“Then how can you bring yourself to serve him happily? How can you bring yourself to serve him at all?”
“Because without Nature’s laws and the threads of Fate weaving our reality together, none of this would exist.”
Gundrygia’s eyes blazed without need for the lantern’s light. “And these are my gods, Burningsoul—my only gods. Fate and Nature. See how free I am!”
Regarding her outspread arms, I assured her, “I see only a prisoner. One freed by the grace of Weltyr for a purpose I do not presume to know.”
“It was not Weltyr who led you to me! My servants did that—my own children, from whom I’ve been kept for ages on end. My own children, created from nothing.”
“From Weltyr’s blueprint,” I corrected her. “Misshapen, gimlets, whatever else you’ve made—you’ve produced nothing new. You’ve only collaged existing works of my Lord. Mangled them into beings most often hostile to mankinds.”
“My children would not be near so hostile if mankinds could restrain themselves…if the Church of Weltyr wasn’t so bigoted, so spiteful.”
“I do not serve the Church,” I told her firmly. “I serve Weltyr.”
“And you will have nothing to show for it if you persist. Only death awaits you, Burningsoul! Do you wish to be like me? Wish to slumber for millennia with no end in sight?”
“If I serve my master faithfully, I will be brought to the All-Father’s Hall of Valor and live eternally.”
“And then? When the final battle comes, and the heroes are called from their Hall?”
“Then?”
I looked at her somewhat blankly. She waved at me in disgust.
“Then,” she said, “you will be obliged to give yourself up. Then, there will be nothing until there is something. The same something there always is. You will be a slave for eternity.”
“All the more incentive to live a right life,” I assured her.
“You’re a fine one to speak on these matters with such confidence…how you trembled and wept in my arms when I told you all in that grove!” I raised my blade to her, stepping forward now, and she raised a hand to stay me. “I have already told you more truth than your god ever will, and more clearly. Even now you wield a sword whose name you do not know!”
Faltering somewhat, I asked her, “And you do know it?”
“It has as many names as your All-Father—as many names as I have heard applied against me over my life. Exigence!” The name rang from her in a victorious cry, her hand rolling out from her arm in a gesture toward it. “Exigence, slayer of dragons the world has forgotten! Exigence, born from the heart of need! The weapon that can be wielded only by those who are true slaves to Weltyr’s will: the weapon that belongs in the hands of a Wotsung.”
“And a Wotsung?”
“A man who could conquer a god—a master among mortals, a king among slaves! The Wotsung line has outstretched through time and now dwells in you, Burningsoul. Here you are, a lord to all, and your heritage has been hidden from you for your whole life! Come with me. I will teach you how much more you’re worth. Scurrying about in the tunnels of Skythorn like a rat—this is not what you’re meant for!”
Gundrygia’s burning eyes seared into mine. Both her arms now outstretched, pleading for my embrace.
“Come with me. Together we can kill my father and I can show you the means of true immortality. Bodily immortality, here and now! Not some vague promise of life eternal in exchange for your enlistment in a future, all the more vicious war. Come with me, Rorke Burningsoul. I will teach you how to become a god!”
Amazingly, I believed that she believed what she was telling me. Such temptations from sorceresses of Gundrygia’s ilk might have been base and empty promises to most, but the hope that lit her tone was so bright it almost saddened me. The fear I once felt for Gundrygia dissolved in an instant, her humbling beauty transfiguring from something cruel and dangerous to a hallmark of her true essence.
“You really are afraid of Weltyr,” I observed.
Her face changed in an instant despite the gentleness of my own, all her features tightening with disgust.
“I am, too, of course,” I continued, lowering Exigence to speak to her as a friend, “but only as the son fears the mystery and power of the father who gave him life, and who is so much mightier than he. Surely, whatever you have done, Weltyr does not think so ill of you that you need fear him like this.”
Her hands pressed childishly to her ears. “Ugh! Don’t patronize me. I won’t hear this nonsense from a slave. If anyone has call to fear Weltyr, it’s certainly I. I, who have brought into the world races he did not permit the hand of Time to produce for him. My power is so mighty that he cannot destroy me, but cannot let me live unhindered! Shall I show you, Burningsoul?”
As I lifted Exigence once more, I demanded, “Release us now, Gundrygia, and we will spread your legendary name far and wide. All will know you as the most powerful mortal in the land.”
“I care nothing for such acclaim…I only care to bring you with me, Burningsoul.” A rat scuttled through the darkness and toward Gundrygia’s furs, glowing the same bright pink aura that haloed her head. “If you won’t come of your own volition, I’ll bring you by force.”
The terrible noise of cracking bones echoed through the tunnels. Valeria cried out behind me and
