66 The Door to Truth
“Fated death?” Lilith whispered, like a breeze skimming a still pond. The Little White Dragon didn’t grasp the term. She met the God of Mountains’ gaze. “Why?”
“Gods can glimpse the future, like peaks shown through fog,” the God of Mountains said. “But my power flows from the past, so my forward sight is faint.”
She gave a wry smile, like weathered stone easing under rain. “Even I, with almost no gift of prophecy, have seen it. On that coming day, my life will halt.”
“Tuesday in two weeks, at Mali’s festival,” she said, eyes lowered like clouds hugging a ridge. “The last mark of me on the continent will fade.”
“I’ll lose my way to reach the living earth,” she went on, voice soft as moss. “A god who can’t answer prayers is slowly forgotten in long years.”
“It’s little different from a death sentence,” she said, like a name eroded from a cliff. “Silence will swallow what remains.”
“Better a proper funeral than a slow fading,” she shrugged, light as drifting pine needles. “Let them send me off grandly, so I go with some grace.”
Her tone stayed easy, sunlight on stone. But Star Canvas, at her side, looked ready to cry, like rain pooling in dark lashes, so heartbreakingly small.
Words failed Lilith, and a quiet ache rose, like tide under moon. She barely knew the God of Mountains’ true name, had never offered her faith.
Yet hearing a god would leave the land, the Little White Dragon felt sorrow coil inside her, like a cold stream around bare ankles.
“Why has fate judged you to die?” Lilith frowned, a shadow drawn across snow. “People in Lamter still speak of you with respect and awe.”
“Why would they still forget you?”
“A fine question, my dear child.” The God of Mountains smiled, warm as morning on a slope, ignoring Star Canvas yelling, “That’s my daughter—hands off!”
The tall god came to Lilith and gently touched her head, a palm like soft, broad moss. “Do you know why gods bless believers?”
“Because believers offer faith?” Lilith lifted her chin, unsure, like a sapling feeling wind. She thought it must be that.
“If a group offered you the same faith,” the God of Mountains asked, smiling like sun through pines, “would you help them?”
“I don’t know.” Lilith hesitated, like a bird on a branch. “Maybe, if what they asked wasn’t outrageous.”
“Then is it because they gave you faith,” the God of Mountains asked, voice steady as a stream, “or because of your own heart?”
“It should be my own… kindness?” Lilith said, her brow easing like thawing frost. “I don’t like seeing people tortured by life’s bitter winds.”
“You mean gods help not because believers give them something, but out of their own kindness?”
“Half right, my dear child.” Her eyes bent with a smile, like crescents over a ridge. “Not kindness, but a weightier feeling: love.”
“My dear child, gods love the world,” she said, vast as a mountain’s shelter. “So we protect every living thing upon the earth.”
“Love…” Lilith murmured, like petals drifting. “Then your death… do you no longer love the people of Lamter?”
“Of course not.” The God of Mountains shook her head, and, for the first time, sadness rose on her face like a stormbank. “Another suits these matters better.”
“Lamter’s people chose that one,” she said, voice low as dusk in a vale. “Naturally, I’ll be forgotten.”
“You mean Mali?” Lilith asked, testing the ground like a foot on wet stone.
“It has something to do with him,” she said. “Lamter’s life has outgrown what this old mountain keeper can uphold.”
“They need fresh drive now—courage to open outward,” she said, wind filling new sails. “That isn’t what a watcher on the heights can give.”
“So they chose Mali, who fits Lamter’s current state,” she added, a spark catching dry pine. “They found a new passion.”
“That’s good. I’m happy for them.” She smiled, clear as spring water. “But everything has a price. Changing a city’s faith is the same.”
“If the last believer turns to Mali,” she said, like bedrock shifting. “The blow to Lamter’s old order will be vast.”
“Luckily, I found a remedy,” she continued, voice gentle as night rain. “If a god dies, converts won’t be judged apostates.”
“They can still draw strength from the mountains,” she said, like drinking from cold springs. “Still be the dearest children of ridges and forests.”
“I only need to pay a tiny, whisper-light cost,” she said, a sigh melting into mist. “I’m glad to.”
Lilith couldn’t speak; heaviness pressed in, like snow on boughs. The death of a god felt too weighty. She reached for comfort, and a hand tapped her shoulder.
“Don’t listen to her babble,” Star Canvas popped up beside her, draping an arm over the Little White Dragon like a playful cloud.
A chubby white finger pointed at the God of Mountains, indignant as a cat with raised fur. “You old thing just don’t wanna work!”
“You’re splitting your authority among believers,” she huffed, sparks snapping. “Then you run back to the Divine Realm to live the high life.”
“Don’t spoil the mood, you little rascal,” the God of Mountains said, frowning like a crease in granite. “I’m not handing out authority to believers.”
“I preside over the mountains,” she said, voice firm as slate. “If I give it up, I return it to that One. Not to my followers.”
“See? I was right!” Star Canvas shouted right in Lilith’s ear, noise buzzing like cicadas. Lilith could hardly hear the god’s words.
She pushed away Star Canvas’s white-furred head, like nudging a puff of cloud. Then she aimed her own question at the God of Mountains.
“Will you return to the Divine Realm after dying on the continent?”
“Of course.” The God of Mountains nodded, like a pine in steady wind. “Many friends up there still remember my true name.”
“Even if I’m forgotten down here,” she said, names carved on celestial stone. “I won’t die in the Divine Realm. Gods are like that.”
“Good.” Lilith breathed out, relief uncoiling like warm smoke. She had feared the God of Mountains couldn’t escape death. It was only a passing-away on the road.
In the Divine Realm, she could still live as usual, a ridge beyond the clouds.
“Then who is that One you’re talking about?” Lilith cast her second question, like a stone skipping a lake.
“That One? My authority is part of the earth,” the God of Mountains said. “So of course I return it to the Mother of Earth.”
“But the old lady hasn’t awakened in thousands of years,” she complained, dust on a silent throne. “Who knows if handing it back even works?”
“I told the Dragon God ages ago to build his wife a divine seat,” she grumbled, like thunder behind a peak. “And now look—what a mess.”
