Chapter 11 - How God's Bleed (PART TWO)

It was harsh. 

Sudden. 

She felt it in her spine, and her chest, and her mind, all at once. Like the very core of her being was being pulled.

The world around her became a blur, the colors shifting and blending, and trailing away behind her. Then as if she was slammed into a steel wall, the world stopped. She hit the ground, gasping for breath, sweat dripping in her eyes.

BeeSheep buzzed as he hit the ground next to her with a bounce. They had been pulled farther into the city.

Before them was the great castle of Re-Heboth, the stones white, and its spires towering high into the sky. At the top of some stairs in front of them was a great stone throne, and on it sat Sidar, the Digyr of Deep Forests.

He sat up straight, his clothes fashioned like that of a military commander’s. He had a metal pin fashioned to the breast of his coat for every battle that he had won. 

There were dozens. They clicked and clacked against one another as he stood, running a hand coated in tree bark through his black and silver hair.

His sword was long and thin, and it was like burned charcoal, still red and smoldering in places. Sidar’s hair was short, his beard neatly trimmed, his eyes a dark gold. He pointed at her with his bark covered hand.

“Livadi of Far Meadows,” he said nodding. “And here I was thinking we had you all locked up.”

“You did,” Livadi snarled. 

BeeSheep raised his stinger into the air and buzzed menacingly. Sidar smiled when he saw him.

“Little BeeSheep,” he chuckled. “We used to laugh at you, you know. Wandering around, looking for your goddess. I think it’s good that you’re here. You can be together in your final moments.”

Livadi glanced at BeeSheep and gripped her star sword.

“I have some of my power back,” she snarled. “I won’t be so easy to defeat anymore.”

“Come now, you have claimed only three of your eyes,” Sidar gestured to the air around him, and his eyes began to reveal themselves. Dozens. Hundreds. 

Thousands. 

“But you have fallen, oh goddess of meadows…”

Livadi gritted her teeth and charged forward. She opened her eyes to gain strength, speeding her up. Sidar opened his eyes, and from them sprouted large vines, blocking her path. She cut through them, but it slowed her down.

Another large branch came out of the eyes, and this one smashed directly into her. Livadi hit the ground hard. Her eyes widened as she sucked in a breath, her lungs aching. She coughed, and silver splattered the stones.

BeeSheep nuzzled her jaw, encouraging her to get up. So, she did. She opened her eyes again, this time causing a huge gust of wind to blow at Sidar. His cape cracked and frayed at the ends like a whip.

He was forced back a step, and Livadi rushed forward again.

This time she had the wind to guide her. She dodged some of the branches, and cut through the others, then landing before Sidar she crouched low, aiming for his knees.

Before she could strike, thorns shot up from the ground, catching her arms, her neck, her torso, and tore at her skin until she was kneeling, unable to move. 

BeeSheep hopped off her shoulder and drew his star shard. He tried to cut at the thorns but they were thick and strong. He buzzed, frustrated, panicking.

“It’s funny, really,” Sidar said. “You can’t really kill us, as long as someone believes. Believes in the forests, the meadows.” His eyes turned to BeeSheep. “We got really, really close to ending you. But this little creature…”

Sidar stretched out his hand, and more thorns shot up out of the ground, this time aimed directly at BeeSheep.

“Dokevi!” Livadi screamed opening her eyes, banishing the vines around her, and she reached out, catching the thorns aimed at BeeSheep. 

The thorns turned on her like a rabid animal, wrapping up her arm and squeezing, the sharp points digging in, and beginning to spin.

The goddess screamed, she tried to open her eyes again, but she wasn’t at her full power. She only had three, and they were recharging.

The thorns sawed her arm off. 

Silver ichor flowed.

She stopped breathing. Her eyes going distant, looking at things that weren’t there.

BeeSheep cried out, and seeing her wounded, he took his shard and flew straight at Sidar. Who smacked him down with the back of his hand. BeeSheep squeaked as his went tumbling across the ground.

“Why…” Livadi choked, silver streaming over her lips.

“Because, my dear girl.” Sidar spoke very firmly, very calmly. He used the tip of his sword to touch the stump of her arm. The blade hissed as the silver blood quenched some of the embers. “I am where the meadow ends. Everything has a place. You. Don’t. Mix. It. Up.”

“You… you…” Livadi’s chest began rising and falling, faster and faster. Like she could only catch short, quick breaths.

“Shhh, child,” Sidar said, cupping her face in a hand. “You put forth a valiant effort, truly, but this is the end.”

And Sidar took the tip of his ashen sword, and pressed it to her chest. His jaw tightened ever so slightly as he pressed.

There was a muffled grating as the blade scraped bone, and then a final give as he pushed it into her heart.

All across the land, the meadows began to dim. The sun that was their warmth disappeared turned black and gray. The flowers closed and the creatures went silent.

BeeSheep emerged from the rubble, and there was Livadi. His goddess. His creator. Missing her arm. Her chin resting on her chest, her body propped up by the blade that pierced her through.

Something cracked within the little guy.

Sidar looked at him, the wrinkles around his eyes offering a sympathetic glance.

“I’m sorry, little one,” he said, pressing a hand to her shoulder and slowly pulling out his blade.

“You’re a noble creature, going from one end of the earth to the other, just to find her. There are no others like you. Take some pride in that.” Sidar sniffed and sheathed his blade.

He took one more look at Livadi, and nodded, satisfied. Then he turned and began to walk away.

“Bzz.”

Sidar stopped on his heel and turned back. BeeSheep stood behind him, trembling with rage.

“No.” Sidar had to stop himself from laughing. He needed to retain his composure, but it was difficult when challenged by an amalgamation. “I will not fight you.”

He smirked, and waved him off, turning away again. He started to walk again.

“I said… kneel.”

An aura so powerful, so overwhelming, so intense that it felt like the sky itself had fallen sent Sidar to one knee, cracking the stone below. Sweat beaded on his brow at the weight of it.

He turned. His neck straining to look up, and there hovering in the air… was BeeSheep.

He had opened his eye.

“I have slain dragons,” BeeSheep spoke, looking down upon him. His voice was the echo of thunder in the storm. It was the gray in the pouring rain. “I have rescued shamans and set fire to false wolves. I have gone into the beyond and faced the Iron Trumpets. I have looked into the faces of the Psychophant, and bartered freedom from those who have been cursed. I have traveled to the ends of the earth, and I did it all… for her.”

“You killed my goddess…” He said through the eye. “And I will end you for it.”

“You cannot end me with one eye,” Sidar said, straining at the weight. “If I can anticipate your shifting, I can respond to it with a thousand eyes all at once.”

"So be it.”

And so Sidar opened his eyes. All of them at once. And the power was so great and strong that reality began to crack at the edges. The land began to shake, and tremble, buildings collapsing, walls tumbling down.

But BeeSheep remained steadfast. 

He opened his eye, parting the clouds above so that a single beam of light could shine through. Then reality shifted. That beam of light became solid, like glass, and the whole of it began falling from the heavens like a missile.

But Sidar didn’t see it. A thousand eyes, all around, and he did not see the sunbeam. (For who would think to use it as a weapon?)

And Sidar looked up in time to see the golden beam crash down upon him, he opened his eyes to- before he could do anything the beam broke into a thousand crystalline pieces that washed over him. 

Shredding him from top to bottom. The sunbeam broke and scattered and sliced and spilled down the stairs until there was nothing left but silver smears and sunlight.

All at once a thousand eyes were abandoned, but they were a thousand open eyes. BeeSheep could see through the eyes, and beyond them, each a different world, a reality shifting and melding in uncontrolled ways.

The eyes, attached to a thousand different worlds began to pull. Bricks and stone and wood were sucked into the eyes. The glass of the sunbeam was picked up and sent through one of the eyes. 

Sidar’s metal pins were scattered about, each going to a different place.

BeeSheep wobbled on his feet. He was exhausted, having used too much power. But he was caught in a vortex of worlds, the city of Re-Heboth being sucked in around him.

He saw Livadi, her body beginning to float off the ground. BeeSheep had to stop it. 

If he didn’t then the whole of the city would be gone, along with Shava, and the Meridian Guard. Perhaps even the whole world would be taken away.

Determining himself, BeeSheep launched into the sky, in the very center of the thousand eyes, and he buzzed loudly, opening his single eye so that all of worlds around him might be contained. He cried out with the power flowing through him, the great winds whipping around him.

He contained them. 

All of them. 

A thousand eyes merged into a tall doorway. 

Thin as a sheet of steel, and indestructible. The eyes were squished against one another in the space, and through each of them, BeeSheep could see a different place.

He landed on the ground, his vision fuzzy, the eye above him finally flickering away. He collapsed there, and before he passed out, he searched for Livadi of Far Meadows.

But she was gone.

***

They call it The Mirror of a Thousand Worlds. 

The thing which BeeSheep created that day when he opened his eye and contained the one thousand that had been opened to many possible shifting realities. 

In honor of Livadi, Digyr of Far Meadows, it was placed in one of the darkened meadows, far away from any of the great cities. 

For a time, everything was dark, and there was no life in the meadows.

One day, as BeeSheep flew to visit the mirror, as he often did, he saw something there upon the ground. 

It was a small patch of green grass, with blooming clover blossoms. It was growing. Green. 

It was… alive.

BeeSheep gazed into The Mirror of a Thousand Worlds, and he knew one thing for certain.

That she was out there.

He knew that traveling to another world would be dangerous. A grand adventure indeed. He knew that there would be gods and monsters trying to stop him.

That was okay because he would find her.

No matter what.

Translator’s Note – Truly a bittersweet ending. The Book of BeeSheep concludes with our little friend standing before a realm of infinite possibilities. I like to think that the ancient authors ended the story this way so that we could imagine anything is possible, and perhaps even go on to tell our own stories.

Adventures of BeeSheep travelling to new and unknown lands. Encountering strange friends and fighting terrible foes.

Tell me. If you ever see me in person, perhaps we can sit in a meadow, and you can tell me all about the grand adventures you imagine. The story began a long, long time ago. It’s ours now, so let’s keep it going.

-          Dr. Friedrich Dire, 2025