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  Without a sound, the god moved its wings and left the chamber. He took the Greatstone to the middle of the throne room and held it at arm’s length. A glimmer of force shone around the stone, and when Ru removed his hand, it remained suspended in the air.

  A chant rose from the deity and its four hands drew graceful patterns before the floating stone. He closed his eyes and called into the depth of another dimension. Throughout the entire earth, darkness fell. The gates of Non trembled and the seven Agaras stirred in their cages.

  Ru parted the folds of existence just enough to let his mind pass their boundaries. He traveled to a place not even the gods roamed. While his body sang and his hands gestured in the empty air, the god's consciousness crossed an ocean of time and distance. Twisting through a maze of nonexistence, he traveled to a place no god should roam. The barrier confining the damned. The Gate of Non. The black barrier pulsed and oozed like a living thing.

  Beyond, imprisoned Agaras tested their chains. One rose and stepped forward. It was a Demonthane, the strongest of its kind. “What brings you to our gate, creature of light? Have you come to taunt us?”

  “No,” Ru replied. “I have come to bargain.”

  The other Agaras shuffled in the distance, aroused by the god's words. The Demonthane hissed.

  “A bargain?”

  “Yes,” Ru said. “I am at war with one of my kind. A rival god has invoked strategies that only the might of a Demonthane can thwart.”

  “Now I know you,” the Agara said. “You are the Lover of Life. The god who preserved a broken fragment of the world. You are Sirian Ru.”

  “I am.”

  The demon withdrew a few steps. Ru knew what they thought of him. Among their kind there were laws that could not be broken, rules they did not question. His deed was a crime even to the Agaras, a blaspheme. Interfering with the course of the universe never entered their warped minds. They, too, were a part of its fabric. It was their given duty to devour and destroy, to return order to chaos. To them, he was a force of evil.

  But Ru also knew the demon was an demon.

  “What aid do you require and what reward shall we receive?” the Agara asked.

  “I wish to incarnate one of you and use your strength upon my world,” Ru explained.

  The weaker Agaras grumbled in the distance.

  “Incarnate? You mean to give us flesh? Such a task is impossible even for a creature of light. There are those who live and those who do not. We do not.”

  “No,” Ru said. “I have devised many new sciences since your imprisonment. I can create a semblance of life.”

  The Agara scoffed. “How?”

  “The one I choose will be the one who learns.”

  “Only one? Why not all?”

  The image of all the Agaras freed upon the world caused Ru to shudder.

  “There is only room for one.”

  “And when you are done with the one, what reward shall it receive?”

  “One thousand years of physical existence. Then it must return to Non.”

  “A thousand years! That is but a breath!”

  “You judge what you do not understand. A thousand years within the stream of time will make you long to return to your original form. It will wear you thin. I know this.”

  “We could never long to return to this place,” the Agara said.

  “It will not be the place you left,” Ru said. “It will remain a prison, but if you help me, I have the power to make it more tolerable. Thus, all of your kindred will benefit from the work of one.”

  Ru felt a twinge of what he believed to be guilt as he said this. He was not sure he could deliver such a promise.

  The Demonthane pretended to consider the proposal, yet Ru knew it had already decided.

  “I will help you, Lover of Life. I warn you, do not dishonor the agreement. We are not confined here for eternity. Should you betray us, there will be retribution.”

  “Then you will help me? Do you not require the counsel of your king?”

  “He is imprisoned within a deeper hold. I am the strongest of this lot. It should be me who is freed.”

  “Very well,” Ru said. “First, you must give me your name so that I may know what Agara I free.”

  The Agara fell silent. They did not distribute their names often. Such knowledge could be used against them. At last it surrendered its label.

  “I am Grom.”

  Ru cringed at the word. He knew the Agaras and the horror of their accomplishments. Grom had been one of their heroes, a warmonger, a devourer of hope. A glimmer of doubt crossed the god's thoughts. Did his need warrant his actions? Was the threat against him so great that he would release such danger upon his own world? Ru remembered the visage that had visited his throne room and his hesitation vanished.

  “Step away from the gate,” he said. “When the door opens, be swift.”

  The Agara moved back and Ru performed the combinations that would open the barrier. Ru had helped create the prison long ago, but even with his knowledge of the seal, it took time to open all the locks. He finished and the Gate of Non parted.

  “Hurry,” the god commanded. The Agara squeezed through the narrow slit into the dimension of freedom. His brothers and sisters wailed from the blackness of the prison pleading for their own release. Ru slammed the portal shut and refit the locks. The Demonthane waited at his feet, relishing its freedom, but not daring to move far.

  Ru ordered Grom to follow and the Agara stayed close.

  They crossed over a formless plane of infinity, skirting the dangerous pools of primordial realities that could drown them if touched. Ru followed random avenues through the universe to conceal their movement.

  As last they arrived at the reality which Ru called his own. The god's consciousness returned to his still gesticulating body in the throne room. With Ru's aid, the Agara entered the world of substance. It quivered in the air without form, a black cloud of spirit and thought. Before it, the Greatstone hung transfixed.

  “Here is the summation of all my efforts,” Ru said. “The basis for a new life form, a house for a soul.”

  “It seems to occupy both the physical and spiritual realms at once,” the Agara said.

  “It is the engine that supplies my creations with life, a battery that replaces their souls.”

  The Agara studied the stone. As its understanding grew, a noticeable agitation fluttered at its smoky edges.

  “You wish me to enter it!” It shouted. “You would have me exchange one prison for another?”

  “Calm yourself, Demonthane,” Ru said. “It is only a part of the whole. After you have taken residence, I will manufacture a body around it. The form will allow you to touch, taste and feel. You will move through time and space in the manner of a human being.”

  The Agara remained reluctant. “How is this possible?”

  “I have learned much from my own incarnation,” Ru said. “Things I have no time to explain. Do not hesitate. You must enter the stone.”

  “Wait! I have another question.”

  “Ask, but be brief.”

  “Once encased within the strange stone, what task would you have me perform?”

  Ru considered many answers, but settled upon the simplest.

  “There is killing to be done,” he said

  Inside the ebbing blackness, invisible to the god's eyes, a smile crossed the Agara's face. Now, it understood Ru's need.

  “Your generosity is boundless, Lover of Life,” it said. Then, like a dark mist, the Agara moved across the room and enshrouded the oblong stone. Pausing for a moment, it entered. The black cloud dwindled as it found accommodation. Inside the stone, a red fire began to glow.

  Ru grabbed the floating Greatstone and left the palatial room. He held the stone before him, no longer cherishing it.

  His castle was many miles tall. It had been cast and mortared from the corpses of the Pastworld cities. From its highest turret, half the world could be viewed. With urgency, Ru step
ped out of an open terrace into a bank of clinging clouds and floated to the base of the structure.

  At the steel roots of the castle sat Ru's largest factory, bloated with the fruits of his work. The factory's cavernous interior stretched for miles. Along its walls a thousand soulstones sat in coffin-shaped crucibles awaiting the next step of their construction. In a few days, nerve tissue would crisscross the stones and begin to spread outward, taking the overall shape of a Thog. Hard bones would form, organs would sprout, muscles would coagulate. In a few hours, the outer skin would harden, the soulstone would spark and a new Thog would tear away from the mesh of its afterbirth. The process was continuous and many half-born figures twitched and moaned at the end of the assembly line, anticipating life.

  The Greatstone already had a fire, now it needed a body great enough to carry it. The design would be more complex. The Agara's task required unique attributes not found in the Thogs. And it would require sturdier construction.

  Several human workers stood about the factory tending to the Thogs. Ru motioned for their assistance and a dozen came running over. The god explained his needs and the workers scurried into action. They made adjustments to an empty crucible, making it longer and wider, doubling its volume.Ru placed the Greatstone in the center of the crucible and began to mumble and gesture, sometimes touching the stone's smooth surface at key points. A crackle filled the air and narrow fingers of lightning jumped from the stone to the edges of the container. Ru turned to his servants.

  “Tend to it night and day. Send me word of its progress every hour,” the god floated upward, bypassing the castle interior. “Now I am weary and must rest.”

  A hundred feet up, he hovered and shouted down to the humans.

  “And tell Tok I am hungry.”

  Chapter 15

  The world spread before Quintel like a sculpture of glass, delicate and translucent. At times, his senses spilled from their fleshy bonds and moved across the landscape like a cloud, seeing everything as if it were made of light. While his body continued its course southward, his detached consciousness roamed the landscape. He never lost awareness of his physical form, but it was only a fraction of his whole. He had many eyes now.

  Of all the things he beheld, one saturated the entire world: The spirit of Sirian Ru.

  The god’s presence filled the air, the earth, the invisible forces that created light. It was everywhere, permeating everything, holding matter together. But it had no mind. Ru’s influence maintained the world without consciousness, just as a human heart beat without need of command. Quintel sensed the god had amputated a part of himself to keep the world intact. The part of Ru that kept everything alive was detached from the being who lived in the twisted castle.

  For Quintel, this was valuable information. It confirmed what the Abanshi and Vaerians already believed. Ru could be killed and the world would continue.

  They traveled several days and nights, retracing their steps through the desert. Quintel's stride never faltered. Siyer, however, struggled. He had insisted on walking and trailed a good distance behind, ragged and limping.

  Quintel sensed Siyer's weariness was not only physical. The focus of his life had been to allow the god access to the world. With the task completed, he knew Siyer was lost.

  After two days, Siyer collapsed headlong into a salt dune, his body worn beyond its limits. He could not cross the desert again, regardless of his pride. Quintel stopped to help him.

  “Continue without me,” Siyer said, his voice hoarse and burnt. Quintel paid no heed to the old man’s words and scooped him up like a bundle of dry kindling. He had become lost in the storm of new sensations and had overlooked Siyer’s condition. How could he see so much yet be so blind?

  “Forgive me, Siyer, but I cannot follow your guidance,” Quintel said. “We must change our direction. You need water and food and that is the quickest route to their source.”

  “You should not burden yourself with me... but your arms do seem strong,” Siyer said.

  “Do not fear, old friend,” Quintel said. “You will not die before—”

  A great weight pulled at Quintel from the distance. Darkness spread across the sky.

  “What is it?” Siyer asked.

  Quintel felt the god's manipulations on the other side of the world. He sensed a hole form in reality and knew that Sirian Ru had opened a gate to another dimension.

  “The god opens a door,” he said, looking to the distance. “He sends for help.”

  Siyer looked up at the darkened sky. “He can see us.”

  Quintel saw the fear flit through Siyer's soul, but said nothing. He turned and continued with his human cargo. His enhanced perceptions did not tell him what help the god sought by opening the portal, but he knew it was bad.

  “Our time grows short,” Quintel said, breaking into a run without notice of the extra weight. “We must warn our people.”

  “We will,” Siyer said. “But now, I rest.” With that, he surrendered to the weeks of exertion and drifted into a restless coma.

  Even with Siyer in his arms, Quintel was hardly aware of the trek, for as his legs cut away the distance, his mind explored the terrain before him. He looked across the curved vista of the world as if seeing it from a great height and discovered a narrow river to the west, its banks green with life.

  When Quintel reached the river, Siyer was hours from death, a sack of flesh with only a lingering scent of spirit.

  Quintel sat Siyer upon the bank and dribbled a handful of water down his throat. He tore a slip of cloth from his sleeve, soaked it, and placed it across the Vaerian's forehead. He repeated the process many times.

  Later, he pulverized watercress and wild carrots and fed Siyer dollops of the mixture for the rest of the day. The process was slow.

  Day became night. Although his body accepted the nourishment, Siyer showed no sign of awareness. Quintel tended to him into the next morning, when, finally, he sensed Siyer's spirit returning. A faint spark glowed within the ashes of his worn out body. His lips parted and a small moan escaped into the air. Quintel stoked the pale flame with droplets of water.

  “Awaken, Siyer, our journey is not finished,” he said. At last, the old man's eyes opened.

  “I live?” Siyer's voice cracked.

  “Do not waste your energy talking. Heal yourself. The brunt of our task still lies before us.”

  Siyer closed his eyes. Quintel saw complex strands of light reach out from the center of Siyer’s body and siphon energy from Ru’s amputated spirit, the energy that kept the world intact. No burst of power marked the effort. Just a strained return to wholeness. Siyer’s internal wounds faded.

  Over the next few days, Quintel watched the horizon, taking his eyes away only to tend to Siyer. He could see Ru's approaching army, but it did not command his attention. His eyes were on the god. He could sense Ru's strange movements on the other side of the world. Ripples in the spiritual fabric of the universe came to him like the sounds of distant workmen; mysterious, indiscernible echoes of construction that never ceased.

  Chapter 16

  Propped against a tree stump, Siyer sipped water from a broad green leaf. He was not yet able to stand.

  “So what do we do now?” he asked, his voice strong again.

  Quintel turned from his station. He seemed hardly aware of Siyer's presence.

  “We split paths,” Quintel said. He could sense the horde of the cold-hearted Thogs cresting the horizon. He knew the lands of the west slept, unaware their enemies gathered against them. For the short term, his mission would be one of warning. “You will travel to Vaer and alert your people of the god's threat. Have them prepare their armies.”

  “And what will you do?” Siyer asked.

  “I will warn the Abanshi and lead them against the Thogs.”

  Siyer looked up at Quintel, his head canted.

  “Haven't you forgotten something?” he said. “You were banished from the Abanshi six years ago. They are not likely to w
elcome your return. They are more apt to kill you on sight.”

  Quintel had not forgotten.

  “They may not welcome me but they will listen,” he said. “And I believe I can bring them a token that will redeem my previous offense.”

  Siyer scooted higher against the tree stump. “What token?”

  Quintel looked upon Siyer and saw worry braiding a yellow knot in his breast.

  “Huk's head.”

  Siyer showed no outward reaction, but Quintel saw argument tint the yellow knot red.

  “Are you sure?” Siyer asked.

  “Do not be afraid, Siyer. I know what I am doing. The plan may seem suicidal, but in truth, I will be in no danger.”

  “But returning to Huk's fortress is...”

  “…Exactly what I must do to strike a blow against the god. Without Huk, the vanguard of Ru's armies will be crippled. I sense the warlord is no longer addicted to the serum. He grows physically and mentally stronger at the moment we need him weakened. If we do not disrupt the progress of Ru's strategy, the Thog armies will crush the western kingdoms.”

  “Your new eyes tell you all this?”

  Quintel nodded. “They do.”

  He saw Siyer was not satisfied.

  “I would prefer following a more fluid strategy,” Siyer said. “Your powers are new and untested. Have you forgotten all that the game has taught you?”

  “The game was tool to prepare my mind for the joining. Does a man carry his boat once he has arrived on shore? Now that I have merged with the god, I have left the tool behind.”

  “I do not know what you have become Quintel, but when I look at you, I do not see the man I knew. Nor do I see the god I served for a lifetime. You are both, yet neither. What am I supposed do? I have already given my life to this cause. I must follow it to the end.”

  “When you are ready to travel, we will part,” Quintel said. “You will go west. I will head south to Huk's fortress.”