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“My wife,” Kaln corrected.  “Since you’re surprisingly up to speed for someone who claimed they were too scared to approach the dragons, I assume you know that much.  And I’m not just being pedantic.  She is mine, and also the ruler of my homeland.  I would rather you spoke of her with respect, if at all.”

“Why, of course, of course,and a thousand apologies.”  The faint translucence of the shadow executed one of those confusing form shifts that took Kaln a moment to recognize: it had swept a deep, elaborate bow toward him.  “And on that subject, is Emeralaphine’s human form as chesty as rumor says?  I’ve only seen artistic depictions, mind, but the artists were all pretty emphatic on that point!”

He knew better than to let it get a rise out of him.  “So, I gather Emeralaphine is the one you were worried about encountering.”

“Any of the ladies might have sniffed me out; there are no fools or weaklings among them, as you’re sure to have begun noticing.  She, though…  Yeah, the White Wind would definitely have spotted me coming anywhere close to her home.  Honestly, even right here is pushing it, but I just couldn’t resist!”  The Entity shifted again, bouncing incongruously, and Kaln realized after a moment it was clapping its shadowy hands.  “Here it is!  We did it!  Your moment of triumph!  How could I not give my congratulations in person?”

“Congratulations accepted,” Kaln said curtly.  “And let me guess: next you’re going to tell me you planned for this whole outcome.”

“Oh, Kaln my boy, believe you me I would love to take credit for arranging this.  You’re positioned so much better for your next steps than I even dared to dream.  But no, in all seriousness, this I did not see coming!  I figured after you took out Atraximos the rest of them would just back down and let you leave.  Instead…  Look!  Just look at yourself!  Kaln the dragon layer!”

“Hm.  I actually figured you’d claim to have accounted for all possible outcomes and saw this coming.”

“Life is full of surprises, my young friend.  If you ever encounter anything which claims to be omniscient, know that it’s trying to intimidate you, and the fact that it feels a need to means it’s covering for a weakness.  Seriously, Kaln, my plans are ambitious but actually hooking you up with three elder dragons was too rich a prospect even for my blood.  Now, it goes without saying that those three are doing this for their own reasons and using you, but I figure you’re sharp enough to recognize that.  It doesn’t have to be a red flag, either, so long as you know what’s up and have your own plans.  The most stable relationships are based on mutual self-interest.”

So far, so…reasonable.  The creature was more apparently benign than he’d expected.  At this point, that fact alone made Kaln more suspicious.

“So.  You’re a god, then?”

“Oh, am I?”  The Entity sounded positively gleeful, which meant nothing; it usually did.  “I see you’ve already been getting some coaching!  That’s good, take full advantage of every drop of expertise you can wring out of those dragons.  But don’t forget to account for your biases, li’l buddy.  After the explanations you’ve been getting all morning, it’s understandable you’d have gods on the brain.  Did your new harem happen to explain the main reason you should specifically avoid the attention of gods from here on out?”

Kaln leaned back from it, narrowing his eyes.  “Apparently…gods are intolerant of potential competition.”

“A sweeping generalization,” said the Entity, “but one worth keeping in mind.  Gods are individuals just like anybody; they all have their various agendas and personalities, and quite a few are quite supportive of the young and weak.  But, when the odds are at absolute best even, and the worst case is your ass getting scrubbed from existence, it pays to be cautious.  Still!  One thing I’d be very surprised to see is a god going around elevating new godlings.  As a general rule, Kaln, anybody with a lot of power is invested in the status quo.”

Kaln stared at the faint discoloration in the air, thinking.  That had been a bunch of…  Reasonable advice and perspective, which very adroitly ran circles around his original question until it had created just enough obfuscation that it wasn’t obvious how completely it had avoided an answer.

“This is still how it’s going to be, then?” he murmured.  “I’ll give you one more chance at a straight answer.  Why did you want me to be a godling?”

“But I already answered that,” the Entity chuckled.  “Remember?  I get what I want by getting you what you want.  You went and scored a lot more of what you want than either of us was expecting, but so much the better!  We’re not at cross-purposes here, Kaln.  You have the power now to rectify certain wrongs in the world, and the motivation to use it.”

The shadow drifted upward off the ground and spread its arms.  Blurry and translucent as it was, that might have been a gesture of benediction, or a shrug.

“And thus, the world is one step closer to being a little bit better.  Gods and dragons and whatever else, that’s all any of us can hope to accomplish.  To leave this wreck of an existence just a smidge less miserable than we found it.”

“Yeah, I didn’t really think so,” Kaln said with a sigh.  “It’s all conundrums and deflections all the way down.  It doesn’t feel good to brush off somebody who’s done so much for me, but it remains true that you have never been straight with me.  I don’t know who or what you are, what you want, why you’re doing this, or what might happen to me if I follow this all the way to the end.”

He straightened up and took another step back, bringing himself up against the balustrade.

“Sorry to say it, but I have new and better sources of help.  And you know what makes the difference?  They told me what their agenda is.”

“Ohhh hohohoho!”  The Entity actually did a sort of pirouette in midair, shaking with mirth.  “Is that hat you thought was happening here?  You’re betraying one mentor for another?  Well, Kaln, props for standing up for yourself—seriously, nothing could make me happier than to see that backbone.  But no, sorry, I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

Kaln experienced a spike of adrenaline at the words, despite the Entity’s deliberately nonthreatening posture and tone.  It wasn’t coming any closer, which they both knew meant nothing.  He reached within himself, finding the comforting glow of divine power there, waiting to be unleashed.  But it was power tilted to a very specific end, and this was no dragon he was facing.  Would it even help?

He couldn’t help recalling Emeralaphine’s warning: No godling is a match for any god.

“You’ve already won,” the Entity said, its voice suddenly almost…gentle.  “This is your victory, Kaln.  This was all I wanted.  You have everything you need, now.  I can tell you’ve decided to be aggressively skeptical of me now that you have other help, but you also know the sound of good sense when you hear it, so here’s some more: I recommend you take a break.  We’ve been going non-stop for most of a year, not that there was any choice.  But your targets are safe and happy, living high on the hog and unlikely to be snatched from you by a rival before you turn your attention to them.  If anything, that just makes it more perfect!  Let them savor the ill-gotten gains of their perfidy, never suspecting what’s coming their way.  It’ll make your ultimate retribution all the sweeter.  Relax and enjoy what you’ve won, if only enough to rejuvenate yourself.  Enjoy a bit of wealth, and comfort, and what I’ve gotta assume is impressively athletic sex.  You’ve eared all of that.  And when you’re ready to finish what you started…  Why, you’re better positioned for it now than I’d even dared to hope!  Izayaroa alone opens any possible avenue you could need to get to anyone in Rhivkabat.”

What with one thing and another, even as he’d had to consciously call back to the lessons he’d gained from the targets of his planned vengeance, Kaln had almost forgotten over the last day what had set him on this course in the first place.  Astonishing the difference a day made, when that day was spent wrangling fractious dragon spouses and their various centigenarian teenagers, rather than weltering in his pain and grief alone in the wilderness, or having his inscrutable spectral guide provoking him to…

Kaln had a sudden flash of insight.

“I am…reconsidering my priorities,” he stated, choosing his words with great care.  “Not that Haktria and the Lord Scribe deserve the peace and plenty they’re enjoying, but…I’m starting to see a prospect of having some of that for myself.  Having more of it than they could ever dream. So, maybe…they don’t need to be my problem anymore.”

The Entity was quiet.  Just floating there, looking at him.  No teasing, manipulation, or giddy antics.  Just…

This was new.

“After all,” Kaln continued after a moment, keeping his tone as deliberately casual as he could, “they do say that living well is the—”

“Don’t.”

He shied back, leaning against the balustrade, as the Entity surged abruptly toward him.  It immediately relented as if catching itself in an error, retreating to give Kaln space.  When it spoke again, that uncharacteristic urgency was also gone, leaving only its customary insouciant cheerfulness.

“People also say money can’t buy happiness—but only poor people, have you ever noticed that?  You don’t read many great literary epics about heroes gaining the ultimate triumph of living well.  ‘Oh, the evil king burned down my village, sold my family to pirates, molested my prize goat and turned my family home into a burlesque tax office, but look how well I’m living now.  That’ll show him.’ Just not very satisfying,is it?  It’s just one of those old sayings that gets repeated and promoted because it serves the agenda of those in power not to have people thinking they can retaliate against abuses, hmm?  It goes to show, just because something is often repeated doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t stupid.”

Kaln remained silent, watching it.  Despite how quickly the Entity had covered, there was no mistaking that he had just seen it angry for the first time.  Aside from that unprecedented peek into its true goals and feelings…  He was still only mostly sure this was a god he was dealing with, a class of being he had been explicitly warned he could not handle in a confrontation.  All that was certain was that it wasn’t a dragon, which meant he had no idea what it could do to him if provoked, or how little he could do about it.

“But hey, there no reason to argue about it,” the Entity continued when Kaln failed to speak, still upbeat and perky.  “Not when you can so easily have it both ways!  Take your well-earned rest, Kaln, and enjoy some of the spoils, that’s my advice.  And also, tell those new wives of yours something of your life’s story—just watch how eager they are to pitch in.  ‘Cause,see, that’s one thing about dragons I didn’t tell you earlier, because I never imagined you would go and make it so relevant: the only thing dragons love more than treasure is revenge.”

“Wh—you told me they wouldn’t try to retaliate if I killed their husband!”

“And you have seen how right I was, way more vividly than I expected,” the Entity crowed, skipping in a circle around the standing obelisk.  Watching a shadow skip was…not the most bizarre thing he’d seen it do, but it was up there.  “None of them gave a shit about Atraximos, they were just using him.  He assuredly regarded them as here possessions.  Nah, you’d see something very different if you took something from them that they actually, personally valued.  In that case?  You’d better hope the results were as mercifully swift as fire and claws out of the sky.”

The Entity swirled around behind him, reaching to rest its intangible hands on his shoulders and lean forward in a posture to speak in his ear.  Kaln froze, grimacing; he hated it when it did this.

“Work that silver tongue of yours, Kaln.  I know—you being such a charmer is how you got yourself into trouble in the first place, but these aren’t the daughters of dangerous aristocrats, and you’re already neck deep in them.  Just about literally, I should think.  Get those ladies of yours to like you, to really enjoy your company and care about your business.  Then let slip how badly you were screwed over by the powers that be in Rhivkabat.  You probably wouldn’t be able to stop Izayaroa from personally rearranging their entire world to be a symphony of well-deserved torment.  You might have to ask her nicely to slow down enough that you could watch!”

That was most certainly an idea, and one Kaln couldn’t even say he hadn’t already thought of.  The Lord Scribe, Haktria and her well-connected family…  Even that one prison guard who was unnecessarily dickish to the inmates in clear disregard of the Empress’s standards of conduct for civil servants.  They had all been so above him, so impossibly powerful when last he’d dealt with any of them—strictly because of their relative places in the social and political hierarchy of the city.  They were only variably powerful as individuals, only consistently powerful in contrast to, say, a scribe.

Watching them all deal with the anger of the Golden Empress would be satisfying beyond belief.  Poetic, and fulfilling in a way Kaln could probably not achieve himself, even if he had the power to walk up and stab each in the heart and escape unscathed.

Satisfying to him, at least.  Why in all the hells did the Entity care about this so much?  The picture starting to form in Kaln’s mind was of all this as a means to an end…but the end was still baffling.  His actions from now on would determine the shape of his forthcoming divinity, and the more emotionally powerful the more profound their effect.  Very little would affect him as strongly as his longed-for retribution.  But…

What did a god of schemes and plots gain from creating a god of revenge?  Even that picture contained a few unverified assumptions, but it was the closest to a sensible pattern he’d been able to wrangle out of this.  And according to Emeralaphine’s expertise about gods, it was still in defiance of all sense and reason.  Did the damn thing just want a friend?

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, moving forward with a measured step and turning to place the Entity back in his field of view.  “I’m going to take your advice.”

“Attaboy!”  The Entity silently applauded, holding up its shadowy hands so Kaln could see the motion.

“Since,” he continued doggedly, “it’s the only sensible thing for me to do anyway, and don’t think I didn’t notice you positioning yourself that way.”

“Not exactly a miracle of positioning, buddy.  I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I have learned not to assume you’re gonna do the obvious and sensible thing.  No shade, I promise, you’ve got ample reason to be suspicious!”

“That’s real big of you to acknowledge,” Kaln retorted.  “And on that note, I’m no longer a desperate refugee with nowhere else to turn.  So, thank you in all sincerity for getting me this far.  If you ever feel like actually telling me the straight truth about what you are and what you want, well, I’d be glad to listen.  But if not?  I think it’s time for us to part ways.”

“Ah, Kaln,” the Entity said softly.  Softly, but—as usual—with an audible smile in its disembodied voice.  “I have only ever wanted the best for you—for you personally, and for the world that will be reshaped as you pass through it.  As time goes on, I bet you’ll figure out all the mysterious context that you’ve unwittingly moved through.  You’ll probably come to thank me.”

“I just did!”

“Oh, y’know.”  It waved one translucent hand airily.  “I mean more authoritatively, from a standpoint of true understanding.  But in any case?  Nah, you and me are all good.  I’ve done my part; it’s all up to you now.  Don’t you worry about a thing, Kaln ol’ pal, you’ve got it in hand from here.  I believe in you.”

It drifted higher off the ground, went through a shiver in the air, then suddenly dissipated into wisps which drifted away to nothing.

At Kaln’s feet, a new shadow suddenly spread across the Timestone paving, as physics seemed to belatedly realize he was being lit by the sun.

He drew in a long, slow breath, and let it out at the same pace.  This was far from the first time he frankly disbelieved something the Entity had told him.  There was absolutely no way he’d just seen the last of that thing.

And then, as if in deliberate contrast to the mood, his stomach loudly growled.

Oh…right.  It was close to noon, and all he’d had was a nibble of dried meat and flatbread.  That was all he was going to have, too.

And…naturally…it was in the belt pouch he’d left on the bed back in Atraximos’s—that was, in his lair.

***

On the way back in, Kaln spotted only Pheneraxa, once again sprawled out in the library.  This time she was reading a book, by having it hover in front of her face using some kind of telekinetic magic, since her enormous talons were entirely unsuited to handling it.  Apparently the print wasn’t too small for those eyes, though.  He wondered why she didn’t just use her smaller form, and decided not to bother asking.

Kaln politely greeted her, she ignored him, and he didn’t push.  It simply did not do to pester someone while they were reading.  Also, one should never give a snarky adolescent an excuse to say something snide; they didn’t need the help.

No one else was currently around in the central area, which was especially unfortunate as Kaln could really have used a dragon as a teleportation reference point.  Anything to make getting across the musty, acrid, bone-strewn mess shorter.  It certainly wasn’t doing his appetite any favors.

Still, there was more to hunger than appetite, and he was actually starting to feel weak in the limbs by the time he reached the top of the stairs.  Apparently he wasn’t far enough along in the apotheosis process to be free of all mortal needs yet.

The cool, clean hoard chamber was much more pleasant, though, just as he remembered it.  Atraximos’s wards obviously purified the air in addition to keeping the dust off.  Kaln beelined for the bed, finding his pouch right where he’d discarded it after his meager breakfast, and ripped it back open to dig in again.

While he chewed, her considered again the dire situation of his food supply.  Obviously, he was going to have to leave the lair and acquire more, and soon.  Easier said than done, however.  The only civilization from which he could buy anything was north, in the Evervales, and Kaln did not know his way around there.  He didn’t even know the name of the nominal kingdom that was closest to here; the Vale kingdoms had a tendency to shift borders and change governments quite abruptly, at least compared to the constancy of Rhivaak.  But he couldn’t turn back south; aside from the fact that he’d drop dead of hunger and exposure long before making that trek across the savanna and desert, apparently the Nine were specifically opposed to his presence now.

There was nothing else for it: he was going to have to get help from the dragons.

Just as Kaln began contemplating the best—or at any rate, the least terrible—way to approach this task, there came a timely commotion from outside.

Still holding a handful of flatbread and jerky, he strode down the access corridor to see what the clattering and voices were all about, and immediately regretted this decision.  Not coming to investigate, necessarily, but doing so with food in hand.  The smell in here was not conducive to eating, of course.  But in this case, the sight was worse.

Everyone was emerging from their respective lairs, because Vadaralshi and Vanimax were dragging in the gigantic corpse of a mammoth.  Based on the undisguised interest displayed by all three adults and Pheneraxa as they trotted closer, he gathered that meals must be communal, with the drakes taking it in turns to hunt.  Surprising, based on the rest of their relationships he’d have expected each young dragon to be responsible only for feeding themselves and their mother.

Much as the dragons’ social dynamics were of great importance to Kaln’s prospects, he was actually more immediately curious about how the two of them had carried the thing in flight.  It was nearly as big as each of them; he could not imagine how that had worked mechanically.

“That was fast,” Kaln commented, causing the various dragons to look up at him.  “It’s barely been…  Well, can’t have been more than a couple of hours since I saw you last.  You bagged that thing already?”

“Some of us are good at what we do, Mister Pants,” Vadaralshi said smugly, raising her chin.

Kaln ripped off another mouthful of jerky and chewed, staring at her complacently.  He carefully did not make eye contact with Vanimax, whom he could still see baring bloodied teeth in displeasure at Kaln’s presence and lashing his tail.  Bringing up what he’d last seen Vanimax in particular doing seemed likely to unnecessarily increase the tension in here.

“I assure you, Vadaralshi,” Izayaroa stated serenely, “Kaln is very good at what he does.  However…  Husband, just what are you eating?”

He swallowed, glanced down at his handful of rations, then looked back up at the six dragons now studying him curiously.

“Yes, well.  About that…”