The Brightest Secret

Thunder boomed in the dark sky, but no lightning showed itself. Several people stopped to look down at the path to the Oracle. A heavier darkness weighed on the realm and the people noticed. The landscape of crooked empty trees and barren land changed from its normal hue of dark, muted blues and purples, black, and grey to an overwhelming sense of pure blackness.

A young dark elf was approaching the Oracle. As the thunder sounded and the sky darkened, her gait changed from one of a normal errand to one that trembled. These people knew something was about to happen if the gods were causing this commotion.

Nochos, the god of the night, had first dibs over the dark elves and he was exercising this power now. He had puffed out his chest and took on a haughty expression, pleased with himself for the display he had orchestrated for the elf’s arrival. The Court of the Night was eager to meet his demands. The same often went for me. After all, secrets fare much better in the darkness. Nochos often relied on me, his god of secrets, but today was different. I was going to keep a secret from him, as was my right.

While Nochos had dominion over this dark elf, I controlled our Oracle, the keeper of the secrets of the gods. The gods of the Court of the Day were welcome to tell their stories through her as well, but they never did. Our domain was dark, and they would have us dispelled, not speak to our people.

Nochos boomed his orders at the Oracle. He laid out a poetic prophecy for her to speak. Satisfied with his words, he leaned back on his throne and sat askew. The young elf was going to have quite the quest. He obviously wanted the Oracle to tell his secret to the young elf, but it would remain just that, a secret.

“Nochos has chosen you as his victor, but to reveal your path, you must travel to the Domain of the Day.”

The elf stood in shock for a moment, still trembling. But then her face shifted. “Of the Day?” she asked. “But he has no power there.”

Nochos stood suddenly. A dark aura fumed around him. “Oracle,” he boomed. “I said nothing about the Domain of the Day. Tell her what I said!”

The thunder cracked again. The elf ducked at the sound. Nochos paced as he continued to yell at the Oracle.

I kept the Oracle’s mouth shut. She smirked slightly. She was proud to serve her god.

“Then I will go,” the elf’s head bowed slightly to the Oracle, and she left.

Nochos and I followed her. He knew of my presence, but he did not suspect anything as he knew I would be in our realm.

When we crossed over into the brightly lit cobbled streets with their lines of colored buildings and trees, the elf and her god kept to the shadows. Nochos had very little power in the shadows of the Day and would have had none in the full light. The dark elf likewise was not used to the light. I, however, kept to the light where Nochos could not notice me, but I was revealed to the people of the day.

As I walked, the townspeople around me could not see my presence but could feel the effect I had.

For better.

A couple walked towards me. Something dawned on the man’s face as the woman spoke. “You’re pregnant!” he cried, joy spreading across his expression.

A man looked anxious as a friend spotted him and tried to help carry his precarious bags and boxes. In the attempt to help, a bag fell and spilled its contents. The friend looked up in realization. “You’re planning a party for me?”

Or for worse.

A woman turned a corner and saw a man holding hands with another woman. The man stopped walking and looked at her in horror. “You cheated on me?” yelled the woman.

A scream rose in the air. The dark elf and the god of the night stopped and looked at a woman running from a man who had his arms outstretched and pleading. “You killed him!” she yelled.

Nochos kept trying to appear to his dark elf. I wondered if he hoped the dark subject of death would make him more visible to her. But he had no conduit to use to speak to her, and he had no power over the people of the Day.

But I did.

Secrets are more easily kept in the dark, but the people in the light still have them. And I would give them another to reveal.

By my prompting, a man walked up to the dark elf. “The gods await you at the seat of their Oracle.”

Hope leaped onto Nochos’s face, but then the man pointed to the Court of the Day’s Oracle, and it became dim again. Nochos tried to plead with his unhearing hero, but, of course, it was to no avail. I was not letting his secret become known.

The elf trudged up the hill towards the Oracle. Many wary glances were cast upon her as she was forced to leave the safety of the shadows and climb the hill. Nochos hid in her shadow, angry that he had been forced to follow the one he wished to lead. He must have understood the danger he was in by not having a way to escape if the elf were unable to return to the shadows.

He tried to call to the Day-lit Oracle, but his voice did not carry through the light air.

I watched as the curious court of gods crowded above their Oracle. A couple of them glanced at me, but they were more curious about the dark elf who had wandered into their midst. My presence was a somewhat common occurrence at the foot of their Oracle, and I had been more than bothersome to them in the past.

Only one of the gods had seen Nochos, but he was content to not tell his companions about the night god yet.

I started to walk up to the elf and the court’s attention turned to me. I touched her forehead and then her lips before turning to stand beside her. Her agitated demeanor calmed, and she stood with the utmost confidence.

“I have been sent here to remind you that Nochos is your brother, Daion.”

The court frowned and looked around at each other. Daion stood, staring at the elf, unmoving. Their Oracle tilted her head, unsure of why the elf was giving her a message for the gods and not the other way around.

“It cannot be,” Nochos said. I turned to face him. The darkness had drained from his face, and, for the first time in centuries, he was pale. I smiled but restrained my laughter. The shock and the lack of shade was getting to him.

“Where is my brother now?” Daion asked through his Oracle, her eyes gleaming gold.

“I am his champion; he is with me.”

The gods had all but forgotten the fact that the two were brothers. I alone remembered the secret lost to time and memory. I had even clouded it in the mind of my sister, Mira, the goddess of truth. She stared at me now. A merciless scowl that told me she knew what I had done. But the anger passed, and she saw the truth of my intentions.

Nochos tried to peer around his champion and at his brother. A look of wonder now crept upon his face. The same look dawned on Daion as the god of foresight pointed Nochos out to him.

“I believe we shall need to rethink our plan,” Daion said wistfully to his court. He looked at me. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank or kill me for disrupting his secret plan to bring war to the realm of the night.

Once a spark of light entered the black of night, there would no longer be darkness.

It wouldn’t last forever. Daion and his companions would eventually still look to rid the world of the evil that prowled around our realm, the evil that we had fostered there. But for as long as at least one person remained without omniscience, I would still survive, but much of my power would be gone. And besides, I sometimes liked those in the Court of the Night. It wouldn’t do to see them gone before it was time.

I released the tongue of the Oracle. Her eyes turned black, and she spewed the words Nochos had spoken to his Oracle. A horrified mix of emotions washed over the elf’s face. She had her quest, and I slipped back to our realm.