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  Quintel felt the god's attention fall upon him and every muscle tightened in his body.

  “He is a man of Abanshi blood?” The god asked with a thought.

  “Yes,” Siyer answered.

  “And his mind has been prepared to survive my entrance?”

  “Yes. He has mastered the game.”

  “And he does this of free will, without resistance or doubt?”

  With that, Siyer place his hand on Quintel's neck indicating that it was his turn to answer. Quintel raised his face from the grass and looked up at the god. The sphere whirled in the air without feature.

  “I come of my own free will,” Quintel answered.

  Peering into Quintel’s soul, the god was silent for a moment. “Then stand,” the globe commanded.

  Quintel stood and felt weakness in his legs. Siyer placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and then knelt again.

  The god was no more than an arm’s length away. Its surface was like a polished mirror, but returned no reflection. Quintel was surprised by Yuul's appearance. He had expected a being more human in aspect. Or some conglomeration of mythological beasts. At least an entity with a face.

  “I sense your mind and soul have been prepared for our joining, Abanshi,” came the god's words. “To explain the millions of turns and works of chance that brought you here today would be a poor expense of time. Know that this moment, above all others, stands alone in both our worlds. Even Sirian Ru's manipulations pale beside it.”

  Yuul paused and Quintel felt that he should say something.

  “I understand,” was all that came, but it was only partially true.

  “Then free yourself from fear and prepare for my entrance.” The sphere spun more rapidly. It was hypnotic. As Quintel watched, he noticed a bulge appear at the center of the globe. The bulge grew and moved outward. It unfolded from the sphere and become a long, finger-like protrusion which reached out towards him, moving through the air like a shimmering strand of mercury. The finger grew closer and Quintel felt fear like he never imagined. No force of will could beat down his urge to hurl himself over the edge of the tower and escape the god's touch. Yet somehow his feet remained planted.

  The probe inched forward and he could see the tip bubbling at the end as it neared him. His breath came in gasps and his heart hammered in his ears. All was instinct in his mind and he wanted to run.

  The probe entered his chest.

  He felt nothing.

  A pulse traveled from the god down the length of the shaft, which now rested somewhere near Quintel's heart. Several moments passed and still there was no physical sensation.

  But Quintel noticed something else.

  The world around him had taken on a misty quality. Everything tangible now appeared to be made of smoke, holding shape, but transparent, moving. Although he felt no different, the rest of the world had changed.

  The god's appendage moved deeper into his breast. At last, he felt its presence within him. The god was filling his mind like liquid. As if traveling through a familiar maze, Yuul flowed through the prescribed turns of thought carved by the game. A warmth spread throughout his body. There was no pain. Whatever fear remained vanished.

  As Yuul surged down the final turn, Quintel saw that the world was gone. In its place was a display of dancing light and shadow. Where the forest had stood, now swept a wind of tiny glowing pellets, billions in number, but somehow not beyond his count. Even God's Finger, the mighty tower on which his stood, was nothing but a whirl of dusty light beneath his feet.

  The sensation was liberating. He was seeing the true nature of existence.

  He stared into infinity, a place without time or substance. And he was not alone in this place. Through some perception he could not name, he felt another presence within the foreverness. It was the god.

  He looked closer and before him stood Yuul. There was no shape to the entity, but he could see it defined by consciousness; a collection of thought and self-awareness. Then he felt the god look upon him.

  Their identities met and Quintel saw Yuul for what it was.

  A child.

  Burning fear rose from Yuul. It was a fear greater than anything Quintel had ever felt within himself. The god struggled to pull away and the silver strand between them whipped back and forth like an anchor chain in a storm. Panicking, the god tried to separate itself from the human, but the probe was too deep, too embedded in the channels of the game. And Quintel was not willing to release his end.

  Yuul screamed.

  The silver cord linking them snapped, breaking in half. The god was flung backward into the portal, falling away to become a tiny dot in the distance. The disk-shaped portal closed.

  The remaining end of the severed strand recoiled into Quintel. The broken piece of god filled his mind and accommodated itself around his soul.

  Everything changed.

  He could neither see nor hear, but awareness boiled from his physical form like lava from an erupting volcano. His senses flowed from the confines of his body and spread over the top of God's Finger in all directions. They crawled down the walls of the great spike and touched the salt floor below, spreading like a stain across the earth. Following the edge of the world, his knowing moved in all directions. His vision rose like a mountainous wave. It engulfed the city of Argoth and he felt the lifeforce of every human being within its walls. His mind swept over many other cities and villages, but Quintel did not linger upon any of them, allowing his perceptions to continue their charge across the earth.

  Even the broken mountains of the Abanshi kingdom did not slow him down. There, he perceived his countrymen, milling about their daily lives, oblivious to all that had changed in the world.

  His mind spread to the ends of the broken earth and all who lived upon its surface were within him. He could feel them inside his heart, a blaze of thought and feeling. But the place that drew his attention was to the east, the place heavy with the presence of Sirian Ru.

  He found the god's castle perched on the eastern tip of the world at the end of a long peninsula of land surrounded by billowing clouds. The structure was as gnarled as an old tree and many times taller than God's Finger. As he flew to its spires, he saw Ru’s manufactured army of Thogs already marching west, an ocean of oily night. Everything moved too quickly for him to grasp, but the presence of Ru compelled his focus. His mind, his thoughts, his senses shot to the highest pinnacle of the structure and into the chamber of the god.

  There, sitting upon a throne of jade, was Sirian Ru. Not a hideous manifestation of evil, as he had expected, but a being of beauty and grace, a creature that was a celebration of Life. The god’s alabaster skin was adorned with organic jewels of azure, amber and violet. Three eyes made a triangle upon his elegant oval head, and none of them glared with malice. His face bore sharp angles and seemed chiseled from polished white marble. Two great blue wings spread from the deity’s back, covered in petals like a flower. Four arms hung from his flanks and his hands were those of a man. Within the god's beating heart, Quintel saw weariness.

  But the heart held something else, something that battled the weariness and drove the being onward. Desire. A wanting for something beyond reach, a lust measured in portions only a god could hold.

  Quintel let his senses hover, enchanted and stunned. Then the god realized he was there. The eyes roamed the chamber seeking him in physical form but found nothing. Sirian Ru rose from his throne with movement so animated it seemed several creatures had stirred at once.

  After a moment, the god realized Quintel was not present in flesh, but in thought alone.

  “Who... what are you?” The deity asked aloud with a voice that resonated through many dimensions.

  Quintel started to answer — to say he was a man — but found he could not. Then he began to feel pain. While his concentration was upon Sirian Ru, the remainder of his awareness had traveled to all edges of the world, spreading thin over the expanse. His strained perceptions dissolved. His focus on
the god became unmoored. He became cognizant of everything at once. He was breaking apart.

  Not sure how to control the disintegration, he tried to reel back his senses. With a great inhalation, he pulled at the many threads of his mind that spread across the world and his perceptions receded back towards his physical body. Over mountains and rivers, through forests, across plains, past cities, villages and farms, his awareness filled his flesh like water spiraling into a drain.

  Again he stood upon the pinnacle of God's Finger and forced the last splashes of his mind to subside. He looked around, whole and intact. The solid world was light and sparkles, held in shape by the clinging forces of existence. Everything of substance appeared translucent to his new eyes. Colored glass and spidery lace.

  “Great Yuul! Violent flames leap from your body. Speak so that I know all is well,” Siyer said voice trembling, his face still buried in the grass.

  Quintel turned and looked upon his friend. In a glance, he learned more than his mind's journey across the entire world had shown him. For Siyer, prone on the ground, his face hidden in awe, bore no resemblance to the creature of flesh he had known for so long. Here was a being of beautiful radiance. Spines of light bloomed from his form in colors no rainbow could capture. A silver crown of knowledge wreathed his head. Under the sheath of flesh, he saw blood surge through a web of arteries and Siyer’s heart beating within a cage of bone. A shifting nebula of wild light shimmered all around the man. He saw Siyer's thoughts form like threads of gold being woven on a loom.

  Now Quintel knew why the gods waged war. They were not battling over the dominion of substance. It was not territory that fueled their struggle.

  Their prize was Life itself.

  “It is not Yuul who dwells in this house, Siyer,” Quintel said.

  Siyer raised his face from the ground.

  “Quintel?”

  “Yes... at least more Quintel than god, I believe.” He looked at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. “In truth, I do not know what I am.”

  Siyer stood, not taking his eyes off him. “A radiance ebbs from you like fire trapped in a jar,” the Vaerian said. “Your soul burns white.”

  It was true. Quintel could feel it.

  “I should be overwhelmed by this transformation, yet it seems to me that my present condition has always been,” Quintel said.

  “What can your eyes see?”

  Quintel knew of no way to explain it.

  “Everything,” he answered. “I can observe any spot on earth from where I stand. And more beyond that. I have already witnessed many things the warring gods wished hidden. I have seen the face of Yuul and know the god to be a jealous child. I have seen the face of Ru and have judged that deity to be not evil, but covetous.” He then turned his burning gaze upon Siyer. “And I have seen the glorious light of human life and know why the gods wage war.”

  “Yuul is a jealous child?” Siyer had locked upon the statement.

  “Yes, a child. Yet still a god, older than the world.”

  “And Ru is not a spawn of evil?”

  “No, not evil. The creature loves life, but too much.”

  Silence, broken only by the wind moving through the trees, fell between them.

  “Do not mourn, Siyer,” Quintel said, seeing his friend’s soul. “The game is only beginning.”

  Siyer dropped his gaze to the ground. “I spent two lifetimes preparing for a moment which has now passed. And from it, I learn the god I serve is not who I believed. It is hard news.”

  To that, Quintel had no answer. He merely stared at Siyer, watching the light of the old man’s soul dim to deep blue.

  “Come,” Quintel said. “We must descend God's Finger and begin our work. A great army of Ru's monsters swells in the east, and there is much ground to be tilled in the land of humans. War is coming.”

  Quintel walked through the garden to the tower’s edge. Siyer followed.

  “It shall take us many hours to climb down,” Siyer said. “It is far more dangerous than ascending. I have done it before and the grips are tricky”

  “No. It will require little time. Climb on my back and I will carry you.”

  Although the suggestion sounded preposterous, Siyer did as he was told. When the old man was ready, Quintel began to descend the face of God's Finger. Ignoring the configurations of the glyphs, his fingers bit into the hard salt as if it were clay, making handholds to fit his needs and tearing chunks from the elaborate patterns decorating the tower. Within a few minutes, they stood upon the desert floor.

  “Climb higher upon my shoulders and I will bear you across the desert,” Quintel said. Siyer did so, but his reluctance was evident.

  “Now I am little more than a burden,” he said. “Cargo to be carried.”

  With Siyer upon his back, Quintel broke into a run. His strides were long and ate distance quicker than a galloping horse. Yet Siyer sat so steady upon his shoulders it felt as if he were flying through the air.

  Behind them, God's Finger became a tiny, white sliver cutting the sky. Then it was gone.

  Chapter 14

  Sirian Ru flew across his throne room, trying to reach the window before the intruder escaped his sight. Gliding over the marble floor, the god covered the distance in seconds, but was too late. As he looked over the convex expanse of his world, the mysterious entity was already receding across the landscape like a formless shadow, vanishing over the horizon. Ru considered chasing it, but he had not sent his mind outward in many years and the incident might be a trap set by Yuul.

  At the top of his twisted castle, miles above the surface of the earth, Ru felt fear. He left the window and returned to his throne. The weight of time, which had not burdened him for many centuries, crushed upon him like a falling wall. He realized he had waited too long. Fighting panic, he sat and tried to gain focus.

  All Ru had ever wanted was to be worshipped by the people he had saved, to be thanked and fed by the beings he loved so greatly. Now, just as he was on the verge of fulfilling his desire, something new had entered the struggle.

  What was it? His rival, Yuul? Another god? A man?

  All those faces had flashed through his mind when he saw the entity, but none seemed quite complete. He smelled the touch of Yuul upon the being, but it was not simply his rival incarnate, for another identity had emerged from the mist. An identity native to the realm of substance. A human.

  Yuul had somehow managed to enter the world through a living human being. How had it controlled the variables? How had it managed the myriad of factors involved in the process? How did it bear the pain? Many centuries ago, before he had created his own body, Ru had investigated such a strategy. One look at the risk and he had dismissed the plan outright. The agony of raw existence was too great. How had Yuul succeeded?

  Of course, this would be the moment. Just as his armies began their advance upon the Abanshi, just as the human kingdoms again looked to him for strength. Of course, now would be the time for Yuul to make its move.

  Ru calmed himself and remembered a plan. Long ago, he had considered the possibility of Yuul piercing the placenta of substance and had constructed a strategy to meet the occasion. Yet it was a grave and dangerous tack. And the results would be unpredictable.

  The god reviewed his stance. His army stood at a hundred thousand Thogs, and he had enough soulstones to build half that again. Many humans were also still loyal to him -- four kingdoms with faithful Huk at their lead. That was another eighty thousand swords.

  But still not enough to battle a god. A heavier weapon would be needed for such a task, one that could strike the trespasser down before it could employ any magical strategies against him. Ru had known this from the beginning and was prepared. Or so he hoped.

  The god thought longer. If he set such a force in motion, the defense could be more dangerous than the threat.

  But what choice did he have? If he wanted to keep the world to himself, if he wanted to rule all who lived upon it, despe
rate actions must be taken.

  Rising from his throne, the god opened his wings and floated across the castle to a room he had entered only once before. The door to the room bore a heavy lock crafted from magical science. Ru mumbled a string of syllables and the mechanism fell open. The seams of the door parted and a wisp of air a thousand years old escaped in a musty cloud.

  Ru drifted over the threshold like a butterfly on a breeze, his feet never touching the floor. The room had no adornment, its stark walls stared blankly inward. At the center of the room, sitting upon a granite pedestal, a black object caught the encroaching light but did not wink in response. The Greatstone perched, barely remembered, just where he had left it centuries ago.

  The god paused in appreciation of his craftsmanship. He had forgotten the stone's perfection, its simple lines, the depth of its hold. More complex than the soulstones he used to give life to the Thogs, the Greatstone had been the first to pass from his body, a prototype preceding the lesser design. It was much larger than its successors, and ovoid, not spherical like those which animated the Thogs. The stone’s true distinction shone in the breadth of its capacity. Although not reflected in its physical dimensions, its walls could contain the raging power of a Demonthane. Not yet knowing his strength, Ru had put everything he had into its conception. It was to be the building block of a new life form. But when the stone passed through him, he saw instantly that it was too powerful. A creature built around such a matrix would be a force beyond control. A rival for a god.

  Putting the stone away, he pursued more modest designs to animate his creations. Ru had learned much from the Greatstone and applied the knowledge toward building a lesser version, one that could be reproduced in vast numbers.

  With two of his hands, Ru picked up the stone from its cradle and held it close to his breast.

  “Sadly, it seems you will have use, my first born,” the god said to the black form. “Your emptiness will soon be filled. I wish only that it was not by so foul a creature. Yet events have forced my hand. I must face this new foe as I originally intended -- with might that will require but a single blow. If I do not act decisively, all could be lost.”