Chapter 716 - A Taste of Normalcy

If there was one thing Zeke had learned, it was that people were, ultimately, just people.  No matter where they went, regardless of how much power they accrued, they still had the same wants, similar needs, and at the end of the day, unchanged priorities.  So, when he settled into one of the small towns within the Ways, Zeke found himself confronted by familiarity. 

Certainly, many of the people present were lesser gods affiliated with the Waymaster.  They didn’t categorize themselves as worshippers, but instead, considered themselves as something akin to employees.  They saw to the maintenance of the Ways, keeping the peace so his intervention wasn’t required.

In return, they gave him the worship he needed to empower the Ways.  Usually, that was limited to tossing a few beads into the local fountains or reading the dense list of guidelines for using the Ways.  But from a functional standpoint, it was no different than when the kobolds visited one of the temples within the tower.

When they weren’t doing that, the residents of the Ways went about their lives the same as anyone else.  They congregated in the local taverns, worked towards their own goals, raised families, fell in love – their activities ran the gamut of what Zeke considered the human experience.

Of course, very few were human, but that didn’t really matter.  People were people, regardless of race or power.

So, why did he feel so out-of-place?

Why did he feel the weight of all of reality on his shoulders?  Certainly, if people were just people, then he should share the same priorities as the rest of the population.  By all rights, he should have been happy building a life with Talia.  She was devoted to him in a way that sometimes made him uncomfortable, and he knew the weight of their feelings for one another was extremely lopsided.

He liked her.  He might’ve even loved her, had he allowed himself to go down that road.  But in his life, his goals would always come first.  Sometimes, he fooled himself into believing that he wasn’t selfish, that his priority was preserving reality for the good of all.  But at the end of the day, he knew it was a lie. 

His pursuits were for his own good.  No one else’s.  Any overlap between the two was purely coincidental. 

Did that make him a monster?

Perhaps.  Certainly, some might have made that claim.  What sort of person put his own goals above the fate of all of existence?  Zeke didn’t want to think about the answer to that question.

Indeed, if he’d had his way, he would have already attacked Aja.  Yet, even he wasn’t so hubristic that he thought that was a good idea.  If he commenced the assault before she was weakened – from the ongoing war against the elves in the lower realms – he would surely fail. 

“Zeke.”

He blinked, glancing up at Tucker.  “Huh?”

“You weren’t listening, were you?”

“Sure.  You were saying something about…uh…alchemy.”

Tucker narrowed his eyes.  “Just because you got that right doesn’t mean you were listening,” he said. 

“Sorry.  Lot on my mind.”

“You know that worrying about it isn’t going to make the war go any faster,” Tucker stated.  “And just to preempt you whining about justification, elves suck.  They’ve always sucked.  They wouldn’t think twice about doing the same to you or yours, given half a chance.  So, don’t worry about it.”

“We’ve set out to kill an entire population,” Zeke said, glancing around the tavern.  It was a cozy place, but too modern – whatever that meant – for his tastes.  The metal tables and uninteresting design were functional, but there wasn’t much charm to be seen.  Some of that lack was hidden behind the variety of races present. 

Upon first arriving in the Ways, Zeke had tried to count the number of different creatures he saw, but he’d since given up.  There were hundreds, some of which weren’t even humanoid.  Scales and feathers were common, as were multiple extra arms or legs.  He’d even seen an ogre-like creature with two heads that seemed engaged in a perpetual argument.

“That’s war.”

“We both know that’s not true.  War targets combatants.  What we’re doing…”

“Genocide, then.  But genocide with a purpose.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Zeke argued, raising his hand to signal to the barkeep that he wanted another drink.  It wasn’t beer, but it was beer-like.  That was enough to suit his mood for now. 

“You should get mead,” Tucker suggested, draining his own mug.  “It really is good.”

“I don’t like sweet alcohol.  It feels wrong,” Zeke muttered.  Indeed, the mead was tasty, but far too sweet for his taste. 

“Sacrilege.”

Zeke rolled his eyes, and after the server approached and took his order, he steered the conversation in another direction.  He didn’t get a lot of opportunities to reminisce about his time on Earth, and for that, Tucker was an ideal rhetorical partner.  For whatever reason, their memories of Earth were far clearer than they probably should have been.  After all, more than a century had passed since either of them were there.  By all rights, they should have forgotten much of their time before being reborn in the Mortal Realm. 

Zeke said as much, prompting an explanation from Tucker.

“That’s just how memory works.  As we get older, we become inured to events because we’ve seen them before.  But when we’re young, everything is new.  I remember reading a study about it when I fancied myself an academic,” he said.  “My younger days were filled with pretension as I tried to convince myself I was somehow better than everyone else.  Nonsense, of course.  I was better at chemistry, sure.  Maybe I was  smarter than most.  But others were better than me at plenty of things.”

“I was only good at one thing,” Zeke said.

“So nothing’s changed, then?” joked Tucker. 

Zeke laughed appropriately, but the reality was that Tucker was right.  For all that Zeke had progressed by leaps and bounds since dying in that operating room, he really hadn’t grown all that much.  He’d always been a single-minded person.  It didn’t matter if that focus was baseball or battle.  Nothing – at least at the core of who he was – had changed all that much.

If anything, he’d gotten worse.

When he said as much to Tucker, the alchemist responded with a bit of information that Zeke hadn’t already learned.

“That’s how godhood works,” he said.  “You become more…you.  For most of us, it’s not really that much of a change.  We’re just lesser gods, right?  But you – you’re a Primordial.  More than a god.  Potentially, at least.  So, it stands to reason that it would be worse for you.  With great power –”

“If you say something about responsibility…”

Tucker laughed.  “No.  I was going to say that with great power, comes a honing of your nature.  Progression just sharpens who you are.  Refines your nature.”

“Where does it end, then?  With me being a battle maniac who can’t stop fighting?”

“Aren’t you already there?”

Zeke looked away.  There was something to be said for that notion, but there was a key difference that Tucker hadn’t accounted for.  “If that was the case,” he began.  “I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.  I’d be on Aja’s world fighting a fight I can’t win but couldn’t resist.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

Still, Zeke had difficulty sitting still.  He wanted nothing more than to just what he’d suggested, and not just because he wanted to avoid killing hundreds of thousands of innocent elves.  That was part of it, but he also just wanted to act.  To do something.  To move toward his goal. 

He might not have been devoted to battle, after all.  Perhaps his nature was one of constant improvement.  A need to act.  To work toward a goal.  That would have been preferable to an eternity spent in battle, though he expected that, in the end, that was what awaited him. 

“The other thing is also true,” Tucker stated.

“What other thing?”

“The one about great responsibility,” he elaborated.  “Cliché as it may sound, that’s the burden of the strong.  You have a responsibility to protect the weak, to fight the battles they can’t.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.”

“Then why did you say it?” Zeke asked.

“Because sometimes you need a little reminder,” Tucker answered.  “We all do, I think.  It’s part of being human, that propensity to forget the stakes.  To overlook how our actions affect everyone else.  We tend to focus so much on what we want to accomplish that we lose sight of all the people trampled by our ambition.”

He stared down at his mug, then added, “Ah.  Sorry.  I get like this when I drink too much.  I think you’re right about sweet alcohol.  You never realize it’s affecting you until you’ve already gone too far.”

He pushed away from the table, then rose unsteadily to his feet, muttering, “Iris is going to kill me.”

“You want me to come with you?” Zeke asked.

“Nah.  I’m good.  Stick around.  Or maybe you should go see that girl who hangs on your every word,” Tucker suggested.  “Just a thought.”

And then, he headed to the exit, leaving Zeke behind.  Suddenly, he felt very alone, which wasn’t a new development.  After spending so long with Eveline as his constant companion – whether he wanted her there or not – only having his own thoughts to keep him company was a lonely prospect. 

He knew what he should do.  Following Tucker’s advice made sense.  That was why he’d asked the Waymaster to allow him to summon one of his gates, albeit temporarily.  That had let a few of his friends enter the Ways alongside him.  Of course, Talia was one of those, and at present, she was in the inn, enjoying a spa day with Iris. 

A spa day.

That was how Iris had put it.  And even if the whole idea sounded ridiculously mundane to him, it was probably an accurate description.  The notion of Talia – a killer among killers – getting a massage from some stranger or enjoying a mud bath was patently ridiculous.

At least she wouldn’t be getting her nails done.  Talia was unlikely to let anyone touch her claws.

Over the next few hours, Elijah had a couple more beers.  Everyone else in the tavern gave him a wide berth, meaning that he drank alone.  Clearly, his reputation preceded him.  Probably for the best, all things considered.  The last thing he wanted was the company of strangers.

Finally, he pushed himself to his feet.  He’d hoped that the alcohol might have some effect on him, but in the end, he was entirely unaffected.  He didn’t even need to use [Hand of Creation], as he might have in the past. 

Instead, he paid his bill – using those same beads that he didn’t fully understand – then headed outside.  The platform where they’d chosen to stay was like a mid-sized city, with a population numbering at least in the hundreds of thousands.  So, it was easy enough to get lost in the crowds.  Zeke did just that, spending the next few hours just wandering around. 

He knew he was procrastinating.  Talia wanted something from him that he just couldn’t give – his full attention.  She claimed to understand that there were other demands on him, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes.  She wanted him, and in the end, she would settle for whatever parts of his life he chose to share with her.

It was a sad thing.

And Zeke tried his best to give more.  He just wasn’t built like that.  Not anymore.  Instead, he struggled to connect with anything mundane.  His mind constantly shifted to larger problems.  Bearing the fate of the universe had that affect on a man.

So, he was caught by surprise when someone called his name.

“Ezekiel Blackwood!” came an abrupt voice.  “I have come for a reckoning!”