(ello? Still runnin'?)

Raelis

"Yes," said Sasocles. "I can help you with this. I just hope you understand how.. tense.. such an operation can be. You'll be experiencing many strange things. Do you have an idea as to how you want to go about this?"

Max

Max enters the city, where he is met by a friendly, shifting people, who nod towards him in their vague way as they go about their business. Black stone surrounds him.

Raelis nods quickly.

Maxillita left the realm, moving to Valley of Mist.

Raelis smiles grimly.

"Of course there are always other alternatives.  Attempt to convince the conclave of Roid's betrayal?  Stand up and declare who I am to the conclave and hope I've misread the signs?  Attempt to claim a seat on the council based on my identity alone?  What do you think?  Do I have other alternatives that won't result in the conclave's destruction?  Destroy the callisti race?  I suppose that is possible at least.  You know its strange, I have almost nothing to gain from saving the conclave and everything to lose.  Max has either turned or is a liability to me.  Ruse and the council appear to be unable to believe me and the council isn't even internally consistent.  Aesin is me reborn as in my first life and we all know how that ended.  Maybe Balast and Miska were correct and Marduk was wrong.  Maybe I should finish what I started and forget the council."

Raelis snorted loudly and then smiled.

"Time I think to consult a friend.  Can you put me in contact with this god at this time?  If there is anyone who can present a case I will consider its him."

Raelis watched as the data flowed in.

"And that's a wrap.  Cast Ruse as Osiris, Roid as Balast and we're back where we started.  I really need to learn to trust my instincts on things.  If you set up the time field I'll set up the rest of the process.  One period on Izat was quite enough for me.  I am not going to repeat the next stage under any conditions.  Why the hell would I?  There is no way the tree called me back to stand with it with this as its champions.  It has called me back to finish what I started and give it peace.  LET IT END!"

The last was shouted to the heavens.  Around him the realm began to shake as he exerted his will and felt the subtle shifts of power once more.

"I reject Raelis, I reject Lis, I reject the black council, I reject Osiris, I reject the Athanor, I reject hope and I reject law.  I take a new name, Balast - Lord of the Hungry Dark."

1.

Sasocles is pale as he commences the great work, but he is a Magician of Alkan, and they cannot refuse a challenge; his life may be lost in the destruction, but his entire reputation would be at stake otherwise. The magic is easy enough - he could draw as much as he needed from Raelis, after all - but maddeningly complex. On trip up, and he would be ruined..

The stave, baptized in broken gears and ordained with the ashes of long dead men, vibrated suddenly in his hand. It was to begin. He chanted, fast and hard, his hands moving suddenly at strange times. He smashed clocks. He fasted throughout the ritual.. sixteen hours.. the chanting continued. Faster. Tick tick tick tick goes the eternal clock and Sasocles ticks with it. He drew power from the Highest Place.

He invoked the blessings of the Master Divine, waiting for his permission to continue on. Nothing happened. Sasocles took that for a yes. Blood was spilled - his own - in a circle of protection about him.

Tim
   e sl
       owed
            do
              w
               n

2.

Infinite minutes flowed in Litheris.

For every moment, the Essence of the place was destroyed.

For every moment, the Realm was destroyed.

There would be no escape.

3.

One aspect to another.

Law to destruction.

Preservation to annihilation.

It was an easy enough change.

There was no death.. only a shift. A thousand electric needles ripping through Raelis's form, destroying him and creating him just to destroy him again, the destruction reformed and retaken. A thousand things occurred. There was lightning within the soul.

Balast.

The name.

It was all he had - all he had to cling to, his raft in a storm of everything, in nothing, in a thousand possibilities. The name was he. Raelis? Raelis?

Balast.

He clung to that name as his self was destroyed, cast into the Crowleyan abyss, as he was deprogrammed and reprogrammed. There were changes everywhere, until..

Balast.

4.

Raelis was too busy destroying himself to be affected by - or even notice - the destruction of Litheris.

Sasocles learnt a powerful lesson - that the blood of a sorcerer can only help so much. He was torn asunder.

As he died, he screamed one last curse at the heavens, to be resolved at a later time.

5.

Balast awoke. Blackened sand, the remains of everything he'd once held dear, surrounded him. Nothing else.

Balast struggled upright, his body barely functional.  He turned his head from side to side and blinked repeatedly.  A name flickered in memory, an important name, only to be ripped away from him.  He raised one spiked fist and regarded it with curiosity.  As he unfolded the fist it was severed from his body by a gleaming blade.  He threw his gaze up to confront the robed figure wielding the blade and parried with the hammer in his own hand.  Then the world shimmered back and the figure was gone and his hand returned.

He knew and didn't know the name of the sword, he knew and didn't know the name of the hammer.  The world itself seemed to swim as he realised he was not truly Balast.  He unfolded his fist and lifted it up admiring it in the darkness that this world consisted of.  The darkness reminded him of his true realm, the truth he had tried to tell the others and had been struck down for.  His enemies face flickered in his vision and his face mask twisted into a snarl.  The law god would fall and then it hit him, he already had.  The circle was complete, He had fallen before law and now law had fallen before him, accepting the natural order as the time came.  He was returned not by his own hand but by the hand of his vanquisher but in this he had only one thought - to serve the tree.

he knelt, an armoured knight swearing his loyalty before his mistress.

"Yggdrasil, as before I swear again to serve you in all ways as you give me strength."

He felt at his belt for the hammer and was momentarily surprised to find it gone.  Then he stood and looked about him.  He felt drained and powerless and would until he found himself and began the long walk back to power.

"I am returned to do my duty to the tree."

As the oath was made, Balast felt bound to the Tree - such was the nature of oaths. There was another sensation, however, the pricking of his extrasensory perceptions.. there was someone else in the Realm. Another God in broken Litheris.

Balast's mask cracked into a smile.  This place was not his home but another god being here offered such promise.  He turned and tried to move his lowest left arm and looked annoyed when it completely failed to follow his instructions.

"Slightly more than I had anticipated."  He mutter before turning and moving out to look for this new god.

There was a creature at the border of what was once Litheris. A strange thing, part hawk and part fire, a broken image which at once contained terrible darkness and the light of a thousand suns - a bright, moody smear on the shattered rock. It was pathetic, this thing, but at once familiar. When it spoke, Balast saw a semblance of tortured intelligence..

"Osiris.."

A voice on the wind.

Balast heard the soft cry, but before he could react the apparition had vanished, the presence gone.

"Ah yes.  The pupil.  Well no matter.  I need to learn of his plans if for no other reason than to stop them colliding with mine."

He turns, the blackness of a portal opens over him and he is gone to the realm of Sura.

There was the crumbling of empires - the driest metamorphosis - jazz - the sting of the scorpion -

He was there.

Balast's portal opened back and the blasted realm and he spilled out.  His maniacal laughter rose over the deadness of the realm as he began to inscribe strange symbols into the dust.

"The Dark Eye, The Circle Imperious, The Unleashed Blade, Domvoi's mark, The Hole that is no Hole, The Broken Whole...."

His voice continued reciting the symbols as he inscribed them, the sounds fading away as the symbol pattern grew larger.

The words were spoken towards no one; nothing saw the symbols drawn. Litheris was a shattered waste, its blackened rock caught in a cyclone of lightning storms and raining ash..

The web of symbols continued to grow becoming more complex and interlinked.  Four symbols began to dominate the pattern, the Evil Eye , the true peace , The Broken Whole  and the Hole that is no Hole .

The pattern swirled and danced, mimicking, in a sick way, the staggering death of Litheris..

Balast stopped for a while and considered the pattern before continuing.

"Strange, what I wouldn't give for a copy of "Laws and Magic" right now.  I need a complete circle there and that is input so that would be a transmutation figure and that would be hthruk formation right there."

He leant forward and considered a particular part of the pattern.

"The First Light crossed with the Hole that is no Hole?  That's impossible."

His eyes narrowed observing the pattern.

"A full circle then and a missing symbol."

He leant forward and drew a single circle in the centre of a complex mess of symbols.

"The Master Divine himself."

He stepped back and looked at the entire pattern.

"As it was in the beginning, so shall it be at the end.  Twelve shall nurse, twelve shall bury.  The Reborn shall lead where the firstborn led.  The Master Divine will bless where he cursed.  The twelve as one shall raise the Last Realm and speak the prophecy of a new age."

Balast sank numbly to the sand, his eyes frantically moving over the symbols before bowing his head in acceptance.

Balast felt a wave of exhaustion rush over him - he needed medical attention. He was, after all, missing an arm, and his body was scarred and burnt..

Balast looked at himself and shrugged.  He wasn't precisely a good subject for healing.  Most gods who had tried had had no effect as he didn't respond well to it.  He needed to get into the void but in his current state that would be dangerous and probably deadly.  He leant back to rest knowing it was useless as a recovery technique but he had a lot to think about.

The stumb throbbed; Balast was sore all over. He was exhausted. Slumped on the floor, it took the combination of willpower and powerful pseudoadrenalines to stay awake. Blankness came to him easily. He needed to recover, even if he couldn't fully heal - it seemed that the threat had passed, at least for the moment.

Balast sank back closing his eyes and relaxing into unconsciousness.  He still needed to make sure Max didn't do something stupid when he was told the truth and stop Roid and Ruse from destroying the tree but neither of those threats was significant currently.  He had time to stop them all.

Sleep came easily, blissfully, to Balast, his energies recovering swiftly. When he chose to awaken he would be recovered, if not fully healed.

Balast walked the dream, returning once more to his place of birth and staring out at the colourful chaos that had drawn him into existence.  He felt once more the draw of the chaos and his role within the pattern that underlay it.  The call was answered and he stepped into Eridu.

He stood from his sleep, eyes opening as if for the first time and looked around him at the devastation Raelis had wrought to prevent what now seemed inevitable.  He bowed his head and stood.

"Marduk, what would you have done now my master?  Could you have saved this from what comes?  Could you have stopped this before it forces my hand?  Varl, this is when I need you."

The portal opened and Xi lay before him.

A kingdom lost - a flash of blue - the eternal struggle - an abstract concept - popopopopop -

And Balast was in Xi.