Theront. That was the word. It was a word Telos had read in picture-books and historical novels and epic poems. But no one had seen one for a long, long time. There were many legends and stories surrounding them, the most common one being that the gods had taken a few stabs at making their ideal servant before they settled on mankind.

  The theronts represented the gods’s first attempt: half-beast, half-man, their theriomorphic qualities were chosen based on the task they were assigned to fulfill. Hieroglyphics and engravings from the ancient days showed a wide variety of theronts, from the bull-men—one of whom now sat, living and breathing, before Telos—to bird-men, mole-people, snake-women, and even insect-hybrids.

  But the theronts had been abandoned by the gods. No one was entirely sure why. They were deemed inadequate in some way. And so the gods created human beings to serve them instead who more closely resembled the gods in image, although they were lesser in stature, lifespan, and intelligence.

  “You have not screamed,” Jubal said, lightly. “That is encouraging.”

  “I cannot deny I am surprised,” Telos said. “Today seems to be a day for myths returning.”

  Jubal’s eyes narrowed at that. Bovine eyes were naturally soft-looking, but Jubal’s could harden into jetstones when his focus was piqued.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Telos hated telling a story more than once. He desired always the fresh and the novel. But he needed answers, and he felt that Jubal not only possessed such answers, but might actually be friendly enough to share them.

  He told Jubal an abridged version of his tale, from the appearance of Danyil through to meeting the goddess by the pool, and lastly to encountering Jubal himself. Telos warmed to Jubal even more when he laughed uproariously at the detail of Telos mooning the Warden.

  “That was insanely foolish, but well done indeed,” Jubal said. He quickly sobered in the latter parts of the tale. “The other matters you have shared merit much discussion, and no small degree of concern. Tell me, do you know whom you spied upon?”

  “I did not do it intentionally!” Telos snapped, irritated that the archer had taken the goddess’ side.

  “I did not say so.”

  Telos sighed. “If I had to take a guess, I would say she was Nereth.”

  Jubal nodded.

  “These are her woods, are they not? The river Nere derives its name from her, and Midnere too. This was often her hunting ground, a place of respite. We theronts pass stories down through generations, and one such tale tells of a great battle fought here against the Daimons in which Nereth proved victorious. She made it into her paradise, a home away from home.” Jubal’s face shadowed. “Nereth is beautiful and wise and courageous. But she is terrible, too. Like men, all the gods have a dark side, and their darknesses are deeper than you or I can understand. Nereth has many powers, as do all the gods, but her gift is particularly powerful.”

  “How so?”

  “All gods are breakers and remakers. Indeed, that is the meaning of their name in the Sumyrian tongue: The Rynu’nakar. They are changers, moulders, imaginers.”

  “And each god presides over a different field?” Telos said, remembering his education.

  “Precisely. Beltanus breaks and remakes the world and the elements. He is the maker and moulder of Engine and metal and hammer and blade—he is the lord of ingenuity itself. He is the World-shaper and credited as the author of the Tablet of Masteries. Eresh, on the other hand, breaks and remoulds bodies with her diseases and cures and transformations. In our histories, it was she who made the first theronts and then your kind. She is, after all, the Flesh-shaper.”

  Telos’s mind whirled. It was not that what Jubal said contradicted his teachings, but simply that it cast them in a new light, the way an artfully placed stage-light could transform a familiar dramatic scene. He thought of the other gods. He supposed Talon, the God of War, was the shaper of politics and borders, cultures and customs. Lileth was the shaper of hearts, families, and lineages. Koronzon was the shaper of time.

  “And Nereth? You said she was particularly powerful.”

  Jubal’s eyes darkened. “Nereth is unique. She is the one who wrote the Tablet of Destinies. She is the Fate-shaper, for it was her arrival that turned the tide of the war against the Daimons in the gods’ favour. She is known to you as the Goddess of Wisdom, Cunning, and Strategy—and all of this is true. But her true role is deeper. The other gods, even Korozon, fear her. And all mortals should too.”

  “You are speaking of legend like it is history.”

  “From my perspective, from the theront perspective, it is history, Telos. You probably imagine that the broad strokes of the tales are true, but that most of it is allegory and metaphor, cunningly wrought fables designed to instil morality and loyalty, no?”

  “Eloquently put. And yes, that is the gist of it.”

  Jubal smiled sadly.

  “But it is far from the truth. The tales are literal and without embellishment. This is what we teach our children—few though they are.”

  Telos wanted to ask Jubal many things: about theront culture, why they had few children, how he traced his own ancestry, how long-lived the theronts were, how long he had been in hiding, and more, but he knew such rabbit holes would end up consuming all of what precious little time they had here.

  “I suppose…” Telos said, slowly. “You are a sort of proof of that, are you not? A living, breathing proof that at least some of the stories are true.”

  Jubal’s smile became broader, more beaming. His teeth were huge and so white they refracted light.

  “Indeed. You are more open-minded than most of your kind, Telos. I like the way that you think.”

  “You might be the only person who has ever said that to me. My mother used to say my mind was ‘as useless as a bloodless Engine’ and ‘full of goblins and half-truths’. Anyway, that is ancient history we need not delve into. Tell me more about Nereth. You are saying that… that she really can change someone’s destiny?”

  “If I try to persuade you, no reasoning will ever suffice. Tell me truthfully: how do you feel?”

  Telos paused. He did not like to look within, for inside there were many old and buried monsters of feeling he’d rather were left buried. But he forced himself to reach for one close to the surface.

  “I… I feel it is true. I feel… I feel like my luck has changed. I was always a lucky man, I guess. The knives missed. The wagon arrived under the window just as I jumped. The bones never broke no matter how far I fell… But now, it feels different. I don’t know whether it is a phantom of the mind or—”

  Jubal held up a powerful hand, silencing Telos.

  “Magic cannot be understood in absolutes. It matters not whether it exists solely in your mind, for the mind makes all things real or false. The only thing that matters is that you have felt the power of her curse, Telos. That is a burden you must now bear.”

  Telos looked at his feet. Tears threatened. Then all at once he felt a sudden burning fury, so violent that for a split second he thought he was back in the black fires of the Warden’s pit, burning, burning, burning. Grief evapourated before the strength of that rage. His hands balled into fists and he wanted to kill something, anything. He shook himself, the vision vanishing.

  “How dare she do this to me!” he roared.

  Jubal’s eyes glittered.

  “Think not of vengeance, for that way lies only madness, regret, and death. You have but two options now: journey to Nilldoran and make obeisance before her before the end of your natural life, or live with the curse you have been given, accept it as part of your being.”

  “There is no choice there.”

  “I thought that might be your answer. However, to reach Nilldoran—quite literally another world—is no easy feat. Even were you to acquire a working sky-ship, you would not have the first clue how to pilot it.”

  “So I must find another god, one who will take me.”

  Jubal looked genuinely surprised at that.

  “I had not considered that, but I suppose if the gods are returning, then it is possible you might encounter another and under better terms. However, we must ask the deeper question of why they are coming back to Erethia when they left five-hundred years ago...”

  Telos waved his hand.

  “Who cares why the bastards do what they do? All that matters to me is getting to Nilldoran.”

  Jubal sighed once more.

  “Consider this: you have been set a task by this Danyil, a Sumyrian and therefore a child of the gods. Perhaps, if you complete it, he will know a way of contacting the gods, or of reaching Nilldoran?”

  Telos sat back and did not speak for a few moments. Jubal made a good point, but the task he had been set by Danyil was itself absurdly difficult, perhaps more difficult in that he did not even know where to begin with it.

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  Jubal seemed to read his thoughts.

  “I may be able to help you as to the Weapon’s broad location.”

  Telos nodded. He was not set on pursuing this quest, but it did not hurt to learn more.

  “It is a long tale, as all the old ones are.”

  “I am not going anywhere soon. I am famished and this face still hurts like one of the Warden’s poems.” The bites were already receding. Still, if the baby spiders could inflict that much damage upon him, he dreaded to think what the venom of a full-grown Tunnel Hunter would do.

  Jubal laughed.

  “We shall get you a meal. Let us, in fact, enjoy a repast and then the tale will be all the sweeter.”

  Jubal stood and went to the door. He produced a silver key with a skull-head and inserted it into the first of the three locks. Then, he produced two more keys, one after another, each with a different fitting. As the last one turned there was a humming sound, and the sudden smell of charged air—the kind of smell that lingered in the aftermath of a thunderstorm. There is magic on that door, he thought. His thief’s senses were tingling with the promise of treasure, for wherever there was a locked and enchanted door, something valuable lay behind. He restrained himself, however. He really was tired beyond belief and needed to conserve his energies.

  Jubal slipped through the door, someone without revealing anything that lay beyond it. The door closed and appeared to lock itself behind him. Telos heard no footfalls beyond the door. Enchanted with silence, too. He tried to distract himself from wondering by examining his surroundings, but everything was so plain, that it could not hold his interest.

  Jubal soon returned, bearing two bowls, each filled with what looked like porridge. Telos’s stomach turned. He had enjoyed pretty much exclusively porridge during his prison-stay, and it had been the first meal that Ylia gave to him too. I WILL get a good meal! Even if he had to risk being caught, he would find somewhere or someone in Gorgosa to cook him a mouthwatering pie.

  He didn’t want to be rude given that Jubal had saved his life, however, so he closed his eyes and ate the porridge imagining pie. To Jubal’s credit, it was superior porridge, with nuts, honey, and some kind of musky spice mixed in.

  When they had both finished they set the bowls aside.

  “Thank you,” Telos said. “Now, your tale.”

  Jubal nodded.

  “Over seven thousand years ago, the gods first came to Erethia from the planet of Nilldoran. They had watched our planet for a long time as their own world went on its elliptical, strange orbit—roving across the dark expanses of the Void.”

  “My, my, you are quite the descriptive storyteller, Jubal!” Telos teased.

  Jubal grinned.

  “We theronts must tell tales to survive. Now, pay attention if you wish to learn the location of your Weapon!” Telos mimed sewing his mouth shut and Jubal went on, “The gods saw in Erethia immense potential to expand their empire and mine our resources, and so they came down in their sky-ships. But then something happened they did not plan for.”

  “They encountered the Daimons.”

  “Yes. Our planet was inhabited by monstrosities, towering creatures larger than the tallest towers of Gorgosa, larger than the Isle of Dreams, large enough to shake the mountain of Anpu to its foundations. Indeed, there is one legend that says our highest peak was a Daimon, petrified in stone.”

  “Let us not digress overmuch.”

  Jubal chortled.

  “Indeed. The gods considered turning back, but the promise of Erethia’s riches was too great. They made war on the Daimons. They believed with their superior magics and weapons they could easily overcome them.” Jubal’s face shadowed. “But the Daimons were mighty indeed. And cunning. Not simple beasts, but vast intelligences in the bodies of monsters. The gods were hard pressed. Countless divinities perished. Then came Nereth.”

  “The Fate-shaper.”

  “Indeed. Her cunning and strategy turned the tide of the battle. But still it was not enough. The Daimons were numerous and the gods did not fight on their own territory. They had also sustained such heavy losses that they were outnumbered. They needed something, a way to decisively end the war. And so, just over four thousand years ago, they created and wielded The Nergal.”

  “What was it?”

  “No one truly knows. Or at least, none of my kin. It was a Weapon, this much we know. We also know that the thing was wrought via collaboration between Beltanus, Eresh, and Koronzon. The Creator, the Flesh-shaper, and the Lord of Death. A fitting trio. With their combined intelligences and craftsmanship, the Nergal was wrought. There is a fragment of poetry in Sumyrian that deals with its use, and I shall try to render it in Yarulian.” He cleared his throat.

  “Into the Daimons’ heart, the Nergal sang brightly.

  Into their heart, and all were slain.

  From inward out, the death-throes flamed,

  so bright that Nilldoran seemed dun.

  Burned bright, the battle now was won,

  until their bones were memory.

  “They were all slain at once? How is that even possible?”

  Jubal shrugged. “Some theorise it was an airborne pestilence of some kind. Others, that it was an explosive device, but of a far greater magnitude than we could engineer. In all likelihood, it may be a weapon of a nature we do not fully understand. One thing remains clear: once it was used, the war ended, and the Divine Age began. But think again of those final lines: there is a part that is relevant to your quest…”

  Telos analysed but drew a blank. He had never been much of a fan of poetry.

  Jubal was patient; he tried a different tack. “Do you know where the greatest concentration of Daimonic blood and fossil lies?”

  “In Memory.” It was one of those facts drilled into schoolchildren. It explained why Memory’s landscapes and wildlife were so strange. Explorers occasionally ventured to Memory’s coastlines, always returning with esoteric wonders: undiscovered flowers, new species of dragonling, the carapaces of insects of gargantuan size. Those who went further, into Memory’s heartlands, never returned. No maps existed of that place.

  “Indeed. And there you have your answer. That is where the Weapon was used, for that is where the Daimons were concentrated. Until their bones were Memory. It is a pun, Telos.”

  He frowned.

  “That is all very well, and I am grateful for your explanation, but it seems to me then that the quest is pure suicide.”

  Jubal sighed.

  “I do not envy one who must journey to Memory. But that is the most likely place to find what you are looking for.”

  What I am looking for now is an easy life of freedom, Telos thought. A life without prison walls, curses, or gods for that matter. His best course was to stay on track and journey to Aurelia. He would ask Jubal for directions, and be on his way. He did not want to impinge on his host any longer, and despite this being a secret hideaway, every second he lingered made him nervous.

  However, there was one more thing he burned to know.

  “You mentioned the past crimes of the Warden. I would very much like to know what they were.”

  Jubal’s sigh was so heavy he sounded momentarily like the bull he resembled.

  “It darkens my heart to speak of such things, but it is good for you to know, for much of it has been erased, is still being erased.”

  “What did he do?”

  “My kind are long-lived, Telos. Not immortal, like the gods, but much longer lived than your kind. I am four-hundred years old. I remember the days not long after the gods had left, when our grandsires still recalled meeting the gods face to face.” Jubal’s eyes twinkled. “As you have now done. Remember that, Telos. However unlucky you may feel, there are many who would kill to have seen what you saw, to know what you know.”

  Telos grunted. He felt quite the reverse of lucky.

  “As I said before, our kind are slow to produce young. Therefore, our numbers have never been as yours. Perhaps that is one reason the gods did away with us. They needed more workers, and workers whom they could dispose of more easily… But that is another dark thought, not worth dwelling on.” He took a deep breath, as though having to summon great reserves of energy and courage to speak of the matter. “Our kinds have never been peaceful. There has always been jealousy and confusion, and the gods have stoked those fires into black flames indeed. A mere forty years ago, those flames reached their greatest intensity, and thus began a purging.”

  Telos reeled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what I said. Your King and the Twin Emperors of Aurelia decided, in their wisdom, that theronts were to be eradicated.”

  “That is impossible, Jubal. We would have heard of such a travesty, especially so recently.”

  “You underestimate the power of fear, the power of erasure. Your parents, Telos, would have known and worked with theronts. Not many, our numbers have always been few, but still. Tell me, did they ever speak to you of such things?”

  Telos considered.

  “No.”

  “No. And this is the tale most of your generation will tell, for your parents were ordered not to speak of us. Books were seized and burned. Statues were torn down. A few remnants of culture were allowed to remain, those that painted us in mythical lights. We were transformed from a living, breathing people into mere images, memories. And unlike the Daimons, our bones have not endured millennia.”

  “This is horrifying.”

  “I am glad you think so. My people are endangered now. We hide across the world. In Qi’shath, there is slightly more leniency, but we are still second-class citizens. In Sumyr, they hunt us like your nobles hunt foxes.”

  “But why?”

  “There are too many answers, all of them as murky as Hell. Power, perhaps, is the easiest answer. No king wants a people of great power and longevity occupying his kingdom. No emperor wishes to know of a people who have prior claim to the lands he now rules.”

  Telos swallowed. “And what of the Warden?”

  Jubal’s eyes became pits, and Telos thought fire burned in them, as blackly ferocious as the flames of Daimonsblood.

  “Our kind fought back. We did not allow ourselves to be rounded up and massacred. We are not a warlike people—we were bred for plough and toil, not for battle—but we are neither weak nor cowardly. For a while, it seemed we might win the battle here, in Yarruk.” He growled, low as an earthquake. “But then your King appointed a man to lead the purge afresh, a young man, merely twenty years old, but who burned with the fires of ambition and zealotry. This man did not believe in the gods, and so he saw no issue with our extinction. He brought the fire to us—and we burned.”

  “The Warden…” Telos whispered. “But if this happened forty years ago, that would make him over sixty.”

  “He is over sixty, but it seems Koronzon has blessed him with more vitality than most.” He chuckled. “Life is full of dreadful ironies. We fought as hard as we could against the Warden and his forces, but it was a battle we could not win. Those of us that remained went into hiding. Afterwards, The Warden’s deeds were so reviled by the common people that he was relegated to command of Ob-koron. In truth, this was merely another method of erasure. Already, your people have forgotten what he did, forgotten even his name. But we—I—remember.”

  Jubal’s hands had tightened into boulder-like fists, all muscle and sinew and grotesque power. Telos would very much liked to see that fury unleashed on The Warden.

  “What is his name?” Telos asked.

  “His name is the darkest irony of all,” Jubal said, an awful smile curling his bovine lips. “He is named after one of the gods.

  “He is named Koronzon.”