“Yet you have accomplished much without being a mage.”
“Monty is in trouble,” I said. “He needs help.”
“Is that why?” she asked. “Why you put yourself through this?”
“I don’t want power, but I need it…to do what I must.”
“You must?” she scoffed. “You are going to risk it all, to save the one who abandoned you? He even threatened you with death. This is who you want to save?”
“No… he didn’t…He wasn’t thinking straight.”
“If you seek me out,” Kali said in Monty’s voice, “I will end your immortal existence.”
“That’s…that’s just creepy.”
“Those were his words. I was there,” she said. “He sounded serious.”
“Monty always sounds serious. It’s a mage thing,” I said. “The schism is messing with his mind.”
She laughed, and the sound drove cold needles of fear into me.
“A schism reveals the darker nature, the things that are hidden, the things that are true,” she said. “Perhaps he envies your immortality. Can you imagine? An immortal mage? Living long enough to discover all of the secrets of power?”
“That’s not him.”
“He would never age, never grow ill,” she continued. “He would become the most powerful mage in existence. Nothing and no one could stop him.”
“That’s…not…who he is,” I said, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Monty isn’t some power-hungry mage.”
“You think you know him?” Kali asked. “You only know what he has chosen to show you.”
“He’s shown me plenty, when it counted the most.”
“You know nothing. Have you seen Montague the War Mage? Have you experienced the Scourge of the Banshee?”
“That’s not Monty…not anymore.”
“Are you trying to convince me…or yourself?”
She waved a hand in my direction.
The pain subsided from my body and I let out a long breath.
“I know him. He is good,” I said as the vision slowly returned to my eyes. “He will not become a dark mage.”
“Perhaps what he needs is a shield against the impending darkness,” Kali said, gently taking hold of the enso pendant hanging from my neck. It shone a deep violet in her palm. “This is what you are…his shieldbearer, yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“Redefining and refining your purpose. You will become a shieldbearer, but of a different sort.”
“I’m not crazy about the shieldbearer I am now.”
“You voice your opinion like you have a choice in the matter,” she said. “You made the choice long ago. These are the consequences.”
“I don’t recall making the choice to be tortured,” I said. “Or to be a shieldbearer.”
“The day you stood beside the mage to fight off impending destruction, you made your choice. That day and every day since.”
She closed her hand around the enso pendant. The chain attached to it came apart and disintegrated, leaving the pendant in her hand. The enso was an open circle, symbolizing perfection in imperfection.
“That’s not mine,” I said. “That belongs to Monty.”
“It was given to you, shieldbearer,” Kali answered, hefting the pendant in her palm. “Do you know why I cursed you?”
“You were pissed?” I said and paused, giving it thought, hopefully before she blasted me for my default answer. “Not really I figured it was because I messed up your plan against Shiva?”
“Partially, yes,” she said. “Your interference deserved an adequate response.”
“I did notice how you conveniently forgot to curse Monty, though.”
“Convenient? It was anything but,” she said. “Cursing you meant abrogating laws of time and space. There were several who felt I…overreacted.”
“They dared to say that to your face?”
“They did,” she said, unleashing another chilling smile.
I knew in that moment that whoever or whatever had dared to inform her of their opinion was a memory.
“Cursing me immortal was adequate?” I asked taking my immortal life into my hands. “Seems like it was a bit of overkill. Why not just blast me to dust?”
“I was pissed,” she said, waving my words away. “How would you react if some idiot, well meaning as you were, interrupted a plan that took five thousand years to implement?”
“Good point,” I admitted with a brief nod that sent small ripples of pain everywhere. “I’d be pissed too. Maybe not ‘cursing people alive’ angry, but I’d be upset.”
“Blasting you to dust for your interference would have been…adequate,” she answered, “but there is more at play here than you can imagine.”
“Can’t you just tell me?” I asked. “Why do mages and gods speak in riddles?”
“Mages speak in convolution out of habit. Gods obfuscate because we are cunning.”
“Would it kill you, just once, to state things plainly?”
“No, it wouldn’t, but it may kill you,” she answered. “Human brains are such frail things. You barely comprehend the four dimensions you inhabit; to speak plainly would only confuse you further.”
“So, you speak in riddles because the truth would melt my brain?”
“You know the truth,” she said. “Understanding it is another matter entirely.”
“How can I know what I don’t know?” I said, frustrated. “That makes no sense.”
She smiled, and it was worse than the laugh. For a moment, I wished my vision would blur again. Her beauty as a goddess was impossible to look away from. It wasn’t the beauty, though. Behind it, mixed in with it, I was gripped by a profound feeling of death and foreboding.
This was fear…real, mind-numbing, blood-curdling, run-away-screaming fear.
I was getting a glimpse at the goddess of creation and destruction, and my mind could barely keep it together. A few more minutes of this, and I’d be a drooling vegetable.
“You know the answer,” she said, opening the hand holding the pendant. “What you must learn…is the question.”
“The question?”
“Do you know the question?”
“At this point, I barely know my own name, much less some hidden question.”
“Some things are hidden plainly,” she said, forming a fist around the pendant. “Like this ‘key.’”
“Could you not destroy that?” I said, concerned that getting a replacement would be nearly impossible. “Nana would be really pissed if I broke Monty’s key.”
“You still don’t understand,” Kali said, raising her fist. “But you will. For now, I will take matters into my hands.”
She drove her hand and the pendant into my chest.
My torso erupted in violet light. The Pain—which up to this
