Ral flung himself towards the side of the building, desperate to gain some distance from the onslaught. He used every ounce of power, everything he could remember from Somas training to be as fast as possible. The stillness. The power.

But his Solute was far from still. It writhed and squirmed and lashed around as he fought to run from the Unseeing monsters, their blank, eyeless faces glaring at him despite not having eyes. Long malformed hands grabbed his ankle and flung him down from the wall he tried to scale and his world spun as he hit the ground painfully. His arms moved on instinct to protect, to find a way out, to power his way through -

Ral nearly missed the sickening sound of metal through flesh. He turned to see the Unseeing closest to him had a long metal tip of a spear poking through its smooth white face. He quickly kicked it aside and found that he had an opening to roll away from the screeching mass of too-white flesh but then was met with another blade in his face. The whimpering cries of dying Unseeing filled the street.

Three men easily killed off the Unseeing. They were all dressed neutrally, none of them giving any indication of background or affiliation. Behind one of them stood Kentor who looked terrified out of his mind while both hands clutched at the fabric at the front of his tunic.

“We can’t have the Solaris die a dog’s death,” the man standing in front of Kentor said.

“Just kill him and be done with it, Helaf,” Kentor said, his voice shaking. “We don’t need to - ”

“It all needs to be done in our god’s glory,” the stranger named Helaf interrupted. “Especially this one.”

“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Ral said. He tried to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. The two other strangers that had easily disposed of the Unseeing moved to clear the street further down. Ral watched, stunned, as they did it as easily as spearing fish on land. The monsters almost seemed like they couldn’t sense their presence or react to them.

“Our god sees all,” Helaf said. “And she has seen you. She knows what you can do, she knows what you have done.”

“Can she see that piece of shit behind you is a backstabbing worm?” Ral stood, wincing at his sore shoulder.

“No hard feelings, sir,” Kentor said. “Just doing my job.”

“His duty was to bring you before us, before her.”

“Was that why you were in the middle of the Ivassk desert?” Ral asked the merchant. “To seek me out?”

“It was holy intervention that led you to him,” Helaf said. Ral cast him an irritated look.

Stolen story; please report.

“Does this guy speak on your behalf now?” Ral said, pointedly speaking to Kentor. “From what I recall you pride yourself in being able to talk your way out of everything.”

Kentor swallowed, clutching the front of his tunic harder. “There are… some things you can’t negotiate your way out of,” he said in a thin voice. “I suppose that’s my last lesson for you, as a merchant.”

The other two men finished clearing the street of the Unseeing. One of them halted at the end while the other gestured at Helaf.

“You people are responsible for this happening,” Ral said.

“The Gate opens in our god’s glory,” Helaf replied. Ral was quickly growing tired of his religious non-replies.

“Did you open the Gate back in the desert?”

“We needed to prove you are the antithesis,” Helaf said. “And you readily did it.”

Ral’s mind raced. The antithesis. The Wisdom had spouted similar words during his manic rants - it was how Bette translated the Yscian words. The child that appeared in between time and who taught him how to close the Gate - the Part called Ankle. Was that the god? Impossible, they wanted Ral to close Gates. They wanted him to remember how.

Was it possible that Helaf and his men worked for a different Part, one that played antagonist to Ankle? Did this other Part know that Ankle taught him how to close a Gate and now wanted to eliminate him?

If that was the case… Ral burst forward and tried to reach for Helaf’s extended weapon by the hilt, deflecting the blade with his arm. An armed opponent against the defenseless was usually the most cocky and prone to mistakes. However Ral’s grip on the man’s hand faltered and Helaf was able to easily sidestep and elbow him in the face, hard.

Bright lights flashed in his vision as he hit the floor. The tip of Helaf’s sword returned close to his face. “We are protected, Solaris,” Helaf said. “Your manus abilities will not work on us.”

Was he really so weak without the help of the Great Solvent? His nose was starting to bleed, even if the blow didn’t break it. Eyes narrowed in pain, he glanced over at Kentor again who still clutched at the front of his tunic. Ral thought he could see the slight outline of something small and blocky underneath the fabric.

A talisman?

“You can die here painfully and pathetically,” Helaf said, the tip of his sword drifting closer to Ral’s neck. “Or you can come with us and fulfill your destiny. It’s your choice.”

Ral wanted to laugh: if it was his destiny, he wouldn’t have a choice. It would have all been planned by this ‘god’ Helaf’s been rambling about. All of this would have been willed to existence. “Is it ever my destiny to have people betray me?” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Did you god purposely make me gullible?”

He looked up at Kentor and saw an expression of sheepishness cross over the merchant’s face. Ral supposed that was the closest to an apology he was going to get.

“Perhaps you can go ask our god yourself,” Helaf said. He sounded amused. Ral swung his gaze back at him.

“How?”

“She wishes to see your end, Solaris, and we are not to deny her. Get up and start walking.”