Chapter 694 - Questions

Zeke leaned back in the pool, the scalding waters of the Crimson Spring lapping against his bare chest.  All around him, the kobold attendants attempted to go about their business without gawking at him, but their furtive glances told him that his presence was anything but ignorable.  Such was the burden of being a god.

“Primordial,” Eveline reminded him as she flickered in the air.  Of late, she’d become far more comfortable in her natural form, which meant that she was little more than a ball of mana and light, though one with a consciousness.  She added, “More than a god.”

He sighed, though he didn’t respond audibly.  She wasn’t wrong, though she wasn’t entirely right, either.  The fact was that, to the kobolds, he was a god.  They worshipped him, and not in a subtle way.  One of the most uncomfortable moments of his entire life had come when he’d visited one of the temples devoted to him.  They’d erected an enormous statue of him and surrounded it with religious iconography.  They had priests who extolled his virtues, deifying him to an extent that left him feeling nauseous. 

It was worse than hell.

And he would know, considering he’d descended through every circle, being killed, reborn, and killed over and over again just so he could be tortured to the brink of madness.  The temple was worse, though.  Much, much worse.

“Don’t be so dramatic.  They adore you.”

“That’s the problem, Eveline,” he groaned, surprising a nearby kobold attendant.  She scurried away like a frightened insect.  Not a bad comparison, given that she was still mortal.  Normally, someone like that would never survive contact with a person of Zeke’s power.  The tower seemed to protect the residents, though, acting as a gateway between realms that broke all the rules. The only problem was that a person couldn’t enter from one realm and leave into another. 

The Framework wouldn’t allow its rules to be subverted, even by a truly powerful artifact like the Crimson Tower. 

“You could probably descend if you like.  The world couldn’t take it, though,” Eveline pointed out, responding to his thoughts as if they’d been uttered aloud.  It was a frustrating habit.  “So, probably not the greatest idea.”

“I have no intention of descending.”

Indeed, he’d worked far too hard – and endured way too much pain – to chance having to go through hell to get back.  Sure, he’d probably be able to return via the tower, but he didn’t completely understand the interplay between it and the various realms.  So, he didn’t want to tempt fate by working against the Framework’s intended structure. 

“You really should be in a better mood,” Eveline said, flitting around.  “You’re back with your friends.  You’re fully recovered.  The tower is doing better than you could have ever hoped it would.  By all rights, you should be ecstatic.  Instead, you’re moping in this pool as if your whole world has ended.  What’s wrong?”

“You can read my thoughts.  You probably know what’s wrong better than I do,” he stated.

“I do.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because you need to talk about it.  Just because I know doesn’t mean you’re ready to address it.  We need to get there organically.  I can’t just tell  you what to do or how to live your life,” she answered.

He shifted, sending tiny waves of healing waters rippling in every direction.  Then, he dipped his head below the water, becoming completely submerged.  For long minutes, he remained in place, just enjoying the rejuvenating water, the scalding heat, and the muted senses that came with being underwater.

But he couldn’t escape Eveline’s presence.  She descended beneath the surface without issue.  When he noticed that, she pointed out that she was an incorporeal figment of his imagination.  The only reason he could see her at all was because she had created an illusion.

Of course, Zeke knew all of that.  In fact, he could have put a stop to it in a hurry by embracing [Primordial Mind].  If he didn’t consciously create an exception for her, she would have been crushed out of existence.  Thankfully, it had become an almost instinctual state of mind to allow for her continued presence in his mind. 

“You can’t just dunk your head under water to avoid talking about your feelings, Ezekiel.”

With a bubbling sigh, he resurfaced, then pushed his wet hair out of his eyes as he said, “I know that.”

“Tell me what’s really wrong.”

“Everything,” he admitted.  “When I was in hell, I imagined that everyone would be pining after me.  And I guess they were for a while.  But a century is a long time, isn’t it?  They moved on.  They built lives.  They don’t need me.”

“That’s unequivocally untrue.  Without you, this tower wouldn’t exist.  They would not be here,” she pointed out.

“I’m not talking about that.  They need the master of the Crimson Tower.  They need Ezekiel, the god.  They need the power I represent.  What they don’t need is me, the person.  The friend.  The brother,” he went on.  “Does that make sense at all to you?”

She bobbed up and down like she was nodding her head.  “It does.  And how does that make you feel?”

“Like I’m superfluous and have no other purpose but to fight an eternal war that can’t be won.”

There was a large part of Zeke that enjoyed that notion.  He’d spent decades bouncing from one fight to another, and he couldn’t deny that, at the core of who he was, he was very much a born fighter.  An unequaled killer who had been groomed since the moment of his rebirth to become a champion fighting against unknown horrors.  That had always been his fate. 

Oberon had opened the door, but Zeke had willingly sprinted through it. 

But he wanted to be more.  He needed some degree of normalcy in his life. 

There was a time when he’d tried to develop hobbies.  He’d taken up cooking – specifically pies – and even cultivated a relationship with a good woman.  But now Adara was gone, and he’d never really been that interested in cooking, save to distract himself from his often-violent existence. 

Even then, he’d had his friends.  Sure, Pudge had developed his own life after they’d been separated by ascension to the Eternal Realm, but they still had that connection.  The same was true of Talia.  And Tucker, once they’d been reunited.  But now?  A century without his presence was enough to plant a wide gulf between him and everyone else. 

“I should be more broken up about Adara, shouldn’t I?”

“You barely knew her.”

“We spent years together, Eveline,” he reminded her.  Indeed, they’d met before the war against the Radiant Host, which had taken quite some time to win.  By that point, they’d become a comfortable couple.

“Being around one another doesn’t mean you connected.  Not really.  Maybe you would have, but that was never your priority.  You were never willing to give yourself to that,” Eveline explained.  “Perhaps in time, that might have changed, but you two never had a chance.”

“Are you saying that she meant nothing to me?  Because –”

“No – I’m saying that she’s just one of many people you’ve lost along the way.  You get used to it after a while, especially when your connection is not that strong.”

“It was strong enough.”

“You know that’s not true, Ezekiel.  How often did you think of her in hell?  Compare that to how often you thought of other people.  Like Abby.  If you ever had a long-lost love, that was her,” Eveline said.  “You had your issues.  The relationship was toxic, and it never would have worked.  But the feelings were real.”

“That’s just because of circumstances.  I met her right after spending years alone.  I was bound to cling to her,” he said.  He’d examined the details of their relationship a thousand times, and he continuously came back to the same explanation – it was a result of his state of mind more than anything else.

“It didn’t hurt that she was very attractive.”

He shrugged, then threw his arm over the edge of the pool. “I won’t deny that,” he admitted.

“My point is that every relationship is the result of circumstances.  If you’d met her at any other time and in any other way, you wouldn’t have looked twice.”

“Disagree.”

Eveline shimmered in place for a second, then acknowledged, “That’s probably true.  You would have looked.  You might have even made a move.  But you never would have fostered a relationship.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You have met beautiful women since then.  You’ve looked, but for so many, they were just fleeting moments amidst the chaos of your life.  It’s the same with everyone,” she said.  “Without the right circumstances, love can’t grow.  Sometimes, it’s adversarial.  Partners can be infuriating.  But it’s still love, whether you want to admit it or not.  That’s my point, Ezekiel.  You had love.  You abandoned it.  I don’t blame you for doing so – she crossed so many lines.  But that doesn’t cheapen what it was.”

“Sounds like that’s what you’re saying,” he responded.

“Then you’re not hearing it properly,” she said.  “Every relationship shapes us, Ezekiel.  It just so happens that your quest for progression is the primary impetus for who you’ve become.  For some people, that’s love.  For others, it’s the pursuit of a higher purpose.  For you, it’s climbing ever higher through copious violence.”

“I can be more than that.”

“I hope so,” she said.  “I truly do.  At times, I worry for you.”

“I’ll be fine.  I’ve survived so far.”

“I don’t worry about your survival, Ezekiel.  I don’t meant to trivialize the forces arrayed against you,” she pointed out.  “They are vastly powerful.  Gods and eldritch beings of untold might.  I believe you will survive.  I’ve staked my continued existence on it.  But that is not what worries me.”

“Then what is?”

“I keep asking myself what will happen if you actually achieve your goals.  What will you do if you reach the top?  What will your life be if you win the final battle and your last true enemy is defeated?  If you free the Creator from his eternal war against those who would unmake our reality – what then?  What will give you purpose? What will give you meaning?  I fear that more than losing the battle,” Eveline admitted.

Zeke frowned, though he didn’t dispute the source of her fears.  He knew better than anyone else that they were well-founded.  He had no idea what he would do when there were no more hills to climb.  No more enemies to fight. Could he live with such a burden?

The reality was that he just didn’t know. 

His whole life had been built around one goal or another.  Back on Earth, he’d had baseball.  He’d wholly committed to his pursuit of greatness, and to the point where he’d fostered almost no other interests.  It was everything to him.  And when it had been snatched away, he had been cast adrift in a sea of apathy. 

In a way, his death had saved him.  And it had stunted his growth.  He’d never had to find his way without the guiding light of the goal that had dominated his life.  After his rebirth in those troll caves, he’d been too occupied with survival to recognize that he’d replaced one obsession – baseball – with another.  The constant climb to the top of that system of caves was a perfect representation of the singular goal – to reach the top – he’d adopted. 

Since then, he’d worked toward achieving that lofty goal.  And now that he was closer than ever, he was faced with the nightmarish possibility of being once again losing purpose.  This time, though, he was faced with the same issue that plagued professional athletes the world over.  When their playing careers were over, when they could no longer pursue their reason for existing – what did they do? 

“Your insistence on using sports analogies is worrying.  The stakes are much higher than a middle-aged man with bad joints looking forward to a few decades without purpose,” Eveline said.  “You have eons to consider, and the entire universe – multiple universes in fact – laid out before you.”

“I know.”

“But the comparison is not inaccurate.  The question, as always, is – what will you do, Ezekiel?  How will you respond?  How will you move forward?” she asked.

Those questions were poignant, if only because he had no idea how to answer them.  Either way, it didn’t matter.  For better or worse, he still needed to win the battles before him, climb the hills he could climb, and reach the peak before he needed to worry about the aftermath.

And given the forces arrayed against him, that didn’t seem quite as inevitable as Eveline seemed to believe.