Neytopia › Part 1: Dawn › Chapter 11

Esoteric surgery

Eventually she reached a stenching cave. She could feel the beast was there. She ordered her soldiers to stand guard as she entered alone. Her footsteps echoed through the cave, causing some bats to fly out. She pushed on, deeper and deeper into the cave. Nothing could scare her.

As her eyes adapted to the darkness, she distinguished a large figure hunched against a wall. Listening to its calm, paused breath, she realized it was asleep. She avoided stepping on the scattered animal carcasses as she approached him. She flung a large blanket over him, then stood back and chanted,

Rise! Rise! Rise!

The creature woke up, startled by the noise. It tried to turn around but could not move. Her chanting stopped and she whispered in its ear with a soft voice:

This ends now, you hear me? I am taking you somewhere you can be free, a place where you can eat and drink all you want without causing trouble.

She paused and shone, lighting up the cave. Finally she and the scared creature could see each other. It was a monstrously large man, except…

That mark.

She ran her fingers through the giant’s chest. That was no ordinary giant. She ran outside to get the soldiers.

I have captured the beast, but I need help to carry it outside.

They used horses and mules to drag him out of the cave, at all times covered by the blanket. They traveled for weeks across the western rim of the continent until they reached a large port. There they loaded the giant, completely covered and disguised as supplies, and set sail. A few days later they reached the island at the end of the world.

They hauled the giant to the coast and sat him with the large blanket covering him. Once they had finished carrying the giant, she spoke to her disciples.

Your training is complete. Now you must travel abroad and continue my work. Struggle wherever you go, keep the fight alive every day of your lives, and die in peace.

She promised each of them to meet again before they died, knowing she never would. When everyone had left, she spoke to the immobilized giant.

Do you have any idea of who you are? Nah, if you did, you would have torn the world apart. You are an error, a mistake. You belong to the world beyond this world, and yet, here you are. Here you are…—She looked away. She pitied the giant, even if he was about to give her real power—I am becoming all too human, I know. But that’s why you’re here—The giant’s eyes darted anxiously in all directions—Shhhh now, boy. I’ll make you forget the terrible things that have happened to you, don’t worry. You’ll just have to endure a little more pain.

She blindfolded him and took a long ceremonial knife and a saw. First she sawed through the giant’s skull until she reached the brain. With the knife she removed a small portion of it and clenched it on her right hand.

This. This is true power. I don’t need the gods anymore, now I AM A GOD.

She chewed through the raw brain, hunched behind the giant. Immediately after she fell to the ground convulsing, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. For eight days she carved the giant’s brain and ate it.

On the eighth day came a raft. The giant’s head was covered to hide the carefully-stitched lobotomized brain, but she removed the blanket that had immobilized him. Still, the giant could not move or talk. He just sat, gazing with an empty stare into the sea that stretched before him. A small man came from the raft to meet the giant. Once he was standing before him, the man fell on his knees and took off his hat as a sign of respect, pressing it with both his hands against his chest.

How treacherous the path, yet how great the reward! In whose presence am I, majestic being?

She was still eating brain, hunched behind the giant. In a stroke of mischief, she spoke using the giant’s voice:

I am he who rules the sky! I am he who commands the earth! I AM THAT I AM!

Allow me, oh great man, to be your honest servant. Tell me, I beg you, what I must do, and I will do it with all my heart!

Get thee back into the tempest, small man. And once you return to thy kingdom, which is mine, teach people the way, which I shall teach you. In time, a priestess will come to find you, and you will obey my word that will fall from her lips.

The man looked up and raised his hands.

Yes! I will! Yes!

And in this kingdom, all shall follow the sacred laws, which are as follows.

For her own amusement, she made up an arbitrary list of rules that included such items as “thou shalt not eat of the animals that hath an uneven number of hooves, for they art evil indeed”. After a long list of rules impossible for anyone to remember, she blessed him, saying:

I grant thee the blessing of everlasting life, for you are now its guardian. Now fucketh off my island.

The man returned to his raft and sailed back to his homeland. She sailed back to the continent, smiling back at the giant on her way. She had finally become a god.