A Summoning, Part XXXV

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Part XXXV
~The World~

"Okay. So—before all of that, you were telling me about the veil?" Zotha said.

"Right. I should begin with this: Magic was vastly more rare, when we put the veil up, than it is now.

"At that time, mundane humanity was beginning to disbelieve in the supernatural all on their own. Those who had or were magic, used to being hunted and killed by those same humans, were more than happy to make themselves scarce through their own efforts. Yet mundane humanity was spreading, and an eventual, extremely destructive conflict seemed difficult to avoid. Either the humans without magic would overwhelm those with it by sheer numbers, or those with magic would use its power to destroy the majority of those without. The veil was our solution to keep the peace.

"It operates on people's minds: First on the subconscious level to interfere with sensory information, removing anything that may point to magic being present. After that, it works on a person's conscious mind by way of encouraging thoughts that say, 'That couldn't have been real. There must be a rational explanation.' The veil falls off when a person has accumulated enough credible evidence resulting from actual magic for them to believe that it is real, in the same deep, intrinsic sense that one believes the ground under one's feet is real. That is, just 'believing' isn't really enough…there's a difference."

"As I said before, Bastet, Ouroboros, and I are the architects of the veil. It requires the power of all of us gods to keep working, but we are the ones who designed it and who continue to maintain and update its behavior. After all, as society changes, the things that a person sees as impossible and unreal change as well. In the time leading up to the 1940s, science was rapidly proving a great many things real that humanity used to either not believe or else previously had no real concept of. We were very busy back then.

"...In fact, it is possible that the disaster that befell the magic world at that time was our fault, at least in the sense that it may have been partially born from our mistakes. I have not been able to make a definite determination whether it was some flaw the veil already had, or something we introduced while tweaking it, or was somehow inevitable no matter how well-designed it was. Ouroboros did not care about the cause, only that we stamp out the the resulting trouble as quickly as possible. Bastet was quick to pin the blame on a supposed sabotage on the fox's part, because it is against her personality to admit the possibility that she could have made a mistake. So, lacking their help to investigate, I eventually gave up on finding the real cause.

"In a way, it's very convenient for us to have a deity that we can just oust whenever we want," he mused. "She makes a good scapegoat for inconvenient situations: someone who some of us can be angry at and even act against without as much worry of retaliation. So long as some of us still want her to be there, she won't really be removed, but the ability to threaten her with it allows the likes of Bastet a way to vent. That may sound unfair to the fox, but she seems more than happy to be the target of the cat's harmless ire. In fact, she says Bastet is funniest when she's angry."

"That definitely sounds like her, from the few meetings I've had," Zotha said. "So, just like the 'multiverse protection' thing..you'd expect me to help maintain the veil once I'm powerful enough, too?"
"It is a tacitly assumed condition, if your ascension sticks," he said.

"...Okay, so, what if I don't like the veil?"

Sol's expression remained largely neutral, but still somehow communicated that the goddess should elaborate.

"You know this: One of the first few things I did, once I realized how powerful I was, was save an old man's life. I basically magicked his cancer away," Zotha said. "Some of 'my people', if you want to call them that, quickly took it upon themselves to start using my power to save more lives. They're using magic, in secret, to cure things that the hospitals can't with science alone. I can—and have—personally made an old man young again. Am I really the only magic that can do those things? Do they require the power of a god?"

"Making the old young again is somewhat costly, but..far from that much," Sol admitted. "Curing disease and healing injury is not..trivial for magic; having a god's power essentially bypasses not a high cost, but rather the complexity usually involved in doing it right. Anyone not possessing or borrowing a power like yours would need comparable knowledge to that of an actual physician to accomplish much of anything useful."

"But magic is less risky than surgery if someone does know what they're doing," she pushed.

"It certainly can be, in many cases."

"I'm sure you're very intelligent, much smarter than me," Zotha said. "You know what I'm getting at."
"Say it anyway," Sol said with a slight gesture of his right hand.
"The veil is killing people. Millions of them. People who magic-medicine or whatever could be keeping alive. You want humans to survive, but you're helping gate people from getting that kind of help just because they're 'mundane'?" She tried to keep her voice even, but couldn't help raising it a little at this point.

"I want humanity to survive, and to progress," Sol said quietly. "Individual humans are sometimes a necessary cost to that goal. However..."

He sat up a bit. "You know something? The way that humans look upon the sun has drastically changed. Long ago, I was something people worshiped as a kind of magic, sacrificed animals and even people to in hopes of attaining favor. I had a boost when it was determined, briefly, that the sun was the center of the universe—rather than the Earth—but was humbled again when it turned out to just be another thing orbiting something even bigger out there in space. Now I'm just a gigantic fusion reaction supplying light and energy for all of the life and other reactions going on on the Earth, destined to one day explode into a red giant and die out for good."
"Are you literally the sun?" Zotha asked.
"No, but my nature is partially determined by the way that humans think of the sun. La Lune is not at risk of the same kind of malleability, because her people—werewolves especially, but really all beastfolk—have always had a fairly consistent view of her, and of the moon. Understanding that it's a rocky satellite orbiting the Earth never took their mysticism toward her away, and so she has changed fairly little over time—ironically, as in the short-term she appears to change quite a bit. But—'my' people, the celestials, cannot influence me in the same way: They cannot 'make' me, because I made them."

"Anyway...these days, I'm quite into scientific progress. Do you know what's out those windows?" He gestured to one over to the side, and offered: "Take a look?" Zotha looked at Jess briefly before shrugging, getting up, and peering out.

From a distance, it had just looked like an empty blackness—like someone had painted the other side of the window black, maybe, or put a black garbage bag over it. But, from a little closer, Zotha could see stars, like a particularly clear night sky. Coming right up to the window and really looking around, she saw...

"Earth? Wait..." the goddess turned around. "We're in space!?"
"Right," Sol said. "As humans sent missions to the moon, and they began to look for a way to establish a space station, I followed along with keen interest. I imitated some of their methods, and added many of my own, in order to enact a secret launch of another shuttle, containing a small fragment of my realm within. Over the following few years, I slowly but steadily moved my entire realm up here, to this satellite. I had to cheat to get artificial gravity, of course, just using my own power to make it happen."

Zotha came back to her seat. "Okaaay...That's cool and all, but what's it have to do with the veil? Or anything I was saying before?"
"As I said, I became very interested in science. I firmly believe that humanity's progress is tied to their success in scientific progress. With that, my involvement in the veil took on a new meaning, for two reasons. First, I worried that magic suddenly becoming commonly known, making things 'too easy', would stifle progress. And second..there is another belief that many humans hold. That being: New and better scientific theories succeed and thrive, only as those who stubbornly hold to the fallacious ones grow old and die off. And it is not only science that can be held back by the old and inflexible, either. For a while, at least, I believed along with humanity that..in order for them to progress as a whole, some had to be allowed to die. Not in the sense that anyone should be killed, but rather that their natural deaths should not be prevented. And so, I persisted in maintaining the veil so that nature would be allowed to take its course, even when La Lune herself expressed occasional dissent to the idea."

Zotha crossed her arms, fixing him with a glare. "Do you still believe that now?"

"I wonder. There are a great many among humanity who wish to see scientific progress culminate in cures and prevention. Who want to see it defeat cancer, destroy disease, and allow them to live for as long as they would like. There are those with magic who are not aware of you, but choose to use what power they have in secret to create small miracles of their own, or to just try to allow people they care about to live a little longer until a 'normal' cure can be found. I have never instructed those people who insist on 'serving me' to punish or inhibit such actions, no matter how much it inconveniences me or them in our preservation of the veil."

"So you've changed your mind, after letting some billions of people 'die naturally', huh?"
"I feel like it's more accurate to say that it's..in the process of changing," Sol said, shrugging. "There is no way to keep everyone alive, not even if all of us gods—including you—pooled all of our power to try to do it. Some will die regardless. And even if I could, imposing immortality on all of humanity would be just as immoral as killing them in my eyes. No one should be forced to live who would otherwise die naturally, and who wants to allow nature to take its course. Living forever can be..difficult to tolerate for some." The sun god leaned back, slowly, in his chair, and said softly: "Agape was not always the insane, dangerous god he is today."

Sol was quiet for a long moment, and Zotha didn't feel like she could argue with what he'd just said, so she didn't say anything either. Finally he said, "The fox sees the veil as a burden on her people these days, and—to a lesser extent—humanity as a whole. La Lune believes that people could be happier if everyone had awareness of, and at least some access to, magic. The god of love changes his mind every time I ask him, but his opinion was probably never going to be taken into account regardless. But ultimately...None of their opinions really matter, and neither does mine, because the veil is unsustainable anyway."

"'Unsustainable'?" Zotha repeated. "What do you mean?"

He sat up again. "As I said, I'm very interested in science. I've been closely following the progress of technology, as well as the way that society uses and responds to it. There are ever more recording devices in the world, and it's getting easier and easier to broadcast whatever they record to everyone who is even remotely interested. We've had no end recently of headaches with making the veil manipulate not only people's perception of each other in person, but also of photos, recorded footage, audio...no matter how carefully we tune it all, there are always some things that slip through the cracks. Even if a person feels absolutely sure that certain evidence is being faked, everyone has a threshold for coincidences beyond which he or she begins to believe at least that something is going on. I estimate that within a few decades, the veil will collapse under the weight of its own implausibility—if we choose to continue trying to maintain it the way that we used to.

"I cannot tell Bastet and Ouroboros this. It cannot come out of my mouth, to them. They would perceive it as me simply giving up or becoming lazy; they would never listen. Perhaps if we get you established, you'd be able to convince them that the world is better off without it, but if not—you should make your own observations as to why the veil is impossible to maintain forever, and let them be known. The problem may very well 'take care of itself' if they remain unconvinced, but...it will not be a very good day for humanity if things go that way," Sol said. "I would prefer that we control how the veil is released, do it in a way that causes as much good and as little harm as possible.

"...In the meantime, I have a proposal. I want to test you," Sol said.
"You want to test me?" the goddess repeated.
"Right," he nodded. "You gain power from using your power to accrue the gratitude of whomever your power helps. It appears to be sustainable, within the limited scope that your power has been utilized so far; that is, it appears that you profit, rather than running a deficit, in this way. I want to know whether or not that scales; if it doesn't, then we don't have to worry about whether or not you 'should' continue to exist. If you cannot keep yourself afloat on the gratitude of mortals, then you will eventually collapse or implode all on your own."

"...Well, that's a pleasant thought," Zotha snarked.
"All the better we find out sooner rather than later what will happen," he continued unperturbed. "So I have a proposal for you.

"You want to see magic being used to keep people alive who might otherwise die? You are willing to supply your own power in this endeavor? I cannot help you right now in a way that will do excessive harm to the veil, so my proposal is a temporary compromise." Sol's behavior was suddenly very different from before, almost like a salesman. He talked quickly, leaning forward onto his desk. "I call it: 'The Rebirth Program'.

"You do not have the manpower at your disposal to do what I want done with this, so I will give some of my people the means to 'request your aid'. They will approach individuals throughout the world who are known to be in terminal conditions which medicine has little to no hope of curing. Each such person will be offered a choice, in a way which does not let him or her in on the existence of the veil or magic. That choice: 'Remain where you are, as you are—take your chances on living or dying. Or, be cured, but leave behind where and who you are, and become someone new in a new location.'
"To be clear, we will not be altering anyone's mind, personality, or memories beyond a few minor additions. You can think of it like an extreme version of a witness protection program: The benefactor will be granted a new, healthy form by your power which is different from the original one, given a new background partially of his her own choosing, and helped by my people to settle in a new location as that new identity. Those who accept will be fully healed, and 'reborn'. Those who do not accept will be left alone; perhaps some miracle will heal them after all, but if they cannot bear the price of being reborn then we will not force it on them."

After this long, rapid-fire explanation, Sol leaned slowly back to an upright position in his chair. "What do you think? This is a proposal, you understand; you're under no obligation to accept."

"It beats letting everyone who wants to live, die," Zotha said. "If my power does 'turn a profit', as you say, though, you'll be playing a huge part in making me really powerful, really fast."

"If it does not, I'll be destroying you myself, in a way which you yourself agreed to," he said. "Depending on who I'm talking to, I can excuse my actions as making a gamble one way or the other. We can't work together to get rid of the veil until you're established and the other gods made to accept you."

"And, will you want to keep doing that after we get rid of the veil?" Zotha said.
"Well, there's no need to keep it a secret anymore at that point," Sol replied. "Perhaps we could then rebrand it as 'Rejuvenation', and no longer have to go to the trouble of resettling people. Offer it to just about anyone who's old enough for age to be a health risk. If you're still alive by then, and up for it."

"Okay then. I accept."
Jess bolted upright, shocked. "Master!?"
"You're not about to try to persuade me not to, are you?"
"I-I.." But you might die from this! Or, something worse!

I think I could be okay with dying if it saves some thousands of other people's lives. Anyway, are you saying you don't think I can do it?

I...no! I believe in you! But I'm still..worried.

Tell you what: If I do implode, you have my permission to go try to ascend yourself into my place and do things however you want. But if I'm the goddess here, then this is the decision I want to make.

I...okay. I'll support you then..no matter what!
Thanks, dear.

"..Sorry, we needed to discuss that for a moment," Zotha said.

"Perfectly all right. It does incur a large risk on your part," Sol replied.
"Well, like I said, I'm in...assuming that you're telling the truth about what your people will be doing. I can tell exactly what someone is asking for my power wishes to do with it, you should know, and decide whether or not to grant it on an individual basis."
"Naturally. I was never under the impression that you weren't in control of your own power," the sun god replied.
"So, what do you need from me, then? A signed contract? Handshake? Need Jess here to teach you how to 'invoke' my power?"
"A verbal agreement is sufficient, but we can shake hands if it'll make it feel more official for you," Sol said. "And you don't have to worry about teaching anyone. I've observed enough to know the way to call on you myself, and can pass it along to those who'll need to know. And if I somehow do fail at that, I have an envoy I can send to you for questions."

"Let's do the handshake, then. I might not get another chance to shake the hand of an actual god, right?" Zotha stood half-up and leaned forward, offering her hand.
"Very well." Sol took it and gave her a handshake that somehow managed to be gentle yet still firm. "We'll consider the Rebirth Program agreed upon and begun. I sincerely hope for its success."

"Yeah, same," Zotha replied, sitting back in the chair. "If it kills me, at least I'll die doing something good."

"Hmm...now, I don't think there was anything else," Sol said. "I hope you understand what I meant about some of our conversation needing to remain in confidence. It is important to my plans, but also largely for your own benefit."
"We can't exactly lie about the rebirth thing, though. I guess I can say I challenged you about the veil and a lack of magic killing people, and you came up with your test, and I agreed to it. I mean—I was already seen challenging you some earlier, about Stella, so it wouldn't be seen as out of character."
"That's acceptable," he nodded.

"By the way, when I asked La Lune whether I could trust your word, she apparently guessed that you'd invited me over, and wanted me to let her know when I'd visited you so she could do the same."

"Hmm. She probably also has some idea of a way to use your power in a 'test'," Sol said.
"Did she tell you that?"
"No. But my sister and I have known each other for a very, very long time. We need not communicate with each other at all for us to each guess what the other is thinking."

"Well, I guess I shouldn't take up any more of your time?" Zotha pushed up onto her feet, and offered another handshake. "Hope we get a chance to meet again."
"Likewise," Sol said, returning the gesture similarly to before. Jess hopped onto her feet during this, nodding to Sol before following her Master on her way back out toward the door. As soon as both of them were standing up, the chairs they'd been using disappeared.

Their exit was fairly uneventful; none of the guards who'd been in Sol's room (or office, or whatever it actually was) were in the hallway, nor was anybody else, so it was a straight walk to the portal they'd used to enter. After another brief flash of golden light they were back in the forest, and both of them could breathe a small sigh of relief at no longer being under the pressure of the prehistorically ancient sun god's power.

"Welcome back, Lady Zotha," one of the two celestials who'd first come out of the portal said. "I hope your visit was productive."
"I guess I'd call it that," she said.
The other of them said, "Please let Stella know if you wish to arrange another meeting, or pass on any messages. Farewell, Lady Zotha, Jess."
"Yeah, same to you." They both exited through the portal, and it did the reverse of what it had done in opening to close itself up again and vanish.

"Soo, uhm..I don't want to intrude on any godly business or anything," Stella said, "but—how'd it go, really?"
"I can't say too much in detail, but I think it was a good meeting," the goddess replied. "We each got a good impression of the other, he told me some things I need to know if I'm going to stick around, and we came to a few important agreements." The short celestial nodded as she spoke, looking pleased to hear this. "I guess you were pretty invested in the meeting going well, since you had a part in 'setting it up'?"
"I'm quite confident I discharged my duty well, no matter how the meeting itself went. But I, personally, want things to go well for you, erm..miss Zotha?"

"I don't even demand the 'miss'. But.."

She crossed her arms. "You want things to go well for me? Aren't you loyal to your creator or whatever?"
"I owe a debt of gratitude to Sol, certainly; he gave me life, and a purpose, and freedom to live the rest of that life as I so choose. I believe his goals align well with what I think is right, as well," Stella said. "However—if I owe him gratitude, then I owe you at least as much for saving my life, and giving me an opportunity to actually enjoy that freedom. So—I'm on your side, even if others of my kind—or others who are loyal to Sol—are not."

"I guess that's good to know. But what'll you do if we wind up fighting each other over something in the future, then?"
"I think it unlikely that any conflict between you would occur in a way which would require me to choose a side," the white-haired girl said with a cute, disarming grin. "After all, you're both reasonable enough to talk through your disagreements, aren't you? But if it came down to it, I suppose it would depend on the nature of the conflict, and my own beliefs at the time."

"..Heheh," Zotha chuckled.

The small celestial tilted her head. "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing." I feel like I now know exactly where she gets that way of speaking from, she noted to Jess. "It's been a tiring afternoon, I think, and my priestess and I haven't had dinner yet. You?"
"Oh, I was far too nervous to eat," Stella said.

"C'mon, then," she waved, walking in the direction of the worship center. "I'll make you both something nice."