Ray awoke to the sound of shouting. He sat up and realized that he had slept on the ground next to the fire. His face was full of dirt, and his head pounded from all the alcohol the night before, made all the worse by the noise.

Whoever was shouting had drawn a crowd around the monument. Ray struggled to his feet and wobbled toward the commotion. Pushing through people, he found Algemeth and a slender woman with four white wings standing amid the stone swords. The elegant, form-hugging dress she wore was a stark contrast to his rough armor.

“Whatever happened on the moon base, Lian, it wasn’t any of us!” Algemeth yelled, throwing up his hands.

The woman thrust her finger at him. “Well, someone did.”

“So you destroyed a city based on assumptions?”

Lianandra looked around at the crowd and smiled kindly, calming herself a little, before returning her focus back to Algemeth. “What else was I to think? You have been aligned against me from the very beginning. Don’t deny it.”

“We against you? Tell me who was it that created the eidolon behind our backs? And you’ve been toying with the dervanni since the moment you found out they existed!” Algemeth growled. “I have every right to hold something against you.”

She snorted. “Hold all you want! You three talk, but I have yet to see you take any action.”

A dark aura surrounded Algemeth. His face turned grim and he clenched his fists. Locking eyes with the goddess, he punched the stone blade that represented her sword in the monument, and her jaw dropped.

“Now you have,” he said and started walking out of the sword circle. The crowd backed away from the monument ahead of him.

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The stone sword that he had punched creaked. It began to sway outward, away from the other swords, the stone base cracking and splintering as the two pieces ground together. The top portion fell over the cliff and landed on the side of the mountain with a crash that rumbled in Ray’s feet and filled the air with dust, and birds.

“What! What did you do?” Lianandra shrieked.

“What do you care?” Algemeth shouted over his shoulder. “You never liked it to begin with.”

He left her there dumbfounded in the crowd, staring at what remained of her portion of the monument.

Ray’s nerves were a bundle of steel after what he had just witnessed. He chased after Algemeth and caught up with him in the dirt parking lot where he had first arrived.

“So that is it?”

“That is it,” said the god. He turned and placed a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Remember, we will make it through this.”

The god’s assurance comforted Ray a little, but it did nothing for the nervous knot in his stomach about what was coming.

Algemeth stepped back and held out his arms. They transformed into wings wider than any bird’s with long brown feathers that brushed the ground. He nodded to Ray, then rocketed into the air without flapping.

Ray watched him soar toward the horizon, and the moment Algemeth was out of sight, Ray bolted into the museum. It was time for him to make a change; Algemeth had convinced him to do something with his life. He tore off his name tag and slammed it and his copy of the museum’s keys on the counter in front of Tom, who was reading a magazine.

“Stop doing that, man!” Tom shouted, having been startled again.

“I quit.” Ray turned and strutted toward the exit with a bounce in his step. He was done wasting his life working a mundane job. He was going to follow after his creator.

“Wait, what? Ray, wait! Don’t leave me here alone, man!”

“Sorry, Tom, but I’ve got a war to fight.”