”
“And what do you do?” asked the stone woman.
“I end,” he said, and there was apology in those two words.
“What is ‘end’?” she asked.
“I will show you,” Death said and reached far, far back behind the four stars. And with a hand that had eight curling fingers on it, he plucked a wide-eyed boy from behind the water woman and snapped the child’s neck. He set the boy down before the four gods. “Sometimes, I am a sorrow, but sometimes, I am a mercy.”
The stone woman, the goddess we now call Mother Earth, knelt next to her dead child and put her ear to his chest. “Where is his heartbeat?”
The god of air gave another keening.
And that is how the four lesser gods came to understand what dying was. Their children began to cry out again, and the stone woman collapsed over her son’s body, holding him close.
“What have you done?” shouted Father Fire.
The goddess we call Sister Sea knelt next to her sister and kissed the stone woman’s cheek. “This is what an end is, then. And is this then mourning? I cannot bear it.”
Power nodded at his five mightiest fates and said, “Now, we right their wrongs. What is the price their children will pay?”
“For their magic,” Greed answered, “they should have to bleed orgive up a part of their soul or mortal body. There is always a cost. Nothing is free.”
Hate rubbed his bony hands together, a scrape, scrape, scrape. “And take some of the magic away from some of them so as to create jealousy.”
War drove his bony heel into the ground, and thousands upon thousands of other creatures that resembled the four stars’ children sprang forth from the hole he made. “These ones will challenge theirs for everything. Endlessly. A circle of woe and violence. Histories will eclipse histories will eclipse histories. And the origin of the first war will be forgotten as the next one is planned.”
Power turned towards the fate called Fear. “And you?”
Fear’s long red tongue was back out, tasting the air. “I will be everywhere, in the hearts of both their children and ours. I will divide them simply by making them afraid of one another. I can already taste it. I will set myself up as a colossal edifice, a sign of good sense, a pillar of reason, but I will be nothing but myself. And those who help feed me will be given the courage of zealots.”
“You know what I do,” Death murmured, bowing his head to the king of fates.
“Very well,” Power said. “The five of you will clean up their mess. And I, Power, will strip these usurpers of their own star-shine.” He turned to the four gods. “Step forward, man of flame.”
Father Fire hesitated. He blazed in anger, the first time his heat had ignited in that way. Before it had been for warmth, for comfort, for protection. Now, he was fury itself. He did not want to part from his children.
