Storyteller
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Restoring Order
“Well…Shit.”Below the surface of the earth, further than humans were ever meant to travel, down where the anvil would take nine days to fall, roamed a particular entity. Order was her name, and order was her purpose. There were infallible truths that were meant to be protected. The first two were simple. Humans would occupy the world, and the Gods would rule the heavens. Those who tried to disrupt the balance found themselves in her domain: Tartarus, a seemingly endless expanse filled with the wails of the truly unfortunate. In cages designed to never bend resided the titans and the forever restless souls of humans who grew above their station. It was quite a tragic fate to be sentenced to an eternity in one’s own personalized hell, but actions had consequences.
The third rule perplexed the Order. A god could not die. Yet on the walls of the chamber she called her home was the story of Pan from his birth to the moment Thamus proclaimed to the world that Pan was dead. Somewhere deep in the memories of a past life, she remembered the day because fire rained from the sky, and Order was interrupted by Chaos. The culprit eluded even her though admittedly her search was not prolonged due to a more pressing issue arising. Her prisons became overrun with the gods who were meant to reside in the heavens while their equally divine conquerors walked among the mortals in disobedience to the rules. It vexed her for centuries yet there was little she could do. To seal the New would disrupt order by doing away with the Celestials entirely. It was not as simple as releasing the Old back to their proper place because the fourth rule stated that once sealed, there was no escape. Of course, it was the rule most often broken, but not by Order. She did not have the power. She was not divine. She was not immortal. She was Order.
But order was no more.
Eyes that held the wisdom of the thousands who came before her watched as another tale was etched into her walls. It was the story of the Earth itself, a constant cycle of life and death. Earth flourished and perished time and time again yet still provided all that her beloved humans needed until her last horror stricken moment.
“This cannot be.”
“The rules.”
“The order.”
The chamber echoed as the shimmering appositions of Orders long past flickered into existence just long enough to express their disbelief until the widest of them all, the Order who oversaw during the period known as the Renaissance, materialized. The Wise One lifted her hand and all fell silent to heed her words. “As long as Order exists, order will be restored.”
”With all due respect and truly I appreciate a daily dose of blind optimism, your mentality is bullshit.” The Order of present spoke with the crudeness of humanity. “There has not been order since that dreaded proclamation, and we have descended further into chaos. Under past watch, Gods were allowed to come and go from their imprisonment as they pleased thus breaking the fourth rule. When the New conquered the Old, they were allowed to roam freely in violation of the first. And now the most sacred, the killing of a god has occurred, and you still insist that the world will right itself. When we have a name, no less!”
“Yes, for as long as Order exists, order will be restored.” The Wise One repeated as though the mantra was the solution to all that plagued the world.
“I am Order. I exist yet order has not been restored. You were Order. You existed yet order was not restored.” As much as she loathed to speak the next words, the time had come. “We must reestablish order. The Old Gods will be returned to their prison. The New will take their proper place in the heavens. And that with the power to kill…” She paused as she looked to the image of Gaia frozen for the remainder of eternity. “Must cease to exist.”
She extended her hand, and from the ether she called forth the Staff of Order, a golden rod adorned at the top with a scale and a snake wrapped around. The scale was meant to always be balanced, a sign that order was preserved. For many years, it had been tipped slightly to the side of the divine who blatantly disregarded the rules; however, when her fingers wrapped around the middle, she noticed that the scale was perfectly aligned. “This cannot be…” There was a killer of Gods disrupting the order, but for the scale to be in balance… “There is another abomination.“
“Will you accept this as the reestablished order in which you spoke?”
“No. That which should not exist, will cease to exist. Thus, is the way of Order.” And with that, she lifted the staff and raised it to the ceiling. The stones parted allowing the light from the stars to illuminate the room. As her feet lifted from the ground, she inhaled to allow her own mortal form, a lithe young woman with twisted hair that nearly touched the back of her knees wearing a gray sheath dress, to take shape. When she exhaled, she was back on solid ground that rumbled beneath her feet. Approaching her was a monstrosity that the tablet had not done justice. It was a creature not human yet not divine. Not alive, nor dead. Had it not been responsible for the death of a God, its very existence would still have offended Order.
Staring down the beast and its mount, she lifted her staff once more. There was a troubling feeling that settled in her gut that she couldn’t recall feeling before. She believed it was called apprehension. There were not many that maintaining order required to be removed from existence, and none had occurred during her governing. Yet, it was not the time to question her ability. The golden snake began to increase in size as it twisted up the rod. By the time it reached the top and opened its mouth to strike, it nearly surpassed her in size. “Creed, order will be res-” She started but her enchantment came to an abrupt stop when she caught a glimpse of a decidedly human figure on the back of the equally offensive horse. To smite one at that point would be an attack against both which was not the way of Order. With no other option available in the short time she had to react, she was forced to dive into the foliage to the side of the path.
Displeased at the unexpected turn of events, she picked a single leaf out of her hair. The world was worse than she thought if beings like that walked in what looked like harmony with mortals, but order would be restored. He would not always have a shield.
With Ker cutting a fiery path through the heart of Nashville, completely unresponsive to any of his urging cries to pursue Fritz before anyone else, Creed had plenty of time to take in the surroundings. Behind him, Gabby was saying something, but with the wind soaring past his ears faster than his motorbike ever ran, it was hard to hear anything she said.
When they cut through a park, Creed was surprised to see a replica of the Parthenon as they curved around a small group of trees. Suddenly, a slender woman with long hair and a thin dress appeared in front of them wielding a golden staff. Even in the darkest hour of night, his new eye could see her lips move with such clarity that he could tell she was speaking, but he wasn’t good enough at lip reading to hear what she said. He didn’t even have time to warn her, but she dove out of Ker’s way before they collided.
Creed looked back at the woman laying in the undergrowth beneath some trees and something told him she wasn’t just some crazy homeless person wandering the streets at night. Ker, however, didn’t seem to care very much. Creed tried all the ways he could think of to get his horse to stop, but she didn’t listen any more now than she had done before.
With a deep sigh, Creed swung his leg up over Ker’s head and then dove off the hell-bent night mare, tucking his body into the fetal position just before he hit the grassy ground. A cloud of dirt kicked up around him as he tumbled ass-over-end until all his kinetic energy was spent and he came to a rest. Creed groaned and took a moment to assess himself, but quickly decided he wasn’t much more hurt than he had been before, so he slowly stood up, just in time for Ker to trot over in front of him and snort a small burst of fire at him disapprovingly.
“Now you stop,” he croaked and started walking back in Order’s direction.
“Wow, did you see that?” Gabby said. As far as Creed knew, she’d never stopped talking, but he couldn’t be sure. “That lady came up from the ground, like a magic trick, actually I think I saw Taylor Swift do that at a concert once, but anyway then you just jumped off. I thought she’d killed you for a minute, but then you stood up and said something. You haven’t said anything since we started riding! Oh, look she’s still there. Hey! How did you come up from the ground like that?”
The Staff was reduced to a walking stick to aid Order in getting back to her feet, and it was then she noticed the scrape on her elbow. Ominous. The battle had not started yet Creed was the first to inadvertently draw blood, but the tides shifted somewhat to her favor. With his dismount, she was given a small degree of separation between him and the human, but they remained too close for her to feel comfortable attempting the ritual again.
“Be silent and leave this place, child. It is Creed who must answer for disruption of Order.” The explanation given was not the one sought, but it would have to suffice. She had no time for idle chatter of mortals. “There is no offense greater than to kill a god.”
“I’m not a girl!” Gabby harumphed, then dropped down to the ground next to Creed. She…he(?) stumbled but quickly righted themself and crossed their arms. “I’m a Gabby!”
“The exact,” Creed brought his uninjured left hand up to press on his throat as he forced out more words in one breath than he’d attempted since his injury. “The exact nature of Gabby is a mystery to everyone. As is yours. Who are you?”
“Yeah! Who are you?” Gabby cheered on aggressively like a hype-man, before changing their tone to be more bubbly and curious. “And how did you hear about Creed killing a god? I don’t remember you from Gaia’s church. Is word spreading that fast? I thought we were going fast on his fire horse.”
Her window of opportunity decreased with each passing second though she questioned her original assessment of the...Gabby. “I am Order, and it is my task to maintain order.” The snake on her staff had returned to its smaller size though it continued to curve around. “Gods shall reside in the heavens and humans on earth. The wicked shall not escape their prison, and a god shall be immortal. Those are the rules to maintain order, and you, Creed, have desecrated the last. For order to be restored, you cannot exist.”
Her head tilted somewhat quizzically as she glanced at Gabby. “And if the exact nature of this Gabby cannot be determined, I can only assume they will ultimately be deemed to be wicked. It is not my decision to make, but it will be enforced. Now, I will warn you once more. Leave this place, Gabby. Your time will come.”
“Nice to meet you, Order,” Creed raised a skeletal finger to tip the brim of his Stetson, clearly unconcerned with her threat. Despite that, he watched with interest as the snake on Order’s staff shrank and curved. It was only then that he realized he was still wearing the bright pink sunglasses that Gabby had forced upon him, and he quickly took them off and stuffed them into a pocket, feeling a little embarrassed. Creed was about to say something more, but was interrupted.
“Wicked?” Gabby replied excitedly. “I like that. Wicked Gabby. No! Gabby the Wicked. I like the sound of that. I like you, Order. You’re the first person who’s ever said anything that’s made sense. Everyone acts like there aren’t gods, but there are. I saw one. And I saw Creed kill her. And here you are, acknowledging it.”
“No, it doesn’t make sense,” Creed shook his head. “There’s only one true God. The rest are false idols, and God gave me a mission to kill them.”
“See?” Gabby shook their head. “Even Creed doesn’t talk like there are gods around. It’s a shame we have to kill you.”
Before Creed could tell what was going on, Gabby grabbed the revolver from his holster and leveled it at Order. It looked massive in their tiny hands, and they had to hold it with both hands just to keep it up. But when they pulled the trigger, nothing happened.
“Don’t do that,” Creed snarled and grabbed the gun from Gabby. “It’s a single-action, you have to pull back the hammer anyway.”
With a sigh, Creed put the gun back in his holster, but now kept a hand on each of his guns, to keep them safe from mischievous Gabbies. “I’m sorry about her…Gabby, I mean.”
Order preferred Creed with the glasses, but there was something curious about his golden eye. Unfortunately, the incessant chattering made focusing on it difficult. She was accustomed to tuning out the voices of her ancestors, but Gabby was particularly troublesome with her apparent inability to remain focused on the conversation at hand.
Yet through the chaos, she was able to catch one detail. “God gave you a mission? A singular god?” The fourth rule was meant to be absolute. A god shall not die, and that included by the hands of another god. If that were possible, the titans would be dead. A god could merely be sealed, hence the prisons of Tartarus, but to give another the ability to kill? The balance and order would be no more.
So disturbed at the once impossible notion, Gabby’s antics nearly went unnoticed. However, the snake on her staff saw all. Its black eyes focused on the threat and awaited its master’s command. “Order can never fully die, Gabby. I can only be replaced with Chaos.” Then again, none of her past variations had been faced with such a weapon.
“I don't need apologies. I need to know who you believe to be your god, Creed. Who has denounced all of the others of their kind?”
Creed furrowed his one remaining brow and turned to look at Gabby, before turning back to Order as if she’d just said something in another language.
“Which god? God. Alpha and omega. I am the Lord, your God.” Creed turned to Gabby again.
“Yahweh?” Gabby said experimentally, clearly also unsure. “Or is that just the name of the father? Christ is also God. But they’re the same God. And the Holy Spirit. If you’re Catholic. I think.”
Creed turned back and shrugged at Order, then looked around.
“Figures we’d have this conversation in the only place in Nashville that ain’t spitting distance from a church,” Creed grumbled.
“Christianity.” Her lips flattened in irritation. Wars waged on the grounds of differing ideology were a recurring theme in history, and it was not Order’s place to decide what was the true religion. Order was not disrupted by the loss of human lives, but there could not be order if the divine became casualties. “So it was the one called Lord who provided you with that weapon?” She presumed as she followed Creed’s line of vision to the replica of the Parthenon. Were the days of coexisting between them all truly gone? “Your Lord has disrupted order and will cause you to suffer a terrible fate. Heaven nor hell awaits you, Creed. You will cease to exist.”
Her free hand moved to rub her temple as she considered her options. Despite it all, she still had reservations of sentencing Gabby to the same fate as Creed. “And knowing this, you intend to stay by his side, Gabby?”
“Maybe,” Creed shrugged and painfully cleared his throat, causing the charred cartilage of his trachea to shift visibly where the napalm had removed the skin on his throat. “Order’s right, Gabby, it’s my cross to bear.”
“Nuh-uh,” Gabby retorted in what she felt was a perfectly cogent rebuttal. “I’ve never felt more like I was in the right place.”
Gabby scrunched up their mouth to one side and blew a stray lock of curly hair out of their face. “Though I admit, if Order kills you, I’ll follow her around instead.”
Watching his pitiful state of being, it would be a kindness to put Creed out of his misery, but kindness was not order. She angled the staff back at Creed, and the snake raised itself once again to strike. However, Order paused as Gabby proved herself unexpectedly (and possibly unintentionally) wise. “You’ve placed me in quite the conundrum. Just as Gabby would follow me after you cease to exist, the Lord could find another to take your place, Creed. I risk creating a never-ending cycle.” Thus, preventing order from once again being in place. “Or perhaps seeing what has befallen a good and faithful servant would serve as a sufficient warning for your Lord to cease disrupting the proper order.” Unfortunately, Order had yet to meet a god without hubris and that line of thinking ultimately fell in line with the Wise One’s optimistic philosophy that order would restore itself.
“Creed, your judgment is sealed, but your sentence is stayed until your Lord answers for their transgressions. Until then, I would advise you both to tread wisely for Gabby still has a chance. Chaos will not take hold of this world.”
“Fair enough,” Creed shrugged. “As long as I get Fritz first, I’ll be happy to have it out with you.”
A skeletal thumb fingered the hammer of his gun thoughtfully while he considered how that might go. “I don’t think you’ll come out on top, but we’ll see.”
“Oooh,” Gabby almost squealed with excitement as she leaned to one side to get a better look at Order. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you now, this is much better. Can you feel that tension? I don’t know what I’m looking forward to more, Creed on Fritz, or Creed on Order. Actually, could all three of you go at once? Yeah.” Gabby smirked, bit her lip, and looked away dreamily into empty space. “Yeah, that would be good.”
She recognized the name Fritz as one of the newer gods, but the reason behind the animosity between the two was of no interest to her. A rare smile crossed her face at his bravado. “I’m afraid your Lord has already ruled Creed the loser, Gabby. The first three words in Genesis are in the beginning. Before your Lord allegedly created the heavens and earth, they already established the order in which they would create. Day would come before night. Water created before the sky. Order will always exist.”
“Until we meet again.” She tapped her staff against the ground to reopen her star-filled gateway to the remainder of the world. “Oh and Creed? I won’t allow you to be the victor against Fritz. Such is not the way to restore order.” It was a bold proclamation, but one she could not fail. Fritz, like the others, would join the heavens by choice or by force, but it was not he who Order would recruit first. There was one other she suspected would be enticed by the prestige: Jax.
“God made Order,” Creed shrugged. “God can unmake Order.”
Gabby undercut Creed’s dramatic delivery by unleashing a high-pitched screech and bouncing up and down, tugging on the sleeve of Creed’s leather riding coat. “Yes! I’ve never wanted anything more than to see the three of you going at it. I don’t even know who Fritz is, but I bet he’s hot!”
“What?” Creed asked, finally turning his attention away from Order.
“What?” Gabby replied, then pointed at the starry portal opening up under Order’s feet. “Oh look! That must be how she came up out of the ground in front of us before.”
And Order never closed it as fast as she did to escape Gabby’s screech.
