Pain lashed through him as he pushed himself to his limits and beyond, but he would not yield. His heart pounded in his chest, threatening to burst, as the incredible strain of trying to hold back a virtual avalanche with his bare paws crushed down on him, as the raw power of the might of a god was completely focused on him, but he would not yield. With a scream of absolute defiance, Tarrin rose up to his full height in the face of that powerful attack, raised the Firestaff, and held it over his head with both paws, refusing to be destroyed, somehow managing to deflect aside the power of a god. The stone around his feet began to melt, the air shimmered as the darkness poured down on him with enough force to shatter a mountain, but he would not yield. Everything that he was, everything he cared about, everything that mattered to him was behind him, the desperate need to protect his daughter giving him a strength and power that surpassed even his own physical limits, allowing him to draw on reserves of strength and magical power he never dreamed possible. The Weave answered the call of a desperate sui'kun, surrendering up to him all the power he desired, as he acted within the blessings of his Goddess, giving him all the power he needed to defend himself against assault. The All, attracted by the Were-cat's need, also gave to him freely, causing the very land itself to give to Tarrin its energy so that he could erect a defense suitable to protect himself from the god of darkness. Even the Firestaff itself, so close to the moment its power would reach its peak, seemed to aid the Were-cat in his defense, joining its power to his own and reinforcing the defensive wall of power around which the Were-cat had surrounded himself, a wall that shuddered and buckled and was distorted by the power of Val's assault, but would not break, would not open, would not lower and leave the one it protected vulnerable. The power of the Weave and the All were not the power of a god, but together, with the power of Tarrin's faith and desperate need and the power of the Firestaff, they combined to give the Were-cat a magical defense so potent that it could withstand the furious assault the evil god rained down upon him.
Val redoubled his efforts to crush the mortal and take the prize, but Tarrin responded in equal measure, the Weave and the All responded in equal measure, even the Firestaff responded in equal measure to grant to Tarrin the power he needed to protect himself. His vision blurring and his heart about to tear itself from his chest as sharp cramping pains of exhaustion quickly blasted through him, as the pain of exerting more magical force than any mortal had ever before expended took its dreadful toll on his body and mind, Tarrin stood against that unimaginable assault, stood as solid as stone, still screaming in defiant fury as he reached into the very core of himself for absolutely any iota of untapped reserve. The Were-cat, commanding the power of the Sorcerer, Druid, Wizard, and Priest, combined all of his power into a single cohesive effort that formed a whole greater than the sum of its parts. As if the four orders had Circled with one another, giving Tarrin a magic the likes of which the world had never seen before, a desperate defense erected out of pure instinct, and all of it for no reason more simple or pure as that of a parent defending his child.
Val stopped. Tarrin nearly fell to one knee, panting heavily, his eyes unfocused and a dazed expression on his face, but he had not yielded.
Val seemed just as shocked that Tarrin was still standing as Tarrin was that he had managed to last so long. His mind swam for what seemed an eternity as both the effort of defending himself and the pain of being in the path of the avalanche of Val's power rippled through him, as little flecks of darkness and light swirled around him, as arcs of electricity danced around the invisible shield of force Tarrin had erected in defense against the dark god, as the very air around the platform seemed to become alive in the aftereffects of such a release of magical energy, charged with such magical energy that Val had to struggle to reassert the void he had erected in the area.
You are powerful, mortal, but a mortal is all you are, Val's voice said, no longer angry, no longer furious, and strangely respectful. My power is endless, and yours has reached its end, but you did stand firm against my might, for however fleeting the moment. For that, I find, I must salute you. But now, it is over. I have won. I have won!
Tarrin could not deny that. Breathing heavily, his arms sagging, his tail drooping behind him, he knew that he had no more. But he knew with certain grim pride that if only for a moment, he had stood against the might and power of a god himself, and he did not yield.
He only dimly heard the screaming of Jasana and Jesmind as the god Val gathered himself to strike at Tarrin with his full, utter, and complete power, a blow Tarrin would not be able to turn aside, a blow that he would not have been able to turn aside even had he not been exhausted, a blow that would finish him and convey to the dark god the prize he had so coveted for thousands of years.
Maybe...maybe this time, luck had failed him. But he had just enough for one more act. He reached within, through the Cat, seeking to touch the All, preparing to cast one final spell, a spell that would kill him, a spell that would keep the Firestaff out of Val's hands until well after the conjunction was over--
The conjunction!
Tarrin looked up, past Val, past his dark form, and to the hole high in the ceiling of the vast chamber. Vala was now completely within the white edges of Domammon, and the Twin Moons were but a hair's breadth from touching the edge of Vala's reddish circumference.
Tarrin smiled evilly, feeling some tiny energy surge through his exhausted frame, feeling some measure of satisfaction. It had worked. He had reached Val, had gotten him angry, had goaded him into an attack, and he had somehow managed to survive through it. And as that all happened, time kept ticking away, the second hand on the little gold watch in his pocket continued to advance. Tarrin had arrived there mere moments before the event, and as he had hoped, Val had lost track of time in his fury, a fury intentionally goaded into him by the Were-cat. For the first time, Tarrin had turned someone else's anger against himself, rather than have his own rage turned against him.
Val was too late to stop what was coming.
"You're wrong," Tarrin wheezed with that same evil smile. "You haven't won yet." He drew himself up to his full height, beyond pain, beyond weariness, beyond worry and beyond care. He had withstood the assault that was the only weakness in his plan, gambling that he would somehow find a way to hold for those last few precious moments before the conjunction began. And he had managed to do it, though how he had managed, he would never fully understand.
Val seemed to follow his eyes, his shadowy form looking out into the sky. When that insubstantial head whirled back around, there was raw terror in his eyes.
You must be able to make the choices that must be made.
For the last time, he did just that. Without fear, without emotion, with only regret at what he was surrendering and fully understanding what would happen to him, Tarrin raised the Firestaff towards the sky as the Twin Moons brushed the edge of Vala's red disc and opened himself completely to the ancient artifact's whim. He saw the look of terror and chagrin on Val's face as the black Wraith-like form blazed towards him even as his power lashed out to prevent it, but he knew even as he did so that he was too late. His rage had taken him, and in losing his temper he had surrendered the only chance he would have had to stop Tarrin from doing the one thing that Val could not have permitted him to do under any circumstance.
To use the Firestaff.
And he who holds the Firestaff at a certain time, on a certain day, shall become a god.
Twenty longspans away and to the east, in a brilliant flash and a demonstration of power the likes of which had not been seen since the Blood War, the featureless tundra east of the pyramid flared, and left behind in its diminishment over a hundred thousand armed troops, ten of the the thirteen clans of the Selani, three hundred dragons, nearly ten thousand representatives of Fae-da'Nar of varying species, a thousand Aeradalla, nearly three thousand magic-users of all four orders, and nearly two score of Demons summoned forth by the Succubus Shiika to do battle on their
side.
The closest element to this suddenly appearing force was a group of Waern under the command of a Camibisi. The Waern took one look at that host, and then turned and fled squealing back towards the reserves stationed some distance behind them. The Waern, it seemed, were not fools. Their half-breed commander screamed and cursed at them, even cut a few of the slower Waern down from behind as he chased after them with his sword waving in the air, but he too retreated quickly as a grand, earth-shaking shout arose from that mighty army, and huge gusts of wind swept across the warm grass as three hundred dragons, the mightiest creatures on Sennadar, took to the air from the fringes of the huge army and turned in loose groups to unleash their furious might on the land-bound enemy.
Then came the charge of the bipeds below, led by the legendary Knights of Karas. Leading a huge formation of armored cavalry of Knights, mounted elements of the Legions and the Arkisian armies, and with the Selani loping easily in pace with the horses, the combined armies of the civilized world began their assault as Goblinoid elements of the army arrayed against them rushed forth from their positions to meet the fleeing Waern and the armies of humanity in a mighty clash on the unnaturally warmed grasslands of the land surrounding Gora Umadar.
The dragons were the first to strike. Led by a huge blue, larger than every other dragon in the host, the dragon Sapphire struck the first blow, an intertwined blast of lighting bolts that lanced forth from her open maw, driving into the center of a large formation of Trolls, killing most of them and causing the ground where the lightning struck to literally explode from the power of the magical attack. Other dragons followed suit, pounding the armies below with infernos of fire, blasts of lightning, clouds of poisonous gasses, streams of lethally powerful acid, and withering cones of intense cold. They absolutely destroyed those enemies closest to their charging allies, and then broke up to attack any large concentration of enemies that were close to them, making sure that no large element of the enemy army was going to meet the attack of the humans and their allies in one piece. They did not try to destroy every little thing, they simply made sure that their enemies were forced to scatter for their very lives, making sure that no organized defense would meet the Knights as they thundered onto the battlefield.
It was a tactic elegant in its simplicity, and absolutely devastating. When the Knights caught up to the Waern and the Goblinoid reserves that had been rushing to meet them, their foes had had no chance to form up and meet the assault in an organized manner. The Knights and heavy cavalry simply rode them down, splitting them into two groups, and into that hole charged the Selani. They widened the hole, and the Legions of Arak with Sulasian Rangers mixed into their lines marched in behind them in the classic Arakite wedge formation, the Rangers withering the enemy with storms of arrows as the highly disciplined Legions solidified the split of the enemy into two groups. Wikuni Marines, Ungardt, Amazons, Arkisian Legions, and the armies of Sulasia spread out to envelop those isolated pockets and cut them down as quickly as possible.
But that was but the initial blow, and Val's armies outnumbered the forces of the humans and their allies by ten to one. The dragons, the great equalizer that made their forces evenly matched, fanned out with Aeradalla escorting them to protect them from the winged elements of Val's forces, vrock and Harpies, fanned out in their mission not to lay waste to everything, but to cause as much chaos and disorder in their enemies as possible, keep them off balance until friendly forces could arrive to strike them before they had a chance to organize themselves. Even dragons had limits on their magic, so they had to use their breath weapons and their spells wisely, to maximum effect, before being forced to land and fight with their opponents in close combat, a method that actually posed risk to them should they come up against a strong Demon.
The battle outside had only just begun. The battle within had not yet truly started.
Val's power struck the Were-cat, but in that same instant, the Twin Moons broke the smooth perimeter of Vala's edge, and the conjunction was at hand. And in that split second, the long-sealed pathways of power which the Firestaff called upon to convey its might were opened. The Firestaff suddenly erupted into blinding white fire, a white fire that melted away Val's attack, that cast every nook and cranny of the platform and those who had watched the struggle between mortal and god with a light ten times more brilliant than the sun.
That light, that power, that brilliance, that energy erupted from the staff, a power so vast that even a god seemed as nothing when compared to it. It was the power of everything, of the entire universe, an echo of the vast energy generated in the instant of its creation. The Firestaff reached back through unfathomable means and touched on that power, the overwhelming power of life, of awareness, of being, a force that was vaguely related to the All, but the All was the most pitiful shadow of what this power truly was. The light surrounded Tarrin, enclosed him, and then he felt its power surge into him through the paws that were holding onto the staff, conducted into him from the nether regions where that power still echoed and through the staff, the instrument of its conveyance.
It was absolutely indescribable. The power of the gods themselves flowed effortlessly into him at a rapid pace, scouring away all that was mortal with their fiery touch. There was no pain, only a kind of utter ecstacy as his mind and soul were torn loose of their mortal constraints and bonded to the power of the universe itself, a power without bounds, without limitations. It infused him, caused his body to shine forth with the same blinding radiance as the staff itself as flesh and blood and bone were saturated with absolutely power, scoured away, replaced by the god-stone that replaced his mortal coil and formed the icon that represented him within the mortal world. It was but a metaphor, a symbol of his true self, but was necessary all the same as a point of reference which the mortal mind could fathom and understand. The power filled his mind, expanded his consciousness, revived memories taken from him by Niami during his turning, again allowing him to look down into the workings of the universe, but this time with an awareness that could comprehend the nature of its workings. Tarrin could see everything that was, everything that had been, could see the intent and reason for all, and he understood its meaning. The power joined to him swelled within him, freeing his mind of all mortal restriction, expressing the ultimate potential that he possessed, a potential that transcended the boundaries of mortal comprehension. Tarrin was joined to the universe itself, understanding all, seeing all, feeling truly as if nothing were beyond his capability.
He understood what needed to be done. There was no choice in it, and no choice in what would happen, but he had to make an active attempt to begin it. He reached out with his soul, with all his godly power, and sent it through the power of the universe itself, until those energies most harmonious with his power and his personality responded to him. Those energies, those states became his chosen forms, and those forms represented the base of his power. The energies of fire were most compatible with him, as were the both mortal and immortal concepts of duty, honor, and protection, traits that had been his strongest aspects as a mortal, and transferred into his godly sentience to form the basis of what he represented to the universe and to the mortals and other gods. They were what he was, his being, and their energies were his to command to a higher degree than the rest.
The formless stone of his icon flared anew, this time with intense red light. Fire exploded around the blank statue that had once been his mortal form, became as flesh again, but a flesh that did not exist within the bounds of mortal comprehension. It was the physical extension of self, the material focus through which the energy of his boundless self would channel, it was the instrument through which he would exert his will upon the mortal world. The blond hair of the statue burst into flame, as did the eyebrows and the fur, but the body retained its Were-cat features and shape. Two wings made of pure fire fanned into being within the fire of his braid, and then anchored themselves to his back, becoming an intregral part of self that were as real as an
arm or a leg, despite being made of living flame. This terrifying new creation opened its eyes, eyes that glowed with an intense green light, much like the green of the eyes that the mortal had once possessed, glowing in his anger and shining in his resolute intent to defend.
In that moment of blinding brilliance, Tarrin Kael ceased to be. In his place was born a new god, a new power within the universe. He was Tarrin, god of fire, god of duty, god of protection, defender of Sennadar itself, and his was the burning light of retribution which would strike down the god of darkness and forever spare the world of Sennadar from his scourged presence.
Pushing his complete awareness into his icon, feeling much as he had when he was mortal when he pushed himself into a projection, Tarrin became again aware of the material world around him, restricted himself to an awareness grounded almost completely within the material world. A mind expanded by his transformation took all in at once, understood, planned, realized. Jesmind and Jasana had not left, and he saw in their minds, minds that seemed as open books to him, that Jasana had tore free of Jesmind and ran back to protect her father when Val had attacked him. The Demons were all aghast with shock and furious with chagrin, understanding that they had just allowed the opportunity of an eon to slip through their fingers. And across from him, his mind a whirling chaos of disbelief and fury, floated the entity whose existence the new god had been created to destroy. He existed solely for the need to eradicate an ancient mistake, and he would not be denied.
Curious, he noted, that the amulet about the neck of his material form was still bound to Niami, and it still functioned. It had survived the transformation of self. He used it quickly and wisely, sending the Firestaff into the bounds of its elsewhere and recalling the black-bladed sword, bending his power to it, transforming it in an instant into an instrument of godly might, whose power existed on so many levels of existence that the mortal mind could not comprehend its depths. It was the instrument of justice, the executioner's sword, and it would fulfill the task for which it had been created.
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