The ground trembled and they came. Clouds of smoke and steam bellowed out. Metal ground against metal and screamed. Men and women yelled. Gas stung the air and then the fire came in a gout. The trees wailed. Bound to the earth, chained to their deaths, unable to run. Fey poured from the grove. An angry swarm that fell upon the machines.

A ball of vines rolled out, whipping and catching up a person carrying a rifle who’d shot down a thin feathered creature. Flinging aside the person, letting them crash against a burning tree, the thing moved on. Tangling and reaching out to grab up the humans who were foolish enough to come here without their metal suits.

Black oil oozed from the shadow and enveloped a mecha that encased a man. Wielding huge sickles, it sliced into a blazing man and then turned to cut down a form that shot above it. The metal bubbled and hissed. The man cursed. Dropping one of the sickles, the mechanical hand wiped at the oil, smearing in down over the arm. Two silver eyes opened, floating on the surface. Then a fang mouth smiled up at him.

Indra called out the storms, bringing clouds and lightning down from a previously clear sky. Striking the machines, they ceased up. Fey swarmed over the frozen, useless metal. Tearing at the casing, they worked their way to the human pilots.

Flinging herself from a tree, Gytha drove her claws down through the metal and peeled it back, exposing the humans beneath. Jumping away, she left them for the fey that followed behind her. Fire raged over her and ignited the webbing clothing in a quick burst. She growled, caught a branch which she used to change her direction. Hurling herself at the large gun, she smashed into it. Leaving a dent where she struck, she clawed herself up the side. She met a gun barrel at the top and took two bullets; one into the shoulder and one hit her upper arm. Sinking her teeth into the man’s neck, she made her way to the top before she collapsed.

Then Dipak came over the hill. A looming darkness that foretold destruction. The fey paused and looked up toward him. Black tendrils swelled up around him. The fey scurried away, fleeing back into the trees. Kam caught Jacob up in his arms and ran. Ama carried Gytha. There were many other fey that were being hauled out, but there were many that were left behind.

The darkness gathered.

The black fragmented out from his left eye, cracking the white of his once smooth skin; crumbling away like broken pottery, an enigmatic horror was revealed. Ribbons of gloom hung from his cheek. Next to his ear, a vertical row of small black eyes opened and glared out at the gathered Techie force.

From his back, shoulders and hips cords of gloom stretched out; each with a vast, screeching maw that wailed unrelentingly. They lurched, moving down the hill. An aphotic wall followed behind them. The humans stared up in horror, many unable to move. Those who ran were overtaken. The field of battle was consumed and silence enclosed the area. The fey looked on from the tree line. None spoke. Their fear was as heavy as the humans’ had been.

The drifting breeze caught the edges of the murk and it slowly shifted it away like particles of sand. Braver fey moved down from the trees. The machines were motionless but untouched. All that remained of the bodies, fey and human alike, were blackened, fragile bones. Touching them reduced them to ash. None of the dead would be returned to their families. They looked up at their savior and wondered upon this power he had brought them.

Dipak fell to his knees and clutched at his head. Running to him, Jacob called out his name. 

Stretching back, way back, he could feel the pull of time. This darkness had been known before. It ached. Deep down. Something coiled up and waited. Something more beneath. It had a name: Erebos.

Jacob wrapped his arms around him.

Leaning forward, he puked up black bile. It burned his throat and mouth. Digging his fingers into his scalp, he willed the vague images to stop. They tugged at him, calling him back.

“I’m not that person,” he moaned. “She died.”

With a jerk, he fell forward, caught his weight on his hands and vomited again. Jacob smoothed his hair back from his face and tucked it into the high collar of his white jacket. He stared at Dipak's face. It had not returned to what it had been. The row of six little eyes blinked rapidly at him.

“Come quickly,” he thought loudly, pushing his thoughts out as hard as he could. It was as much a prayer as it was a spell he was hoping to cast.

He clenched his teeth and stroked Dipak’s neck gently. They laid on the battle field amongst the dead for hours while Dipak struggled to pull the fragments of himself back over the shadows that had burst forth. 

They were the last to return from the battle. There had been no hurry. Sickness came in waves, making it difficult for Dipak to travel even the short distance to the center of the grove. No one approached them as they passed. Jacob stayed with him, supporting his weight as he stumbled along. No one else offered to help him. There were several they had passed who could have carried him or used their abilities to transport him to the Life Tree without effort. But they let him struggle. How many life times had he helped them? Saved them? Jacob let his tears fall, focusing on getting Dipak to the Life Tree. Gritting his teeth, he continued to move forward. Now, when Dipak needed them, they shunned him. Why? Because he was not pretty. Because he was not elegant. 

When they arrived at the Life Tree, Gytha was already there. Kam assured them that her wounds were not serious. She was laying with her eyes closed next to the tree. Jacob could not think of a time that Gytha had slept. It was odd to see her this way now; as if sleeping. Dipak went to her and knelt down next to her. He pressed his long white fingers against the wound on Gytha’s shoulder.

Dipak brought his stained fingers to his lips.

“This is my fault,” he whispered.

Jacob reached one hand out to him and started to protest. Dipak whirled around on him, his eyes steaming and sucking in all the light around them.

“She fought for me,” Dipak hissed.

Jacob could not deny that. If Dipak had been elsewhere, Gytha would have been as well. When Gytha went into battle it was only for the purpose of protecting the Life Spark. Dipak wondered why she had always been so loyal, in every life. It didn’t matter to Gytha what Dipak looked like or what she became. Was it only because she was the Life Spark?

Dipak turned back to Gytha and uttered a series of clicks. Angerona scuttled out from the trees and crawled up into Dipak’s lap. They clicked back and forth to each other for some time before Angerona moved so that she was settled upon Gytha’s stomach. Dipak dug his fingers into the shoulder wound and pulled out the bullet. He did the same for the wound in Gytha’s arm. He stared down at the bullets with the small bit of iron at their base. This was the reason the wounds had not yet healed. Dipak stuffed the bullets in his mouth and swallowed them, taking the poison into himself.

Struggling to his feet, he clung to the tree. There was no calling for Enaid now and there was no need. He stumbled through the split trunk and staggered to Enaid’s side where he fell to his knees.

“What do I do?” he asked.

Jacob came up behind him. There was nothing he could offer for comfort. What could they do now but wait? They needed the Life Seed and they needed the cure for whatever illness was raging through Dipak.

“Jacob, this isn’t sickness,” he said, looking up at him.

Jacob said nothing. He knew sick when he saw it.

“I am the Aspect of Wrath. I will continue to change. Each act of violence around me will force further change until I become nothing but rage and destruction. When I reach that point, I won’t be able to bind the darkness within me. This Aspect of the Life Spark comes when the tree dies.”

Digging his fingers into his hair and pulling hard, he wailed “Everything is wrong!”

Falling to his knees next to Dipak, Jacob tried to pull him into his arms, but he shoved him away. Jacob got up and staggered away.

Dipak sat alone with Enaid. He didn’t know where Jacob went, but he found that he didn’t care. He’d become smothering. At some point, their relationship had changed and that hurt. They had almost become friends and now Jacob was his nursemaid or maybe his mother. He didn’t really want either.

Reaching out to stroke Enaid’s cheek, a few dark motes shot from the tips of his fingers. He paused. That had never happened. Wait. It had been a long time since it had happened. He closed his hand around one of the motes that still floated in the air and felt it puff against his hand. It felt like soot. Opening his hand and looking, he found that it had left a mark like soot too. It should have snuffed. No, it wasn’t light.

The lines opened in his mind and he followed his lives back, pushed on by the sense that this had all happened before. This darkness. This breaking tree. This aspect. The lines of himself wove in and out with hundreds of other lives. Each life separate, yet interconnected with his own. There was one life that was more. Raven. He was always there. Raven. He was always more. Raven. His line was always more important. Then he slammed against the wall of his birth and the lines of his many lives tangled up onto his limbs and pulled on him to go further back. Screaming, he clutched at his head. Falling onto his side, he now wished that Jacob was here. Raven who always meant everything.

For a moment he floated in a place of peace. But the pulling was unrelenting and he again slammed against a wall, this time it was his death. His breath caught, then came quick. There was no desire to see this. But his eyes went wide, his fingers spread out across the floor and he rolled over onto his stomach. Never feeling so completely alone, he groped for Enaid’s hand, but he couldn’t find it.

Gytha carried him. It was like being a treasured, beloved child. In all the life times he had known Gytha, he had felt safe and wanted in that embrace. Hands touched him. Fingers traced over his face, against his arms and his legs. So, many hands. They were silent. All the sound had been sucked from the world in a great breath and now was being held. Everything was still. Only he and Gytha were in movement, but they made no movement in their passage; they moved like dead.

No Gytha, only I am dead. Dipak rolled onto his back. Grabbing at the buckles, he tried to loosen them, feeling that the collar was strangling him. Oh, Gytha. They cannot see your grief. Stop comparing yourself to those around you. You are special. Tears came to his eyes. They burned when they fell. These were secrets that he felt he had no right to know.

Gytha pressed her head against the Tree of Life.

Gytha, you never failed me. You never failed Enaid. Dipak tore his claws through the fabric, but it didn’t make breathing easier. He could feel the cold shame trickle down into Gytha’s bones. Then there was rage. It was a heat deep in the bowels. A promise that Gytha renewed every time that Dipak died. Revenge. A promise that Gytha had always kept. In death, Dipak had never known.

Hands touched him. Fingers traced over his face, against his shoulders and arms. They shook him. Claws combed through his hair and moved against the side of his face. He was then lifted into that familiar and safe embrace. Purring and rocking, Gytha soothed him.

It pulled him back, calling him to the present. He wanted to be there, in Gytha’s embrace. Gytha.

“Gytha, you never failed me,” he mumbled.

Then he was tumbling forward, falling past the place that Gytha was. No! Wait! That’s where he wanted to be. There were no lines tangling him now. There was just a vast space, a gaping maw open before him. When he came to a stop, he hovered fluffy and light as a cloud.

Two young girls stood at the edge of a sheer cliff. But Dipak could not focus on them. They were watching a great black creature. A thing of writhing oil and coiling ropes. Massive, it moved as a wave over the land before them. It was preceded by an ocean of darkness that swallowed all light. Then it followed behind to crush out all hope. In its wake, it left nothing.

Dipak screamed, hauling himself back into the present, hauling himself back into Gytha’s arms. But when he arrived back in the tree, he was alone. Gytha had never been there. Enaid was still at the tree’s center, immobile. Dipak screamed again. He didn’t want to become, but the future had just revealed that he would and that he would devour. The hunger already stirred within him.

Erebos was coming.