Julian Gerrets, Chief Steward and Domestic of Nyamar, ran as fast as he could. Four of the elder liches were hot on his tail. Julian knew he couldn’t beat them, and the Nine Fingers soldiers had no chance of escaping if the elder liches stayed. He ran south, leading the elder liches away from the estate.

He glanced over his shoulder as he ran. To his surprise, the elder liches were no longer in sight.

They’re still there, a feminine voice said in Julian’s head.

I know, Julian thought back.

Splice with me, Julian; I’ll show you where they hide.

I only have one veralumite stone left, Julian responded inwardly.

Julian, enforcers ahead!

Julian furrowed his brow. Ahead, three enforcers pushed a younger female crop around and laughed as she stumbled, trying to stay on her feet. A crop that young was uncommon here.

Maybe she had been shipped in from Calacray? Julian shook his head. Wherever she came from, she wasn’t just a crop. She didn’t belong to Rahashel. None of them did.

“Hey!” Julian barked at the men as he approached. He was exhausted. He had burned away too much Waarheid on his run.

The enforcers looked at him, startled. The lead enforcer wore a top hat, no doubt to accommodate his short stature. The second had long, greasy hair and a sharp chin. The Final enforcer had an athletic build and a droopy handlebar mustache.

“I’m with Nine Fingers. I’m here to destroy Court Rahashel,” he announced as he held his hands to his side, in a display of submission. “You don’t have my permission to hurt or touch me.”

So many rules, he thought as the enforcers turned their attention to him, the young crop suddenly forgotten.

One of them reached for a set of manacles dangling from his belt.

Julian couldn’t initiate combat with them. They were human and had a degree of the master’s divinity within them. Each living person had an Iola, a spiritual shield that protected all people against harmful Waarheid manipulation. If they acted against him with any ill will, their Iola would drop to him.

Julian glanced over his shoulder in worry. The elder liches should have been here.

“No permission to touch you? We’ll see about that,” the lead enforcer with a top hat said as he grabbed Julian’s wrist.

Perfect, Julian thought. He could see the enforcer’s Iola drop. It was like a faint yellow radiance in his eyes suddenly going dull.

Julian pulled himself out of the enforcer’s grasp. He got a hand on the man’s chest, and he drew in as much Waarheid as he could in one breath.

The enforcer cried out; his face grew pale. The enforcer wouldn’t know what was happening to him. It would feel like he had suddenly grown exhausted or sick.

Julian had made the connection. He leaped away, waving his arms in a flowing, beckoning motion. Yellow vaporous light whiffed off of the man as it flowed into Julian. Only Julian could see it. Julian’s exhaustion melted away, and his tired muscles reknit with renewed vigor as he melded with the man’s Waarheid.

“Hey!” the greasy haired enforcer cried as he drew a pistol. His Iola was still up, and Julian couldn’t touch his Waarheid. As the man leveled his pistol at Julian, a faint surfing ripple emanated from the weapon.

A surfing ripple worked like a radar. If anything out of place happened, it sent a wave that Julian could feel and move with. Violence set off the strongest surfing waves like a stone thrown into water. The harder you throw it, the bigger the splash.

Julian felt the ripple more than he saw it, but when it hit him, he went with it, and the ripple pushed him to the side ever so slightly.

The man pulled the trigger, and the wave intensified, rolling Julian just out of the way as the bullet shot past him.

That enforcer’s Iola drooped.

Julian used some of his newly taken Waarheid and leaped in with angelic grace. He got his hand on the second man and drew a fresh breath of Waarheid.

The second man fell to his knees and threw up.

Julian danced away, keeping his hands moving as he pulled a few additional wisps of Waarheid from the man.

“Ahhh!” the final enforcer bellowed as he swung a metal baton at Julian. His arm sent the same ripple of surfing energy. It extended from his weapon and arm and out towards Julian.

Julian didn’t block the strike. He let the surfing wave roll him, stepped aside, and got a hand on the baton.

Because the enforcer had tried to brain Julian, his Iola had dropped in the process. Julian swung in, lifted the man on his hip, and threw the enforcer over his shoulder, drawing in a large breath of Waarheid as he did so.

The heavily mustached man flew almost to the other side of the road before tumbling head over heels. He slid to a stop, unconscious.

With a cry of alarm, top hat and greasy hair turned and ran on shaky legs.

Julian smiled. He felt fresh and ready. The Waarheid he had taken from the three enforcers was enough to refuel his run. He might even have enough to find the liches.

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Ready to splice? Julian asked.

I’m ready, Julian.

Julian slammed his hand into the cobblestone and poured Waarheid into the ground. A wave rippled out from his hand in a ring that extended in all directions. He became one with the ground, the buildings, and everything else that touched them within a few city blocks.

He fused with fifteen crops, seeing through their eyes and feeling their feelings. He merged with the two enforcers as they fled. A few streets away, he became a pair of ghouls silently watching. He spliced with the buildings; they felt decayed and rotted.

Julian smiled when he found them. He could see and feel them. He knew where they were, but they wouldn’t know he knew.

He fused with the cat-headed Bastet, who was looking down at him from behind the chimney. He could see his back through her eyes. Sobek, with his crocodile head and golden club, lay in wait for him around the next building. Horus, their falcon-headed leader, peered at him from behind a deserted wagon back the way he came. And Montu, the bull-headed general with his mighty khopesh, reared up behind the door just to Julian’s left.

Julian gasped as he opened his eyes and threw himself back. The door exploded under Montu’s horns. The early warning ripple of surfing energy almost seemed to push him out of the way, but not fast enough.

Montu plowed into Julian, not taking him head-on, but one of his horns gorged Julian painfully in the side. Julian cried out in pain and fumbled to draw his sword despite the horn. He slammed more of his fleeting Waarheid to quickly turn on the horn and strike down.

Julian cleaved the horn in two with a two-handed strike. He bit into his tongue as the horn plunged deeper with the motion.

Montu bellowed, and Julian flew away from him, the bull lich’s horn still in his side.

Bastet leaped from the roof with feline grace. Her eyes gleamed victoriously as she arched towards him, both hand sickles drawn.

Julian had known where she was and twisted in the air to face her with a painful smile on his lips.

Her wide cat eyes twisted into surprise.

Julian let go of his sword as he sailed through the air and clapped his hands together, pressurizing Waarheid between them. Julian added a little bit of his own Waarheid into it as he expended all of the light he had taken from the enforcers.

A pulse could be sent like a wave, throwing everything away in a wide area, or it could be condensed to affect a smaller area with more force.

Julian opened a gap in his clasped hands, and a green luminescent pulse to the size of a brick flashed from his hand and hit her between the breasts.

Bastet screamed as the Waarheid shot through her, blowing her lungs from her chest, and they both hit the ground at the same time.

Julian spat a mouth full of blood before climbing to his feet. He scooped up his sword and used it as a crutch, point down on the road.

The high steward saw stars, his legs trembled, and his face felt tight. He was going into shock. He had put a dangerous amount of Waarheid into that pulse. If he used up all of his Waarheid, he would die.

Julian! The female voice cried in his head. You’re hurt!

Julian wiped his forehead, leaving behind a streak of blood. He turned to see Montu bellowing at the sky, hands clapping on the stub where his horn used to be. Smoke poured out of the horn's stump, which seemed to be growing back inch by inch.

Julian grabbed the horn in his side and grunted in pain as he pulled it out. Blood poured freely from his wound, and he staggered to his knees.

Bastet croaked on the ground, and smoke poured from her chest and back with every breath, like a factory smokestack.

Julian, use your veralumite!

Using his final veralumite stone was the second to last thing Julian wanted to do. The last thing he wanted to do was die.

He reached into a pocket and produced a green glowing shard of crystal almost the size of his fist.

Montu stamped his heel into the ground and pumped himself on the chest with a fist. His horn had regrown.

Horus and Sobek approached from their hiding places.

Bastet gasped as the last of the smoke left her. Her already revealing gown had a new hole torn in the chest, with blood soaking most of the remaining white fabric up top.

“You knew I was there!” she panted as she picked herself up. “How?”

“Go to Desh,” Julian grunted.

Bastet’s eyes flickered to the glowing, translucent stone in his hand. “I’ve seen minerals like that before,” she said. “In the basement of your temple. What does it do?”

Julian looked around, quickly searching for a means of escape. He was surrounded.

Use your last stone! a familiar maternal voice cried. Get out of here! You have more back at camp; what are you waiting for?

Julian squeezed the stone, and it started to melt. Liquid green light ran down his arm and worked its way into his skin. He felt the buzz of Waarheid vibrating within him—not the tiny sips he got from the enforcers, but a flow of light many hundred times what they each held. He didn’t let it heal the bleeding hole on his side yet.

“You’ve defiled Nyamar’s house and murdered his children. You’ll face his wrath!” Julian warned.

Horus laughed his high, raspy laugh. “Let’s take you back to Rahashel. He’d like to take you apart.”

The stone shrunk until Julian’s hand could close around it.

Can you find me a way out of here? Julian thought.

Yes. It will take much of your remaining Waarheid.

He squared his shoulders. Do it.

“I’m going to go now,” Julian said out loud. He didn’t hold the Waarheid from the bleeding hole in his side. It briefly flashed with a green light, and Julian felt the power vibration replace the pain. The green light died to reveal flawless new skin in place of the wound.

“What’s he doing?” Horus asked; he must have noticed the liquid, like light green tinted luminescent water melding off of the veralumite running down his arm. “Stop him!” the elder liches charged him.

Julian slammed his hand into the ground. A wave rippled out as he spliced with everyone and everything. This time, the domestic poured in much more Waarheid. He spliced with everything for several miles, searching for the best way out. Waarheid roared from him into the earth. He became one with every stone, tree building, every beast that touched the ground, and every person. Hundreds of crops, dozens of enforcers, and thousands of ghouls. He saw them all at once and comprehended them all.

He gasped as he became Peter Kroon, moving from street to street looking for something. He also became Anubis, the Jackal-headed lich stalking Peter from a distance.

“Peter!” he cried as he returned to his mind. He had left himself vulnerable for only a fraction of a second. The liches closed in on him. Montu leveled his head in a bull charge.

Julian stood; he still had a fair portion of his veralumite’s Waarheid. I’m going to try something dangerous. Will you help me?

Of course, Julian.

Julian poured Waarheid into his sword. Runes and symbols of green light etched themselves on the metal.

Julian slashed the blade through the air in front of him, and the air rippled from a cut in space itself. A matching tear appeared in the air twenty feet above him.

Montu bellowed from behind the shimmering air as he lunged towards Julian.

Julian stepped into the breach in the air and disappeared.

He was suddenly not on the ground but falling from the tear in the air twenty feet above the elder liches.

Montu stumbled as his prey disappeared. Julian controlled the direction of his fall, aiming for the lich, bringing his blade down with both hands. This time, he didn’t have a horn in his side. This time, he sheared through the bull’s neck.

Montu ran several more steps before toppling over.

“Montu!” Horus cried.

Now run!

Julian looked further south. What are you doing this far south, Peter? You were supposed to run away! You’re no match for Anubis.

Julian! The female voice sounded frantic.

He shot down the road, bounding in Waarheid-enforced strides. I have one more thing to do.