The Judge and the Stakes

Chapter 2 Just a beware sort of thing, Moryn does curse in one place. However, he is the lord of all things evil in the world, so it's only to be expected.

Adlai was seated in her chair, just as she always was. In front of her was the table with the record of every sentient being’s deeds. Adlai was just like Moryn and Liara, all-knowing and all-powerful, and could have simply kept all the information in her head, but the souls who arrived were often looking for the record, so Adlai created the physical representation. It was ingenious, showing only the deeds of the person looking, so souls couldn’t find another person’s fate until they met, or didn’t meet, in the Afterlife. Adlai was the recordkeeper, the judge, the one who kept all the rules; Adlai was the manifestation of justice. She kept strictly to the rules, never swaying one way or another with emotion when dealing with souls; she was the one who decided to which Afterlife souls would go. The inability to sway her with crying, pleading, threatening, or bribery made her the perfect eternal judge. She was also the one who mediated the bets between Moryn and Liara.

Adlai was busy as Liara approached her. The recent and unexpected burning down of a village had created a sudden influx of souls above the normal pace and she was required to keep souls waiting for longer than she liked. She gave Liara a look, and the Life God left her to her business. Moryn would be here soon, she knew, just as she knew he was responsible for the great many souls arriving at once, and just as she knew that he had pushed Liara beyond her breaking point, from her calm and peaceful demeanor to wrathful. She scoffed, annoyed with her siblings. They were all eternal beings, gods created by the gods before them. The previous entities had gotten bored of being and decided to explore nonbeing and created triplet gods: one for the positives and good things, one for the negatives and bad things, and one absolutely neutral. The Old Gods taught the three all that they needed and left. Since then, they had forgotten the number of the iteration of the universe they were on, having been told by the Old Gods, but Adlai remembered the number from when they started. One would think that after having seeing the universe destroyed three times already since their beginning as gods, her siblings would have grown up. But that was part of their nature.

Humans had assumed, in every time period and every existence Adlai had seen, that their gods were correct and there was the embodiment of good and the embodiment of evil, and that the gods, demons, deities, etc. were only one thing and could not depart from that. In fact, the religion she had seen get the closest had gotten the number wrong, but the temperament right; both her siblings could experience the full range of emotions and could act on all of them. Liara was meant for good, but could act evil; Moryn was meant for evil, but could act the opposite. Speak of the Devil, there he was. Moryn flew into Adlai’s room and immediately strode towards the staircase leading down into his Afterlife. Liara cleared her throat impatiently, obviously believing that Moryn was going to leave the room. He simply glared at Liara and sat down on his stairs, out of sight of Liara and as far away from Adlai as he could.

Rolling her eyes, Adlai continued working on the multitude. She was slowly whittling them down to the normal flow. When they were down to that, Adlai could focus on committing her siblings to the rules of their bet. With sentient beings dying constantly, she would never reach the end of her work, but she could complete it with only a small percentage of her attention. One of the perks of being an infinite consciousness, she guessed. She allowed her attention to wander a bit, guessing at what the terms of the bet would be this time. She could, if she wanted, check Liara’s thoughts to see, but the triplets had decided long ago that none of them were to look inside the others’ heads. Other rules like that had been created when they were first beginning their roles, kept in Adlai’s head. She sighed. Acting as the middle ground for Moryn and Liara was a tiring role, even for a god on equal footing. Wanting to just get this over with, she focused back on the mortals, nearly done getting the order restored.

Moryn sulked in corner on the stairs, staying out of his sisters’ gaze. He was tempted to just run down the rest of the stairs into his kingdom, but he knew that would just draw more ire from them both, so he remained where he was. He detested Adlai, partially because she always sided with Liara, even when it seemed to him that the decision was unfair. She was supposed to the rule-keeper and the ultimate Judge, but there were times when he was certain she favored Liara simply because they were sisters and didn’t like him. He was glad that she had gotten stuck with the job as Judge and not him. Being the Lord of Darkness suited him just fine, without any sappy mercy and compassion or boring fairness and justice. Chaos was his job, and he was good at it.

As much as he wanted to hear the terms of the bet Liara was going to set out, he dreaded going back into that room. Adlai was certainly angry at him for sending a bunch of souls to her at once, creating a lot of unexpected work. And Liara would only be steeping her anger, seeing the souls she had protected and nurtured there in Adlai’s room. He wondered if they would say anything to her or plead with Adlai, saying that it was a demon’s fault. Judging by the number of footsteps echoing down his stairs, he had managed to tip a lot of them over to his own side. Unable to help himself, he laughed. He had certainly accomplished his goal of corrupting the righteous and claiming them as his own. Laughing would only annoy Liara more, but he ended up rolling around on the stairs, howling with laughter. The anguished faces of the souls passing him on their way to eternal torment only made him merrier. Tears of laughter rolled down his face, and into his hair as he stared backwards and up at the mortals walking by. He placed his feet up on the wall and waited for his summons. It didn’t even matter what the bet was now, Moryn had gotten what he wanted and Liara and Adlai couldn’t do anything about it.

Liara was fuming, and Moryn’s laughter echoing up the staircase only served to fan the flames. She knew he was laughing at the number of souls he had corrupted in only his short time in her favorite little village, as well as the fact that she would be horrendously sad at each soul he claimed. She took slight solace in watching the steadfast priests approach Adlai and be sent up the stairs to her Afterlife, but nearly all the souls of the village beyond the clergy were sent to their eternal deaths. However, Moryn couldn’t possibly imagine how vindictive she could really be and her ideas for the stakes were really solidifying now. She knew her sister would take her side, because she was always irritated when Moryn sent a large influx of souls to her desk at once. Liara rubbed her hands together in glee; this was going to be a lot of fun.

When Adlai finally finished restoring order to her room, Liara approached her. Adlai was never a fan of the bets between Liara and Moryn, because they interrupted her work, but she never lost a chance to stick it to Moryn. Liara quickly ran over the basics of her ideas her sister, to get Adlai on board, then they both called Moryn up from his position on the stairs. He was, infuriatingly enough, still smirking, and they could both see the marks of tears of laughter running down his face.

“Alright, you two have decided to make another bet,” Adlai started off. She was rather tired of officiating bets. Didn’t her siblings have something better to do with their time? “This bet will determine which of you is truly more important; whoever’s talents overtake the other’s will be the winner. The stakes are as follows. Liara?”

“Since this bet was founded on the ruins of a righteous-then-corrupted village, we’ll bet on the same circumstances.” Moryn was intrigued already. This sounded fun; didn’t Liara know she would lose the bet the same way she lost her precious little village? “Adlai and I will choose my most devoted servant and Moryn will try to corrupt that servant. Little sins, like telling a white lie or snitching an extra cookie from the plate, do not count, it has to be something major, something completely against good teachings.” Okay, well, that’s simple enough. Didn’t he just convince a village to burn their priests at the stake?

“Neither Moryn nor Liara will be allowed to use their supernatural powers to influence the chosen person, nor will Demons or Angels be allowed to interfere. Liara may give guidance to religious leaders as God, but may not directly speak to the servant. Moryn may and must interact with the servant, but only in human form.”

“Hey, now! That’s unfair! Why can Liara give supernatural guidance to people around the person I have to corrupt? You just said no god powers! Some Judge you are.”

“Enough!” Moryn silenced himself, but leveled a glare at Adlai, rustling his wings in annoyance. Bitter b*****s. They were just pissed off and now wanted to stack the bet against him. Whatever, he didn’t care. He’d show them. “Liara gets to give advice to the religious leaders because she does not directly get to speak with the chosen servant. However, it does have to be in a way that makes those affected think it came from their own thoughts. No miracles or visions or anything of that sort. Understood, Liara?”

“Understood.” Outwardly, she tried to look upset at that, but inwardly, Liara couldn’t help but grin. Serves the b*****d right. Moryn turned his scowl on to her. Apparently she wasn’t doing as good of a job at hiding her pleasure as she thought; she never had been a good liar.

“Any other restrictions you’d like to put on me? Perhaps I’m not allowed to use my hands? Maybe I can only speak Ancient Herbanian? How about giant tentacles coming out my a-”

“All that remains,” Adlai continued, pointedly ignoring Moryn, “is for Liara to choose her disciple. After examining the situation, Moryn will announce what he will attempt to have the servant do. Moryn will then have a single human year to convince Liara’s follower to follow him into his announced task. If the acolyte commits a different, but equally bad sin, it won’t count as completing the bet. If the act occurs outside the year, even by a moment, it won’t count as completing the bet.”

“So if I subvert this human, but not in the way I told you, it doesn’t count? Even though the bet is that I can corrupt it? So much for even stakes.” Although he was irked, ideas were already flowing through his head. He just needed to investigate the person Liara chose now to figure out how he was going to win.

“I never said it had to be even. If you accept the bet, you accept the terms. If you deny the bet, we’ll assume you were merely afraid to lose.” To be honest, Moryn was entirely correct, and it set Adlai on edge; as the supposed embodiment of justice, she felt uneasy stacking the deck in Liara’s favor. However, she just had to think back to all the times he had created more work for her to set her stance.

Liara knew Adlai’s jab would get Moryn to agree to the stakes of the bet, they simply needed to go over the rewards and consequences. And she was right, as he asked, after only a momentary pause, “What do I get if I win?”

“You’ll get the knowledge that you are better than Liara.”

“Is that it? Really? That’s not enough.”

“No, that’s not the only thing.” Liara swallowed. She didn’t like the next part of the plan, but she had to give him something he would want. “You’ll also get to claim the servant and the descendants, up to seven generations.” She saw his eyes light up; he was definitely up for it now.

“You’d do that Liara? You’re willing to give up your precious servants’ souls?” Moryn grinned widely at Liara’s hesitant nod. He licked his lips. What a delicious reward. Not only bragging rights, but claiming an entire line of innocent people! What more fun could a Dark Lord ask for than torturing those souls who’ve committed no crime?  He better win now, just to get under her skin, if nothing else. He could only imagine the things he was going to do to those poor, unfortunate people. He’d have to get his Demons ready to pay extra special attention to his guests.

“And if you lose, Moryn,” Aldai regained his attention, breaking him out of his bloody fantasies, “you become slave to the servant for their life, and must protect the descendants from any of your inventions or tricks for seven generations.”

“Sure, I agree. I won’t be losing, so get ready to watch the torment of your precious servant for the rest of eternity, Liara.” Moryn held out his hand to shake hers and seal the bet, cheshire grin still plastered across his face. There was no way he could lose this thing, not with those souls on the line.

“I wouldn’t be so arrogant if I were you.” Liara reached out to shake her brother’s offered hand, disgusted by his grin. She knew what thoughts lay behind it and it made her sick. To think, she had almost felt guilty about laying the bet out in a way that was obviously meant to make it easy for her to win. She supposed it was just in her goodly nature, but that meant is was also in her nature to beat back the vile monster before her.

Moryn merely laughed at her determined expression, shaking his whole body in amusement. He grasped her hand and shook.

“And so we’re agreed.” Adlai turned to face Liara, her face calm but grey eyes betraying her excitement. “Which servant will you choose, Liara?”

Liara, with an involuntary sweep of her wings, spoke confidently, “Terra Benson of Turon City, Centerdon of Earth.”

Reviews

[seanhoag]

I liked it. Most of what I found were grammatical errors and I offered a few changes that you don't need to take if you don't want, but they might sound better. It's up to you. The only big thing I caught, though, was in the first paragraph you say that Adlai sticks to the rules and never sways to one side or the other, but then throughout the chapter she sways towards Liara's side, making the bet easier for her to win. Just something to think about. Overall a good chapter, though.


Just a question, if they are all all-knowing, why keep a physical record? Why would they come looking for a physical record?

"she was the only one who decided to which Afterlife souls would go." Might want to change to "she was the only one who decided which Afterlife souls would go to."

"She was also the one who mediated the bets" Might want to say "she was also perfect for mediating the bets" Just because it seems kind of thrown in there, where as mentioning "perfect for" fits because you just talked about how she was perfect for judging in the afterlife. (thus, judging in the afterlife qualifies her for judging the bets)

"She scoffed, annoyed with her siblings." Should it be sibling? or is Adlai a sibling, as well?

"created by the gods before them." Might want to say "gods that came before them." idk.

"siblings would have grown up. But that was part of there nature." to "grown up, but"

"When they were down to that" It works, but this might sound better: "When the flowing souls reached a reasonable number"

"beginning their roles, kept in Adlai's head" Might want "roles, all of which were kept in Adlai's head."

"Moryn sulked in corner" to "the corner"

"She was supposed to the rule-keeper" to "be the rule-keeper"

"in only his short time" maybe to "in the short time he spent"

"went over the basics of her ideas her sister" to "basics of her ideas to her sister"

"'And if you lose, Moryn' Aldai" to "Adlai"

"her face calm but grey eyes betraying" Maybe want to switch to "Liara. Her face was calm, but her grey eyes couldn't hide her excitement."