Diablo's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Diablo sat with his forehead against the shell and listened to Creusus walk. The old fires would not light. The mother's face stayed. The child's small hand stayed. He needed fuel, and he could not find it in what he had done. He looked at his hands instead. Black. Thin. His. The orb was small, but it was his. Creusus had sealed the outside. He had not sealed the inside. Diablo pressed his palm flat to the curved dark. He pushed inward instead of out. The shell held. The space behind his hand did not. It gave, the way a held breath gives when you finally let it go. He fed it what he had. Not hate. Will. He wanted a room. A room appeared, small and grey, with a floor under his feet. He wanted a sky. A low grey sky closed over him. He wanted ground that could hold weight. Ground rose to meet his step. He laughed once, and the sound stayed in the room with him. He had a room. Inside the plum-sized dark, he had a room the size of a country. He made a river next. He made a hill above it. He made a tree on the hill because he remembered trees. He pulled a piece of himself off his own arm to do it. The piece went into the tree and stayed there, green. He understood then. He took his soul in both hands and broke it. Not in half. Into pieces too many to count. He kept the largest piece for the thing that stood on the hill and watched. The rest he scattered. One piece became a woman drawing water. One became a boy running behind a dog. One became an old man mending a net. One became the dog. One became a fish under the net. Thousands. He made them and set them down and let them walk. Time moved the way he told it to. He told it to move fast. Children he had placed at a river grew old and died and their grandchildren built a town on the same bank. He watched a language form. He watched a god get named after him and then forgotten and then named again. When he was bored, he sent a plague. When he was hungry, he pulled a piece of himself back out of a farmer and ate it. The farmer fell in a field and the wheat kept growing. Diablo grew stronger. Every death fed the piece on the hill. He did this for what felt like a million years. When he lifted his head again, he was not thin. He was full. He had made his own kindling. He had made his own fire. He stood on the hill inside the orb and looked at the shell above his grey sky and understood he was no longer starving. Creusus, outside, kept walking. He did not know what he was carrying.