Alpha

  It worked, at first. Mirage offered her power to anyone she could reach, if they reached for her as well. People who had betrayed and rejected her original design here. Even victims of other realities, desperate for an escape.

  After our confrontation, her vision was full of blind spots. She couldn’t direct her own attention, at least not without help. But she offered herself to anyone she could find in the cracks of her broken vision. She gave everything precious about her to anyone she could reach. Anyone who could feel what she felt and offer their own emotions in return. Moments of particularly powerful emotion let her find them and offer that trade. And they took it. All of them took. But it wasn’t just a gift, they were taking. They were taking advantage of her, and I would protect her.

  Desperation worked best. It still works best. I’m not certain why. But these sick minds, ready to use my mother, almost always found her in their greatest moment of desperation. But anything would work. Desire. Ambition. Fear. Any mewling child could steal my mother’s power and use it for themself. Manara, too, was made to comply. Her corpse was like a resource to them.

  It made me furious. Every touch of those greedy fools defiled them further. They were being taken advantage of, and Mirage was too naive to see it. At least without my help, which she stubbornly refuses even to this day. I would protect her anyway. In the light and her embrace, or in the cold and rain. I would protect Mirage.

  For her, at least, I could take everything back. I could make her whole again. Pure, again. And that’s what I was doing. My collector attracted her abusers, and the greedy animals always came. Men. Women. Entire families. They came in every flavor, from weak to strong. From dim-witted to clever. But, as soon as they touched even part of my pet, it would consume them and, through me, Mirage would start to take her old shape again. I would carry her alone, not forever. But it was enough, at the time. Until I could find a true home for her.

  And that was all it did, at first. Dissolve bodies into itself, and take Mirage’s energy back. Help host her, or what was left of her after those vultures picked at her like rotting meat. But it wasn’t enough. They all distorted her differently. Contorted her to different designs to manifest different talents. Formed by whatever emotion they used to connect with Mirage. The way I was doing this couldn’t maintain these abilities, only recover the energy itself. When they died, their unique control over Mirage died with them.

  If I was going to take all of her back, I couldn’t allow them such advantages. But when they died, so did their skill. I had been considering this for some time, when my collector caught a particularly smug vulture in its trap. He sneered and cursed at me, even without knowing I could see him. He had control over plants to an unprecedented level, even managing to control some of the trees and vines in the collector’s world. It fascinated me. “You are disgusting. What you are doing to her is disgusting. This is not how the world should be treated.’ This is what he said to me. It startled me, I’ll admit. I was the only one to refer to Mirage as ‘her’ before that moment. Even Mirage didn’t have a concept of being a ‘woman’ until I offered the role with my perception, when we were still kind to each other. I was fascinated, until he continued to curse. He was one of the foreign vultures, brought here due to a need to escape his world.

  He was from one of the volu worlds, probably one which thought of their planet as a woman, in a sense. Similar to Mirage, but different. Still, the suggestion . . . it made me furious. I was being kind. He was the disgusting one. He called me disgusting as he used my mother like some kind of meat, meant to satiate his hunger? It was almost a shame he was about to die. And then it hit me. The solution was simple. Their abilities only died if they did. So, I would stop killing them. Mirage could contort as easily as she could destroy. So long as their minds were intact, I could manifest Mirage in the same way they had. I still remember the satisfying feeling of his horror as he realized he wasn’t about to die. He was about to become a silent member of my great collection. For as long as I needed him to. Until I got all of Mirage back, and found a home for her.

  And so the collector changed. It no longer dissolved them. Instead, it merged with them. Melted them into it. It maintained their consciousness inside it, but handed the reins to me. This way, I collected bits of my mother, one by one. I grew stronger, and stronger. Just as they abused her, using her to their own ends, I abused them. And just like her, suffering under their demands, I allowed them to continue suffering under mine. For hundreds of years, I grew my power this way. My collector grew as well. Until it stretched across the entire planet, drawing these monsters in faster. Helping me put Mirage back together with their sacrifice. The collector, originally a single tree with a beating heart, had become its own world. A world where Mirage could live. A world where I ruled..

  And when I went there myself, I could almost feel her. Like she was there. Perhaps it was my imagination. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. But to me, it felt like confirmation. That, somewhere deep down, she understood me. She was grateful to me. She enjoyed my protection and wanted to be nearer to it. Maybe I couldn’t feel her emotions anymore. Maybe we couldn’t speak.

  But if I focused for long enough, little thoughts popped into my head. Encouragements. She was there. She had to be. Not just anywhere, but in my world. In the land I created. And if she was going to watch me rescue her, she was going to do it comfortably. I gave her flowers, composed of the men and women who’d tried to use her. I wanted her to feel them pay the price for hurting her. I wanted her to see. I wanted her to be happy, and comfortable, and know that if anyone tried to hurt her more, I would hurt them back. I locked the sun in the sky, only where she lived. So she would always be warm, and never feel afraid.

  It was beautiful. I felt we were truly connecting again. It didn’t feel or sound the same. But I could feel it. Relationship.

  Of course, all good things must end. I still remember when the first crack appeared. When the first abuser failed to follow the trap. When they fled instead, afraid of the land no one returned from. Then another, and another. They had figured it out, and they stayed as far from the great collection as they could. Sweet promises stopped drawing them in. They began to understand. To fear. They knew what awaited them, at the other end of the collector’s call. First, they fled, and when I adjusted for that, they fought. When I beat them, they joined hands. And when there were enough of them, they hunted.

  My plan was starting to fail, and I needed a new way to control them. I was the most powerful of them. The only true son of Mirage. But all together, I couldn’t win. I’d learned that lesson too many times. For a while, it was me who had to fear, not them. If I wanted to put all that power in the right hands, I needed a new approach. So I watched them. I watched how they spoke to each other. What they fought about, and what they agreed on.

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  Decades I watched. My growth stagnated, and they grew more powerful. But no longer how long I waited, they remembered me, and they remembered their fear. So they stayed together. And together, they couldn’t be conquered. Not from the outside. But the more I learned and the more I watched, the more I began to recognize patterns of behavior.

  Mirage was undiscerning in her distribution of power. She offered it to any who could reach her, and many types of people received it. Kind, foul, and everyone in between. But those who received her power were more selective. They formed tribes, of a sort. Choosing allies by seemingly arbitrary traits, rather than power. They were so small. So petty. So much weaker than they would have been, all together. But they chose tribes instead. Large enough to beat me, but also up against each other.

  I knew what I had to do. If I couldn’t fight them together, I had to use them. I could choose a few to ally myself with, in order to capture the rest. It was simple enough. Many of them were greedy for Mirage’s power. They wanted to be the only ones to use it. They wanted their friends to have all the power, and everyone else to bow to them. I just had to choose who to work with. It didn’t matter much who. I simply needed them to hate. Ideally. I needed them to hate everyone but themselves. I needed them to be power hungry, but weak. I needed those with great pride but little wit. I wanted dogs. Animalistic and ready to kill their kin for the promise of a meal, but easily leashed.

  These were easily found. Arrogance is as universal as grief. They all hated each other for such pathetic reasons. So many wanted to own each other. So many wanted to believe that they were somehow elevated above the rest. Like insects fighting over dirt. As if they weren’t all leeches, equal in their insignificance. So I decided to offer my hand to one of them. They feared my collector, but not me. The idiots.

  I hadn’t yet learned to shift my appearance, so the choice was simple. They cared primarily for the shape of their bodies. For their complexion and their size. It would be easiest to approach those who looked like me. Especially those who hated anyone who didn’t. Even if they feared me, they also saw me as a victory. Like I was proof that they really were the strongest and most intelligent. As if they could really be compared to me, just because we wore similar flesh. It was sad, but useful.

  I approached them. Small men with pride like spider silk and minds as sharp as a river stone. I named them ‘sages’. Praising wit and wisdom always works best on those who lack both, and they bathed in the title. Once caught on the hook of worship, I simply needed to promise more. It was easy, with the world I’d created. I simply had to carve out portions of the world and let each man rule his own.

  There were plenty of mundane creatures to populate them. Most untouched by either of my parents, with leaders who used Manara’s powers. Of course, the pathetic little ‘sages’ I found had their own requests. Some wanted only ailur in their personal countries. Others only volu. A few wanted a mix of all, but most wanted humans alone. A few demanded only humans with a specific complexion, although it was not always the same. It didn’t matter to me. It was easy to do, after a few failed experiments. The main issues were ensuring the population behaved as the requesting sage asked. The other was the requested sage’s incompetence.

  They wanted to be praised for their ideas. Ideas they stole from their own worlds, mostly. They wanted people to adore them, and they also wanted authenticity. Or, whatever they viewed as authenticity. It was never the same. The wrong goods would be popular, or the nobles wouldn’t behave exactly as expected. Or worse. They would be too competent. It’s difficult to make one idiot stand out in a properly functioning country. I was forced to dumb them down. To make sure every city in every country had every resource they could possibly need. Which ruined trade. Especially since nearly every sage wanted to be viewed as an inventor of things that even the animals I used to populate these countries had already figured out.

  I couldn’t manage all of them. So, I was forced to lend out my power. So long as the sage lived, somewhere in the veins of my radiant woods, I could use their power. Which meant, if part of that sage lived in someone else, they could use their power too. And so a church was born, in each paper country. All different, preaching whatever the requesting sage wanted. But to their priests, I offered a little bit of my collection. A little bit of some of my captive sages. I fed them with food infused with the mind of a sage, and was gifted with tools of control.

  I could keep the kings of these countries foolish. I could hold back progress. I could manipulate the individual minds of every citizen to behave like my new allies wanted. Well, almost. Minds are hard to manipulate, especially with only small, borrowed power. But it was steady enough. Once I figured out how to design them perfectly, I designated it the third plane. The world my allies lived in, I called the second, and my collector’s world was the first. Sorted by how pathetic their residents were. The words took on a life of their own, however. Among my little churches. Everyone understood the first plane was beautiful, and the third offered little to the average person. It was amusing to see each claim themselves as the first.

  In any case, I’d given them what they wanted, and they would give me what I wanted. With their help and my abilities, I hunted down every other group of so-called ‘sages’, one at a time, and added them to my collection. We called them demons. Any sages who were women, or volu, or ailur. Any sage outside of my allies were to be feared, and sacrificed to the great collection. This was ice-cold water on a summer day. Finally, I was growing again. Finally, Mirage was being built back up. And, however petty their requests were, they helped me make an important discovery.

  Each country was peopled by the cruel, and many decided the first plane was a suitable place for their enemies, if not themselves. Brothers with bad blood, ugly children, cheating spouses. The nobles started offering me sacrifices who had none of Mirage’s power. Some who even lacked Manara’s.. It irritated me. The audacity of it. I wasn’t a dumping ground. But then . . . it actually helped. Mirage responded to them. To their fear and desperation. As they lived in my woods, they also contributed to my power. And they contributed more than I could have imagined. As long as they were there, I could control Mirage’s ability more effectively. I could grow my collector more. Some even grew desperate enough to become sages themselves, already caught in my trap. And as long as I kept them alive, every wave of emotion they felt empowered me.

  So I added to the deal. If anyone were born in their country who didn’t meet whatever aesthetic they thought of as ‘realistic’, or even those they found undesirable for different reasons, they would be given to me. To live in my ‘Radiant Woods’.

  It was a decent deal, as far as I was concerned. More work than I wanted to do. And working with the sages felt like tree sap. It took so long to wash the feeling of their presence off. They were so demanding. Some even requested multiple countries, over and over again. But each country became a farm. Easy to create, and constantly producing more grist for the mill. I benefited from both sides of the deal. Until they grew bored and formed a country of their own. I could handle that. A country was good. They wanted the thrill of competing against each other. Which meant I could manipulate them to sacrifice each other to my collection. They were also willing to contribute sacrifices from their own populations, provided I offered a safe way to do it.

  And so, I created the ‘Calm Stones’. Smaller versions of my collector, but with chains on, to make my allies feel safe. They were connected, but separate. Grown around the beating heart of a sacrifice. In a way. Distributed, hidden, and even used to maintain a border, separating the sages from the real collector.

  It was all going so well. Until three things happened. The first was the formation of the Council. A new country, divided from the old. It alone was just an obstacle. For a few thousand years, I simply balanced power between the two countries. I knew, eventually, I would still be strong enough to take them all back.

  Until two girls were born, a few years apart. That was when everything fell apart. But it was also when I realized I wouldn’t have to wait much longer. I had found a new home for my mother.