Winds rushed past as I sprinted through the blurred countryside. My human body could barely qualify as human after the changes I made to it to facilitate my current speed. The flesh was taut, smooth, and angled to reduce wind resistance while I decreased the bone density in exchange for flexibility. My muscles were compact and highly efficient; heavier muscles may have generated more power for motion but they would have put too much strain on the lighter bones. The lower half of my body had experienced an overhaul of sorts. The legs had been extended becoming long and slender with key reinforcements at the knees and ankles for stress tolerance. And these were only the most overt changes. Countless years of experimentation with fleshcraft had yielded many insights into how best to shift my human vessel toward certain ends.

Using this particular combination of alterations, I achieved speeds over fifty kilometers per hour, a paltry velocity by modern standards but practically inconceivable in that period of human development.

I neared my destination within two days by sprinting nonstop but found an unpleasant surprise before I arrived. Dozens of corpses littered a field, their bodies scattered about haphazardly. The first hundred meters or so of dead had been burned beyond all recognition. The area itself hadn’t fared much better. Scorch marks and churned earth occupied most of the once green pasture. The only hint at what had caused the massacre was the faint smell of ozone in the air.

I slowed down to investigate.

As I walked among the dead, I sensed the souls of the dead lingering at the Boundary, malice, and pain radiating from their ethereal forms. They moaned and screeched impotently while I made my way over their corpses. I inspected each one in passing and noted a common factor. Every one of these soon-to-be revenants had been a child of my companions or the descendant of one. All bore the Bridge structure within their spectral bodies. Idly, I wondered if they could use magic after death and resolved to find the answer in the future.

Are her children having some type of conflict or did she do this? I was more inclined to believe the former rather than the latter but I couldn’t be certain. For all her generosity and sentimentality, my companion hadn’t been above bouts of wrath and pettiness.

I passed the last scorched corpse and saw even more bodies, some buried, some bloated like the drowned, and still others unmarred by any visible injury. The answer behind the carnage became clear; this had been done by three distinct individuals.

A quick scan of the Astral revealed no nearby signatures of note, unsurprising given the age of those responsible. Their mother had likely taught them how to hide their presence within the Astral which would hide them from my astral senses. Given that I didn’t see them anywhere between my current position and the giant stone circle a couple of kilometers in the distance, I deduced they possessed enough mastery to hide from mundane senses as well. To anyone else, it would’ve been a complete mystery but I recognized the remnants of mana from magic drifting through the air like one might recognize a familiar scent.

I had learned from my time grooming kings that small details such as that often led to the downfall of great men; ironic as it might be. I stopped at the edge of the killing field, just before the green grass continued unmolested.

“Enlil, Enki, Utu. Reveal yourselves or I will do it for you,” I said to the seemingly empty pasture.

“She said you would come,” said the familiar voice of my companion’s firstborn. “I had hoped she would be wrong.”

Three men shimmered into existence in front of me. I touched upon the dispersing mana and felt a pang of admiration.

“Impressive. You show prodigious control for your age,” I said.

Utu had been bending the light around himself, Enlil, and Enki to hide their presence. Enlil had also manipulated the wind to hide their scents but using mana to distort and control light was a much more difficult and impressive feat. Among the many aspects of the Physical one could manipulate using mana, light was, and still is, one of the most challenging. Although I could replicate it easily enough, I preferred placing passing subtle compulsions on myself to trick the senses of those who I wished to deceive because that method used less mana. Still, the trick signaled at the progress the god had made since the day he’d failed at sealing my magic with his astral chains.

“I appreciate your kind words,” Utu said, a faint smile upon his lips. “I hope we can resolve this meeting more civilly than our last.”

Each god wore attire from a different land though I knew them all. In line with the early Greeks, Enlil was adorned in a simple length of fabric wrapped over his lower body and secured at the shoulder by a pin. A thick girdle around his abdomen held the garment to his body. In contrast, Utu barely wore any clothing. A simple, if well made, loincloth and finely threaded cape were his only attire hinting at his time spent in Egypt; it’s a wonder we hadn’t crossed paths. Lastly, Enki dressed in a woolen tunic styled after the fashion trends of Ur.

“That would please me as well,” I said. “To that end, you need only step aside.”

“It is not so simple,” Enlil said. He stepped forward heading the trio and extended a hand. “I too wish to avoid violence but there are conditions to your passage.”

“I take it those unfortunate people failed to meet your conditions.” I waved a hand at the corpses littering the ground behind me. My creation had worn down my patience for humoring the “conditions” of mortals. It was Enki who responded to my minor provocation though not in the way I expected.

“Our brothers and sisters chose self-interest and vanity over our mother’s will and the good of all. It is a pity they could not see beyond themselves,” he said. He shook his head. “All of this death will only bring mother sadness.”

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Unlike the others, his body had aged significantly in the millennia and a half since I had last seen him. His once-strong features had grown wrinkled and his dark hair had greyed to the color of sone and the eyes that so long ago regarded me with arrogance spoke of wisdom, a change one could hear in the calm of his voice.

I reconsidered the three after hearing Enki’s words. “Speak your conditions and I will consider them.”

“There are two,” Enlil said holding out his hands. “First, you will swear a covenant with me to not disturb our mother’s physical body or ritual in any way. Second, you allow Utu to place a seal on your physical form which will disperse your divine spark and prevent the transfer of any additional power from the beyond.”

“Why bother with the second condition when the first would suffice?” I asked.

Covenants were a powerful form of binding magic that required the willing participation of two or more individuals and imprinted the mana of the participants onto each other to form a pact. Gods and sorcerers often used covenants with each other and their favored servants to assure a mutually beneficial arrangement since the consequences for breaking one were especially severe. I had never been a part of one because I saw no creature but my companion as my peer and thus, none deserved a pact in which I too would be bound.

Enlil chuckled. “I may be young in comparison to you, old master, but I am not so foolish as to believe a covenant beyond your ability to outmaneuver or even break if you have access to your full strength.”

As he suspected, I had several ideas on how I could potentially defeat a covenant but none would be possible without access to mana. I couldn’t siphon the lingering ambient mana either due to the dispersal effect of the seal. In theory, I could’ve manipulated the mana externally to perform any magic necessary but the caliber of my opposition made that impossible. They were hidden from my astral senses so I couldn’t obtain an accurate reading on their power; however, I was certain that I stood before the most formidable humans of the age.

I cursed my lack of foresight. I had underestimated human capabilities with magic, a stubborn habit of mine. I should’ve developed a way to circumvent concealment structures within the Astral. They were too problematic without some sort of countermeasure and if I could create them, others of my kind could and likely had as well. Even with the threat of the others in the back of my mind, I still made assumptions based on my long-standing place as one of only two dominant entities in my Astral sector and the Old World. Had I been properly prepared for this eventuality, I could penetrate the concealment of the three mortals and deal with them swiftly in the Astral. As it stood, I was stuck with a confrontation in the Physical or agreeing to their conditions.

I scowled. “Those are very steep conditions. Why does a ritual centered around infusing the world with power require such stringent conditions on my part and provoke such bloodshed against your own?”

I knew from my creation’s memories that my companion planned on performing a ritual similar to those she used during childbirth. The idea was to connect the world itself to the Astral and thus, infuse it with mana. It was an interesting idea yet I knew such a ritual would tax her enormously. Additionally, her secrecy and self-enforced isolation had evoked a sense of dread within me that I couldn’t shake.

Enki closed his eyes and sighed while Utu shook his head, a sad look in his eyes. Enlil regarded me silently for a few seconds before he spoke.

“The ritual is more than that. She does not intend to simply infuse the earth with her divine spark. She intends to bring her true form from the beyond into the physical realm and bind it to the world’s very framework.”

“But that would…,” I stopped as the ramifications of what he said truly settled. “Is that even possible?”

“It is not only possible; it is happening as we speak,” Utu said. “Yet the process is all-consuming and arduous for her. Hence, we stand guard over her.”

I shook my head. “‘All-consuming? So you realize what you are allowing her to do? Do you fools understand what this means?”

“We are aware,” Enki said. His eyes were half-lidded as they met mine. “She will cease to be as she is now. Her true form will flow into the earth and she will become one with the world.”

Enlil added, “We also know the divine power that flows from her true form in the beyond will cease. It will likely take hundreds of years for her divine power to acclimate to its new vessel and during that time, many of our brothers and sisters will be powerless. Many will perish.”

“Then why?” I had a small amount of respect for my companion’s firstborn since he had always shown himself to be rational, talented, and aware of the consequences of his actions even at a young age. So, I couldn’t help but wonder what reasoning provoked such an extreme measure.

“Mother is confident the long-term benefits to humanity will be worth the short-term costs. Many of my brethren may die without the divine spark to fuel their extended lives and still, others will die because they lack the capability of navigating the world without their divinity. However, I have been around for a long time and humans have shown themselves to be nothing if not adaptable. Some will survive. I will teach those I can how to produce their own divine spark as I have with my two brothers.” He gestured to Enki and Utu as he finished.

“And what about her? Are you content to have her perish?” I asked my companion’s three favored sons, feeling a rising tide of anger within. Alongside the rage, the tight feeling from earlier continued to build bring with it fear and doubt. I ran through every bit of knowledge I had and kept coming to the same conclusion.

My companion would disappear from the Astral and the entity bound to the world after the ritual wouldn’t be her.

I could only speculate what binding an astral being to the Physical would do but I feared for the worst. Astral beings existed by the merit of their structures. The number, type, and complexity of the structures within their astral bodies determined their personalities as much as they did their maturity and power. No matter how optimistic I tried to be, I knew that my companion couldn’t transfer her astral body wholesale to the Physical. She would have to be selective about what transferred based on the stability of the structure and its need for mana. She would likely convert the rest of her structures into mana to fuel herself while she acclimated. In other words, this ritual would change her, perhaps irrevocably, and we would be forever separated by the Boundary.

“She asked this of us,” Enki said. “And we will honor her by seeing it through.”

I tried at that moment to distance myself from the situation, to think rationally. I failed. I couldn’t let her go. For all my harsh words and efficiency, I couldn’t lose someone I’d been tied to for my entire, long life.

I couldn’t be alone.

“This is madness,” I growled, my body shifting and mana surging. “I will not allow it.”

The ground began to shake as Enki said, “This is her will and you will not stand in her way.”

“I am sorry, mother,” Utu whispered closing his eyes. Behind his head, a large golden disc formed radiating the intense light.

“I am sorry it came to this,” Enlil said. His eyes crackled with lightning and the sky began to darken.

I said nothing but when I moved, all chaos broke loose.