his fingers around the saddle hom. Not there. Not on a rain-swept field with
Tempus’s men all around him. His heart pounded wildly. He heard, but could not
feel, the loose stirrups clanking against the lace-studs of his boot.
One step. One more step. The longest journey is made of single-
The red auroras rose until they touched the zenith. Molin felt the scream
trapped in his throat as the god reached out and pulled him from his body, mind
and soul.
“Lord Stormbringer,” he said, though he had no proper voice in the featureless,
ruddy universe where he met with the primal storm god.
You tremble before me, little mortal.
The roaring came from everywhere and nowhere. Molin knew it well enough to know
it could be louder, more painful, and that the present modulation revealed a
certain, dangerous, humor.
“Only a foolish mortal would fail to tremble before you, Lord Stormbringer.”
A foolish mortal who seeks to elude me? I do not have time to waste searching
for foolish mortals.
Here, in the god’s universe or perhaps within the god, there was no place for
hidden thoughts or verbal gymnastics. There was only nothingness and the raw,
awesome power of Stormbringer himself.
“I have been such a foolish mortal,” Torchholder acknowledged.
You trouble yourself with the opinions of those not sworn to me or the children.
You know that all Stormgods are but shadows of me-as Vashanka is a shadow I have
abandoned, the llsig god a shadow I have forgotten, and the one they call
“Father Enlil” a shadow which shall not fall across Sanctuary.