It was the middle of the night, but he was too anxious to sleep.

How long would it be before he heard back?

His neck ached, so he turned to lie on his other side... but that did not help. Of course, it didn’t.

Jack coughed and glanced at his wristpad.

The doctor had sent him another message warning that, without treatment, his organs would soon start to shut down, one after the other. It would be a painful and lethal process.

The pain was already there, though.

How much worse could it get?

He decided to lie on his back, maybe that would help.

Staring at the ceiling, he thought back to the day he had first heard of the Zendaar.

Why did people call them gods, he had wondered?

“Because they are immortal, wassab,” had been the recurring response.

This had puzzled him.

How could anyone be immortal?

The human body was not meant to live forever.

“Ah, but they are not human, wassab.”

Not human? What were they, then?

“They are the Zendaar. They are gods.”

It was a vicious circle, but one that took him down paths of hope.

His sickness had only recently been diagnosed. There was no cure for it, he’d been told, but he’d have a few more years in front of him. He should take that time to do all the things he’d always wanted to do, to see all the people who mattered to him, and to say his goodbyes—to them, to the world.

But he was not ready to say his goodbyes.

He had refused to accept any of it and had continued to live his life as if nothing unusual had happened.

After all, he wasn’t feeling bad. There was just an occasional pain at the back of his neck. But it got worse in the months that followed.

With a cough, he turned again to lie on his stomach.

He had then thought back to those stories of immortality. Could there be some truth to them?

As a historian, he had access to all the largest libraries—both physical and virtual. Though the only literature he found on the Zendaar was confined to Qojja. They were unknown in the rest of the Weld. He had found that odd.

And the few texts he’d found were quite sparse in details, as if the writers had been wary of saying too much.

But it had been sufficient to convince him there had to be some truth behind the myth.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The most damning evidence had been the pictures.

He had found some of the same faces in recent books as in documents dating back as far as two thousand years.

A sharp thud made him pause in his thoughts.

Had he imagined it?

He pulled himself up and listened carefully.

It was quiet. The only sound he could hear was the distant snore of the boy, who was deep asleep in the room across from his.

As he was about to lie back down, he heard something again. It was different, now. More like footsteps. From someone trying to be quiet.

As silently as possible, he pulled the sheets off of him and got out of bed. He did not turn the lights on—he would make do with the beams of the moon.

Ear glued to the door, he waited. The sound was very clear now, and unmistakable. The steps moved away from him, down the hall, toward the office...

The mask!

His heart beat faster.

He looked around the room for something he could use as a weapon. His eyes stopped on a metal bar near the window. It was the old curtain’s railing that had been removed though not yet discarded. He grabbed it, then slowly opened the door and peered into the hall.

The thief’s silhouette was within sight for barely a second before it disappeared into the office.

How did they find us? he wondered as he tiptoed down the hall and positioned himself against the wall. The thief would have to come back out through here, as the room had no other exit—not even windows—and he would be ready for him.

Victor must have been followed after dropping off that last message...

There were shuffling sounds from within as the thief rummaged through the office, looking for the mask. It wouldn’t take long as Jack hadn’t bothered to hide it. He had not expected anyone to come for it like this—let alone to know where to find him... He would have to be more careful in the future.

The sounds of searching stopped. There were a few seconds of silence, then the footsteps approached.

He lifted the bar in the air, ready to strike.

When the head popped out of the doorframe, he brought down his improvised weapon as hard as he could.

The thief tried to dive out of the way but could not completely escape the blow. It missed his head but hit his shoulder instead. The man howled.

The prowler dropped the bag he held so he could jump at Jack, trying to grab his throat and strangle him.

Jack kicked at the other’s stomach and managed to break free. He lifted the bar and hit the man on the back multiple times.

The thief yelped, stood, and ran away just as Victor came out of his room, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

The man went past him, and out the door that had been left ajar.

Jack rushed to the bag and looked inside.

He sighed with relief as he grabbed the mask and pulled it out.

***

People marched in the streets, requesting all foreigners be thrown off the planet. The gods were angry. They would not stop raining destruction upon them until the impious were banished. Too long had they tolerated their blasphemous presence.

Evken watched from the window of his room, on the second floor of the Zendaar’s manor in Joqqal. His expression was one of distaste.

As if his people could have done anything like this! They were not gods, of course. He knew that, as did all his kin. But too many of them profited from the credulity of humans. It served them to be perceived in this fashion. But they could not control the elements... Only the Suryi could.

Still, all these recent events were troubling. Qojja had never known so many disasters in such a short time.

With a sigh, he returned to his desk and reread the historian’s message.

The price the man asked for had caught him by surprise.

He wanted immortality.

Arnett had no idea what he was wishing for.

Let alone the cost that came attached with it.

It was not so simple.

He had not yet responded, because, truthfully, how was he supposed to answer?

Under any normal circumstances, it would have been a flat “no.” There was no way they would have turned some random person just because they demanded it.

But this, of course, was not a normal circumstance. If this man refused any other form of payment, then Evken would not get the mask. And most likely Arnett would find some other Zendaar willing to give him what he was asking for—perhaps, even, he’d go back to Valkan.

That thought made him wince.

No, he could not let the mask fall into anyone else’s hands. It was too precious an item. And the only way they could wake the Suryi. Perhaps that was why those disasters were occurring? Maybe it was a message to him, letting him know he should pay whatever price was necessary, because only the Suryi could stop the elements, and appease the world’s pains.

“Very well, then,” he said to himself. “We shall set up a meeting and take things from there.”

He brought out paper and pen, and began to write his response.