In the silence that followed, there was honesty. All the prayers and dancing and prostrations, the ululations, the reaching for joy, all of it broke open in the darkness like something overripe. Fear was all that was left. Breathless. Waiting.

Because this was the deal, wasn’t it? You give the gods your all. You give them your soul. Access to your innermost parts. Your hopes and dreams, the things you don’t dare tell anyone about, the things you feel in silences, the space between accolades. So that in the dark, when there is nothing, you have something left to wield. When the universe curdles and turns against you, there’s supposed to be that promise that the milk will be returned unsoured, that you’ll get another chance. Divinity is the human weapon against the cosmos, the last haven before the void presses you out of existence.

Well, here it was. The void. It had presented itself rather gently, in fact. Just a quick blowing out of the lights. And there it was. Everything the Gods had tried to hold at bay. The darkness. The fear. It was a blade magmatic, made darker than obscurity.

And then one light ignited.

And of course it was the goddamn Shadowmaster standing under its white brilliance. It was, in fact, the cleanest light she’d seen while she was down here. She had not, in fact, seen a clean white light since she’d fallen down after Naomi Studdard’s school. She’d seen lights in gold, lights in green and blue and red and every other color these people could think of. She’d even expected a theatrically spooky purple out of this guy. But it was just pure white. Not cold. Not warm. Just light.

“And here we have a conclave I was not invited to.” Said the man with Alex West’s face, using Alex’s voice. Hawk had to clench her fists to keep from screaming or crying. Indifference, she screamed at her own weeping self. If you’re going to survive, it’s through indifference. Do not care. Don’t you dare. And her heart was still bleeding.

“Gods come here. Not their opposite.” Nasheth said, soft as dreaming. “This could have been a trap for all you know.”

“With your children crashing through the underbrush and your rough hands shaking all the flowers to bits?” His voice seemed to come from everywhere. Hawk thought she’d caught glimpses of him in a few places…places that were too far for a single human to reach. One side of the tent, than the other side. His voice seemed to move with the images. And yet he still stood beneath his own light.

“Your mirage is not frightening,” Nasheth said. Then, louder, “And none who hear it fear your threat.”

His voice seemed to come from just behind Hawk’s shoulder. “Truly?”

She turned, and heard every single body in the tent turn as well, plus a few shrieks and one case of hysterics that had to be dragged from the darkened tent. And still there was a globe of light in the center of the tent, as full of flash and glory as any star, with the hated (beloved, her heart whispered) figure. This continued until the tent was silent once more.

Then the shadows beneath the light seemed to turn, and there he was, standing as your average man, average build, lithe and handsome in a horrible way. His eyes were, again, not Alex’s eyes. They were golden, and they had the horrible inhuman irises, violet fingers with eloquent digits and terrifying claws at the end. His face was Alex’s, but now she allowed herself to look her fill, for there were sharp and clear differences. This was a much leaner man, far hungrier and sharper. His garb was militant and ragged. It still had its own elegance, despite its ragged hems. He seemed to wear gloves at first. Then Hawk remembered, that deep purple tone was his skin.

“And yet I scent fear at the sound of my voice. You’d have to actually kill a few of your followers to get that much out of them.”

His words came with a low and hollow growl, something that wound through every bone. And though his voice was not raised, everyone heard it clearly. A trick, Hawk thought, that was far more impressive than any booming shout on Nasheth’s part.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I am adored.”

“I don’t care.” He shook his head and smiled like a madman, exposing very sharp teeth.

And then he was gone, and there was a sound like scales and silk moving through the crowd, a hush of thick pelts and muffled footfalls. It was pure predatory rush, and if it was absent hunger that only meant the lithe-footed thing around her had come for its own sport.

“Besides. Enough of your lot has thrown in with me in the past, haven’t they?” And he was sitting on the dias suddenly, under another bloom of perfect light. She wanted to bask, not in his aura and magnificence, but the purity of that light. It made everything here look like…well, exactly what it was. Lichen, writ large, growing up the walls and floor of a miserable hole.

Which, Hawk thought, was why he was playing with it.

“Yes. Liars. Cheats. Murderers.”

“Says the story you tell,” whispered the Shadowmaster, and then both he and his cold-light vanished again. “And you forgot the criminal. You forgot the crook. The orphan who has been shut of every door. The whore who wants one more meal. Which makes me the patron of the hungry and the desperate, the forgotten and the lost.”

And then he was back in the middle of the room “And We do this every time. I scare a few people, maybe kill a few if you’ve not had a glut of blood already. So I thought, why not mix it up. I want the outsiders. You give them to me, and I go away.”

Silence. A few people started to stumble towards the exits. And then Nasheth moved a hand…and snapped.

The power that slammed through the pavilion felt like the bones of the earth had risen up, black with the rust of decay, flush with the pulse of life pushing up and up with green and life, down and out with root and worm. It cabled, it toiled, and it poured up from Nasheth in a tangle of green, root like aural spikes. It was just like the Event Horizon they had passed through two days, two minutes, and an eternity ago, and it hit the very edge of the crowd, which had already broken and begun to run at the first sign of green light. It crashed over these fleeing bodies, oceanic, flooding all in the will of Nasheth. And there came a terrible creaking and groaning, a most horrible convergence of living and not, and where there had been a line of fleeing people were now a boundary of trees. But terrible trees, with trunks twisted in mid-run, branches out-flung limb-like and reaching, spread like fingers now bound as leaf and twig. Roots were torn from the earth as a final movement ripped them free, only to hang, poised, as little more than living wood.

“See their devotion!” Cried Nasheth.

“Yes. You can kill a large number of people very quickly. So can I.” Shadow said.

“Well, let’s see you fight this!” Shouted Argon, and he swung his war-hammer over his head. Fire burst to life on its head, metal aglow down its full length. He slammed it down, hard, into the ground and a wave of fire exploded into vibrant existence as it sped across the pavilion to where the Shadowmaster stood. And the man with Alex’s face did not even furrow his brow. He merely nodded, as if to himself, and stepped back. The fire started to pass him, and he reached out a hand and caught it.

He caught it like a bird, and ran his free hand down the growing ball, as if he were stroking carnelian feathers. The fire-ball shaped itself to answer, becoming something like a radiant pea-hen. And it was a bird, no rabbit-amalgamation here. Each feather was clear, sharp as starlight, and in Shadows hands tuned from a most oppressive and hot red to a star-bright blue, fire at its hottest and best. And then he let it go, and allowed the fire-beast he had just shaped to sweep around the room. It did, once and once only, its aqua-hot feathers lighting all the once-human trees on fire.

“They still lived, you monstrous thing!” Shouted Nasheth.

“If you call that life, you’re a fool. And far be it from me to call the Mother of all Gods something so base and ignoble.” His hand was still extended, following the track of the firebird. Now it flew back to his violet-black hand, horrible claws extended to meet the talons of his own creation. The fire seemed to nest, the bird-shape collapsing in as he swallowed what was left of Argan’s fire. “You call yourselves the Master of Earth and the Master of Fire. Shall Air and Water test their strength? Or will you give me what I want?”

“Your creatures gather at the edge of the flame. They don’t dare enter sacred ground.” Nasheth said.

Hawk watched this display breathless, but a gentle hand on hers drew her attention down. The Light Archon released her wrist. “In a moment, this show will turn deadly. There will be a hole in the fence—”

“You’re going to call that fucking genocide a fence—” Em said.

“—and we will take it. That is our last chance to escape the procession and you will take it.” The Light Archon hissed, and grabbed Em by the shoulder. “So tell your friends, and let’s go.”