The Enemy of the World Chapter 6 Chaos, Luck, and Bad Luck

INA MAN RULED PAST, NAKED, AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE SNOW. Thunder rumbled, the wind howled in all directions, and all the frogs and dragonflies grew restless. Worms fell from the sky, light as fox feathers and thin pig scales, swirling around, blissful in their nonexistence. Knights emerged from the forest, followed by their kings and a princess wed to a monkey. The daisies blinked their eyes at Glórienn as she traversed the Kingdom of Nimb, the God of Chaos.

A family sat on the nailed floor, smiling with green teeth as they cut off their toes. The youngest daughter scolded her parents, stabbing their eyes with needles. There were elves there, Glórienn observed, playing at suicide with orcs, dwarves, and halflings. They were all brothers in madness. The sky continued to vomit, and the Elf Goddess quickened her pace, frightened by how at home she felt in such chaos.

She arrived at Nimb's palace, engulfed in an overpowering stench, and knocked on a door made of chicken bones and small children.

"The guards have left; come in, whoever you are," the door said. "Everyone is free, everyone is welcome."

"I do not accept your welcome," Glórienn replied, knowing where such freedom could lead. "I'm not free; I don't live here. I am a visitor; I need your lord's permission." The door moved, amazed by the elf's sagacity. It was true that many accepted madness's embrace, hot as urine. "Here, the lord is a beggar, and the potter washes our pants. But if you wish to speak with Nimb, go in without fear."

The door opened, and Glórienn stepped through without looking back.

"You will always have a home here!" the door shouted after her, but Glórienn ignored it. She passed through a chamber lined with sexual organs, a stage where crocodiles performed for the amusement of princes, and a plain where the rain fled from a horde of machines made from raw meat. Finally, in a small room, the God of Chaos stared into a basin of water.

"My greetings, Lord Nimb. I come with a proposal."

Nimb raised his head to look at Glórienn. He sat on a chair made of nails, a dragon hanging from the ceiling, hunting fish. Nimb's eyes were black and empty, and suddenly Glórienn understood that despite the multitude of beings in that realm, that emptiness was his true nature.

"The Goddess of Elves!" Nimb exclaimed, smiling through rotten teeth. He jumped from the chair, standing with his short stature. "I imagined you would come here. Many of your children have arrived in the last few days."

Glórienn swallowed, knowing that if she took offense and argued with Nimb, he would drag her into his frantic thoughts.

"I come with a proposal," she repeated. "Only you, God of Chaos, can help me." Nimb watched her with amusement, then narrowed his eyes as if he had never seen her before.

"The Goddess of Elves! I imagined you would come here. Many of your children have arrived in the last few days."

"I come with a proposal," Glórienn insisted, clinging to the memory of her children's slaughter to remind herself of her purpose. "There will be a storm. Many will die. Even now, the creatures responsible look to Arton, considering the herald they will send."

Nimb was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Even now, a boy kills ants with lamp oil, unaware they worship him as a god."

"The storm, Nimb!" Glórienn exclaimed, fearing for her sanity.

"Do you want me to help stop it? I don't care. Ask Khalmyr."

"No," Glórienn replied. She didn't want to stop the storm; she wanted to ensure it would come. Nimb smiled, moving to a table that had once been a minstrel, helping himself to a bowl of dog saliva. The cup twisted in his hand.

"All of Arton can be destroyed," Glórienn continued. "But it must come. We will stop it after I achieve my objective. I don't know its full power, but I believe that we, the gods, together can stop it."

Nimb took a sip, continuing to listen with the obsession of an addict. "I know he is the God of Chaos, not of Death. I know it is not evil. But let me explain why I want to risk so much."

"It's not necessary," Nimb interrupted. "Come, look at this."

Glórienn followed him to a stuffed dolphin head.

"Look," Nimb said, peering into one of the glass eyes of the stuffed head. Glórienn gazed into the other eye and saw a scene in Arton. A man, around forty years old, sat in a chair in front of a simple table, staring at a basket of bread.

"One of the loaves is poisoned," Nimb said. "There are six in total, and one of them is deadly. He knows this. He has a one in six chance of dying if he decides to eat a loaf of bread."

The man reached out and took one of the loaves, then released it and chose another, slowly bringing it to his mouth.

"Why is he going to eat?" Glórienn asked. "Is he hungry? Is he miserable? Is this some kind of joke from your clerics, Mad Lord?"

"No," Nimb laughed, eyes fixed on the scene. "He will eat because he wants to. In fact, he has been doing this every morning for a month."

Glórienn stopped watching the stuffed dolphin's eye and turned to Nimb, beginning to grasp the terrifying truth.

"This is Chaos, Glórienn. He is about to risk everything, all for no reason at all. This is surrendering to fate. This is trusting in Luck and not fearing Bad Luck."

Glórienn suddenly became acutely aware of her surroundings and the danger they posed. "Do I want a storm to come to Arton that could end our creation? I don't want the end of Creation, Glórienn. I know I want to destroy it. I know I want it all to end. But I want to risk it, Glórienn, oh, how I want it! It's fantastic! I myself will be at the mercy of chaos, of luck, of bad luck! And if you win, how wonderful! If I lose, I might even die, right? Tell me yes!"

"Yes," Glórienn whispered, stepping away from Nimb with small, trembling steps. In fact, she didn't know this, but it was what she feared most.

"I will ensure your storm comes, Glórienn! Oh, it will come! It will come like the gorilla kings of spring!"

Nimb began to laugh, his entire small body convulsing, the large gold hoops hanging from his ears smashing into his face, leaving purple bruises. The dragon on the ceiling cowered in fear.

"I'll leave, then," Glórienn said, her eyes wide. "Our business is concluded."

"You can't leave; you live here," Nimb said suddenly serious. "You are Puwick, the son of a merchant from Samburdia, don't you remember? One day, he decided to investigate the moans coming from the attic and found his aunt, whom his parents had said was dead. Don't you remember?"

Nimb looked at Glórienn with a wide grin, an expression of pure evil on his face except for his eyes. His eyes held no malice—just pitch black, empty despair. Nothing. Glórienn looked into those black orbs and began to understand the absence of life, dreams, hope, revenge, or purpose; there was nothing to comprehend. Just chaos, oblivion, an endless fall.

"Do you remember what she did?" Nimb continued. "She ate her own feces. And the smell—do you remember? From the leftover food that the employees brought every day? Yesterday's dinner, and the day before's, rotting—do you remember the worms? Do you remember your aunt Puwick's expression?"

Glórienn remembered.

"And the diary? Do you remember the diary? When she was still sane, and the ink on her pen had not yet dried? The last entry was from three years ago, right? Already incoherent. But in the earlier notes, there was a record of how her father had ripped out her tongue, Puwick. Because what she screamed, up there in the attic, scared the children! It scared you! Do you remember?"

And Glórienn was Puwick, the son of the Samburdia merchant who had cut out his own sister's tongue.

"They said she was crazy, right? And you, didn't you also feel a little mad after seeing your aunt, smelling that stench?"

It was true. Glórienn/Puwick had gone mad, and she knew it. He had fled, taken a job in a caravan, and escaped from the horror.

"So what happened, Puwick?"

"The caravan was attacked," Puwick/Glórienn said. "And I died."

"And ended up here."

"And I ended up here."

"Very well," Nimb said, satisfied. "Now, go back to your duties. I believe you have to feed other horses to the horses."

Puwick, once Glórienn, turned and departed to fulfill Nimb's orders. As he was about to walk out the door, watched by the dragon from the ceiling, his body spasmed in pain. In Arton, another elf died, a victim of injuries suffered in the attack on Lenórienn. The pain brought the goddess back.

"What was that?" roared Glórienn, who had once been Puwick.

River Nimbus

"Just a joke. Now go, Elf Goddess. I will fulfill what we agreed." Glórienn hesitated, shuddering, as Nimb sat back down in his nail chair, gazing into the basin of water.

"Is this another divinatory instrument?" Glórienn asked before leaving. "Are you observing the madness of another of your followers, God of Chaos?"

"No," Nimb replied. "I'm looking at a basin of water."