Kalmar
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God of Death, Prince of Astral Fires
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Roog
Kalmar stood upon the shore of the Hunter’s Eye, and threw a stone out to sea. He watched it skip four times before sinking. Wordlessly, he continued walking. He had returned to check on Fenris. It had been weeks since the creature lost its eye, and he needed to ensure that the wolf had actually recovered.
He came upon the site where Fenris had first clashed with Vakk’s beast. Traces of blood still stained the sand, and in the midst of it was a massive eye, scratched and half-crushed. Kalmar’s eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Firstly, Fenris hadn’t disposed of the eye. Secondly, despite all the time spent lifeless and detached from its body… the eye hadn’t decayed.
Kalmar approached it, and as he approached he realized it was almost radiating power. He could even sense what appeared to be a soul forming inside it. It took him aback. The Hunter God had little experience in the manipulation of souls or soul ash, beyond what was required to create life. This was a soul occupying a seemingly lifeless object. He did not know what to make of it.
Perhaps one of his acquaintances would know more. Yet of all the gods he had met, he only knew one whose purpose directly revolved around souls.
Katharsos? he ventured telepathically.
’...Kalmar?’
[color=orange][i]I have found something strange. One of my creations lost an eye. The creature itself is still alive, but the eye is still apart from its body. The eye has not decayed; somehow it carries power, and even has a separate soul inside it. How is this possible?[i][/color]
Then silence. A full minute passed, and Kalmar grew impatient. Do you hear me? he asked.
’Your quandary is acknowledged. I am pondering it.”
Kalmar frowned. Why did it take so long for him to ponder something? Nonetheless, Kalmar waited. After the better part of an hour, Katharsos still knew neither what to think nor what to say, and so he finally answered with some wordless indication that he would come in person.
It was an even longer interim before a red glow on the horizon announced the god’s near arrival, but it was not just the light of one burning streak that lit the sky--three followed behind, smaller and perhaps near invisible to mortal eyes, but easily enough spotted by divine perception.
Katharsos, Balam, Zotz, and Ku all made their descent and came to rest just above the ground, a short distance away from an expectant Kalmar.
Kalmar was perched upon a large stone, working away at a wooden carving. He glanced at the eye which remained inert and unchanged. It almost seemed to pulse or throb every few minutes, but he couldn’t be sure. He looked to Katharsos. ”Who are they?” he asked, waving his knife to indicate Katharsos’s companions, before he turned the blade back toward the task of carving.
The three didn’t answer for themselves and merely followed their master with vacant stares. ”New and loyal servants. In my stead they will care for and watch after this middle sphere,” the god told Kalmar. ”I believe that you already met one of them in some capacity, when last we spoke.”
Not far from Kalmar and his rock and the block of wood that he was etching away at, sure enough there was the mangled and bloodied remnants of a huge eye that had been torn free from its body. Just as Kalmar had said, there was something that pulsed on in what should have been long dead and rotting tissue. Katharsos examined it from afar.
”Sometimes a soul can rub off on something, like an especially prized object...or its own body. Some tiny traces of soul ash linger on in corpses. But as weeks and weeks pass as decomposition of the body takes place, the ash tends to naturally disperse. Instead, here it is greedily drawing in more and growing into some sort of nascent soul, even as the eye rots. It is most unnatural.”
”Then what should be done about it?” Kalmar asked, rising to his feet. He sheathed his knife and stepped closer to the eye.
”I am in principle opposed to allowing the dead to inflict themselves upon the living--and it seems that just such a thing would happen were we to stand by and let this soul form without a vessel and wander about as a disembodied…ghost of something that never truly lived. But just ending it right here and now before it had a chance to live would be an even greater crime, no?” The giant head of flames violently pivoted around to look back at the three smaller spirits behind him.
”It could be made into another one like these, perhaps. The strange soul could prove very useful to me,” Katharsos finished.
”And what would it do?” Kalmar asked, eying one of the creatures and narrowing his eyes.
If Katharsos had shoulders, they’d have been shrugging. ”That remains to be seen. The three behind me--their names are Balam, Zotz, and Ku,” he gestured at the jaguar, bat, and monkey-shaped heads respectively, ”they do not even know their sacred charges yet. Before making preparations to return to my own sphere, I had to mull over what I would ask of them.”
”That one smells of Orvus,” Kalmar spoke suddenly, gesturing toward Ku.
There was a pause as both parties seemed to consider what to say, but Katharsos uncharacteristically broke the silence first. ”Indeed, Orvus offered him a blessing. You did caution me about Orvus and make dire...claims, but by chance he encountered me in the wilds and I found him nothing if not reasonable and friendly. So with Orvus’ help, Ku is especially attuned to souls and their various states of decay. Perhaps he can perceive that with even more clarity than you and I. Such a talent will surely help him with the work that is to come.”
”Hmm… I told Orvus that if he did not change his ways, I would kill him. Perhaps he listened.” Kalmar considered.
”It’s also possible that you were wrong about him all along, no?”
Kalmar shook his head. ”Before I gave him that ultimatum, he told me his intentions himself. He wanted to destroy the world, to fray the souls of all living creatures. He said this to Phystene as well, and I saw the aftermath of their battle. Maybe he did change, but you should not trust him.”
With his perturbed mood came also a souring change of color. Katharsos brilliant reds and oranges became sickly yellows and greens. ”Then maybe I am too optimistic towards the other divines,” he conceded. ”When next I see Orvus, I will inquire as to his intentions. If his motives are still as you say they once were, he will need to be enlightened and turned to another path.”
Ku didn’t have anything to say, though for once the laughing or mischievious hints of a grin upon the monkey’s face were gone. Katharsos was eager for a change of subject. ”Now then, the eye here? And the soul inside of it?”
”You were saying we should give it a body?” Kalmar questioned, before turning his head. A massive one-eyed wolf walked across the lake. In the time since the fight, Fenris’s wound had scabbed over, but the dark hole still remained vacant. The gigantic creature stepped onto land and laid itself down next to the eye, setting a wary gaze on Katharsos and the animal companions. ”As you can tell, this is the eye’s original owner.”
”No, not a body. No flesh. I would bend the ash around it, and breathe upon it, and then it would be a burning spirit like any of those three,” he said gesturing to Balam and his cohorts. ”Just like me.”
Kalmar shook his head. ”A physical form will be better. Easier to interact with the world, and it won’t draw as much attention,” he argued.
”A soul is meant to grow inside of a body, not dragged about and forced into one. To remove it from that rotting eye and put it into something else would be an unnatural abomination!” The god’s jaguar face twisted and grew redder and hotter. The ice of his tone was cracking, and steam was broiling out from the gaps. ”I do not use my powers to form flesh and life, anyways. I have neither affinity nor aptitude for such a thing. Only with Ashalla’s help did I make the simplest of creatures, and that was taxing.”
Kalmar reluctantly nodded. ”If you say so. Go on, try it your way.”
Katharsos gave a tiny nod in thanks, then approached the eye even closer. The jaguar’s visage stretched as its jaw came unhinged to bare gently wavering flames that took the shape of teeth. From somewhere between them there came a few sparks that were pushed along by a warm wind, the gentlest of breaths. They fell upon the eye, and then coaxed into life by his invisible will, they consumed the eye. And there was an almost imperceptible snow of soul ash that quickly became a blizzard as the stuff coalesced and began to swirl around the drying and blackening husk of the eye. But Katharsos frowned, for something was wrong and this soul was not going to be metamorphosed nearly so easily as the past three had been.
The blizzard of soul ash was now more akin to a barrage of hailstones; the god of death was trying to preserve a life by smothering the very fire he’d started using the soul ash, but of course that was like trying to put out a campfire by burying it beneath leaves and sticks.
”KU!” he suddenly roared, and the hapless monkey darted closer to his master. The spirit stood there agape, seemingly confused at what it was supposed to do.
Fenris rose to his feet and began to bark loudly at the sight of his own detached eye aflame.
With three steps Kalmar closed the distance, drew his foot back, and kicked the eye out toward the lake. With a mighty splash it vanished beneath the surface, only to float back up still ablaze, as the water began to bubble and steam around it.
With an annoyed frown, Kalmar extended a hand, and the burning eye flew through the air back toward him, stopping a mere three feet away. The Knife of Friendship materialized in his other hand, and he slid the blade across his open palm before pointing the bleeding hand at the eye. Divine ichor sprayed forth from the newly created wound.
Where water had failed, Kalmar’s blood succeeded. The godly ichor quenched the bulk of the fire, until only a few embers remained on the eye’s charred surface, and then the liquid began to seep into the eye itself. Kalmar closed his hand, and blood dripped onto the sand beneath him.
There was more to that burning stare that Katharsos now gave Kalmar than embarrassment made anger, or envy, or disappointment; no, there was a sort of fear and disbelief in those eyes.
He let out a long sigh, his breath carrying the smell of death. It was not the reek of rot or decaying flesh, but the true smell of death; this was that chilling odor from the magical flames that burnt away even souls. The leaves of the tree closest to him seemed to wither a bit just from the smell. ”In pouring your blood on that eye and smothering it in ichor, do you know what you have done?”
The corpulent mass that was the decaying eye of Fenris-Wolf bubbled and charred in equal measure as blood fed flesh and divine flames stoked the blaze that seemed to burn from the very center of that fey object. As if in response to that heavenly sustenance it had gorged upon the surface of the fleshy globe rippled and shook as meat and gristle parted to reveal great gouges and rents of godly blood and righteous fire. There was a glow that suffused outwards from the numerous wounds generated across its damaged hide, illuminating the area with a baleful radiance.
Like fuel catching light all at once the eye seemed to suck inwards and set ablaze once more, scorching black fire surging from the numerous lesions until the surface hardened, cracked, and collapsed in on itself. The booming wrench of a thunderclap violently sounded its sonorous warcry as the eye imploded in a gout of black flame and horrendous noise, projecting enough force in the process to flatten the flora that grew up along the coastline. As the noise subsided and the flames sputtered and died the eye was revealed, caked black and brittle, with all life to it gone.
The crisp outer casing of the eye’s once-flesh crumbled inwards and what little was left of the meaty core seemed to be slurping within towards a center point. Gristle and gore poured inwards with a life all its own, forming shape in a most dark and twisted divine crucible. First was revealed the outline of something feral, canine in stature, but rapidly the tissue that nourished this most strange birth was absorbed to reveal in detail the creature that was created. The first image was of black fur, so deep as to practically draw light into itself, wet with the creature’s birth. Next came limbs, young in stature but muscular and throbbing with life. At last was revealed the visage of this oddling-born monster; a vicious maw, full of tooth and fang, and eyes of fiery golden-bronze. Black fur seemed to come alight, flickering and dancing as flames that cooked away all that was left of the sacrificial-form offered to the growing creature as fuel.
The creature stumbled then as its limbs were first made to carry it, dropping to its side with an unpleasant grunt followed by an equally uncomfortable gurgle. Its lungs heaved in its chest, gasping for air that it did not need as unnecessary instincts roared to life in its young mind. Its eyes darted wildly, panicking at the sight of its surroundings for a thing not of the mortal realm but so terribly born of it. A hacking growl followed suit with black blood and bile vomiting from the beasts panting muzzle. Laying down in its own birth-fluids and having retched up its own vile insides, the monstrous wolf seemed stunned.
At long last eyes began to calm and take account of what was around the wolf’s prone form, crawling across the sandy beach and up towards the flattened landscape where trees once were to stop on two shapes; one that glowed and another that walked. Light and flesh in equal measure, balanced and seemingly in harmony as they stared down at him. Slowly, cautiously, the creature lifted its head and turned its dreadful visage towards the entities in quiet curiosity. With maw opened enough for moonlit teeth to illuminate his features in the dull light of the early day, the black-blazing wolf echoed His first words.
“I . . . I am Roog . . . ?”
”He already named himself. Seems intelligent,” the one who walked observed in an impassive voice.
”A name . . . ? Yes . . . a name,” came the growling retort from the Wolf as his lips pulled back to reveal a snarl, his eyes looking away from the speaker revealing Roog’s wandering thoughts, ”MY name . . . It howls at me in my heart. I AM Roog . . . “
”I am Kalmar,” the blond figure said. ”The God of Hunting. And this is Katharsos, the God of Death.”
Roog paused for a long moment as he considered the words spoken to him by the one who identified himself as Kalmar. He was flesh and blood and walked on two legs; an oddity, ruminated Roog as he began testing the strength of his own four limbs. Slowly but surely the wolf stood, rushed with the sense of power. His gaze then travelled away from this Kalmar to the glowing, sun-like form of the other being present at his creation. Even more than the first Roog was struck with the considerable strangeness of this other entity, so-called Katharsos. Mortal instincts warred in Roog’s mind on just how he should feel towards this creature. As the instinctual responses died down in the face of Roog’s divine willpower, Roog addressed the pair.
“God of Hunting . . . God of Death . . . Confusing concepts. The word you use, it carries considerable meaning. Gods are . . . creators, I think? Then I must assume you are my own . . . though I must ask, why?”
And then for the first time, Roog heard the ‘sun’ speak. ”Mortal lifespans are short and fleeting,” Katharsos almost whispered. Gently. ”They come and go, and some leave the world nearly untouched; in the end, those are more ephemeral than the softest breeze. Some others are able to accomplish great things and shake the world, but they too must eventually pass on and make way for new life. This is simply the way of things, and this is what makes mortal lives so beautiful. I envy them, because their limited time makes their every act and breath and thought a thousand times more meaningful, and yet they can just as easily shut their eyes have peace, thinking nothing of their brief stay in this strange existence. In the moment of their brief existence, the reality of destiny seems ever so slightly more palatable, fading into the likeness of a dream.”
Katharsos drifted closer to Roog. ”We do not have luxury. All of us have a purpose, a duty that defines us, and we have all of eternity to pursue its fulfillment. Do you understand why you were created now? It was to serve a purpose.”
As Katharsos spoke Roog paid close attention. His ears pricked up and were rotated towards the fiery god as he explained to Roog the nature of his existence. While he did so his eyes wandered elsewhere, contemplating the creatures behind his Celestial creator. His eyes narrowed as he looked them up and down, took in their scent, and tasted them on the air. By all his senses they were not right, including that of the divine star now borne aloft before him. But, in them he could sense a kinship and there were more similarities than there were differences between them. Roog would need to think long on that particular puzzle.
Roog lifted his gaze back to Katharsos, observing the God’s facial features and their movements before responding. “Mortals and their mortality, and luxurious existences. I think I see why you envy them, shining-one; you make their lives sound worthwhile. I believe I understand. Then . . . What is your purpose? What is mine?”
Katharsos contemplated how best to answer that question. Fenris stared at the much smaller wolf with a mixture of fear and fascination.
Behind Katharsos there was the lake in which Kalmar had just kicked Fenris’ eye mere minutes ago. For all that ordeal the water’s glassy surface looked just as peaceful as before, complete with the sparkling reflection of Heliopolis crowning the tiny waves. Katharsos could perceive all of that without even turning to look at it. ”Living things exist here in this plane, tangible and with flesh and blood,” began his roundabout answer to the question of his own purpose. ”There is more to them than that, though. To be complete, each body has a spirit. The spirit is like the reflection of the sun upon the water behind me: you can look at that reflection and know it to be one and the same with that brightest of lights in the sky, and yet they are not quite the same. One is grand, and corporeal, and warm; the other one is only a ghost. That comparison is flawed, of course; the analogy fails because if Heliopolis were to vanish it would not leave behind its mirrored counterpart, and if the reflection were to vanish then Heliopolis would remain unaffected.” A cloud passed by and blocked the sun for just long enough to prove his words true.
”My purpose is to care for all of those ghosts and reflections, and to recycle those reflections that are trapped beneath the water with their counterpart in the sky having gone dark,” he finished.
The horse-sized wolf seemed to be absolutely enraptured by Katharsos’ response, hanging on every word as he found his way closer to the water, guided by the God of Death and his words. As Katharsos spoke Roog poured his mind into the analogy, turning it over and twisting it in his mind while he observed with considerable interest the reflection on the lake. Occasionally he would look towards Katharsos, dutifully reminding his creator that he was listening, before returning to mulling over and absorbing Katharsos’ words. His ears perked up as Katharsos began to speak regarding his own purpose and the topic seemed to garner even more attention from the godling wolf.
”Your words feel right, face-in-flame; I feel it in my bones that they are true. Life is . . . precious and wondrous. It sounds beautiful in its own way.” Roog paused as he turned his gaze away from the lake and turned to observe, first, the other entities like him before finally settling on the one-who-walks. ”What of you, God of the Hunt? What is your purpose? Why have you both created me and what purpose have I been forged for?”
”Life needs to feed itself,” Kalmar answered, glancing out across the lake for a moment. ”Some creatures either choose or need to feed off of others. That’s hunting. As for you, your purpose remains to be seen.”
Roog seemed momentarily appalled at Kalmar’s statement, perhaps even more so by the instinctual craving he immediately felt for such a concept. Despite his shock at the very idea of such a thing, immediately twisting his image of the world, they spoke to him; clearly, Roog thought, that this path must be natural. If it were not, why have a God of Death and Hunting in the first place?
“Then life is cyclical,” reasoned Roog as the gears of his mind turned nebulously on themselves in a clockwork dance of vast depth and complexity, “If Life is both beautiful and born of necessity, then it must be that there is reason to it. An animal giving its life for another to live must serve a purpose, or you would have never have made it so.”
Roog pondered for a moment before looking up, black brows furrowed in contemplation before he asserted his true thoughts on the matter. “I believe you both are Good; why else would you be Gods? If this is so, then, both of you must be goodly in your intentions; your creations and the cycles that persist in life are valued and worthwhile. It is right to protect them.”
”Not all gods are ‘good’,” Kalmar cautioned. ”In a way we are both gods of destruction, but our destruction serves a purpose. There are others who destroy without reason, and they are a threat to all. But yes, it is right to protect existence.”
”Then, why do these Gods exist? Surely they must have a purpose?” Roog seemed deep in thought as Kalmar spoke, as if somewhere else, and his mind churned and devoured the information they provided him with surprising ease and great voracity, ”And what of these creatures here? Their purposes are Good, then? But . . . they are not Gods, not like you. They smell of you and I see their hearts are as yours. What are their purposes?”
When Roog turned his questioning gaze towards the three silent spirits behind Katharsos, they returned the look but did no more. In truth, they were just as confused as Roog, and Katharsos realized it had come time to bestow a purpose unto each of them. Fortunately, Orvus had sewn the seeds with his earlier suggestions, and the god had some suitable roles in mind.
”That is Fenris,” Kalmar suddenly spoke, pointing to the massive wolf that dwarfed them all. ”I made him to patrol this region and search for threats. You were created from his missing eye, along with my blood and Katharsos’s fire.”
Roog looked up at the vast wolf that stood just behind the grouping, his eyes perusing all that he saw. From Fenris-Wolf’s posture, Roog sensed fear; what could a creature so immense and powerful fear from him, Roog wondered. His eyes trailed back to Kalmar and then down towards his own paws, thinking on their construction and form. At last the wolf’s visage raised, his eyes falling on Kalmar followed by Katharsos.
”Then you are as my fathers; you have created me, and it is by you that I am shaped. You are Gods, Fenris patrols, but what of me? Please, fathers, I wish to know what you would have of me.”
”Creating you does not make me your father,” Kalmar corrected him. Katharsos cast two carmine eyes at the other god, but the emotion upon his alien face was impossible to discern.
”I see,” echoed Roog as his bronze-gold eyes rose to look upon Kalmar with curiosity and, perhaps, the slightest hint of disapproval, ”As you say, creator . . . “
”I would find no offense in being named your father, then,” Katharsos told him. ”I will do what I can to help you realize the ways of the world and find enlightenment, and I will give you a purpose. But first, you must be introduced to your brothers, and they must be given their own purposes, for they have waited for longer than you’ve existed.”
The trio of fiery spirits seemed to have had their interests finally piqued by that. From left to right they’d arranged themselves in order of birth: first Balam, then Zotz, and then Ku. Katharsos addressed the bat-faced one before any others, ”Zotz. The dead must make way for the living; that is the circle of life. I draw their spirits into the heavens that this world is not plagued by ghosts and lost souls and so that new souls may form in their place. Yet there is more to the dead than just the spirits that I handle--their physical husk, their corpse, remains. And it is just as vital to recycle those physical remains and restore their richness to Galbar. No god has taken it upon himself to oversee and carry out such a task, and so it falls upon you.”
From the within the crackling fires that comprised the likeness of a bat’s head, Zotz let out a wordless shriek. ’It will be done,’ the inhuman sound meant.
Before Katharsos there slowly manifested a long and twisted rod, pale as milk. Every last blade of grass that so much as brushed it withered and died and became as dust, until a moment later it rested upon soft and exposed earth. ”Let this staff of bones be your mark and your tool. Never part with it.”
As the fiery spirit manifested a clawed hand to snatch up its prize, Katharsos looked to the monkey. The youngest of the trio advanced. ”Ku, your brother need not toil alone. You will be his partner, and the two of you must work closely and never stray far from the other. Where he must tend to the recently dead, you must find them. And you must ensure that there are no mistakes, and that the power of the Bone Staff is not brought to bear against those whose time has yet to fully pass. Claim this spectral cord of fire, and use it as your mark and your tool.” The Prince of Astral Flames flicked a forked tongue, and from his great infernal maw there emerged a ghostly scourge of pale flames. Ku caught the whip and cackled, flailing it through the air recklessly for a few moments before his master’s glare stilled his arm.
A weary Katharsos glanced right over Balam, to Roog. ”I would have named you Tzi,” he nearly whispered, ”but there is power in a name, and if that ones calls to you, then it is predetermined. Kalmar’s blood has awakened great power in you, and you could use that power to help me. Roog, I would entrust you with not with enabling the circle of life but with guarding its very existence; the spirits of the dead must all be carried through the Vortex of Souls, and the mortals on this plane must never cheat death by stealing more time that what is owed; I task you with keeping a vigil against any who would endanger the natural order and the cycle.”
Roog had been watching with interest from a seated position, both towards the forms of his brothers and their newfound purposes. He felt kinship in that, the discovery of purpose, and with his heavenly-father directing them the roles asserted unto each seemed rightly and good. As Katharsos turned to him Roog rose, ears perking up in visible interest. As the God of Death intoned to Roog what would be his role the wolf’s gaze lowered in deliberation. At last he looked up to meet his Father’s gaze and nodded, his maw opening so his words of acceptance could pour forth.
”It is mine, Father.”
He finally met Balam’s gaze and told the smaller jaguar, ”And for you, Balam the eldest of your kind, there falls a mantle of responsibility. I know that I am…aloof by nature. Try as I might, it is hard to remain anchored and attached to anything below the heights of my own sphere. You must...you must…”
The small jaguar looked at its larger counterpart with what looked like confusion, but which seemed to quickly contort into anger. It snarled and roared, ”I wait for days upon days, and this stammering is all you’ve mustered in that time? All that you’ve to offer?”
A wave of heat swept over them all as Katharsos’ dull red and orange flames were stoked into a fury that was as blue as the ocean, and then white as the ice that crept into his tone when he roared, ”You will learn respect!”
”I, I-”
The smaller jaguar didn’t have the chance to stutter for long. ”You take after my own nature the most,” Katharsos sighed. ”You have a vigor and a youth that left my mind long, long ago. For that reason, I choose you as my second. Speak to me, bear with me, and herd my mind away from the perils of complacency or vacancy. Watch over your younger siblings and fellow guardians, and act as my intermediary.”
A breeze rustled the leaves of a nearby tree gently, and in the silence, the sound of a distant woodpecker cut through the air.
”And my badge of office?” Balam finally ventured.
”I think that you will need nothing more than your tongue and your wit, and my own likeness. You possess all three.”
Balam of course simmered like the blaze that he was, but Katharsos pretended not to see as he addressed them all collectively, ”And as the mortal ones look to me and see the end, the far side of the river of life, so too will they see your lot as incarnations of death. Embrace it, for that is what you are--the Many Deaths that enable life to exist. I vest my power and my trust alike in each of you.”
Kalmar had remained silent throughout this, his expression remaining impassive until Balam’s angry outburst, which Katharsos had answered in equal measure. At that point, for a moment, Kalmar couldn’t help but frown. Then the frown faded, and he looked to Roog. ”Know that there is nothing binding you to either of us,” he informed the god-wolf. ”If you follow Katharsos, you follow him by your own choice, and such choices are not easily revoked.”
Despite the man-god’s assertions, Kalmar’s advice came as fatherly as any. Roog locked gazes with Kalmar to see the truth of his words and watch the deity’s soul twisting and turning on itself within him. He at last broke their locked gazes as his mind wandered on the topic of his own freed will.
”Well then.” Katharsos stiffened in tone if not in body. ”I think that Roog knows his place in the world,” he stated to Kalmar. And I know that his brethren do. Now it is time for my to reexamine my own. I have spent a long time on Galbar, away from my own sphere and distracted from my greatest work. There comes a time when I can no longer justify my continued absence, and I feel that time fast approaching. I would use these last few days to witness as much as I can, for in this time I’ve seen only a fraction of Galbar, and then I will make my way back to the Sky of Pyres. If any of you have need of direction or of counsel,” he softly spoke, turning toward Balam at the end, ”then I ask that you find him.”
And then the God of Death looked to the heavens and the jaguar’s visage in the flames unravelled and he departed as a burning streak in the sky. Balam spat out a glob of some strange soot, and then likewise departed for the hills. Ku ran off cackling and cracking his whip, whilst Zotz muttered something before chasing after his partner.
Kalmar watched Katharsos leave, and then looked back to Roog. ”Remember. You have the power to both create and destroy. If you choose to do either, make sure it serves a greater purpose.”
“As you say, creator,” came the low growl of Roog’s voice as he watched his heavenly-father and siblings depart, eyes turning towards Kalmar one last time, “It is mine to choose. This I will not forget.”
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