The Father blurred, and a spear of divine light with a black core was ripped from him, shooting down to the mortal plane and landing on the summit of the Coldest Mountain.
“What have you done?”
“You know, this almost happened to me once. I was certainly concerned for a moment, I can tell you. But seeing it happen to you is actually quite cathartic,” Casovan replied.
The Father seized the bond between him and his champion, snarling as he sunk his fingers into the beam of light, trying to rip it apart. Divine light shredded away, but the black core would not break.
“Oh you can’t cut him off now, the bond is under the control of one of the archdeamons, I suspect, and you know how powerful their pacts are—based on the same binding as the champions pledge.”
“Everything we have built, you would lose it all.”
“You know, we were quite content down there until you came along. I should think that we will be just fine.”
The beam of light flickered as it was transferred down to the abyssal plane. The white light faded, and the thick spar of abyssal power pulsed as it traveled up to the divine realm. The tendrils of abyssal power reached for the struggling Father, who burned bright in his rage, a white flame burning against the black. But even as he burned, the abyss seemed to feed on his power, devouring it and becoming stronger. Finally, only one red eye stared out from the black mass, until it too was enveloped, and then the Father was gone. The followers of the Father, Mother, and Brother looked around aimlessly, and one by one they began to disappear.
“I thought that there would at least have been a clap of thunder or something,” Casovan mused.
The shimmering white city began to fade out of existence, and Casovan considered how he might rebuild his own kingdom of the Prior. Perhaps a great mountain? Old habits were hard to break, and there was something undeniably godlike about a mountaintop.
First, though, he had to deal with the threats to his reign as top god on Parthenea. Carefully examining the air in front of the Father's throne, he delicately picked apart the divine threads that had secured the portal closed, revealing the subterranean chamber the Father had shown him.
Torchlight cast flickering shadows over the torture rack that looked as though it saw regular and enthusiastic use. Books and implements of the arcane littered the workbench, all no doubt priceless to any unscrupulous archanist with ambitions of becoming a proper bastard.
But it was the case that he had come for. He wouldn’t be able to touch it himself; perhaps the girl could retrieve it? No, not her; she would likely use it to further humiliate him. Let it rest here until he found a new champion. Unable to resist the urge, he flicked open the case and found. Nothing.
Casovan turned and looked down the length of a white sword that was pointed at him. Most blades could be said to whisper threats of pain, wounding, or even death, but this blade rang with the silence of infinite nothingness. Where it cut, things simply ceased to exist.
“Looking for this?”
The woman was small for a human, with short blond hair that was cut ruler-straight at the shoulders. She held the blade rock steady, radiating an honest promise that Casovan’s death would come long before her own.
“The Faelen champion, I presume?” Casovan said.
“That’s right,” Athir replied.
“I suppose Konrad sent you, all a part of his little plan,” Casovan said.
“Did it work?”
“The Father’s gone, if that’s what you mean.”
The normal human reaction would be to smile, but this particular woman just gave a business-like nod.
“This is mine now. There’s to be no more champions, you hear? Make sure you tell the others.” The woman glared at Casovan, and he backed slowly away, fading back into the divine realm.
Gods shouldn’t sweat, especially the old gods of the cold, who generally give a handshake that makes people shiver, but Casovan was sweating now as he collapsed into the Fathers recently vacated throne.
“Don’t even think about it, if anyone gets the big chair, its me,” Avram said.
“Did you know that Konrad was going to do that?” Casovan demanded, pointing down at the coldest mountain.
“I had no idea, which I suppose was largely the point of the whole operation,” Avram replied.
“Where’s Lyran? I’ll bet she knew all about it, they were always far too close,” Casovan asked, peering over the edge and looking down on the mortal realm.
“Lyran’s gone. She inhabited and drained everything she had; my guess is she didn’t have enough left to make it back out.”
“You were there?”
"Well, in a manner of speaking,” Avram said carefully.
“Don’t tell me you inhabited the dog.”
“Its a shadow hound. And I don’t see anything wrong with it, I was integral to the success of the fight.”
Casovan threw open a window, and looked out upon the the bowl shaped caldera of the Volcano. The Lyran tree had fallen down and crushed a deep scar in the forest. The twisted limbs were grey and rotted and the pool had dried up.
“So now it’s just you and I? Wonderful,”
“There will be more Puregods, we could stay here, guide them perhaps,” Avram suggested.
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Casovan recalled the terrible blond woman and suppressed a shudder. “No, I’m not going to put a target on my back; look what they did to the Father. I’m going back down.”
“Back to being the Prior?”
“As if that’s going well! To be honest, I haven’t even received a single spark of power from them for weeks, I think the whole movement is over.”
The two old gods winked out of existence, leaving the divine plane empty.
There was a sound like two sheets of paper being rubbed together, and a portly man wearing a brown robe tied in the middle with a length of rope wandered onto the plateau. His feet were sandalled, and his hair was curiously shaved on top, leaving a crown of hair around his head.
He knew he was the Prior, but he didn’t know how he knew that. He peered over at the mortal realm as several followers appeared and bowed to him, then several more, then more again until thousands of figures made of white light looked to him in expectation.
The Prior observed the empty divine realm. He didn’t know where he was; he didn’t really know anything much, except that some things were important: purity, piousness, a good, honest life, and that someone called the Father was a basturd.
He looked down at the mortal realm, seeing the threads of greed, dishonesty, and sinful lives.
“Well, we had better get started then, hadn’t we?” he said.
----------------------------------------
“I need to speak to Otto and Athir,” Konrad said.
There was no reply from his companions, and he saw that the world around him had frozen in time. Sprit was all that moved on the mountaintop; Rolo and Igni were statues behind him, leaning on each other for support.
In the stillness, the padding of small feet drew Konrad’s attention.
“Hello Konrad.” The waif wore a broad smile, and his attention was focused on Konrad for the first time.
Spirit padded over, and the waif gave her a gentle scratch under the chin.
“You can talk?” Konrad asked.
“I was gone for a long time. But I’m back now.”
The waifs' strange behavior suddenly fell into place. “You chose madness to hide from the gods.”
“Specifically, to hide you, Konrad. The only way to do that was to integrate myself into your fate so closely that when I descended into madness, the shroud it created covered you as well. Of course that meant that you were hidden from me and I was hidden from myself, if that makes any sense.”
“You’re the one who planned all this.”
“A long time ago, when the Echo was new, I saw a strand of fate that was so small and fine that the chances of it coming true were infinitesimal. The whole universe was against it, and if others were aware of it, then they would play with it, nudge it, and weave it, and it would have even less chance to become reality.”
“You’re talking about the gods, the Father and the others.”
“They exist to play with the fate of the mortal world, which in itself was not much of a problem until they had champions. The mortals they linked to their divine power gave them the ability to shape fate well beyond what was considered natural or balanced, and it brought oppression and misery to the mortal realm.”
“Why me?”
“You mean, why not a strong champion of the gods with powers that place him among the most powerful of all mortals? A champion who could complete quests, save lives, and restore balance to the world?” The waif asked with a knowing smile.
Konrad knew he had done all of those things, but the description of himself didn’t seem to fit.
“But you couldn’t have known I would meet Serena, Rolo, Athir, Briarstone or Renau. You couldn’t have known I would have Spirit with me. None of this would have happened without them.”
“You are correct. You see, when I found the thread, I waited, hiding it until I found someone who was generous, loyal, and had faith.”
“I’m not religious.”
“Faith in people, Konrad. You believe in people, and that in turn makes people believe in themselves. No one person could have done this alone, it was to big of a fate for one person, far to easy to read. You needed to trust others to help you, sharing the burden and keeping the threads of fate distant.”
“But you helped me; you opened doorways; you saved me on the coldest mountain.”
“Your brother will know better than anyone that madness can be bargained with. It is, however, unpredictable. There was more I wish I could have done to ease your suffering. But all in all, everything worked out.”
“But the plan I had, how could you have known that I would meet Rhendra and Persecus?”
“All I knew was that this thread ended with the Father being removed from existence. I just stopped the others from manipulating it. The how was always up to you.”
“What do I do now?”
“I’m afraid you cannot continue to be a champion; those days are over.”
Konrad felt the fresh pain of Lyran’s sacrifice gnawing at his heart.
“Do you know if Lyran is okay?”
“I do not know for sure. My guess is that she is lost—less than the speck of whatever we were when we first knew ourselves. I am sorry.”
With Lyran gone, he was bound to three small gods now, and the time had come to be rid of them. “I’m ready to be cut off.”
“Then come with me; don’t worry about your friends; they will be fine here.”
“I’ll come, but first, can you tell me who you are?”
“When the world was young, the Faelen worshiped a flower that only grows in darkness and shines a weak light. As a symbol, it gave hope that those who were lost would find their way home. If consumed, it guided lost minds back to sanity.”
“You’re the god of hope?”
“Much smaller than that I'm afraid. I'm the last hope, the god of lost causes.”
The small Faelen god pulled open a window to the red land of the Echo, and Konrad stepped through to find Athir and Yroh sitting with the Faelen Queen. The Lady had a white sword across her knees, and the three were talking animatedly. It struck Konrad that he had never really seen Athir at ease before, laughing and chatting.
“The sound is gone,” Konrad said.
“She tried to hide what she was doing from the fates, but she is inextricably linked to this place, and her madness invaded everything.” The Faelen god watched the Lady with deep sadness. “She is only part divine, a quirk of belief among the Faelen that gives her only limited access to the fates. She did what she could, but she will never comprehend the vastness of the threads.
“Why are they trapped here? I thought that when the Father was gone, they would be free?”
“There are other enemies that stand in the way of the Faelen being free. Another lost cause, but one that will be saved perhaps, in time. I will leave you now, it’s unlikely that we’ll meet again, but you may count yourself among the greatest of the Faelen champions, and I would give you the gift of my ancient power. Even when you are cut off, you will still retain some of it.”
Konrad gaped at the small god, the thought of an ancient power of the Faelen generating a creeping excitement that made his heart beat faster.
“When you encounter a heart that is forlorn of hope, you can inspire them to continue, even when all seems lost. You have a natural aptitude for this already, and so the effect will be all the more powerful.”
The ancient powers of the other small gods crouched at the back of Konrad’s mind, but this one nestled in his chest, close to his heart.
The Faelen god disappeared, and Athir, Yroh, and the Lady got to their feet.
“Konrad, you have done a great service to the Faelen, and you are welcome here anytime. Athir, come back to me when you are done,” the Lady said, and she and Yroh walked arm in arm into the half-imagined castle.
“So are you going to finally tell me what is going on in here? How do you even know them?” Konrad asked.
Athir led Konrad over to a plateau that looked out over the Fallow Plains. She explained about Ostred and her adoptive family, the gateways, and the sword. As she spoke, Hendra alighted on her shoulder and hooted gently.
“Why can’t the Faelen leave here?” Konrad asked.
“Now that the Father’s gone, that story will come next. There are still powerful enemies who want to keep the Faelen from returning. But it’s not your story Konrad, or mine. The age of champions is over.”
“I don’t want to be a champion anymore, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to being cut off. I saw what Otto and Issie went through.”
“There was always another way to sever the connection; that's what this was really made for.”
Athir drew the white sword and reached behind her head, seeming to delicately take something invisible in her hand. With a flick of the sword, she cut through the air and breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s it?” Konrad asked.
“That’s it. Are you ready to be the last champion of small gods?”