‘In Pug’s mind. Something is happening, and only the gods know what it is.’
Pug floated in a void, and again he knew he was detached from his body. Only this time he had none of the references he had possessed when he had been aided by the elven Spellweavers. He did not even know how he had come into the void. The last thing he remembered was preparing to attack the fleet of the Emerald Queen. Then there had been a blinding flash and he had found himself floating.
He also had some sense that time was passing, but he couldn’t tell how long he had been here. In the void there was no way to orient himself, either in space or time.
Then a voice came: Greetings.
Pug spoke with his mind. Who is there?
Suddenly Pug was someplace else, a realm of shadows but still without any physical frame of reference. Mountainous figures, dwarfing him to insignificance, ringed his position. They were near enough that he could sense how large they were, but distant enough that he could apprehend their overall shape. They were roughly human in form, but that was a generous use of the term human. Each rested upon a gigantic throne. Pug sensed these figures were living, though they resembled nothing so much as figures carved from a dark rock of unknown nature.
Pug attempted to see detail, but it was as if his mind would not hold the image of what he saw. He turned from figure to figure, and as he thought he recognized a detail, it would flee.
‘Who spoke?’ he asked aloud, but no words echoed in the air. He heard his voice in his own mind, but the sound was absent.
A figure emerged from the surrounding gloom, a figure robed in black. Pug waited patiently as the figure approached, and at last she removed a veil that hid her features. Pug asked, ‘Do I know you?’
‘We have met once before, magician,’ came the icy voice, and Pug felt physical pain as it ran through him like a frozen blade.
‘Lims-Kragma!’ he said.
The Goddess nodded.
Pug looked around and said, ‘But this is not your realm.’
‘Everything is within my realm, eventually,’ said the Goddess of Death. ‘But it is not the place of our previous meeting, magician.’
‘Who are these mountainous figures?’
The Goddess held out her hand. ‘These are the Seven Who Control.’
Pug nodded. ‘Where are we?’
‘We are in the realm of the gods,’ said the Goddess. ‘This is what you thought you saw when you sought to tear Macros the Black from within the mind of Sarig.’ She waved her hand and a faint image of the Celestial City sprang up, surrounding the lower third of the mountainous seven Greater Gods. ‘But that, like this, is simply another level of perception. Despite your powers, nearly unmatched for a mortal, you have not the ability to truly apprehend our reality.’
Pug nodded. ‘What am I doing here?’
‘You are here to make a decision.’
‘What?’
‘To live or to die.’
Pug said, ‘Is that a decision to be made?’
‘For you, magician.’ She placed her hand upon his shoulder and, rather than discomfort, he felt a strangely soothing touch. ‘You will never enter my realm unbidden, for to you has fallen a curse.’
‘A curse?’
‘You will not realize it at first, but eventually you will know it for what it is.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The Goddess put slight pressure on Pug’s shoulder and walked him forward slightly. Other figures came into view and Pug could see that most of them stood motionless, with eyes closed. One or two had their eyes open and regarded them as they passed.
‘This is the closest a mortal may come to viewing the gods. Pug of Crydee.’ Pug glanced at the Goddess and saw that she again looked as she had when he and Tomas had first visited her hall years before, but smaller. On that visit she had towered over them both.
‘How is it this time we are of equal size?’
‘It is a function of perception,’ she said, stepping away from him. Instantly she towered over him as she had before. ‘Now look at the Controllers.’
Pug did, and all he could see were the foundations of the Greater Gods’ thrones; they appeared a distant range of peaks, nothing more, their tops lost in the dim sky.
Then the Goddess returned Pug to the size he had been when they first met.
‘What have you to say to me?’ he asked.
‘You are at a nexus. You have three choices. You may release your hold on life now, and enter my realm. You will be rewarded for the good that you have accomplished. Or you may choose eternal life.’
‘As did Macros?’
‘Macros makes assumptions about his existence that are not valid. The sorcerer’s fate is not what he thinks it to be.’
‘You said I have three choices?’
‘The third is that you can escape the curse and return to living now, but you shall know the loss of those you love, the pain of thousands, and the sting of bitter failure at the end of your life. You will die in futility.’