13.5


    An interlude: Faced with utter loss and defeat, with impending doom, what did one do? How did one alter fate and reverse the greatest mistake of forgotten time?


    It would not have been fair to say that everything was going according to plan. There had been so many plans. So many promising acolytes. So many lost, dismal failures.


    ''Oberyn fall, Oberyn fall…''


    The vital thing, though, was to survive through each near-miss. To learn from what had gone wrong this round, arranging for better results in the next.


    ''Why won''t his brother answer the call…?''


    He had waited so long, had set up his pieces with infinite care, trying to reverse the ancient sundering that had made One God into many. Striving to end his brother''s imprisonment. Did children still skip and sing of this distant myth? Did musty tomes yet record it, in even the deep Lich-Liornen? He''d done all that he could to be sure they did not.


    ''Sword, thief and wizard, how many in all?''


    Across the planes, he had destroyed whole villages. Drowned centers of learning, released awful plagues on inquisitive scholars. The One God''s fate and true name were lost, except to him… but for that final, important short syllable.


    ''1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7…''


    He brooked no competition and accepted no alliance, either. Wanted willing tools, not companions. Across the planes he had stalked and slaughtered his alternate selves for their knowledge and power, before they could do it to him. Maybe.


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    ''Why did the High One tumble from heaven…?''


    Someone emerged victorious after each battle, but he honestly couldn''t have answered to which one… or if it even still mattered. Someone fed and grew strong enough to face the very gods and do battle with chaos; slaying and absorbing his alternates one by one by every and each. No pity, no quarter, no rest. Perhaps he was now alone in the planar-verse; a repeat, icy killer with one constant victim. Himself.


    ''When will He come back together, again…?''


    Sinking often to the Realm of the Forgotten, where ages-lost gods with dim rites and defeated worshippers lingered in hollow tatters, he drew raw, pulsing manna. Consuming their drifting remains, he gained strength and refined his strategy. The last, an all-but-swept-away storm god, had put up an actual fight, until the cloud-lord''s last pillar and scroll were destroyed in a sudden, terrible earthquake. Then Ozod, too, had succumbed.


    ''With all of bold Oberyn''s stone-frozen men…?''


    He was long past remorse for such acts. Simply returned to the center to breed heroes and mages like cattle… but cautiously. With strategy gained from long and bitter experience.


    ''Traitor and coward, why won''t you fight…?''


    Too much power, and they were near demi-gods, refusing to heed his commands. Too little… and bravely, obediently, they died; broken like thundering waves on implacable chaos. This latest round seemed to be going a bit better, he mused…


    ''Afraid of your death, shrinking from night…''


    Only, his time was not endless, and the confrontation, the awakening, had to come soon, before the enemy was ready, and while the remaining gods could still be induced to ascend.


    ''Crawl from your burrow and do what is right…''


    After that… he could die the last death and good riddance… but not before many again became One, and the Strider burst at last from the captivity of aeons.


    Perhaps no one would think his actions good or heroic. Well enough. Their minds were too small and their scope too limited to take in the whole broad tapestry. For that, one must stand high on a mountain of slaughter and loss; breaking and using those who simply did not understand.