"It was perverse of you to create a race of beings that so often angers and disgusts you."

  "You're not thinking this through, my friend. Unless we'd made them into divine beings themselves, they can't help but mostly disappoint us, can they?" Carvahal raised his eyebrows. "If your little scheme to remake your world had ever gotten far enough, you would have learned a lot of things about trying to run your creation. I don't think you would have much liked it."

  The lich gazed back at him, as blank as a closed door.

  "Excuse me," said a muffled voice. "I didn't want to interrupt. But might I be let out for a moment?"

  Carvahal got a puzzled, searching look on his face. Dante reached into his pocket and brought out the light of life. It hovered in the air, completely indifferent to the alien jungle of Yent that surrounded them.

  Carvahal's mouth fell open. "You're still alive?!"

  "Am I?" the light said.

  "You were always alive, light. Just because you don't have any flesh and blood doesn't mean you don't have a soul."

  "Then why wouldn't Arawn ever tell me that?"

  Carvahal got a funny look on his face. "I think he meant for it to come as a surprise to you. Something you would only know for certain when you died, making it a consolation—maybe even a reward—for your service." He shrugged. "Or maybe he's just a bastard who doesn't want anyone but him to ever be truly sure of their position in life."

  "You don't need to say such mean things about him."

  "You would if you knew him. What are you doing here?"

  "I was created to help save mortal life. I suppose I did that. But now I want to see if it even meant anything in the end."

  "Your thoughts are awfully dark for someone so glowy. Whatever comes of this, you did your duty and you did it well."

  The light dimmed briefly. If it had anything more to say, it was preempted by the arrival of Kelen, who appeared from around a tree and stopped dead in his tracks.

  "Who," he said, "is that?"

  "One with the strength to kill what you cannot," said the lich.

  "We're about to return to Pholos," Dante said. "I doubt we still need a guide at this point. But you're also a sorcerer, and we could use all the help we can get. Care to go back with us?"

  "That's just what I wanted to see you about." Annoyed though he sounded with Dante, Kelen didn't take his eyes off the lich. "Weren't you listening to anything I ever told you? I want Olastar destroyed with all my heart. I haven't come this far just to be left behind when it's finally about to happen."

  "We've already promised the White Lich that we'll have Wessen make him a portal so he can escape the collapse. Wessen might not be able to make another one for you. If you come with us, you might not be able to get home."

  "Home? I haven't had a home since the day the Olastarians attacked Etis. Once they found me, they never would have stopped coming back until I was dead. They most likely would have killed everyone else in Etis as well, just for associating with me. The only way to save my people was to give up my home—the last one I had."

  "You could always come to ours."

  Kelen shook his head. "No, I think I'll come back here. I was trapped in Gharadain for so long. Just seeing this forest has given me a taste for doing some wandering to see more of what creation holds. Maralda has already promised me to act as my guide until I've grown used to this place. If I ever get tired of it, I'll move on to another region. They say there's no end to this world, you know."

  Dante hadn't known that, and wanted to ask more, but he supposed it wasn't about to much matter what other worlds were like. "The offer stands if you change your mind."

  "We're not going to have much time for that, are we? Besides, wherever I go I will be happy, as long as I've got two things. One, the knowledge that the people I left behind in Etis are now safe forever. And second, the memory of watching with my own eyes as Olastar and the dalaxa system burn to ashes."

  "All right, you've convinced me. Well. Is there anything left, then?"

  "Only goodbyes," Carvahal said. "Which we've already said more than once in recent days. This time, it's different though, isn't it?"

  "Because whether we live or die, this time we're sure we'll never see each other again."

  "If it's any consolation, nearly every other mortal who ever lived never got to see us at all. But I know that's not what you mean: as soon as you step through that portal, this era is over."

  "It makes me wonder if there still isn't some other way," Dante said. "Something we've overlooked. Something we don't know about."

  Carvahal looked off into the trees, then back at him. "It's probably a little late for such questions."

  "Is it? We've still got more than four full days left. You said so yourself." He waited for a response, but the god said nothing. "Yes, I know, you don't ever intervene, except when you do. But if there was another way, you'd tell us, wouldn't you? Rather than lose us forever?"

  "Such questions grow impertinent, Dante Galand."

  "What does that matter now? You don't have to do anything. Just tell me if there's any other way."

  "You want me to tell you that you're making the right choice."

  "Would it be so hard?"

  Carvahal gave him a long look. The god's eyes shimmered silver, as unreadable as a mirror. "If you emerge from this alive, you'll have a lifetime left to figure out for yourself if this was the greatest mistake of your life."

  Blays put his hand on Dante's shoulder. "It's time."

  "I know," Dante said. "All right."

  "Oh, by the way," Blays said to Carvahal. "That was the greatest duel I'll ever be part of."

  Carvahal snorted. "I doubt you'd be saying that if you'd lost."

  "But I didn't."

  "Yet I don't think you'd care to go best two out of three, either."

  "Sure. Just one condition."

  Carvahal's eyebrow twitched up. "That being?"

  "You have to tell me whether you let me win the first time."

  The god laughed, warm and welcome. "No need. I didn't let you win."

  "I knew it!"

  Carvahal turned serious. "But that doesn't mean some deeper force didn't intervene on your behalf. Even I don't know the answer to that."

  "Well, if you ever run into this deeper force of yours, tell it I said thanks."

  "What about you, stretch?" Carvahal said to Gladdic. "Any last questions?"

  "I have no questions," Gladdic said. "But there is one thing I wish to say. Should you choose to try again, and make more of us in a new and unspoiled world, make us more noble."

  "More noble?"

  "Only a small amount more is all it would take. But you have watched us for more than long enough to know we need it more than anything else."

  "I will make that known." Carvahal looked across them. "Well."

  "There is one last thing," said the lich.

  "How did I know you'd have a catch?"

  "Should we succeed, you may well be seeing more of me in the future. I hope you will remember and appreciate the aid I will have provided your friends."

  "Ah. So at last we arrive at the real reason you're involved."

  The lich shook his head. "I am here for my brother. No more and no less. But I will still have my just rewards."

  Carvahal nodded slightly. "It will be remembered—whether it's a success or a failure." He drew back his shoulders. "I find myself reluctant to say goodbye. You are perhaps the most interesting of your kind I've ever known. Enough to make me look at this as nothing but a great tragedy, even if Taim is right that the corruption of the heavens meant your souls could no longer live eternally in the way they were always meant to. But if you do this, you'll be free of us, won't you? You'll never have to fear us again. You'll be able to live however you like, by your own laws and rules, with nothing to get in your way but yourselves."

  "I'm not sure that's for the better, in the end," Dante said. "Goodbye, Carvahal."

  "Goodbye. It's been fun, hasn't it?"

  Dante nodded. Their arrival in Yent had been somewhat tumultuous, but as soon as things had settled down, he'd noticed a second portal some thirty feet away through the trees, which he now headed to. When he reached it, he took one last look behind him, back at the god who had first brought the spark of fire and creativity down to humans, and who had now given them the chance to fight back against their total destruction.

  And Arawn had done the same in the past, hadn't he? When he'd granted the light of life to Bade and his brother? Surely there'd been other times before, events they'd probably never know about now. In another few minutes, the gods might not ever be able to try to destroy them again—but the gods would never be able to save them again, either.

  He knew, then, what his next task must be. It wasn't one he wanted, and it would likely last the rest of his life: establishing an order dedicated to ensuring that no sorcerer, whether through malice or incompetence, could ever threaten humanity again. Just the thought of trying to create such a venture made him grit his teeth.

  But he had more pressing problems at the moment, didn't he.

  He spent another few seconds looking at Carvahal. Then he stepped through the portal.

  The tunnel swallowed him up. Each step down it felt like wading through chest-deep blood. The others had all followed behind him, even the lich, but he felt terribly alone. More than anything, he wanted to go back. He couldn't even say what for, if Carvahal had been willing to step in he would certainly be doing so now, but even knowing there was nothing left for him back there, it took every speck of his will to keep moving forward, one step at a time, then the next, then the next. Until, after a minute that felt like an hour, he stood before the doorway at the end of the tunnel.

  He wanted to go back. But there was no going back, and there never would be. He stepped into the portal, and out into a storm hellacious enough to maim a god.

  31

  It was a miracle they weren't all killed on the spot. They surely would have been, if not for the giant boulder hanging right in front of the portal—a boulder that hadn't been there when they'd last seen the place.

  Dante yelled out and threw himself at it, an awkward maneuver, given that he'd just emerged into empty space and the only thing he had to push off from was the portal itself. But it was just enough to get him to the boulder, and he grabbed hold of it and yelled some more as flaming rocks streaked across the sky.

  Blays emerged from the doorway and uttered a shriek Dante would have laughed at if he wasn't so busy hurling nether at fist-sized stones trailing fire behind them. Gladdic ran into Blays from behind, helping knock Blays into the cover of the boulder but leaving Gladdic, and then Kelen, hanging in mid-air. Blays braced himself, got the rod from his belt, and extended it to them. Gladdic grabbed hold of it and Kelen grabbed hold of him and Blays pulled them to the shelter of the boulder.

  Rocks banged into it steadily, sharp, painfully loud cracks that made Dante wince every time. The upside to them being on fire was that it made it much easier to spot them and judge in a snap which ones might actually hit them. They were moving extremely fast, though, and even with the streaks of fire helping him to gauge their trajectories, it was almost as tough as knocking down arrows mid-flight. He missed them a lot more often than he hit them, requiring him to send a swarm of nether at each one.

  The lich materialized from the portal. He must have hit it at a good stride because his momentum sent him straight toward the boulder. Dante rolled out of the way as the lich all but crashed into the surface.

  This distracted Dante just long enough for one of the flaming stones to fly right at them. He, Gladdic, and the lich flung their powers at it at the same time. It burst apart, but small shards of it, still on fire, sprayed across them, thumping into chests and limbs, leaving cloaks smoldering. A second rock streaked in behind the first. They caught it further out, enduring only a few pieces of burning detritus.

  The lich snarled. "Have we fallen into an ambush?"

  "This is just what it's like here!" Dante had to yell over the hisses and slams of the rocks. "We have to jump back through the portal until the storm abates!"

  "There is no need." The lich lifted his right hand. A sheet of something transparent and blue-white sprung into being in front of them. It looked like ice, but when a fiery rock crashed into it a second later, it didn't so much as crack. Ether of some kind.

  "Never saw you use this one against us," Blays said.

  "There was no need for that either. My own body is stronger than this ward."

  The lich extended the shield on all sides and then bent its edges toward the rock until they were sealed inside it. As rocks continued to smash against it, Dante thought it might still be a better idea to go back through the portal, but he supposed even the short jump would expose them to the risk of floating off in the wrong direction or getting smacked with a stray rock. And then they'd reexpose themselves all over again whenever they came to check if it had stopped yet.

  After a few minutes, a particularly large, loud, and startling impact crunched a web of cracks in the shield directly above the lich's face. Wordlessly, he swept his hand across it, mending it. When the same thing happened again less than five minutes later, the lich grunted, smoothed it over, and added another layer of the ethereal shield beneath the first.

  Sometime later Dante's skin began to tingle. His head thudded and he soothed it with the nether but the ache returned a minute later. How much longer was the stupid damn storm going to last? Even with the rocks pounding into things all around them, he felt like going to sleep.

  "Oh," he said. "Hey lich. Bade. Whatever you call yourself. I know you might not have to breathe, but we're mortals here. Mind opening a few holes in this thing? Small ones?"

  The lich said nothing, but lifted his hand and expanded some small vents along the edges of the shield. Dante very quickly felt better.

  "Kelen," he said after another while. "Any idea how long these things normally go on for?"

  "You should be thankful we stepped into the aftermath and not the storm itself," Kelen said. "This phase should only last a few hours. But the worst of them can go on for days."

  "Days? If this goes on for longer than we have time left, I don't know what we're supposed to do. Die in an apocalypse, I guess."

  He wished he'd thought to bring some flies with him to take a look around. As it was, he had almost nothing to do besides lie there on the boulder and wait. He felt out through the nether. What he found disturbed him like going on a morning walk and stumbling over a corpse. The shadows themselves were hiding, tucked away in the cracks and crannies of the substrate.

  If it had ended up going on for days, the constant, irregular, jarring thunder would surely have driven him mad. Even several hours would have been grueling to endure. Just as he was about to suggest the lich extend a cylindrical shield out to the portal so they could go wait out the storm in peace, the rock strikes grew less incessant. There had been lulls in the storm before, but within a few minutes the clamor of it all dimmed to a fraction of its peak. Soon, the remainder stopped altogether, as sudden as blowing out a candle.

  Dante's ears rang in the silence of the aftermath. He pushed himself up to take a look around, but the ethereal shield was just opaque enough that, combined with the general darkness of Pholos, he couldn't make out anything beyond it.

  Blays cocked his head. "What's that sound?"

  "It has been going on since we first got here," Gladdic said. "It is the sound of sobbing."

  Dante wanted to pull down the shield then and there, but held out for another couple of minutes. "All right, I think it's safe to bring down the shield. But stay ready."

  The lich closed his hand. The ethereal shield faded and then winked away. The portal hung across from them, completely untroubled by the chaos of the last hour. Smoke hung in tatters across the sky. Gobs of indistinct gray matter were scattered everywhere, but all of them were punched through with holes, and smoldering steadily, in a way that suggested they would soon burn down to nothing.

  They couldn't see the onas anywhere, though the boulder was blocking half their view. With no other options, they decided to climb up the rock and then down the other side, something that seemed potentially daunting, given that good hand- and footholds were in short supply. But Blays picked out a trail of sorts, and they followed it one by one toward the far side of the boulder.

  All the while, low, wretched sobbing drifted toward them. It made Dante wish he could close his ears. Strange, to feel pity and embarrassment for a god. Then again, Wessen was the only god he wouldn't change places with.

  Blays stopped at the top of the boulder. Dante stood beside him. Across from them, Wessen hung from his chains, head bent. Wisps of smoke rose from his clothes and hair as blood dripped from countless wounds. Some had already started to heal, but it would be the work of some time before they were all gone—except, of course, for the ones where the chains pierced him, which never healed.

  His shoulders bounced as he cried to himself, lolling his head from side to side. Dante's sense of embarrassment intensified. It felt wrong to be watching him, almost spying on him, when he was in such a state, and Dante found himself at a total loss as to how to open the conversation.

  "Get away from me." The god's voice was thick and wet and he didn't lift his head.

  "I am…sorry to intrude," Dante said across the empty space between them. "But we've returned."

  "Returners always do. You can scare them off, threaten them, do all you like as many times as you like. But they will always return. Creeping about in the dark. Their little eyes watching you."

  "I didn't mean to do any sneaking. We arrived on the other side of this rock. We weren't hiding, it was just coincidence."

  "I put that rock there. I remember that. But why would I do that?"

  "To protect us? Because you knew the storm was coming?"

 

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