A Mortal Peace

The man found her eventually. She wasn’t expecting this particular man, but it was bound to be someone. Even gods could only deny the world so long.

He approached her home, pausing to catch his breath. Sitting on her porch, she studied him.

The climb to her home wouldn’t have been easy, even for a young mortal. This mortal was not young. Gray streaked his hair. Wrinkles covered his face. He was in decent shape for a man his age, but time–while not always cruel to mortal men–was never kind.

He knelt before her, bowed his head. “Oh great and noble Queen of Sword, I’ve come–”

“Care for some tea?” she asked.

He struggled to gather his derailed thoughts.

“I have some cookies, too,” she said. “You’re probably hungry.”

He dared look at her directly. “I am.”

She rose, gesturing to her vacated seat. “Please, sit. I’ll be right back.”

He hesitated.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m not so frightening, am I?”

“You aren’t the Queen?”

It amused her to see his doubt, and she smiled. She stood seven feet tall with glittering silver skin, four arms, and her lioness head.

She said, “Please, sit. I’ll get you some refreshments.”

She went inside her cottage. When she returned, he was sitting uncomfortably in her chair. She set a tray of tea and cookies on the table beside him.

“Why so nervous, my friend?” said the Queen.

“It’s said the Queen of Swords kills the unworthy.”

“Are you unworthy?”

He didn’t answer.

“Well, you aren’t dead yet,” she said. “That must count for something.”

She smiled. He didn’t.

“You can relax. I haven’t killed anyone or anything in a long while. Several millennia at least.” She poured him a cup of tea. “Honey?”

He nodded, but she sensed his reluctance.

“Do you like honey in your tea or not?”

“I don’t,” he said. “But it’s said it’s bad luck to reject the hospitality of the gods.”

She offered him the cup, which he took in trembling hands. Perhaps it was his age. Perhaps it was a fear of being served by a god, as if some sacred, unspoken law between goddess and man was being broken.

“Gods have larger concerns than forcing honey on guests.” The Queen leaned against the porch post. “Tell me why you’ve dared this climb.”

“Am I the first?” he asked.

“No. The mountainside is littered with those who attempted it. Surely, you must have seen some of their bodies.”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes at the memory. “Why don’t they rot away?”

“I leave them untouched as a reminder of the dangers of the climb. They died in futility, but their deaths not need not be meaningless.”

“Very gracious of you.”

She fixed him with her black eyes. “But you ignored them. A mortal of your age. Your bones must ache, but you’ve made it. Youve reached me.”

“Does that make me worthy?”

“All are worthy, and none are worthy. Such questions are beyond a god’s wisdom. But you are here with your aching bones and your fearful, desperate soul. I can at least hear you out.”

“Thank you.”

“Eat a cookie.”

He took a bite of a chocolate chip, chewing it cautiously. A smile spread across his face. Some of the gray in his hair darkened to its original brown color. He took a sip of tea, and several wrinkles disappeared.

“It’s delicious,” he said.

“I’m not much of a baker, but the ingredients make it hard to screw up.”

They said nothing as he ate several more cookies and drank two cups of tea. When he went for a third, she put her hand over the teapot.

“That’s enough for now. How are those bones?”

“Better.” He stood and stretched. “I haven’t felt this good in years.” He jumped on creaky knees that no longer creaked and chuckled. “Bless you, Queen.”

“It’s nothing.” She picked up the tray. “A temporary restoration.”

“How long will it last?”

She half-smiled. “How long does anything last? Better to think of what you have than what you will lose. Trust me.”

She took the tray into the cottage. When she returned, he was dancing around in her yard. She allowed him the moment of revelry until, in a moment of jubilation, he punched a hole in her favorite apple tree. Its trunk splintered as it threatened to fall over.

“Oh no,” He fell to his knees in repentance. “Oh, Queen of Swords, I didn’t know I could do that.”

She plucked an apple from one of the trees branches. With one kick, she uprooted the tree. She set the apple in the hole and fetched a pair of shovels. She gave him one, and together they buried it.

“The tree was mortal, but in time, there will be another. Perhaps I will enjoy it more than the other. Perhaps less. Either way, the world carries on.”

She frowned as she hefted the uprooted tree over her shoulder. “Still, I’ll miss the old one, but when you’re a god, you get used to things coming and going.”

“What penance can I offer?”

“You’re eager to throw yourself on the pyre of my wrath.” She tossed the tree next to the axe where she chopped firewood. “The damage is done. Sometimes, there’s no way to make amends.”

“Please, Queen, don’t reject me for a foolish accident.”

She sighed. “You mortal children, always bowing and scraping and whispering in hushed reverence. As if the gods have any more mastery of the universe than yourself. More power, certainly. Longer lives. But even gods must humble themselves to the vastness of eternity.”

She waved her hands. The sun set, and countless stars glittered overhead. Only for a moment. The sun rose and set again as another day passed. Decades flew by, then centuries, then millennia. The nearby mountains eroded into dust. One by one, the stars disappeared. They stood at the inevitable end of all things.

The Queen of Swords sometimes wondered what would happen to her after that. Would she fade away? Or would she keep on going, adrift in the emptiness with only the memories of her favorite apple tree?

She snapped her fingers, and the world returned.

“You didn’t come all this way to listen to the fears of a goddess,” she said.

“Gods fear?”

It bothered him. Why wouldn’t it?

“What do you want?” she asked.

She was relieved he didn’t prostate himself before her yet again.

“The world needs you, Queen of Swords.”

“Does it? I don’t think so.” She had a seat on her porch steps. “The world is better off without the gods. Trust me. We only made things worse, more complicated. That was why we all agreed to leave it to you mortals.

“But, of course, you want us to come down and solve your problems for you. But we only ended up making more problems. We gave you nothing you couldn’t give yourselves if only you stopped looking for us to save you.”

She waved him away.

“Go on back down that mountain with the extra years I’ve given you. And be grateful the gods have abandoned you.”

“But they haven’t,” he said.

The Queen perked up. “What?”

“They haven’t abandoned us. They’ve returned. The Lord of Plagues raises an army and seeks to sweep across the world. The Master of Plenty has transformed our greatest cities into cesspools of debauchery. The Keeper of Vermin swells from beneath, consuming entire villages, leaving nothing but gnawed bones and famine in his wake. The Regent of Light chokes the air with the smoke of the charred corpses she deems impure.”

The Queen of Swords silenced him with an icy glare. She stood as her silver skin burned brighter red.

The truce of the gods had been tenuous at best. All it would take was one bored god stepping into the world to set it all off again.

She had killed them all last time to end it, but death was temporary for gods. Which was why she’d had to kill them many, many times before they retreated before her wrath. The world washed with the blood of god and mortal, and she would be lying if she said the idea of it happening again didn’t please some part of her.

“What can mortals do against mad gods?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied.

She clapped her four hands together, and a thunder rolled across the world, sending shivers through both mortals and immortal. Her cottage exploded as her slumbering war dragon burst from beneath it. The black beast roared, lowering itself to climb on her back.

She offered her hand to the man. It was her way to keep one or two worthy ones around her. They reminded her what she was fighting for. Not just fighting for its own sake.

“I wish you’d died on that mountain,” she said.

“I’m sorry, Queen.”

The Queen of Swords cast one final glance at the pile of fresh dirt where her new tree would be waiting for her when she finally returned.

“Not your fault,” she said. “It was always a mortal peace.”