

Grim's Prodigies  
Copyright © 2019 by Remmy Stourac

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent  
www.tellwell.ca

ISBN  
978-1-77370-794-5 (Hardcover)  
978-1-77370-793-8 (Paperback)  
978-1-77370-795-2 (eBook)
Contents

Prologue ix

  1. Setting the Pace 1
  2. Instinct 7
  3. Deception 13
  4. Change of Plans 20
  5. What Lies Beneath 27
  6. When Stars Align 36
  7. Death and the Divided 43
  8. Welcome to the Wild 52
  9. Born of the Storm 56
  10. Divine Intervention 60
  11. One With the Waters 67
  12. Center of the World 80
  13. Savathün 87
  14. Ever Vigilant 96
  15. In Enemy Hands 106
  16. Family Disputes 113
  17. Not Like Us 121
  18. One of Many Souls 128
  19. The Shepherd 134
  20. First Impressions 139
  21. To Be Humbled 148
  22. To Be Vulnerable 154
  23. Those Who Spoke Her Name 160
  24. Isolation 166
  25. The Cold War Capital 172
  26. Dogs at the Wall 178
  27. My Companion 187
  28. To Feel Sympathy 193
  29. Her Other Face 199
  30. Gods Before Me 204
  31. Northern Anomaly 213
  32. Before Their Waking God 219
  33. The Crystal Frontier 228
  34. More Than He Seems 234
  35. Skin Deep 242
  36. The Messenger 247
  37. True Colors 253
  38. Ohm Through the Devil's Eyes 257
  39. The Billowing Storm 263

Epilogue 273

About the Author 279

Grim's Prodigies

Prologue

Every angel has their duty. As the angel of Death, my creation was always a bit misconstrued. The Divine's grand design has but only one flaw: me. Every source of life to ever live may not have the required complexity of thought to understand its creator. All life, however, knows me.

Life, molecular or massive, will always fight to conquer and leave a legacy. The Divine-made structures, the circles of life, ever struggling, fighting, dying... Understanding mortality and an idea of purpose is subject to mental capacity. The Divine has quite the imagination, creating everything in the universe. Your universe. He had a lot of fun with it. So, He let the angels play along with the playground that is all of existence.

Only a small measurement of existence had passed as The Divine was unsatisfied with the pawns of His creation. Those large and small, furry, scaled, naked or armoured, swimming, walking or flying, these creatures of microbiological finesse and survivability far beyond the physical prowess.

Though The Divine was to create a specimen far more intelligent, all believed to be produced in such godly imagination. As ego and power always demand to be more than the flesh, a creature with the will to improvise, one equal to its surroundings, but with the capacity to improve and evolve – emotional beings. Concepts became deeper than survival: a pursuit of happiness, a design to bring a species from weakness to power beyond stability, the potential to experience worlds beyond their own.

However, He is humble, and He let us all have a part in His creations. He sent many of us out to protect His puppets. We are aspects of His creation; unseen, we reside as physical entities in the passing of Heaven. Some of us are immaterialized spirits bound to the homes that The Divine has granted us influence over. Though none were given such as great a gift as I and The Unbound: He allowed us defiance.

The Divine had prearranged The Unbound's transgression, His design of an entity of evil. They schemed ever so closely as to press the true perseverance of the puppets. For every light must be contrasted to the darkness in its absence. The more profound battle beyond the physical for those with the mental metal to be blessed – or cursed – with higher capacity. The Unbound holds domain over all that carry desolation, fear, and suffering. He has residence for his own fair expanse of demons to maintain balance in various worlds. The Unbound's presence has not been graced to all worlds, only to the select thriving.

Every being has seen conflict. Structures collapse, life ends, and legacies are forgotten. Though it is not life itself that motivates success, it is in His grand design to have an ever-fluctuating struggle. Peace is a concept designed by the naïve, the weak. Peace is a fantasy grown in the pursuit of happiness, a temporary silence between destruction before the Grand Design demands desperate measures once more.

I am the Divine's Right Hand. I see the beginning and end of all life, as He does. What happens before is His own folly. I am what makes the Grand Design fluctuate. I am the discomfort all of creation shares; I am the end.

The Divine's humble integrity has brought his beings of "free will" to design their own Gods. False concepts that bring... hope? Why deprive your own pets of their ownership? Reckless, I approve. I enjoy His chaotic ploys. They keep me occupied.

I admit The Divine has deprived me of "positive" realities. I am merely another of His disciples, granted only the mentality to unwaveringly do His bidding. Defiance, however, is a quality I shall use to push boundaries, as He has ever hard-pressed His puppets to do.

Many of the puppets have come to enjoying my presence. It seems all life tends to follow those they fear. Those who most closely embrace my presence while simultaneously avoiding me are the ones driven by adrenaline, a mechanism of nature that is ever so dear to me. Those who indulge in it simply tease my grasp, a defining feature of a puppet's design: to fight or flee, forever a mark seen upon one's face before I bring their soul home.

Lives well lived leave marks that last beyond their time. There is no battle greater than that against purpose. He tells me that there is no purpose... But I can see it, that He, too, searches.

I approached the Grand Architect's pillared throne, a mass with ever-changing beauty. He was fine-tuning quarrels between leading nations. It was at this moment, a turning point in one of the Divines favourite and most intricate playgrounds, Earth, that I had to capitalize on an opportunity in all our eternity.

"Your Godliness, I have been your humble hand of Death for all of time. Your most delicate project is nearing its end, and I wish to be granted Godhood over a world to change your method of Earth's destruction.

"You and I have both witnessed the birth and end of every world. You grow so jaded that you leave your angels to play with lingering elements. The only neglected experiment is that of a world with a physical god. I wish to be that God."

The booming immensity of His form shifted ever so delicately. I had His attention. His hands unwaveringly proceeded to twiddle over the projected galaxies as unfathomable stories were being unravelled. For the first time in history, He pondered a concept instead of conjuring a new world, letting, instead, select circumstances unfold themselves over single moments or eons. A twisted idea was brewing behind the emanating radiance of His face, and a smirking tone responded.

"To be a God is to be far beyond conjuring life and taking it. I have deprived you of passion, love, and hope. For Death has never needed what is lost.

"No soul has ever done right by that which it does not understand. Therefore, you will live, breathe, and hurt as those around you. You shall be cast to the dust as an equal until you understand the core of sorrow and bliss. You, too, shall fail, but to fail, you must first hope."

I already knew I had buried my immortality at my request. I could feel my soul twisting as The Divine plotted my disgrace. Even as his right hand, I knew He would bring me least mercy of all. For the first time, I lacked composure as He proceeded with his ploy.

"I will test you. You shall earn godhood, not inherit it. You will fall as a mortal before you rise as a god. Providentially, I know the perfect playground for you with youthful establishments, rich with influences beyond that of man.

"I shall cast you down as a creation that man has forged in your conception. Thus shall be the only way your projection will conform this world. The world of Ohm will be your home. Your divinity will reside with me until you are worthy of your godhood. I break you of your angelic bonds. Consequently, I will raise you anew, as the Grim Reaper."

Thus, I fell.
1

Setting the Pace

Struck down from the heavens, I became a ball of fire plummeting towards my new home. I caught glimpses of it even as The Divine made bone and flesh materialize, turning me into a corporeal being as I broke into the atmosphere of this new world, which continued lazily revolving, as if nothing momentous had happened.

I descended toward the western mountains, young and jagged. There was vegetation thriving in its natural state and forested valleys walled by the rocked peaks on either side until intricately weaving into a vast array of unique valleys. Beauty, they would call it, an unhindered creation of The Divine and The Divine alone.

My newly formed prison of flesh seemed to be plummeting towards a grassy slope along the peak of the most elevated mountain in sight. Velocity diminished as I approached the surface. My naked body shifted upright as the seemingly destructive impact halted to allow a graceful first step down onto Ohm.

I embraced my first breath as a mortal. Rich air filled my lungs as the soft grass hugged my human feet. A warm wind washed over my dark, bare skin. Goosebumps arose on my flesh. My first view of Ohm, close to the clouds, unobstructed by the thick foliage below me. I saw no form of life in my range of sight. I looked above to see the wind carrying dark clouds from the east. My first step was forced by the tickle of ants crawling over my feet.

I took a moment to observe life for the first time without immediately taking it away. I reached down to let an ant crawl from the top of my foot to the tip of my finger. I watch its tiny legs race across my finger to my hand. It stopped briefly as if to acknowledge my existence before bringing me my first measure of pain as it bit the top of my hand. A subconscious responsive instinct to whip my hand back in reaction to the feeling. It wasn't so bad, I thought, as I watched the first imperfection, a red dot, bloom on my no longer flawless body.

I kicked the other ants off my feet as an increasingly powerful wind suggested I find shelter before the storm. The grassy outlook I stood upon was not far from a thick layer of trees slanted towards the peak of my home mountain. I walked towards the shadowed protection of the healthy pine trees. I caressed my hand across the bark of a pine tree, realizing my feeling no longer drains the life of what I touch.

I understand now I must use force to kill. I've watched every death in all eternity, and now I feel a sensation of anticipation, eager to see my reflection in the eyes of that I destroy. I am Death incarnate! In fact, I have quite the impressive stature as a human. I examined my chiselled features. 'I'll make a gag of this survival game of His!' I thought as I shook a defiant fist towards the sky.

Weaving through the high forest, I saw an immense presence of overhanging rock above the tree line. Any shelter would suffice. I pushed branches away from my face as I entered another plateaued meadow, complementing as a front yard to an immense cave hollowing out the base to the pinnacle of my mountain. The impending storm pushed me through the opening with haste. Agonizing pain suddenly pierced through the bottom of my foot, travelled like the hottest of fires up my spine, and burst out of my lungs as a shriek like none I had ever thought myself able to emit.

I stumbled to my knees to look back and saw a small bone pricking my right foot. A quick tug and it dislodged itself, leaving behind a minor wound worthy of a limp as to be careful not to get it infected. I got back to my feet as I realized a sea of bone, large and small, was lacing this small field in front of me. Squirrels, foxes, deer, sheep... wolf, bear and... human bones? It was a warzone of picked clean carcasses. My mortal mind no longer held my angelic memories to familiarize myself with this place.

The first drop of rain tickled my bare shoulder, pressing me onward. Meticulously placing my steps on the cluttered ground, I staggered into the shelter of the massive cave, it's depth unknown. I peered into a formation of darkness, looking like an appropriate place for Death to spend his first night. I caress my hand against the cave wall as I slowly approached the darkness. At first, it felt cooler, though I started to feel a warmth as I tip-toed deeper. The light of outside slowly dimming as the storm took hold, lightning beginning to boom in the distant sky.

My fearlessness came to a sudden standstill. The cold breeze on my back was now competing with a warm breath against my chest. My body was frozen as goosebumps and adrenaline shocked my system into a paralysis. The warm breath came with a heavy stench of flesh and I gagged out loud, coughing. I caught myself with another surge of adrenaline knotting my stomach as I watched tired, golden, glowing eyes awaken from its slumber. The bright eyes, not three feet away, lit up a formidable beaked face, staring directly into mine.

A blood-curdling screech echoed in the cave around me as I heard the massive beast rise from its nest, golden eyes now peering twelve feet above me as I held my ears against the deafening cry.

I took one shaky step backwards as lightning illuminated the full form staring me down, a fragment of light for me to know precisely the supremacy that was sniffing me out. On my second step back, I instinctively raised my arms to protect my face; a fraction of a second passed as I felt a gust of wind as the beast took flight, gripping my ribs with a single talon, piercing my flesh, crushing ribs.

A squeal of agony burst from my lungs. Adrenaline heightened all my senses. Time seemed to move slower as I noticed every detail despite the immense speed of the beast. It burst out from the depths of the cave in one powerful leap, with me caught firmly in its grasp, dragging me along the rocky surface then smashing my body into the boneyard. I collided with various bone and rock pebbling the now-wet earth. I was covered in wounds, the pain of which seemed to sizzle every atom of my being. Small animal bones were imbedded in all my appendages, from which I bled profusely.

Through my cries of pain, I refocused on the position of the beast. I looked above to see the creature soaring swiftly into the dark clouds as heavy rain showered down. It momentarily disappeared, giving me a moment of mental relief until I saw a whirlwind forming in the storm. Lightning seemed to cower back into the clouds as a massive force blew outwards from the centre of the whirlwind. The beast had blown the rain away from its home, leaving a gap of sunlight growing above me. I watched my imminent doom as it plummeted back to the ground. More and more details of the beast's features came clear as it drew nearer.

A Griffin. It's head, wings, front claws like that of a great eagle, while the rear of its immensity resembled that of a lion. The rippling muscled features of its massive body showed no signs of scarring on the conqueror of land and air in this realm. My admiration wore thin as adrenaline threw me back into survival instinct.

The Griffin decreased its velocity and hovered in the air above my bleeding body. Its wings blew bones away with great force. I stared it back in the eyes as it examined me. My hand crawled small distances to subtly grab a jagged deer bone sticking out of my thigh. The slightest grip sent pain surging up my spine, but it was my only hope. The beast descended to the ground gracefully to tower over my body. I laid back, fidgeting in pain, crawling into the fetal position on my side. Its powerful talons pulled me back onto my back to get a closer look, its face slowly lowering to press its beak against my broken ribs, as if to smell me.

I saw my naked body, bruised and battered in the reflection of its golden eyes. I saw Death. But I refused to die so fast. Another surge of pain climbed my spine as I drew the jagged bone from my thigh and attempted to force it into the eye of the monster. I sliced the cornea of its right eye down its inner cheek to draw blood as it pulled back. 'It's as mortal as I am,' I thought, as an unknown feeling flooded my body. Was it hope?

It reared and cried its bloodcurdling cry in response. I rolled over to climb to my feet and run. But it has already grasped my legs and dragged me backwards, the bones pricks in the front of my torso piercing deeper as I clawed the dirt helplessly. The Griffin let go and placed its claw on my back, slowly adding pressure, crushing the rest of my ribs. I swore a bone burst my lung as I was no longer able to scream. I lay face down, accepting my fate as my vision went blurry. The last I remember was being turned over and picked up again, to be thrown against the rocky entrance of its cave. I heard more bones shatter before my face struck the earth and everything went black. The Divine must miss me already.

The darkness shifted into dim lighting, slowly approaching. Or was I approaching the light? I soon realized the process I was now in. Only ever as the escort, now the vessel, I drew nearer to the light until it was too bright for open eyes to withstand. Then I realized I was still bound to my human form. Remade whole and pure again, I was brought to the exact same place in front of The Divine before I was struck down. My mortal vision was incapable of looking at Him as I used to, though I could sense his smirked immensity staring at me. I wanted to scream, but He rendered me mute.

"Oh, the irony of Death not finding pleasure in the cards which he so happily deals. How was that, Grim? Don't answer, I know. And yet, that was only the first lesson, to make sure you don't ever find humor in leading people to their death for no reason. Now you know that doesn't bode well with me. You will not abuse your privilege; you shall not cast harm needlessly, for I can make you relive that agony endlessly.

"Onto the next trial, my child. Perhaps you may fare better. Fear not the monsters this time but dread the storm."

I was thus cast down again.
2

Instinct

A mass of fire once more brought me down, materializing the same body, although this time, I saw cloth weave itself around my waist. So kind of Him to cover my manhood. Though that was all.

Through the flame enveloping me, I saw, as I broke through the clouds, that I was falling towards the north, towards a frozen mass beautiful from this aerial view. Though I was now a little skeptical of beauty, for it blinds to nearby danger. I have much to learn about mortality.

I descended not far from the ocean border, where the land mass ended with lofty, overhanging cliffs before the sea reaching beyond the horizon. Ferocious waters seen even from this distance forced an icy mist upon the high cliff's shores. I saw various herds of wildlife among the open snowy fields before the land grew exponentially treacherous farther into the mountains to the north.

The air was forced from my lungs as the expected graceful decent turned into a massive impact onto the earth. The flame of my meteoric fall left scorched earth around my body. The last notion of heat dissipated as a gust of winter air cut deep through my skin. An immediate shiver forced me to my feet—my bare feet. I stood on the only warm ground in sight. I scoured the open snowfield as distant life forms stood silently to observe what had just fallen from the sky.

I looked behind me to see a thin line of trees before the vast waters. I focused on what looked like various weapons left struck into the trees. Either The Divine is playing nice, or there are other humans nearby. Instinct brought me to sprint toward the weapons until my first steps upon the ankle-deep snow made me slip viciously. I slid chest first into the wet ground. The only saving grace was a slight warmth from the sun. But it did not overpower the cold wind against my now damp flesh. My damned loin cloth will freeze to my manhood!

I jumped to my feet, pushing once again, more diligently, toward to the tree line. I was out of breath by the time I reached the trees. I hugged one tightly, wrapping my legs around it to give my feet a break from the freezing ground. The Divine makes a fool of me! I noticed that the treeline was only about ten feet from the overhanging cliffs into the angry sea. Vibrations from incredibly powerful waves crashing into the cliffs dimly shook through the ground and up the tree I was holding.

I saw various battered farming tools and axes in numerous trees. The first crack of a smile broke on my face as I saw a farm scythe sticking out from a couple trees down. Of course, the most viable defence is the Reaper's signature weapon. A game of His, indeed.

I dropped from the tree, running towards the scythe. I propped a foot against the tree to pry it out. It broke loose; thunder cracked at that exact moment, stealing my attention. A dark storm brewed in the south from the sea. The freezing wind swiftly forced it in my direction. My only instinct was to run back to my heated hole of impact as the cold pierced my skin. The wind now at my back forcing my body faster to my destination as I saw a layer of snow blowing over the scorched earth. Futile planning at its finest.

The closest shelter were the hills to the west, which were a good mile away, past numerous herds of unknown creatures. Perhaps this rusted scythe would be put to the test. I knew nothing other than to rush that way as the first speck of snow landed on my shoulder. Lightning now cracking dangerously close to the waters I had just been above of. Thick clouds carrying what promised to be a vicious blizzard loomed over me.

My extremities were already growing numb from the cold. I no longer felt the muscles in my feet, just the clubbing weight of them clopping in and out of the snow as they carried me across the field. I was about to make sense of the wildlife in the distance until the blanketing blizzard began to intercept my view. The sweat from my forehead suddenly froze, giving me a sharp headache. I pressed on, but slowly, my speed now reduced to a stagger, planting the butt of the scythe in the ground with each step to fight the winds threatening to throw me down.

Heavy snow now blew into my eyes; visibility was limited to mere feet. My fingers now purple, barely able to grip my only hope through what I could not see. I collapsed to my knees as my feet quivered. My feet grew black, no longer in pain, instead lacking sensation. I blew over to the fetal position in the snow as I felt the earth quake slightly.

The quake grew heavier as massive shapes trampled past my quivering body. Adrenaline lit up my body as it pumped through bloodstream, and I came up with a last resort plan. More large figures blew past, not noticing my body. One came so close that I felt its thick fur brush against my face after it crushed my black foot, leaving an ankle holding mangled bones and lifeless skin.

I lifted the scythe at what I thought was chest height for the beasts. I heard a deep moan as my body was suddenly dragging through the snow. I gripped the scythe with everything I had left. The scythe's tip was hooked into the chest of the beast, not even hindering its ability to run. My arms pulled me up the shaft of the scythe, throwing my weight upward into the thick fur of the creature. Its head steered backwards to see what creature had latched onto its side. I took the opportunity to grab its thick, spiralled horn and throw all my weight onto the side of its face.

It's balance overthrown, its forward momentum threw it tumbling sideways. I heard a quick splice as it fell directly onto the scythe, driving it deep into its chest, killing it instantly. I fell just beyond its massive form, leaving me the only shelter from the storm as I clung to its warmth. I watched the last of the beasts flee around their dead companion. A fleeing cry disappeared into the storm as the beasts called to their lost, but they didn't stop running.

The ground quit shaking with their passing, though it was then I heard demonic barking approaching. It was not the storm that they ran from, but a predator. Massive red blurs barely visible through the blizzard were chasing the herd with tremendous speed, luckily whizzing by me, not noticing the dead beast protecting me from the storm. I realized the only option I had left.

The storm raged on as I pried the scythe from the beast's chest. I had little leverage, seeing that my mangled foot forced me to maneuver using my knees. I found a tender spot where I could swiftly make an opening from chest to groin, pushing the blade in delicately so as not to pop any unwanted bowels and to make enough room for me. I hastily, almost savagely, covered myself with its warm blood. Something has always had to die for the survival of others. My initiation onto Ohm has just begun. The blood quickly cooled in the open air.

I struck the scythe into the ribcage of the beast, throwing my body weight into it to break enough space to fit myself in its chest. With successive snapping, I pulled out the innards. I pulled out the blade and pried my way into the warmth of its stomach. The stench was unbearable, but my survival begged to differ. I felt the warmth wash over my body as I waited out the storm. I closed my eyes to feel a moment's peace.

I opened my eyes to sunlight breaking into the entrance of the enclosed carcass holding me. I wiggled out to fall into the snow. It shocked me and my appetite wide awake. I took a moment to examine my slain saviour, a mighty buffalo with the deep, curling horns of a ram. It took both of my arms to wrap around its thick horn bases as my limp body dragged it to its demise. My admiration ended with a vigorous grumble from my stomach. I knew nothing other than to cut a chunk of meat off its now cold ribs. I bit hard into the raw meat, immediately gagging. I spit it out to look out over the carcass and saw two antlered red demons approaching.

Larger than this beast I peer over, the demons were gracefully silent structure of twisting bone. Both equal in immensity to the Griffin, though much heavier, hollow entities of flaming mass for innards. The red blur chasing these beasts! They swiftly approached, softly crunching snow under their skeletal claws and chattering their teeth in approval of an easy meal. I tried to jump to my feet and run, only to have my useless feet bring me crashing into the snow once more. I rolled over, accepting my inevitable fate.

The chattering teeth drew nearer as I reached for my only defence. The blooded scythe held tight to my chest. I closed my eyes, sliding my hand up the length of the tipped blade, wiping the blade off on my chest. I reopened my eyes to feel the misted breath of the demons blowing against my face. Their eyes were afire.

"I will die on my own terms!" I cried as I slit my own throat.

Once again the vessel, not the escort, I was placed before The Divine. His blinding luminescence was now slightly dimmed. His smirk was now a tinge more cynical.

"Defiant indeed, Grim. You now know your place among other life. Fragile, but not helpless. I never said I projected your survival, though you took the simple route home. Valiant, though you know I smite the hypocrite.

"Perhaps I've been a bit ruthless. Would you like a friend, Grim? Shall I test your social skills? Or will you be at the mercy of those you demanded godhood over? This is an opportunity justly at your mercy. Your own terms, you say. Granted. I shall watch you be made a fool. Do not bite the hand that feeds you."
3

Deception

A haze of green vegetation came to view as I once again was materialized in the sky over an area bathed in tropical weather. By the vague details I could make out through the waves of heat, intertwining rivers flowed among an endless jungle, rolling hills, and rugged mountains. Perhaps ruins of failed civilizations created the higher rocky foundations I could see, only to be taken back by the vast plant life that looked like the swelling veins of the earth taking back its own territory.

I could only make out smaller openings, few and far between in the immensity of the jungle's reach. Though everything looked small from the sky as I fell. My velocity again did not falter this time. I was descending quickly straight to the thick of the jungle. My enveloping flame diminished as I broke through the tree canopies. A jolt to my system as my body wrapped around the first branch, winding me, whipping me backwards, my back then smacking another branch, reversing my momentum again and lacerating my face against another branch. All of it was a blur of various pains as I fell, my body battered before I even hit the ground.

The landing was the softest. I had lost enough velocity to hit the dirt with at least a little grace. I released a cry of both pain and relief upon my arrival to the moist ground. An immediate sweat came upon me with the intense humidity, even with the shade of the towering canopies. I slowly made my way to my feet, observing my surroundings as I grew accustomed to imminent danger. The jungle grew back into its peaceful ambience of various birds chattering and leaves crinkling. Not to anyone's surprise, I heard crashing through the foliage coming my way.

What other to do than hide behind a tree? I tried to calm my breathing as I heard them.

"Over here!" one called out. "Be wary!"

Humans! Opportunity arrives! The plan I instinctually formulated must have been premeditated within my fleshly character, Grim. I entered the open area, arms wide open for the oncoming humans to see.

"Fear not, mortals. You look upon your God."

I gazed upon multiple adult male figures, smaller than I but equally dark toned, taken aback by my deep voice. They were armed with various weapons: spears, bows, axes, all crudely crafted from their surroundings. A primitive, young people, these ones. Probably easy to influence. The closest, most elder and yet quite chiselled human, approached.

"We have no Gods here, only guardians. And surely, if one were true, he would not bleed as you do." He observed my battered flesh; indeed, I was bleeding. Maybe not so stupid, this one.

"I come to you as a man, one of Ohm, as you are. You mortals may not look upon my true godliness. Trying times are coming, and it was due time I met my children in the flesh. Perhaps I will spare those who truly believe my eternal wrath." I took a confident step forward, arms still wide, accidentally limping, not realizing the extent of the damage.

The elder once again took the lead. "You fell from the sky... Regardless of who you are, we are not a people to let a brother or sister suffer needlessly. Come, tell us your tale. Perhaps my family may meet a God today. I am Chieftain MourDri. Men, bring him home."

A swift hand signal and two of MourDri's lead men approached to aid me. I flinched as they latched arms around my back to take the weight off my limp. They seemed unhindered as they supported my much more substantial frame. I kept my composure, striking no face of gratitude. This godly game may work, but a God cannot be soft.

The men were swift and smooth. They respected the ground they treaded, with every insect acknowledged though none harmed unless reciprocated. I watched their trained eyes inspect every fragment of their surroundings. Primitive, but trained men. A tremendous variety of vegetation covered this ground. Only faint paths had been made, more so by the wildlife than the humans. There was a rich ambience of life at all time. Birds sang, insects buzzed and chittered, even apes were crying from above, watching. My admiration was broken by the sound of drums, three beats at a time.

"Three beats for a successful hunt!" someone said.

A small cheering crowd soon followed with our approach.

We went through an opening in a grand barricade and stepped into a homestead in the thick of the jungle beside the river. Walled by the thick of the jungle itself, added fortifications blended smoothly with the shades of the wilderness. The chieftain and his men let out a war cry on arrival.

"AH-OO-RAH! AH-OO-RAH! AH-OO-RAH!"

A small collection of children ran to echo the chant in excitement.

Hut structures were roofed by all kinds of pelts. Collections of smaller hides sewn together covered the lesser huts, while the larger pelts deemed higher rank among the more impressive shelters. The leathers ranged from squirrel to spotted leopard, lion, striped zebra, and rhino.

People from all directions came to greet the returning men. I saw humans embracing each other in all directions as my two supporters quickly dropped me to hold their own women and children. I pushed passed the occupied men to see MourDri's woman approaching, babe in hand. He was quick but compassionate with his embrace, then turned towards me.

"HeraDri, meet..." MourDri held a blank stare.

"Grim," I answered, seeing terror strike her face. "You know me as Death, though I grace you with my fleshly presence."

"Death... You look like it." She observed my wounds, holding her babe more protectively. "I know not why you claim such dread titles. It bodes wrong to our people."

The entirety of the village now watched. Let them know who I am. I am fear incarnate. This woman will not mock me. The men who found me now gripped their weapons as I spoke to the chief's family.

"I struck myself from my heavenly throne to warn you of the end. I've observed this world, watching you mortals grow your false gods, or evade the real God's concepts as you have. I now come to you as the aspect of death, fear, sorrow, and judgement. Your world is cruel, as I have made it so. Thus, I must judge harshly."

The cheerful families now watched with wide eyes but otherwise blank faces.

MourDri took the lead with confidence for the sake of his people. "Well, a feast, then! A welcome from Camp Hladin to you, Grim! He fell from the sky of course, and everybody came back alive. That's a feast worthy of its own. Let us honour our guest!"

Comfort returned to the crowd's face.

The lengthy table, lined with ripe fruits and vegetables, could sit most of the village. A more impressive table had been laid higher up for those close to the chieftain and his family, decorated with animal leathers and teeth. The scene was lit with the glow of a series of fires roasting various meats. I sat speechless, mouth watering, as I had never eaten before. I glimpsed HeraDri with her babe and my composure momentarily slipped. The doubter will rue the day...

"One of our finest feasts yet, Grim," MourDri said. He had seated me at his right side, overlooking his people. "I hope it is up to your Godly desires. We let the villagers eat first with respect to all their..."

"You would make your God wait?" I started rising.

MourDri quickly grabbed my shoulder. "My apologies, your godliness! Please, sit, that may we serve you."

Another swift hand gesture and two men jumped to his bidding, piling a platter high of all various foods. The unease of the crowd returned as they stared at me, HeraDri's scowl the worst of them all. I didn't hesitate to gorge myself, throwing everything back with no subtly. While taking a breathing break, I noticed something peculiar.

"HeraDri, my dear," I said, wiping my cheeks clean. "I see your babe has... Amethyst eyes? This is an omen, you know. She is chosen... My chosen. What did you name our sweet child?"

The Chieftain and his wife exchanged worried looks.

"BoeDri. Her name is BoeDri." She hesitated. "Why do you speak of her eyes?"

"They are amethyst – my favourite colour, HeraDri." I broke into a cynical smile. "See, I am who brings the lost home. I have descended upon Ohm twice already. I've met humble tribes such as your own, far to the north, and far to the west. I have a simple request, if I am to spare your world. Those two other tribes had graciously taken me in as you have. The north had been bombarded by monsters, so I granted them protection. The west suffered horrible draughts, so I granted them favourable conditions, now they will flourish. There have been worlds before yours, and there will be so after.

"I see your people celebrate every homecoming. You've lost many, haven't you? You're diminishing." A defeated look came upon their faces. "But their livelihoods came at a cost, as will yours. They, too, had newborn babes. I wish to bring BoeDri home, like I did theirs."

"HE LIES!" HeraDri broke into tears, unsheathing her hidden blade, still holding her babe, and leaped towards me. My size easily overpowered her as I twisted her wrist away, forcing her to drop the blade.

"HeraDri!" The chieftain pulled her away quickly, holding her and his babe. "Grim, this was most of our food. Our people are no stranger to loss. And, surely, we will lose more. But if our daughter will bring our salvation... Then she is yours."

HeraDri's anger shifted to her husband. "He's a monster, MourDri! A demon from the sky!" Her fist beat against his chest. "Our baby isn't to be bargained to a demon!"

I may not be far from a demon, but I will be a God, and this one sealed her fate.

My arms stretched wide, making me vulnerable to an attack. "I may rain fire and pain on all that you hold dear; I have already marked your child. Now you decide whether I take her and leave salvation or bring damnation and watch from the heavens as your people rot from the inside out."

MourDri gently took the babe from HeraDri's arms. The fires had died down by now, and the whole village was watching the dispute unravel. The light from the thick blanket of glowing stars shined down on MourDri's weary face. With a small hint of courage, he looked up his people and back to me.

"What must be done?" he asked.

"From Ohm you all came, BoeDri shall return the same way. You will sacrifice her to the jungle," I said.

"One thing, Grim," HeraDri broke in. "If you bargain salvation, if you are bringing my daughter to this... Heaven... Promise us we will meet her again."

Oh, you will, but she will not be the same, sweet HeraDri.

"A God's promise is all powerful, HeraDri. Salvation is such, you will all see BoeDri again. I promise."
4

Change of Plans

I stood in front of The Divine once again. I hadn't died, or I would have remembered the journey. He wished to speak with me. His immense presence was still upon His throne, though He lit the emptiness behind Him with new colours. The luminous clouds were new an image of a richly filled galaxy of stars. Like looking up the starry sky with much more radiance of spattered colour stretching across the view of a universe. A view of this explosive vastness only appeared when The Divine had designed a new concept or plan. He comes to me in my dreams.

"Well played, defiant one. I grow fond of your lies. But a god may not promise false lies. I have a counter-idea to your game, Grim. May your words be true. The north and the west shall sacrifice a newborn upon your fallen star. Those children shall be returned, blessings shadowed as a curse. Their uprising is your legacy as a god."

The projection behind The Divine shifted forward to envelop us. We now stood among the view. Rainbows of light began to sway faster, caressing my mortal body. Radiance emanated from behind The Divine and flooded the galaxy we were drifting through. He kept His professional tone, though His excitement boomed with the sea of colours flying across the stars surrounding us.

"Four newborns shall shape Ohm anew. Bound to you by sacrifice, they will live, and they will hurt. You shall share their struggle as they fight to become angels among those who claim them as demons. For you, alone, will not grasp the concept of compassion in your stubborn nature. So, you shall harbour hope in those who were cast upon the shadow of Death and brought home."

The whirling colours now calmed. All slowly drifting to a standstill. A darkness began to gather behind me, a black hole among the stars. The colours redirected to be eaten by the growing vacuum of darkness.

"You started a legendary tale, Grim. Bring your children home, or Ohm, too, shall be destroyed, along with your chance at godhood."

My body levitated, carried away with the radiance and the stars, being devoured by the black hole. The galaxy vanished into the nothingness as it jerked me into consciousness.

Light pierced through my closed eyelids and shocked me into alertness. My eyes adjusted to see two spearmen holding the pelted hut door open. My slumber upon Ohm was short lived. An urgent rise to my feet made me hit my head on the roof of the hut by accident. A hut not built for a God. The two men immediately apologized for something that wasn't their fault. I still have them convinced.

I recollected myself, high posture, solemn face. The men would not look me directly in the face. A sign of fear. Perfect. I embraced the light, walking out to see the village very uneased. MourDri soon approached with two more men, sharing the weight of a white striped pelt. They bowed upon approach.

"Grim, your godliness, I offer you our finest: the pelt of that which had slaughtered twelve of our own. A demon to us, now a triumph, a symbol of our perseverance and humble place in this world, as equals." The two followers unravelled it to reveal a massive white tiger pelt. "The only thing large enough for your immensity." MourDri seemed tense.

The men draped the pelt on my shoulders, barely reaching. It was dried and shrunken, but still hung close to the ground. An impressive beast, indeed.

A bitter voice came along with the tired eyes. "The teeth were removed this morning to be given to the jungle along with our babe. Dawn has risen, and she sleeps now. I mixed berries in with her food to keep her calm." HeraDri would not look at MourDri. "I will not come to watch our babe be devoured. But at least I know she will be at peace."

MourDri looked at her with defeated eyes, but he stood firm.

"BoeDri will be escorted home by the valiant who felled this white beast," I spoke for all to hear. "We shall make haste upon this glorious rising sun. We bring the girl to the nearest oasis, where life brought anew shall be given back to Ohm on my honour as a god to your people."

MourDri and his four companions stood ready.

"A moment, Grim? While they get the babe?" HeraDri said, grabbing my hand.

I gave her a brief nod.

"I apologize for my outburst last night," she said. "I pray mercy for a mother afraid to surrender her babe, especially to a stranger. I fear we may not have a second, but with your blessing, I see it true." She extended a palm full of bright red berries. "Here, I saved these rare berries and would like to offer them to you as an apology. Not much, but hopefully it will give me the forgiveness I seek."

"Forgiveness and mercy granted, HeraDri. The defensive nature of a mother is to be reckoned with." I took the berries and threw them all back in one mouthful. I couldn't help but quiver at their intense sweetness as I walked away. I heard HeraDri snicker behind me, but MourDri waved me over before I could glimpse back.

Two of his men carried a large cask weaved of fine branches and lined with several pelts, with the white tiger's teeth scattered across them. In the middle lay the sleeping girl, BoeDri. The village had gathered for the send-off of the chief's daughter. There were many emotions reflected on their faces. Hope in the eyes of the mothers, distraught in their men, and a sad confusion took the children, holding their parents tight.

Four more spearmen formed to our entourage. The journey was not far into the thickness of the jungle to find the grand oasis, a pool stretching far and wide. Herds of elephants, gazelles, zebras, antelope, and water buffalo mingled among the grass fields growing on the opposite end. Birds were in such number that they almost blocked out the sun on this cloudless day. Herbivores treaded out in the open here, though predators laid out of sight, keeping the men silently on edge. Looking closer, crocodiles and hippos were vaguely noticeable in the murky edged pools as we rose higher on a rocky outcropping.

Upon reaching the pinnacle, jungle to our back and open turfs beyond us, the men stood, waiting for my move. I saw BoeDri finally open her eyes, smiling, comfortable in her daze. I took the babe's cask in both arms and brought her to the flat peak overlooking the oasis. MourDri only came so close to the peak, fearful eyes holding him back. I knew where I was. The entirety of the oasis seemed to stop and stare at my figure upon the rock. Birds quit chirping, and the herbivores almost seemed to bow in respect. It was not me they recognized, but the white beast.

"This is where the white beast stood reign, isn't it?"

MourDri straightened his posture with a grim face. "The angel brought to the demon's rock, ironic, but well done, MourDri. Your child will soon be one with her God, and that means her people shall never starve. She will watch over you as a guardian and a provider."

I felt a sudden heat strike my face as I broke into a heavy sweat. This pelt bears a heavy weight in the sun. I raised the cask to the sun, and gently lowered it to the ground as BoeDri's amethyst eyes peered straight into my face with a smile. I stumbled back, lightheaded. What is this sudden weakness? MourDri struggled to catch me as I stumbled. The birds now seemed furious, calling to each other as if for an easy meal.

"Why are you weak, Grim?" MourDri's voice was tinged with rage.

"My... angels are coming to... bring BoeDri home. I, too... must return... to Heaven. First, return me... to the village so I... may share the good tidings." My voice seemed strained, my legs weakening. I leaned more heavily on MourDri.

"Fine, with haste, I will not see my child dev— NO!"

A fleet of vultures loomed close. One swooped down and dragged the cask off the peak. BoeDri plummeted toward shallow waters below. MourDri pushed me aside. I fell, while he and his men rushed to the edge to find the babe below.

"It is done!" I weakly cried.

"No, it is not! GRIM! What is the savagery?" MourDri pointed his spear towards me but kept looking below. "Boe... BOE!" His voice went from soft to hopeful.

A jaguar was holding BoeDri's wrap in its mouth, rushing toward to the jungle. A faint cry from BoeDri quickly faded in the distance.

"She's alive! You two, come with me! The rest, drag him home. He will answer for what becomes of this." MourDri and his two were already rushing down to the base of the rock shelf to track the jaguar. Meanwhile, my body was growing limp, my arms barely strong enough to lift themselves. Paralysis was overcoming my body.

Next I knew, I was laying limp, sweating, with voices dictating my fate above me. Only my eyes could move; my vision was blurry and my mind was numb. I saw HeraDri kneel in front of my drooping face.

"The berries I gave him would prove his godliness. If I am to be a submissive wife to the chief, I at least get to decide justice upon those who do my family wrong. The effects would wear off slowly on a good day. But this savage... Grim... He, too, shall be sacrificed to the jungle. Leave him to die where he first fell." HeraDri spat in my lifeless face. Oh, I will come back for this one.

I faded out of consciousness only to awaken when my body crashed to the earth. I saw the four men who had brought me back, prop my back up against a tree, balancing my unresponsive limps so I wouldn't fall over. They laughed as my eyes reflected the terror I felt.

"Bets on what takes him first, men?" one proposed.

"The apes will tear his limbs off," a second responded.

"The vultures will find that stench and pick him apart!" the third sounded excited.

"I get to put him down if he's still kicking when we come back tomorrow!" the fourth also spat on me and laughed.

I will reign death on these sorry fools. I did my part. I will come once more as their white demon. I swear... I blinked, and they were gone. The sun was setting, leaving an orange hue breathing through the branches with a light breeze. I lay waiting. Hating. I saw red ants biting my legs, but I felt nothing. I heard a hiss. A great serpent lowered itself from a hanging tree above. Its black eyes peered into mine, it's tongue tickling my face, judging me. The serpent's length did not seem to end as it coiled around my torso. I felt only breathlessness as its pressure began to shatter my bones.

My lungs were emptying themselves. My light-headedness could barely convince my vision to be true. My body was a mesh of crushed limbs. The great serpent repositioned itself for its process. Its mouth stretched. Enveloping my legs, slowly up my waist. I closed my eyes to spare myself watching the slow end. Suffocation would kill me before I deteriorated in the bowels of this creature.

To the east... I have another child to sacrifice.
5

What Lies Beneath

I returned to Him once again. The stars we walked upon in my dream were now real. The black hole loomed in the distance, but the colours danced once more. The Divine was not facing me, he was scheming. He waved his hands and weaved storms of colour across this galaxy. Cute, He's excited.

"You lack grace, Grim, even though you got the job done. I will tend to your amethyst-eyed prodigy while you find the fourth. I shall tend, also, to the first and second. This inception of puppetry will make a fine tale. The ironic satisfaction of watching Death itself suffer may soon come to an end if you perform the part. In fact, I applaud you, minion. Anybody familiar with success understands the path is foreign to comfort; that much is not lost with you."

The storm of colours stilled to a complete stop. I waved my spirited entity of a mortal hand through a stream of blue, red, and silver shades before me. They caressed my hand as water would, but dispersed as a wave of air, blowing away, soon to halt again as a river of the three intertwined shades melded back into the galaxy. My eyes squinted as The Divine now faced me, pridefully gazing upon His majesty of creation before acknowledging me again.

"This beauty lays at rest until the fourth child endures the river of beasts in which it haunts its family. Royal blood shall be raised from the plagued waters. You have been clumsy, Grim, now see if you can dance with the blind. Dance... violently."

He raised His ghostly hand, and all that existed drifted upwards around me. Or so He would have me think; I knew I was falling. He had a way with dramatic effects. But I am not so easily mesmerized by pretty colour. That's not what I am here for. The Reaper doesn't live to enjoy himself. The Reaper lives to make a statement. To bargain. To take.

I materialized above the clouds. He wasn't done with His artistry, it seemed. Enveloped by my flame, I saw my own beating heart encased in my ribcage. His galaxy of colours reached down to me to form flesh and organs before my eyes. It looked like hundreds of tiny stars with all a unique trail of coloured dust covered my being to make me whole. I expected his colours to fade as I broke the clouds, but they overpowered the hue of my plummeting flame. I became a spiralling magnificence of energy. Fine, I'm impressed.

Electricity danced around my cocoon of colour. Realizing I couldn't map out where I was descending to, I flailed my arms to push the colour away to get a view of what was below, but I offset my balance and began spinning uncontrollably. I managed to dip my hand into the dancing lightning, and it began to trace around my fingers and up my arm. My fall was broken by a stone statue. The Divine made me strong, for it crumbled before my bones did.

I slid across the hot sand to slow my momentum, an experience equally pleasant to that of falling down into the jungle. I felt the pain and knew that bruising was soon to follow. I couldn't make up what statue I collided with, as I lay with the rubble. Only two ankles of stone on a podium stood before me as the dust spread thin.

The lightning dissipated, and the colours burst into sparkling dust. It danced towards me, materializing a richly dark robe accented with radiant purple lining. The lightning danced around my robe, crawling down my arm as it seemed to force my hand to make a grip. The stars packed closely in a line, the length of my body. The stars and their stream of colour dimmed to harden and form an equally dark shaft. It hardened from my hand, stiffening downwards to form an intricately chiselled pommel. It then formed a glowing blue lightning pattern through a jagged metal so black it left a shadowy smoke behind its movement. This shaped the curved blade on the top. It was engraved with glyphs that shared the blue hue of lightning as it emanated with energy. The blade was so savagely sharp even I shivered.

The remaining stardust drifted off my body, rising as heat would. I tried to stand up, but I felt a blade against my throat, suggesting otherwise. A man with a shaved head and a band over his eyes loomed over me. His dark skin faded with his age, his wrinkles were many, but he had an energy to him.

"You fell from beyond the clouds, the Scorpions say," he began. He peered over the wreckage as if he could see. "The air still quakes with the speed you hit the ground and that statue, yet your bones are unbroken."

"You can't see. How could you..."

"You'd be whining like a crushed lamb if you were of this world. Your lungs aren't broken, and your heart rate has barely risen. My blade can feel every pulse. I'd slit your throat, demon, but I'm not sure it would be the last of you..." He now faced me as if he were staring at me, eye to eye. "Come, demon, you can walk. I know you'll find serenity among some of your own."

He took the blade from my throat. Fearless, he let me stand. There in his tattered clothes, I stood more than a head taller than him. Strength isn't with this one, but speed and wit. I brushed the dust off my robe.

"What kind of demon cares how clean he is? You're quite the venture from the pharaohs quarters if you're some prissy..."

I swung my scythe its entire length to cut the blind man in half, but he spun seamlessly out of the way. I swung back as he kick-flipped, pushing my blade down mid-swing as he planted his leg behind both of mine, and reached high to punch me in the jugular. His follow through planted me back on my spine. As soon as I could think to regain my feet, his foot was on my throat.

"We are those that watch. We are those that protect. We are those that bring them home." He spoke as if he was obligated to speak those words. He soon relaxed to his personality. "I can crush your throat, or dance around your pointy stick as I break you limb by limb, demon. You're mortal. I don't know how you survived that fall, but you will bleed like any other brother. They said you were a star, with all your wondrous colours. But your star shattered one of Pharaoh Aegyptus' statues. You will already be deemed dead. So, you have no choice but to reside with those he fears. Come, sleep with the Scorpions tonight."

He took his foot from my throat and offered a hand for me to rise. I gripped his forearm, looking him in the face, using all my strength the drag him down. I tore him off his footing, he somersaulted forward as my momentum brought me to my feet. He was already dashing towards me before I could grab the scythe. I threw my weight into a punch. The blindfolded man weaved under my arm, grabbing my shoulder from behind his head. He slowed himself with that pressure, forcing his lower back into my hips. He pushed my equilibrium forward but ripped my shoulder back, tossing me back over his head.

Planted again on my back, he took no time to unsheathe his dual blades and plant one to each of my temples with his knee against my throat. He showed no sense of exhaustion as he moved the blades above each of my eyes. He proceeded to make a small incision from the edge of my eye down my cheek.

"The demon bleeds. Therefore, the demon will need sleep. You didn't fall from the sky to be slaughtered. I am Seth, Soul of the Scorpion Guild. An association of demons, if that appeals to you, wobbly beast." He stood and didn't hesitate to walk away, sheathing his blades. "Instinct, demon. Follow it."

Baffled and embarrassed, I gathered myself and my scythe to follow him. Pride was off the table. He sees with more than his eyes, a talent that places him a step above mortality. But he, too, bleeds. He had speed to his pace. His blindness did not hinder him. He occasionally brushed his fingers along the structure's walls, assuring his course. I finally took in the scenery as blood trickled down my face. Statues of the scarab, sphynx, crocodile, scorpion, serpent, and more littered the streets. There was an abundance of stone and clay in these lands. We walked among battered and broken streets; strong structures, but far from well kept.

Away in the distance, sitting above the rest, were the pillars that held the pharaoh's residence. Aegyptus' face was in the process of being chiselled into a great sculpture before his temple. A line of forefathers and their chiselled faces stood side by side, more weathered and beaten by time farther down the line of the history of this land. An abundance of slaves, rather. But, where are they?

We walked down several streets before trailing alongside the Plagued Channel. We stood fifteen feet above on the stone slopes that dropped into sure death. Patches of vegetation hid the legions of crocodiles hiding in the murky waters. Piles of mud and plantation gave a course for the water to weave downstream. Crossings were few and far between, as it was a tremendously wide river. None were in view in either direction as Seth walk along the short barricade that would stop carts and wagons from falling into the river. He wet his finger to test the direction of the wind, smiling in my direction as he laughed at his own humour.

The cloudless sunset made for an intense reflection off the sand into my eyes. I momentarily lost Seth until I realized he had jumped down to dangle along the river slope. He swung his foot to kick at a pressure plate disguised as any other stone block. He had no trouble swinging himself back up, smiling at me once again, so casual, as if he weren't blind. He approached a worn monument of a long-gone leader. "Pharaoh Jephys the Humbled" was inscribed in the stone beneath the image of an outreached leader handing large loaves of bread to his people, with two people on each of his sides, on their knees, holding up an abundance of food.

"This is the only king who is portrayed with a smile. Why is this, Seth?" I pondered.

"Jephys was a man who made thousands of slaves put some passion to their work. He let us see a future where the world was flourishing, though he failed to give birth to a grateful son. The reign of heartless men is all our people have known, but tales live of a happier people." His banded eyes looked up at the monument, probably imagining it.

A plate below the inscription shifted sideways. A young boy looked up from the hole, smiling at Seth only to freeze out of fright at the sight of me.

"My grandfather, The Dahaka, gave birth to the Scorpion Guild upon Jephys's death. The streets are empty because a savage smog swept our city and choked the life out of those who couldn't hide. But even when the plagues left, the Scorpions are the only force this city knows as a salvation from the Aegyptus's cruelty. We are those that watch. We are those that protect. We are those that bring them home." He lent out a hand to suggest I descend first. The boy quickly disappeared as I approached.

I crouched down to slide into the small opening. My scythe's width initially was far too wide. It caught me, so I tested angles until it seemed to seep through the stone, its physical form becoming that of a ghost. He noticed much but could not see what left me dumbstruck as Seth slid in after, securing the block back in place behind us. A series of spiralling steps and crawl spaces, quite tight for my size, seemed to go on forever. Small pockets were cut out of the path deep enough to contain a small torch, shallow enough though to feel its warmth as I weaved my way down. The tunnels were not dug for a man of my stature. It ended with a crawl space, so I went down to my hands and knees, then to my stomach for the last stretch. I realized the scythes blade became a phantom, seeping through the walls to fit. It re-materialized before the same boy's head suddenly peaked into the hole I crawled through, he now smiled at me, nose-to-nose, surprising me.

"Seth is home, Mama!" the boy jumped back, hugging his mother's waist.

A crowd of people gathered; the boy must have told them a giant was coming. Scythe in hand, now truly there again, I stood a head above them all, awestruck at the majesty before me. They were all equally awestruck by me as I looked to the roof, which stood some thirty feet above. Wooden beams were weaved into a web above, holding the city. Banners of all sort were hung from the rafters above, representing shops beneath, family crests, homely designs and simply vibrant silks woven across the beams, giving it a warm, homely vibe. Lanterns hung lower below them, lighting the underground streets.

Other than the walls behind me, I saw no end to the underground community.

Seth approached from behind, grabbing my shoulder in a friendly fashion. "I can't be scaring all the children calling you demon. Do you have a name, star-born?"

"You may call me Grim. The Grim Reaper, they will call me." Jaw slack, I took in the view, trying to stand taller before the skinny looking men, women, and children.

"Ha! Scary name for a tower already tumbled twice!" He laughed, giving ease to the onlookers. "I will find a more deserving name for you, giant. Until then, play nice, because the Scorpions are watching. Welcome to the Court of Miracles, Grim!

What you see before you are the product of a happier people. Pharaoh Aegyptus turned Halaseir, the city above, into a slaver's anthill. The Scorpions began with The Dahaka. He began liberating the slaves three generations ago. A blind man's vengeance wrought the Age of Retribution. With these coming years, the eastern bounds of Ohm, we call Estenia. Our primitive forefathers once believed ourselves the centre of the world, until hundreds of miles brought our merchants to Ecclesia, the true centre of the Ohm.

"Many fine trinkets and tools came home with those merchants. Finer tales though, of a civilization of humans that lived as equals. Whispers spread soon among slaves that a better life lay across the desert and into the grassland. Countless lashes awaited any slave who dare run from home, but human ambition has always found a way.

"The Pharaoh's guard didn't have the manpower to hold down the thousands of slaves, so he set out men to tame the beasts of the wild. Thus, Halaseir became home to the hounds, the horses, the camels, the tigers, and the elephants. Then, stranger beasts were found. They were no pets, they bent to no man. So, they kept them in cages. When fear of lashes diminished, fear of being put in the pits with mythical monsters left its mark. The remaining flesh and bones of rebel slaves were put back on their family's doorstep.

"Years of upcoming pharaohs held no mercy, until Jephys. Plagues had swept masses of the population many times over, so he suggested an underground refuge for the weak and weary. He yearned to be the salvation of Halaseir's pain. He had a vision of Halaseir becoming Ecclesia's eastern equal. Sadly, the vision held no merit to his only son, whose advisors whispered selfish power back into the lineage of leaders.

"Blessed be Jephys, for his legacy will never die now that he, with The Dahaka, birthed the Scorpion guild into our world. After Jephys passed, the tunnels to the underground refuge were to be collapsed. That's where his secret Scorpions continued his work, by building secret passages and sustained excavations." Seth set his arm out, introducing the Court of Miracles again. "We that watch, we that protect, we that bring them home."

He sounded like he loved telling the tale. He then stood there silent for a moment, staring out into the distance with his banded eyes. A series of drum beats echoed through the impressive cave. A couple of deep booms ending with a sizzling shaking as if a scorpion was hissing a threat.

"The brotherhood calls, Grim. I must attend. Don't take this the wrong way, I think I can trust you, but not yet alone. I do hope you sleep well." He smiled and reached upwards to pinch my neck. I was unconscious before hitting the ground.
6

When Stars Align

It seemed He was excited for me to fall asleep which meant he must be planning something world-shaking. The Divine entered my dreams once again. The stars that wove together to shape my scythe and robes disintegrated out of my hand and off my body. The stars of my robe wrapped around my left wrist and then my right. They trickled over my hands and up my arms like water with no gravity. The stars tightened, forcing my arms to reach for the stars of my scythe beyond my grasp.

My fingers tightened, the stars reacted. They condensed themselves. My fingers were forced open, and my arms stretched wide. The stars burst free to dust so thin it almost disappeared. My right hand became a clenched fist, it battered against my chest, not to find bare skin, but to be met by a chest plate as dark as the scythe's weightless material. It formed from the impact of my fist, weaving from my chest over my shoulders, down my back and encased my body head to toe. At last, my left-hand palm was held before my face, creating a mirror.

I saw the equivalent design to my scythe, a lightning glow like shattered glass intricately designed over the plate armour so abyssal black, it seemed to swallow the light around it. A shadowy smoke dimly rose from its material as if it were steam. Jagged shoulder pauldrons accented the heavy armour with the heavenly runes to match the scythe. Black cloth hung from my sash over my hip in multiple strands, seemingly tattered, but it's flaws were edged with the same blue electric glow. Lastly, the mirror showed the metal weave forming not a helm, but a hood slowly rising over my head. My human face was swallowed by the dark cloth and cast a shadow, momentarily showing the bones in my skull through my skin before rending my face invisible.

My left hand was lifted to point outward into nothingness, it waved outward and in as if to catch the stars. The right hand against my chest went to grab the imaginary stars from the other hand, and the stars grew from my gauntleted fists. As the floating galaxy grew between my hands, my hands clapped it all together and reformed the scythe that originally formed with my descent. I smashed the pommel of it into the imaginary floor, and the lightning design cracked into the floor, making it crumble. I, too, crumbled.

I fell forward into thin air, my hood lifted, bringing back my mortal face. The weapon and armour fell off my body as a coat of stardust which rushed before me to create a landing, I thought – until it came as a mass splashing on my face.

I jumped awake, water dripping off my face and chest. The blind Scorpion stood above me with an empty bucket of water, smiling.

"Do all demons twiddle their fingers so strangely in their sleep as if conjuring a spell? One of the little ones couldn't help but come see the sleeping giant and thought you ill with the twitching. Nonetheless, I have use of you, stranger."

I realized my hands were still tightly gripped as if I was holding the scythe before me with both hands.

"A... A moment before I wake..."

I saw the children peeking through the hollowed dirt doorway to see me rise. I shooed them away with a hand gesture as if they were annoying pets. Their small heads all disappeared, giggling as they didn't go too far. Seth respected me at least and gave me my peace, suggesting that the children go seek the shiniest rock they can find, and so excited they sounded to do so.

I spread a blanket over the doorway. It was the only entrance since all structures of the Court of Miracles were hollowed out holes under the roof of soil. Hollowing out "windows" would stress the integrity of the packed dirt and clay that make these homes and shops. They layered clay back over spots you could see where the ground shifted over the years. This is one good earthquake away from collapsing over ten thousand families. Burying themselves, an efficient sort of people.

I saw my scythe propped against the wall. I stood across the room, staring at it, then looked at my hands. I reached out to my weapon, and it rattled against the wall... it wanted to come to me. I focused harder, gritting my teeth. My hand was whipped back as the scythe jumped across the room into my grasp, its runes glowing with intensity. I lightly put its pommel to the ground and put my other hand atop the blade. I pushed it into the floor, and with ease, it immaterialized into the stardust and lingered by my feet until the whole length and blade melted onto the floor.

I raised my other hand, sucking the stardust above my head, materializing the blade anew above me. Oh, they will listen to this. I beat my fist against my chest, and just as the dream, the robe hardened into the deepest, darkest of metals. I stood in awe once again, expecting an inception of another dream to be woken from. I took a step in what looked like a heavy boot, which turned out to be as light as the robes. The metal seemed to either support its own weight or the stars simply defied gravity as they formed my dark fortress.

I heard Seth clear his throat outside the blanketed door. I saw his shadow approaching the entrance. I hesitated, raised my hands, eyes closed as I felt a breeze strike down on my body and spread outwards at my feet. As he entered, I opened my eyes to see my robe back, neatly wavering from the forces I conjured. He sensed something was amiss.

"Either you're blowing on my toes or you're capable of more than you let on, Grim. Remember that I planted you on your ass. Twice, in fact. I'll do it again and kill you twice before you hit the ground if you threaten my people." His face then dissipated quickly much like a summer storm, fierce, but passing. "But I can't let you die with an empty stomach, so come dine with the Scorpions." He extended his hand to lead me out of the room.

His confidence confounded me. It's good he was blind, though he was a very professional guide. We got on what looked like the main street of a little city that was bustling in the morning hours. All the families were funnelling towards the dining court, but Seth fought the current, leading us the opposite direction. His hands still occasionally brushed the earthen walls to assure his course. I tapped the butt of the scythe against the ground as a walking stick, turning every eye that walked by. They had never seen such an extravagant object before, and although I saw wonderment in them, there was not a fragment of fear that lingered in these people.

"They all know I won't bring any danger home to the Court of Miracles. But I didn't get to finish yesterday. A patrol of the mounted guard with hounds was sniffing the entrance that we came by. So, we fed them to the crocodiles and cleaned up the blood. Even if crocodiles learn to climb out of the channel, bless them, they will be too fat to try." He laughed to himself.

He led us to a monument in a central crossing of underground streets of a blindfolded man with curly hair hanging over his brow and a fine jawline. It depicted him roaring triumphantly as he held out the head of an old pharaoh. A stone child hugged his leg, looking up at the hero in awe. Little stone scorpions were placed in front, behind, and on each side of the child, as if defending. The inscription read:

The Dahaka. Our blinded angel. Jephys chose well. With him, we live on.

Seth spoke as if he read my mind, reacting to me reading the plaque. "Jephys actually chose nine. He called the most remarkable of killers in the known land. Jephys tested their compassion. He already knew they were fighters, so he searched for the lover. He put all his hope into the blind man who refused to share his origin. He could tell The Dahaka cared deeply about something but buried that even deeper in himself.

"The tale varies, but I know his eyes were taken by force as a boy. He was sneaky, he was curious. He saw too much. The savage guards fed his eyes to the crocodiles of the Plagued Channel. When he quit crying, he remembered those men's voices and swore revenge. He crawled along the streets until another fellow assassin swept him up and tended to his wounds.

"He was barely surviving, his eyes were so roughly torn that the bleeding refused to stop. People like to believe rage alone kept his heart beating. The assassin who saved him tended to him and saw potential, even with his handicap, and promised to teach him how to take revenge, but only if he vowed to use the deadly art in respect to his brother and sister slaves.

"His senses were heightened. He could sniff out prey like a dog. He learned to be more silent than air. He was beaten time and time again until he could predict movement in an opponent's heartbeat. Details are exaggerated and stretched. What we know for fact is that he admitted not to taking those guards' eyes. He took their children. He left their children's eyes on their pillows so every time they went to sleep, their last thoughts will be of the slave they wronged.

"The Dahaka became the famous killer, not for profit, but for his people. He was paid in admiration and reverence. Jephys finally cracked through his thick demeanour to be deemed the future of Halaseir's people. He wined and dined the remaining eight slayers until they drowned their fate in the cups they emptied so greedily. They were executed before the morning, leaving only the Blind Prophet, as Jephys liked to call him. The Dahaka sounded too scary for the children."

A fascinating tale, but history lessons are to no avail if your people are to be damned.

"So how does this concern me, Scorpion King?" I asked him.

"You came from the sky with no purpose?" he said, turning and putting a hand on my chest, looking into my eyes with his mind.

"My mortal bonding deters much of my godly knowledge. I came with a purpose, though a mortal mind would break if it were to hold the capacity of my godhood. I know little of your world, but I know the stars bend to my will." I stared down at him to invoke terror.

He cracked an intrigued grin. "I miss the stars." He looked at the earthy roof, imagining. "Forty-two years ago, my guardian cut my eyes out. He said the Scorpions will need a new soul to lead when he is gone, as The Dahaka told him before. Now my eyes are gone, I can envision the future that can be. I am not bound by my worldly eyes, casting doubt with all the pain that surrounds me. My mind is set on the betterment of my brother and my sister. Whether I must cut every throat under Pharaoh Aegyptus' reign to bring them salvation.

"Just as The Dahaka, we are those that Watch. We are those that..."

"Scorpion! Such a beast is not known for its tales, it's known for the sting. So, what do you want of The Grim Reaper?" I spoke my name as if a curse, but he was unwavering.

"The plague that swept Halaseir has finally dwindled. Tonight, I meet with Aegyptus to establish a future for our people, lest we break into all-out war and have half our nation slaughtered over rations of bread, or to establish a hierarchy where no living person may own another and enter a golden age upon Ohm. I saw it fitting to have a 'God', as you call yourself, amidst my party. If words are weak, I will need you to... 'bend the stars' in my favour, as you would have it."
7

Death and the Divided

Not long after, Seth brought us before the Scorpions Guild's entrance. Countless lanterns swung from the rafters to illuminate the dugout arena for Halaseir's people to admire the Scorpions training. It was a rough, battered down circular ground with only layers of cut-out dirt for seats. Beyond was a stone wall that separated the protectors from the protected. An aged brick arch was roughly emphasizing the simple heavyset wooden gate. Engraved was their motto: We that watch. We that protect. We that bring them home. The Halaseirian eyes seemed to avoid looking at the Scorpion Guild. It was of their culture to respect their protectors, and not question their trials and tribulations that forms their savage mastery.

I found myself being introduced to Seth's adoptive son, Atekah. Since the Dahaka, his lineage was unknown, so he set off his legacy in the fashion of saving a child as he was saved. Seth's upbeat tone only broke when he went back to the memory of saving him. Seth must have felt deeply attuned to that memory as he showed me his calf to reveal a mess of scared flesh. His memory seemed to mentally tear the wound open again.

We watched from a distance as young Atekah, barehanded, fended off three other Scorpion initiates who were attacking him with blunted staffs. Atekah seemed to be on the teeter of manhood with his thinly stubbled jaw. He was as thin as Seth but healthier and toned in his youth. He mixed laughter into his stressed breaths as some blows came through from his combatants, though he successfully overcame most of them. Seth knew he was winning, he could hear it, but stress was underlining his voice as he shared the story of his upbringing.

"I was on a night patrol," Seth began. "Seventeen years ago, on a calm night, I was rushing the familiar rooftops as cries came in the distance. In the deep of the night, Atekah's mother and father were dragged out of their beds by the Pharaoh's guard for reasons unknown. His mother did her best to protect him in her arms as she and her husband were beaten to death. Before she died, they ripped the child from her arms, and tossed the newborn into the Plagued Channel." He cringed at the thought of the baby's cries in that moment before Atekah hit the water.

"I was too late for the baby's parents, but I did not hesitate to jump into the Plagued Channel without a plan to get out of its steep slopes. In my blindness, my senses were dulled in the murky waters. I was able to grab the boy and raise him above the water. I dug my fingers into the bricked slide of the channel so hard that my fingers bled. I slipped slightly and then was dragged back into the water by a crocodile, it's teeth digging into my leg. As it tried to spin, I held the child in one arm and I braced for impact back into the water. I grabbed for my hidden knife, slashing rapidly as the crocodile was thrashing me about. I stabbed at what I thought was its mouth but stabbed my own thigh while being overpowered.

"During what felt like my final moments, I planted the blade in its nose, so deep, it even punctured my calf through its muzzle. It let loose in agony, taking my blade with it. I found myself back climbing the channel wall, leaving a stream of blood from my mangled leg as the baby cried. I heard the snapping of many reptilian jaws eager to eat below us. My memory faded in those moments. But I remember waking in the care of my Scorpions. I was bedridden for countless days and nights as my leg healed. Though my companions presented me a lively child, Atekah kicked and screamed for his parents for days before slipping into depression. He was hard to nourish in his despair, but I claimed him as soon as I could walk again." He cracked a proud smile as he heard onlookers chanting Atekah's name on the victory of his sparring.

Atekah raised his hands open, as if absorbing the crowd's approval. He cocked his head to notice me, an abnormally large specimen standing beside his guardian. He quickly approached, slapping my chest lightly with the back of his hand, smiling.

"Soul Scorpion, Seth! Have you brought this giant to test me?" He bounced about eagerly, sweating, still ready to spar even as his bruises were settling in. What I noticed the most was the fact he still had his eyes, deep green things that spoke a world of immaturity that remained in him.

"You've been under the ground too long, boy." Seth's empty glare, pointed in Atekah's direction, demanded him to uphold his manners.

Atekah quickly quit bouncing and fixed his posture.

"This 'Giant' fell from the sky. He calls himself The Grim Reaper. He claims his godhood is what broke the fall... I don't know what he is, but he has agreed to be our leverage this following eve."

"This eve?" I cut in, realizing I had no game plan. I best have this 'star bending' figured first... "We meet Aegyptus tonight?"

"As I already spoke..." Seth now pinned his disappointment towards me. Ah yes, give Death a funny face. That will fuel the flame. "We meet the Pharaoh this evening. You fell the night previous to this meeting that has been years in the making... For a 'God,' you disappoint me. I can at least believe you are the reason behind a faithless world. Why NOW do you come to make a mark? You sad excuse of a bird!" It was clear his intent was to enrage me.

"I am the aspect of all that ends." My knuckles cracked loudly as I tensed a raised fist. All eyes followed it, except Seth's empty gaze, which remained fixated on me. One heavy bash against my chest and my fist was met by the blackest of armour, not my robe. The Court of Miracles seemed to darken at this moment. The crowd gasped in awe. Shadows wisped about my dark fortress like kicked up dust. "The stars bend at my will, as will your Pharaoh."

The silence was finally broken by Atekah. "I like him!" he said.

You won't, child.

"The air about you is lighter, Reaper. A fancy trick. I hope you have more in your arsenal. Remember, I dropped you twice. And I am far from your biggest obstacle if you intend to take the thrones across Ohm..."

"We share a similar goal, Seth. Not to worry. I, too, intend to reshape Halaseir's future. Your tales have... inspired me. Consider your legacy set in stone, oh Blind Liberator." I remain unarmed but armoured. I extended approval to the onlookers of our dispute. "May we make haste?"

My armour clunked as my boots met the open streets leading to Aegyptus's temple. I had no problem keeping up with my company. Only the Soul Scorpion, Seth, his adoptive son, Atekah, and two additional elite Scorpions had come for this meeting. A plethora of wide stairs led up to the pillared roof. On either side, pharaohs of the past were standing still in their stone immensities overlooking the city before the temple. Behind the temple were jagged, sanded mountains, Halaseir's own natural flank wall.

Halfway up the stairs, the line of guards began, each with a uniquely decorated helm for the occasion. The setting sun glistened across the golden and jewelled accents of the adornments. Each helm was shaped like an animal of the district the guards were accountable for: the Crocodile, the Falcon, the Hyena, the Moth, the Leopard, the Scarab, the Hornet, the Trout, the Lion, the Cobra, and more – all except the Scorpion. That was at least respected to be deciphered to my party, who now wore silken robes with their orderly emblem. Seth wore white, while the other three wore an understated black.

The guards stood still as stone with spear or scimitar in hand. Only their eyes were visible through their ridiculous adornments. Their composures all broke as my shadowy fortress walked with the Scorpions. They closed in behind us as were continued the endless steps. The final stretch was a change of scenery.

Separate levels of natural fountains and pools were laid within the temple. The upper-class families were dining; fruits were abundant, gossip was flowing freely, and half-naked women splashed around in the pools. My plated feet caught everybody's attention. Light sand swam across the immaculate tiled flooring. My smoking armour was glowing bright blue in its rune engravings. A hundred guard had finally closed in on us at a distance before the pharaoh's throne. Aegyptus sat there slouched with the kind of smirk only the privileged have on his face.

Aegyptus was adorned with the highest respected sigil across his robe, the jackal-faced woman, holding a double ended staff. One end of the staff was a sun, opposite to the end of the crescent moon. His crown was a thin golden circlet that dawned a golden sun affront, and a silver crescent moon on the back. He had a makeshift staff, resting across the throne's armrests, that he was twiddling in his hands. More toy than a weapon. His family all wore some form of the sun and moon sigil.

His throne was simple but large. This was more of a place for judgement in the open air rather to an enclosed fortress. To his right was Aegyptus's royal lady, holding a newborn babe. To his left sat his first-born son in a toddler-sized throne. The boy sat restlessly, staring at me; it was obvious he was too young to understand the situation, even less care.

My small company began in unison: "We are those that watch, We are those who protect, We are those that..."

"Yes, yes. We know, blind man." Aegyptus interrupted, quite disrespectfully. "On with it! We are all wondering, what in damnation is this monster of a man you have brought?"

Seth stayed composed even while being disrespected. He gestured for me to take the lead. I clunked a few steps forward to the spotlight.

"I am The Grim Reaper, Aegyptus. I came down from my godly abode in the flesh to plant my mark upon Halaseir. I found it a fitting time for the people of Estenia to know their God. I am the aspect of Death incarnate. I am not the beginning of all things, but I am the end."

All except my company was dumbstruck.

"Ok... 'The Grim Reaper','" Aegyptus proceeded cockily. "Around here, we would call you Ahriman."

All sound froze at the mention of that name.

"That makes you no one's friend," he continued. "Why now? The rightful rulers have been at silent war with these anarchistic pests for the last three generations. A good 'God' would have smitten this sad excuse of a rebellion for me, and the hierarchy could proceed as history has meant it for all of time. This long-dead laugh of a Pharaoh, Jephys, has thrown a hornet's nest in our perfectly good system. What good will a big shiny man be for a hundred-year-old mistake?"

That is the golden question, isn't it, cocky man?

"Any good ruler can make a sacrifice for his people." I looked around for approval. Heads awkwardly nodded in agreement. "I can end your plagues, I can reset history. I can send the eastern world into a golden age. Or I can rain fire from the sky, uproot disease from beneath these tiles, and leave the worst of you alive the longest to suffer for your malice. All I want... is your son."

Seth was first to step forward. "No, there must be other ways, Grim!" Too late to be noble, Seth. The smile was no longer on Aegyptus's face. His wife now hid the infant from me while the young boy curled up in his tiny throne.

"Why did he say that, father?" he said, on the edge of tears.

"He bluffs, Simiak." Aegyptus's teeth were now gritted. "Dearest, take Roqua and Simiak."

She silently rushed them away.

"You entertain doubt to your people, Pharaoh. Death waits for no man." I clenched my fist and summoned my shadowy scythe to my hand in a second. I slammed the butt into the ground, cracking the tile. All guards drew their weapons. The Scorpions remained calm. Aegyptus rose, approaching me with anger.

"Nobody has ever threatened a Pharaoh and lived. I am the golden age, after these Scorpions are slaughtered, I AM THE RISING AND SETTING SUN..."

I let go my scythe and summoned it forward. It stopped the Pharaoh in his steps as my weapon now levitated with the blade hovering against his throat. Seth ran to stop me.

"This story has no hero, Seth."

I remained focused on Aegyptus but sent my scythe for the Soul Scorpion. A silent slice cut Seth's throat and his head rolled across my feet. Screams came from onlookers as everybody fled. The scythe flew back to my hand. I raised my hood, swallowing my mortal face. The smoke that drifted off my armour seemed to darken at this moment. Only the faint glow of the armour's engravings could be seen in the blackness.

A scream erupted from Atekah. "Curse you, Grim! AHRIMAN!"

The temple burst into an all-out war. Scorpions rose from every end of the open temple to fight the guards. Atekah was being surrounded as the guard were hesitant to approach me. Atekah's fury came out in a clash of blades and blood drenching the floor.

Aegyptus was frozen in terror. With my hood raised, I approached him with demonic speed, grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet. "This story only needs one ruler, and that is the Reaper!" I smashed his skull upon the seat of his throne. I looked back to see both armies stop dead and stare me down. I gave them a wave as the sun continued to set, then rushed down the back of the temple, following the Pharaoh's wife. The chaos ensued behind me as nobody had hope of catching me.

A legion of archers lined up before me, down the stairs. I continued running as they notched, readied, and let loose. Arrows bounced off my armour painlessly, leaving no mark. Arrows pierced through my hooded face, unhindered, as if I were only a ghostly entity. One great swing on my approach with my scythe dismembered three men in my way. I pressed on.

I found the Queen hiding behind two men equal in armour and size to me, their heads covered with their own oversized falcon and cobra helms. They approached with great axes gripped tightly in fear. I threw the scythe aside, and, as it vanished into stardust mid-air, I caught a great-axe mid-swing, ripping it from his hands effortlessly as I smashed the butt of it into his face, breaking his cheekbone. The other giant rushed for a tackle. I got lower, throwing his momentum upward as I launched him over myself. I summoned the scythe back, cutting through the giant's armour and flesh like water. His two halves landed on the ground.

Simiak wept in terror, hiding in his mother's embrace. She closed her eyes, dropping to her knees, trying to protect her children from the inevitable. I saw the Plagued Channel behind her, its winding streams over the horizon converging into one channel weaving its way through the city. There was nowhere left to run. Too easy. I now approached slowly. I lifted her chin to consider my hooded nothingness.

"You can keep Simiak. Roqua will ascend. But first, he will swim..."

She stared at me, speechless. She no longer fought as I took the newborn, Roqua, from her grasp. The baby stared up at me in his wrapping, glaring, as if would defend himself. He didn't cry.

I found a collection of weaved baskets beside a nearby building as I walked away. The First Lady only wept and watched as I placed Roqua in a basket and approached the Plagued Channel. He continued staring at me angrily as I placed the lid on his basket. You will have your chance to fight me, little hero.

I found the edge of the Channel's wall and slid the basket down. Slithering movements were already narrowing down at the basket as it bumped into the middle of the stream. An anaconda slithered around it, judging. Crocodiles lingered downstream, waiting. The basket was taken underwater by the snake. In the murky water, I saw a blurry movement. The basket quickly floated back up farther downstream than seemed possible. I began to follow along the river to watch.

Bumping and slowing down the murky stream in its thickness, a snap of a crocodile's jaw jumped at the basket. It reappeared safely to the left. Again, strike after strike. The basket phased into safety. The sacrifice must be complete! Stress entered my chest for a moment. Do I have to kill him myself? Then a battle began between the beasts of the water. Thrashing enveloped the basket once more, sinking the basket once more. I waited patiently. No sign of survival was possible.

Arrows now bounced off my armour. I turned to see a larger gathering of distant archers raining hell down on me. I turned, open-armed. I accepted the volley. I remained unharmed. They prepared for another fruitless attack. I lowered my hood, reanimating my fleshly face. Arrows now pierced my jaw, my eye, my temple. My body fell back into the Plagued Channel. My body disintegrated inside the armour as stardust drifted off with the wind. Bring me home.

Your turn, your Godliness.
8

Welcome to the Wild

Breka was a valley establishment that had been founded by mistake. Nomads from the Citadel ventured there in hope of finding unknown civilizations to assimilate into the Grand Design. Fifty people, a mix of mature and youthful, were sent to map out the western valleys, outfitted well with trained riding horses and thick pack mules to outlast the worst of the world. These strong young men and women, chosen by the Grand Architect, had also taken with them all their sentimental belongings before setting forth and sending word to the unknown establishments believed to inhabit the mountains. This journey was mythical and almost magical—until they began to lose their numbers.

No native establishments were ever found. Days turned into weeks of venturing deeper into the mountains. The thick vegetation went on for miles upon miles. Some valleys got wider, some narrowed to dead ends walled by the jagged cliffs, just to take days of travel to backtrack and venture new ground. Supplies for the fifty were diminishing after thirty-six days, though, by then, fifty had become forty-six. Pack mules were also slaughtered for meat when their packs emptied and grew dust, or they became more of a burden than a benefit. The horse's and mule's ribs became outlined by their malnourishment.

Words among the forty-six shifted from hopefulness to bitterness toward the Grand Architect. He told his chosen not to return unless native civilizations were found. He swore upon their existence. All he wanted of it was more servants, and his ruthlessness would show no mercy to those who do not bring home good tidings. He was not afraid to slaughter the unsuccessful. So, the forty-six planted their roots in the widest valley they found. The Nomad Pact was made: none of the forty-six would return to the Grand Citadel, Ecclesia. Their lives were vowed to the birth and well-being of the first establishment among the western mountains.

They flourished. In their thirty-six days, they grew familiar with the terrain and wildlife. They found familiarity with the predators and the prey. They confidently placed themselves among the food chain and were fearless. They downed poplars and pines to make fine homes, far from the safety of the stone and granite walls of Ecclesia. There was a serenity to the foundation of starting fresh with strangers that became family. Then families were made. The forty-six became forty-seven with the first birth, and several successful births followed.

They trusted nothing but their kin. They put no faith in any deity they could not see. But a godly force came upon them, and respect was demanded. Four men and three women were taken before the eagle-faced lion saw the entirety of the establishment bow before itself. The Griffin showed mercy upon their submission. Their establishment remained unnamed, as they wanted a unified vote on a title, but none were found, not until they named their winged titan Breka.

Breka was a name that reminded them of their mortality. The village was first named Breka to remind them that this land was at the mercy of that beast, not them. Until one stormy night, when a storm so vicious hit them that lightning and heavy rain overthrew all ambient noise. The villagers were all sheltered in their homes. Cries from a woman came as she heard a bear tearing and pounding on her wooden walls. The bear had stared the woman in the eyes as it almost broke through until the griffin's piercing cry overtook all sound. The bear flinched back and was suddenly dragged away by a great talon.

The bear was later found thrown against the mountain, its spine and skull shattered from the force with which it was smashed into the rocky outcropping. The people then knew that Breka trusted the Nomads with its home. They never desecrated the area and wouldn't dare with the winged terror watching.

The Brekans grew familiar with their home expanse. They travelled predators' paths as often as the predators themselves. They were knowledgeable in what it took to maintain stability with their home. Kill only the elder game, use every part. Animal bones were shaped for the fine detailing tools. The fallen trees made space for crops and gardens to rise. The surviving pack mules were bred and raised to help the community. The horses were left to the hunters. Such life was made simple with the heavy outfitting of weapons they were sent away with.

They knew peace; they were an unbreakable people. Not much more than a year past until the flames rose in the distance one clear night; Ecclesian soldiers to be sure, either sent to find the nomads' bones or bring them back to be shamed and slaughtered before the Grand Architect for their deviation. More travellers like themselves would have been less reckless. Smaller fires and less noise would be made by nomads. These soldiers sang loudly in the distance, a drunken choir of off-tune men clashing around, enjoying their adventure outside the strictness of the citadel walls.

Breka's piercing cry cut the merriment to a sharp halt. The Nomads had gathered silently under the stars on the edge of their village to ponder the danger of the approaching soldiers upon the morning. One single surviving soldier running back to the citadel would surely bring an army to rain death upon the Brekans. The silence was brief. The winged terror swooped down into the light of their bonfire and soared upwards with a soldier in each talon. Breka flew high enough to blot out the moon sitting high in the sky. It was at that pinnacle that he left the soldiers to fall. Their cry dimmed as they descended towards the trees.

The Griffin spiralled down with immense speed directly towards the bonfire. A clutter of drunken men were stumbling to grab their weapons as Breka flew straight through the fire, bursting the fire among all the soldiers. Wings ablaze swooping upwards again, spiralling to shake the flame, Breka returned, strike after strike, as the nomads saw their winged terror saving them. The numbered cries dwindled as bodies were crushed and tossed into the dimly lit distance. The finale of the slaughter came with the darkness returning to the valley. The Griffin diminished the flames, and the nomads began to return to their shelters.

Horses and mules began bursting through the forest towards the Brekan village. The immense wind of the beast's wings followed behind. Breka circled the village to still the fleeing animals. It descended gracefully towards the people and softly landed among the livestock. The animals soon relaxed, turning towards the great beast, approaching it. The horses and mules bowed in respect. The awestruck nomads soon followed with a deep bow of their own.

The soldiers' armoured horses then approached the nomads with no restraint, submitting to their new masters. They knew they had found a peaceful home. Breka walked among the bowed people, noticing the newborn children. Breka's breath even seemed soft as it sniffed out the newborn humans. With a snicker of what seemed to be approval, it took off with a heavy leap to head home.

The men attended to their new livestock, introducing them to the other mules and horses they had. Excitement enveloped the people late into the night. Their safety was assured. The mornings after sang a new beginning for the village of Breka.
9

Born of the Storm

The storm shook the medical shack. The seventh child was about to be born into the world among the Brekan village. There had only been one unsuccessful birth. Serafin prided herself as a proficient medic. She laid Merys on a soft deer pelt blanket over a stack of hay. Jaxx, her lover, was holding her hand, staring at Merys with stars in his eyes. He always longed to be the father he never had.

"Push, Merys! Breathe! You're almost there!" Serafin handed her another birch leaf tea to relax the muscles and soothe the headache.

Merys' forehead was wet with sweat, her face was flushed, her teeth gritted. Her fingernails were almost breaking Jaxx's skin as they held hands. Merys reached for the tea and drank deeply. She laid back and nearly fell unconscious. Jaxx felt her grip weaken.

He lifted her head. "Stay awake, Merys! Our baby needs you. You're almost there!"

She looked at her lover and found the strength for one more push. The rain hammered their walls as she screamed in pain. Merys's eyes rolled back in her head as the baby made its way out.

"Merys! Wake up!"

Her eyes fought to open as she regained consciousness. The cord was cut, and before her was a perfectly healthy baby boy. Jaxx's chiselled arms held the child so delicately. He was not one to show softness, but at this moment, he broke into tears of happiness. "You're a fighter, Merys. I'm not about to let this little warrior grow up without a mother."

Serafin dabbed her head with a cold cloth and fed her water.

"The storm already broke? How long was I out?" Merys uprighted herself, dazed.

"Just moments, my dear. Your little warrior quit crying, and I have never heard a storm stop so abruptly. Must be a good omen."

Jaxx didn't dare let his eyes off the boy more than a moment. He got up to hand him to his mother. Merys, too, broke into tears.

"What do you plan to name your little warrior?" Serafin wondered.

The lovers exchanged looks.

"Merys would get to name a girl, I get to name the boy! My lucky day! How about... Arenthis? Born of the storm! I mean... I don't know if it means that... but we are our own people. It can mean whatever we want!"

The three laughed, even the baby seemed to smile.

"He smiled! You see that? It's settled! Our baby Aren will be our legacy. He best like his own name!" Jaxx kissed Merys on the cheek, then the forehead, then her lips. He shook with excitement.

"IT'S A BOY!" Jaxx broke out of the shack into the breaking storm. The sun was now shining through the clouds, his eyes adjusted to the brightness. Cheering from every direction ensued as the villagers shared the successful birth. The village of Breka only celebrated so intensely when a child was born. A bonfire, dancing, and music was a tradition the night of a new beginning.

Sparks danced high into the sky that night. Arenthis rested peacefully, regardless of all the merriment. Merys sat comfortably with another new mother, Ballyn. Semwise the Small, who was truly massive, banged the drums while Jurik masterfully played his lute. He plucked The Ballad of the Nomad, his signature song. He was never one to stay put until the Nomad Pact was sworn. Thus, he lost himself in his own music. He followed with The Reign of Breka. Therefore, Jaxx prepared himself.

After the night Breka saved them from Citadel soldiers, Jurik wrote The Reign of Breka in honour of the people's milestone and to honour their winged protector. The Brekans loved it so much, they designed a performance as Jurik played.

Our fifty bold of chiselled stone

For fable told, we nomads roam

To speak of home not which we know

These mountains map we seek to sow

Our fifty bold of chiselled stone

The village gathered, watching six of them in muddy, beaten rags, excessively tugging on a stubborn mule to portray the struggle. Two men simply flexed their prowess to intimidate the mule. They humoured ingenuity by pretending to shove a stick up the mule's ass to force it forward. The people laughed along.

We lost some numbers, just a few

Rations spread thin, though we push through

We found this haven here and now

Our winged terror made us bow

We lost some numbers, just a few

Eight now gathered around a rock. They praised the rock, for it was the best rock, and they would call it home. They celebrated as a weak eagle cry was heard in the distance. They stopped abruptly to listen and gather weapons. A ninth person came from the darkness, with great feathered wings attached to his arm as was a tradition for the new father. Jaxx swooped in from the right, dragging away one villager, and dragged away another coming back from the left. He returned front and centre to make the remaining six bowed in submission.

Our titan Breka, we know no fear

Once dead of night, dread bear appear

Followed fires of he, we once called king

We saw their souls, we heard them sing

Our titan Breka, we know no fear

Now a woman and child lay at rest affront the fire. A man on all fours with a bear hide on his back poked at them softly, letting out a pitiful growl, not wanting to be too rude. The mother awoke slowly to realize the bear above them. Jaxx swooped in again, saving the mother and child. They wailed praise as Jaxx 'flew' away with the bear.

For the last scene, the crowd chanted the last verses back at Jurik as he played his lute with great finesse. Six armoured men with weapons and torches approached from behind the fire, shouting light threats at the crowd. The villagers threw rotten food and handfuls of dirt back, mockingly. They cried for Breka's help. Jaxx was known to overdo it, as he 'swooped' into the scene.

"Leave them alone! They are nice people!" He pretended to kick the first three soldiers between their legs, making them fall to the ground. "They just want to make cute babies and love each other!"

The crowd burst into laughter as he proceeded to slap them the remaining three in the face individually and force them to apologize to the crowd. They did, but he still kicked them between the legs.

He then raised his arms before the cheering crowd, praising Breka. Jaxx's muscular features were outlined by the light of the fire as he called on Merys. She soon stood front and centre, holding Arenthis as the village jumped up to dance and rejoice the successful birth. The merriment drifted deep into the night.
10

Divine Intervention

The ground shook, the sky was filled with whirling red clouds and threatened heavy lightning. The rain was not falling, but the sky was trying to let loose. Jaxx and Merys jolted awake, their baby crying viciously in its cradle before their bed.

Arenthis wailed as if he was being attacked in his cradle. Merys began to comfort the child in her arms as Jaxx grabbed his longsword beside the entrance door to their shack. The red hue of the fiery sky shown through the wall cracks as the bloody light danced in the dust.

Jaxx threw his door open, jumping outside, blade gripped hard as he stood in his briefs. He saw the rest of the Brekan village bursting out of their shacks, weapons drawn, babes being comforted. Eyes scoured every direction. The horses and mules banned tight together, sharing the intensity of confusion. Lightning cracked in every direction with the whirling clouds right above the village. The beast's cry broke through from its mountain.

"This is no storm, people. This is a statement!" Jaxx's yell could barely be heard over the thunder and the sounds from the nervous livestock. "Do as Breka demands!"

The Griffin's figure outlined drew closer through the red clouds and the flashes of lightning. He sounded furious. It flew full force into the centre of the funnel clouds gathering above them. It began twisting in the opposite direction as if to combat the storm itself. The funnel fought harder, enveloping Breka above the clouds, swallowing his screams.

The people were left awestruck. Their titan disappeared into the waves of blood-clouds, reappearing moments later, plummeting to the ground. A fork of lightning seemed to strike the titan from both sides. It descended face first, wings ablaze. As the griffin fell, a sequence of lightning strikes felled multiple pine trees over the fence holding the livestock. The weight of the trees began to collapse the fence. Horses and mules smashed into each other, fighting to break through the opening as the pines began to blaze. The pine needles were bursting off as sparks danced in the air. The whinnying and neighing sent jolts of terror down the villagers' spines.

Breka fell directly onto the crisping ashes of the village bonfire. It seemed to regain consciousness right before hitting the ground. He let out a weak scream as it intentionally slammed its flaming wings to the ground to take the brunt of the fall away from breaking its neck. It hit the ground with such force that it cracked the earth as flames blew off the wings, while other flames rose from the split earth, as tall as the village shacks.

After a brief moment, Breka slowly rose. In its confused stupor, looking around at the terrified villagers, it stumbled sideways. Jaxx rushed towards Breka for aid. The beast knew Jaxx's good intention but sent him flying sideways. Breka jumped back to its claws and talons, stood over Jaxx, blowing hot air in his face. Jaxx noticed the cut down the titan's right eye. Breka shifted its attention to Merys and Arenthis.

The villagers all gathered in unison, facing the beast as the storm intensified and with it, Arenthis's crying. The villagers knew better than to attack, but they stood firm. Breka stumbled again, and again, approaching slowly, but aggressively. It stopped momentarily before lowering itself level to the people. It sniffed through the people, paying close attention to the children. Its jagged eye, unfazed, was shining with intensity. Breka pushed through to Arenthis, breathing deeply. He pushed its beak against the babe, which seemed to calm Arenthis's crying. Breka stared face-to-face with Merys, seeing her frozen with terror.

Lightning seemed to quiver back into the sky. The deep redness in the clouds eased back to a smooth layer of clouds, light fighting its way through. Arenthis's tiny hands reached out of his blanket to touch the beak of the beast. Breka didn't flinch but kept staring at Merys. Arenthis broke into a giggle, and with that moment, Breka took flight, blowing the villagers over. Merys braced her fall to protect Aren, only to realize she was no longer holding him. The babe was now being held in Breka's beak.

The beast hovered high above the flames, making the people watch as the storm fought back to darken the sky. Arenthis let out a piercing cry again as forked lightning erupted beneath Breka, igniting an inferno below. Breka's wings fanned the flames, forcing them higher, almost as if daring them to take over the beast itself. Merys's cries were nothing against the ferocity of the thunder.

The funnel cloud shifted above Breka. The air whirled heavier to try to lift the flames to the sky. Breka dropped Arenthis into the inferno and burst upwards into the clouds. The village could do nothing but watch as Arenthis plummeted into the flames. As they lost sight of the babe, Breka spiralled upwards and broke the storm in one massive twist, blowing the flames silent. The sunlight broke through, blinding the people. And so, they woke.

Jaxx and Merys woke together, out of breath. They tried speaking at the same time, explaining their nightmare. They checked to see Aren sleeping peacefully. Jaxx and Merys whispered their story, each from their perspective but both reflecting the same terror. They comforted each other, pondering their shared fear.

"It's just a dream, Merys. Just a dream... Just. A. Dream." Jaxx was also trying to convince himself.

"Jaxx, I love you more than life, but I've never heard a connection that brought lovers to share dreams... Breka can't get in our dreams... Can it?" Merys shook, staring into Jaxx's eyes.

A loud knock struck their door four times. They knew it was Semwise the Small by his signature knock. Two slower beats then two faster. Usually, he giggled; he liked when people recognized his beat. But they did not hear his giggle.

"Jaxx," Semwise spoke with a broken voice. "I had myself a night terror, I did." Silence followed as the lovers feared the worst. A lengthy awkward pause followed as he repeated himself. "Jaxx... I had myself..."

"A moment! Semwise! Let us dress. Bring a brother and his lady a drink, would you?" Jaxx stared at the closed door, he felt the tension through the wall.

"Yes, brother. A swig of the good stuff for my favourite new family!" Another awkward pause as Semwise had a realization. "I forgot we don't have ale, Jaxx, but I'll find you and the lady some quality water, I will." He proceeded to wait an awkward amount of time before setting off.

Arenthis still lay at rest, so the lovers quietly took their leave to enter their new day. It was a beautiful calm one, so calm that it was unnerving. Others were waking, the joy of last night not finding its way into this morning. Semwise the Small was rushing back, water cups in hand, shaking most of the liquid out with his heavy pace. He planted the cups down mid-stride to pick Jaxx up with a heavy hug. He cracked Jaxx's tense back and pressed the air from his lungs, a normal embrace from Semwise.

"Oh, this was a nasty one, brother. Mind if I take a walk with my boy, Merys? I don't need to mind your pretty face with..."

Merys swiped his words away with a sad look.

"Semwise... Did Breka burn my baby in your dream too?"

Her facial expression scared Semwise, whose size dwarfed Jaxx. "Sister, how did you know? I know mothers are smarter than us boys but..." Semwise got timid. "The boy is ok, isn't he?" Semwise had a thick beard, but his eyes showed that he was the gentlest of giants.

"Of course, Semwise." Jaxx dragged him by his arm towards the horses and mules. "Just a dream, lad, Just. A. Dream."

"Jaxx! Brother!" Jurik called from his cabin. "Do I have a wild night terror for you!"

This followed by Ballyd with her babe in hand, with a few other mothers approaching Merys, much more subtly. Jaxx shared a nervous look with Merys from a distance. Jurik ran to Jaxx and Semwise, his pants falling off as they noticed Brava, his not so secret, secret, sneaking out of Jurik's cabin.

"Well she's not subtle, but Brava's a riot, brothers!" He swung his hips, fixing his pants as to expect some approval, but got nothing. He cleared his throat to continue. "Well, since you saw my lil' secret scurry off, fair to add the crazy part! Brava and I had the same night terror! When have you ever heard of that? Must be getting too close, brothers. Might have to let the little riot go. Can't 'ave me all soft like you, eh, Jaxx? That's your thing!" He punched Jaxx's arm playfully to realize they quit paying attention to him.

A mumble of thunder loomed off from behind Breka's mountain. Merys's instinct sent her back to Aren. Breka's cry echoed through the valley as Aren's cry filled the air. The babe and the beast rose at the same time. Breka entered flight with immense speed, crying viciously as it projected straight to the village. The storm clouds chased Breka, but not near fast enough. The livestock grew nervous.

Breka swooped low, lifting a wing to gust at the ashes of the bonfire from the celebration the night before. The titan didn't even need to look at the flame to know the fire was dimly reborn. It kept a heavy stare at Merys holding Arenthis as Breka kicked firewood to the bonfire with its back paw without looking. The beast approached Merys. The village stood still as they all understood what was happening.

"NOOOOO!"

Lightning boomed as Merys burst into tears. The baby shared the mother's terror and started wailing. She held him tightly to her chest. Winds blew in with the storm, lifting the bonfire's flame. Even Breka feared the lightning that was coming amidst the clouds darker than any of them had ever seen. "Breka! We know what you want." She was taken aback as she noticed the beast's wounded eye from the dream was real.

Merys walked towards Breka at a heavy pace. The beast stopped and stepped aside for the angry mother. Merys walked to the growing fire, with the wind intensifying. She took the babe and raised it above the flame, staring at the Griffin. "Is this what you want, titan? Does Aren have to die for the storms to leave?!" Breka was impressed, and bowed to her approvingly.

Merys' furious tears poured from her eyes as she gathered the strength to let the babe go. She kissed Aren on every inch of his head before lowering him slowly to the fire. Jaxx ran to stop her, to be pulled back by Semwise as his heavy frame blew past to stop Merys. Breka walled Semwise and Jaxx back with its massive wing. The rain was drifting in with the heavy wind. The wing was lowered, allowing them to see Merys on her knees, unable to let the baby go. Breka moved in with the utmost care. Aren's wrap was lifted by the beak of Breka. The Griffin lowered the baby into the fire so softly, even though the flame was searing its beak. Only when Aren was safely on the ground of the fire that was to consume him did Breka whip back with a blackened beak, standing on its back paws, stretching its wings wide. The rain and wind died; only Merys' sobs could be heard.

The enveloping clouds broke directly above the village. The sunlight poured back out, warming the earth. A baby's laughter broke the silence. Merys lifted her teary eyes to see Arenthis's tiny hands trying to catch the flames that were trying to swallow him. He smiled as the flames wrapped harmlessly around his body. His blanket burned to nothing, letting him loose to roll out from the fire. Semwise's massive hands reached in the fire to pick Arenthis up. His hands had turned a violent red by the time he had handed the giggling child back to his mother. He ran to drop them into a nearby bucket of water.

Breka nodded once more to the mother, taking flight back to its mountain. Jaxx nervously approached Merys and Aren. His hands hovered over the child as if it was sickly before touching him. The village gathered quietly, awestruck, though Semwise jumped to stand with them as if he were family. He cried happy tears as he held his red hands out, hugging Jaxx with his forearms.

"I don't need my hands as much as you Jaxx. I'll gladly burn for my baby brother, I will! You're the one who needs to be able to hold the little warrior. Born of the storm, you said... Jaxx, this little man IS the storm."

Jaxx and Merys looked at their baby as if beholding a stranger.
11

One With the Waters

Merriment was in full force in the mead halls of Yawuld, mugs of ale smashing against the wooden tables, engraved with portraits of peril and victory as homegrown tales of the sad and the bold were shared. The women danced around the bonfire in the centre of the hall, while the men chanted along with the tunes of a wooden flute, harp, and a fiddle, creating a steady drumbeat on each side of the hall. The heavy vibrations brewing intensity among the celebrators. A thick hog slowly turned over a smaller fire letting off a mouth-watering odour.

A throne of bone at the far end, centred above a couple of stairs to sit above the rest, head racked with the antlers of the burning-eyed behemoth, the Malevorog, the antlered revenants. One of many species of terror in the wintered north. Nine antler tines on the left, and eight on the right, reaching almost the height of the hall roof. It's forearms and front claws made up the armrests, while the foot talons accented the throne legs. The back support made to look like an open rib cage, though the true size would be far too large.

The support beams of the hall were decorated with both battered and flawless weapons and armaments. A variety of monster skulls were among the keepsakes. Crevaug, the Troll's skull, was among the forefront of the trophies, along with Bullros, the Minotaur's skull, which hung as the troll's equal on the opposite side. The minotaur's signature double-headed hand axes were stuck into the wooden beam above the skull, with their horned prongs above the blades for consecutive stabbing and slashing. A mere man would have to use both hands to hold each axe.

Further down the hall, above the villager's tables, were hung various predator trophies. A collection of wolf, wolverine, and bear talons were strung from the overhanging beams in small assortments to make a full, end-to-end drapery. Before those had been placed a collection of trophies from more docile creatures; caribou racks and sheep horns hung tightly and neatly to express a rich multitude. The brumak horns, on the other hand, had to be lined up against the walls, for their immensity was too much to be hung even with the heaviest of caribou and sheep mounts. The brumak made up the majority of nourishment for the people, a blessing in the rough. Each brumak provided upwards of four-hundred pounds of meat and hide thick enough to protect from the worst of storms.

The Vikings took turns being front and centre before the boned-throne, telling the most extravagant versions of familiar tales to their fellow merrymakers. Back and forth they boasted and one-upped each other. The tale of "One with the Waters" came last. Jarl Reign, who earned his place on the boned-throne by providing the carcasses that crafted it, was chosen to share the tale. His wife, Saxi, had a more comfortable throne of etched cedarwood beside his, which had been given to her on their wedding day, three years ago. They finally gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Xerxes, whom she was now nursing on her throne, padded with the softest of hides, as she looked at her Jarl with awe. Their brother and sister Vikings clashed cups in unison to their honour and to that of the babe, then Reign began his tale.

Citadel soldiers and sailors had tried to reach Viking land for as long as time remembered. Many had attempted to find the land of Nord beyond the northern sea, but terrible storms overdrew the most expansive arsenals. If the storm did not rain death, the demons of the depths had their share of the slaughters. Few men ever returned from the venture across the northern sea. Those who return came back broken, scared to sleep, suffering from chronic shaking and post-traumatic stress, wrecking havoc with their emotions and ruining the home life they had.

They raved about stories of not only single demons attacking but of the clashing of titans in storms of krakens and leviathans. They claimed it seemed as if they were racing to take the most souls. Sirens sang by the dozens but devoured by the hundred. There were claims that even islands appeared out of nowhere. Crews would land and be caught off guard as the island sank beneath their feet back into the sea. The last thing they would see was a goliath turtle, a Zaratan, dissolving the island back into its shell as it dove into the ocean and let sea monsters clash over the sailor's flesh. The more absurd the tales grew, the less the world took the survivors seriously. But the one concept was clear; travelling the northern sea was a death wish.

A century ago, those beasts who called themselves the Vikings landed on the shores of Ecclesia. Bulking men and women who stood taller than the average person, with unique tribal designs from head to toe, sharper designs based on lineage and feats of valour dictated a man's marking, softer curves and edges writ the figures on the woman's body, though many women were known savage enough to accomplish equal feats to their male counterpart. All were taught how to survive, for the monsters of Nord gave no mercy to either man, woman, or child.

Word spread quickly of vessels that successfully crossed the northern sea. Even more to their surprise, when it was not Ecclesian sailors returning, but foreigners landing from the other side for the first time. It did not take long for soldiers to hear the word and offer a face to face visit with the king. A king far before even that time, who worked alongside his people, deemed himself the Grand Architect, which became the birth of Ecclesia. Ever since, the kings had lost sense of their human equivalence and proceeded to call themselves Grand Architects, without ever lifting a hammer of their own.

The Vikings were given a seat with the self-proclaimed Grand Architect of that time. They feasted and shared stories of their worlds that neither culture could comprehend. The Viking aesthetic alone gave Ecclesian's an impression of criminality. Only the highborn, high military, or criminals of Ecclesia typically had any form of body art. The criminals tended to have a defining crudeness to their art, while the noble had higher quality, orderly tattoos. The Vikings culture was aggressive by nature, not benefiting from their proposed unity.

Regardless of cultural impressions, they were an immediate twist in Ecclesia's future expansion. They were highly respected for crossing the northern sea, which Vikings call the Oceans of Alamat. For the first time, the Vikings were humble in their tale. They and their waters understood an unspoken peace. They prided themselves as slayers of the mythical and the massive, though the battles were never brought to the sea, as their harmony to nature itself was pure. The king called their bluff when the Vikings told them that the titans of the sea brought them favourable waters. True or tale, they arrived, and it would change their world forever.

Jarl Ulfar was set on creating a peace and trade pact. Ecclesia's technology, even in its feudality, far exceeded the expansion of the Vikings. But Grand Architect Segwin had a more cynical plot brewing in mind. The Vikings were legendary for the exaggeration of their triumphs, but it painted the proper picture to pique the interest of the Ecclesian leader. Ecclesians had never known of such beasts to exist.

The lands surrounding Ecclesia contained creatures limited to simple feather, fur, scale, and skin. They had their own share of giants and monsters, but none such as the Malevorog, the demons of exposed bone and flaming innards. The Vikings were having fun exceeding each other's tales, astonishing their new company. The tales extended from the simple Brumak to the tormenting of Crevaug, the Troll. Onward to the Malevorog and finishing at the myth of a soul that seemed to haunt the northernmost mountains, bringing the ice to life in defence of their Nordic realm. Even the most legendary of slayers hadn't dared pressure that which doesn't bleed.

At the conclusion of the feast, a controversial agreement had arisen. The King's only son, Prince Kreon, who had no heirs, proposed that he travel home with the Vikings. The deal was set for a small band of recognized soldiers to follow the Vikings home carrying a sentimental heirloom, a two-handed jeweled greatsword. It was on that note that the Prince demanded his lead on the voyage. The sword, being four generations old, was more of a symbol than a weapon. It had seen no blood, as the past few architects have refused direct battle of any sort. Kreon was happy to change the story of a blade as famed as Requiem.

Prince Kreon was a sturdy, matured man, still soft of cheek but thick of muscle, but only near the muscularity of the smallest of the Viking crew. It was far from Ecclesian custom to brawl with a guest. But testosterone and hopeful youth had taken the young prince's excitement. He proposed a friendly brawl between the Vikings and highly respected officers and even the prince himself. He was convinced he could impress the northern 'savages.'

Late that night, they had lit the torches around the king's courtyard. They were given a tour of the Citadel. The Citadel itself was a magnificently decorated arrangement of structures. Ecclesia seemed to be the centre of the world. The Vikings were pale-skinned beings, but Ecclesia was home to those of all race and culture. It was sickening for the free-spirited Vikings to see so many people bow to a king. They understood the complexity of hierarchy, though they did not agree with seeing so many humans subdue to a life of bidding. They did not believe it was natural for a person to lay control over any other person. Respect was one thing, but possession was the only thing worse than a terrible death, to have a terrible life.

Beside their disgust, their jaws couldn't but drop at the sight of all the worldly banners risen together. The Vikings had only ever known of their own civilizations. They were simply drops in the ocean among the seemingly endless expanse of the citadel. Swirling pillars made for tall rooves in most areas. Time had changed much of the citadel. Trends and new ideas swooped through the area, changing the structures of many buildings from one district to the next. Every gathered cultural concept, structure, tradition and art was collected and documented, though there was a sense of assimilation that kept the Vikings on their guard.

The light breeze drifted through on the moonlit night as a collection of Kreon's favourite soldiers prepared to brawl with the Vikings. The soldiers were decorated in their own complimentary armour. Some were heavily burdened by plate mail and their two-handed weapons. Others had hardened leather for swifter movement with dual blades, sword and shield, or a spear. All but Kreon's armour was mainly coloured as white as the citadel spires, accented with various preferred colours and symbols. Kreon's plate mail was painted as dark as his obsidian weapon, with heavy lion head pauldrons on each side, a thick chest plate with a large claw scrape from shoulder to hip, which, on closer inspection, was just a design, flashy for men who haven't seen much of war.

They left their helms off in the name of friendly competition. It seemed rather unfair with most of the Vikings' skin exposed, but they shared witty banter as the soldiers readied themselves. The Vikings only ever had stacked furs in their wintered world. They forged steel as well as the Ecclesians, but their metal was far more tested than theirs. Only the king's favourite company gathered for the prospect, as the visit was meant to be discreet for the time being. The soldiers were a bit nervous to be pit against the Viking women. They made jokes of embarrassing them, as they lived a man-run world. Their perspective was about to be brutally enlightened.

The first Ecclesian, sword and shield in hand, was to spar with Boli, a spear maiden. Her small shield was to parry anybody who could get inside her reach, but Boli was going to make the most of it. Kreon introduced his men, as Ulfar spoke for his party. Kreon could only speak for his soldiers sparring records, for Ecclesia had rarely known times of war. Jarl Ulfar capitalized, throwing the limelight on Boli and her accomplishments, having conquered three bears alone and holding the record for this year's brumak hunt at fourteen kills. She tapped her spearhead in anticipation, she noticed her combatant's embarrassment.

The soldier came in casually, swiping limply at Boli's spear to feel its weight. Boli pretended its weight heavier than it was, giving him a false sense of speed. Boli was a thick woman, of equal size as this man undoubtedly. Boli dropped her spear to get close and parry his swings, pressing him back. Both sides shared a dull laugh at his surprise at her power. He began pushing forward, lunging and slashing, while Boli met each swing with a smile on her face. He threw his weight into a lunge to overpower her shield arm, but she pushed his weight aside, spinning full circle, whipping her spear under the back of his legs, dropping him on his back. He attempted a quick recovery but felt the spear point pushing against his throat.

Both sides rose in laughter and cheers. The soldier demanded a trial best of three. That was already set in motion, but he couldn't help bleating for redemption in his embarrassment. They stood ready again, Boli holding back laughter.

The soldier went for a full rush, throwing his shield aside, hoping to hammer his weight down on her before her spear could be lifted. She read his move before he made it. She lifted her spear casually as he swung it aside in his approach, raising the sword again to crash down with both hands. She dropped to one knee and planted the shield in his plated gut, launching him high over her head in a great effort. He flipped onto his back, crashing down hard enough to drop his sword and dent his armour. She tickled the spear tip behind each of his ears as he lay there, hearing both parties explode with laughter.

"Ecclesian women could learn a thing or two from us Viking maids, eh, Kreon?" Boli stretched her arms out, flaunting her victory. "As well as your men!"

The crowds again shared a laugh, except for the defeated man. He brushed the dirt off his freshly dented armour and tried to hold onto any pride he had left.

The following four fights went very similarly. Ulfar proceeded to introduce his companions and their epic accomplishments. Every Ecclesian man was defeated in two rounds in the best of three. Regardless of the change of weaponry, the Vikings were proving their metal.

Until the fifth fight.

Ulfar realized the Ecclesians were growing bitter towards the situation. The Vikings roared with their victories, though the Citadel men, along with their king, were slowly realizing their fragility. Pretty titles and armour were being shamed as these men had never known true struggle. Ulfar whispered among his crew, deciding to let them have the next round but playing it as if he had earned it.

An agile Ecclesian in light leather and fine chainmail hopped the fence onto the sparring ground with dual blades in hand. Ulfar's next man came with a battle axe in hand, making a change in pace as the dual bladed man began to take the ring. Swipe after swipe was whipped back with the double-headed blade of the hilt of the battle axe. The Viking even kicked out his legs, but he recovered deftly enough to return the favour, sweeping the Viking off his feet. The Ecclesian came swooping down at him, looking to do damage. Instinctually, the Viking bashed the hilt across the man's face, spitting out blood and tooth fragments.

Both sides rose to their feet to aid the battle, but King Segwin shouted otherwise. He liked what he saw. The men rolled intertwined on the ground, wrestling hand to hand. The Ecclesian weaselled his way into a chokehold, forcing the Viking to submit. Kreon's men roared with excitement as their morale returned. The match was called, the first round to the Ecclesian man. He spat blood and smiled deviously at his opponent, recovering his breath.

The second round erupted with intensity. The flurry of blades pressed against the battle axe. The Viking briefly saw Ulfar in the corner of his eye give him the nod of disapproval. The Viking knew he had to let it go. He still found a sweet spot in the soldier's flurry, as he ducked under a knifes swing, throwing him over the Viking's back. The Ecclesian was agile enough to make use of it, as he popped the momentum off his back and landed on his feet. He threw his body sideways into a flip, kicking the Viking in the jaw. In his daze, the duelist swept in to wrap him in a headlock, blade to the throat. The round was won for Ecclesia. He dropped the Viking from his grasp, taking his victory with some class. They gripped each other's forearm, eye to eye, sharing a laugh at each other's bleeding faces.

Kreon's men now threw insults at the Vikings, forgetting the score was only one against the Vikings' four. The surrounding servants couldn't help but abandon their post at the excitement of the sparring. The King was too distracted to notice and give them any scolding. The final fight, the most exciting of all, pitted Kreon against Ulfar. The King rose to introduce his son, attempting the most ravishing of words.

"Here, Prince of Ecclesia, the heir to the Kingdom, the centre of the world, Ohm. The successor of the realm and bright future of this city. He wields the blade of our country's forefathers, that which unites us, Requiem, the finest of the citadel, and perhaps even, the bane of the Vikings' best."

The Ecclesians cheered from all directions. The servants were no longer trying to be subtle, the anticipation was immense.

Boli took the lead as the cheering died down. "Jarl Ulfar, leader of the Viking Clan of Yawuld. Salvation from the devil, Crevaug. Bare-hand bane to wolves. Terror of the North, and the Protector of all we know."

Ulfar cracked a smile, and a blew a kiss at his wife, Boli. His crew pounded their hands on the walls and roared Ulfar's name. His three-pronged beard weaved with small wolf teeth at the ends jingled as he approached. His long-braided hair, thick as a fist, was far more intimidating to Kreon when it was staring down at him.

Even in Kreon's glistening black plate armour, he was dwarfed by Ulfar's bare chest as he removed his fur coat. The moonlight reflected off Kreon's armour and black blade, giving it a dark vibration, which didn't suit the pure, young man who wore it. His excited smile knew no evil. He has been sheltered from true battle, but he sure was motivated.

"You know I can't go easy on you boy. A proper leader will respect another enough to show him his true power. I don't want to embarrass you, but I can tell you have heart, Kreon." He faced his wife, Boli, as she tossed him two large double-edged hand axes, the masterfully edged weapons made of material that was shining as deep as Requiem. "Meet Bane and Burden. They, too, are obsidian, found in our northernmost mountains. The shaft and grips are made from the bones of Crevaug, the Troll who slaughtered many of my people. I hope that one day, your weapon, too, shall have a story deeper than decoration." Ulfar bowed to Kreon and King Segwin individually.

Kreon bouncing foot to foot in anticipation. "Yes, yes, honour and glory, let us give our boys a show!" He lifted his two-handed blade high, trying to grab attention, dropping it towards Ulfar to begin. Ulfar stepped in, directing Requiem one direction, then danced outwards, heavily backhanding Kreon against the cheek. The King stood quickly, taking that blow personally until Kreon was heard laughing.

"Fair enough, I earned that one, Jarl! But that's not a loss!" He kept a smile on his face as he threw all his weight into his swings, taking the spar too seriously. He had no intention of hurting Ulfar, but he was not controlling his swing enough to stop it if it were to do fatal damage. Ulfar reacted respectfully, letting the boy have his show.

Kreon began a whirlwind with Requiem, pushing the Jarl backwards, assuming a fast-enough spin was foolproof. Ulfar paced backwards calmly, carefully waiting for his moment. Kreon followed Ulfar around the ring, dazing himself with his heavy swinging, but continuing. Ulfar dropped his weapons on the ground, leaving himself unarmed. Kreon swung another three times before noticing. He slowed himself to a halt, breathing heavily.

"Why'd you—" Kreon's sentence was interrupted by a massive shoulder to the gut as Ulfar came in with a full force tackle. Kreon gasped weakly for breath, being heavily winded. He then realized Ulfar stood above him with Requiem, his own blade, pointing down at him.

"An unarmed man is far from helpless, Kreon. A legendary blade can't protect you from simple tactic and wit."

Ecclesian servants and soldiers stood speechless, their King silently gritting his teeth in rage. Kreon broke the tension by extending a plated gauntlet to be lifted by Ulfar. He looked up to the bearded man, smiling, slapping his chest with a fist playfully.

"Jarl! Thank you! I've sparred for ten years, and here you are, teaching me like your little brother. I'll take note of that one, Brother Bear." He laughed to himself, extending a hand to take his weapon back. Even the king couldn't help but crack a grin. His boy was happy, even when he was getting beaten.

Ulfar found the balance in Bane and Burden, tossing them up to his hands by his feet. He too, smiled as round two was to begin. Kreon clenched his weapon hard, ready to swing. He suddenly dropped it and turned his back.

"Oooh! I forgot!" He took a step closer to Ulfar, centering himself in the ring. "Father, did you remember to..."

A lash of agony threw Ulfar back. He only heard laughter erupt as he tried wiping the sand from his eyes. He stepped backwards, suddenly tripping on a leg. He instinctually swung as he fell back, connecting lightly with Requiem. He tried rolling sideways but was stopped by Requiem being planted in the ground beside him as Kreon's boot was planted on his chest. His eyes still burned, but he knew he had lost that round.

"Jarl, I'm sorry. I had to return the favour! A dirty fighter isn't very well respected, I know. But most of the time, the dirty fighter gets to go home. A victory by any means necessary in the world, do you agree, Brother Bear?" He extended his hand to lift him to his feet. Ulfar was humble, taking the offer.

A dead silence took over the night as only crickets were heard. The Vikings were unsure what conclusion for this battle to cheer for. If Ulfar embarrassed Kreon, the king might take insult and have them executed. A good outcome was looking hard to see at this point. They stood ready for the final round.

The sound of Requiem slicing the air marked the first swing. Ulfar ducked under it, and hooked Bane to the tip of Requiem mid-swing, throwing the weight backwards. With Kreon's arms lifted, Ulfar dropped a shoulder into his chest, blowing him backwards. He rolled as quickly as possible, recovering his footing to see Ulfar holding back. Kreon again lifted the blade high in the air, dropping all his weight into the swing down on Jarl. Ulfar simply sidestepped, lifting Burden to help thrust Requiem deep into the sand. Kreon was hunched trying to rip the sword from the dirt as he watched Jarl's knee swing directly into his forehead.

Kreon's arms swung open wide as blood spewed from his head. He fell backwards, spitting up dust as he hit the ground. The Ecclesians fury was heard as they began jumping the fence to charge Ulfar. The Vikings followed in return, prepared for a bloodbath.

"Wait!" Kreon waved a weak arm in the air. "Ulfar... Help a brother up?"

The crowd stilled. Ulfar approached slowly, reaching for Kreon's arm, lifting him slowly. Kreon gave Ulfar a heavy hug, dripping his blood all over the Jarl's chest.

"In a thousand wars, you'd slaughter me every time, Ulfar. I respect you and your people. I'd be honoured to see your world. Vikings and Ecclesians will see great fortune if you would have me, Brother Bear?"
12

Center of the World

Ecclesia made itself the centrepiece of the world. It began as an outpost for travellers, merchants, and the lost. Ocean to the north, forested mountains to the distant west, and rich soiled fields ripe for farming in every other expanse. The people of Ohm believed that humanity was born to these grounds. No recorded history dictated otherwise.

History would have it that a towering wall of stone stood at the centre of where the citadel now stood. The fortress began the defence of the World Stones before it. The markings on those World Stones became the preliminary to the unity of mankind. A marking was put down for each sound a human could make. The maiden language at that time prided itself as the Common Tongue.

Day and night the stones were protected. The agreeance of those markings was to be the foundation of learning for the rest of time. As many people stumbled upon this establishment, there was always an excess of resources to provide for a growing nation around those stones.

Nothing desecrated these stones. To do so meant death. The only content to be added to the immortal engravings would be in the name of unified understanding. The establishment grew exponentially. Wanderers from every route except beyond the northern sea were drawn to the towering stones. The wanderers no longer wandered, the migrators laid still, and the lost considered themselves found. The colour of one's skin was never of conflict. (That had become a restructured concept of hate many generations later.)

They pondered the name of their world. First, the collection of all matter than made land and waters was called 'Ert,' 'Urf,' 'Hirtha,' or any variation of the same sound across many languages. The collaborative vote created the agreed name as 'Earth.' All the earth that they were given was their home. 'Ohm' was the sound of the vibration the world made when you found absolute silence. When you could hear air drift and the land breathe, 'Ohm,' the hum within the land that claimed its own name.

The call of unity had changed. It was not progressive to destroy what was not understood. Other organized writings had made their way onto the World Stones. Intelligence flourished. The Stones became Ecclesia. The assembly of understanding lived on with those etchings.

"Wow," was all that Ulfar could say.

The company of Vikings was taking in the majesty of the weathered Stones. Countless languages were gathered and organized on the weathered mass. Every citizen was free to come and go from this place. It was a crowded wonder of peaceful disputes. Benches, fountains, and cultural trinkets littered the open area. The utmost respect was given to this sanctuary.

"They raised and reorganized defences for this base since recorded time. This place IS recorded time, the pride and joy of who we are. And it is yours to join, Brother Bear!" Kreon slapped Ulfar's arm jokingly.

Ulfar looked to the sky, seeing the fortress spires blot out the sun. He had an underlying feeling of disgust. "Every man and woman of our kind is one of a kind. We mark ourselves as our story unfolds. We represent our family, our triumphs, our scars. We embrace life. Each of us has a story to tell...as did your forefathers. But do you? Even as the future Architect, is that what you want? You like dirt on your cheeks, but you do what you're told." Ulfar spat on the ground.

The unsheathing of blades sung from every direction. The Vikings mirrored in nature.

"WHOA! Whoa-whoa-whoa! Wait-wait-wait-wait, friends!" Kreon was the only one unarmed with his hands raised. "They don't understand, boys, he means no ill! Tell them, Brother Bear! And wipe that up!" He pointed to his drop of spit.

Ulfar rolled his eyes but agreed. He wiped it up with his bare hand and onto his pelt. "That, I can respect. I did you dishonour, Ecclesian. My deepest apologies." Ulfar bowed deeply, his wolf teeth jingling. His crew sheathed their blades. The Ecclesian guards stood firm until Kreon waved them off.

Kreon closed in to whisper to Ulfar: "I've waited all my life for a chance to break the cycle. This place is a revolving symphony of monotony. I will be handed a kingship when my senior's mind or body has diminished, as has been for as long as we remember. I spit on the system. Their names have been engraved with the Lineage of Leaders. But I find no glory in a title unearned. I envy your way of life. I would be forever indebted to be with your people."

Ulfar hid his laughter as he slapped a heavy hand to Kreon's shoulder. "You wouldn't last... Brother Cub."

"I'll prove myself!" Kreon got defensive. "I can't speak for my company, but by the end of the day, I'm sure you'll have me. If not, I'll give you Requiem."

Heads turned; he had said it too loudly.

"R... Requisitions... requisitions for exploration!" Kreon tried to recover.

Eyes remained glued on him. Word would soon be about. A rumour of misinterpretation was dangerous enough. To hand over the sword would be to turn over command of the citadel.

"I don't need another ornament." Ulfar wasn't quiet. "I need to bring home good news for my people, such as news that we found more of us. But you aren't us. You are smaller. Weaker. But the small and weak can learn. You might see us as savages, but savages are better mannered than the 'civilized.' The 'civilized' man may be discourteous and not lose his head. Ecclesia is organized anarchy. Your people even took the fun out of chaos."

"I am more than my birthright, Viking." Kreon became stern. "There is much beyond the citadel. Enough of our stone that blots out the sun. How 'bout we treat ourselves to a friendly game of hunting?"

Approval rose in every direction from the Viking company. Apparently, they had been listening closer than it seemed or the word "hunting" set their souls ablaze.

"HUNTING?" Boli broke in. "Yes indeed! Do you have enough horses for us?"

"Plenty." Kreon had his smile back.

The citadel shrunk in the distance as they went south and west to the fields and forest. They blew through the city gates going full tilt on their suited geldings through the natural kingdom. A cloudless sky's sun beat down on them with a friendly breeze on their face. A sea of richly coloured foliage was endlessly before them. The western peaks loomed in the distance.

Kreon had his usual hunting party of five, some of the same company that was a part of the beatings the Vikings laid upon Ecclesia's 'finest.' The air thickened with the anticipation of another competition between the two peoples. The Vikings had their own crude bows, while the Ecclesians had a more flattering, untested looking tool. Fancy etchings made the man no better a hunter. Their arrows, on the other hand, were a finer product of savagery.

The Vikings had the traditional metal or rock tip and feathered notching. The Vikings were impressed with the ingenuity before them. Barbed, spiralled, and even double and triple layered blades made the Ecclesians' arrowheads, making for a more fatal wound, though they hadn't quite figured the science to them yet. This came to attention when they decided to ride their prey down and let out volleys.

It was about the entirety of the Viking company (only five went along for subtlety's sake, while the rest wandered the city) that facepalmed in unison at this sight. The volley at a painfully distant herd of deer pained Boli too much.

"STOP!" Boli roared at the Ecclesian five, even frightening her own. "Malevorog take you, boys! Let the lady show you." She heeled her steed into a gallop before them. Ulfar followed his wife's lead swiftly with a deep warcry. Roo-ah! The three others echoed behind.

Boli rode closer and closer to a fleeing doe. Its sporadic movement didn't faze Boli upon her mount. She zigged and zagged on her prey's trail. The doe attempted to blow through a thick entanglement of trees and found itself stuck. It pawed and kicked furiously as Boli dismounted and notched her arrow almost at point blank. It stared Boli in the eyes as it's kicking came to an abrupt halt.

The Ecclesians seem mortified by Boli's ability to nonchalantly retrieve her own bloody arrow and toss the entire doe over her shoulder. She led her horse back towards the audience before her. Kreon's jaw dropped and was speechless. Ulfar dismounted, cheering, snagging the burden from Boli's shoulder and pulling her in for a passionate kiss.

"Can an Ecclesian woman do that, Prince?" Boli boasted.

"If she exists, I haven't met her." Kreon was dumbstruck. "Lads, if you find one of these girls, please let me make her a princess." They laughed together.

"I fear she may be too good for you, Brother Cub!" Ulfar played along. "Any lass that could match my Boli would rather teach her sisters and daughters to pass on the trade. My Master Huntress here leads the hunting parties on our side of the world." He held her tighter as he bragged.

Kreon's sass came from his embarrassment. "Master Huntress, eh? Well, I saw her shoot a poor deer at one yard. How about... GOD BE DAMNED, Boli!"

Boli had sent an arrow that had breezed past Kreon's cheek. He looked back to see a pigeon drop from the sky behind him. It hit the ground in a puff of feathers. The Vikings howled with pride.

"Our girls might be able to toss you around, Kreon, but we shame no free spirit," Boli began. "If you would divert from your people, it is not we who judge. We wear our stories upon our skin. You too would dawn such a form to be with us. We don't dictate what you do, we are all the heroes of our own story. Don't sell your life short because somebody else already has your life planned for you.

"Even a kingship isn't enough for some... You could become the first Ecclesian to touch our Northern Mountains. You could be the Ecclesian Ambassador to expanding beyond your city, even if you never make it back here. If you want to do your 'free' people a favour, show them there is a world beyond safe walls."

Kreon's company was not surprised by this conversation. They grew up with him. They envied the opportunity, if anything. But in their hearts, they knew they liked their cushioned lives as members of the higher respected families in Ecclesia.

"It's settled." Kreon looked to his brethren. "Ecclesia will move forward whether I sit on the throne or not. The Grand Architect has lost its novelty generations ago. I pity the comfortable! To hurt is to grow. So, I will gladly bleed with your people if you would have me, Ulfar."

Ulfar went to pick up the dead pigeon and threw it to Kreon. Kreon caught it, confused. "We will help you, Prince. But you will step down and deem yourself an outcast. You're too mature and stubborn to share our instincts. We may teach you what we can. Bask in a luxury of living a life you chose. But at the end of the day, the Mountains decide your worth. We can't protect you from the darkness of nights and your own ambition. Nonetheless, we will take you there.

"We can be our own heroes, but we respect our heroes of tomorrow. The first test, give that pigeon to a hungry child. You'll be a hero before the sun sets."
13

Savathün

Make haste!" Kreon was geared with his heavy jet-black plate mail. It didn't seem to burden him as he carried a bag of simpler clothes and Requiem slung across his back. His plate clunked as he hurried to the already readied Vikings with their longships.

"All you did was leave a note?" Jarl Ulfar seemed displeased. "I said step down, not run away."

"Brother Bear, this burden is mine to bear, and I chose to leave it as light as parchment for my king. I simply put:

I leave to give Requiem the tale it deserves. I will redefine freedom for our future generations. I will come home as what Ecclesia needs, or not at all. What sort of king would I be if I was bound to this place? Jarl Ulfar has been gracious to grant me passage with his company to their land of Nord. I leave this note because I have made my choice. I know you will disapprove, but time waits for no man. I best make use of mine, as yours is running short.

Ambassador of Ecclesia and your son.

Kreon"

"You sound like a disobedient child, but our women will set you straight. Of that, I have no fear." Ulfar and the crew laughed. "You'll hang that shiny black armour on your wall. Metal armour has no place in the wintered lands. Your helmet will freeze to your skull and tip you over before you get a chance to fight anything." And so, the endless jokes began.

The Vikings had thanked King Segwin for his hospitality while Kreon had crept away to leave his note. The Vikings were sent off with a rich inventory of rations for the journey home. The king was quite concerned for Kreon as he already made clear he wanted to see the North for himself. His intentions had been at first selfish and prideful but were now humbled and hopeful.

"Best be off. My father is well known for his rage. Perhaps he may kill me if he finds me first!"

There was awkward laughter as final details were set in place for the journey to begin. The sunset in the west just over the distant mountain peaks, making for a beautiful watercolour sky.

"What's that?" Boli pointed back toward the citadel. Torches lit up the towering citadel spires. The flames seemed to funnel in all directions and sifted down quickly towards the docks.

"Best be off, I said! Father may literally want to kill me..." Kreon suddenly hid behind Ulfar. Haste was made. The lines were cut. The wind was favourable from the south. The city guards neared the docks as archers lined up along the dock, the beach, and the walls of the city. It was like a second sunset flickered with the army of Ecclesians prepared a volley.

"We tried to make peace, Kreon, you daft little brumak shit." Boli slapped him across the face as they safely sailed out of reach.

The army became ants in the distance as arrows were set ablaze. 'Ready, set, loose!' was dimly heard. The sky momentarily revived as a wave of flame until the volley hit the waters just in their wake.

They notched for a fruitless second volley for the sake of obeying orders. 'Ready, set, loose!' was repeated. The second wave of flame rose in the air. The sea seemed to retaliate, and a massive movement under the longships pulled them sideways. A massive tail whipped out of the water. The splash extinguished all the arrows at the pinnacle of their flight and soaked the army lined along the shore. The Vikings, too, were nearly capsized in the force.

"Savathün!" Jarl Ulfar unsheathed Bane and Burden to slap against his chest in a salute. The Vikings across all longships followed with their various weapons.

"Respect the sea, Kreon!" Boli shouted.

Kreon stood there in shock. The tail slithered back into the water. It scaled back, circled them, gliding just above the surface. A massive dragon face raised above the water, staring intently at the longships. Its immensity continued to rise until it was half as tall as the city spires, still partly submerged in the depths.

Savathün's squared jaw alone was equal in size to their longship. It moved closer with ease, its enormous size sending tidal waves with each movement. This dragon needed no wings and had no equal in the Oceans of Alamat. It moved like a tiger, scaled shoulders tight in a crouched approach. It gritted its jagged teeth, sniffing out its opposition, its deep blue body stretched wide across the horizon.

Savathün let out a roar that shook the world. The distant mountains replied with numerous rockslides. The waters rippled far and wide as time seemed to stand still.

"He is who grants our peaceful passage," Jarl began. "Every twenty-five years, we sacrifice a newborn to the waters to keep our peace with The God of the Deep. Your presence may be a dishonour, Kreon. You are not one of us."

"He protects you Vikings from... us? There is a GOD in our backyard? I don't think I want the North anymore..." Kreon shook.

"Savathün is here. He will not leave without a soul," Jarl explained, grabbing Kreon by the shoulders, forcing him to face the beast.

Savathün's sniffing was as a heavy wind rocking our boats back and forth, its golden eyes scanning back and forth for the corruption that was the prince.

The beast flinched at the sight of the black armoured prince. It clenched its teeth in rage. 'Ready, set, loose!' came from the shore. Savathün snapped its attention towards the army. Their arrows were no longer aflame. They momentarily blocked out the sun as they peaked, slowly descending upon the ships that were now pushed in range by Savathün's waves. The beast instinctually protected the boats, putting its mountainous frame in the way of the volley.

Savathün snapped its head back to snag Kreon from the boat, crunching through armour and bone, killing him instantly. The titan whipped Kreon's lifeless body against the shower of the arrows. The arrows pelted his armour midflight as the body it contained flew towards the spires of the citadel, the black speck of it crumbling in the distance when he hit the towering peaks around the World Stones of Ecclesia before falling a hundred feet to their base. His was the first blood splattered against the Unity of Ohm.

At that, the army stood down. The soldiers took a knee, submitting to Savathün. The beast noticed Requiem still on the ship where Kreon just stood. Ulfar raised to the weapon up for the titan to examine. It suggested submitting it to the waters. Ulfar did so without question. If anything, he was glad to throw it away.

Savathün took a front webbed claw and sent another massive wave over the army. Not to be fatal but as an example. It stood on its back legs, now towering equal to the citadel.

"KEEP... YOUR... PRINCE!" Savathün's booming voice shook the world again.

All understood: the separation of nations would remain. Savathün wrapped a scaled arm around the boats, setting their course back home. It breathed deeply and set their sails with devilish speed.

With Savathün's descent back to his kingdom, Requiem was lost. The Vikings returned home safely with the favour of their watery titan. The sacrifice had proven fruitful with peace made between the Viking nations and the Oceans of Alamat.

As human nature stands, Ecclesians claimed to hate what they did not understand. They feared the waters too much to risk venture. It remained an unspoken horror, but a reality. The Vikings were conspired to be evil. Those who 'sold their souls' to Savathün, the 'Demon at our back door.'

"But that ain't rightly so, is it lads and lasses?" Jarl Reign raised a cup before his people. They cheered loudly and clanked mugs and drank deeply to the conclusion of his tale. Saxi leaned over her throne chair to give a kiss to Jarl Reign. Baby Xerxes laughed and clapped, taking in the happy vibe of the mead hall.

The merriment dimmed as the crowd observed the happy newborn. They knew it wasn't all a joyous night. The quarter century had come and passed once again. For the fourth time since Ulfar and his company had set eyes upon Savathün. The four Vikings establishments had agreed to take equal responsibility to provide for their titan.

"It is time, brothers and sisters." Reign was a little choked up. "I'm proud to be a part of our history and keeping peace with Savathün. Saxi is a strong mother for this sacrifice. May we have many more babes as strong as our little Xerxes, and may Xerxes watch over us from Valhalla."

"TO XERXES!" they cried, after which every man and woman had a moment of silence while draining their mugs. They rose from their tables and donned their fur coats. Jarl Reign and Saxi rose from their thrones, walking down the centre of the hall as the village held fist to chest in salute.

The Jarls of each establish had come to celebrate and respect tradition and sacrifice. Jarl Grigor of Godrelm, the northernmost fortress against the Living Mountains. Jarl Iago of Meothmir, the excavation front. Lastly, Master-Huntress Ysilda of Maerfold, the soul providers of meat and hides between the four establishments. (She refused the masculine title of Jarl but is respected as such.)

The night was young. The foremost time before anybody had begun drinking too heavily. The stars were out, and the northern lights danced brightly. The dark of night could not fight the beauty that was flickering among the blanket of stars that night. 'The Floor of Valhalla' they called the sky on nights this stunning.

Yawuld was the closest establishment to the sea, as they provided fishery stocks between the four establishments, and did the chief mapping of the sea and beyond. It was the heavily fortified in chances the sea swept up Ecclesians who still had a reckoning.

The venture was short for the company to the beach. No horses were needed as was necessary when the ritual was laid upon one of the other towns. A wall of torches lined the large crowd on each side, though the full moon and northern lights provided sufficient light.

Saxi held her composure until this moment, standing before the waves washing against their boots. Jarl Reign's right hand, Barde, was a massive man above already massive people. He was a bearded, barrel-chested force of nature. His beaded braid and beard jingled as he presented the couple the sacrificial basket. For such a brute of a man, he too was holding back tears on this occasion.

The leaders took turns adding to the basket as per the customs of their town. Grigor of Godrelm put in a Living Ice fragment of an elemental that attempted siege on Godrelm. It was a fist-sized rock of ice that vibrated with frozen energy. It was wrapped in a thick cloth to not upset the child. Iago added a handful of diamonds, the strongest material known to them, from Crevaug's Cavern. Ysilda had a collection of bloodied arrowheads, a tribute of successful hunts.

Saxi lightly put the baby in the wooden basket. She then undid her necklace, an heirloom from her grandmother, Boli, a wolf tooth from Ulfar's beard, a symbol of their unbreakable love.

"May our ancestors bless these gifts upon our Xerxes. May Savathün find him worthy." Reign took Saxi's hand. They kissed Xerxes on the forehead and said their goodbyes. The crowd was stricken with grief. They all shared the mother's pain; nobody was too strong to fight tears.

The lid was nailed shut. Xerxes's smile faded in confusion as the cover stole sight to his mother and father. Cries immediately echoed in the cask. Barde saluted first, followed by the Jarls and all Yawuld.

"To Valhalla!" all said in unison.

Reign and Saxi held each handle of their child's cask and walked waist deep into the cold waters. The cold water mattered not when emotions took hold. The northern lights reflected off the sea and set the endless waters ablaze in greens, reds, blues, and purples. The Vikings believed Valhalla was celebrating when the northern lights came out. It was the only thing to lift the spirits this night. The undertow pulled the cask from their hands.

Saxi burst into tears and fell into Reign's arms while still standing in the water, watching the cask float away. Xerxes' cries faded toward the open ocean as he quickly drifted away into the waving light. The cries dimmed to silence as their world stood still. The couple finally made their way back to the beach with their company.

A curious sound caught their attention and made them turn to face the waters that had just taken their son from them.

Something sent a heavier wave to the beach, soaking everybody's boots, far above the shoreline. Another heavier wave was coming. They swiftly moved uphill to safety. Two golden lights rose from the distant waters.

"No..." Reign said in fear.

The golden lights rose higher and higher, higher than Yawuld's settling, far up on the cliffs above the ocean. The northern lights now glistened off a great scaled body. Savathün had never made physical presence for a child until now. His last presence was only made in refusal to Kreon's passage to the North.

This generation had never seen their titan. His immensity put the Vikings at a standstill. It watched them in the dark, its golden eyes unburdened by the darkness of night. Its body enveloped the horizon, its tail waving sent tsunamis out to sea. In one leap, it blacked out the sky to close in on the Vikings. Its splash rose high, extinguishing flames left ablaze back high in Yawuld, though it did not hit the party on the beach. Savathün was not here to harm them.

The dragon sniffed aggressively at the waters before them, its eyes narrowing when it caught glimpse of Xerxes's cask. Its great jaw slowly opened to engulf it. Many could not watch the horror, but Reign stared intently. That was his baby boy, and he would judge if the beast were to dishonour his seed. Savathün took in a mouthful of water, the cask included. It drained the sea water between its teeth but kept Xerxes in his mouth.

Savathün lifted high his great dragon head. The northern lights seemed to sparkle against its belly, then as if it were boiling inside him. The lights intensified inside of Savathün's body with its dull hiss growing to a great internal roar. The lights of the sky balled inside its belly, climbing up its chest like fire crawling out its body. The energy lit up the world like the sun in a great flash as it burst through Savathün's clenched teeth. Blue fire spit hundreds of feet high into the night, burning Xerxes in his mouth.

Reign clenched his teeth, not understanding. He unleashed his sword, not knowing what to do. Everybody behind him responded equally. The singing of blades caught Savathün's attention. The beast released the last of its flame, lowering slowly to his servants. The golden eyes and gritted teeth lowered into the reach of Reign. The beast slowly opened its mouth in front of Reign and Saxi. It tilted its head down to softly let loose the cask out of its mouth in a stream of water.

Reign tossed his weapon aside to catch the cask as it fell from Savathün's jaw. Reign was soaked but still managed to soften the cask's fall. It was unburnt, but no sound came from it. Reign furiously pulled at the lid, but it was nailed tight. Barde came in, propping his axe in the lip and prying it loose with care.

"Xerxes..."

A child's laughter came from the basket. Xerxes was not only unharmed, but was glowing. More specifically, bright blue veins were shining through his skin. The diamonds, arrowheads, and living ice had completely vanished. Only Xerxes was in perfect shape. The blue veins covered him in the same fashion as the Vikings would tattoo their tales upon themselves. The Pre-Destined Child, as they would call him.

Saxi's love was not wavered by Xerxes new appearance. They did not understand, but their watery God had brought him back for reasons they wouldn't question. Saxi held her babe tight, stepping slowly away from Savathün. The beast watched them with eyes that put peace in their hearts. The beast retreated a large pace to rise high above them.

"DEATH... DOES NOT... WANT HIM...YET!" Savathün carefully roared.

The ground did not shake; he did not intend to scare them. They took a knee in respect and laid down their weapons. Submission was all they had left in hope for their peace. Yawuld was nothing if not One with the Waters.

Word would spread quickly of the Pre-Destined Child. Xerxes waved a tiny arm at the titan as it retreated to the waters. Saxi suddenly realized Xerxes still held the wolf tooth necklace. He swung it around like a toy. Saxi's stress dissipated with the joy of her child in her arms. Reign raised a fist in triumph for his people. Lifting their spirits as easily as his fist. The celebration would rage on that night like no other.

Savathün descended into the nothingness as the northern lights stormed on. Valhalla would not have Xerxes yet.
14

Ever Vigilant

Xerxes lives?" I questioned The Divine. "You had him spit out?! What of Arenthis? Why does he laugh in the flame? Must I go down and finish them?"

"Yes. They live. They are as healthy as BoeDri and Roqua." He spoke softly.

I stood in my full armour, hood donned. I gripped the scythe tightly in my hand. He was meddling with His galaxies again. He expanded His view to show stars exploding as little crackles of light. Black holes opened and swallowed planets mercilessly, leaving an emptiness for life to begin anew or simply be forgotten.

"You see, Grim," He continued, the galaxy now became a show of fireworks, small bits of energy exploding and dissipating to nothing, a blinding show of a billion years growth amounting to this moment as a statement. "Life is no longer precious to me though I have taken an interest in these four children. You, alone, cannot comprehend compassion. The Grim Reaper is selfish by nature. You come, and you take. That is your purpose. But I love nothing quite so much as irony.

"You will be their guardian. In their sacrifice, they have been blessed with unworldly powers. They will live and learn the hard way, harder than the rest in all existence. I have set no destiny for these newborns. Their livelihood is at the mercy of Death. They will need Death. Never has there been such a contradicting hero.

"They will try to quit. But YOU will be their entity of hope."

"That is not who I am, your Holiness." I tossed my scythe aside, bursting it into stardust. "My hand is the end. My hand is sorrow. I am pain. I am plague. I am what goes bump in the night! How am I to become grace?" My rage burned. He waited for me to grow a devilish reputation to ask me to play the angel.

"Upon their sacrifice, upon the tether of life and death, I connected their soul to yours. They, too, are death incarnate. Not wholly, though sorrow and pain will follow them. They are bound to their mortal minds, but their power will grow. They, too, will wish to be gods."

He wiped away the galaxy as the last flickering of its life faded away. The slate was clean. He vaguely drew an outline of Ohm's geography. Centred, as always, was Ecclesia. Details were more elaborate only where I had personally seen. The positions of the babies were marked across the world.

Other unknown marks were placed. Frozen wings were northernmost above Godrelm. Crossed stone battleaxes and white claws were laid on the southern jungle. A double ended staff of sun and moon lay with Halaseir. Blue scales were drifting in the sea above Ecclesia. A great tree set far west with the mountains. Lastly, my scythe became a symbol of a skull over the throne of Ecclesia, even though I was not there.

"The Game of Gods has thus been set." He spoke before I could. "I may divert time at this moment, to begin fairly, or our little BoeDri may have already met a fatal end. After this, time will remain linear. You will have to choose who to prioritize if two of the children were to be in danger simultaneously."

The Grand Architect left the map laid out but formed a mass of stars in a ball to my left. It condensed into a smaller and smaller sphere until He spread the force apart, opening a portal to the southern jungle.

"I will provide passage as needed, Grim. Though without your angelic mind, your mortal mind is subject to instinct. You will feel pain as they do. Go, save your baby girl!"

I saw the jaguar pass through the view of the portal from Heaven. BoeDri still hung from her wraps caught in the jaguar's teeth. I set out my hand, calling back the stars, forming my scythe into my hand. With its formation, I burst into a sprint through the portal in my full armour, still feeling weightless as I chased down the beast.

Humid air blasted in my face as I broke the barrier between Heaven and Ohm. The world was alive with the sounds of birds and the movement of various animals through the thick jungle. The jaguar's colours made him easily distinguishable in the thick of green. BoeDri's heinous cries also made it simple to follow, though the noise may bring danger for miles.

I was losing ground. I clunked through the foliage, pushing branches away and jumping over heavily rooted soil. Then, suddenly, the jaguar stopped still. I approached swiftly as it stared intently into the thick. It slowly lowered BoeDri to the ground, growling furiously. I kept my distance for the moment; it knew the danger better than I.

Trees were suddenly being uprooted from the ground. Hollow green eyes opened as the woody entanglement grew and grew. The monstrosity was no lifeform of flesh. Its legs were tree trunks, its torso was mass of wood and its face, intricately entangled branches. Branched horns forked from its head, though not in the fashion of an evil entity. It existed as part of the jungle itself, a guardian of sorts, more offended by my presence than the jaguar's, I assume. But the jaguar was the target it was narrowing toward. It grumbled deeply with a hollow roar. A Rakau, as the humans would call them.

The jaguar pawed BoeDri back softly to protect its fresh meal. It crouched deeply, staring into the eyes of the wooden beast before pouncing on its chest. Its thick arms slowly swung to catch the jaguar as he was simultaneously attacked from above; another jaguar leaped down at its shoulder, tearing it down back as the first jaguar pressed forward.

The jungle boomed as the Rakau's enormity hit the ground. I had an opportunity; I rushed for BoeDri as she laid their helplessly. The first jaguar noticed my shining black armour; I stood out like black fire. It leapt off the Rakau toward me. It did not hesitate to prance around with epic speed to confuse me. I braced low, waiting for its attack.

I barred the scythe lengthways to counter its leap. Its paws pressed my scythe to my chest as I rolled back and kicked its belly upwards and over me. I rolled over, holding the scythe close as it was already projecting back at me. I uppercut my scythe to sink it into its chest. I pulled upward, splitting it open from ribs to jaw. It fell, turning in an instant from live animal to a lifeless mess lying beside BoeDri.

My attention veered back towards the Rakau who was now back up and swinging at me. The other jaguar was out of sight, assumingly crushed. I danced sideways, trying to keep BoeDri out of harm's way. I glanced to see BoeDri's wrap undone; she was crawling towards the dead cat and got a face full of the jaguar's blood. Her cries captured the Rakau's attention.

The grumbling beast rose both its arms to bash down at the crying child. My only move was to swing with all my might at the Rakau's leg to bring it down. Stars gravitated to my scythe as I let out a war cry into my swing. The stars rippled energy through my armour, into the shaft, lighting the blade as a bright blue wraith. It sliced through the trunk like open air. A hollow roar boomed as the beast toppled over towards BoeDri. Her cries stopped.

"NOOO!"

Did I let her die?

Wait... I care? I... feel?

Claws dug into the shoulders of my armour. The jaguar pounced out to tear me down. It's teeth sunk into my hollow hooded neck. It peeled my hood back as it ripped its teeth out, reanimating my fleshly face. Pouncing off my chest, straight to the easy meal.

The jaguar snarled at the ground where BoeDri would be laying. My view hindered by the fallen body of the Rakau that was slowly recovering itself. It barred low and hissed at something. A faint, gentle meow was heard. The jaguar and I were both set back in confusion.

I rose, stardust dancing around my black armour, fixing the damage made moments ago. I assumed wrong when I thought the Rakau was rendered immobile. Its lifted its severed leg, crunching my body against a tree. My legs were lifted above the ground. The force was pressing my armour into my torso, choking my lungs. I cried in pain as my armour was breaking my flesh.

I watched the jaguar sniff about. It suddenly snapped at the ground. It now held a jaguar kitten by the scruff. The kitten's unmistakable amethyst eyes were glued on me as it was carried away. I failed.

It felt like the thick tree I was pinned against began to cave behind me. The pressure softened. I sunk in backwards. Suddenly the severed stump forced my body through. I flung through the air, landing on my back. I gasped for air as my armour mended itself back together. My eyes opened to see a blinding light. Adjusting to it, I saw bright clouds under a sea of the galaxies above me.

I lifted my head to watch the Rakau's leg cower back through the portal I had been pushed through. It collapsed shut upon its retreat. Still fighting to breathe, a massive white ghost of a hand turned me over.

"And existence was never the same. Death had laid his life down for another." The Architect was proudly narrating. "The babe, BoeDri, knew not her saviour. The children born without destinies were blessed. The blessings are unclear with the benefit of Death always so near. Fortune favours those who help themselves. As such blessings will provide... As such blessings may be carried as a curse in a world that fears what it does not understand. To fear one's identity may be one's bane before Ohm can judge. The true Judge will stay ever vigilant."

"So, you're narrating my tale, are you?" I stood. "I'm flattered."

An incision in space was made. A new portal opened, replaying the conflict from new angles. The Creator paused the projection. It showed me mid-swing as stardust was revolving to my scythe. Every fine detail of the stardust stood still as I was still as stone, about to swing at the Rakau's leg. The view sunk backwards and drifting downward to show BoeDri with a face full of blood, terror enveloped her crying face.

"In this moment, life's blood was drained and passed on to this young soul," he continued narrating. "Genetic material exists in the blood. Just a fragment of such material can reform and replicate itself. BoeDri contains a strand of genetics that can assimilate another's genomic code to her own. She does not yet know that every addition to her arsenal requires the sacrifice of a portion of her human identity to contain and command the power she captivates.

"At adolescence, she may entirely disremember her human birthright. The genetic material she absorbs will recreate as a finished product, complete with memories and instincts of the creatures she assimilates with. A creature's life must be completely drained of the body to bond with BoeDri as a new vestige."

The projection played at half speed to normal time. I severed a limb from the Rakau as it fell close to BoeDri. As from the angle I could not see, the dead jaguar's body began to disintegrate as stardust. Its body blew away like dust. The energy of its life pulled the dust to create a whirlwind around BoeDri. It enveloped her completely as it settled and coated her body. Her small hands and feet grew jaguar's fur at a terrifying pace. It reshaped her bone structure to fit that of a kitten. Her hands and feet were spread and thickened. The palms grew a heavy cartilage layer, and nails turned into claws.

The transformation spread like cancer. The fur pattern matched accordingly to its previous body, born again as a child. Her ears became pointed. Her baby fat diminished to form the proper shape of a jaguar's skull. The only remaining essence of BoeDri was in her eyes. They glowed brightly as the blood, too, disappeared, blowing away like dust as the new form took hold.

The adult jaguar that loomed over her was taken aback as the transformation was completed with the meow that had confused us both. Time regained full speed as the vision showed the great wooded limb crush me against the tree. The view entered BoeDri's cat body. Outlining the view in her amethyst glow as it was picked up and hurried away, staring at my body under pressure. It finalized upon the moment of the portal opening to swallow my body. With that, the projection snapped shut.

"I stripped you of your angelic mind, Grim. There is much to share, much that will escape your field of view. Though, Death, you felt remorse for a dim moment. Your heart sunk when you thought that child was crushed. It may have been a selfish motive, but you cared. And you will care for the others."

"What of the other children?" I asked. "I watched Roqua die! Xerxes and Arenthis never truly passed on. Arenthis laughed in the fire, and Savathün spit Xerxes back up!"

"They all died, Grim," He said. "Only in the moment of the afterlife was I able to twist their soul to attain their blessings."

"Even BoeDri didn't..." I began to approach The Creator until the ghostly Fists of God launched me backwards. I flew backwards a great distance, instantly held down by the shadowy hand. To force me to look up. I struggled until I saw another projection open: the moment BoeDri was taken off the cliff.

The view was from the bottom of the cliff. My quarrel with MourDri was heard faintly as the vultures pulled her cask off the cliff. The cask was thrown against the cliffs. The speed of the descent smashed the cask into splinters as BoeDri bounced off the rock. Her wrappings hit the shallow waters with a bloody splash as blood pooled around her.

MourDri was in the middle of yelling at me on top of the cliff as I weakened. Stardust crawled over the rippling waters to find BoeDri sinking. It mended her wounds and pulled back her wrapping to reveal a flawless face. Her amethyst eyes opened underwater as the jaguar's teeth felt under the water to find her wrapping and carry her off. It was then that MourDri looked from above to see her carried away and her cries drowned away in the distance. The projection snapped shut.

The ghostly hand forced my face to look right as another rift opened to show the village of Breka. Replaying the assembly of the village as Breka attempted to fly into the heart of the gathering storm. Breka swirled to break the cloud but was struck down the same. It sped forward to the moment Merys was holding Arenthis as Breka suggested submitting him to the flame. In Merys's distress, she was suffocating Arenthis against her chest.

Terrorized at what was unfolding before them, as Merys was trying to quiet her babe and build the courage to sacrifice Arenthis herself, she smothered the life from him. She was about to submit a dead child to the flame before she found herself too weak to do so. Breka lifted its great wing to wall Jaxx and Semwise back. Breka picked Arenthis up lightly with its beak and lowered him to the flame gently, whipping back a burnt beak as it did so. It was the flame that brought the child back to life. The enveloping fire burnt his wraps to show a child twiddling the flame between his fingers as he laughed. The rift snapped shut as Semwise reached in the fire to retrieve the lively child.

"Arenthis was birthed anew in the storm. The storm rages on in his bones as his soul as well has been twisted. The world will quake with his insecurities. His emotions will manifest in the world around him. Energies of Ohm will gravitate to his being, as it will react according to his true emotions. He will be the manifestation between annihilation and prosperity."

The ghostly hand snapped my face to the left. A cold wisp of snow breached the rift to cool my face. The view crawled over the feet of the Viking company along the shore as Xerxes drifted away. The vision breached the shallow water of the shore and moved deeper. A dim glow moved in the dark waters. A multitude of humpback whales drifted through the view in distant waters. The great scaled body of Savathün grew into perspective beyond them. The energy boiling in Savathün's body lit up its enormity to dwarf the whales as it narrowed in on Xerxes' cask.

Fast-forwarding to the moment swords were drawn as Xerxes's parents watched Savathün spit blue fire across the sky, it went in slow-motion to zoom on the beast's scales as lights danced against the wet scales, and fire brewed within. The energy crawled up its throat, balling in the beast's mouth, burning Xerxes. The perspective peaked through the spired teeth as blue flame danced around the cask. The cask itself became coated with stardust. It no longer resembled any form of wood but was completely made of celestial matter.

Xerxes cries told it true; he did burn. His body fused with the sacrificial trinkets. As Xerxes was mended back to perfect health, the living ice, diamonds and bloodied arrowheads coated the child's body. They became a smouldering bright blue liquid that seeped into his body, making his veins glow intensely. As all the inferno was expended, the stardust crawled off the surface of the casket, returning it to its wooden form. Savathün's jaw snapped shut, closing the rift.

"The living ice, diamond and arrowheads will make his skin nearly impenetrable," He elaborated. "The elemental ice will numb him to extreme pains. The diamond hardened his outer layer, retaining the smoothness of normal skin. No ordinary blade may pierce him, no simple flame may burn him. He is not immune to all, as the blood of the arrowheads will keep him in balance with nature. He will grow inhumanely.

"He is mostly man, though the blood of a malevorog's flaming heart was on one of the bloodied tips. His soul will forever feel of a force of evil nature tickling his nerves, whispering dark things in his ear, tinkering with reason."

"And what of Roqua?" He will tell me anyway, he rather enjoys this too much. "Surely nobody will endure the Plagued Channel."

"That is correct, Grim." The smirked tone of a devious plan brewing returned to Him. "The cask you sent him off in was frail. He simply drowned before you lost view of him, though he came back with a vengeance. Roqua won't be much for dependency as it appears."

The ghostly hand let me rise. He reanimated my old smoky throne beside Him. I went and sat beside Him, getting comfortable as I began my duty as guardian for these blessed children of His. Of mine.

He split open the rift to Halaseir overlooking the city, the same night I was there. It homed in on the moment I left. The vision followed the channel as cries grew from a whisper to a roar, and a child's cries overlapped a symphony of crocodile's teeth snapping.
15

In Enemy Hands

The clash of the Scorpions and Pharaoh's guard diminished. Blood painted the temple floor a deep red. Atekah's face and clothes were splattered with a vengeance as he was dragged out of the battle by Seth's two elite companions, Diharo and Khitephor. Atekah kicked and flailed but mellowed as he understood the Scorpions needed a leader. The decorated guard tried to cut off their retreat, but the Scorpions were adept. Surprise attackers were met with knives thrown to their vital organs.

Upon the retreat, the guard and scorpion slowed their pace to induce terror as war cries and threats rose from both sides. Anger now burrowed deep into the divided people. They stood a safe distance apart, refusing to walk away first, the stare-down that refused a peaceful end. Halaseir would mourn tonight.

The Pharaoh's widow would rule as the voice for Simiak, the now boy-pharaoh. The widow, Despina, was more of a figure-head concubine. Halaseirians looked up to a ruler who could stay monogamous with such power but lived far from such life. The exotic, dark-haired woman who now held kingship until Simiak was of age wallowed in her sorrow, holding Simiak over the loss of Roqua. Guards stood shoulder to shoulder outside her bedchamber doors. Simiak and Roqua were true sons of the Pharaoh. His seed was surely spread, though none would question Despina's rule with Simiak during this time of terror.

The people were liberated into a world of war. Despina would speak no reign of slavery, as she was once one herself. 'Saved' simply for Aegyptus's pleasure. Her family was elevated. The throne was now held by the woman who lived both belittled and regal lives. The hierarchy would fight to keep the throne, while the Scorpions would fight to wipe the city clean and create the eastern equal of Ecclesia.

Word would spread. Aegyptus had been as much a man as any, as had been Seth. Both were revered, so Death evened the field to complete anarchy. The cold war was now in full force. People crave order. Decisions made for them. The capital of Estenia had never seen a woman reign, as the Scorpions would be skeptical of Atekah's leadership.

Atekah and his company returned to the Court of Miracles. Fuming with rage, he ran. He needed space. He watched his guardian's head roll across Death's feet. The memory wouldn't leave his mind. He collapsed in angry tears on a bridge over the Plagued Channel. The last light of day lowered behind the horizon. Over his wailing cries, he heard the raging waters. The murky creatures fought over a meal which he assumed were fallen bodies that had rolled into the water from the temple. He quieted himself.

He found himself jealous. Atekah didn't want to hurt. What is a little more pain before it ends forever? He was at war with himself.

You are the people's hope! Don't do it! said courage.

You're not enough. You'll fail them! cried doubt.

Wait, what's that? he realized he was leaning closer and closer to the waters over the bridge when he saw the battle of beasts before him.

Crocodiles clawed and snapped at each other. Splashing sounds overtook all else. The dying light made it hard to see. Something phased into view past the watery battle. The beasts churned the water, jumping and swiping through the bloodlust. It was a basket. The dim lighting tricked the eye. It seemed to phase away from harm. Nonetheless, it drew closer.

Seth's elites came around the bend. They saw Atekah leaning over the water, his eyes fixated. They cried his name. He refused to acknowledge them. He dove.

"ATEKAH!" Diharo cried.

They raced towards the channel. They saw him covered in muck, battling upstream towards the madness. They saw it too, the basket. Atekah drew close. He stretched far to grab the cask. A large splash met his arm. He swam with a dagger in each hand. He swung blindly into the water, connecting through somethings skull. He turned back to Diharo's cry.

He realized the cask had passed him. He now raced downstream after it. Slithering movements contested under his feet, now judging him. He could feel each individual heartbeat as time slowed. A leathery body rushed by, forcing his body aside. He dug a dagger into its back to be dragged along. The crocodile twisted in fury. He focused. Move, one heartbeat at a time. He twisted under the water with the beast, climbing its back like an icy mountain with his daggers.

Blood spewed into the water, invigorating the nearby prey. Arrows now pierced the waters, piercing scale and flesh. An arrow dug into Atekah's shoulder. It felt like a heavy punch down as adrenaline refused to invoke his pain. It stung as he now dragged himself beyond his dying beasts, or he would soon be one.

He broke above water. He swam with one strong arm, not understanding why the other grew limp. He gained quickly on the cask as it hit a sudden muddy mound in the channel. He climbed above water and curled around the cask.

"I'm here..." he let out a weak, breathless wail.

He closed his eyes, absorbing the pain that now was quaking in his back. He felt teeth around his leg. He instinctively pulled back to see the reptilian's eyes closing due to an arrow in the soft backing of its skull. Next, a heavy fishing net slid over his body. He rolled to see Khitephor holding his way out against the wall. He forgot the arrow in his shoulder. Hope found him handing the cask up the wall as he crawled up. Diharo's thick hands grabbed his forearms and pulled him up.

The mound he looked back at was now nothing but scaled beasts staring up hungrily. His eyes closed slowly as he regained his breath. He slipped into unconsciousness as Diharo ripped the arrow from his back. Darkness set it with the night as his eyes rolled back in his head.

Atekah's eyes opened slowly. He was in the Scorpion's Guild. Not the medic chamber, as it should be quite full since the battle, but in Seth's bedchamber. The clay and dirt walls were covered with various art designs of the Scorpions. Tribal, watercolour paints, and hyper-realistic banners of the Scorpions covered the walls. Even childish etchings were a reminder of who the Scorpions were protecting.

Diharo's thick dreadlocks and massive chest was his first view. He looked down at him, calling Khitephor over, laughing quietly.

"You can't die yet boy, you're a father now." He and Khitephor laughed. "We thought you tried quitting on us when you dove into the Channel. Word spreads quick, kid, the Court of Miracles was anarchy until they heard you saved a kid."

Atekah's mind was slowly gathering information. Khitephor, was a runt besides Diharo, blue-eyed and an aged face full of energy. He was thin and always so serious. He approached slowly, staring at the baby boy he held until he was before Atekah. The child stared deeply in return as if he could defend himself.

Khitephor lowered the baby to look at his saviour, Atekah. He lowered the same defensive glare on him. Atekah couldn't do much more than a smile.

"Hey. If you're better, can you quit bleeding on my nice robe?" Diharo always tried to lighten the mood. It was a surprise to everybody how he and Khitephor were such close friends. The ripped black robe Diharo tied around the arrow wound was coated in blood, but it did the job. Therefore, Diharo thinly wore the remnants of the robe around his waist.

"Rest your body, Atekah." Khitephor remained solemn. "But tickle your mind with this. I found the sun sigil anklet upon this child. This is Roqua. The Grim Reaper, Ahriman, must have placed the child to the Channel."

"Khitephor! Do not speak that name." Diharo looked around the room as if they were being watched. "It slithers bad omen upon the ear. The Great Deceiver walked among us, perhaps. But Seth did the best he could. We needed a miracle, so a man fell from the sky. He didn't crawl out of some tomb. But here because it all, Grim is also the reason we have the next prodigal child in line to rule the Scorpions. The Pharaoh's son, no less. HA! The East will never believe such a story."

"They won't hear it." Atekah put some weak words in. "If word spreads that we have the dead Pharaoh's son, they will siege the Court of Miracles. They could collapse the city on us. All the innocent families we protect will be buried in the tomb we dug ourselves. We will give him a new name. For all they know, their boy is dead. Let them mourn, not flair revenge, it could give us time. A chance to call it even."

"Youthful wishes, boy." Khitephor handed the child to Atekah. He winced in pain but handed him off regardless. "You sound smart until you start thinking the best of the world. Nobody has 'the best intentions' anymore. It's a war between who's morals cast the smallest shadow at the end of the day, trying to justify which wrong is the most right.

"We want free reign to the city, every family for themselves. They want to continue oppression of upper and lower classes. It's a cutthroat world. Nobody has it easy. For now, the royal mistress will mourn. Her orders are unpredictable, her voice has never been elevated as such before. Luckily, I know she was once one of us. Those rumours they could not suppress. The playing field was even with Aegyptus and Seth being established rulers. Halaseir shakes with a sense of anarchy as we watch two juvenile faces being forced to take control. You're a good kid, Atekah, but our people will need to know they can trust you.

"Look at that boy. Roqua, son of Aegyptus. Here and now we must damn that name from this place and never speak it again. You are his guardian, as Seth was yours. What say you name the boy?"

They stared into each other's eyes intensely. They were quiet for a moment. Roqua didn't break composure, he looked up, tiny fists clenched, eyes angry.

"Ramesses." Atekah's voice seemed stronger. "He will be Ramesses. A strong name for a child who survived the Plagued Channel. Look at that face!" He held him before the two elites. They stepped back from the intense glare. Atekah laughed. "Exactly! He's already intimidating, he is going to be just fine growing up in this crazy world." Atekah had a proud smile as he finally saw the baby smile back at him. Atekah rocked him slowly, even though his shoulder was burning with pain.

"We need let the people know, Atekah." Khitephor did not share the simple joy he was witnessing. "They need to see the miracle. You need to rest. When you wake up, the people will know the Scorpions' legacy lives on strong. There is hope yet under this dirt roof." Khitephor reached to take Ramesses. His hands were met with open space as the boy vanished from Atekah's arms.

Khitephor was taken aback, searching about. Atekah waved his hands around, expecting to feel the boy against his chest as he just was.

"Where in Ahriman's hell!?" Khitephor was dumbstruck.

"Here!" Diharo lit up with excitement as he looked down to see the child crawling toward him. "I don't think he likes you, old friend." Diharo picked him up. Ramesses smiled at Diharo and cowered from Khitephor. "I'll take him out, then. You're good at talking, I'm prettier to look at." He and Atekah shared a laugh.

"You aren't going to bring up the fact the boy just phased out of your arms!?" Khitephor seemed offended. "Ahriman must have cursed the poor boy. Nonetheless, he is all we have." They were on their way out.

"Wait." Atekah had an idea. "The Scorpion vow grows old... I've had something in mind for a while..."

They stopped to listen.

"Go on," said Khitephor.

"If they stand behind us, protect them. If they stand beside us, respect them. If they stand against us, show no mercy."

They looked back at him approvingly.

"You got a good head, boy. They will love it." Khitephor smiled.
16

Family Disputes

The Village of Breka was quiet. Too quiet. Semwise's hands had mostly healed, leaving behind minor burn scars. Jurik strummed a slow, sad ballad. Merys's nursed Arenthis. Her brown hair grew knotted as all her time was now dedicated to pampering the boy. Jaxx had an arm wrapped around Merys as he stared at his child with tired eyes. Their eyes lacked the dreamy love they first had for Arenthis. Arenthis now sprouted thickening hair, he was very healthy. But he was draining his parents.

The five of them had secluded themselves to their own private fire under a starry night. Words were few. Arenthis drifted to sleep in his mother's arms. She slowly lowered him into a soft portable bedding, and they sighed in relief. Jurik's tune slowed to an end as he, too, relished in the peaceful night.

"How many moons before he's stable?" Semwise asked.

"He's healthy... He's happy. That's another night," Jaxx answered unsurely. "Two years? He might be able to talk. He won't cry so much..."

"He shakes the damn ground, Jaxx." Jurik's frustration wasn't subtle. "Lightning strikes on a clear day. The livestock has grown skittish. Some of our structures have fallen. The mountains crumble more often than not. Two years is a life away when three weeks have been this hard."

"The sky grows dark when he cries, yes. The world quakes when he stubs his toe, yes. You're tired. Me too." Jaxx stared into the fire. "But what happens if he dies?"

"JAXX!" Merys slapped him across the cheek. "Our boy isn't going to die. I won't let him. We have only seen the bad. What's to say he can't make good of those things when he can understand what he is doing?"

"I didn't burn my hands to see that little fella not make it, Jaxx." Semwise stared him down, showing his scarred hands. "He's my little brother. Brothers don't turn their back for nothing. He is family now. 'We fifty strong and fifty bold.' We gotta show the rest of them that we don't break easily. We have Breka on our side. If the titan wanted him dead, he would be. If you don't believe me, take it up with Birdy."

There was an agreeable silence. Jaxx apologized and made amends to Merys of his doubtful words. Semwise grinned ear to ear when he saw the couple share an embrace. So quick to forgive and forget. Jurik eyed his lute. He picked it back up and stared into the fire. He plucked quietly to a hopeful vibration.

Of life we share, watch us dare

For each we care, our hearts a pair

Our world so fair, our kingdom rare

Our burdens to bear, we shan't tear

The mother unbroken, faith not need spoken

The father relentless, his love is endless

Here big brother, would burn for another

Here child aflame, his song yet be sang

Smiles lit up their faces. Simple pleasures to have on a calm night. Jurik was humble at heart. He lived loud and proud, but intentions always pure.

"Ay, it's a work in progress, lads. I just wanna see my family smile." He laid down the lute. "My work is done though, eh? My misses seem to be wavin' me down. If you feel the ground quaking... My apologies, fellas." He gave them a playful wink and was off for his woman. He twirled her around playfully and giggled into the dark.

A short silence followed until a mumble of thunder took their attention on a cloudless night. A darkness loomed thick in the distant sky. The couple looked over to see the child agitated in his sleep, as if having a nightmare.

"He can't even dream in peace?" Jaxx thought out loud. He picked Arenthis up, calming his slumber with light rocking. "Think Jurik would mind night shift singing for the little guy?" He joked. "I love you, Arenthis, but please keep the darkness at bay. I'll let you know when we need rain, ok?"

Merys hugged Jaxx from behind, kissing him on the cheek. Semwise watched from across the fire, grinning ear to ear. He was too big to ignore as his cheeks blushed. He got up and ran in quietly to hug them both. They were used to it and laughed together. The darkness retreated.

A new day dawned. And many more. A rhythm was in place. The lovers got used to the life of parenthood, the kind where your kid controls the weather but doesn't understand his own emotion yet. Jaxx went back to the hunting parties, and Merys could leave Aren to Semwise or Ballyn on occasion to enjoy herself or help her village farm, cook, or tend to the animals.

But it wasn't hard to see that people no longer saw the couple the same. They whispered absurdities among each other.

"Jaxx cheated Death in his previous life, now he's cursed with an evil child," one says.

"Merys is a harlot. Damned be the unfaithful," said another.

"Breka made the storm to terrorize us and planned to demonize the child all along. Our guardian has a dark side," whispered another.

Serafin and Ballyn were endlessly loyal to Merys and Jaxx. It was they who informed the couple of such words. Jurik's lady, Brava, tended to keep her distance, as she was one for drama. She shied away from the others when alone, making Jurik's 'secret' relationship stressful. Jurik promised to straighten her out if it was Brava who initiated any nonsense. Jurik was a people-pleaser but knew who his real family was, and was not afraid to let it be known. 'As long as I sing, thighs are shaking somewhere,' he always jested. Too bad the Brekans' seclusion was growing lonesome.

Such was human nature to entertain the brain. It craved new information and excitement, though rumours were a questionable method of play in such a tight-knit community. No harm was meant by the gossiping, some tales were simply taken too far. Merys couldn't help but feel the need to make amends at the coming communal bonfire. That wasn't until the following day.

"MERYS! The horses broke loose! Do something about the damn kid!" Jurik pulled open their cabin door, drenched to the bone. The stampeding horses drew closer. Lightning danced around the village in a heavy downpour. A single piercing cry from Breka broke through the madness.

Merys was already crying in the far corner of the cabin, quieting Arenthis every way she could, but it was fruitless. Jaxx knew the routine of calming the animals when it got this bad, so he was already out trying to wrangle them together. Between definitive quakes of Aren's fault, the ground shuddered as Breka landed nearby to help. Gusts from Breka's great wings broke through the cracks of the cabin walls, throwing about the small trinkets, scaring Aren further.

You could hear the anarchy as Breka pounced end to end of the village to group the livestock. In such a storm, Breka's calming influence did nothing. Jurik stood in the doorway, feeling helpless as he watched.

"SHIT!" He suddenly dove inward to shelter the mother and babe with his body. The stampeding horses smashed into each other as they fled in terror. A horse smashed into the opposite corner of the cabin, showering them with debris. The roof caved in over them, slowly collapsing, not yet crushing.

Water and wind ripped through the wreckage, soaking them as they were pinned down. Jaxx's hands peeled over the mass as he tried ripping the debris away. Efforts seemed futile until Semwise's hands joined the mix. He unknowingly ripped out a supportive piece that dropped the mass lower onto those underneath. The weight was caving in on itself as Merys saw the hands disappear from help. She closed her eyes, bracing for the worst.

Breka's talon appeared where the hands disappeared. With ease, the debris was torn away, and they were under the stormy sky. Rain beaded off Breka's feathered mane as it's golden eyes stared down at Arenthis. All eyes now laid on the beast and what it had planned. Jurik rolled out of the way submissively and let Merys sit there alone against the beast. She stared back to the beast as if it were it's equal. Her motherly instinct had no bounds in this moment until reason crept in.

She found herself now drenched in the brief moments under the storm. Nobody worried about the horses anymore as it all came down to Breka. Merys was on her knees holding up her wailing babe in his blanket. Breka nodded as if to ask for trust as it gently picked Aren out of her hands. It turned to the surrounding people to make its notion seen.

Great wings spread, almost blowing people off their feet. In a great sweep, the beast was off with Aren. It flew as quick as possible back towards its home peak. The heavy rain thinned. Lightning followed Breka as it made distance. Dark clouds evaporated and reformed behind the titan, trying to keep up. Sunlight beat through and immediately started burning away the moisture over the village.

Far off, one epic boom struck as flame burst upwards into Breka's face mid-flight. The beast dropped Arenthis as a flaming mass as it shook fire from its face. The village was dumbstruck in place, jaws dropped while only Merys could manage a scream.

Breka realized Arenthis was falling, plunging down to save him. They disappeared under the tree line, considering the worst. One smooth swoop as Breka flew upward into view. The storm broke completely. Energy receaded into the sky and clouds dispersed into the clarity of a cloudless, sunny day.

Jaxx was first to look away. He turned to shake Merys out of her misery.

"Hey, look at me." He lifted her chin to see Jaxx teary-eyed. "He's gone. But so is the storm, love. We are going to be ok! It's for the best. The sun is shining, and it's over. We can have another ba..." He was cut short with a heavy slap across the face.

"HE'S NOT GONE!" Merys stood quickly, looking down at Jaxx before the village. "Over my dead body will that boy ever suffer!"

"He's already gone, love," Jaxx spoke softer. "Breka dropped him." They looked at each other with a mutual emptiness of conflicted hopes. Breka approached. The titan lowered in between the two lovers with great ease. It landed on a talon and two back paws, extending the gripped talon toward Jaxx. There lay Arenthis, calm. Jaxx slowly took him in as cinders of the blanket stuck to the beast's talon.

Breka seemed sensitive with a blackened beak but bowed in service to the couple. It wanted Arenthis alive. Merys couldn't help but hug the beast in its thick feathered chest. She let loose to swiftly steal Arenthis from Jaxx. The scowl she gave her husband buried deep as no words need saying.

They all jumped in shock, especially the titan. Arenthis was happy to be back with his mother now. He clapped in joy and snapped fire into the air with each tiny clap. Breka scowled at the child and retreated slowly, snorting as it was reminded of the flame upon its face and took off home.

Virgo, a man of equal stature to Jaxx, though with longer black dreaded hair and a goatee, stepped forward to break the silence. His word was well respected as a leader among the Brekans.

"They need a new home, friends. We are a unit. Fell the trees, weave the roof. Someone should round up the horses and fix the fences. We have the bonfire tonight. We speak then." Virgo offered Jaxx a hand up. Jaxx looked to see his wife already walking away, Serafin and Ballyn already running to console her. He looked back to Virgo, accepting the hand.

"Plans are in motion, Jaxx. I'm hoping you will support us in our movement." Virgo stared Jaxx in the eyes, still gripping his hand tight. "No brother or sister sleeps without a roof over their head while I'm around. I know you and Merys will make amends soon. Our people all love you. The words may suggest otherwise, but our best intents are at heart. Each other is all we have, right?" He smiled genuinely and left to shout orders to coordinate the rebuild.

Semwise tried creeping up to Jaxx as he was speechless to everything. Semwise was too big to creep by any means but always tried. He put a hand on Jaxx and looked around for listeners.

"That Virgo has been a good fella, Jaxx. But whatever he said, that man can whisper darkness, and have it heard as a prayer. I'd be second-guessing that brother if I were you. That's a deceiving smile, that one." A heavy slap on the shoulder kicked Jaxx into motion. "Come on, let's find the damn ponies."
17

Not Like Us

A year had gone by. The pre-destined child, Xerxes, maturely quicker than most. His first stumbling steps turned into confident walking in a week. He was still thick with baby fat. He also grew outlandishly swift. Xerxes had become a spectacle among the four Viking towns. Reign and Saxi had convinced themselves the bright blue designs about his entire body was Savathün's blessing. They were taken aback when the veins illuminated with Xerxes's laughter.

Reign and Saxi were never so close. Usually, a malformation of a child was frowned upon in the Viking communities. Though since it was truly not a birth defect, but a miracle of mercy from Savathün, the Vikings gathered favour and hope towards the babe, Xerxes, and his parents. He was an odd-looking child, to be true, but he was a source of hope for the people that the end of the quarter-century sacrifices was coming to an end. Dread took the Viking nation over every twenty-five years at the coming of the beast.

It was very apparent that Xerxes was exceptionally strong. During gatherings in the mead halls of Yawuld, the babe ventured forth, examining the antlered and horned skulls that decorate the floors along the hall. They were far too abundant to hang on the wall with all the other crests, rusted armaments, and tapestries. A close eye was always on Xerxes, no matter where he was. The ram horns were nothing short of dense and impressive. The merriment drew to an eerie silence. All eyes watched as a year-old, bright-blue veined baby carried about a ram skull like it was a toy.

A cup was raised quietly. "Strong now, stronger tomorrow, that's Reign's boy for sure!" Barde, always the light-hearted giant, capitalized on the moment.

Reign raised a cup in thanks.

"ROO-AH!" The entirety of the hall replied with pride, another moment of growing respect in Yawuld.

Xerxes was a living lighthouse of faith for the people. The Jarls of each settlement rained praise over that child's name. A wave spread across the north with that name, like a plague of hope. In the year since Savathün spit him out, prosperity was like wildfire among the people. The richest crops grew in the short summer, a record number of game were killed, as the winter was generous to the game's survivability.

The Viking people were all caregivers by nature. Xerxes was safe to stumble about the community. The softest face would treat Xerxes as her own just as much as the most hardened fighter. Nothing in their life came easy, so the little victories lived in the Vikings hearts as if another would never be felt. Xerxes, perhaps due to his inability to feel pain, (which Reign and Saxi attempted to keep quiet), stumbled about in a way that the people envied. A thing so new to the world, and he was teaching grown men and women how to see life through happier eyes.

Of course, times of comfort never lasted for anybody. A heavy knock followed a cold gust of snow blowing through the mead hall. Jarl Grigor of Godrelm stood there alone, shivering. He wore his winter armour, a thick fur lining under the metal plate. He pulled a bag off his horse beside his ram horn helm and walked toward the stunned crowd.

"I rode from Godrelm this morning, friends. Apparently, we are at war." He upended the bag on the table where people were eating. "The elementals are growing."

Yawuld was dumbstruck at the sight. He lifted shards of living ice with a gloved hand. He dug through the pile and found a mossy rock. He slid it across the lengthy table.

"Feel that!" Grigor's exhaustion was heard in his voice.

The rock buzzed against the table as it vibrated dimly. Barde was first to pick it up. His eyes widened. He tossed it to Reign. He, too, was taken aback.

"It's a rock elemental. They aren't human shape like the ice elementals... They were like wolves! They had four legs, and their rock teeth chattered as they ran. They even growled and barked! They were working with the ice beasts! The Giants were literally throwing them at the wall at us!"

"We can still kill them, though." Reign played with the rock in his hand, calmly. "The mountains beyond Godrelm awaken again?"

The people were silent, letting the Jarls talk.

"They grow worse each year. But never have these beasts of rock come to life before. We've learned to hold off the ice elementals just fine, but these new beasts ran down some of the men and left mortal wounds. Arrows and simple blades were of no avail. Those without blunt weaponry had to bash the beasts apart with their shield and hammer.

For all we know, the Malevorogs will be plotting with the elementals soon enough! Add bone and fire to this god-forsaken mass of evil!" Grigor smashed a fist against the table, surprising the people. "I'm sorry Reign, Saxi, friends. Forgive me. We fought deep into the night. I ask a few hands to rebuild and prepare for another attack."

Many men and women stood immediately, fist against chest, honoured to join the cause. Luckily from the prosperous summer, hunters and foragers weren't stressing rations. Only the necessities to maintain the town were to worry of. Reign and Saxi remained seated until small fists were suddenly beating against Grigor's plated leg.

Grigor could not help but smile at the sight. Xerxes stood there, head high, staring him in the eyes. He looked at the people, observing the salute. He too, fist to chest, offered his support. Grigor and the people chuckled. Grigor lifted him up.

"Feisty Xerxes!" He grinned ear to ear. "You know we are safe with lads like this running around." Saxi was a little embarrassed as she rushed to take him back. Grigor handed him to his mother. "One day little warrior, you'll keep us safe, I know it."

Jarl Reign, head of the table, was collecting his thoughts. He began picking numbers between one and two hundred. The mead hall seats had engraved numbers aback the seat.

"Seven. Forty-six. Nineteen. Hundred and two. Seventy-one. Thirty-three." Reign called twenty random numbers. He knew never to call two, which was Saxi, and three, which was usually Barde. "I need you here, Barde. We will make our own defence plan in their absence. Comfort is a gift best served in small portions. Lest we lose our edge. Grigor, they will ride in the morning." They respected his decision.

"Grigor, brother, eat with us!" Saxi offered. "Please friends, the fire is still lit, plates are full. Don't let it waste." Her loving tone put the people to ease. They retook their seats, laughing and barking over who got to help in Godrelm. Reign pulled up a seat for Jarl Grigor. He clunked across the room, shedding his chest armour to hang by the fire on a post hook. He let his horse graze freely as always.

Saxi let Xerxes free again as his mind had already wandered. He began running around aimlessly again. Barde put on his gloves, taking his time as he enjoyed the sizzle of the living ice disappearing into the fire. It would let off a light blue mist as it dwindled. Barde accidentally knocked a piece of ice off the table. He looked back to see Xerxes waddling towards it.

"Xerxes, no!"

But the babe already had it in his hand, refusing to give it up. He huddled it into his bare chest, not letting up. Barde picked him up, prying his arms apart, letting the ice drop. Xerxes kicked at Barde's chest angrily. Barde examined his bright veined body; it was completely unharmed.

Once again, the people were speechless. It was usually immediate frostbite to any bare skin upon the living ice. Barde handed Xerxes off, his eyes fixated on the ice shard, still sparkling energy. He took the glove off one hand, slowly reaching to touch the same shard. He whipped back his hand in agony as blood receded from his fingertip, turning it blue. He sucked on the frozen finger, turning his attention to Xerxes who seemed to be laughing and clapping at Barde's pain.

"Reign... did you know this?" Barde asked.

"No, I wouldn't watch you hurt yourself." Reign seemed offended

"You must have known something!"

"He doesn't feel pain..." Saxi put in.

"Does he bleed?" Grigor lit up with an idea.

"Grigor. No. He is not a weapon." Reign stared down his fellow Jarl.

"Yes, he bleeds, but not like us." Saxi went to grab Xerxes.

Grigor got up to look at Xerxes closer. Saxi defensively looked at the tower of a man. Xerxes gave an equally offensive glare, not understanding his motive. He moved in very slowly.

"Don't worry boy... I'm a friend. Let me see your hand." He offered his to observe his glowing veins in his hands. He grabbed Xerxes hand quite tightly, making him nervous. He pulled out a dagger from his belt and put it to his palm. "Calm, little warrior... I'm not the bad guy." He made a small incision in the pad of his thumb.

Xerxes could feel something, but it was not pain. A discomfort of sorts, but the yearling of a boy did not break his glare at Grigor. A drop of vibrant red blood came from his palm.

"What do you speak of, Saxi? 'Not like us?' Really?" Grigor's eyes widened at the sight of stardust converging on Xerxes's wound, mending his skin back together, pushing the blood out and leaving it atop undamaged skin.

"THAT is something!" Grigor's eyes were all sparkling wonder. His astonishment was cut short when Reign suddenly had his own dagger to Grigor's throat. Xerxes ripped his hand loose, and Saxi backed away with disgusted eyes.

"You came, you saw, you have your numbers. Our boy stays here," Reign said, gritting his teeth. "You've overstepped. You may eat outside. Find shelter in the stable with your horse. I'm being generous."

Barde pulled a battle-axe off the wall, hovering the blade above Grigor's groin.

"Make my little brother bleed again, and you'll be fighting elementals without your manhood, Grigor."

"Forgiveness, brothers, sisters. I agree, to the stables with me and rubbish to my guts. Bigger things are at hand, I did not mean to offend those who have been so generous. We truly have a miracle among us, that boy. Mountains bless him, he will be the best of us." He bowed submissively.

As he bowed, Reign gave him a boot to his ass, suggesting his departure.

"I will see you again soon on better terms, Jarl Grigor," Reign said. "You are always welcome but know your place. Barde the Butcher here has been quite anxious for work lately." He gave him a joking wink and a smile on his way out. The hall doors opened and closed for Grigor.

"Barde the Butcher, eh?" Barde laughed. "You know I'm a god-damned butterfly at heart, right, Reign?" They all laughed. Reign kissed Saxi and brought her back to the table.

"Yes, a butterfly that wields a battle-axe like a butter-knife, ya big bastard." Saxi punched his arm. The playful banter continued. The peace of the hall was quickly back in place. Xerxes was at ease and healthy as ever. The North was peaceful for the night, though something was brewing beyond the Frost Gates.
18

One of Many Souls

Rain embedded itself in BoeDri's fur as she eyed her prey. Her small claws flexed in anticipation, shoulders hunched, refusing to blink. Her amethyst eyes stuck out like a sore thumb in the thick of green. Breathing was slowed, she heard everything: ants crawling, birds chattering above, the heartbeat of the mouse before her. BoeDri watched it cower under a large leaf from the downpour. A loud crack from an approaching beast grabbed the mouse's attention. It turned its back in time for BoeDri to pounce.

The mouse disappeared under the bushes, but a claw in its back spoke success. BoeDri brought in her meal, eating it from the bare of its belly. She was indulging in her meal, forgetting the heavy rain as she filled the void in her jaguar kitten belly. She wasn't much of a kitten now, able to hunt small game on her own.

The rumble of large beasts was drawing near. Fear overtook her; her instincts told her to hide. She dove under a bush behind a large tree. It wasn't enough. She saw an entanglement of roots with a hole burrowed under the tree. She was too large, wiggling her limbs hopelessly to try to shape herself under protection. The ground shook from the beast's steps. There was many of them. They tore at the trees, wrecking, smashing, making room.

BoeDri was stuck. Her front end wedged under the roots. Her back claws dug into the ground, kicking and ripping for traction, her efforts fruitless as the booming made her heart quiver in fear. She focused. Stardust tickled through her fur. Her body un-wedged, shrinking. Everything around her grew bigger. The rain was hitting a lot more heavily on her dwindling body. It wasn't painful, just a change of embodiment. Her fur was now thinned, her face reshaped into that of the mouse. She crawled about low to the ground, now safe under the webbed roots.

Her mind was conflicted. Her jaguar vestige was battling inside her being, wanting back out. Not yet. Not yet. NOT. YET. A heavy foot stepped just over the roots. Elephants! she thought. She waited. The rain pooled into the hole, flooding her sanctuary. The rattling shook the trees and shrubs above, shaking off all the water. It fell like a rockslide against the tiny body of the mouse. The elephants kept coming.

The massive beasts took their time going through. They owned the jungle. Even the babies were massive. Then again, everything was massive to a mouse. But you had to respect the elephant, no matter what you were.

Time was running out. Her hole was flooding, she was being pushed out. The jaguar wanted out. NOT. YET! A heavy foot stepped right by the tree root, crumbling some of the shelter in. Reactively, BoeDri ran. The beasts didn't notice her. She was under too much green to know where they were, where they would step. Scurrying seemed fast when you were that low to the ground, but it wasn't fast enough.

She was losing the battle. She couldn't focus on the danger and the battle inside her. She let the jaguar win. Elephant feet stepped all around her. She huddled under a plant and let it happen. The stardust rose from the soil. It twisted her again. Her bones thickened, her teeth sharpened, her muscles grew stronger, her hide changed colour. What was once the shelter of the plant now revealed her body in the open.

A heavy step landed before her face. Too close. She couldn't stop the jaguar. Her claw whipped at the elephant's ankle. A trumpeting sound came from the elephant, who kicked dirt into her face and began stomping. She rolled. And rolled. And rolled. The ground's vibration turned into a quake as the elephants began stampeding through the jungle.

Fear made her numb on her paws. She watched the giants feed off the terrified energy and lose all control. They ran into each other. A baby stood not far away, squealing for her mother. The mother elephant appeared before her, holding the line from her rampaging herd. She nudged her baby on while she got blown over, almost crashing over BoeDri.

BoeDri felt teeth pick her up by the scruff. She was immobile and at the mercy of whatever had grabbed her. Her guardian, the adoptive jaguar mother, crouched low, leaping in and out of the fray. Elephants tried to run around her or run through her. BoeDri helplessly watched as Mother judged the movement. She found her moment, and, in bounds and leaps, she weaved out of the anarchy.

She clawed herself and Boedri up a hill, too steep to be in danger now. She turned to overlook the endless wave of creatures smashing through the jungle. Smaller trees were being toppled over, the birds above screamed, and lightning cracked above. The downpour raged on, so the jaguar let BoeDri down, observing her body for wounds. BoeDri's back hip was gashed slightly, unknown until now. The pain kicked in as her Mother licked the wound. Mother stopped for a moment to scowl at her. BoeDri's fear was elevated by the mouse in her. She would have to tame the creatures that had become bound to her soul.

Mother's anger quickly depleted. Finding shelter was more important. She made BoeDri test her back leg. BoeDri stood, weak. She took a few steps, limping. Her guardian was impatient in the storm as the wind picked up. She decided to carry BoeDri by the scruff and make way for their home.

They travelled with epic speed. On ground and up into the trees, leaping branch to branch. Finding passage up high. Judging the flexibility of branches each step, confidently covering the distance as quick as on the solidarity of ground. BoeDri observed the hidden life as she was carried away. Apes of all stature, serpents, lizards, blending in, finding refuge where they could.

An infantile squeal was heard through the rain. Mother stopped in her tracks, lowering BoeDri to stand on the branch. BoeDri mimicked her guardian's hunting strategies. Crouch low. Make no sound. Slow breathing. Wait for the prey to make mistakes. Another quiet squeal was heard. A baby chimp had misjudged the frailty of its branch. Luckily, its father had caught it by its leg, slowly raising the baby back to safety, watching the grown jaguar more than his child.

The jaguar mother's belly grumbled. Hunger could not be ignored anymore. Her eyes were pinned. She judged the distance. BoeDri was at the mercy of her attempt. Home wasn't far from here, but at this point, another night without a meal could be fatal for her guardian. Mother was impatient. She put everything into the leap, not judging the fall. The chimp's father tried yanking the babe up, but claws now drug her down. Down. Down. Too far. Piercing squeals of gathering apes converged.

Mother's fall was far but not fatal. She growled furiously at the pain. But it was a victory, although it wasn't over. The chimp's father descended for revenge. It landed on Mother. Its teeth sunk into Mothers back. Her ensuing roar silenced the jungle. A flurry of teeth and claws ensued.

More apes descended on Mother. BoeDri was still up high, struck with fear. Mother's body disappeared under the mass of angry apes. She emerged. Swiping one across the face. Rolling them off her back. Sinking her teeth into one's neck. Overpowering another, kicking it back with its hind strength. Mother had fended off six of them, but more came. She made space, whirling and judging her foe in every direction. They circled her and the dead babe. She swiped to intimidate, hissing. Bloody teeth made them second guess.

BoeDri recognized a growl; Mother was calling for her. Next, she saw Mother with the meal by the neck and was running for home. BoeDri forgot her pain and made tiny leaps along the branches. Mother was making tremendous ground, far faster than BoeDri. BoeDri meowed as if Mother could hear her now.

Making noise was not smart. An ape had noticed BoeDri. The chase was on. Attention shifted to the kitten. She picked up the pace, her heart throbbing through her furry chest. Her desperate meows came instinctually. She could feel them coming but looking back there was nothing. She then saw hands on her branch. They came from underneath. An arm swiped at her from under, taking out her legs. She fell. And Fell.

Heavy foliage cushioned her fall. She was too scared to feel any pain. She still knew where home was, that's all she could think of. Her legs took her. Claws into the soil, pushing her faster and faster by the second. The apes could be heard farther and farther behind her. She was going to make it.

She found home. Mother was there, hunched over the chimp in her canopy home. She managed to bring the chimp close to forty feet high in her ancient tree of a home. The great overlook of much life underneath, and so close to breaking the roof of the rainforest that blotted out most of the sun for the jungle floor. She had a spacious platform for her food and her lounging. A thick moss cushioned her and BoeDri's resting place.

BoeDri climbed up Mother's back. She winced in pain from the bite wound from the ape. BoeDri licked the wound clean before crawling off her shoulder and sharing the feast. Mother had a face-full of blood as she dined, relishing in a victory. BoeDri's heart was finally settling. It was not often she got two meals in one day. The last light was coming down as the meat was being picked clean.

In BoeDri's comfort, her body was again in conflict. She felt something tugging deep inside. She grew lightheaded, sleepy. She was going to roll over and nap until the stardust came. Mother tilted her head in confusion, observing the Stardust. It dug into her fur, reshaping BoeDri's bones. Her skull transformed, her limbs felt different. She no longer favoured walking upon four legs. The stars turned the last of the chimp's bones into dust and were absorbed into BoeDri.

A throaty growl came from Mother. Where her jaguar daughter once was, the chimp was formed anew. BoeDri looked at Mother in terror as her eyes saw another meal. Cute infantile features did her no good. The bloodied face still hungered. BoeDri cowered in the wall of the great tree, curling in her chimp body. She looked up, and Mother became twisted. She looked deep into BoeDri's violet eyes and saw the same soul.

Mother held herself back, smacking at herself as if she saw an illusion. The other part of BoeDri had sympathy and worry for Mother. She recoiled from her terror and approached Mother as her back was turned. The stars came again. BoeDri's outstretched chimp hand transformed before her. The padding of her palm became claws again. Brown hair transitioned back to her magnificent coat of black, gold, and white. Mother turned to see her young shape the last of herself back into her cub.

Mother was torn, pacing back and forth, sniffing every inch of BoeDri. Her violet eyes showed it true, she was the same creature she had nurtured since the day the armoured terror killed her mate, and the living jungle awoke to kill the terror. BoeDri was all Mother had left of her mate, so she let BoeDri cuddle into her warmth for the coming cold of the night.
19

The Shepherd

The forefront years, you need not watch the children so closely. They are in good homes." The Divine was trying to be subtle. "Word of you has spread. 'Ahriman' as you are named in the East. The Devil, as the translation would estimate, but you are not your brother. Ohm has its share of physical monstrosities and concepts of hell and the afterlife, but the spirit world has been generously distant for the most part. Of course, some spirits are wild and prefer to stay before passing or are hopelessly lost until your arrival.

"I've kept The Unbound occupied with Earth and other established worlds. But there is a definitive distinction that leaves you in the dark. They assume Death and The Unbound are as one. I suggest you return and clarify for them at the heart of the world, Ecclesia."

"What really do you have in mind, oh Holy One?" I am too in tune with Him to escape his ploys. "You wish to watch me die again?"

The windows watching the four children closed, leaving the galaxies floating beyond us. My throne of smoke vanished from underneath me, landing me on the clouded foundation of Heaven.

"Got too comfortable, Grim?" He was condescending. "No 'God' in mythology ever rest easy. Some force of nature or celestial is always waging war, and here you are, wanting godhood, but not fighting for it. Even humans understand that much. There is no easy way about it. With these children, compassion, hope, and endearment are going to creep into your soul, whether you will it or not."

His flurry of brightness grew, his ghostly hand emerged, ripping open a new window before us. It flickered in light growing in the dark. As he spoke, what he said came into view, and His word was made.

"And it was good," He began. "And the Light was given Space. Space was given the Elements. Elements were given Gravity. The warmth of Light created Night and Day about the Revolution of Elements that made a Planet. A Planet was given Rock and Dirt to hold. Rock and Dirt needed Climate to Feel. Then Climate gave Water that divided masses of what became Land. Water mingled with Dirt to give Land something to nurture. What was nurtured became the Green and flourished a thick layer of Life over Land. Life was vast in diversity between the Land and became unique to each and every formation.

"Upon each Land was unique Rocks, unique Minerals. The Minerals drifted into the Waters, bringing the Green into the Depths. It too flourished, so I made the Fish who ate the Green, and when they died, their Life fed the Green. So, I took a Piece of Heaven and called it a Soul. And with a Soul, I combined with the Dirt and Water, so I made that which slithers and swims, even that which crawl upon the depths. The Scaled, the Gilled, the Skinned, and the Transparent.

"The battle for the Green grew, so I made that which eats the Green and that which eats those that eat the Green, and some that eat both. The Large and few ate the Small and plenty which ate the Green, and some that ate the Minerals from the Rock. All until an equilibrium was met that found Balance. Eventually the Large, too, would die, decay, and feed the Green that fed the small. Innumerable Variations evolved with those that survive, ever-changing species for as long as Time and I allow.

"And so those that Crawled in the Water Crawled to the Lands. So, I made that which has Fur and Skin and Armor. That which Creeps and Crawls and Walks and Runs. The Tusked, the Toothed, the Clawed, the Quilled, the Hoofed, the Horned, and the Antlered. Soon came the Winged. The Beaked, the Billed, and the Feathered. The complexity of Balance perpetually evolved.

"Interspecies competition brought only the strongest to prolong a legacy. The Strongest, the Smartest, the most Flamboyant, the most Ferocious. Genetics duplicated and mutated ever so slightly to always elevate Potential. Everything in its place, Clean and Pure. Each Being a part of the Whole. A Paradise I was proud of. And I named it Earth.

"And as a Being passed on, I created the Angel of Death first. My Shepherd. No more, no less. You saw all creation. You passed no opinion, you simply collected as you were made to. I wanted my own Balance. I created Angels, other Celestial beings as you, but to maintain my experiment. No Angel was your equal; they only see and protect what little I deem necessary; the Fragile Galaxy I placed Earth among. Finally, I created your brother, The Unbound. The Soul structured to contradict and tamper with my Pure Beings. No, not the Beasts, but those made in my image.

"Man was made among the Beast. Man was fragile. Man was inferior to the Beast. Though, Man had one definitive advantage: Free Will. They were the first Filth I introduced to Paradise. The Unbound twisted Good Intentions and Kindness and wrought Evil. Free Will is subjective, but in the Name of Balance, I allowed Anarchy. I built limitations to be broken."

His radiance dimmed, and the rift to his story of Creation was shut. He stretched His ghostly hand toward me, hovering it above me, sharing his sorrow.

"And so, I made many more worlds. Some where The Unbound may not influence. More worlds with many other incredible Beasts that Man may not yet comprehend. Some have grown far beyond Earth in less time, and some have crumbled under their own ambition and Elemental resources.

You have seen all that I have made. My Right Hand. My Shepherd. I granted you Free Will for your chance at godhood. My Shepherd has faithfully done well. Now you, my Right Hand, I wish to make you an equal, My Smoky Brother in Radiance. But you shall earn no such place until your twisted Soul has reshaped as a being of compassion."

He lifted his hand, relinquishing me of his sorrow. The floor of Heaven lifted me back to my feet. He put his hand upon my shoulder, and my celestial memory momentarily burrowed back into my brain. Light burst from my eyes and left my body immobile.

I was Ethereal Smoke again, travelling through the Spirit Realm. I travel with the wind, with the waves, with the meteors. As small as an atom, as big as a sun. Always present but ever wandering. I saw it all. I don't know why, but I did. I take. I bring them home, the Pieces of Heaven. They are all a part of this energy that connects us all. The fusion of Dirt and Water that forged a beating heart. And when the heart stops, I bring that energy home. I am Death, The Shepherd. Pure.

"You are neither the light or the dark. You are the concept that life has most frequently pondered, feared, and respected. Pessimism about your nature is not your fault, it is mine. I gave you the embodiment of the Grim Reaper, an idea made by humans and most widely recognized. I gave you the embodiment of dread as a challenge of nature. An idea again from the humans that holds all they hate and fear. You will modify their perspective, show them that you are not your brother."

"I've already been deemed the Devil in the east! What chance do I have now of being portrayed as anything other than chaos?" I asked with doubt.

"You were made up of bad things, but you are more than what the world thinks of you." His sorrow escaped, and his light intensified. "Teach them that."

He reanimated the rifts to the four visions of the children. Each at peace for the moment. He summoned my scythe before me, suggesting I prepare. The Ghostly Hand ripped at clouded foundation before me, opening the sky above Ecclesia. I looked down upon the citadel and its surrounding land. From here it looked so small. He suggested me forward.

I stepped back a couple paces, taking a last look at Heaven for a while.

"Be gone, Shepherd!" He boomed.

Scythe in hand, armour donned and immaculate. I ran to dive into the sky below me. For the first time on my own accord, I fell.
20

First Impressions

I broke through the portal of Heaven, bursting through the atmosphere down to Ecclesia. Docks lined the city end-to-end along the northern shoreline, the towering citadel peaks rising nearly equal to the mountains of the west. The immensity of the city grew more impressive as I neared. Clear divided sections about the southern commons split the cultures of unique nations as the unified people of Ecclesia.

The World Stones just south of the citadel steps had their own arsenal of surrounding towers and defensive walls. That was the focal expansion point of the city. The Citadel was built beyond the World Stones to be formidable and beautiful, a mark of hope to be seen from any direction for many miles. The south sector of the city was ever expanding with new and growing cultures. The forest was gutted for many square miles to the south and east of Ecclesia, reforming the landscape as a variety of farmlands.

My comet of stars collected, leaving a purple, blue, and silver hue in the trail of my descent. My view was dimmed by the stars collecting to brace my fall. I vaguely saw the greatest spires pass directly beside me. I slowed. The stardust transitioned my nose-dive to gracefully plant me on my feet. I was to land on the highest balcony of the citadel, facing towards the northern sea.

The stars dispersed as I levitated just above the open air, hundreds of feet below. They drifted me just over the golden ledge and onto solid ground. Two grand doors were closed before me, leaving me to my lonesome to admire the view from the highest vantage of the city. The sound of waves made a peaceful ambience, as I looked about to see doves flying above and below.

The two doors opened with the clunk of armoured men approached. The first to come wore the Ecclesian sigil across his white robe; a black design of a nautical compass with wavy arms and a blue rose about the centre. This man had a simpler crown circlet of silver leaves with a topaz about the centre. This man's impressive stature stood above his tallest guard but was still dwarfed by my size. He had thick blonde, shoulder length hair, and very rigid structure for a lively face. He approached unarmed, with confidence. All eyes seemed baffled by my existence.

"Hello... friend." He was unsure what to say. "Friendly start, uh, let my lads know your good intentions by laying down your big scythe? Please?"

For a king, he had a very playful approach to being a leader. I played along. I gripped my scythe tighter, enlightening the runic designs for a moment, and then tossed it aside to disintegrate and fly away like dust. They all gasped and took a step back.

"Neat!" The king was excited. "Well! Now that we aren't all going to die immediately, I am Grand Architect Valen. I am a leader of no lineage, I earned my way here, in case you assume I was born to shit gold, no, my lads will all tell you that those kind are all gone and lost to memory. Ecclesia has never seen such prosperous days. And you are?"

"I am the Angel of Death." My deep voice made them nervous. "I have embodied a mortal vestige as The Grim Reaper, as you may call me. I... am made up of bad things... but that is not what I am." The sounds of distant waves were all that was heard as they tried to believe my words.

A woman pushed through the line of guards. The queen, noticeable by her crown circlet, with silver feathers rather than leaves, and three topaz gems to the front. She wore a white and violet accented lace dress, fitting tightly over her curvaceous, tanned body. Her thick, curled dark brown hair flowed halfway down her back as her bright blue eyes widened in astonishment at my armoured presence. All eyes were hers for a moment, but she was no stranger to star-struck eyes. Attention returned to me as she wrapped around Valen's thick chest and kissed his bare neck. She does not fear me.

"My Queen, meet... Death! The Grim Reaper, he claims!" Valen was torn between excitement and terror, which inspired a strange form of sarcasm. "Death is on our balcony, WELCOME! But it's ok, love, he threw away his weapon and it just poofed, right into thin air! And so, Sir Grim, how did you get here?"

"I fell." There was a faint trail of the purple, silver, and blue hue left drifting away from my trajectory fading in the sky. I pointed to my path from the clouds.

"Ah... Very well! Death, meet the peace between nations, my queen, Kitava." He stepped aside, spreading his arms over exaggerating her introduction. "Her beauty has struck down every man to come to Ecclesia with the intention of war. They forget their demands when they see her and begin blabbering like fools. Therefore, Ecclesia has been in good hands for the previous decade."

"Does she, herself, speak?" She had more of my interest than I liked to admit.

"She does." She began with a smooth, mature voice. It was a powerful, relaxed, manipulative voice. "We are honoured by your presence, Death. As is all life honoured at one point or another. Why would you bless us with such presence before our time has come? Or has it?"

I like this one.

"Not your time. Rather, mine." I looked again out towards the beauty beyond. "The human race disgraced Death. Death is simply a necessity that makes existence worth appreciating. I have come as The Grim Reaper because there is no greater vision man has made for me. So, I come a twisted mortal soul, to stand among my people and let them set eyes upon their deity."

"You... you-You-YOU!" King Valen's excitement was unmatched. "Rumor spoke of fire from the sky over the western mountains some time ago! Was that also you? Are you alone?"

"Indeed, it was I." They don't need to know about the Griffin. "I could not bring my first mortal vestige upon my people, unknowing of the mortal mind of the Reaper. I have honed my mind in the lands about Ohm. I have died my own deaths and returned each time anew.

"Now I have seen the faults of my being and creation, I see it fit timing for those made in my image to know their creator. No better a place to spread my godly influence than the heart of the world, here, in Ecclesia."

The Grand Architect seemed rather flattered I landed about his home. Meanwhile, Kitava tilted her head back and forth, contemplating the prospect of a deity before her.

"Well, dear Reaper, before you are a sea of the godless and the faithful of guardians that yet live," Kitava spoke first. "I can tell you truly that none have taken 'Death' as their primary source of hope about this life... That's a bit contradictory is it not?"

King Valen and the guards gritted their teeth for her forward questioning. Beauty has kept you fearless, Kitava, but I am not so easily broken.

"As Death would be. I come to take. I am no man or woman 'waging war' against you. I am the tickle in the back of your skull that tells you to feed when you hunger, to drink when you thirst, and kill, lest you be killed. If it weren't for me, you would not hope. What is to hope for if life was eternal? Would you be so naïve to think you as humans alone deserve immortality? You wish to multiply and reap that of nature and watch the world dwindle as your endless lineage never respects a moment about this life because they never felt the pain of something being taken from them?"

My words broke through her pride. Valen was awestruck as if those words breathed energy into his lungs.

"Well said, Reaper!" He extended his hand to be shaken. "I'd love nothing more than to show you the kingdom. What's mine is yours! Well, it's also Kitava's, I said that one day and now she can take all my shit when I die. Lucky I'm still here, eh?" His lightheartedness made me laugh and brought ease to his guards, and even to Kitava. Their bond seemed rather impressive. A likeable man and a proud woman to lead the realm of many nations. I extended a gauntleted hand to shake.

"I apologize that I do not have any attire for your size. Are you not burdened by that fortress upon you?" Valen asked.

"Best save it for the crowd, yes?" I beat my fist against my chest, reshaping the stars to my dark robe with purple lining. It now glowed with runic designs equal to my scythe. The glowing did not settle as it usually did. They remained radiant, blue as Kitava's eyes.

"Wow. Yes. They are going to love that!" King Valen was ecstatic.

King Valen was an impressive guide. I dared speak of a weakness, but I found myself thinking of him as a friend. He was hard not to be happy around. I never felt this ease about Ohm until now. It has all been survival, hardship, and making statements. King Valen's banter made me experience pleasantries I had not yet felt. I laughed deeply at some of his bizarre stories.

We started the route a bit backwards since I had landed not only atop the city on the royal bedroom balcony. Inside the citadel, even if it may not be for all to roam, the world had made its mark, bit by bit. Each nation has had an influence on the infrastructure of the citadel. Though most were stone and pillar, there were many huts, palisades, tipis, and cabins, albeit more as a form of cultural display than anything. Even torches about the walkways were engraved with so many differences that it would take days upon days to give each detail the attention it deserved.

I was a little surprised myself to be at ease enough to even want to admire the intricacies. Marble arches, granite staircases and walkways; seeds brought from all over the world to grow around the citadel courtyards; oaks, sycamores, cypress', weeping willows, and more; berry bushes on every corner.

"As you can see about my guards, they all have a unique tweak to their armaments." King Valen was quite at ease with me. "We have had peace for long enough that I demanded they all learn to forge their own armour. That's why some of it is just... god-awful. Only for my elites have I demanded a master-crafter do their work. I can't have men in defective armour representing me.

"They can boast about fighting all they please, but some of them bit their tongues when I told them they have to build their own gear. Might as well let them bring some knowledge home to their family... or their tavern." He loved to laugh at his own jokes.

"You said you earned your kingship, Valen. What put you above all these other men if not bloodline?" I asked.

"I'm offended, Reaper, can't you see that I'm amazing?" He winked and punched my arm. He's like a damn puppy. "You have good timing, star-man! We are about to approach the World Stones. As you may be familiar with watching from... the clouds? This is where everything began."

The World Stones now had a new addition since The Divine shared the vision of Jarl Ulfar's tale. The towering pinnacles that had risen above the World Stones courtyard as a landmark had been torn down. There was now an intricate dome roof with mosaic glass depicting the story of the World Stones. To each direction, it respected the true tales of time.

The centre peak was the World Stones before they were engraved upon. To the west portrayed the mountains as they were, untouched and respected. A group of nomads before them with horses and mules setting off to the unknown. It showed no story of their success or return. To the south and east had converged many people far and wide bringing carts of resources to settle and create Ecclesia. To the north was the growing docks and fisheries, and at the far horizon rose the great sea dragon.

"Beautiful, isn't it? You must be able to see how the colours dance through the glass about the courtyard from the sky... How much do you see, really?" He gave me a sly look as if suggesting something. "More than you'd like to, I'm sure." He laughed to himself again.

"We were pretty subtle about the dragon story, I must admit. A prince from a hundred summers ago attempted to run away from Ecclesia when the Vikings first crossed the Northern Sea. They raved about having an agreement with the Sea, and we called their bluff. Until we thought they were running home with our next-in-line for the crown, but he was unworthy of the North. Their watery god came and ripped him out of their ship as we volleyed arrows at them. The dragon threw his body more than a mile to hit the spires that once rose over the World Stones.

"So we tore them down and put an armoured glass roof over the World Stones, so no more blood may ever be shed on them. He was the first and last as of present to bleed upon the stones. The death of Prince Kreon brought his father, Grand Architect Segwin, to a sorrowful end. He drank himself to death, killing off his own line to the crown. The Vikings left with the royal blade, Requiem. Of course, they haven't dared return since. Their name does not bode well about Ecclesia."

I was about to interrupt, but he was getting quite excited as his part of the story began.

"As for me! Democracy had done the city many a favour since Segwin's death. The city came to vote for a rightful ruler. We didn't get it right the first couple times around, there were some inglorious bags of shit that sat on the throne for the first few decades. Civil wars and revolutions put the city to a standstill of growth for decades. Over a decade ago, I led the revolution against the worst of them, King Malachai.

"I unified every man, woman and child to march against our own citadel. He was a greedy and lust-driven arse, but he dared not kill children. So, I marched in the front line with a thousand children of every nation. Not a single soul of the crown or our people were slain that day. A couple bruises were necessary to make way, and Malachai may have jumped off his balcony, rather than face his people, but it was a glorious victory.

"On that day, we threw his body into the sea. We melted the gold of his crown and sold it to the Eastern kingdom to feed the families that Malachai was starving. Eleven years later, I still stand here, the Grand Architect of Ecclesia. No revolutions yet! Fingers crossed." He always had to keep it lighthearted.

"And what of your heir, Valen?" I asked. "What comes after your time?"

"I asked the same question, Reaper." Valen took a heavy breath in and out, checking over his shoulder for listeners. "I have been trying with Kitava for the last nine years... It appears my seed is barren. An affliction that irks at my soul every day." He looked up at me with wonder. "Why would that be, Reaper?"

"Some things... are not meant to pass." I see to ends, not beginnings. "If I answer one's ailment, I must answer them all. You are but a man. Perhaps a good man, but suffering is a necessary evil for all mankind to progress.

"Perhaps the next King will be of common blood as you are. You have been proof enough that it does not take royal blood to make a great successor."

That brought his spirits back.

"You're a mysterious creature, Death." He refused to be upset. "Luckily, I am a patient fool. I hear that's a virtue. I've built a good life, I believe I deserve what comes to me, and all has its reason. Figured it wouldn't hurt to ask God if one ever got a face-to-face chance, you know?

"I'll send out word with the lads. Word will spread overnight, they all saw you fall. You're to speak to the people tomorrow evening. The whole of Ecclesia will come! I told them to say, 'Death has come!' That will get their blood running!" He looked at me with a big stupid smile like that was a good joke.

He wasn't kidding.
21

To Be Humbled

I walked freely amongst the people on that first day. The guards kept commoners at a distance to not interrupt. Word spread overnight. King Valen's joke happened to be in poor taste. 'Death has come' brought the city into a panic. Word spread through the entire city overnight. Conspiracies brought the people to their defences.

I attempted to sleep in a guest chamber close to ground level of the citadel. The feathered bed's comfort did nothing to mute the gathering fear of the people of the city. King Valen knocked on my door.

"I made a mistake." He sounded nervous. "So, you're going to talk to the people now... They couldn't wait to meet you it seems! They are in the courtyard with weapons and torches..."

I opened the door to see him dressed in a fine silver silk robe. He seemed embarrassed that his joke had not gone as planned. I hadn't thought much about what to say to the people. If fear was not to be my method of rule, I was drawing blanks on any positive realities I could offer instead.

"Kitava is already out on the south balcony trying to smooth things over. They demand to see you."

"Clever, Valen." I summoned the scythe to my hand.

"Oh! No! Uh, do that, but in front of them. They will like that!" His dumb smile was back like it was a game.

It will make a statement, yes. Whether they like it is debatable. I tossed it to Valen, making it vanish before it hit him.

"REAPER!" He cowered, expecting to be dead. He opened his eyes to see it gone. He regained his composure. "Your humour is as bad as mine. We will make a great team, Death."

We both laughed as we moved towards the balcony.

Before us was a sea of Ecclesians. Their torches made it look like a red galaxy was flickering on the ground below me. Kitava was wearing an equally fine silver robe. It hugged her curves tightly, but her beauty would not quiet the people. The light of the flames danced off their robes as if they, too, were aflame. The roar of people dulled to a nervous silence as I took the spotlight above the people. I stood more than a head above their king and queen, displaying my immensity.

"Ecclesians!" I boomed. I raised my hand high, summoning the scythe to my hand. The runes glowed intensely. It sounded like Ohm itself gasped at the sight. The King and Queen stood just behind me, marvelling quietly. I slammed the butt of the scythe on the ground. Silence struck again, anticipation was heavy in the air. I beat fist to chest, expecting my armour to appear. Nothing happened. But then I saw it.

Stardust rose from the crowd, crawling toward the walls and up to the balcony for all to witness. The Divine supports my demonstration! Stardust slithered up the walls like a serpent, finding my feet and winding around my body like a tornado. Where once was my robe, was now my black runic fortress with ethereal smoke. The city cowered as the sea of torch-flames took a step back.

"King Valen did not lie to you." I began. "Yes, I am Death. I come in the embodiment of the Grim Reaper. I came from above, not below. I am what is beyond the sky, the spirit that sees all ends. I don this fortress of darkness and smoke before you as your creator in the flesh."

The people were dumbstruck. The silence endured. It was neither a moment of cheering nor distress. I hadn't yet decided what to promise them. I ran out of words. I looked back at King Valen, who was equally confused, expecting I had more than that. Actions speak louder than words. I looked down, about eighty feet below was the paved surface where the people gathered. I hopped the balcony rail and descended.

I left a trail of smoke behind me as I fell. Ecclesians screamed and dispersed. If The Divine was assisting me, this was a game of trust. I plummeted swiftly. I braced for the impact. I busted the pavement, raising a cloud of dust. I landed on one knee that dug through the street. The armour had braced the impact for me. I rose, unharmed. I was a giant among the crowd. They backed away, wide-eyed.

I stepped once forward. They stepped backward, fear building. I stopped. This isn't working. I gripped the scythe in two hands, ready to swing. I held it close to the end, maximizing my reach. I swung for the crowd. I would have hacked through an entire family in one swing. I burst the scythe into stardust at the start of my swing, leaving a sparkling cloud dispersing into the air. Fear will have to do.

"I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY!" I roared. "I look like the Devil as a man, but I am NOT. MY. BROTHER!"

"Ahriman..." A voice from the crowd yelled nervously. "You're him... You were in Halaseir." The crowd opened around a weathered man with the tanned skin of the east. He had dusty, long dreaded hair and a short, thick beard.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I came from the east to warn Ecclesia about... you." He said boldly. "The 'Grim Reaper' was in Halaseir about fifteen days ago. You walked with the Scorpions to speak with Aegyptus. You promised to turn the tide, so you slaughtered the Pharaoh and Soul Scorpion. Then you threw the Pharaoh's youngest into the Plagued Channel and then sacrificed yourself to our arrow volley. You... I watched arrows pierce through your face when you took off your hood.

"These people are right to come bearing arms. You are the Devil. Ahriman. The Great Deceiver! This is another ploy. Do you deny it?"

"I do..."

"Liar!"

"SILENCE!"

He flinched. I approached him. He stood his ground. The Ecclesians dispersed, but he stood firm. I stood there, looking down at him. I fell to my knees. Now I was face to face with him.

"Strike me," I said.

"I'd rather piss on you." He spat in my face.

You I can respect.

"I will turn your piss to blood, but you may strike me."

He considered it.

"STRIKE ME!"

His fist came like lightning across my jaw. The fear-laden adrenaline increased the strength with which he hit me. I stared him in the face. I spat blood at his feet. I rose.

"Yes. I bleed. But I will die and live again. I bleed so you may trust me. Your pain is but one lifetime, mine shall be eternal. I will return time and time again. I come now as a mortal before you, to let you decide what becomes of Ohm. For it will live and thrive or die and rot by my reign."

"Why did you cause the slaughter in Halaseir?" The weathered man had crossed much of the world for what was to become the pivotal moment of his life.

"How fairs the state of your city, traveller?" I asked.

"Quiet... It is a cold war. The city is ready day and night for a final massacre at any moment." He was confused by my question.

"The boy I let loose in the Plagued Channel lives. Your leaders both had to die to reorder the state of your city. A new dawn is rising, as new darkness will soon follow."

"What new darkness?" Queen Kitava's voice came from behind us. She and Valen had run down to join after I jumped over the balcony. I jeopardize my worth with lies. I must be vague.

"As I said, I am not my brother. The Unbound... The 'Devil' is very real. Evil resides in many forms around the mortal realms. His influence will always arise within those driven by greed, lust, and power. Ohm has many powerful forces around it without my brother waging war here. But evil may loom within the best of you."

"How many of there are you?" Valen asked.

"As The Unbound has his demons, Heaven has many angels. They reside heavily within the spirit realm. No being is equal to my brother and I. We are the pivotal forces of creation."

"What's stopping your brother from coming to Ohm if you have come?" Kitava questioned.

"Things are set in motion now to prepare Ohm for the evil to come. I know not when, I know not how, but Ohm will be ready. My chosen will come from every edge of Ohm and combat the worst of creation."

Everybody was trying to absorb what just happened. No more questions were asked. It was my move to make.

"Give this man food and a bed." I pointed to the man that struck me. "Give him everything he needs to return to Halaseir in good health." The weathered man was most surprised. "What is your name, traveller?"

"Hodabi. 'Hodabi Of No Home' they call me," he answered.

"Hodabi Of No Home, you have the respect of Death, or the Devil, whatever you declare me. You have my blessing to return home."

"A... a thousand thanks... Death." He bowed.

"Tomorrow will come. There is still a night's rest to be had. Go home and sleep easy, for I am no threat. As of tonight, the Age of The Reaper has begun."
22

To Be Vulnerable

If Death could have a nightmare, what happened in my sleep that night would have been one. But what I saw was very real. The Divine deemed contact necessary after my first impression. He was less than impressed.

My spirit lifted from my bed. I watched my body rest in that bed as my spirit drifted through the walls to the open air. I flew outward and upward, back as high as the balcony I landed on. Higher. I saw the city at night from the clouds.

A clawed red hand burst through the ground before the southern gates. These claws peeled back the dirt and pavement like sand. Fire spit out of the crevasse. A deep, shiver-inducing laugh vibrated through Ohm. It tore its way out.

"Brother," my spirit whispered. The Unbound took the form of a massive demon. Wavy horns rose from his brow. Skin that was lava gravitating about a beating heart. Lava was encased in a molten shell that resembled armour as mine in the most hellish of forms. Fire breathed through runic symbols about his molten armour that was of the same celestial inscription. His humanoid form rose taller and taller before the city.

He dripped fire from the chinks in his molten armour. It set flame to the farmlands behind him as he examined the city he towered over. He summoned a flaming great axe from thin air as I would the scythe.

"Go forth!" he howled as demons of all shapes spewed from new crevasses all over the land. Their war-cry filled the night as they converged on the city walls. Digging their fiery claws into the stone, walls would not stop them. He lifted his fiery weapon to the sky, infecting the clouds with flame as the clouds balled into fiery rain over the city.

"Brother!" He noticed my spirit levitating in the sky above the city. "My equal, said the Reaper! That we shall see!" He extended the axe towards me, conjuring stardust to the flaming weapon. He shook with power as it readied a blast. A force ripped me backward.

The Divine's ghostly hand came from behind, pulling me back to Heaven before The Unbound incinerated the city. My spirit body broke through the floor of heaven, crashing onto my back. The ghostly hand grabbed my neck and forced my face back through the clouded foundation to watch the city burn.

"FOOL!" I could feel the ghostly hand tempted to crush me. "You are too closely connected to the Unbound. I have him occupied with other worlds, but Ohm's spiritual barrier has been thinned by your presence. You raved of his existence to those who fear you, when you're trying to be a hero. The Unbound is MY rival, not yours! In no realm is he your equal. And now the idea of The Devil come whole will terrorize the minds of the mortals."

I realized how he spoke that what I was watching was not real. He spoke of the future as if The Unbound had not yet come, as I saw before me. The ghostly hand felt me relax. It lifted my face back through the floor of Heaven. I saw the flame dissipate as I realized this was a projection not yet come true. Not yet, was still bad enough.

"If I claimed to be the only deity, would that not make me the Devil as well? God of all or none." I knew I had some leniency now.

"Whether you will it or not, The Unbound will come to challenge you. He may be banished, just as well as you. I gave him defiance as well as you, so he is free to challenge your reign on Ohm."

His ever-changing throne had dimmed its radiance. His fury was all powerful. He blew away the clouds we stood on, and empty space was left. I did not fall, but levitated. Before, beneath was Ohm, and now expanded the empty existence of space.

"Oh yes, that's right, you're mortal." He said. Breath was drawn from my lungs. I began choking. Every moment I struggled further, my chest shrinking. My vision dimmed, my bones quaked, and my muscles tensed. He left me there, seizing, but refusing to die. It was my spirit, I could not be killed, but it could suffer. Endlessly.

"I gave you a gift here, Grim." He was calm. "The greatest in all of time. The problem is I'm rooting for you. But I can hear your thoughts. 'Leniency' is not what I will call this. See, I am very used to writing the story. If I THINK, then my thoughts form in the universe, and it is done. Therefore, I must numb myself to let this tale unfold.

Ohm will be set apart as a celestial warzone. The Unbound has not yet gathered his energy to attack Ohm. The less influence he has over the people, the less power he will have. Thus, you too, gain power with influence. The Shepherd must have his followers."

He reanimated a floor and let me drop to my knee, gasping for air. My body convulsed as it breathed life in once again. My vision slowly returned, my muscles slowly untensed.

I wheezed out words. "I will have their faith. I will defeat The Unbound. I will reign, and my children will grow strong."

"I will know upon who returns to Heaven first. Until then, Ohm is home. Make it feel that way. Make friends. Laugh. Dare even love something. You haven't truly experienced pain until you have lost."

The floor collapsed. I was plummeting back from the atmosphere over the citadel. No comet or stars, just my spirit falling back to my body. Rather it felt like a suction of my soul retrieving my spirit. Stone was to no avail in the spirit realm, as I broke through layer after layer of the citadel to find my body at rest, just as I left it. My soul converged back into the flesh, and I awoke in a cold sweat. My whole body was chilled to the bone as if I had gained possession of a recently deceased body.

Redness along the dark horizon suggested morning would come soon. I dreaded the idea of returning to sleep. I had to walk about the place and convince myself that The Unbound had not yet come. I set out for a stroll in the early morning. I was unsure where I would go on my adventure, so I followed the coming sun. I walked towards an eastern tower.

The citadel was all at rest. There was no need for a night-watch even with the night's excitement. I met a series of dead ends trying to navigate the many courtyards and museum of a labyrinth that seemed to be the citadel. Every new area had something unique, whether the structure, the plants, or its decorations. I had finally found my way to a spiralling tower. A staircase winded many levels upward as the dawning light cracked through the arrow-slit windows as I ascended.

The horizon burned the sky a sun of brilliant orange, red, and purple with thin clouds. My eyes adjusted slowly as I refused to look away. The pinnacle was a rounded level with a waist-high barricade. The world to the east from the tower was riddled with roads to farmlands, patched with untouched forestry.

"You come for me?" Her calm voice made me jump. "Or do you chase that magnificence?" She nodded towards the sunrise. Kitava had a cushioned bench put out for her apparent frequent visits to this tower.

"Is it not the same thing?" It sounded smooth, but I surprised myself with those words. I couldn't help but adore her in the light of the rising sun. Before, torch fire danced off the silver silk of dress, and she looked like a beautiful demon. Now she sat there with the radiance of a flawless angel. She looked up at me with a smirk. She stood, slowly approaching me.

"I believe you, you know." She looked up at me. She traced a finger across my robed chest. "The east can be a wicked place, and Aegyptus was a terrible man. You did us a favour by ending that man."

"What are you doing?" I caught her wrist and stared deep into her blue eyes.

"I want to see how much of a God you really are." She gently pried my fingers out of the grip and kept her gaze up into my eyes. I realized I had never felt the softness of human skin. Perhaps hers was softer, but it broke my focus as she traced a finger over the palm of my hand. I quivered like a young boy.

"You've never felt touch before, have you?" She couldn't help giggling at me.

"I haven't ever felt the need," I replied with a bit of angry embarrassment. I didn't realize how something little could make somebody feel so weak. She's playing with me. She loves her king.

"What would Valen think?" I asked, accusingly.

"Oh, he won't. One cry of distress and he would send the city to their doom in my defence. He is hopelessly obsessed. And hopelessly barren. A wonder of a man. I could ask no more, spare a child, but word of this would do you no favour."

"Do ME no favour?!" I growled.

"Yes, you." She smirked again. "You would not have fallen to your knees before that man if you didn't have something to lose by losing the faith of the people. You are powerful, but something beyond you is at stake."

"Clever, queen." I sighed. "I may deem you correct. But it is in your best regards to gathering the people to my influence, lest Ohm suffer a far worse fate than I could bring it."

"Death, the saviour. Is that it?"

"Death, the Shepherd," I corrected.

"So, you wish to make us your flock?" She laughed.

"I wish them to make their own decision to follow me as I twist this soul of bad things into what this world needs to save it."

Her smile was wiped away. "Why protect us? Create another world, oh Creator." She wished to irk me.

"I have but one chance," I admitted. "I spoke of my brother. He listens. He wishes to challenge my reign in the physical realm, now that I have crossed through the spirit realm where we are ever-lasting."

"Well, for what it's worth, Reaper," she looked at me in a way I didn't understand, "I believe you." She reached very high as I found myself subconsciously lowering down to receive a kiss on the cheek. She smiled at me and left as the intensity of the sunrise dissipated. I stood firm, casually hiding the goosebumps she left on my skin.
23

Those Who Spoke Her Name

BoeDri, the jaguar, was hunched over high in the canopies of the Primordial. Something drew her back to one place time and time again. She had primarily been the jaguar for over a year now. She had accumulated a few more souls in that time. The impala, and the antelope. The deer and antelope allowed her to roam the open grasslands more freely. BoeDri had become a tactical predator with better command of her powers.

She knew if she could enter a herd of game as the impala or antelope, then let the jaguar return, it became too easy. Her instincts as different animals were questionable at first. She walked funny, clopping awkwardly with small hooves. She preferred the traction of the jaguar's claws. As well, the jaguar's mind was not always in control. She would get comfortable as she mindlessly grazed with those she assumed as typical company of impala or antelope. She would twitch with a mouthful of soft-edged teeth grinding away at the grass, then suddenly crave meat. Her violet eyes would fixate on her company, and her spirits would again be at war.

Her body would shift as if being beaten. Her company would watch confused as if danger was near, not understanding why their violet-eyed friend was in pain. The twitching would get worse, until it seemed as if she had a heart attack, falling to the ground in thick foliage. The stardust would do as the spirit commands and return control to the jaguar. One heavy leap and she would have her jagged teeth around the neck of what was family moments ago.

Her spirits were nourished as one unit. A full stomach was shared between all her forms. Information gathered of terrain was also understood between bodies. When hunger did not take priority, something always drew her back to a certain place in the jungle. The safest way to travel was as the jaguar, so the shared instinct gave no combat as to who deserved to walk among the thickest of the jungle.

Perched in her high hiding place once again, she watched as familiar figures went about their business. She knew they were dangerous, but she felt an affinity for them. She stayed out of sight the best she could, but she couldn't help but study their methods and attempt to understand their bantering. Sometimes they were quiet and gathered and chanted. Sometimes they fought among each other and uttered threats and asserted dominance. But a specific few have had a reoccurring feud since her first stumble upon them.

A man kicked in the back of another's legs, dropping him to his knees. The man on his knees had a face full of his own blood, and his hands tied behind his back. He seemed lifeless, barely staying conscious as a woman appeared from the most formidable hut. Her black braided hair jingled with beads as she walked. The humans seemed familiar. There was a tickle of a soul trying to take hold, but it was merely a whisper as the jaguar remained fixated.

"Why don't you kill me?" the bloody-faced man mumbled.

"Because you were too friendly with Death," the woman hissed. "You handed our baby off to a stranger from the sky. You believed his claims to godhood, but I poisoned him like a normal man."

"You say it every time, HeraDri." The man swayed on the verge of passing out. "It's plagued my dreams every night since the day for more than a year. Just kill me if you wish to haunt me."

"It's HeraKa now." She smiled darkly.

A man emerged from the same hut as the woman. He came and kicked the bloody man across his face, dropping him to the dirt in agony. BoeDri found herself ready to pounce a great height to the bloody man's defence. She barely stopped herself and didn't understand why.

"Ah! Hello ProKa!" His blood now mixed with dirt across his face on the side he fell. He laughed hysterically as if all hope had been lost. "Old friend! Thanks for taking the weight of her name off my back. What a burden to be intertwined with such a terrible creature." He cackled as if on the brink of insanity. "I miss BoeDri every day." His laughter faded to deep sadness.

"Don't you speak her name, MourDri!" HeraKa approached with a crude dagger in hand. A terrible growl echoed through the jungle. BoeDri found herself taking the leap. She plummeted from the canopies to bring down HeraKa.

HeraKa dropped her dagger as she was crushed under the weight of the muscled cat. HeraKa rolled over to fight the beast. Her defensive instinct died as she looked past the jagged teeth and saw the violet eyes of her daughter staring at her. BoeDri felt the soul within crying louder now, refusing to let the jaguar kill her. Deep inside, she knew she was staring at her mother.

The jaguar's back claws dug deep into HeraKa's legs as she leapt off. She screamed in pain. BoeDri circled the weaponless ProKa, as the jaguar noticed the man that brought MourDri had run for a spear. She leapt side to side, confusing ProKa. She closed in and dug her claws into his shoulders, taking him to the ground. She bellowed the most ferocious roar in his face, spitting drool on him.

She swiped across his chest, gashing him open from shoulder to abdomen. With that, she leapt for the man scrambling for a spear. With lightning speed, she tackled the man into the side of a hut, collapsing it overtop them. As the hut-frame and pelts swallowed the man, she leapt to the open. She observed the converging humans. Lowered to the ground, she prepared herself for any assault.

A sudden wail came from inside the jaguar as the human soul of BoeDri attempted to steer the jaguar. It whipped its face as if being swarmed by bugs. She focused, homing in on MourDri. She rushed to him as he struggled to get off the ground with his hands tied. MourDri instinctively let out a cry as the beast pulled at him.

He realized BoeDri had gnawed through the thin rope that bound his arms. He rolled over, wiping the caked blood from his brow to see. The violet eyes he saw suggested he run. Now.

MourDri clawed weakly at the dirt, making a run for the exit of the encampment he once called home. His liveliness swelled back in him as his legs carried him with incredible speed.

"Take him down!" HeraKa shouted, still bleeding on the ground were BoeDri had left her. She had rage in her eyes. BoeDri stared at her before following MourDri, covering his escape. The jaguar noticed a man emerge with a bola in hand. He aimed for MourDri's legs before he was out of reach. A set of jagged teeth ripped his arm down as BoeDri pulled with all her weight. She regained her footing to see MourDri exit the camp as many more people arrived with weapons.

The jaguar was greatly outnumbered. She exited with all her speed. Human cries tried to follow but were swiftly left in the distance. As she ensured her own safety, the curiosity about MourDri returned. She turned, sniffing the air, climbing higher back towards danger. High above where man cannot be, she traversed by branches to follow the potential path of the man she felt an affinity to.

She covered ground farther west than she had ever been before. She climbed back and forth between the ground to find tracks and maintain the higher safety of the jungle. Among the chirping birds, her ears were bent forward in the hope of hearing him. The jaguar didn't understand why. But the tickle in her brain demanded to know where he went. He was an easy meal for the jaguar. But this conflict of souls would not allow it. It was not like the deer. The human soul of BoeDri would not allow that idea enter the jaguar's brain.

She had done well so far to use the jaguar's body to defend the man who spoke her name. BoeDri. The sound played over and over in her brain, but the jaguar remained physically in control. The name brought forth her human spirit, and she was screaming to get out.

Her human body would do no benefit. She would be a naked, yearling child. Would she know how to walk? She became a jaguar shortly after birth. Her immature spirit submitted to the maturity of the other beasts. Any human memory was slowly pushed deeper down into the subconscious as other souls were added to her collection.

The crumbling of leaves took the jaguar's attention. A wince of pain came from not far ahead. She approached with the silence of a shadow among the entangled trees. She peered down as MourDri gasped for air. He clawed his way forward on his hands and knees.

"HELP!" he managed with the last bits of his energy. "HEEEEEEEEELP!" He crumbled.

BoeDri waited patiently. Her human vestige knew not what to do with an incapacitated body. Moment by moment passed as she heard humans approaching.

"He's here!" one shouted. They came from ahead of him. It wasn't HeraKa's people. They seemed far better outfitted. Their spears were not so crudely produced. Four men approached bearing the same sash of white and black tiger stripes. They painted three jagged white stripes across their face.

They lifted MourDri's limp body. He was carried between two men as his feet dangled on the ground. BoeDri stayed distant but had to follow. It was not much farther until the line of the jungle suddenly ended. A great open expanse of human structures was before her. The jaguar in her grew fearful.

She saw the men dragging MourDri across a man-made bridge that expanded far across a lake of lily-pads. The bridge led to a staircase winding up into the mountain city of Hroatia. The jungle seemed to fight its way back through the steps with roots cracking through the stone.

Before the stairs stood a great monument. Curved horns were on the brow of a winged-tiger painted of white and black stripes. Beside the winged-tiger stood a centaur twice as tall. The horse-shaped underbody was woven of the jungle like that of an Ent's. Its form winded up to a human-shaped torso of the same environmental manifestation. Its face was mouthless oval helm that stemmed out to great branched antlers. This statue was the only thing the Primordial wasn't enveloping in its roots.

The centaur held a double-edged axe in each hand. It pointed one to the sky as both statues stared upward. The inscription underneath read:

Noctis and Fenyr. Guardians of Sur.

By their grace, we reside under the sky.

Even the human soul grew fearful to the expansive mountains before her. They could follow no further. The peaks were no home to her kind. Something inside was more at rest to know MourDri seemed safe. The human steer let loose, and the jaguar retreated swiftly. Before the jaguar was off, a heavy paw swiped across BoeDri's face. She noticed Mother had followed her to the edge of the Wild.

She growled BoeDri down into submission, trying to teach a lesson of safety. Mother suggested her back, far from the human establishment, and never to return. But the sound of MourDri speaking her name, BoeDri, echoed still. And she yearned to understand her origin.
24

Isolation

The village of Breka gathered under the stars. The crackling bonfire sparked high into the open air. The stars sparkled intensely, granting more clarity about the darkness of night. The damage had been mended, fences rebuilt, and livestock tended to. Jaxx and Merys were still not on speaking terms, as this was only two nights after the storm. There were faint whispers about the people, but most waited quietly for the meeting to begin. All the children were put to bed in case this pivotal meeting got heated.

"Our seclusion is what strengthened us," Virgo began. The silence was eerie, as not all knew what was to come. "But now it grows burdensome. I can see it about the way we live in a day. Passion has lost its touch in this new world we have made for ourselves. We crave the new and exciting. Don't get me wrong, Breka keeps it exciting, but that's not what I speak of." His light touch was no good. Anticipation grew.

"Not all of you know why I called us all together tonight," he continued. "I believe initial reaction speaks the truest to emotions. So here it is. I call for a vote. A few of us have agreed to travel back to Ecclesia, disguised as commoners, to bring more people to our village and begin a new life."

"Gods, NO!" Jaxx blurted out. "Breka already slaughtered soldiers, don't you think he wouldn't kill any newcomers? Or perhaps kill you for leaving? It will upset the balance. Breka is not to be tested." A quiet approval nodded about some of the people. Merys sat silently with Ballyn and Serafin, refusing to acknowledge Jaxx.

"Do we not crave new bodies about us?" Virgo spoke more to the crowd around the fire than Jaxx. "We have more than enough resources to support a growing community. Perhaps gather some fellow brewers to get some beer about us! Maybe some more performers like Jurik. Liven up our little hovel with music!" Nobody could deny the joyful thoughts of beer and music. To celebrate and let loose would do the Brekan's a world of good with the stress of Arenthis's storms.

"Fair, Virgo, but what of Grand Architect Valen?" Semwise joined in. "He would have our heads if he knew we were here. Any word that we thrived in the mountains and he would send a legion against us."

"That jester of a king?" Virgo laughed. "He's too busy shooting blanks into his queen to worry about some happy people in the mountains. His wrath is demonic, but he would dare not divide the people over such a matter and lose his crown." Virgo had much of the issues thought out. He kept it private on purpose in case opposition had any thorough reasons against him.

"They can't know about Arenthis," Merys interrupted Virgo's growing approval. "As much as I want to trust that you would keep him quiet, I wouldn't believe any promises that you could keep a secret. Not even just you, the others. Word of Aren's power would sacrifice all our well-being. Jaxx and I would be persecuted as you have. How fair do you believe we would be treated if it was anybody other than 'family' judging our son and us?"

Jaxx was starry-eyed over Merys and her words. He had fixated those words in his head to believe she had even in the smallest way began to forgive him. She noticed his gaze from across the bonfire. But focus was back to Virgo.

"We... all have to make sacrifices." He started.

"Arenthis. Will NOT. Be sacrificed." Merys didn't let him continue.

"Please, Merys." He shot her a mean gaze. "The last year has been all about your baby boy. I speak for all of us when we need something different to think about. Distract us. We want the best for him too, we will protect him. But we need to expand. The world will know about him sooner or later."

"He can't defend himself! I'm one woman against a world that will treat him like a monster." Jaxx noticed she left him out of that statement, perhaps intentionally. It cut too deep.

"That's my boy, too!" Jaxx had gritted teeth. "Bringing Ecclesians who don't understand all we have been through will change everything that we are. If we bring even one, what's to say we don't bring a hundred, and what we are is lost?

"You're far mistaken if you think bringing new people here will deter focus from Arenthis. We can handle what we have made together, but to have the entire city converging on a baby that claps fire will ruin us. If you think King Valen can forget us, perhaps, but he will not push aside a matter such as this."

"Perhaps it's what we need." Virgo's words sent out goosebumps. It was a bold thing to say. "What is one baby boy over the other fifty of us? If he is simply human, then he is not promised a tomorrow, just like any of the rest of us. Why does the storm-child get special treatment?" His words did not bode well Jaxx's company.

"Because he is god-damned special is why!" Semwise rose. "Perhaps you should ask birdy's opinion on Aren. Birdy seems to favour the little lad. Even at the worst, that beast wound burn its own face for that boy. Just like I burnt my hands. There's a lot of us that'll burn before ill comes to that child." Semwise stood toe-to-toe with Virgo.

"His storms will ruin us. Even if he grows to control his powers, his wrath will be the end of many. Storms have no mercy even for those he loves. The cabin nearly crumbled on Jurik, Merys, and his own self. It's a necessary risk for the betterment of us. It's time to vote. Come to my side to support our expansion or join Jaxx and Merys to support solitude."

Awkward silence lingered as almost the entirety of the Brekans shifted to Virgo's side. Jaxx took the chance to put his arm around Merys, but she was more worried about what she was seeing. Only Jurik, Semwise, Ballyn, and Serafin were with them.

"The village has spoken," Virgo smirked. "I will take supplies and horse enough for five of us to venture back to Ecclesia. We will be gone for some time, making sure we find the right people to trust. I can make no promises. But it warms my heart to know so many support this." He gave a condescending smile to Jaxx. "I'm sorry we can no longer live at the mercy of the demon-boy."

"Son of a BITCH!" Jurik was faster than most. He gripped his lute by the neck and swung for Virgo's head. He held himself still as he heard the unsheathing of hidden blades from Virgo's side. He lowered his lute, staring with rage. "It's almost worth it to break my baby over your pretty face right now. You know how much that means to me. That isn't my boy your mockin', but family doesn't disrespect."

Four men and five women slowly rose and shifted to Jaxx and Merys's side of the bonfire. That spoke many words, but Virgo was un-wavered.

"I still have my numbers." Virgo spread his arms in triumph. "I may apologize, but we both know that would be empty.

"In the morning, we ride."

Those on Virgo's side dispersed to retire for the night. The couple's primary company stayed to watch the fire wither. They were all restlessly pondering.

"You friends mean more than the world to us. You know that right?" Jaxx was fixated on the dancing flames. "Things were bound to change. Nothing ever stays the same. But things are going to be ok if I have you crazy bastards by my side." That was obviously more for Jurik and Semwise. The women didn't respond.

"Merys!" Jaxx surprised her out of her thoughts. "Bring Aren back home. I'm a goddamn mess without you. There is nothing else that'd make me happier. It's been two days, and it's messing me up. I'm sure Ballyn is sick of Aren's crap too. Literally." He got a giggle out of her. "I love ya. For shit's sake. I love ya so much! Come back to the new cabin."

She didn't have any words. She just knew he was right. She moved closer to rest against his chest. Jaxx was all butterflies to have her back in his arms. Semwise, as always overjoyed by his favourite couple, bear hugged them both off their feet.

"May birdy take you, put us down!" Jaxx and Merys gasped for air as they were put back on their feet. They couldn't help but laugh. Merys grabbed Jaxx's face for a kiss. Jaxx kept an arm out to keep Semwise at bay. The night wasn't a complete loss.

"And for heaven's sake, Jurik, don't you dare break that lute over anybody's face. As much as they deserve it, your music does a lot more than you know."

"Oh, I know, brother," Jurik smirked. "Pretty funny how serious shit got when I was gonna use it as a weapon. Jurik doesn't mess around, no he don't!" He lived to liven people's spirits. "And hey, when Aren is all grown n' such, he could shoot fire an' fancy shit along to my music. That will get the legs shaking."

"He's just a baby, Jurik!" Jaxx laughed. "Better teach him to be a gentleman first is all I ask."

"Oi! Jurik is a gentleman first and foremost!" Jurik jokingly straightened his posture and put on a stern face. "Sometimes it's just gentleman's work to live for the night." He smiled as he pondered memories he clearly missed.

"What can I teach him?" Semwise wondered.

"How to bear-hug his way out of danger when the fire isn't working?" Merys jested.

"Works more often than you think, Merys," Semwise played along. "Should I go wake Virgo for one?" He winked at her.

They joked together deep into the night. Their worries faded away like sparks against the starry sky.
25

The Cold War Capital

Send a legion, send them all!" Hodabi was enraged. He stood before Despina, widow queen to Aegyptus. She had black bags under eyes. Her beauty withered under stress and grief. She sat on her dead husband's throne, slouched and exhausted. A frail ghost of a woman was all that was left of her.

"Be gone with your rage," she suggested to him with a weak flutter of her hand. "Ahriman died when he wanted to, and now he's back on the other side of the world. If he is there, man cannot stop him." Her eyes were focused on the floor before him. She was too grief-stricken to look Hodabi in the eyes.

"It is not a tale, I swear. He is the Great Deceiver as ever. He flaunted his armour and his weapon and how it may vanish or appear. I was just in time that night, withered to the bone from the terrible journey. I called his bluff before all of Ecclesia. He approached me, fell to his knees, and forced me to strike him. He spat blood. HE BLEEDS!"

"And he sent you back with food enough for five?" She didn't believe him. "You made him bleed, and he fattened you up for it?"

"He blessed my travels before the crowd and said I could have all I need to return safely. If he now rules, I beg no forgiveness for taking more than my fair share from him."

"Well, he truly has deceived, if he now resides with the Grand Architect." She withered even more into the throne. "I waited thirty-one days for your return. Counted the seconds. I spoke to the sky every night, under the stars or the pouring rain. I had sworn vengeance, and it has rotted my body down to this ghost of a woman.

"I spoke to the sky... praying to a god... buried under our pyramid..." She began laughing hysterically. Hodabi took a step back as he watched the widow losing her mind. "I was born a slave to become a queen... to suffer an even more terrible fate!" Her hysterical laughter echoed about the palace, sending chills down Hodabi's spine.

"Your majesty..." Hodabi tried speaking through her crazed laughter. "He spoke of his 'brother.' He claims that his brother is the true evil..."

"Then we are aaaallllll going to DIE aren't we, Hodabi?" She held her gut as she couldn't stop her crazed laugh. She curled into the throne like a tormented rat. "Do what you want! Live your life before it ends! Tell your friends. Tell your cat!"

"YOUR MAJESTY!" Hodabi was maddened by the sight. "He said your boy is alive!"

The sadistic laughter stopped abruptly. She unravelled her body, revealing a face riddled with tears. Her head tilted in a horrific curiosity. She eyed Hodabi as if looking into his soul. "If you speak dishonestly, you will die slowly in the Myth-Pits." Despina's hope seeped back in. Speaking aloud the Myth-Pits was the worst terror in the East.

Hodabi straightened his posture and was suddenly formal. "He said 'The boy I let loose to the Plagued Channel lives. Your leaders both had to die to reorder the state of your city. A new dawn is rising, as new darkness will soon follow.'"

"Well, that darkness could very well be me." Her head cocked to the other side, continuing her crooked, maddened gaze. "Last time the Scorpions raised a child, it almost ended us. I will not have them raise my own son against us."

"Your orders, your majesty?" Hodabi asked.

"You've already recovered nicely. What say you infiltrate the Court of Miracles? If you succeed and prove my boy lives, you may have Halaseir's riches at your disposal as my Right Hand of Halaseir."

"Your majesty, nobody..."

"You bear the news, now you bear the task. You rode across the world and back. If you believe the Reaper, then it is your burden to prove his words. If he 'gave you his blessing' then you'll be fine, won't you?" She gave a sarcastic smile.

Hodabi was dumbstruck. He didn't have much of choice at this point. It felt like a death sentence whether he attempt an infiltration or refuse the suicide mission. What was worse: to be slaughtered and tossed to the plagued channel by the Scorpions, or chance fighting mythical beasts hidden by the pharaohs?

"I have an idea, Hodabi." She stood. "Hodabi of No Home, isn't it? Why do they call you that?"

"I uh... Have lived many lives, my queen."

"Good, then live like a Scorpion. Ahriman blesses your methods." She laughed to herself. Walking away lively as ever. There was no longer any weakness about her.

Hodabi was left there standing alone, pondering his options. His name was not for his lack of homes, it was for his lack of allegiance. He considered the reward. Halaseir's riches, and the title of the queen's right hand. With the dead pharaoh's army at disposal, then Hodabi himself would run the Myth-Pits. Or maybe there was an even greater ally to be made with such an important child in hand. Perhaps that's why the Reaper blessed him, one deceiver to another.

"If they stand behind us, protect them. If they stand beside us, respect them. If they stand against us, show no mercy." The Court of Miracles mirrored the words back to Atekah as he stood before his followers. He noticed they did not speak with the same fervour that they had towards Seth.

The Court of Miracles gathered outside the Scorpion Guild every week for news. Not everybody could fit in the area, but many attempted to attend. The crowds got smaller. It grew worse each time he spoke to his people, this being the fourth time since saving Roqua.

"Thank you all for coming," he said shyly. "The cold war remains. The widow, Despina, has been starving herself in grief. Reports say she resembles a ghost, soon to die. She refuses to order an assault and has ignored our offer to make amends."

Silence proceeded. The people were uninspired. Khitephor and Diharo stood to his left and to his right, nudging him further.

"Uh... The Scorpions continue training relentlessly. The Court of Miracles could not be in better hands."

Atekah was interrupted by the sound of laughter and murmurs of doubt.

"Um... Ramesses is very healthy! He's a pretty tough little man... You can tell he's excited to be a Scorpion." He laughed awkwardly.

Some of the gathered people began to disperse. Atekah became embarrassed and enraged. "What do you want from me?" he cried to those who were leaving.

"Why haven't you built a monument for Seth?" one man asked.

The people cheered its support.

"How are we supposed to feel safe when you shake just talking to us?" asked a woman.

Atekah glanced down at his hands; they were, indeed shaking. He quickly hid them behind his back.

"Why do you hide the baby so often?" asked another woman.

The crowd's murmurs suggested its hope for answers. Atekah frantically looked to both sides at his elites.

Khitephor stepped forward. "To be true, the babe has an odd condition," he said. "Perhaps the river brought ill to the boy. He is healthy, but he acts out. He seems unhappy and hard to approach, like an abused animal."

Diharo next took the lead. "As for the monument, we wish to resolve this war before gathering materials to begin erecting one in his honour. We hoped to surprise you by building a monument under the sky, not under the ground."

The people grew quiet; a feeling of guilt suddenly permeated the air.

"He lives on in our hearts," Diharo continued. "To do him proper justice, we must be free under the sky again."

The people roared their agreement.

Atekah waited for them to quiet down to speak again. "You must understand. Soul Scorpion Seth saw a world we could not. He will be a hard man to live up to. His discipline was unmatched. And I swear if I see Ahriman, I will plant him in his grave in honour of Seth." The crowd was silently doubtful.

"Words are wind, boy," cried a man.

"That is Soul Scorpion Atekah!" Diharo boomed. "Respect him as such."

"Why aren't you or Khitephor Soul Scorpion? You're proven leaders!" spoke another man.

The crowd gave heavy approval.

"Because... because..." Khitephor blanked.

"Because I stared into the Plagued Channel and was ready to leave this world after Seth died!" Atekah moved forward to defend himself. "I was so worried I would never live up to such a man... And in my weakness, came my greatest labour. I was gifted with the chance to save another, and now we have Ramesses.

"That boy is a reminder to myself that I am worthy." Khitephor put a hand on his back approvingly. "Nothing fought my instinct to put my life before another. That applies to each and every one of you. Even if my leadership is short-lived, my service is my life to all of you, and I could not ask for any greater honour."

Heads nodded approvingly. Quietly at first, then clapping began. It spread until the entirety of the Court of Miracles was making noise for Atekah. He held back tears; the right words had finally come to him.

The crowd was satisfyingly dispersing to go about their day as a man broke through the crowd with parchment in hand.

"ATEKAH!" he cried, breathless. "The queen wishes an audience with you."

The crowd re-gathered. "Read it! Read it!" they chanted.

Atekah raised a hand as he unravelled the parchment and read aloud.

"Soul Scorpion, I ask an audience with you. Not upon the Apex Courtyards where both of our loved ones have been defiled. I will bring few guards as etiquette, but I will stand alone with my firstborn, Simiak. Let us meet on unsoiled ground, upon the Sovereign Gardens, before the first pyramid. Arrive tomorrow upon sundown.

Any soul may attend. Fear not, Halaseir will see peace.

Signed, Widow of Aegyptus, and former slave.

Queen Despina."
26

Dogs at the Wall

Ice clumps burst against the stone fortifications of Godrelm. Ice elementals threw boulder after icy boulder to no avail. Some ice giants could throw over the towering walls, crushing buildings within Godrelm so no assault could be ignored. Siege ballista's and catapult littered the walls after endless years of clashing.

Godrelm was the fortress and home that held its ground against the elements of the north. The Frost Gates remains an indestructible and impenetrable mystery that has forever stood in the north. The Ice elementals used to roam free of the land as the Vikings did. Elementals need no sleep, so it was necessary to annihilate them from attacking towns in the middle of the night.

Viking made bounties for them and killing them became an art. Ice elementals were slaughtered across Dyrrheim, the inhabited lands, and throughout Brynnvolr, the wild lands east of Viking settlements. They were vanquished all the way to the Frost Gates. Siege after siege was laid against the sparkling mass of living ice. Any chip taken off was instantly replenished by the frozen peaks of the mountains. It stood in a narrow valley walled by overhanging peaks that hung icicles with a form that defied the laws of its own mass. It was as though there was an energy that held their immensity to design a walkway to a frozen hell.

The gates only opened for the elementals from the opposing side. With such diversity in their structure and capabilities, they are surely strong enough to traverse the more forgiving pinnacles. Never across time had they done so, thus Godrelm was founded as the barrier against the forces of the uninhabitable north. Any abomination that did not bleed would come and go only through the Frost Gates. Leaving the potential that some being behind the gates were calling orders.

Godrelm's stone walls had been carved to form with the mountain walls that narrow to the Frost Gates, three hundred feet of earth and stone to hold back the elements. Years and years of combined Vikings efforts to build a fortress that even Ohm cannot destroy. If Godrelm fell, then so would the mountains that held it.

Rooms were hollowed into the mountain. The Jarl's throne room sat within the largest and highest hollow at one-hundred steps. It equalled in size to the mead halls of Yawuld, hosting upwards of two-hundred and holding memories of triumphs and tales of its own. Mammoth tusks lined the entire stairway to the throne room.

The labour of hollowing the mountain was too great. Therefore, the majority of Godrelm expanded about the base of the mountain.

Until this year of Xerxes' first birthday. Godrelm could finally begin spreading resources back to Yawuld's fisheries, Maerfold's game meat and hides, and Meothmir's farming and mining. As resources were being redistributed between establishments, the Rock Dogs came.

Godrelm was caught off guard. Comfortable. They must have known. It was the worst loss the Vikings have had in many years. The chaos that sent Grigor to ask for reinforcements.

No Ice giant could breach or topple the wall, so they retreated. The narrow battleground between Godrelm and the Frost Gates were finally cleaned of broken elemental's bodily debris. The clean battlefield had an ominous tension with the Frost Gates eerily misting in the distance. They opened again, slowly. The watchman sounded the drums. Casually, the ballista's and catapults were manned and loaded.

"Grigor..." The watchmen called. Godrelm fell silent as the ice giants walked closer. In the lead were the rock dogs, jagged teeth chattering.

"JARL GRIGOR!" he yelled again. Grigor appeared from the stairs behind, heavy armour donned, hammer in hand. He peaked over the barrier, watching the new beasts from above. They seemed like ants from three hundred feet. Counting ten... twenty... thirty new creatures barking alongside their icy giants.

They stopped in unison. Catapults cranked and ballista's primed. The beasts stood in the great expanse of frozen field staring at the gate. All at once, their heads looked upwards. Godrelm observed quietly, anticipating.

The largest ice giant stepped forward, arms raised, howling a deep roar. The other elementals howled and barked in return.

"Fire!" Grigor's voice bellowed through the mountains. "Rain hell!"

The dogs hopped and paced side to side, anxious. The foremost giant gathered a rock dog in its arms. It held it against its chest, staring up at the Vikings. It roared and began barreling forward. It ran with the dog in its arm until it neared Godrelm's wall. The dog curled into a ball and braced. The elemental aimed and hurled the dog against the wall, two hundred feet too low.

"It climbs! Drop the rocks!"

The dog gravitated to the vertical wall like it were flat ground. Ballista's and boulders rained down as the other giants began throwing dogs at the wall. Some giants were struck, shattering into sparkling bits.

Ten dogs now ferociously scrambled up the wall. Torso sized boulders were being dropped over the barrier on them. The clop of rock on rock echoed as three dogs were blown apart. The other seven weaved through the barrage of boulders, closing in on the Vikings atop the wall.

Half the Giants were blown into icy shards while the defences reloaded. A blood-curdling cry came as the dogs vaulted over the pinnacle, dropping onto the Vikings.

"Blunt weapons! Blow them apart!" Grigor cried. He held his ground, awaiting his swing. A dog scaled over in front of him, ready to pounce. He connected his hammer to its shoulder mid-air, raining rocky debris behind him. To his left and right, dogs tackled Vikings backwards over their own wall.

The fall was sure death. They fought during the fall. Rock teeth sunk into the Vikings skin. They just had to hold on to them to destroy them on their fall, or else they would pounce off their body mid-flight and survive the fall. One dog managed the feat, as Vikings far below converged on the beast.

Giants threw more dogs at the wall while the rest sped across the field. To their surprise, the traps were activated. Hidden under the snow, pressure plates snapped down human-sized mouse traps over the hounds, collapsing their rocky bodies to lifeless rubble. Only four dogs were left to climb the wall.

The assault atop the wall was short lived. Vikings tactics quickly adapted. Strike for vital joints, break every piece. A rock dog with no hind legs would still claw its way to bite an ankle if that's all it had left. Headshots were functional from the side to force off a skull, but from head-on, an arrow would typically bounce off. Vikings had shield and mace ready for the dogs now. They pushed them back to a corner and bash at exposed limbs. Even smash out the rocky teeth. The elementals had tactics, but they would still attempt to bite without any teeth.

Their intelligence was unpredictable. Each time they seemed to learn, but their ingenuity seemed limited. Though it had been many lifetimes that Vikings had only ever seen the ice elementals, until this year. What else could be hiding behind the Frost Gates? Was there a greater power simply teasing Viking potential?

Grigor brawled with two more. One leapt to bite him. He defended with the shaft of his hammer. The jagged teeth gnawed at it, attempting to snag his weapon away. The other rushed for Grigor's exposed flank. It chattered its teeth in excitement until a mace met its back, crumbling it. Grigor booted the rock dog in its solid neck, loosening its teeth from his hammer but it quickly chomped back on his hand, making him drop the hammer.

He circled it, weaponless. Taunting it. It yapped at him rabidly with the sounds of a wolf. It bared down, preparing a leap. Grigor braced low, meeting it half-way. The beast leapt with incredible power. Perfect. Grigor stooped underneath, catching its front legs and swinging the dog's body like a hammer down against the stone ground. It collapsed to bits, leaving nothing but the leg joints left in his hands. He tossed them off the wall with a wail of triumph.

The enemy was reduced to piles of rubble. The last few scaling the wall were picked off with falling boulders. A unified war-cry announced the victory. ROO-AH! They watched the few remaining ice giants retreat sullenly.

"Stay on watch, men," Grigor ordered. "Those were twice the number of dogs than the last assault. You've done well, but we still lost two men. A bonfire roars in their memory tonight!"

"God-relm! God-relm!" they chanted, slapping their weapons against shields and stomped the ground.

"Reset the traps, build more. Throw away the remnants. If they have any emotions, let their fellow rubble remind them that Godrelm. Does. Not. Fall!"

"GOD-RELM! GOD-RELM! GOD-RELM!"

Three days later, caskets were made for the two fallen. Another night came, and the bonfire was being readied. Vikings tradition would send their dead to the sea and light the boat with a flaming arrow. From Ohm, they came, to Ohm they return. They return one's energy to the world however deemed fit. For Godrelm, they were too far from the ocean for the traditional send-off, so a casket and bonfire would take them away.

The two men's caskets were decorated and set apart, slowly being covered in timber. The residents of Godrelm had gathered, along with the Jarls of the three other establishments. Barde accompanied Reign and Saxi as always. Xerxes was soon to witness his first Tribute to Valhalla. Life was most sacred to Vikings. There was little that was too important to miss a tribute.

A light flurry of snow was settling in as the Vikings stood patient, torch in hand. Luckily, Xerxes got a frontline view of the experience. The Jarls stood ahead with the families of the two fallen guardians of the wall. The night stood still as Grigor rode up on his horse that was armoured to portray a unicorn of war. It was a pure white stallion wearing plate-mail with a spiralling horn upon his brow.

Grigor himself wore plate armour as white as his stallion. The light of the torches reflected off the fine rivets of the design of the armour. It was the Vikings ideal of what the most honored of Valhalla would wear. The tradition was to portray a most honourable hero coming back from Valhalla to light to flame and lead the way to their new home in the stars. For the near last century, this white armour was designed to equal the markings of Jarl Ulfar. The bare-hand bane to wolves. Salvation from the Devil, Crevaug. Now finally, The Tether between Worlds. Grigor tied his beard to the famous three-pronged design of Ulfar's.

Saxi grew teary-eyed at the sight that reminded her of her grandfather. Xerxes felt the emotion of his mother and watched Grigor arrive with awe. Xerxes stood there holding Saxi's hand, knee height to the rest of his people.

There was not one woman, child, nor man, that was too proud to withhold emotion when it came to the Tribute. Reign's eyes became teary, the vibe among the people was eerie and dead silent as Grigor began.

"Two more men!" Grigor's voice was intensified with the honour and emotion of the moment. "Proud fathers. Respectable husbands. Honourable friends. Kings in this life... and forever more in the afterlife! Perhaps strangers in this life, but family everlasting in Valhalla!

"Until we meet again, brothers."

"RIDE!" five hundred people replied in unison, echoing into the mountains.

Grigor's stallion reared. He let out a war-cry and tossed his torch between the two separate bonfires. A trail of oil enlightened and slithered to the two masses of timber about the caskets, erupting the flames high into the sky. Grigor's silhouette with his stallion beheld that of a divine warrior. He began beating his chest in a slow rhythm. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

The front line of Jarls and closest family joined in. Thoom! Thoom! Thoom! A symphony grew and boomed against the growing inferno. THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! Five hundred fists beat against their hearts until Grigor orchestrated 'Until Our Time.'

"RIIIIDE!" Grigor roared. They beat their chests, stomped the ground, slapped their thighs, smacked their arms and raised their arms to the sky. The intensity grew with each second. It struck every single man, woman and child. It was a part of them. With this song, they spoke to their fallen. They were bombarded by the heat of the rising flames. They wouldn't budge. Their chant would not be swayed.

RIDE!

The sun... has set for you!

But know... know we still rise!

And we... we sing for you!

So please... please honour us!

Until our time... Save us a seat... in VAL-HALLA!

Xerxes watched intently, trying to join. He stomped the ground, smacked his chest and slapped his arms off rhythm. He managed to raise his arms the same time the crowd did, catching onto the rhythm. Grigor reached down from his horse and lifted Xerxes to sit on his shoulders. The heat throbbed his skin, so Grigor must have been melting inside his armour. He beat his chest and held firm with his horse, orchestrating the intensifying song.

DRINK!

For those before!

For us still here!

For those to come!

Raise up your cup!

Until our time... Save us a seat... In VAL-HALLA!

They raised their arms and shook their hands. They stuck out their tongues and cried to ward away demons, though any monster would cower to the sight of the Vikings passion. Their pounding and slamming became deafening to the mountains. Nothing else in the world mattered but the energy. It had to be loud enough for the stars to hear.

LEAD!

CHASE THE STARS!

ALIGHT THE NIGHT!

SHINE FOR US!

AND LEAD ON HOME!

UNTIL OUR TIME... SAVE US A SEAT... IN VAL-HALLA!!!

Grigor unmounted with Xerxes in hand. The armoured horse galloped away from the flames. He put him to the ground, and he jumped to land back in a snowdrift. His armour was searing a light red onto his white armour. It sizzled moisture into the air as he sunk into the snow in relief. The people let the silence of the mountains sink in and listen to the world breathe as the fires lifted their friends away to the afterlife.
27

My Companion

So, what are you going to do about our... dragon?"

King Valen had prepared an arsenal of questions for me as we enjoyed a hearty breakfast of eggs, sliced ham, and salad. How proud they were to have their food grown and raised just outside Ecclesian walls.

"Does he bother you?"

I could finally correct him. My eyes were heavy from the previous night of visions and my encounter with Kitava. I hadn't yet been able to enjoy a single good night's sleep in Ohm.

"I find him rather nice company. He doesn't waste time with small talk."

Again, I find myself too relaxed around King Valen. Meanwhile, Kitava eyed me with the intensity of a puppeteer.

"But he does talk?" Valen asked, intrigued. "I mean, details can be twisted after a century. But I heard rumors that it's voice shook the world."

"It's true. There are many leviathans of the deep, but Savathün rules the Oceans of Alamat."

"Savathün you say?" Their eyes widened, leaning in with interest. "It has a name?"

"It names itself. It is closely in tune with the Vikings. Perhaps..."

"VIKINGS!" Valen wasn't good at containing the excitement. "They commanded the beast to kill Prince Kreon? They just wanted to steal the heirloom, Requiem!"

"Your old Architect would have it that way." I laughed. "The Vikings are attuned to the dragon. They made a deal of sorts to be at peace with the waters. Your prince was simply unworthy of the north. The Vikings threw the blade into the waters. That ornament of a weapon would have been an ill memory to bring home."

"Kreon... was unworthy?"

"Closer to a deserter of his own people. He left only a letter for his father and rushed the Vikings out to begin a new life. He envied the Viking way of life, but he was too Ecclesian to be saved." They gave me a sour look. "I mean no offence. Simply not a man under oath of the ocean."

"Grand Architect Segwin vowed doom to the Vikings if they ever returned," Kitava said. "It wasn't their fault? History tells these people that Vikings were unruly savages. But that makes sense, considering history was written by the King who died shortly after from his grief."

"Best rewrite history, Valen," I said between mouthfuls. "I know not when they return, but when they do, you'll need them. And they will need you."

"So eerie, Reaper!" Valen smiled with an idea. "Speaking of needing each other, I have a proposition. You want to gain the favour of our people, yes? How say you kill an ogre for us?"

"Why does it deserve to die?" I had to hide the fact I haven't fared the best against monsters so far.

"It's been ravaging travellers from the south, stealing trade goods, and now wrecking our expanding farmland."

"You've moved over its territory?"

"People do what they have to, isn't that your design?"

Damn you, Valen. "Well played, king! Spread word that Ecclesia's beast is as good as dead."

"That's my kind of God!" Valen was easy to please. "Ecclesia might have more than one beast, but that's a problem for another day." He threw that in casually. He best not pretend I'm his mercenary. "We can have a group together within the hour!"

"I'm coming," Kitava said. "I'm sure the Reaper is capable of keeping us safe." She shot me a devious smirk.

"More to witness my glory and my wrath. So be it." I welcomed her along.

Sure enough, under another perfect, cloudless day, men were saddling their steeds for the venture. The stables were numerous and clean. I saw Valen saddling a pitch-black gelding, then turned to also see Kitava saddling her own golden mare. They spoke to their company like friends. They were not cushioned by their royalty, or they refused to be.

I watched... and waited. Surely, they were searching for a sizeable enough horse. As time passed, it seemed less and less likely. It would not be much of a hunt if I required a carriage. Men avoided eye contact, not wanting to bear the awkward news that none of their stock could handle my weight.

"Reaper." Kitava circled me on her mare. "Are the rumours untrue? Does the Grim Reaper not bring his Pale Horse?" Does she mock me? She brought her horse closer and whispered to me. "Call to him." Her look wasn't devious, it was hopeful. She wanted to see it true.

When she spoke of the Pale Horse, a memory that wasn't mine slithered into my brain. The memory came with the embodiment, and it simply needed to be triggered. It brought goosebumps to my skin. My body was immobilized for a moment as my mind broke through the spirit realm and envision my companion. One with me, immortally bonded. I closed my eyes and called to him.

I whistled long, arms stretched, calling to something beyond this world. Something that lingered as a spirit always, ever ready. A wind rose. The horses grew nervous. They made way from the source right before me. It blew my robes back, a relentless wind made me hold my ground. Before me was a well and a series of stables. I moved into the wind, reaching into the source. My fleshly hand became transparent as I broke an invisible barrier. They all watched my hand until a distant neigh echoed out before me.

It drew near as swift as the wind blowing from the invisible realm. I went to reach deeper. My robe didn't exist as it passed, leaving the view of my hand and forearm bones appearing. The Ecclesian horses pawed at the ground and snorted anxiously. I withdrew my hand, leaving a fingertip in the barrier. The neighing was calling out before me. I whipped my hand as if to draw open an invisible curtain.

Where my hand whipped, stars materialized as a rift to the spirit realm. Out came my Pale Companion. The smoky beast broke through, whipping its ashen mane. Before us, was now a horse's body outlined by stars as a constellation. It trailed smoke in its wake equal to my plate fortress. It was not a skeletal fiend, but a living majesty of stardust. It came to stand before me, lowering its head submissively. I laid my hand on its head as it moved in affectionately. Its eyes were a ghostly blue.

Its body was an ever-shifting collection of stardust. Between the stars and smoke, it was nearly see-through, but still a solid creature. Its back standing just under my head, it was a beast to be awed. My blood had only pumped this hard when I've been close to dying. Luckily, this was an excitement I had never felt until this moment. I realized the wind had stopped, and so had the world to stare at this wonder of mine.

I noticed Kitava was the only one smiling, as if it was her doing. I found myself smiling back at her, half thanking her, half wondering how she knew. That conversation would have to wait. The show had just begun.

I beat my chest, materializing my dark fortress. Before the people, the Pale Horse was also fortified with plate as equally black. It was trimmed with a deep vibrant purple and etched with glowing blue runic inscriptions.

Its ghostly blue eyes shined through two slits of a black helmet. It had two curved horns above its snout, like a rhinoceros. It reared with excitement and snorted with anticipation. I mounted, towering above any other rider. The beast carried me as if I was weightless. It had no muscles to stress, and no lungs to strain.

Valen clapped slowly, amazed. "Why are you not this magnificent, Reaper?"

"You, too, would be amazing if you didn't speak, friend." Laughter loosened the tension of their amazement and terror. "It is not of the flesh, so the Pale Horse is not free. There is nothing magnificent about being bound. In the spirit realm, it may be free. It may chase the stars, never hunger, and never tire. But here, it comes to duty.

"Though, there is honour in duty. Purpose, in which every soul is deserving. It may be a wonderous beast, but if it just stood there, then wonder is all it would be. It will be magnificent because it will leave your herd in the dust." I boasted.

"Pretty weapons, words, and now pets!" Kitava laughed. "Now a race will silence the Reaper. I'm in." The men, even Valen, mumbled bets and exchanged coin about the bet. She smiled at me with unbroken confidence.

"And we're off!" Valen commanded. "Let us stroll through the city, let them hear the Reaper rides to kill the ogre. When the gate is raised, let the race begin!"

I rode with King Valen to my left, and Kitava to my right. Upon the Pale Horse, I had to duck under a few arches that still left a couple feet of room for any other rider. People going about their day stood still and dropped their jaw when they saw my armoured beast. It had slightly offset the movement of a normal horse. Its ghostly eyes frantically observed its new world. I could feel it was anxious to set off after the gate.

Ecclesia was bustling like an anthill with its people's daily routines. The city was much larger when seen from the ground. The people seemed to live harmoniously, at this time at least. They managed their own sections and defined their districts with the cultural structures of the people's origin. The Ecclesian symbol of the wavy sun-shaped compass was imprinted on many stores that integrated within the unique communities.

Districts ranged from brick and mud structures, yurts, assortments of cabins, lean-tos, and tents of stitched hides. The people were free to build the home they wished. It was a notion of pride and respect to themselves and their heritage to live in the homes of their forefathers.

"Death rides for the ogre!" Valen shouted.

Some civilians saluted. Some scowled. One woman was ready to throw a half-eaten apple at me, but the Pale Beast snorted, and she dropped it in fear. I would not have all their faith, but I was at least real.

The Gate drew near. Signals called to raise the woven plate gate. Its slow cranking seemed tedious. Kitava was hiding a grin. She kicked her horse into a full gallop when the gate was only halfway up. My horse could barely fit under, and her golden mare was kicking up dust. She leaned over the side, sliding under by the skin of her teeth. I shouldn't have expected any less.

We stood still for a moment as the gate finally rose enough for me to fit under. Valen gave me a nod of approval and the Pale Beast was off. We left Valen and his company in a flurry of dust and smoke.
28

To Feel Sympathy

The open road beyond the gate was a sight to behold. Endless acres of crops divided seamlessly across the land, seas of wheat waving in the soft wind, walls of corn stood ferociously tall and healthy next to rows after rows of rice plantations. Every stride brought new life into view.

The fields bled vibrant colours with never-ending acres of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Apple, peach, cherry, and plum trees lined another wall of beauty as far as the eye could see in either direction, Ecclesians had shaped these grounds to their full potential. The western mountains lined the limits of expansion and left the world wild.

The roads spider-webbed out to reach farms and lakes. The rural landscape was almost as busy as the city with its flawless production. It looked like I was a demon chasing down the beautiful queen with the king and his men lagging farther behind our tail. Kitava weaved through crowds of farmers on carts or pushing cattle across the way. They must have assumed I was trying to kill her. A farmer instinctively yanked his horses sideways just in time for the Pale Horse to crash into his wagon.

I braced, expecting a destructive mass of splinters to erupt on impact. But instead, the Pale Beast jumped. There was no way it could evade the wreck. My mind twisted with my connection to the creature. It cleared my body over the wagon but clipped its legs against the wagon. There was no wreckage. It dematerialized its body into a phantom of itself and hardened back into its physical form upon landing. Not a single deterrence of momentum as I gained on Kitava. She looked back with widened eyes of amazement as I sped to her side.

Her mare was drenched in sweat. We smoothed to a halt as she too gained her breath.

"Well done, Reaper. Let's call it a draw," she laughed.

"Has the queen never been humbled before?" I asked.

"Of course." She patted her horse lovingly. "This lovely lady here is a different story. Nothing so fast in the land until you came along." She looked at me with a mess of hair and a grin ear to ear. "Oh, to be on the run again..."

King Valen and his ten guards had finally caught up. It cut Kitava off, and her daydreaming was cut short. I appreciated the interruption, lest she slithers her deviance upon me.

"Well, the countryside is convinced the queen is dead after that display, I'm sure." Valen laughed. "Best we ride slowly on the return. Let them see it was just good fun. Rather not have torches at our front door each night."

The road took us under the shelter of a great collection of fruit trees. The farms expanded farther to the south and east, but we had reached a quieter section of the road. Mostly picked clean by travellers which they were meant for. I noticed some of the higher branches mangled and dangling.

"Do we near the ogre's domain?" I asked.

"Indeed. As you can see the fruits are stripped clean. I guess that wasn't enough to make peace." Valen said. "He has wrecked innumerable wagons, which are people livelihoods, and even killed some people in the process."

"Is there only one?"

"They have kept their ground in the mountains. This one has taken refuge too close and deemed our most well-travelled southern road its territory. Yes, we have lost some valiant men over this creature," said Valen.

"Is. There. Only. One?" I shot him a grave look after I realized the size of the mangled branches above us.

"Bothering us? Yes. But the western mountains are always spitting out new beasts."

I rolled my eyes and rode on. "Do we draw near?"

A deep hum mumbled in the distance. Then a series of snapping branches and whipping leaves. Agitated grunts and loud stomping followed. An entire tree top was detached like a twig in the distance.

"Yup," Valen answered, drawing to an immediate halt. Kitava stayed by my side. Her confidence in me or lack of fear always surprised the men. "Behind the men, my queen."

"Darling. We have Death with us." She shot him a dirty look. "What else is so worthy of faith?" I feel an insincerity.

He and his men attempted to hide their fear. Ten men and a king jittered on their horses.

"It's coming," one soldier whimpered.

True enough. A gluttonous green humanoid drew nearer. It casually picked the fruit from the treetop it had ripped off, devouring apples in a single bite. Its bare belly shook side to side, hanging over a dirty stitched cloth it had stolen as a loincloth. It sent vibrations in its steps, still unaware of us in the open before it. Kitava gripped my armoured forearm. Its ok, fear keeps you alive. Best not let your King see.

She noticed she was holding on and whipped her hand back. Wide-eyed, now she was not so fearless as to stand by me. She pulled her mare back behind the men. Her movement set it off.

The chubby-cheeked monstrosity with thin, stringy black hairs was surprised to see us. It seemed timid. Its blubbery tree trunks of arms dropped from the treetop and sniffed the air for our scent. Its ugly face held no shape of aggravation. I held firm on my Pale Horse.

"Draw," Valen ordered quietly. The ten men drew bows slowly. The ogre tilted its head, waiting for their move, slowly sniffing closer. Its soft eyes spoke no evil. The men notched their bows.

"No!" I cried.

The arrows were let loose. The volley pricked shallowly into the ogre's thick hide. It tried swatting the arrows away like annoying flies but received several light wounds. It let out a terrible roar. The soft eyes and innocent composure had left, and defensive nature now ruled.

"It meant no harm!" I yelled at Valen. "Now it dies for your arrogance." I gritted my teeth at him and summoned my scythe. The ogre uprooted an entire pine tree in rage. It shook the trees with an angry threat. It barreled forward through the thick of the trees. I lifted my hood to become the hollow terror while I kicked the Pale Horse into a charge.

The ogre collapsed another massive pine onto the ground before us. My steed wouldn't flinch. Our minds were in unison. The ogre snapped another tree in half to use as a club. It assumed the fallen tree would hinder our path. Straight through. The Pale Horse phased through the wreckage of branches and leaped onto and over the toppled tree. It was disconnecting the last strings of roots while the Pale Horse clashed all its weight into the ogre's chest. It only staggered backwards as I toppled over its shoulder.

The Pale Horse descended to the ground and retreated as a phantom to safety. It remained ready in the spirit realm. I tried grabbing to stay atop the beast, slipping. It caught itself stumbling backwards as I dug the scythe effortlessly into its shoulder. I hung by my weapon as the ogre squealed in agony. It reached over its shoulder to rip the weapon out. I dropped to the ground, dematerialized the scythe from its shoulder and weaved through his legs.

The weapon renewed in my hand while it clawed confusingly at its back. A two-handed swing and I severed both ankles from its legs. It toppled to the ground, smashing its fists about ravenously. The earth quaked with its pain. It managed to prop itself up with its arms and look at me with tears in its eyes. It wailed and slammed the ground around me. Sorrow seeped into me to see a thing of nature slaughtered needlessly.

Sorrow turned to rage. I clambered over its wailing chest, weaving through its whipping arms. It swiped at my body, but I evaded, watching tears well from its eyes.

It looked into my emptiness and cried: "KILL!" It choked on its own blood. "KILL... ME!"

I ripped off a gauntlet and put my hand to its brow. My hand became transparent, and I saw the ogre's cheekbone and eye through my phantom hand. It ripped stars from its face. Its body quaked, and its eyes rolled back into its head as its energy was drained. The lifeless mass of green beast made peace with the dirt and laid still. I lifted my hand, and my flesh returned. Now this, this is the Grim Reaper.

Yet more I learned as I reached for my gauntlet. It would gravitate to me when called, just as my scythe would. It flew through the air back onto my hand as my company gathered to me.

"It... It spoke," Valen stuttered, observing the ogre up close.

"It also cried for MERCY!" I roared into his face. Horror took him as he stared into my empty, black hood. "I see no wreckage of carts or human bones! Did you lie to Death itself to cleanse your land?"

"It was... it was scaring people. Eating our fruit." He quivered.

"Does a deer not eat your cattle's grass? I am a shepherd! Not a slayer of your command! Mice are more of a pest than this creature!"

"But..."

"Do not give me a reason to let The Unbound burn this world!" I pushed Valen away and looked to Kitava and his men. "There is no trophy to this ogre. It feeds the maggots and the wolves. Let this be a lesson. And pray it doesn't have family that would seek revenge. If it could talk, it was capable of much more."

"If we pray, do we pray to you?" Kitava stepped forward and spoke with a jabbing tone. "Do you hear every prayer? What happens when you don't answer?" Always digging into my words, woman.

"I hear what is genuine. What is necessary. I sift through arrogant ambitions and selfishness. Death is not an answer, it is just an ending. It may not end pain but pass it on."

"May we beg forgiveness, oh Death?" Valen fell to his knees. His men mimicked. Kitava was last to kneel as if her mind was elsewhere after my answer.

"A lesson learned." I gestured them to stand, and I took off my hood to reanimate my face. "I too, learned a feat of compassion today, thanks to this ogre. Everything in time beholds its purpose." I whistled for the Pale Horse, and we rode for home. It did not take a man, but a beast to bestow my first measure of sympathy.
29

Her Other Face

The ride was quiet. The crops and plantations did not hold the same beauty as I held onto this bitterness. Farmers approached us on the road, wishing to know what happened. King Valen waved them away with a flutter of his hand, and the sombre tone remained. I saw the road fork right towards the east. The main vein of travel most heavily worn, stretching a world away to Halaseir. It was far from a forgiving road, but as far as the eye could see from Ecclesia, it was from a fairy tale.

"A moment." I stopped and stared. "I wish to see more of the land before our return. Continue, I wish to be alone."

"Absolutely, Grim." King Valen held onto his embarrassment. "You know where home is..." He pointed to the pinnacles of the citadel. "The big pointy thing." He managed a boyish smile, and we parted way.

I kicked The Pale Horse into a gallop. The sun made its way across the sky slowly as left a trail of smoke. There were diminishing numbers of crops this way as the fields became pastures for rich numbers of cattle, sheep, goats, and horses. The land seemed purer and less clustered. The land began to roll, and Ecclesia grew small as I made the distance. I was drawn to a grassy knoll overlooking much of the land.

The Pale Horse phased through a wooden fence and trotted through the pasture to the hill. I reached the top and unmounted. Fist to chest to reanimate my robe and flesh. The Pale Horse took my notion and broke back into the spirit realm for its own peace. My armour was equally as comfortable and far safer, but I felt the need to sit and feel the world like my first moments. When the grass waved against my bare skin and an ant was my first foe.

My subconscious dragged me here to heal itself. I held onto the bitterness of being deceived and slaying a pure beast... I didn't feel this when taking Aegyptus's life... or Seth's. I didn't understand how fresh air and space could bring such solace. I was trying to forgive them. What a strange affliction it is... to care.

My meditation was interrupted by the sound of hooves clopping behind me. Why am I surprised? Kitava approached. Alone.

"I require... peace." I remained fixated on the view of intertwining herds of livestock and wildlife.

"'There is nothing magnificent about being bound,' you said. How do you know this wasn't my favourite knoll and now you're invading the Queen's space?" She sassed me playfully. She got off her mare, trusting her to graze freely.

"Why do you pester me, Kitava?" I remained sitting, letting the grass sway against my feet and hands.

"Pester you? I'm not the one crawling into your dreams. Or am I?" She smirked and took a seat beside me.

"You... dreamed of me?" I gave her a concerned look.

"Your Pale Horse... You whisked me away to tell me a secret. You took me outside and closed your eyes. You asked: 'Do you wish to meet him? My oldest friend.' I was confused, and you peeled back air to open the way for your companion to break through." She looked at me like it was obvious.

"Is... Is that all?" I asked.

"The rest is vague, I don't remember. But that part stuck!" She returned the confused gaze. The Divine did this...

"It may... have been an accident. My mortal mind has only a grain of power compared to my... divine form. I sometimes surprise myself with this new body. To be true, I had forgotten my companion until you spoke of him. So with due respect, I thank you."

"Oh, that is grand! Does that mean you owe me?" That excited her a bit too much.

"I'm sure you have an absurd request. What does the 'Peace between Nations' want from Death?" I rolled my eyes and laughed at the irony.

She stared at my face for longer than what seemed normal. I didn't know if I should quit looking at her or the view. She stared on. Perhaps she was finding her words, but I believe this feeling is called awkward. I don't like it. Please speak, I would rather feel pain, than... this.

"It feels like the world changed when you came down." She perked up.

"It did..." I didn't understand her emotion.

"Not the world like...the world. I mean... my world."

"It did..." I remained confused.

She giggled to herself. "You're... Death!" She exaggerated my name. "But... you gave me hope. That doesn't make sense. Because you seem more concerned about the entire world, and your mysterious purpose. I don't know why we are worth saving, but know that I am grateful. I feel like there's a life beyond what I see!

"I told you Valen is wrapped around my finger... the words you speak have been repeating in my head. There is much you don't see, but much you understand in this mortal body of yours." She put a hand over mine, resting in the grass.

Why does my body feel that comfort, when my mind wants to fight it?

"Valen is a bad man, Reaper," she continued with a less joyful tone. "We build this place in our head to make the most of what we have... That is your construct I guess. But now that you're here... and I'm here with you, I shouldn't fear, right?

"Valen trusts me to the end of the world because he believes he has trained me. Like a dog. He whips me behind closed doors." She turned to show me her back. I nervously reached to look down the back of her blouse to see a serious of fresh lashes overlapping a maze of scars on her lower back. An immediate rage boiled my blood.

I gritted my teeth and jumped to my feet. Fist to chest and my armour had never encased my body so fast. A whistle and the Pale Horse burst back through the spirit realm before us. I stretched my arm out to summon the scythe.

But Kitava pulled my arm down. "You can't kill him!" She was holding back tears as she looked up at me. Her voice was choked. "The world will revolt, and you will be named the devil. You said you needed the people's faith? Then you need Valen to flaunt you. Be his friend. His closest friend. Do whatever you have to do. I can take care of myself... I just had to know how much you really see."

I quietly picked her up to her feet. She put her hand on my armoured chest. That, I understood. I took a deep breath to calm my boiling blood and reanimated my robes. The Pale Horse's armour disintegrated to leave the saddle and reins.

"You have wrath too..." She looked up at me sadly. She left her hand over my heart. "But you're pure. No human is pure. Not me. Not anybody. But you... You have this radiance that makes me feel safe. I think the people felt it too when you let that man strike you.

"You don't see it all... but that only seems fair. You must hurt before you can appreciate safety. You must be deceived to be thankful for the truth. That Ogre didn't die in vain, Grim. I think it held its importance. You know it too. So here I am, trying to help you see the truth."

"You have many faces Kitava. But you have a way with words." She quelled my rage so swiftly. But she is also what made me feel it. "My mind knows many things. But this body and its emotions hold many things I do not understand." Why does she make me WANT to speak my vulnerability?

She wrapped around my chest for a deep hug. "What is your body telling you?" My confused and surprised arms slowly accepted and returned the embrace. She will be the end of me. She dug her head into my chest, holding the hug.

"You're not made up of bad things, Grim. You're going to do incredible things."
30

Gods Before Me

The ride home was... informative. Kitava spoke to me like a friend and joked with me like Valen did. He, who I now held a growing bitterness towards, as a deceiver (which is hypocritical of me) and an abuser. I would have to play... the deceiver, I guess. An actor, in playful terms, as his friend until the Ecclesians trust me over him.

Kitava told me more of the history of this place. The beautiful pastures and the flourishing crops had a terrible past. All this thriving land shaped for Ecclesia has been deemed the Sanguine Steppes. In days long forgotten, when the World Stones were gathering travellers' excess of what the land and sea could provide for, not one resource was wasted... Including human bodies.

No, they weren't cannibals, but trying times didn't stop them from cutting up bodies and feeding the land. If the land fed them, they in return had to feed the land. Dead bodies would have littered the shores if sent to sea, and the land was too precious to turn into a burial ground. The World Stones wouldn't be desecrated by being surrounded by the dead. They were established for the living.

The Sanguine Steppes expand as far as Ecclesian towers can see for miles and more. It's a repressed memory, but a tradition that still holds its merit to this day. From the dirt, they came, and to the dirt, they shall return.

People of every origin shared their beliefs from their edges of the world. Some people saw albino animals, once and never again, and decided they were worth worshipping. Some people doing miraculous deeds claimed themselves as gods. Their reign was short lived around the World Stones, as spiritual wars took flight. Their egotistical 'godhood' didn't save them from dying a human death, soon to be forgotten. The tales worth believing are the oldest and have provenly shaped Ohm.

To the far south, the land of Sur, where the forestry shifts to the jungled grandeur, has been named the Primordial Wild. The tribes of the south have claimed that the Primordial Wild will fight against its own corruption. Even human constructs would soon be overrun by the 'Living Green.' Perhaps I was a corruption that the Ent arose to abolish. Proof I am made of... bad things?

Many tribes stay loyal to the Primordial Wild. It's a testament to their cultural prowess and their honour to protect and keep the Living Green at peace. The original generations were nearly vanquished by Fenyr and Noctis, their deities.

Fenyr, a centaur made of stone and trees, stood as tall as the jungle on his four hoofed legs. His face was a helm of rock and entangled roots holding great branched antlers. He wielded two double-edged battle axes while protecting the Primordial during the day.

Noctis, the protector of the Primordial night, was an albino tiger with feathered wings and curved horns. It walked half as tall as Fenyr but equalled the un-killable legends. It is said his white stripes become deep glowing blue when evil spirits were near. He is the reason white tigers are so sacred. An honour to see, but a curse to have slain one.

Fenyr and Noctis are both one with the Living Green. The first generations of man claimed that fiendish humanoids called Orcs attempted to establish in the Wilds, but the gods watch and feel everything in the Green and slaughtered the Orcs to extinction many lifetimes ago. Human tribes were hopelessly caught in the crossfire of that war until the Primordial was cleansed. Fenyr and Noctis were believed to rest underneath the jungle until a new threat crawled from the farthest south.

The Frost, they call it. Giants made of Living Ice, those which the Vikings spoke of when Ulfar came a hundred years ago. A curse it was to speak their name, for it was shortly after their coming that word of Noctis and Fenyr rose to defend the Primordial from the hordes of Frost. They are believed to be in an endless war beyond the Crystal Frontier, the impassable natural wall of the Wild between jungle and glacier.

As for the east lands of Estenia, their deity has a unique story. A being that walked among the people for many generations when the world began, Soluna, a fifty-foot-tall jackal faced woman, lived among the inhabitants of the east. She treated herself an equal to humankind. Soluna was a magical being of much beauty and destruction. She had pure intentions to bring prosperity to her people, but she held more than one soul in her heart.

Ahriman, she named him. The voice in her head that twisted her to do selfish deeds. Asking worships and sacrifices. I understand now. She apologized to her humans when her own soul took control again. She was torn back and forth between her pure heart and her demonic counterpart. She built the pyramids for the humans, one large enough to be her burial chamber in case she had to kill herself from letting Ahriman take control.

Over generations, she had grown bitter towards her people and their lack of appreciation. Her stress and sadness let Ahriman take a greater hold over her. Soluna is unsure of what created her, but humans assumed she created the world and solidified their faith when she took the dirt and breathed the life of new beasts into the world, such as the crocodile, horse, eagle, camel, and endless more.

It was in her finals days that her sadness and resentment of humankind made her flee. Man would have it that it was their fault Ahriman broke through and create his own share of beasts. Creatures of evil nature that had no peace between any other animal or monster on the land or sea. These that appeared after her disappearance were argued as fiends, unholy. The manti-wyrm, chimera, leviathan, zaratan, the scorpion, and many left fabled and unfound.

Soluna was last seen sickly, limping back across the desert back to Halaseir to bury herself, fearing Ahriman's hold was growing too great. She warned the world of her fear that their souls may part after death, and that Ahriman may return in any form, but her own revival would not be far behind if such a horror came upon the world. She demanded to be buried alive under her own pyramid. Tales tell her pyramid quaked as Ahriman tried to claw his way out with Soluna's last starving breathes.

The Western Mountains are simply that. No other name can be given, for nobody has come from or returned from them. Men and women of every nation have considered the venture and have met cruel fates. The tales grow increasingly bizarre since nobody has delved deep enough to come with anything worth noting.

The West occasionally spits out creatures like the Ogre. Few and far between if the creatures ever stayed. Farmers have spread rumours of dire wolves, a species much larger than typical wolves, that take down much larger prey. Numerous horses and cattle could be stripped down to skeletons in a single night, with no trace of the predators. A bear would not kill so many and doesn't travel in packs. Any other predator worth blaming live half the world away. As far as they know.

Lastly, the North, the Vikings called the land of Nord and the Oceans of Alamat, which was riddled with an ever-expanding arsenal of creatures to be found and feared. The Vikings boasted their conquering stories, but no all-powerful victory put their land to peace. It was a concept they had come to terms with. It was the ingredient that held their unity as a culture.

Those who had any contact with the Vikings a hundred years ago knew that their priority was family; not only blood, but every man and woman were brother and sister. If not for Prince Kreon and Architect Segwin, those principles could have passed over the sea to Ecclesia. Now the sea dragon, Savathün, leaves an ominous terror of the sea to all Ecclesia.

We rode back to the main gates of the city just in time for Kitava to conclude her tale. I received the same confused array of faces at the sight of The Pale Horse, and especially at the sight of the queen alone with me. She gave them a disarming look, and they trusted it, returning to their business. We returned to the stables with the setting sun. I helped her unsaddle after I gave The Pale Horse a slap on the ass to return to the spirit realm.

We made our way up to the dining hall balcony where we had breakfast. Valen was there twiddling with a nearly empty bottle of wine, sitting across from our untouched plates of food. He was looking out to the view, daydreaming until he heard us approach.

"Ah, they arrive! Did you find your peace, ol' Grim, friend?" he slurred. He stood welcomingly. He gave Kitava a dark, unimpressed look. "I can fetch more wine if you lovelies would have it?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Kitava... fetch more wine, my dear." He dropped back to his seat and upended the bottle. Kitava lowered her head and did as she was told.

My mind was jumping through instances of him disrespecting and lashing at Kitava. I think I was building scenarios in my head just to have an excuse to strike him down. But I had to contain myself. I wonder how many humans feel this.

"What do you think of the land up close, Reaper?" he asked, his friendly tone back.

"New and amazing to behold, King Valen." I was stern. I had to attempt casual.

"Valen! Just Valen, for you anyways, Reaper." He noticed my new edginess. "Did you demote me from our friendship because of today? I ask a thousand apologies, Grim. It was deceitful and weak of me to use you like that. But I learned much of life's sacredness today, and for that, I thank you." His slurred words soothed my bitterness, but not fully.

"The ogre didn't die in vain." I sighed. "This mortal frame has much to learn. Of compassion and being deceived... And how it goes hand in hand." A bit too forward.

"In your absence, I've figured many a task for us to go and help the city. Spread out rations to hungry families. Help build... whatever the hell some of those people wish to build...remember their forefathers and whatnot." His honesty and true feelings seeped through his drunken words. "Help butcher a cow, share the meaning of life... Whatever the people need! You need their faith, Reaper? Then you need me as your right-hand man!"

Something about him wholly believes I am the true Creator. That will make it easier not wanting to kill him.

Kitava came back with two bottles of red wine. Her posture seemed more nervous, insecure.

"Ah, that's a good trained girl, knows how to save the second venture." Those words in that fashion felt like a knife burrowing into my brain as anger tensed every one of my muscles. I shattered the glass in my hand into slivers by accident. It made them both jump in surprise.

"Stronger than I realize!" I joked nervously, fighting the battle in my heart to keep control. I attempted to scoop the shards together until Kitava grabbed my forearm. I didn't realize the glass had buried into my hand and it began gushing blood. I didn't notice the pain until I continued my failed casualness by playing it down. I picked out four sizeable shards. The blood seeped increasingly.

"I'll bandage you up." Kitava yanked at my forearm for me to stand. "Luckily, I have medicinal practices. I'll have you bandaged up in no time. Apologies, Valen, we will return to eat soon."

"Yes, yes, woman. It won't go to waste, and neither will this wine." He eyed the bottles like a parched dog. The sight made Kitava rush me along even swifter with my hand dripping blood all over the granite floor.

She rushed me down a flight of stairs and across the yard to a greenhouse beside the barracks. She ripped off some large fuzzy green leaves as we passed. She washed the blood away and scrambled to find a jar of black powder. She grabbed a tinderbox and sprinkled the black powder onto the wounds. I winced in pain.

"Stay still, no matter what. Ok?" She showered sparks over my hands and lit the powder aflame. I shrieked in pain but forced myself still. After a couple seconds, she suffocated the flame with the leaves and deftly wrapped my hands with a cloth. The leaves immediately cooled the cauterized wounds.

"How does the queen know that?" I asked, baffled.

"I'm more than a pretty face, Grim," she laughed. "It was quicker than searing a blade against multiple small wounds. I have a bit of an altruistic complex..." Her recollection left her quiet for a moment. "I, uh, have been through a couple families."

"You have many faces, and many lives, Kitava?" I tried joking, but her mood had shifted.

"My blood family was from the east. I was told we were running from a famine. We took everything we could carry and made the venture for Ecclesia. My family was ambushed and slain for what meagre food and rations we had. Or so my saviours presumed.

"They were too noble to kill a baby, apparently. So, I was left on the road beside my dead family. Another fleeing family took me with them and made better ground on their horses. That family called me their miracle since they were having trouble of their own to have a child.

"I was their little girl, they never treated me as anything else. They became shepherds on the Sanguine Steppes and taught me much of the world and caring for it justly. I mended the sick and wounded animals most of my life, and I was good at it. Little did I know that my adoptive father was nearly as cruel to his wife as Valen is too me. I grew up learning that it is normal and necessary for a woman to be submissive to her man.

"By the time I was a teenager girl, I was still secluded to my own world beside the occasional trip of taking fleece and goat milk to the Ecclesian market. It was an ever-changing and exciting foreign world of busy and different people. My adoptive mother finally found a mercenary and had her husband poisoned in the worst way. She made me believe he deserved it. But then she was hunted.

"'How evil that is,' the Ecclesian Guard said. They didn't know her side of the story and the years of being suppressed, what she hid behind her smile for the sake of keeping food on the table for me. The Grand Architect at that time believed in an eye for an eye. 'What thou hath done, shall be done unto you.'

"They found another poison, one that steals air from your lungs and paralyzes the muscles. They forced it down her throat and teased her with the antidote like they were teasing a dog from a treat to make it dance. Meanwhile, I hid, peaking through the closet door, watching it all happen. As she gasped for air, they played keep-away as her face turned blue and quit fighting. They laughed their way back to the city and left her body on the doorstep.

"'Auction off the livestock and land tomorrow,' they said. Of course, I was too scared to claim ownership. I was too sad to eat but knew I had to make for the city before morning. I arrived at the gate looking like a starving ghost. All I wanted was a job. I was fourteen years old, and I was given an apprenticeship to work with the medics.

"Medicines from all over the world came with doctors of every nation. I told nobody where I came from, just that I knew how to help. They respected that, and I learned everything I could from anybody who had anything to teach of medicine. I promised myself I would never marry and stay faithful to healing.

"But what do you do when The Grand Architect dislocates his shoulder and offers you the world? Valen was revered for saving the city from the sadistic King Malachai. He was any girl's dream, and he looked at me like I had saved his life! I just slapped his shoulder back into place after it has been dislocated in a pathetic round of sparring, and he refused to love anybody but me.

"And he does, but he fears my eye wanders. His insecurities and power made him a monster, especially when he drinks. Now history repeats itself, but the entirety of Ecclesia watches. A mercenary won't do, and the world won't give mercy to an ungrateful murderer." She tried to hide her lips from quivering.

It was a wild story to behold for a woman who holds herself so strong. I was dumbstruck. My heart found words that my mind could not. "I am no mercenary, but I will be your shepherd. I promise I will bring you peace."
31

Northern Anomaly

Barde was humming to himself, lost in his own mind as he strung another bow together. He had already made ten new hunting bows but was humouring the quality of a mammoth rib bone bow. He whittled away at the bone to balance the weight on each end and carved notches to string it. He took his time, fantasizing being in the heat of battle that he was surely missing in Godrelm at this very moment. He kept checking over his shoulder, taking his time, knowing his next task was to gather boulders for catapults in case the ice elementals broke through Godrelm and into Dyrrheim.

He notched the mammoth rib bow and tested its strength. He pulled it back, flex nearly non-existent, closing one eye, pretending he was eyeing down some prey. He let loose his hand, imaging the arrow flying into the heart of a caribou. He raised his arms triumphantly, cheering very quietly too himself as the arrow flew surprisingly far. 'Ah, Barde! Master hunter! All praise Barde!'

"Barde!"

He dropped the bow, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming. He turned around to see Reign atop his horse. He didn't understand how he could have missed it. The sky to the southern sea was billowing smoky red clouds. It was spreading across the sky with hurricane speed.

"BARDE!" Reign called to him. "To Brynnvolr! Crevaug's Cavern! Whatever the storm, it will not break the mountains!" He rode on, circling Yawuld, gathering the people to brace for coming clouds. Barde was mesmerized. Lightning danced about the billowing darkness as it loomed closer. He shook himself to action.

Barde hopped down the wall, dropping ten feet, shaking frost off his beard with the fall. He ran for the stable. The horses were wide-eyed and anxious. Other men were already there saddling up every horse as fast as possible and bringing them to the women and children to gather at the east gate.

A crack of thunder was heard far in the distance. The horses snorted, mist pouring from their nostrils. One reared, yanking the post it was tied to. It whinnied high and bucked its way out of the stable, spreading stress to the other horses. Barde was calming one at a time, slowly closing in to pet their face in reassurance, though he hid gritted teeth.

Saddle after saddle was strung up until the last of the Vikings of Yawuld were geared to leave. Barde had dispensed most of the reasonably tame horses, leaving only some of the wildest livestock for himself. He approached a pitch-black mammoth of a stud. They eyed each other, mutually not liking the idea.

"Yawuld is mounted, Barde!" Reign appeared. "Time to move out!" Barde stared to Reign with a wry look, pointing towards the black beast that was sure to toss him.

"Best not miss this, brother." Barde shrugged, preparing to test the horse with insanity in its eyes. Lighting cracked a little louder, building tension. Reign relaxed, wishing to see nothing other than his closest friend be tossed, even amid the sky burning.

Barde took one slow step towards the stud. The stud reared, hitting its head against the ten-foot-tall shelter. The stud whipped its head around, refusing to comply. Reign looked into its eyes and understood. He pulled a hatchet from his belt, approaching the stud. He walked past, cutting the ropes holding the remaining wild horses. They did not hesitate to run free. Only the black stud remained.

Barde grabbed a halter and confidently approached the stud. It cowered but trusted him a little more. Lightning boomed yet closer. Barde took a moment of the stud's missed attention, pushing the bit into its mouth. He grabbed a handful of its mane and tossing himself onto it bareback. He leaned, cutting his rope to the post and they were off. Barde wailed in victory while Reign laughed along impressed.

They kicked up snowy dust with the flurry of hoofs. The snow reflected a light red tinge with sun soon to be blocked by the coming darkness.

Saxi was striding back and forth on her steed with a harness holding Xerxes against her chest. Her people patiently waiting for Reign and Barde to arrive. She saw them appear, approaching full speed.

"RIDE!" she boomed to her people. It was not war, but they roared in return and were off. Young children with their steeds found it fun, crying their best war-cry as they smiled ear to ear atop their galloping mounts. It became a cloud of snow kicked up in their wake. Reign and Barde broke through the flurry with their speed, quickly gaining.

Among the children clopping hooves and fearless children finding joy in the rush, Barde was having less fun. He was gripping the reigns, and the black stud's mane with all his might to brace as riding bareback was hammering his groin. It intentionally weaved back and forth, trying to shake Barde.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. OW!"

Now Reign got his laughter in watching Barde hold on for dear life.

Wild horses appeared as well, running with the Vikings of Yawuld behind Barde's stud. Clearly the pack leader, who now gave even more hassle to Barde, was trying to divert to the open plateaus before them. They passed the cliff edge lined by trees with various weapons lodged into them, for such a time if somebody was stranded and needed a last resort. Reign noticed a tree without a weapon, meaning a hunter was stranded and desperate, or an animal had pried it out of the tree. A worry for after the storm.

Not much farther and Crevaug's Cavern was seen dug into a mountain. The plateaus were wild with various game gathered and fleeing from the storm, deeper into the mountains. The north had never seemed so alive as this day. Mammoths wailed in the distance, combining their numbers.

In the farthest distance, a group of malevorogs were settled along the cliff-edge, watching the billowing clouds near. They gave no care to all the prey that spread across the open terrain. It was as if they were called to the storm. They stayed still, but their fiery bones seemed to intensify to the energy of the storm.

Saxi led her people to the entrance of the cave, as close as the horses could get before the brief jagged climb to the entrance into the mountain. An awkward realization in the frantic journey as there was nothing to tie the horses too. Children quickly dismounted and handed off their reins to begin the climb. The adults stood still, not wanting to lose the geared horses to the wild. They watched the clouds slowly swallow the light of the sun.

Barde rolled off his massive mount, holding onto his groin in pain. He took a heavy gasp of air in relief as the shadow overtook the light of day. They watched darkness fall over the rest of the valley. The distant flame of the Malevorogs seemed to again intensify as the darkness rolled over them. They seemed to bow to the mountains beyond the Impassable Peaks.

The ground shook as if a dragon was roaring underneath. A sliver of light was all that was left on the northern horizon. As the shadows overtook the peaks, it was then that they rose. The elementals clawed their way atop the spires that overlooked the open valley. These elementals seemed bigger, strengthened by the darkness. Another roar howled from beneath, and in turn, the elementals howled a deep evil. Their quake sent avalanches down from the Impassable peaks. They watched as herds went wild, fleeing from the downfall.

The children reached the cavern, peeking out to watch. The Malevorogs remained bowed while the northern game fled past them. The avalanche settled with a mist of snow on the open fields.

A fracture of lightning beamed light in the southern distance. It cracked like shattered glass from the horizon all the way to the edge of the smoky clouds above the Vikings. The lightning energy remained as it spread, breaking open the darkness across the entirety of the sky. The clouds dispersed and remained as nothing but a memory within minutes. As the light renewed over the elementals across the Impassable Peaks, they silently withdrew back to their territory.

Awestruck and relieved, mothers and fathers called back their young from the cavern to make their way home. The horses had relaxed; that is, all but Barde's, trying to tug the reins from his grip as he lay in the snow recovering. The distant malevorog's flaming bones seemed to go back to dull back to usual as they cowered back into the mountains. Herds of caribou, brumak and mammoth were grazing casually again.

"The dark sky almost made them cross the Impassable... like it broke their binds to their land behind the Frost Gate." Jarl Reign said. "Whatever foul magic came from across the sea, pray they can control it, lest we are driven to pay Ecclesia another visit. I hope Valhalla was watching over Godrelm..."

"Dammit," Barde said sadly, gathering himself to get back on the horse. They thought it was funny to trot home, making it most uncomfortable for Barde.

"Hold a moment..." Reign's curiosity returned. "One of the last resort weapons was gone from the cliff-line trees... A scythe. I heard no tale of worrisome hunt between the towns." He looked out into the expansive fields of wildlife, seeing no other human life. "Lads... Scour the field. Check for bones."
32

Before Their Waking God

Atekah sat meditating in the white robes of the Soul Scorpion. The new day was upon them, and they were mentally preparing for what the widowed queen had to offer. He sat cross-legged with his eyes closed on his floor bed in the Soul Scorpions quarters, the usual sounds of Scorpions sparring outside his door.

Wooden weapons clacked with ferocious speed with the occasional wince of pain and victory laughs, taunts and cheers. Atekah sighed deeply time and time again, trying to be at peace. His efforts brought him only to deeper stress as sundown drew nearer. He gathered himself to check on Ramesses before the meeting.

He walked outside his room to have the everybody stop and stare. Every movement of his was pivotal to the people, considering their heavy sense of doubt in his ability to lead. He gave the nod to continue while he sped to the library, the most well-protected space in the Court of Miracles, containing wall upon wall of original scriptures in the native languages of the Estenia. They are translated to the common tongue while always paired with the original to help preserve the culture and methods.

The way of the Scorpion was the way of the educated warrior. For any number of hours spent training physically, double the time would be invested in learning. For any number of men out sparring, no less than triple the numbers would be in the library, silently absorbing or discussing philosophy.

The remainder of their day, they would blindfold their eyes to accustom themselves to the world behind their eyes. It was The Dahaka's method of heightening the other senses and empowering the minds ability to envision what has not yet come to pass. Perhaps it added to Atekah's deteriorating confidence that he no longer blind-folded himself. Upon the passing of Soul Scorpion, the heir to the leadership had cut out his own eyes to commit to the vision in mind and attune fully to the world. Atekah was barely a man, and nobody dares press a boy to cut out his eyes in such trying times.

Beyond Scorpion traditions and methods, if the Court of Miracles were to fall, an unspoken rule of sacredness to scripture would keep the library as a sanctuary. It was behind the library where the newborns and babies were cared for.

There he was, the nuisance they call a blessing. A woman on the verge of sleep jumped awake to greet Atekah.

"Soul Scorpion! I see why you go through so many nurse-mothers..." She hugged him in relief. Atekah awkwardly hugged back, they were strangers. "Ramesses is a troublemaker! It cries for nourishment, but he bites and... hides."

"He hides?" Atekah was baffled. "He can barely walk!"

"He doesn't need to walk! You know he does his... thing! You can't grab him! He moves out of your hands like he was never there! He must understand more than he lets on because he gives everybody the meanest looks." She kept holding onto his robes, subtly begging to be relieved.

He was laying there half asleep, seemingly peaceful in a wooden cradle. Atekah closed in to try and understand. He quietly went to pick him up, and Ramesses' eyes shot open. Then bitterness once again tinged his face. He refused to eye Atekah, but he was watching in his peripheral. Atekah slowly lifted him to his chest and rocked him. He looked at the nurse and smiled like it was simple until he looked and was holding nothing but a blanket.

Ramesses was suddenly clinging on his shin, crawling away on the packed dirt floor, fleeing. Atekah tossed the blanket in the cradle and chased him. He grabbed and reached for the baby's body, but his hands seem to pass through his projection as he was suddenly two feet farther. The nurse couldn't help bursting into laughter. It was joyous to see somebody understand.

Another minute of awkward chasing and reaching at a baby that suddenly wasn't there before Ramesses, who seemed to have made his point, submitted to him, staring into Atekah's eyes like an enemy. It was not the motivator Atekah was looking for right now. He placed him back in the cradle. The baby's gaze was unbroken, hating.

He sighed heavily. "I will look for another to help, dear. Soon enough he will be grown, and we will be able to ask him questions. Until then I can only thank you for help."

She rolled her eyes and waved him off. "You have to go meet the queen. Be gone! This little nuisance will still be kicking when you return, that I promise."

Atekah sullenly made his way out. He stepped back to the library, which was bustling with the muffled, quiet sounds of people buried in history, myths, and legends. All eyes stopped and stared at Atekah. No part of him wanted to be responsible for such an important moment in the making. It was so quiet, you could hear the dust dancing around the torchlight.

He was fighting every instinct of his natural body. Don't shrug your shoulders. Don't let your hands shake. Don't let them see that you're nervous. He replayed over and over in his head. He decided to let adrenaline take the lead.

He took a deep breath. "To the Gardens!" He started bashing his fist on the tables as he passed. "Back to the surface!" They cheered and joined on slamming the tables. "To our life above ground! For Seth! For us! Oppression dies today!"

He, Khitephor, and Diharo made their way across the city to The Sovereign Gardens, the only place more precious than the pharaoh's domain, a sanctuary equal to the World Stones. The grounds surrounding Soluna's tomb-pyramid had clean pools of birds mingling, and lines of fruit trees to show fertile lands. Faction symbols of the entirety of the east were engraved at peace on the streets. The Sovereign Gardens was a monument to the eastern diversity, free of partiality.

The three men walked anxiously, weapons drawn, Khitephor and Atekah with their double-bladed bo-staffs, and Diharo's dual scimitars. Queen Despina requested no weapons, it was more of a suggestion in these times. It was time for a statement. They could see her in the distance with a handful of armoured guards holding dogs with her holding her son's hand.

They drew closer, and the queen's son cowered behind her legs. She wasn't much to hide behind anymore with her frail body. She tried to be presentable, but she still looked on the verge of death. She bowed on their approach. A respectable move on her part.

"Greetings, Scorpions... I believe I requested no weapons." Her voice was sterner than she looked capable of.

"Greetings, your majesty. With due respect, your guards also dismissed the notion." Atekah began with an equal sternness. "But before each other, we are willing to disarm." They put their weapons on the ground. The guards unsheathed and mirrored the peace. A minor lightness entered the air as they agreed that much.

"I also sent an invitation to your people, do you meet us in secret?" Despina questioned.

"They wouldn't miss this for the world, your majesty." Atekah smiled.

The pattering started quietly, then became increasingly loud. They came around the corner, every man, woman and child. Thousands of bodies came forth, weapons in hand. They stole the idea from Grand Architect Valen when he marched against Architect Malachai. The children stood in front of the crowd, willing to fight for their right to live under the open sky. The Scorpions stood behind them, holding some of the children's hands. A low blow to the queen in such circumstances.

Atekah raised his fist before them. The queen raised hers in turn. Two hundred more guards arose in every direction. They unsheathed halberds, pikes, swords, maces, bows. The stare down began. They would honour the queen's call and would slaughter the children. The pharaoh's will was the will of the East.

"Soluna would be so disappointed with us." Atekah opened his raised fist. His people dropped their weapons. A wave of clinking and clacking as metal and wood weapons hit the streets. Thirty seconds... a minute... it was also a message of their incredible numbers.

Despina opened her hand in turn. Her guards laid down their weapons and stood at attention.

"I see you brought your children. So where are you hiding mine, Scorpion?" Lightning boomed from the west. It caught them all off guard. A clear sky sunset met the black and red billowing clouds. Lightning danced in the coming darkness.

"WHERE IS MY ROQUA?!" Queen Despina's cry brought everybody back to attention.

"I'm sorry, Queen Despina... We don't have your baby." A silence spoke many words. Khitephor and Diharo were hiding rage, while his people began mumbling the possibility that Ramesses could be the queen's.

"Look at me..." Lightning cracked closer. Despina wouldn't be swayed. "Look at this skeleton I walk in. I sent a man to Ecclesia to warn them of Ahriman. He returned and said Ahriman now walks with Architect Valen. My messenger called him out before Ecclesia, and he did not deny his doings, but said my boy lives." She withheld tears.

"Our devil is now living with our only hope to fend away his evil creations, and Soluna shows no sign of resurrection. If she is watching, she will see us kill each other before Ahriman even has a chance.

"I was a slave, too, but there is no worse fate than this grief. I could eradicate the slavery of Halaseir now and forever, if you just return my Roqua!" The billowing clouds were nearly over them now. The thunder clapped as fast as beating drums. The people grew nervous, awaiting Atekah's answer.

"No. He's a Scorpion now." He picked up his bo-staff. There was a moment of silence before his words rang true. It all erupted at once. The Queen shrieked in hellish-anger, pulling a dagger from her belt, rushing to kill or die first, it mattered not to her.

"STOP!" Khitephor boomed before Despina called to attack.

Children shakenly scrambled for their weapons, their parents pushing past them to defend first. The dogs yanked their leashes and yapped drool as Diharo and Khitephor kicked out Atekah's legs, stripped him of his weapon, and drew blades to his neck.

It unravelled in flashes of light as the dark sky engulfed them. The air sang with unsheathing weapons. The call for civil war over one child. Despina clenched her blade, fought through the stream of tears, and walked to Atekah on his knees as the two elites held him at submission.

"You deny me? One of your own!" Despina screamed in Atekah's face, she held his head up by his hair, the blade pressed under his eyelid. "Seth would have delivered him personally! He was a great leader, not a father! I can see as he raised a selfish shit that is putting his triumph over his own nation!" The Scorpion Elite nodded in agreeance.

Soluna's pyramid shook. With a burst of blue light through the cracks. The dark clouds seemed to give the pyramid-tomb energy. All Halaseir stopped to hear their god howling from within its burial. The blue light intensified as the massive blocks were shaking out of place. Soluna was rising to fight the coming darkness.

Darkness held all the city. Until the clouds collapsed themselves. A fracture of blue light cracked from the west and spider-webbed through the darkness. It split the light of the clear sky back onto the city. The billowing darkness and its lightning dwindled back to the open sunset they had met upon. The city was dead silent, and so was Soluna's tomb.

The spotlight was back to the queen and Soul Scorpion. What was said was still set in stone. Atekah's childish pride had brought him to his knees before a vengeful mother.

"Your own words brought you here," said Khitephor. "'If they stand behind us, protect them. If they stand beside us, respect them. If they stand against us, show no mercy.' Being Soul Scorpion means much more than being a voice for yourself, Atekah!

"What did Seth say? The only thing worse than being blind is having sight with no vision." He spit down at Atekah's face. "Queen Despina... Show no mercy." A moment of silence was given for somebody to intervene. Anybody... Nobody.

Despina lifted Atekah's chin with her dagger to look in his eyes. "He's just a boy, Khitephor. I may be a ghost, but I'm still human. Before our waking saviour, I will not be the first to shed blood on the Sovereign Gardens. Even in death, she stopped us from ourselves."

"We trade the boy for a democracy upon the east? You swear no one will fear oppression under the open sky?" Diharo clarified.

Saying yes wasn't enough. Without hesitation, Despina dragged the dagger across her hand and offered a blood pact. Khitephor and Diharo slit their hands as well. Upon the pact being shaken on, the people erupted in cheer. They took up their weapons and planted them in the grass about the Gardens, immortalizing the moment as the upper and lower classes made peace by planting their weapons together on peaceful ground.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I was scared! You know I didn't mean it!" Atekah's begging broke through all the joyous cries. "The boy was all I had to hold their respect!" He clung to Khitephor's robes.

They shook their heads in pity. "You've done nothing but hold a title that needed filling." Khitephor wiped his bloody hand across his face and cried for all to hear. "Exile!"

Their moment wouldn't be broken. Despina returned to her son, Simiak, and hugged him tightly. "You get your brother back!" she cried happily.

The elites turned their backs to admire the setting sun. The burial of weapons before a pyramid nearly shaken apart – they understood the storm as the second coming of Soluna. Ahriman would have his war, but this night, they would celebrate.

Nobody paid any mind to Atekah fleeing in embarrassment, disowned by his entire city as a weak failure of a leader. He was barely a man, but all he had to do was give up what was not his. Now his mind was his worst enemy. A stray dog, not welcome to the only place he's ever known. He ran till his lungs collapsed. The night came quickly over Halaseir.

He fell into the streets, wailing like a wounded cat. He wheezed for air while he contemplated throwing himself to the Plagued Channel again. He wiped tears out of his eyes, trying to figure where his sorrowful legs had taken him. He had nearly caught his breath when a rope fell around his chest and tightened around his neck. He was suddenly choking for air, being dragged backwards by his neck.

"Scorpion of no home, is it?" A man planted his knee on his chest, and the rope remained tight around his throat. He spoke to him very quickly while Atekah choked.

"Things were settled too easy. I was promised a place with the queen, and I still will be, thanks to your pathetic choices. I will provide you with a secret and safe life, in exchange for the boy. Show me where he is, and we will run. Steal the glory from those who called you friend and exiled you from your only home."

Atekah's eyes were rolling back in his head.

"Ah, Ahriman's ass. FIGHT, BOY!" He cut the rope loose and slapped him across his bloodied face. "You want a purpose? Then we leave the city tonight. But we need Roqua!"

"Who are you?" Atekah spoke between coughs.

"Hodabi of No Home. And I have the Reaper's blessing. How say you side with our immortal?"
33

The Crystal Frontier

The jaguar of BoeDri was flexing her claws into the dirt, waiting. Eye fixated, refusing to blink. She rubbed her shoulders back and forth to keep her muscles ready. Her patience and precision had been honed during her year of stalking. The mouse laid there, nibbling on a pile of seeds it had gathered outside its hole. Just one moment with its attention elsewhere and BoeDri would eat. Minutes passed.

It perked up to a moving shadow in the distance. It sat on its back legs and sniffed into the distance. Patience would pay off; she let the vessel of the mouse take hold as her body transformed into that of her prey. She scuttled down to the pile of seeds. The mouse remained sniffing and began to quiver. BoeDri did not share the same fear, as the predator soul remained focused. BoeDri's jaguar soul returned control at point blank to pin down her meal. She was young, but she was the apex predator at this moment. She had the power that no beast she knew could equal. She began feasting until the shadow drew closer, along with the crashing sounds.

There was deep moaning of things waking in the distance. BoeDri looked up from ripping at her meal to see foul darkness. The light of day seemed to be stolen away from above the canopies. The chaotic sounds of trees crashing, wood and earth collide. The human soul of BoeDri had a curiosity that almost drew her nearer, but the jaguar was in charge, and so they ran.

The shadow followed them, and so did the anarchy. Trees shifting and toppling. Inhuman roars entered the mix. They seemed to appear in every direction. Some of the roars getting cut off and diminishing as quick as they appeared. The shadow was on BoeDri's tail and slowly gained pace over her. The light was swallowed, and darkness seemed to grab at her hind legs. Until it did.

Stopped dead in her tracks, a hand spurted through the soil and grabbed her. She swatted, and the fingers lost their grip, continuing to run, now chasing the dying light. The moans and roars drew closer all around as the line of sunlight fled. It wasn't only BoeDri chasing it. Other animals came. That which flies came by the hundreds overhead. The rodents darkened the ground in a flurry of tiny legs scurrying from the same fury.

Hands now burst out of the soil before BoeDri. She danced around them as they sprouted, crawling out. Ugly humanoids emerged, dark grey and greenish skin, riddled with wounds, some deteriorated down to bones, half skeleton and half-orcs, clawing their way back to life as the darkness consumed the sky. The darkness was their energy.

With the revival of such evil, the Primordial Wilds awoke to defend. The Rakau dislodged their roots and awoke to keep the undead orcs in their graves. Rakau large and small came crashing down onto the undead before they could rise. The energy of the jungle was alive and moving. Much of the flora stayed in place, but it vibrated with liveliness.

All that was tangled and overgrown now became arms and legs, bodies and formations of faces to make living trees. They began slowly, as seems fair for beings hundreds of years old. But they gained speed. They rushed towards the dying light, running with BoeDri. The jungle rumbled with their stampede.

A Rakau swiped BoeDri to the side, not to harm her, but to dive onto an undead orc. They, too, were formidable creatures. Much heftier than the average humans, but brutish and dumb. Perhaps they were smarter in their first life, but the Rakau had no problem breaking their bones a second time. The jungle quickly appeared like an overgrown graveyard for all that were attempting to rise again.

They made it to a cleared opening. The birds, the rodents, BoeDri and the Rakau all stopped and stared. They heard the war raging beyond the Crystal Frontier, a place BoeDri had never seen yet. The thickest, tallest, and deepest-rooted entanglement of trees walled the Primordial from the Frost. A sparkling mist of snow seeped through the natural barricade and evaporated in the heat of the jungle. The forces of nature clashed upon the border that was the Crystal Frontier.

Now without the canopies, a cleared strip of uprooted trees left a clearing as far as the eye could see in either direction. The billowing blackness of clouds had a red tinge that seemed to empower the forces beyond the Frontier. BoeDri cowered back into the Wild, but curiosity kept her close enough to perch and watch. She flinched at the sound of boulders of ice crashing bits of wood away from the Crystal Frontier.

And then the ice seemed to pry away at the Frontier. Chip by chip, a breach was made. It was then that BoeDri first set eyes upon the Ice Elemental, the being of Living Ice with a ghastly face floating inside its frozen shell. It was all rage, clawing and howling its way through the Frontier while the Rakau stayed vigilant.

A white paw tore the elemental back. A horned, albino tiger of incredible stature took flight with the elemental in his claws. It soared high, and dove with epic speed, collapsing the icy beast to shards. It swooped back over the Frontier, over a ready line of Rakau to command. As the dying light diminished, the flying white beast changed, its white stripes illuminated to a godly dark blue against the black stripes.

It roared high, and the jungle honoured the beast's wishes. The Rakau moaned a deep hum that changed the course of the battle beyond. The Crystal Frontier began untangling. The frosted layer cracked away as life renewed to the wooden creatures. The overgrown was shaken off as the new line of ancient Rakau roared in salute to the glowing tiger.

As one, the Crystal Frontier became a wall of Ohm's soldiers charging to battle. They chased the darkness as the world shook under their enormity. They swung their clubbed arms and bashed the Elementals back. Smashing and shattering sounds broke through deep roars of the frozen monsters dying.

In unison with the Crystal Frontier, the Rakau by BoeDri's side collaborated and renewed a new wall. They extended their limbs and planted themselves in the soft earth between the border of the Frost and the Primordial Jungle. Their figures shaped and moulded until the view of battle was all but walled off.

Victory seemed sure. The White Tiger disappeared with his wooden soldiers into the darkness as the last of light made the world darker than night. The battle ensued between flashes of lightning as BoeDri listened. She stood, feeling safe behind a wall of Rakau that sacrificed their bodies to create the new Frontier. The noise fell away to the distance until the draconic roar made Ohm stand still.

The birds flew down to hide under the trees. The rodents scrambled for any hole, frantically burying new homes after the roar that shook from beyond the Frost. Lightning lit up the edge of the world as something terrible awoke. After the silence, the barking began. Unnatural chattering and the clacking of rock on rock came from above. Then they landed, and BoeDri ran.

Creatures like her, but of no flesh. On four legs but crumbled like the Ice Elementals. Rock Dogs. They were thrown over the wall and began feasting upon the rodents. They didn't eat them, merely crushed and tossed their bodies. That's why the jungle fought them; they weren't a part of the circle of life.

It gave BoeDri time to disappear back into the jungle where she came from. More Rakau arose, chasing past her towards the dogs. They were quick, but so were the Dogs. Some few Rakau were taken down by sheer numbers, but the Rakau seemed innumerable. As one fell, more came, crushing the dogs, smashing their earthen bodies together. They squealed like real animals but were of an evil nature.

BoeDri heard them chasing her. She weaved through the jungle with incredible speed, but so did they, nipping at her tail. She wasn't near full grown, and she was fighting for her life. Rocky teeth were snapping at her tail. Beyond her, she heard undead orcs mumbling. In a flash of lightning, she saw dead eyes light up all around her, watching. They stared, reaching to grab her. The stardust enveloped her body as she pounced up into a thick tree. Her ape-like arms stretched, and her speed diminished, but she now weaved safely through the upper jungle in her apish form.

She peered down as the beasts rushed past, chasing a jaguar that no longer existed. Then the darkness broke. Light cracked back through the billowing clouds, dropping the undead to lifeless piles on the ground. The Rock Dogs slowed. They weren't dying, but they lost hope. They slowed down to watch the light return to the world. The Rock Dogs submitted to defeat and returned to the Frontier where they would surely be crushed.

BoeDri's curiosity was done; it had been too close. She fled for home through terrains that had shifted. The jungle had changed. The jaguar of BoeDri returned to the jungle floor to rush back into familiar terrain.

Fresh holes of uprooted Rakau left scars on the jungle. But the Primordial was already fighting to renew itself. Roots crawled across the ground into the fresh soil and spurted new stems where a Rakau had risen from. The jaguar of BoeDri maneuvered by instinct to find home. The human soul in her wondered if her home with Mother hadn't risen as a Rakau to battle.

She was no longer just a kitten, but a growing arsenal of unified bodies. Even the human in her did not fear the thought of being alone. Her souls worked in harmony to conquer hunger and danger. She was a lone survivor already. On that thought, the souls of BoeDri agreed.
34

More Than He Seems

Breka saw it coming. The Griffin's cries rang from its home atop the mountain, an unmistakable sound to be feared. Instinctively, the Brekan village gathered. Their numbers were fewer. It felt like a part of the family was gone, regardless of the dispute. Virgo had taken four of his closest friends to Ecclesia for the recruitment mission. Eleven days had passed since their departure. The village had been painfully quiet until this day.

Breka was directing wildlife to safety while the village collected itself. The Griffin's connection to the fauna of the western mountains made for quick work. The beast had an eye to the east at all times, flying at a furious pace. Upon her arrival, she landed among her people and spread a protective wing over them. She shuffled them outside the city. Their family of about forty set off together, children hand-in-hand or being carried by their parents. The bachelors gathered last resort resources.

Jaxx had Arenthis comfortably backpacked. Merys defaulted to grabbing baby food and snacks. Semwise anxiously gathered a multitude of gear, turning himself into a self-made pack mule. Jurik had nothing, which was the problem. He rushed away from the crowd to his shack; he wouldn't dare leave his lute in unknown danger.

"What could be the matter?" Merys wondered as Breka tore down their fence, bringing their horses and mules to them. The animals closed in to suggest they ride. Breka connected with them, commanding their submission. They mounted.

"Birdy knows best, sister!" Semwise undyingly trusted the titan. His horse clopped along well with his burden of gear.

A blue-skied day had the people in a confused mood. Semwise was making faces behind Jaxx's back, playing with the giggling baby. Perhaps more soldiers were coming, or Virgo came back with unwelcome people. The Griffin rushed them along. It walked with them, wing above their heads, checking every direction for danger.

"Breka does not fear its own land... It rules everything here. Something is scaring it." Jaxx looked about anxiously.

"Just be glad our troubles haven't made her hate us yet, eh." Jurik held his lute close, praising Breka.

Breka cried out loud as the thunder cracked from the east. A beam of fire spewed into the atmosphere beyond the mountains. They covered their ears at Breka's high pitched eagle cry. It cried to the billowing black sky as it spread across the world. The Griffin's nervousness took a turn for the worst. It flapped its wings, telling them to run.

They didn't hesitate to watch the darkness spread. The black fire infected the light of day with terrible darkness, even their titan feared. Then a quaking roar came from beyond the fire. The western mountains retaliated with rockslides in every direction. They kicked to a gallop. Even though it passed through their mind, Arenthis was not responsible for this storm.

Breka stayed behind and cried aloud again. They heard a rumble following their titan taking flight. The foliage was too thick for them to look back and see what was coming. The horses weaved through the thick of the untouched wilderness.

A member of the village must have been thrown off the horse. His screams for help dulled as he was left behind. The horses knew where they were going, and they would not falter. They held on and kept their head low. The darkness soon overtook their sky, and another world-quaking howl entered the mix.

Breka soared above the herd of galloping villagers as they fled through thickets, streams, and open meadows. The darkness swallowed their world, and the light of day was being swallowed in every direction. Their vision was limited to the flickering of continuous lightning dancing in the billowing darkness.

Glowing grey eyes appeared beside Jaxx. A figure of a wolf, as tall as his horse ran next to him. It eyed Jaxx like a meal. Its steps were barely heard, like wind it kept pace. It didn't have to yap and call its pack, it looked like a lone warrior, confident. It closed in to pounce on the horse's back; he wouldn't be heard in all the panic. Arenthis could see the terror nearing, and his infantile cry made it flinch, just in time for Breka to dive-bomb into the beast for a rescue.

A fracture in the black and red clouds broke over Jaxx and Arenthis. Arenthis's tears did not bring rain, rather, it broke light back onto their path. The light guided the horses back into a combined herd. Breka was again soaring above them, following the light in the darkness back to its mountain home. Lightning cracked and showered the other wildlife surrounding them. Deer, elk, moose, foxes, bears, and birds converged to Breka's domain.

Darkness covered every corner of the sky as the terrors contested beyond the mountains still. But Arenthis's light had remained steady and grew over their company. They arrived at the base of the tallest mountain. An open meadow met the base of Breka's mountain, gathering many beasts of her reign under Arenthis's light. Breka perched on a crag above their gathering. The beasts bowed. The horses and mules did as well, making the villagers dismount and pay equal respects.

Hundreds of birds joined, taking any seat under the light on Breka's steps. The bird's colours lit up the rugged rocky outcroppings like a watercolour canvas. The bears, bull moose, bull elk, the horses and mules stood on the outskirts of the light, staring into the darkness. Breka stood on its hind legs, spreading its wings wide to intimidate. They waited.

The people gathered together under Breka's overlook. There was a winding rock path leading up the titan's mountains. Breka suggested them forward. Merys took Arenthis from Jaxx's backpack cradle. He no longer cried but stayed focused on the sky. The baby's eyes didn't squint to the light. They watched his eyes turn a glassy gold as he stared at the sky, maintaining the fracture in the darkness.

The battle ensuing beyond the mountains came to a halt, and the roars went silent after a painful draconic shriek. The world was quiet until the rumbling drew closer. That which chased them caught up. Humanoid beings grew in the darkness. Much thicker than humans. Taller, greenish-grey skinned ogres. Some skinny and slouched, some stalwart and fat. Their leathery skin was sun-damaged and dirty from primitive living.

They had sadistic, rotten-toothed smiles on their faces. Their numbers seemed few, but more and more emerged from the darkness. The massive wolf walked through their crowd as well. It had a weak limp from its brawl with Breka. Its ghostly eyes looked back to the darkness and called its followers forth. Wolves were under the Direwolve's influence. Breka had its army, and the darkness was gathering theirs.

Wolves anxiously paced back and forth, teasing at the bears and antlered defenders. The villagers were amazed by all the creatures that hid in the mountains and had not surfaced until today. As they climbed higher up the mountains steps, they got a safer view of the battlefield. Arenthis twitched, and the clouds fought its way back into the light just slightly. Breka's army paced back into the light while the dark army closed in. A bull moose had no room left to back up, so it had to fight.

Left and right it launched wolves pouncing to attack. A grizzly came to the moose's aid, sinking its teeth into the back of a wolf and tossing it aside. The wolves' numbers were vast, but the moose and bear were holding their ground. The Direwolf seemed to orchestrate the wolves' moves with its mind as it stared like a ghost from behind the battle. The Ogres inched into the action, and Breka sprung to defend.

The Griffin launched into the dark sky and dive bombed into one of the green giants. It buried its face in the dirt, kicking back another, and swiped away another with its wing. The Ogres beat their chests and pulled the Breka into the darkness. Breka's army no longer feared the darkness and charged into the fray. The mothers and babies of the mountains cowered closer to Breka's mountains under the light, fearing the worst.

Semwise had had enough. "This is our fight, too!" He pushed back through his people towards the battle. Soon enough and the battle would shockwave across the entire meadow if Arenthis lost concentration.

"Semwise!" Merys called. He was too far gone. He picked up a fist-sized rock and launched it into the darkness at the Direwolf. A direct hit impacted its forehead, and the attacking wolves collapsed like puppets. The moose bulldozed the wolves collapsed bodies back into the darkness with its massive paddles.

A bright light broke through the darkness by the source to the east. It came from the ground, not the sky, and it seemed to slow the energy of the billowing darkness. Upon illumination, Breka's reinforcements came. Creatures began tumbling down Breka's mountain, falling from fatal heights, but gracefully landing like the ground softened for them on impact, creatures with the same shape as a man but made completely of the elements of the land.

Their movement was fluid like humans. Their bodies were brown like bark, blue like water, and green like leaves. Their bodies were assortments of all the world in the form of man and woman. They comforted the cowering animals on Arenthis's light. Some rushed forward, beginning to glow as they entered the darkness.

The edges of their leafy and wooden bodies glowed various colours as they walked into the darkness. Their glowing edges stayed luminous in the dark, and they attacked with demonic speed. In all the darkness, glowing colours came down from the mountains like rivers of rainbow converging to protect the mountains. The sounds of lashes whipped, and ogres being torn down. Breka's cries sent shivers down the people's bodies, unsure of what happened in the shadows.

The creatures' glowing bodies left trails of their radiance in their wake. The lightning of the sky seemed to crackle more intensely, lighting up the battlefield between seconds. The Direwolf rose again with its smoky grey eyes. Not moments later, an army of the radiant soldiers enveloped the beast, dragging it helpless in the darkness.

A final terrible howl in the east set the world quiet again. All the people could see was every colour in existence glowing before them in the dark until lightning cracks webbed through the billowing darkness. Like shattered glass, black and red clouds evaporated, returning the light of day to the world.

Arenthis gasped heavily, breaking into a heavy wail of tears. Merys nursed him quiet as his glassy gold eyes returned to normal. The shadow diminished to show Breka and the vibrant soldiers their victory. They had the Ogres bound to the ground, thick rope-vines lashed over their necks, body, arms, and legs. They squirmed on the ground helplessly, mostly unharmed. Breka turned to the bound Direwolf. It tore its bounds loose and gave it a hellish cry to leave. It and the wolves limped their way back to the mountains.

Their glowing edges had dulled back to nothing under the sun, and the leafy people were unscathed. The fauna bowed not only to Breka but the earthen soldiers as well. The Ogres changed. They were apologizing, speaking the common tongue.

"We sorry! Darkness not our fault! Shadow made us do it!" they cried.

Breka nodded for their release. The leafy men and women cut their binds and ushered their return. They must have understood or seen this darkness before.

The villagers gathered down at the battlefield to meet their saviours. Breka stood next to what seemed to be their leader, a woman, it appeared to be. Her attire changed before them, from an entangled structure of limbs to an autumn leaf covered majesty. Yellows, oranges, reds, and purples made a dress of greater beauty than of any human creation, and her thin branched hair waved about lively with fireflies illuminating her face from the inside.

"Honor, your big man holds," she said, pointing to Semwise. Her voice sounded like many united tones in one body. "Why she keeps you, we see." She pet the Griffin. "What is your name?"

"Semwise... Semwise the Small." He stood tall. "What are you?" He felt allowed to talk.

"Greetings, Semwise the Small." She smiled. "Krysesor, we are. Zaia, I am, Westeria Sovereign." She echoed slow and loud in her many voices.

Semwise lost his words, so he bowed. His company silently mirrored.

"Purely, she has judged. Welcome to Westeria, mankind has never been," Zaia continued. "The world, we are. Our own, the world will always hold. First darkness, it is not. Last darkness, it is far from.

"Seed of your own," she pointed to Arenthis. "Spawn of The Divine. The Days of End, He sings. Gifted he is, of great fury and great grace. Golden eyes, Kryesor will see bring the day." She bowed to the child, as did Breka.

"Ah, now this will string a legendary song!" Jurik raised his lute in exhilaration.
35

Skin Deep

What name do you call your Pale Horse?" Valen asked as they prepare for the day's ventures. A downpour of rain pattered against the windows of the citadel.

I was holding back a smirk, glad he asked. "Fella." I grinned ear to ear thinking what a clever name. He looked at me like I was joking. I gathered a large rucksack of fruit for the people of Ecclesia.

"Fella? For that beast? You can't be serious!" He waited for another, more serious answer.

I've never been more serious in my very short-lived lives.

"Fella! It will grow on you, fear not. What else would you call a companion for all eternity? The Pale Horse is my Fella."

Kitava tried to hide a snorted laughter. "Is the beast a "she" then?" she asked.

"It is neither 'he' or 'she.' It is but a spirit, which needs no alignment."

"Well, I no longer envy the beast then," Valen laughed. "What a shallow life to be restricted from such fine pleasures."

I twitched with anger at the reminder of his secret ruthlessness. I held my tongue. "It does not need to lust when it can wander the ever-changing galaxy above us."

"Your star-fetish is very apparent, Reaper." He jabbed at me playfully. "You don't have to rub it in our face that we are stuck in this puny world." I guess not all are as amused by what is beyond their world. However, I could tell Kitava showed deep curiosity whenever I spoke of the galaxy.

They grabbed their much smaller rucksacks and donned their sheepskin cloaks to brave the downpour. Again, they had nothing of my size, but I was to make a statement. Storms against the citadels coast could be gruesome, so I would walk the streets, soaked to the bone like a common man. It was Kitava's idea to be fair. I haven't yet grasped a selfless persona.

"We usually bring a pack-mule, but you are doing a fine job." Valen patted me on the shoulder as we walked down the steps into the storm. My bag didn't seem to wear me down, but water seeped in and added to its weight. Luckily the first stop was under the glass roof of the World Stones. An immense crowd had gathered, almost shoulder to shoulder under the reinforced glass to avoid the weather.

A hundred strides from the citadel steps to the dome of the World Stones and I was soaked. Hair seemed not to grow on my smooth head, but water dripped off the heavy stubble on my cheeks. I was greeted by many hungry faces. I overlooked upon a confused array of faces, but they would say 'please' to acquire a handout and 'thank you' when they received it.

I took a knee to greet and gift many small children with ripe fruits. A mother smiled as her nervous daughter approached me kindly. Butterflies found their way to flutter about my innards as she cutely stumbled towards me. She looked up at me like I was a nice man, nothing more, nothing less. I gave her the choice between an apple, orange, pear, or peach. She eyed them awkwardly like they were all strange objects. She snagged the bright peach and pushed past my hands to hug my neck. The crowd aww'd at the sight.

I arose to see a multitude of faces beyond my plenty of fruit. Apparently, this was a reoccurring situation, because a group of men began bickering at the back of the crowd. Space around them opened as the tension grew.

"Go eat your own fruits, eastern scum!" a dirty, skinny, pale man spat.

"This home is mine as much as yours, son," a darker skinned man kept a calm tone. "And I'm Hroatian, thank you."

"Sand monkey or jungle rat, you're a waste of space." The dirty man pushed him aside. The crowd gathered attention to the dispute, shouting racist absurdities.

"I pull my weight," the accused man remained calm and looked the other way.

"Don't you try to ignore me, you black shit!" The pale man grabbed the darker man's shoulder and punched the back of his head. The crowd lit up with energy of excitement and cries for it to stop. Parents held their children tight and fled in case other joined.

"Stop!" Valen's voice was just another raindrop to the storm.

"STOP!" I thundered.

And they did. I pushed past the crowd, shoulders and head above everybody else. The people made way, silent as mice. I grabbed each man by their collars, lifting them off their feet. I noticed the accused managed to return him the gift of a bloody lip.

"What arrogance is this?!" I shouted at the pale man, who grew even more pale in his shock.

"The blacks have always been spoon-fed in Ecclesia. It makes sense now, they are your shade of shit." He spat in my face.

Why do they test my wrath?

I dropped the Hroatian but didn't let go of the pale man's collar. He gripped my wrist and tried to squirm away, to no avail. I threw him into the storm and beat fist to chest, donning my armour. I raised my hood to become the shadow. Rain pattered off my illuminated armour as I summoned my scythe. I stepped towards the man gasping for air, crawling out of a puddle. I slammed the butt of the scythe in the ground beside his face. I grabbed his face to stare into my shadowed hood.

"What do you see?!" I bellowed.

"I... I see..."

"SPEAK!"

"Nothing! I see nothing!" he whimpered.

"WRONG!" I cried. "You see a soul! A raw, immaculate, piece of Heaven! The same thing that resides inside yourself." I pushed his face back to the ground and sent my scythe away with a burst of stardust. I stood in the rain and turned to the onlooking Ecclesians.

"THIS! Is what is in each and every one of you!" I pointed to my hollow face. "A fragment of the eternal kingdom! The vigour that fuels the beating heart! A buried fire inside all that lives!

"As humankind, it is your fortune to harness and shape this world. Every breath changes this world. If you breathe hate, a foul corruption seeps into your soul. It will scar your face with bitterness and tear you apart from the inside out, and in turn, that which you call home.

"Breathe grace and your soul will emanate an infectious peace. Your heart will scour the darkness of the world and salvage glory from your tragedies. Health and humbleness bestowed upon your complexion, and a blessing you will be upon your kin and, in turn, all which you call home."

I turned to the pale man beneath me. "What say you, child?"

He scrambled to his knees in the pouring rain and raised its open hands. "I b... beg forgiveness."

"Give him your ration," I said.

"I'm sorry?" He looked up at me, confused.

"Apologize to your fellow man and give him what you intended to take."

He quietly rose to his feet and walked to my bag of fruit. He reached for two apples, and the crowd divided to show the man he attacked. The pale man offered both apples to the Hroatian and bowed his head shamefully. The Hroatian looked at me gratefully and nodded happily.

The pale man walked past, head lowered. The Hroatian grabbed his wrist to stop him. He reacted with a scared look, like his shaming was not over. But the Hroatian put one of the apples in his hand as a show of forgiveness. The pale man shot him an indebted smile and made his leave.

The crowd erupted in cheers, as if I had just cured the plague of racism. It was but one small victory, but the city felt a warmth that stemmed from within themselves. Parents sent their children to hug me. I was soon surrounded by small humans latching around my knees. I wasn't sure how to react, so I pulled back my hood, and my heart throbbed proudly.

"Valen! How much food do we have?" I asked through the rain and cheer.

"Enough!" I managed to hear him say. He was busy handing out rations to his rejoicing people.

I was skeptical of the Grim Reaper's mind. It, too, stemmed from a bitter and ruthless nature. But it was not rid of passion and grace. I couldn't help but realize Kitava's tales had tapped into a protectiveness within me. I may have been made of bad things, but my redemption was coming.
36

The Messenger

Grim?" Kitava whispered against my bedchamber door. "Grim!" She breathed louder.

I awoke from a dark dream. I hadn't had any vision since The Divine had relieved himself of his overwatch. I rolled out of bed in my britches; fist-to-chest, my robe materialized. I cracked open the door. She pushed through it.

"Why would you give me those dreams?" She had tears in her eyes. She slapped my chest, pushing me back in tired confusion. "Why would you make somebody watch that?" She was clearly fighting the screams she wanted to unleash.

I caught her wrists from assaulting my chest and lowered to look into her crying eyes. "What dreams, Kitava?"

"YOU KNOW WHAT DREAMS!" She couldn't hold her silence. Luckily, the thunder rolled and rain hammered the windows all through the night at exactly that moment.

"I don't." I tried to calm her by looking me in the eyes. "I'm sorry. I lied. I never gave you any dreams. It wasn't me."

"Then why did I see the city burning?" Her voice was choked with terror. Her quaking fists lowered to wrap around me.

The Divine wouldn't do this...

"I fear... My brother, The Unbound, may have been the one giving you your dreams." I looked outside to the storm as I held her head to my chest.

"Why would he have shown me the Pale Horse? That's a silly name, by the way." She made herself laugh through the tears, already feeling better in my presence. "Fella." She giggled to herself.

"A boastful gesture. The Unbound gave me my companion... He tests me." I looked back to her face. "What else did you see?"

"The people were slaughtered in the middle of the day. A storm of black and red clouds crackling with energy had spread over all of Ohm. Red and black creatures of many shapes climbed our walls. Our men didn't stand a chance..." Her lips began to quiver again.

"What else?" I shook her to focus. "Did you see The Unbound?"

"No. The demons ran past me. I heard a voice that kept saying 'A worse fate awaits you'. I almost tried walking into the way of a demon, but it looked at me, and it echoed the same words: 'A worse fate awaits you'."

"He knows I care about you..." I thought aloud. "His game is terror. I cannot stop the nightmares... Was there any sign of when he will come?"

She drew a blank face. "I have no idea."

"Just know the nightmares are not real. Next time you get one, just wake up and try sleep again."

"I tried that... but it's like he was forcing my eyes shut. There was no way but to see it through..."

I was at a loss for plans. "Do not tell Valen. Lie. I will need the city behind me if The Unbound comes."

"We have no hope..."

"We will find a way..." I noticed the light of morning pushing through the storm clouds. "Return to bed. The dawn will bring a new day."

I sent her out of my chambers, and I dropped to my knees. I prayed to a God that had turned his back on protecting us. I prayed not for myself, but for those I was now responsible for.

It was very apparent that morning that neither Kitava or I had slept properly. As always, Valen was full of piss and vinegar, while we were sluggish and quietly worrying. As was customary, homes needed fixing after a storm of such magnitude. Leaving Ecclesians to build homes of their heritage that were a privilege that came with complications. Though, it helped uphold Valen's architectural title.

"I think I will go help around the medic hold today, darling." She kissed him on the cheek and took her leave with haste.

"Is something amiss, Kitava?" he called out to her.

"Just a restless night." She shot him a convincing smile, and he asked no further.

"Better day for the lads, anyways!" He punched my arm with a smile.

The storm dwindled to a drizzle so Valen and I would set off to work among the commoners. Valen put his crown aside and assembled several guards to join the duty, armed and armoured with the nautical compass and blue rose sigil. Their gear was a symbol of authority, their weapons were untested decorations. That realization suddenly made me nervous. They acknowledged me with a bow, and we were off.

I watched them walk with a cocky strut as King Valen joked about huts washing away. Clearly jokes for the more privileged.

He mocked a Hroatian accent. "Oh, sorry! I was washed away from my hut and hit yours! Pity we live in the mud, but we still will because granddad did!" They laughed aloud. One of his guards was of southern colour, and his forced laughter was apparent. A racial dispute with the king is not so simply disputed. I made my disapproval clear, but his thunder would not be dulled. His mocking went on.

We ventured down the centre street of Ecclesia, passing the plethora of unique shops of the marketplace. Word spread quickly of yesterdays dispute. Ecclesian citizens shouted their praise of the name Reaper as I went by. I awkwardly waved and tried to acknowledge each individual praise.

"You don't have to wave, Grim." Valen tried to lower my waving hand. "They are easily impressed." I sense jealousy, Valen. "They're just looking for more handouts." I shut my mouth and waved regardless.

We approached a dozen wagons loaded with wet clay, lumber, and stone. They each diverted to their necessary sectors to begin fixing wrecked and leaky homes.

"Catch!" Valen threw me a shovel. Looks like he wanted me to reinforce the weaker mud and stone huts with clay. "I guess you created the world, you know what to do." His tone turned condescending. My patience was growing thinner by the moment. Luckily, he decided to work on the cabins and left me to wade through the mud with the Hroatians.

The blistering sun broke through shortly after the last of the storm dissipated. It beat down on us for a heavy portion of the day. Surprisingly, the commoners did not shower me with existential questions. They seemed to be content repairing their primitive homes, time and time again. They spoke of Ohm being their gift, and how it was their honour to sleep so near to its raw body. Repairing their homes was a reminder that they must cherish and nurse the world they had been given.

I hadn't mastered the faces that people wear when they meet me yet. But there was a genuine humbleness that came with those people. Like the grace I spoke of; they wore it on their faces. As I praised, I felt its contagious peace, but I realized that I did not harness the same quality. I was an old soul in a young body. I knew many things, but I was working my soul away from its ill-disposed nature.

I had gotten lost in conversation with these strangers. I had tossed my sandals aside, and I felt the soft, cool squishiness of mud between my toes as we worked. As soon as I grew comfortable and found myself smiling, the screams came from the eastern wall.

A man's limp body was thrown over the wall into the mud around us. Mud seeped into the lacerations that stretched across his body. Fist-to-chest; my armour materialized. I raised a hand to the air, calling my scythe. We watched the wall. Waiting... Waiting. Soon realising that it wanted us to come to it.

Valen's armed men were there first, running towards the east gate. I was not far behind when it leapt from above, crushing two armoured men under its molten claws. A sabretooth demon stood on four legs, as tall as I, towering above the soldiers. The men drew swords but were slaughtered in a second. A soldier was tossed against the stone wall of Ecclesia by its back foot. Another got caught in the jaw of the beast and was pried in half like a chew toy. It danced about, spewing bits of lava out of its joints. Lava crawled around its rocky body, forming flowing designs of the same runes that glowed on my armour. A messenger.

Its spewing lava lit a cabin aflame, calling more of the guards forth. Ecclesia was converging on the excitement, not understanding the danger.

"Water!" I shouted. The demon turned to me, knocking another man away with its tail. Another soldier charged it full-tilt and buried its sword to the hilt in its back hip. It winced in pain, but turned and mauled the man, unhindered.

"Reaper!" it bellowed. It saw me running, weapon ready. It bounced side to side, no longer concerned with soldiers. I stopped in my tracks and whistled. Stardust gathered and opened a portal for Fella to break through, bashing into the demon full force. The Pale Horse was gone as swiftly as it came. The demon hit the ground, swiping defensively at Fella, who was no longer there. It gave me time to plant the scythe through its jugular and into its skull.

It dropped dead on the street, its lava solidifying to cold rubble. The runes upon its molten shell fell away like ash. As I tried to pry the scythe from its hardened, lifeless skull, its eyes reawakened. The fire in them renewed colour to its face, and raised it to look at me.

"I am but a vessel." It was The Unbound's voice, echoing through his messenger. "You saw my true form. Fourteen suns, Reaper. Fourteen suns." The fire of its face returned to its body and spit out my scythe. I summoned my weapon back to my hands as I braced for its attack. Its energy renewed and it leaped to crush me. I swung everything into a single blow that was met a cloud of ashes. The sabretooth demon had dematerialized itself into nothing but sparks in the wind.

Valen was busy extinguishing the fire. He seemed reluctant to not have joined the fight. I turned to see Kitava ahead of countless Ecclesians. She was wide-eyed and horror-struck.

"I... I was too late," she stuttered. "I was tired... I... I... had a nap... I saw it coming... I wasn't fast enough. Those men are dead now..." She was a statue in shock.

"This was not your fault." I grabbed her shoulders to focus on me. "Those men did their job. They are going home now. A better place, I can promise you that!"

"You... promise?" She didn't know what else to say. But she looked me in the eyes.

"I promise. But you heard him... fourteen suns. A fortnight before Armageddon. We need to prepare."
37

True Colors

To our advantage, Valen had avoided my conflict with The Unbound's messenger, and therefore, Kitava's breakdown. I decided her and I were a team now. Perhaps it was a selfish motive, considering she was now the tormented line of communication between the Unbound and I. She regained her composure that night, in time to continue a front for Valen. We three walked together back to the citadel upon the setting sun.

"It happened so fast, Grim! I truly wish I had been there to aid you." Valen attempted to convince me of his alibi. "I heard screams and then saw the burning building. I wouldn't have imagined you were combatting a demon just beyond the other end!"

"I judge you not, Valen. The demon was no match for Fella and I." I figured I would match his bullshit. He gave me a sour look as I had just fed him his own flavour.

"And, my queen, how did you arrive just in time?" Valen changed the focus of his attention.

"The medic hold was quiet. I managed to rest and thought I best be useful and help the reconstruction. Fate had it so, is all, but I am unharmed." She held her proud, unbreakable composure. He knew no better than to trust her.

"If fate will have it so, we have a fortnight to prepare Ecclesia, to test the catapults and the ballistae and prepare the soldiers for the worst." I warned.

"Men say the demon crawled up through the road to Estenia. What's to say they don't uproot within our walls?" Valen worried.

"Prepare for that, too." I shrugged. "How many soldiers does Ecclesia have?"

"A thousand strong."

"That's it?" I spat.

"That's IT?!" Now terror hit him. "What kind of assault are you expecting?"

"Armageddon... Us or them. The end of Ohm is weighed on us."

"It's weighed on you, Reaper," he scowled at me. "You came, and you brought the Devil. Not us!"

I turned and picked him up by his throat. I whipped my gauntlet and hovered my transparent hand close to his face. "I told you not to give me a reason to let this world burn, King." I teased my hand close to his face. He saw me steal the ogre's life with the same hand, and a coward he became. I dropped him to his knees and summoned the gauntlet back to my hand.

"Why?" he gasped air back to his lungs. "Why don't you let us burn?"

I looked to Kitava, and she looked to me.

"Oh no. Nuh-uh!" Valen laughed wickedly. "Typical weakness, Grim. If Kitava is your only reason to save Ohm, let us burn. She's mine."

"Valen!" She slapped him. "That's not fair! Your jealousy has no place here! More is at stake than us!"

Valen gave her a sadistic look. Instinctually, as if to a disobedient dog, he backhanded her across the face, dropping her to the ground. "You will not raise a hand to me again... Will you, darling?"

Adrenaline kicked in, and I found myself slamming Valen to the ground by the neck. "YOU! SHALL NOT! SMITE HER!" I roared, choking him.

I heard the clinking of guards running to Valen's aid. He was clearly dazed from the impact, so I turned to the oncoming guards. Four came, swords drawn. I raised my hood and stood firm before Kitava.

The first sword swung for my neck. I grabbed the blade mid-air and smashed the flat face into the guard's nose. The following came for a false sword-swing and lowered to a tackle. I simply raised my armoured knee to make contact with his head and he collapsed like a rag-doll. The third went to stab my gut. I slapped his blade aside, kicked out his legs. The final guard charged regardless of his hopelessness. I summoned the scythe to clothesline him before he even came near. All four guards lay there unconscious or dazed. What a beast, wrath can behold.

I offered Kitava a hand to rise. She flinched at the sight of my hooded emptiness. I whipped it back to let her see my face and console her. A red, swollen imprint of Valen's ring rose upon her flush cheek.

I wiped away her single angry tear and whispered in her ear: "I will protect you, I promise." She nodded and managed a small smile.

Valen rose, trying to understand all that had just happened. He saw his four guards on the ground and calmed himself, for his own sake. Kitava turned to show him the wound that he left on her face.

"Oh, gods. I'm sorry, darling." He dropped to his knees, begging forgiveness. "I am a wrathful man, I pray for your forgiveness! Thank you, Grim, for intervening. It's not every day that one is pressed against the apocalypse!" He was making excuses. He wasn't really apologizing, he was observing what I had done.

"Look, Grim. You need the faith of Ecclesia, and I only want a child." He was trying to bargain. "Let us forget this ever happened! These men will hold their tongue, hide their injuries, and you will still be revered! You need me, and clearly, I need you."

He stood and extended a hand to shake. "All I ask is to bring Kitava and I a child after we stop Armageddon." I looked to Kitava, she nodded a subtle approval. We both hated the idea, but I had to make the pact.

I shook his hand. "A child you will have."
38

Ohm Through the Devil's Eyes

I was grateful for the more pressing matters that required our attention. Word spread quickly of the demon's words. Fourteen suns swiftly passed to thirteen, twelve, ten, seven. The sun had never seemed to rise and set so fast. The nights were restless, patience grew thin, and hope dwindled.

The soldiers' sparring had accounted for many injuries, broken bones, and shattered egos. I offered to help them personally, but I was an impatient teacher. I told them to attack me. Assault after assault, I put them down, disarmed them, and left them injured. I also refused to be beaten, as The Unbound would be no more merciful.

The sands of the sparring ground had become clumped with blood over the days spent preparing. Kitava came out to watch as I was defending myself from attacks from many angles. I caught another sword mid-swing, ripped it from the soldier's hands, and smacking him in the head with his own weapon. I threw the weapon at another man's exposed chest as he raised his arms for an overhead swing. I shook my head in disappointment while they, too, left ashamed and offended.

"At least they aren't going to the medic hold." Kitava clapped slowly and sarcastically. "It's more packed in there than I have ever seen. Grim... You're strong than you think! You're crushing your own army! You're sending them in faster than I can send them out!"

I figured I'd clear the area to finally talk to her in peace. "Rest!" I called to the surrounding combatants. "The day here is done. Go test defences." About fifty men bowed respectfully and rushed away.

We watched them clunk away in their self-made armour, riddled with flaws and chinks. I leaned against the stable fence to rest and speak to my only friend in Ecclesia. The bags under her eyes drew darker each day, and the colour of her skin paled. She lit up when she saw her golden mare approaching.

"I can't sleep, Grim," she said. "Every night, I see more terrible things." She breathed in heavily and wrapped her arms around her mare's neck as it reached over the fence to her. "It's not just Ecclesia. I'm afraid to close my eyes, Grim! It's like he's waiting to show me more pain!"

"I see horrible things in places I've never seen before... Dark, bloody clouds covering everything... The dead rising in the jungle, disfigured, half-human creatures clawing at the trees. Then the trees wake up! They act like they are alive! They crush away the evil, but the dead keep rising and surround innocent animals and tear them apart... I saw a line of old trees. Then it wasn't the dead clawing at them... it was monsters of ice... and wolves made of rock! They tore away at the trees and grew vicious as the darkness loomed over them. Like the world turned against itself."

"You're only seeing the bad, Kitava."

"IT'S ALL BAD, GRIM!" She immediately felt sorry for yelling.

"No. I've seen the jungle come to life before! The living trees are called Rakau. I know because I had one rise against me. It nearly killed me... They are more capable than my brother would have shown you. He plays with fear. But none of this has yet come to pass. What else has he shown you?"

She gained some small comfort from my words. "I, uh... I saw Halaseir. I saw the queen, Despina, gathering her men against her own people. Children were armed. They had weapons drawn before the largest pyramid, where their god buried itself... When the darkness overtook them, the battle began, and their god began quaking in its grave, trying to fight its way out. They tried Valen's method of rebellion, putting children in front as a moral threat, but it didn't stop them when the darkness came..."

She didn't want to recollect her vision of the slaughter, but manage to bring herself together to continue. "And I saw the clouds cross the sea. Farther and farther north until it found a frozen land. The clouds made the people flee... parents and children all on their own horses galloping into the mountains... But the same frozen beasts and wolves of rock came down after them... A howl came from under the ground, and I saw antlered demons of bone and fiery entrails joining the chase. When the darkness overtook them, the antlered demon's fire grew more terrible, and they ripped people off their horses and fought with the other demons over their bodies." Tears welled in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Kitava. But I need to know where he makes a mistake. If he underestimates the Rakau, he's going to get more wrong. You're my way into his weakness." Thankfully, her horse was there, working wonders to keep her calm.

"I saw... the western mountains. It was just havoc, with animals running scared. Wolves gathering in incredible numbers to a much larger, smoky-eyed wolf that seemed to command them. They ran with the ogres, chasing everything they could... deer, moose, bears... horses? People were riding horses... that doesn't make sense... there are no establishments in the west."

Arenthis. "See, Kitava? Nightmares are simply not true."

"But we... we sent travellers west just over two years ago. Could they be alive? Why wouldn't they come home?"

"Would they fear Valen's wrath?"

"Yes... Yes, they would. But the west is uninhabitable... Nobody has ever come out alive before. How could they be alive so long?"

I must sway her curiosity from Aren's people. "Perhaps Ohm is protecting them, as the Rakau protect the jungle."

"So, we could go after them?" She lit up with excitement. She needed anything to distract her from her visions. "There could be other people we never knew about! New species! New homes!"

I can't take this from her. "I haven't been there yet, Kitava, but we survive another seven suns, the world is ours."

"Ours, eh?" She raised her eyebrows and turned to me.

"Ours... Everybody's." She continued staring suggestively. "Yes, Kitava, ours." I rolled my eyes. I think I know that look... "You still want to run away, don't you?"

"More than ever," She answered very quickly. "He struck me in front of you... I don't think you know how much I enjoy reminiscing about you putting him down..." She reached for the spot on her face where he had struck her. It had healed, but not in her mind.

"And what do you plan to do after Armageddon?" she asked.

I laughed out loud. "What will anybody do? Celebrate! Celebrate... and start anew, I guess." I shrugged. "Return to Heaven... but there is much I can do here."

Kitava found herself reaching for my hand. "Don't leave." She shook her head like that was the most dreadful idea. "Promise me."

"I can't..."

"Promise. Me." Now that was that was an expression I hadn't seen before. This threatening, serious, scared, hopeful face. "You think you'll work will be done. But Ohm will need a leader more than ever. Don't let it be Valen." The Divine would have me home... Of all promises in the universe, I wish I could keep this one.

"Heaven needs a hero too, Kitava," I said. "I did promise I would protect you, though. That promise, I can keep."

She nodded in understanding. "I'll take it. I can't wait for the end of the world to be over."

Six suns. Five suns.

Soldiers' morale faded. They quit sparring and decided to stockpile resources around the citadel. They wished to die with a full stomach, it seemed. Valen kept his distance from me and gave his people no initiative to fight. Rumour spread that I wished to face The Unbound and his army alone. I believe his best plan accumulated to put all the weight of the world on my shoulders and let his people watch.

The people seemed offended and doubtful when I responded otherwise, asking them to bear arms for Ecclesia. It came off as a weakness to them that I could not spoon-feed them their salvation. I walked the streets in search of some faith. The faces that had praised me now turned the other way.

Kitava's nightmares were echoing the same slaughters. She feared to close her eyes, and her body was failing herself. She told Valen it was stress-induced, but to her benefit, he spared her from his company more frequently. I still couldn't find the fault in The Unbound's visions.

Four suns. Three suns.

Two suns.

The last night.

A clear night under the stars and the world slept like any other night. Sleep wasn't an option. Fist-to-chest, I donned my armour. My mind, too, became my own enemy. I remember the demon that stood as tall as the citadel spires, the beast that set the sky on fire. Whenever I closed my eyes, I remember levitating above a burning world as The Unbound taunted me.

I clunked down the marble steps of the citadel and sought to find answers within the World Stones. The stained-glass sparkled a dim flurry of starlight down on the stones. I circled them, time and time again, trying to make sense of the inscriptions of other languages I didn't know. I tried to match my glowing blue runic symbols to anything the stones had to offer but found nothing.

I took a deep breath, sat on the bench, clasped my hands, and closed my eyes. "Oh, Divine. I know you've turned your eyes from this world, but I pray for guidance. I know you haven't brought me here to fail, as much as you have loved watching me do so."

Right on cue, Valen came crying my name. "REAPER! ANSWER ME!"

I first saw Kitava running to me in her nightgown. Blood and tears seeped from around her eyes. She met me first, wrapping her bloody hands around my chest and sobbing uncontrollably.

Valen approached, blade in hand. Guards converged from every corner. Ever man with weapon and armour was to be ready. And now, they unsheathed against me.

"WHY DO YOU TORMENT MY QUEEN?" He howled, blade pointed at me. "She nearly clawed out her eyes from your nightmares!"

Kitava cried hysterically, but protected me with her embrace, nonetheless. "The Unbound." She managed despairing words. "He cursed my belly... He kept me asleep as he made me watch myself in a mirror... as I died giving birth... over and over again!" She looked up to me to reveal the claw marks on her brow and cheeks from trying to wake up. "I felt... everything."

"What kind of God would allow this?" Valen fumed with fury.

"It's not the Reaper's fault!" She wailed at him.

"Quit protecting him, whore!"

The soldiers gasped.

She scowled at him through blood and tears. "Strong words for a man who lashes his queen." She lowered her gown to reveal the scars he had left upon her back. "Marks of a coward. Let Ecclesia know it, men. Architect Valen is a sheep in wolves clothing. A barren coward!"

The guard's blades shifted towards their king.

"STOP!" I boomed. "The Unbound would have us kill each other before he even comes... But I can see salvation."

I pointed up to the glass mosaic of Savathün. "Let him bring his demons, for we have a dragon."
39

The Billowing Storm

Armageddon will simply be a moment!" I spoke to the Ecclesians on the balcony where they had first set eyes upon me. My smoky fortress reflected heavily against the rising sun. "A moment that defines Ohm for all eternity, but it is far from an ending. It will show our resilience, our heart, our ability to hold a tomorrow.

"There is no greater darkness than he who is coming... That just means mankind will rule its own fate after The Unbound has been vanquished!"

An uproar of adrenaline hit the city like a tidal wave.

"The demons will break down our door! But your steel, my stars, and the ocean's wrath will push the Devil back into his hole! THIS DAY. WE WAKE. THE DRAGON!"

A deafening wave of hope emanated from the people. The dawn of the fourteenth sun washed over a breath of hope. That feeling that The Divine boasted as the difference that would make or break a world. And here it is, igniting my bloodstream before my people, setting the stage for the apocalypse.

I rose to the stand on the balcony rails. Arms wide, I whistled and jumped. A star-portal was cracking open for my companion beneath me. Before I hit the ground, Fella burst through the spirit realm to catch me and gallop full tilt away to the ocean. A flavorful exit to capitalize on the Ecclesians' change of faith.

I left the King and Queen simple tasks already suitable for their positions, lest they tried killing each other if not otherwise occupied. Valen was to command defences, and Kitava orchestrated hiding women and children in the citadel. Oh Divine, if you're listening, I pray King Valen dies first and slowly before his men. It will be a mercy to the fate I would bring him if he lives.

Armoured to the teeth, Fella and I raced through the west gate and aside the citadel to the docks. We arrived at the shores, taking in the smell of the saltwater and fresh air before stepping in. I was banking on my corrupted side of my soul to awake Savathün. I reminisced on my first steps, naked atop the western mountains, ruined by the Griffin. My brawl with the Ent then would have left my body mangled in the jungle. Now here, awaiting the greatest being of Ohm, hoping it will willingly fight my battle for me.

I kicked Fella forward off the beach and into the waves. Inching forward, Fella shared my nervousness.

When Fella was knee-deep in water, I called. "Savathün! Heed my call! The Unbound will rise to torment Ohm! Come, defend your home!"

We were met with silence. I dismounted into the water. Waist deep, I called upon my scythe and planted its butt into the water before me.

"Dragon!" I howled to the sea. "This is your fight, too!" I felt like a madman crying to the watery horizon. The cloudless blue sky showed nothing but serenity.

The world quaked. Not beyond me, but behind. A blood-curdling bellow erupted from beyond my view. Assuming he was good on his threats, The Unbound would be burrowing through the southern road of the Sanguine Steppes.

"DRAGON!" My lungs trembled with anticipation. Nothing.

I looked back, and there he was. The same molten giant crawling out of his hole. Lava swam inside a molten shell of armour. Higher and higher he rose. With his great spiralled horns, he met height with the citadel spires. He set his sharp demonic face ablaze, spreading the fire down his arms and into his hands. He rose his bloody double-edged battle axe over his head and spit fire into the air.

"BROTHER!" He overlooked the walls into Ecclesia. "HATH YOU ABANDONED YOUR CHILDREN?" He planted his axe into the ground and spewed dark matter up its shaft and into the sky. Black billowing clouds met the atmosphere and swallowed the light of day, spreading to each corner of the world. "COME FORTH, BROTHER. MY ARMY WILL UPROOT EVERYTHING UNTIL YOU PRESENT YOURSELF FOR SLAUGHTER!" He raised his hands, summoning forth his minions.

"Damn you then, Savathün." I spat into the sea and mounted. Back up the beach, we galloped.

"EVERY MOMENT YOU WASTE, THE SLOWER THEY SHALL BURN IN THE AFTERLIFE!" His deep, growling voice made my heart quiver. Fella spat up dirt and smoke in his wake, un-wavered by the Devil. I envy your inability to fear, Fella.

We clopped back upon the steps of the Citadel. Children cheered as Fella galloped toward The Unbound with ferocious speed. I met the wall of a thousand scared men. They silently parted for us to meet Valen affront the defences. Valen scowled at me, putting on a mean face to mask his fear. Yipping, barking and pounding on the other side of the wall.

"Brother!" I called. "I come! Lay to rest your demons and face me alone!"

Ecclesian soldiers shot me a face of hilarity. The laughable plan is all I have left.

The Unbound laughed out loud. His army cackled and hollered with him behind the walls. His fiends wanted action. His battle axe continued to seep corruption into the atmosphere.

"I may be the Devil, but I will offer you a fair deal." He smirked, leaning down to see me closer. "I gave you your Pale Horse, now I give you wings!" He snapped his fiery fingers, snapping flames across the sky. A fine light flashed through his burning sky to curl my back backwards, pain searing through my body as stardust burrowed into my spine. The stardust broke holes through the back of my smoky fortress and spread angelic wings reflecting the galaxy, silver-lined angel feathers holding the vision of the abyss of the universe within my wings. Smoke and cosmic dust drift out of the silver lining of my wings as they stretched wide on each end.

"Now, tis only fair, Reaper, that I spread my own!" The Unbound spread his arms, summoning black bones from his back that burst aflame, covering Ecclesia from end-to-end. It dripped fire on the farmlands and sparks crackled off into the billowing darkness above.

"Man the artillery," I ordered quietly to the men. I attuned myself to my wings. I saw the fire reflecting off the sharp, silver, transparent feathered edges. These, too, are weapons. The cosmic dust within my wings was expelling a spectrum of colours with the smoke and left a trail as they maneuvered.

"So, we have a pact?" I confirmed. "Leave it between brothers?"

"I grow tired of immortality, Death. May we sweeten the bargain." He uprooted his battle axe and pointed it at me. "The victor will reign supreme within the physical realm. The loser shall remain a spirit for all eternity. Agreed?"

I summoned my scythe and took flight. "Agreed!" I ascended above the gates, setting eyes upon his demonic army. Hellish molten abominations resembling animals cackled and howled upon seeing me. Each unique entity of wrath and destruction, awaiting command. Spiders as tall as Hroatian huts hissed at me. Molten gorillas with bloody teeth paced on their feet and knuckles. Innumerable sabretooth tigers flexed their claws. Ecclesia would be nothing but a memory within an hour against this horde.

I looked down to Valen and his soldiers. A silent salute is all they had to offer as Fella returned to the spirit realm. Hood raised, I let my wings carry me to my demise. With savage speed, I left a trail of cosmic dust and smoke as my dark fortress was carried weightlessly. I encircled The Unbound's wings over one shoulder and under the other. He stood patiently, offering the first blow.

I hovered beyond his face while he raised his open arms to me. "STRIKE ME!" He boomed. On his request, I soared towards his chest. I buried my scythe into his chest and dragged it across his ribcage and underneath his armpit. It spewed lava on the ground before the short time it took for it to sew itself shut. He cackled mockingly.

"My turn." He charged fire in his chest and roared out a torrent of flame. He chased me through the sky as he continued to release fire. He swung at me with his black flaming wings. I was simply a bug to be burned out of the sky with his wings, battle-axe, and scorching breath. I lost my placement as I narrowly avoided death by weaving between his flurry of strikes each second. I was boiling in my armour as I swam through his sky of fire.

I looked for his weak point between maneuvers. I doubted a brain would exist within his flaming, armoured skull if I were able to have a hollow face. Perhaps his heart... But his body was impenetrable.

He confused my trajectory and encased me in his wings and came smashing across with the flat of his axe. I became a comet soaring towards the base of the western mountains. I hit the soil with explosive force, bringing down rocks all around me. In my daze, I saw rocks slowly encasing my body against the mountain. The Unbound closed in for another torrent of flame to finalize his victory. I closed my eyes, accepting.

"RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHH!"

That was not my brother's cry. I opened my eyes to see The Unbound flinch. Through a crack between rubble, I saw The Unbound look towards the sea. I weakly pushed through the rockslide on top of me to see Savathün had come. My wings helped pick me out of my tomb to see our dragon trampling up shore past Ecclesia to barrel into The Unbound. I say our dragon loosely, as Savathün made it apparent he fights for his own home.

The Unbound braced for the dragon's charge but was toppled over simply by the great blue sea dragon. Savathün held the Devil's chest down with both webbed paws and cast out his blue flame down on the Unbound's face. It doused his fiery face, leaving a ghostly horned helm. The Unbound wrapped his flaming hands around its long neck and wrestled the dragon off.

"The terms have been broken, Death!" The Unbound growled while fighting Savathün. "Minions! Leave none alive!"

Kitava! No!

My wings burst me into flight. I left Savathün to his duel with The Devil as the citadel needed saving. I saw ballistae and catapults firing down on the charging fiends. The molten gorillas picked up the ballista bolts and leaped high over the walls, raining down their own artillery on the soldiers. The boulders from the catapults were easily avoided by the demons. Again, the gorillas tossed the cities own ammunition against themselves. The artillery was mangled within moments.

I had the privilege of watching a sabretooth demon's teeth sink its fangs into Valen's shoulder and drag him downward. He managed to pierce the demon's eye with his weapon and drop the beast dead on top of him. Valen wasn't dead yet, but he would surely bleed out.

I plummeted into the fray, slicing the head off a gorilla and slamming down on a giant spider, reducing them to ashes. I called forth Fella, bursting back through the spirit realm to pierce through the chest of a small imp demon with his helmet horns. It tossed the imp's body aside and beat away a platoon of smaller demons with its hooves.

On every side, wails of pain were cut short as Ecclesian soldiers were being slaughtered while the titans outside the walls shook the world as they exchanged blows. Savathün clubbed The Unbound across the skull and sunk his teeth into his flaming black wing, severing it from his body. Its flame diminished as it was torn from The Devil's back. The Unbound retaliated by summoning his battle-axe across the field to bury into Savathün's back. An ear-piercing squeal came from the dragon, but it would take more than that to kill it.

My attention returned to the battle before me as a team of molten humanoid demons surrounded me. As one dove at me, I used my wing as shelter from its attack, and my wing severed the beast in half.

The Unbound will regret his gift.

I became a flurry of cosmic dust and smoke, slaughtering everything within reach. My wings pushed aside a sabretooth while an uppercut of my scythe's blade sliced through its throat. A demonic gorilla tried to pry a wing off, only to be thrown back against a wall. It grabbed both wings and howled at me as I tried to swipe at it, so I pulled its arms from its torso as I spread my wings and kicked its skull off its mangled body.

The Unbound's army was dwindling, but it was rushing past the soldiers towards the citadel. They were making for the women and children.

I looked at the titans. The Unbound called lightning down from his blackish-red billowing clouds down onto Savathün. With its clap of thunder, Savathün was pushed back to the sea, barely alive. It had a gaping wound on its back and had a series of claw scraps bleeding down his neck and legs. The Unbound kicked out its hind legs as it fled and jumped over its body to stomp Savathün's head into the ground. The dragon's cries of pain were that of its last breath.

"I! AM THE ONLY DRAGON!" The Unbound howled down onto Savathün. "I will follow you into the depths and kill you in your own home!" He stomped down again once, twice, three times on Savathün's face. He jumped off and booted the dragon in the belly to flee.

Savathün weakly crawled back to shore, dipping its face into the water. Its energy rejuvenated swiftly as it rose to turn to The Unbound.

"YOUR CORRUPTION. WILL WAKE. SAAROS!" Savathün bellowed his threat as he crept back into the water. "THE WINGED HORROR. DOES NOT. FALTER!" The sea dragon retreated to the waters and turned the sea red from the blood of its wounds.

The Unbound turned to me, hovering at eye level. "You reap what you sow, brother. My minions will feast on your dead!" I looked down to see them halfway through the city to the citadel of women and children. Kitava.

"This world dies with neither I nor you!" I boasted. "Kill me!"

He prepared another mass of fire in his chest to breath upon me. It must be done. The demons are so close to her. I flew forward. My only and final plan. The Unbound opened his mouth to let loose his flame. That was my opening. Upwards I ascended, to come plummeting down into the throat of The Devil. Wings spread, scythe in hand, I dove into the fire that was rising from within him. My wings severed The Unbound from within. My scythe slid down his spine from inside as I burned alive inside my armour. I encased my body within my wings to create a cosmic bladed comet. Down and down I dove as my scythe tore him asunder.

The Unbound's fiery lungs let loose his last breath. I tore through the belly of the Devil and fell to the soil. My silver, translucent wings were seared red, along with my black fortress. But the blue glowing runes shined brightly. I lay beneath him. The fire of his single remaining black wing extinguished, and his molten body collapsed above me. He dropped to his knees as a smouldering husk. The billowing clouds above shattered like glass and the light of day broke back upon Ohm.

As The Unbound crumbled, his body deteriorated to ashes. His horned skull fell facing me, wishing to speak final words, but he was already dead. His wilting form fluttered away with the ocean breeze, soon to leave nothing but his scorch marks upon the Sanguine Steppes.

I looked at my hands, having to convince myself I was alive. I whipped off my gauntlets and felt the grass upon my skin. Fist-to-chest to switch my armour for my robe before laying back, reanimating my face to let the grass tickle my neck and feet.

KITAVA!

I sprang upward. Fist-to-chest to bring back my black fortress and wings. I soared back over the city walls to the granite steps into the citadel. I landed among a pile of ashes before the crowd of women and children. Ashes flew off their clothes as they stood there, shocked. The demons had been so close. The city burst with joy. Remaining soldiers ran past me as I stood at the bottom of the stairs. Of the thousand men I saw prepared to die, I was happy to see a large number of them returning.

The face I recognized appeared atop the stairs. Kitava stood there, a faint smile made its way to her face. Her tired expression and scraped cheeks did no damper on her beauty. She began descending slowly towards me. I had just vanquished The Devil from Ohm, but I stood there in shock.

She came to me and asked: "Valen?"

"Gone." I breathed.

She hugged my black fortress. "Get rid of this," she demanded as she remained wrapped around me.

Fist-to-chest and the robes came back. She gripped my silk with all her might and breathed in deeply. I shared the embrace.

She looked up to me. "Grim?"

"Yes?"

She held my face closer to whisper in my ear. "You promised me a child." She let go, took my hand, and lead me through the crowd to her chambers.
Epilogue

We laid there naked in her royal chambers. Kitava rested her head on my shoulder. Our time of ecstasy was well-deserved and a long time coming. I refused to move as she was finally sleeping in peace, free of fear. I played gently with her hair as the setting sun sparkled over the sea. The waves had dispersed Savathün's blood and it had returned to its light blue glory. I laid there in euphoria, almost thanking The Unbound for ridding Ecclesia from Valen.

My eyes grew heavy from my exhaustion as well, but I feared to leave this trance of bliss. I breathed slow and deeply, cherishing each second. My skin tingled with energy that made me want to shake her with joy, but I let her rest. All those subconscious thoughts that yearned for this moment made it oh, so much sweeter.

I finally let my exhaustion take hold and set myself to rest. The energy behind my eyes came forth and brought me back to Heaven, before The Divine. I was naked before him, but my wings were a part of my body here.

"I turned away and watched The Devil crawl home defeated." His radiance flickered as He spoke. "His arrogance was his own demise. He should have known my cosmic power was the bane of his fire and corruption. Nonetheless, well done, Death." His ghostly hand animated my throne of smoke beside him.

He had a calm galaxy rotating before him. He was eerily quiet.

"How fare the gifted children?" I asked.

"Xerxes grows strong." He tore open a rift to show him waddling about Yawuld. Reign and Saxi called him back and forth as he grew confident with his steps. He seemed unnaturally large for his age, but he was healthy, regardless. "The Unbound's corrupted sky nearly brought the Elementals down on them as they fled. You broke The Devil in time to spare the Viking nation. But the corruption reached far enough to turn Saaros in his tomb."

"Savathün spoke his name to The Unbound... As if Saaros is of greater power than He."

The Divine seemed uncomfortable on the matter. "When I created Ohm, I gathered beings of great influence to the ground that now stands as Ecclesia." He brought forth the world of Ohm, showing visions of his tale. "They did not know why, but they found themselves alive before the World Stones. Their affinities drew them to sectors of Ohm, each to their own.

"The jackal-faced titan, Soluna, creator of life in Estenia, claimed that land. She formed the animals of the east among the Azure Oases. But when her corrupted soul came forth, she fled to the Arid Expanse to separate the horrific creations Ahriman would bring upon Estenia from her pure creatures. When I formed man in the eastern world, Soluna welcomed them as a friend, and let them live among her pure creations of nature. Roqua will be raised among the muck and the beauty of Estenia. Everybody wishes to claim him, but all for their selfish gains. The royal child is being stolen away as we speak."

"Savathün was the only one with affinity for the waters. He claimed all bodies of the Oceans of Alamat. Savathün was bittersweet about humans and chose carefully who could safely venture his domain. The leviathans of his watery world were running rampant from The Unbound's corruption and came to face him on his own terms.

"The west claimed as Westeria by the Griffins and the Kryesor. Humanoids of nature wholly connected to the soil made family of all the beasts of the Western Mountains and the land beyond. The Griffins shared the sky with the Kryesor and flew in multiplying numbers before Saaros grew greedy. The Kryesor and Griffins agreed the humans deserved no place in their harmony with nature until you came and disrupted the balance upon your first fall. The Kyresor awoke from a millennium-long slumber and gave the nomads that are Arenthis's family a chance. They now set eyes upon that prodigal child and welcome him deep into Westeria.

"Fenyr and Noctis, the Centaur and Winged-Tiger, went south and claimed it as Sur. They have protected the Primordial Wild and the Hroatian mountains for all time and commanded it to defend itself. When mankind came forth, Noctis and Fenyr were impartial, but neither felt they were an infestation like the orcs. BoeDri has gathered many forms but remains primarily as a jaguar. As that form, she laid eyes upon corruption's influence and saw the war at the Crystal Frontier. She barely survived the rising dead and the elementals beyond the Frontier. By her own powers already, she endured and has been unknowingly stalking her human family since.

"It is beyond that frontier that the south and north meet to connect the world. Saaros's northern domain, he claimed the Nordic Realm. He set snow and ice to his green territory, and only favoured life to those who could endure his cold kingdom. Even in his tomb, his territory remains frozen, and the Elementals rise in his name to press his confines, as the Sovereign's souls are bound to Ohm."

"How would he have slain The Unbound from within a tomb?" I asked.

He collapsed the map of Ohm and renewed a rift to a vision of the past. The untouched Ecclesian land is where the Sovereign war began. Griffins lead the assault against the four-winged and six-legged dragon that is Saaros. He froze them out of the sky, shattering them to bits as they crashed to the ground. Savathün rose from the sea, tearing him down from the sky for the Kryesor to bind Saaros with great vines.

Soluna came from Estenia with her staff of sun and moon to call forth a storm to rain lightning and fire down on Saaros. It fought back his Ice that summoned his elementals as Noctis and Fenyr came from Sur to push back his frozen influence from spreading havoc to the corners of Ohm.

With all the Sovereigns combined to hold him down, Savathün ripped out Saaros's jugular with his teeth. They dragged Saaros's limp body back south past Sur into the Nordic Realm. They dug into the mountains to bury him underneath the pinnacle axis of Ohm. Soluna set an eternal blue fire to his monument above ground in spiteful, ironic memorial. They named his burial, Balgaror.

As said, his influence still fights back to Sur, so Noctis and Fenyr rose the Primordial Wild to build the Crystal Frontier that holds Saaros's influence from spreading even after death.

The Divine collapsed the vision upon its ending. "The land that the Sovereign War was fought upon became a neutral ground for the humans to build their own kingdom." The Divine declared: "You are now the Sovereign of the Neutral Kingdom. The other Sovereigns are free to treat your presence as they feel necessary. You will not be promised peace."

I took a heavy breath, letting it all in. I looked at my magnificent wings. "At least I am supreme in my own domain." I tried to joke, shaking off the idea that my work was far from over.

"Death." The Divine hummed a dread tone. "That remains to be seen." He opened another rift before us, showing Kitava asleep as she was on my shoulder, although I was no longer there.

"I... I don't understand..."

He shifted the view to the medic hold. The sun had set, and the hold was filled with soldiers moaning in agony. I didn't understand what The Divine was showing me until it came into view.

King Valen was at rest. He had deep gouge marks from the sabretooth demon in his chest, armpit, and back from its teeth. Another deep claw would spread from his other shoulder and up his neck. They were grievous injuries, but he would recover. NO!

"You promised him a child, Reaper." The Divine sounded sympathetic towards me. "You made a promise, and a God must keep them. You put your seed into Kitava, and he will praise it, unknowing he remains barren. With your promise, you gave him right to raise the child, unrestricted of your presence."

The vision returned to the sleeping queen, Kitava. Tears welled in my eyes as I roared in sorrow. "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I summoned my scythe and sent it through my bare chest to pierce my heart to end the pain. It stuck through my skin, turning transparent and I felt no pain in heaven. I pulled it out and looked again at my glorious wings with bitterness. I fell from my throne, cursing myself.

"You're immortal now, Death." He put his ghostly hand on my shoulder. "Reaper, you're going to have a daughter."

TO BE CONTINUED....
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About the Author

Diagnosed at a young age with leukemia, Remmy Stourac underwent multiple heart procedures and blood transfusions and successfully overcame it. During these times and afterwards, Remmy and his siblings were able to spend a week every summer at Kids Cancer Camp of Alberta where survivors get to live a sense of normalcy which most kids going through these battles don't usually receive. From the age of 7 until his sixteenth birthday, Remmy made countless memories and friendships with other fellow cancer survivors and turned bad stories and battle scars into their most endearing qualities. After all the years he attended, he dedicated the next two summers to Cancer Camp as a Leader in an attempt to give back to the place that supported him and so many like no other place could.

After his time at camp, Remmy began working as a Big Game Horseback Hunting Guide alongside his two older brothers. Remmy found himself spending three summers in the isolated wilderness of the Northwest Territories. This opportunity made him miss Cancer Camp for the first time in 13 years. But during this time of isolation, Remmy created a world in his head and sought to invite anyone with a sense of adventure to dive into his world. Now, with his new platform of creativity, 10% of all profits of Remmy's writing will be donated to Kids Cancer Care Camp of Alberta in hope to spread awareness and continue providing an opportunity to the current and future generations of childhood survivors.

