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  Passing over the white storm of winter, now in the southern quadrant of the world, Quintel decided to give up and return to his running body. As he inhaled, a face appeared from a mountainous gray thunderhead before him. He recognized its angular features. It was the leader of the Lanya. She looked upon him and her misty mouth opened.

  “Thus,” she said, and an explosion of knowledge struck him like a bolt. She knew what he sought and gave it to him with a tap from a spiritual hammer.

  In a torrent, he saw how to hide his soul from Ru's watchful gaze. The Lanya queen showed him how complex, mandala-like sequences of thought could fold his spirit into a controlled form that would be invisible upon the ethereal plane. She showed him the elaborate steps involved in controlling his volcanic spirit. The process was so adorned with detail he would not have found it by himself in ten lifetimes. Turns upon quarter turns, folds upon triple folds were required in the process. He realized that once he successfully navigated the labyrinth of thought, Sirian Ru would not be able to see him unless they stood face to face.

  Quintel had his answer from the Lanya.

  Ru’s attention fell upon him with the weight of an anvil. The god feared his contact with the Lanya and Quintel saw it. Sirian Ru's consciousness flitted about the clouds where the Lanya leader had materialized, seeking any errant strand of thought to expose her intent. Failing, the god whirled around to face Quintel, looking for something that would tell him what had transpired. But the god saw nothing. Quintel withdrew and refilled his body on the other side of the world.

  As he ran, Quintel analyzed the Lanya’s puzzle. Intricate and mysterious, the spell’s finesse hypnotized him as he studied it within his mind. He walked the pattern through his imagination, seeing how each turn and fold played a role in making him invisible upon the spiritual plane.

  On the final step of the process, he saw something that stopped him cold. He froze in mid stride and studied the climax of the Lanya’s path. There was a side effect to the incantation. A cost for the results he desired. When the last fold of his flaming spirit was tucked away, his human soul would be completely absorbed by the god fragment. His spirit would lose form and spread through the divine light like a cup of wine spilled into a crystalline lake. His human half would die.

  Was this a trap? Did the Lanya hand him the map to his own destruction? How had they known what he sought from them? Why would they help him after trying to capture him earlier? Did they want him dead?

  No. He sensed something else in the complex instructions. Something that closed a circle, patched a defect; something that would correct Yuul's error and meld him with the deity without seam.

  Now he had to answer a single question. Was that what he wanted? To lose himself entirely for the sake of controlling the god fragment? Too much had to be weighed. Quintel decided to wait before following the Lanya’s guidance. He would remain visible to Ru for a while longer.

  He found the mouth of the hidden tunnel before morning. It was near the main road. To a human eye, it was indistinguishable from the side of the mountain. But beyond its walls, a system of pulleys, levers, bearings and gears allowed the portal to open if a traveler knew the command. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and waited for the army to arrive.

  Morning burned away the darkness. Above him, in the cloudless blue sky, he felt a part of Sirian Ru's mind watching him.

  Chapter 34

  They were coming.

  From the parapet of his highest tower, Sirian Ru stared out at the horizon. He had nothing left. His army was crushed. The Agara had been eviscerated. He had fifty thousand Thogs in reserve, but what use were they? If he sent them out, they would be butchered like the others. Only a few of the new versions were finished and they were a strange lot.

  There was nothing standing between him and Yuul's monster.

  Ru had reached too far when he entered Aul's castle. The monster had seen him, seen his thoughts. The Abanshi queen was seducing the creature when Ru came upon them. Had the god but waited a few moments longer, they would have consummated their bond. The thing would have become entangled in earthly pursuits and been distracted from its goal. Instead, Ru had taken a chance and the thing had seen his dread. Once the Abanshi knew what he feared, why hesitate? The hybrid knew the time to attack was now. The god had handed the information over like a gift.

  He had underestimated the Abanshi’s insight. Ru still thought of the thing as a human. He would not make that mistake again.

  Ru had gotten a good look at the thing during its fight with Grom. He saw the little piece of Yuul that had broken off inside the human. How odd that such a small bit of a god could be so much trouble.

  But trouble it was. The armies of the West were on the move, a formidable line pouring from the mountains with the blazing half-god at their flank. The end, the end, the end. A final parry and he was done.

  The new soulstones he pulled from his body were a bizarre collection of trinkets. The changes required brought chance into the formula. No longer were the stones identical spheroids. Now they came shaped liked diamonds, cubes and polyhedrons with all number of facets. The creatures they spawned were diverse and unpredictable.

  To purchase time, Ru planned to scatter the redesigned Thogs in all directions, letting them kill everything in their path. They would distract the hybrid, whose loathing of death would send him running all over the map. That would give Ru the pause he needed to use his new knowledge.

  He had learned much in his failure. All the pieces were now visible and defined. Ru knew what Yuul had set loose upon the world, and he knew it could be hurt. The human may have killed the Agara, but not without cost. The Abanshi had traded a limb for the victory.

  Ru had also seen the human's other shortcomings. There were some things the little Abanshi simply could not do. When his defensive maneuver was finished, Ru would have time to concentrate on those faults.

  Sirian Ru stood upon the windswept ledge of his castle and raised his arms into the air. Below him, thousands of the obsolete Thogs mobilized without a word. This army was not meant to fight. He had something else planned for them.

  Each Thog marched to the factory, picked up an armload of the obsolete soulstones from the stockpiles, and headed west, burdened with as many of the black spheres as they could carry.

  Ru's castle sat at the end of a peninsula on the eastern edge of the world. The peninsula was thirty miles wide at its narrowest point. Narrow enough to bottleneck an advancing army.

  The god waved another hand and the hundreds of new Thogs he had grown also headed west. Their duty would be different from the others. They would break into small groups and spread out in different directions. On the trek, they would destroy every farmstead, village and town they came upon, even those of Ru's faithful Forestland. With no uniting leader, the Forestland’s ragged armies were of no use to him. They could, however, purchase the time he needed to raise a shield.

  The god attempted something that might be beyond his power. The mechanics existed, but the scale was outrageous. Sirian Ru knew his theory was sound, but he also knew things had not been working out as planned lately. If he had any other strategy, he would have stopped his marching armies and considered it. Unfortunately, circumstances had reduced his options to a single choice.

  Ru had to build a wall.

  Quintel had killed the Agara!

  Yuul thought the battle lost when it saw how little control the human had over his power, but the young Abanshi had triumphed. Even with the grief of a god restraining him, Quintel had found the capacity to kill. What a remarkably stubborn people the Abanshi were. Yuul, again, congratulated itself on choosing an Abanshi as a vessel. While the Vaerians and Lanya had each offered one of their own as a host, neither culture possessed the ingrained willpower and war lust of the Abanshi.

  Yuul squirmed through the weave of reality, staying hidden from Ru's sight by stretching itself into a thread and hiding behind the atoms in the air. As it stepped away from the ravage
d pinnacle of God's Finger, Yuul could see its adversary on the other side of the world, enacting another plan to save himself.

  Ru had launched a second army of Thogs, but only a few of them were armed. Instead of weapons, the majority carried armloads of the spherical black batteries that motivated them. Ru was not foolish enough to make the same mistake twice. The Lover of Life was acting upon some new strategy, but Yuul could not tell what it was.

  Ru had also manufactured a revised breed of Thog. There were not many of them, but Yuul found the new creatures fascinating. They bore little resemblance to the previous variety, coming in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Some had multiple limbs or even tentacles, several stood nearly twenty feet tall and many were covered in armor plating similar to that of the Agara. But the biggest change Yuul could see were the stones that animated them. No two were alike. Ru seemed to be plucking random shapes from the spiritual ether to add diversity to his creations.

  And such diversity had changed their brains. Ru apparently hoped to confuse Quintel by giving the beasts the ability to make decisions. These Thogs had a flicker of reason. As they moved across the terrain, Yuul saw that they were calculating in their movements. Nothing like the mindless versions who now toted the black spheres to wherever.

  With so much activity, Yuul knew the time to test its theory had arrived. It had learned a great deal about entering the physical realm from studying the Demonthane. Before, the young god had only considered a human being as a potential host. After seeing how Sirian Ru accommodated the Demonthane, Yuul now knew there was another way to become alive.

  Sneaking from molecule to molecule, Yuul made its way across the world and entered Sirian Ru's territory. Ru was preoccupied with the advancing armies on the far horizon and did not suspect Yuul presence. As long as Yuul was quiet and careful, it could move freely.

  The god came upon a group of the new Thogs who had broken away from the larger horde. One of the beasts in particular grabbed Yuul's attention. It was not as monstrous as its companions, having more or less a human shape. And it was lean, with long muscular legs built for running. Although smaller than the other creatures, Yuul saw it had an impressive mental capacity. Peering into its breast, the god saw why. The creature's power source looked like a cluster of oversized grapes welded together to form an improved soul battery. More importantly, the stone was large enough for Yuul to fit inside. At least with a bit of the folding and tucking he had learned from watching the Lanya.

  Yuul followed the group for several hours, learning as much as it could about the power stone and the mechanics of the creatures. These Thogs could speak and communicated with one another continuously. The Thog that Yuul came to think of as his was the leader of the group, ordering the others around and scolding them when they fell behind. When Yuul was sure it had seen enough, the god decided to make its move.

  During the attempt, there would be a moment when Yuul would become visible. The deity's timing was critical. If Ru saw it, everything would be lost.

  Yuul watched Ru at the top of his intricate castle. The elder god was occupied with his own tasks but glanced outward now and then to see if any new developments had arisen. Although Ru's persona permeated the entire world, the Living God could only focus on one thing at time. His senses were trapped within his body until he set them free. The part that kept the world alive was mindless and blind.

  Many false starts arose. Every time Yuul gathered courage to move, Ru would look up. At times it seemed Ru was playing with the younger god. The tension was grating. Impatience gnawed at Yuul's will. Excitement and fear grappled within the god's mind and it almost slipped from the safety of its hiding place. Just as Yuul decided to take a chance and plunge forward, another consciousness appeared.

  The mind of the Lanya ruler floated before Yuul, not fooled by the god's trickery.

  “Wait, young god!” the Lanya said with a thought, and then swooped into the sky. Yuul watched the witch's trajectory and saw Quintel's lumbering senses in the distance, hovering above the clouds of winter like a signal fire. The Lanya showed herself and spoke to Quintel. At that moment Sirian Ru's senses shot across the world to see what transpired between his two enemies.

  With Ru’s attention absorbed, Yuul jumped from its hiding place fully visible. The Thogs were resting in a copse of trees and the shimmering silver globe that appeared before them incited mixed reaction. Two of the Thogs bolted in fear, leaving their swords and shields behind. Another jumped to its feet in confusion, trying to figure out if the object meant them harm. Yuul's Thog drew its sword, ready to strike the thing down and figure out what it was later.

  Yuul did not give it the chance. With one fluid action, the young god charged its target, piercing the spiritual placenta that gave the power stone form. Yuul felt the infinity of its body fill the container. The Thog's weak, dark power drowned beneath the spirit of the god and disappeared. In between masters, the body fell to the ground and convulsed. Still not entirely within the stone, Yuul contorted its existence to fit the tight confines. After a few folds, the god was done.

  Yuul saw through eyes for the first time. Color and movement danced across its vision. Air filled its lungs and it could smell the grass and trees. Sound came to its ears from many different sources. The god felt the ground against its back. Without thinking about the action, Yuul held up its knobby hands and looked at them, opening and closing the fingers. The god sat up. Movement was easy. Yuul thought it would have to concentrate to get the body to animate, but it could move without thinking. Intent was enough. The god stood up and looked around.

  “I am,” it said in the Thog's growling voice.

  The god felt the weight of existence, but not like when it tried to enter Quintel. The Thog had no memories, no pain it carried, no hopes or fears to come crushing in from all directions. The artificial soul that had once inhabited the body was gone. There was only Yuul.

  Because of the folding and tucking, Ru would not be able to see it upon the spiritual realm. The Lover of Life would have to be in physical proximity to recognize Yuul.

  The remaining Thog stood several feet away, aware that something had happened to its leader. It pulled a battle ax from a sling across its back. Yuul knew the beast was going to attack. The god stooped to pick up the sword the body's previous owner had dropped. The bewildered Thog stepped forward with its ax raised. Before the creature could swing, Yuul thrust the blade into the Thog’s chest severing the nerve fiber surrounding its black heart. The god felt the sword scrape against the stone. The beast collapsed to the ground, a pile of empty flesh.

  Yuul felt nothing. No remorse, no grief, no guilt. Like Quintel, it could kill Ru's creations without regret. There was even a smack of satisfaction in the deed.

  The two Thogs who fled stomped through the forest without regard for stealth, returning to see if the silvery globe had departed. With sword in hand, Yuul went out to meet them.

  Chapter 35

  The wagons arrived first. Placed at the front of the column, they carried the new Vaerian weapons. To Quintel, the mysterious weapons didn't look very impressive; hollow bronze cylinders, twenty feet long, wrapped in heavy bands of iron. He couldn't even tell how they worked. Kegs of soil and jagged iron ingots rode with the cylinders, somehow a part of their operation.

  An Abanshi engineer, distinguished by the crest on his armor, hopped off the first wagon as it rolled to a stop. Over his shoulder, he carried a large metal bar that was obviously an oversized key. Offering Quintel a deep bow, the engineer walked over to the hidden tunnel entrance. He knocked away a portion of stone and inserted the key into a hidden slot with a twist. Grinding gears rumbled from within the mountain. In a rain of stone, a massive doorway parted the cliff face, revealing a carved granite avenue wide enough for two wagons to travel abreast.

  “Will you be leading us, my Lord?” the engineer asked Quintel.

  “No,” Quintel answered. “I will wait here for Queen Aul.” While a part of him did not wan
t to see her, he had to tell her what he had seen over the Forestlands.

  The column of wagons and armored men disappeared into the mouth of the mountain; the engineer lit torches along the stone road as they advanced. Thousands of Vaerian and Abanshi warriors walked past as he stood stolid and motionless. Many thought he did not appear human in his stillness. He saw their judgment within the light that glimmered from their souls.

  As the day drained away, he sensed Aul growing near. No longer at the rear of the column, she rode somewhere near the middle, giving her troops inspiration and encouragement up the line. Soon she was in his sight.

  He felt her heart jump when she saw him. Her feelings of desire were strong, affecting his own. He longed to hold her against his body.

  Her horse trotted up the edge of the road.

  “You waited,” she said, dismounting. “I had hoped you would.”

  He felt the warmth of his humanity rise as she approached. The god in him welcomed the rush.

  “You cause confusion within my heart, sister,” he said. “Your love overpowers my will.”

  She looked at him, memorizing his eyes and face; her feelings carved a crescent of blue from her pelvis to her throat.

  “Let me dispatch your confusion, brother,” she said and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Don't leave my side again. If you wish to lead the march, I will come with you.”

  Quintel had no desire to lead the march, but knew he must so he could divert the two armies. The emotions Aul kindled distracted him. He had to stay with the task. The Forestland must not be engaged and he was the only one who could prevent it. There would be a brief opportunity, and if he failed, the outcome would be tragic.