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  First, Yuul spotted Quintel — a blazing flare of white light cutting across the horizon, a mighty weight that was hard to miss. No wonder Ru had released the Agara. It would take more than the Thog creatures to stop such a being.

  Yuul held steady in the sky, not ready to draw Quintel’s attention. No telling how the Abanshi would react to another encounter. The man would be confused. Confused and armed with the power of a god.

  Then Yuul spotted Siyer far away to the northwest headed for the mountains. The god was thankful for that. Since the two no longer traveled together, it could contact Siyer alone and in safety.

  Yuul sped across the sky and was upon the old human in moments.

  Siyer felt something behind him and turned to see what it was. When he did, he saw Yuul rushing toward him from the clouds, a mirror-smooth ball of thought and spirit, with fingers of lightning enveloping its shape.

  The old man fell to his knees in the dirt. “Yuul!” he shouted. “Thank you! Thank you for stepping from the protection of God’s Finger to come to our aid. I fear we are on a course for disaster. After the joining, Quintel…”

  “Stop,” commanded Yuul. “My time is limited and I have news that demands your attention. I must tell you what Ru has planned.”

  Siyer held his own concerns and fell silent.

  Yuul continued. “The Lover of Life has released an Agara from the prison’s of Non to help him. I do not know what he intends to do with the creature, but such power cannot be ignored. By leaving the confines of his own rules, he has raised the stakes of the game.”

  “This is poor news for a poor situation,” Siyer said. “I fear our talents are already spread thin. Quintel does not seem to be using the power you gave him to our advantage. He pursues a reckless gambit without alternative. He ignores everything he learned from the game. Now this. Tell me, Great Yuul, what can we do to fight such a being?”

  The silvery globe that was Yuul, spun and rotated in midair.

  “I do not know, Siyer,” the god answered. “Perhaps the part of me that is now inside Quintel will supply you with the answers you need. Had the joining been successful, I believe that Ru, and whatever monstrosity he has enlisted, could be defeated and I could take my place within the world. But I am not sure about Quintel alone. What divine abilities has he demonstrated?”

  “He can see many things at once. And he has broken the physical bonds that limit his body. He no longer eats or sleeps. His strength is beyond measure. He scaled God’s Finger with me clinging to his back and bore me across the desert upon his shoulders.”

  The god considered the description.

  “I do not know if such abilities will give him the strength to defeat the Agara,” Yuul said. “But it is not enough to vanquish Ru.”

  “Can you help us?”

  “I am not sure. I saw Quintel heading south. His soul burns white hot and I see why Ru fears him. Even I am afraid to approach him.”

  Siyer caught upon Yuul’s words.

  “Great Yuul,” he said. “I must trouble you with a question. After the joining, Quintel shared with me many things. He tried to explain to me… he tried to tell me that you were a… child.”

  The silvery globe pulsed and wobbled in reaction to the statement, but Yuul said nothing. Siyer pressed the question. “Are you a child, Yuul?”

  Again the god was silent for several moments.

  “I have trouble answering you, Siyer. I was alive when the world was a sphere. I saw the stars in the sky. I knew your sun. I watched your species grow from animals to beings that could bridge the void of space. Yet I am the youngest of my kind. I am the last begotten.”

  “I see,” Siyer said.

  Yuul could sense Siyer’s disappointment. The Vaerian had followed Yuul’s instructions to the word and the joining had failed. Quintel now tore across the countryside, armed only with his untested powers and a plot without nuance. Siyer had hoped for a different outcome. But even a god could not change what was.

  “I see your despair, Siyer,” Yuul said. “I know you feel that everything is lost. Yet all I can do is ask for more. I cannot tell you that victory is at hand. I cannot give assurance that your life was not wasted on a lost cause. The only comfort I can offer is to say this: Such is the way between men and gods.”

  With that the god left. Siyer watched Yuul disappear silently into the sky. A speck of light and then nothing. Alone, he stood, brushed the dust from his knees and continued west.

  Chapter 19

  Ru finished his meal and licked his fingers clean. Human servants came and took the drained bones away. He would not eat again until tomorrow.

  Full and heavy, the god felt the woman's soul being digested within his stomach. Her thoughts, memories, dreams, hopes, fears and loves rendered to their smallest, palatable portions within Ru's bowels. She was becoming part of him.

  Long ago, Ru had felt a passion for life so great it hurt. He ached at the death of the smallest creature. But certain truths could not be avoided on this plane of existence. He had to eat and his dietary needs were complex. Mere flesh could not sustain him. Only the sacrifice of the creatures he loved most could quell his hunger. That's when he learned the value of death. Lesser creatures must die so that the greater might live. It was a simple law.

  The people of the West — the Abanshi, the Vaerians and the elusive Lanya — were not thankful for what he had done for them. Were it not for Ru, their ancestors would have perished long ago. But instead of gratefully bringing him sustenance, they attacked him, offended by his diet! Ru would never forgive them for it. He deserved their adoration and their sacrifice. They would die for him one way or another.

  He was sorry he had lost Huk so soon. The warlord’s death was a painful blow, but Ru had suspected Huk would be killed during the war, and had already established his replacement. Underlord Taln did not have Huk's leadership ability, but he was an excellent tactician and would serve the battlefield well while he survived.

  And Huk's murder had revealed information of great value. Ru felt the Abanshi’s remorse after the killing. The thing's anguish burned like a blazing house on a hilltop. Ru could almost feel it himself. The human had not expected such a powerful reaction from his new identity. People put a lesser value on Life than did the gods. Ru expected this imbalance would be a problem for the human. In the recesses of his memory, he remembered a time when he mourned for life in such a way.

  Ru headed down the tangle of stairwells to his factory. Another thousand Thogs had been constructed over the last few days, but he was more interested in his newest creation.

  It would take the Demonthane several days to find form within the world. The complexities of its body required a longer cycle than the Thogs. Its impenetrable skin needed constant oversight while forming. More than a thousand diamond-hard scales would cover its frame by the time it rose from the crucible. Each required a level of craft.

  And there were the wings, of course. Those were another problem altogether. The being would have to cover great distances in short periods of time and be able to rise above any common skirmish that might cause distraction. The two leathery wings would be able to propel it across the world in a matter of days. While Ru had dealt with these features in theory, creating the components required a high degree of adaptation. The task inspired new ambitions in the god's mind. The process gave him new ideas.

  The god glided though the twists of his cloud-shrouded castle, following a route so complex only he himself knew the way. He passed through vast chambers that echoed like dead caverns, descended confusing stonework staircases and wound through miles of serpentine hallways.

  Ru did not enjoy flying down from the outside of his castle. He liked to appreciate the tangled interior of the structure. The jaunt reminded him of what he could accomplish given the right raw material. The sheer height and complexity of his castle were Ru's final defense if the humans ever arrived on his doorstep. A generation would live and die before they found their way to the t
op of the tower. His attackers would not even remember why they were fighting by the time they reached him.

  At the base of his castle, in a smoky factory lined with half-formed Thogs, Ru tended to his Agara.

  The process was coming along nicely. Arms, legs and a fanged, eyeless head had taken shape. Thick triangular plates of armor solidified over its body. It had no hands. Razor sharp talons sprouted from the ends of its arms like scythes.

  It was the wings Sirian Ru brooded over. The other features were variations of what he had already accomplished with the Thogs, but the wings were something new. They were nothing like his own, delicate pair. These had to survive combat. Thick hide formed between their dense, bone framework.

  Ru felt the Agara's senses upon him. Grom was tired of lying there while its body took shape.

  “Patience, Grom,” he said to the silent figure in the crucible. “Soon you will be moving and breathing within the realm of substance.”

  After he was satisfied, Ru ascended through the vertical maze that led to his throne room.

  Time was again his. With the Thog armies mobilized and the Demonthane's body nearly complete, the Abanshi and Vaerians would have no time to adapt to the threats that faced them.

  Yuul's creation would gather an army and use its divine power to form strategies against the hordes. Sirian Ru knew the creature would fail. No magic could make an army strong enough to stand against the Thogs, especially with so little warning. And once the Agara was put into play, the half-god would be removed from the problem completely.

  At last the end of the struggle was in sight. Ru could soon stop fretting over the renegade kingdoms who had betrayed him a thousand years ago. He could relax and enjoy the worship he deserved. Soon all the humans on earth would love him, pray to him and feed him without dissent. His dreams were becoming real.

  Chapter 20

  Quintel had outdistanced his pursuers within minutes. Huk’s head swung at his hip, tied to his belt by its long black hair.

  As he ran, a burning sensation spread across his senses, clouding them. Remorse dragged behind him like a plow through hard earth. No matter how many excuses his human mind conjured, his divine half could not shake the weight of sorrow. Huk’s death had driven the god fragment into hiding.

  For the first time in his life, Quintel had killed. And he had not killed as a man, out of anger or fear, but as a god, knowing better. When the sword passed through Huk’s neck, Quintel had felt it. When the life that had been the man disappeared, it hurt.

  He never felt he took life for granted before, but now, with the eyes of a god, he saw it as something valuable beyond measure. The universe saw through the eyes of Life. Life was the universe's awareness of itself. A thing that laughed, loved, hungered, wept, reproduced. Life was how the universe examined itself. How had he not seen this as a man? Did Life itself smite him blind to its value?

  But Quintel saw the world was also soaked in death. He felt it all around him: birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, all flashing into oblivion. He even felt the end of many humans as they died by disease, age or accident. These fates did not trouble him. It was the violence of Huk's death that tore him in half. When a man killed a man, the faults of the world, of the universe, lay exposed. Men did not respect Life. For them it was a prison. No. A trial. A place where their decisions changed the nature of the world around them. A place where they were judged by their own creation. When a human died by violence, the verdict was failure.

  The Abanshi Mountains appeared on the horizon before him, a serrated wall of stone teeth, biting into the sky.

  The terrain changed. Grassy prairies hardened to rocky fields. Sheer mountains rose like battlements around him. No trails or roads softened the route. It was difficult for a man on foot to navigate the landscape, wagons and cavalry didn’t have a chance. The land itself was a fortress.

  Quintel saw several different ways to breach the fortress. Secret tunnels wormed through the heart of the mountain range. Their entrances were hidden, but his new sight revealed them plainly. He could enter the tunnels and cover many miles in a short period of time. Or he could scale straight up the side of the mountains and take the higher trails that served as lookout posts and ambush platforms.

  Instead, Quintel decided to take a more familiar approach.

  If he followed the narrow path at the foot of the mountains, he would come upon a place where the terrain grew flat and wide. This was the closest thing to a pass found in the Abanshi Mountains. Because of that, the way was heavily fortified.

  Here stood the Iron Gate, the towering metal wall that spanned from one mountainside to the next. Bolted to the mountain face, hinges the size of castle towers flanked the gate. They had not been used for a thousand years.

  Like a cork in a bottle, the gate sealed off the Abanshi from the lands of Sirian Ru. It was the last thing he saw of his homeland before his banishment many years ago.

  The Iron Gate was the only sanctioned entrance between west and east, and Quintel thought it best to reenter his homeland there, without stealth. Such a return would show he had nothing to hide.

  Quintel slowed his pace as he entered the mountains. Running headlong into Abanshi territory would aggravate the guards who might misinterpret his haste. Already, he felt the eyes of sentries upon him from the high trails. They measured his progress and passed warning down the line. It would take days for him to arrive at the gate, but already, they knew he was coming.

  As he covered the distance, Quintel observed the crisscross network of tunnels that ran beneath the mountains. He could see the lights of many humans traveling through them. As a boy, he had known of the tunnels, but their locations were well-protected secrets, even though some were wide enough to accommodate wagons. Now he saw them clearly as if the earth were water. He observed busy supply routes and frantic runners. He saw columns of men headed to reinforce different sections of the mountain range and knew that such frenzied activity signified war.

  Their lifelight told him everything. The Abanshi already knew Huk’s armies were coming. Their spies had already reported the troop movement. They probably knew about the Thogs as well. Why hadn't he seen that during the excursions out of his body?

  He had underestimated his people. They were many weeks ahead of him.

  The burning in his heart grew worse. The gnawing regret over killing Huk overtook him and his certainty staggered. He pushed against the black emotions. Now was not the time for self-pity. No matter how deeply his god-half mourned, more killing awaited him. He did not need divine powers to know that.

  Dragging the weeping god behind him like a stubborn child, he moved forward.

  As he drew closer to the gate, the sentries thickened. Hidden within bunkers disguised within the mountainside, they surrounded him, bows trained and drawn. A simple nod from a superior and the arrows would fly. He sensed the archers cared little for the life of a stranger wandering in from the east.

  Above him, giant avalanche machines perched on the top of canyon walls. They were massive timber and steel shelves, stacked high with boulders and supported by chains as thick as a man. At the right moment, any lowly footman could pull a pin and bury an enemy force under thousands of tons of granite.

  He moved ahead. Such weapons were meant to crush entire armies, not solitary fools.

  At last he came upon the Iron Gate. He remembered it from the day of his exile: A wall of welded iron, stretching between the shoulders of two mountains. A hundred feet tall, dozens of feet thick, it was impregnable to any known weapon. Slots checkered its surface from bottom to top, each only large enough to accommodate a bowman’s aim. About thirty feet off the ground, a large iron door seemed oddly placed. No stairs led to it.

  Many bows followed him, the archers invisible to the human eye. Their fingers grew tired from restraining their drawn strings. Now was the time to address his stalkers.

  “Hold your arrows!” he said. “I am an Abanshi!”

  That got their attention,
but they did not lower their bows.

  “I am Quintel. Exiled son of King Tilon,” he said, untying Huk’s head from his belt. “I have come carrying my redemption! The head of Warlord Huk!”

  He felt some of the archers relax. A few were old enough to remember him, or had at least heard of him.

  “Here is payment for my treason.” He tossed the head. It arced through the air with Huk’s black hair trailing in the wind. Hitting the ground, the trophy rolled, coming to rest against the foot of the gate. At last, it was away from him.

  After a few moments, the elevated door moaned and opened. A folding ladder fell from its blackness like a tongue. The shape of a man filled the door. As the figure stepped into the light, Quintel saw the man was clad in chain mail and bore the colors of a captain. Studded leather boots covered the lower half of his legs from knee to toe, and a steel helmet rested on his head. An Abanshi sword hung at his side.

  Quintel looked into the man’s heart. His light was prickly red, tinged yellow. He was primed for war. With a signal, he was ready to launch a salvo of arrows at the strange visitor claiming to be the exiled prince. But something else winked in his emotions. Curiosity. He remembered Quintel’s banishment and had been present when the prince proclaimed loyalty to his dead brother. He descended the ladder with surprising agility considering the bulk of his armor. On the ground, he walked over to Huk’s head and picked it up. Examining the object, he snorted.

  “Quintel was banished years ago,” he said. “If you are him, then you’ve come home to your death.”

  “No,” Quintel said. The archers held their aim, ready for the signal. “Abanshi law allows retribution, even for crimes of treason. If I prove myself worthy by deed, I can return. You hold the head of Warlord Huk, separated by my sword. That is my absolution.”

  The gate captain turned Huk’s head around in his hands, seeking some indication of ownership. The he looked up at Quintel.