Chapter 4: The Awakening

"And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away
in the tidal destruction
the moral melee.
The elastic retreat rings the close of play
as the last wave uncovers the newfangled way.
But your new shoes are worn at the heels
and your suntan does rapidly peel
and your wise men don't know how it feels
to be thick as a brick."
			--Jethro Tull, "Thick as a Brick"

[The sea is down.]

Katze Brenner tumbled out of bed in an explosion of bedclothes.  "Who said
that?" she said, looking around the small room, straining to see if there was
anybody there.

[The sea is down.]

"Yeah, yeah, you said that.  Who are you?"  Katze groped for a match in the
darkness.

[Your destiny.]

"My destiny, huh?"  Katze had managed to find a match, and struck it, bringing
some light to the dark room.  She looked around, baffled, as it was only the
tiny room the Society of Mages had assigned her, with a rough hewn plank bed, a
rudely carved dresser, and dirt walls.  The light also reflected off a mirror in
the corner.  Katze shrugged, and lit the oil lamp sitting on the dresser.  With
a satisfying "Fffst," it caught, and flooded the room with light.

Nobody was there.

Katze dimmed the light and frowned. The room was empty, yet somebody had spoke.
Or had somebody?  Wondering if it had been a dream, she started to climb back
into bed.

[This is your choice.  Do what you know you must do, or go back to sleep.  One
way leads to the truth, the other leads to death and destruction.  It is your
choice.  He comes to find you, you had better be ready to meet him.]

"I don't understand.  Who is coming?  Where is he coming?"

[The sea is down.  Marraketh may never be the same...]

***

"The horses stamping -- their warm breath clouding
in the sharp and frosty morning of the day.
And the poet lifts his pen while the soldier sheaths his sword.
And the youngest of the family is moving with authority.
Building castles by the sea, he dares the tardy tide to wash them all aside."

Katze closed the door to the warrens of the Society of Mages.  She held up her
lantern to see where she was going in the darkened tunnels when she heard the
voice from her room speak again.  [There is no time to act like a scared
Marrakethian.  You know what to do, do it!]

"But I don't know what to do!  I came back here to understand who I was!"

[You know.  Deep down inside of you, you know the truth, and you hide from it.]

"Is this one of the stupid puzzles, like my name?"

[If you insist.  Now hurry it up if you're going live by the code of Ethics.
But it will be too late if you do.]

With the mention of the Codes, Katze stopped dead in her tracks.  "Oh no." she
whispered.  "No.  He's tried two times to destroy this land, and I'll be damned
if I'll let him do it a third time."

And anybody left observing would have seen Katze blink out of existance from
that spot.

Meanwhile, on the beach, there was a soft *pfwat* as feet suddenly hit the
sand.  Katze blinked at her settings, and tried to fight the urge to find the
highest ground and turn towards the sea.  Her face twisted in contortions as
she looked up.  What she saw shocked her.  The ruins of Dewpoint were to the
left, but they weren't ruins anymore.

Her mouth dropped open in awe.  Had she managed to transport herself back in
time to the time when Dewpoint ruled this piece of the world?  Had she managed
to turn the tide back, and save Dewpoint?  Then the futility of what she had
seen occurred as she realized she could see the shadows of the ruins sticking
through the illusion.  Such hope was not to be, Dewpoint remained the same
for eternity, the ruins stressing what defiance meant.

"Oh Marraketh, my Marraketh, how could thou be so ignorant!" she breathed, and
the voice echoed in her ears, [Watch and behold.]

A roar echoed in her ears and Katze fought the urge to turn around and stare
at the darkened sea.  Yet it seemed almost as day, as she heard the whine of
ancient sirens.  Dropping to her knees in the sand, she watched as the roar
grew ever louder in her ears.  She wanted desperately to hide her face in the
sand than see Dewpoint's destruction.

The roar reached its highest point, and Katze could only stare numbly as the
wave collapsed upon Dewpoint, and it seemed as if the city gave one last
desperate dying scream as the sea claimed it for itself.  Or was that her own
scream?  It was hard to tell anymore, as she collapsed to the sand, alone with
her grief and agony.

She lay on the sand for she knew not how long, but when she got back up, the
moon seemed be locked in the same position it was when she had appeared on the
sand, giving everything a blue tint, except the sea.  The sea still looked a
deep threatening black.  She walked towards it, stopping where the sand became
damp with the earlier tide.  Here she sat, digging into the sand, frantically
building something.

For hours she worked, as if she was a man possessed, until the creation she had
barely pictured when she started was finished.  Katze looked upon it, an
amazingly accurate rendition of Dewpoint before its destruction, including a
small sand lighthouse at the edge of the bay, the one she could look up and
see from where she was at.  It had amazingly survived the destruction of the
tsunami, and the intervening years.  With a glance down at her sand sculpted
lighthouse, she eyed an army running from a illusory dragon, and four small
figures fleeing towards Dewpoint later.  And she simply stared at everything,
as she could see thousands of years of history echoed through the sand.
Sand horses raced through the city, and she could see the steam coming off
their snouts.

And the tide was coming in.

She looked.  Lying on the sand next to the city carved in its thousand million
grains of sand was a longsword.  She had never seen anything like it before
anywhere, Marrakethian swords were built for function, not for beauty, but this
was plain beautiful.  She picked it up, admiring the shiny blue-grey sheen of
the blade, attempting to read the old script carved into it and failing
miserably. The hilt was black, with more of that same odd blue-grey metal that
made up the blade that she had never seen before, and a brilliant green stone
was set into the hilt.  But yet, grasping it, it seemed to have been built for
her.  The weight was perfect, the grip fit like a glove, and it seemed...just
awesome.  Something was happening here that she failed to grasp, but she figured
it would make itself known soon enough.

She got the sudden instinct to sheath it, and looking down saw herself dressed
not in the jeans and T-shirt that she had been wearing before, but a brown
robe made out of the predominant fabric in Marraketh.  A belt fastened to her
waist held a simple scabbard for the sword.  The only thing that hadn't been
touched was her glasses and her Birkenstock sandals, and she wondered what
strange things were going on here.

In the warrens, Kendren stumbled out of bed and began scrawling.  He was
surprised to see himself writing without any light, or really any input from
the rest of his body at all.  He yelled for help.

Katze carefully put the sword away, and stared at the sea.  The moon had
crept downward in the sky, and the tide nibbled at the lighthouse.  Katze
frowned, and then before she knew what was happening, she picked up a handful
of sand and threw at the sea, screaming, "NO!  NO!  I will NOT allow you to
destroy Dewpoint again!  I WILL NOT allow you destroy Marraketh again!  You
will show yourself and you will explain yourself, or it shall be my job to make
you face me, and explain how YOU betrayed your own worshipers!  Come out and
face me, for I am the one who has and will save Marraketh from its own demise.
I am the Liberator, the one forseen to usher in the Second Reign of Kyrill
Hrdek, and to return Marraketh to its past glories, the one who brings the word
of the Creator to a land which needs it, and you WILL come out and
face me for that reason alone!"

***

"The innocent young master -- thoughts moving ever faster --
has formed the plan to change the man he seems.
And the poet sheaths his pen while the soldier lifts his sword.
And the oldest of the family is moving with authority.
Coming from across the sea, he challenges the son who puts him to the run."

The sea roared in anger as the sand pelted it.  Katze fought the urge to flee to
higher ground as the sea rose up to drown her.  She put her hand on the hilt of
the blade and attempted to keep her voice from betraying her hidden fear.
"Drowning me isn't going to end your problems."

The wave roared straight up.  "Drowning Marraketh won't wipe your sins from the
world, either," Katze said, slightly peeved.  "It'll just add to the pile.  And
the Takatyu no longer exist.  Well, they do, as my ancestors, but destroying
Marraketh doesn't clear the sin of changing the Takatyu into the D'wani."

"They wanted it."

Katze looked at the man who emerged from the wave.  Suprisingly, for being
called the Old Man Across the Sea, his preferred apperance was that of a young
man, tall and thin, with long blonde hair and blue eyes.  His clothes were
obviously made of seaweed.  He reminded Katze of a much more cold Robinson
Crusoe.  He quietly repeated, "They wanted it."

"After you performed a miracle," Katze said.

"What?  Healed myself?  They still had a choice."

"When a god appears who can obviously destroy you appears, is it really a fair
choice?"

"Ah, you are a tricky one, Liberator."

"You can call me Katze.  And I'm no more trickier than you, Old Man."

"If we're getting informal, you can call me Tirrasan.  This sea is mine.  What
is yours, Kat-say?"

"Among others, the D'wani are mine."

The ocean roared in anger.  "The D'WANI are MINE!  They are mine by their very
name -- the Tirrasanyu D'wani.  The Children of the Sea God!  Mine!"

"Who convinced you that it was in the best interest to destroy what is yours?
For when you launched a tsunami at your children, you forfeited your right to
claim them as yours.  They now are mine, as their Liberator."

"I..."

"And who convinced you to send the Wyrm to enslave them all?  Who convinced you
that was in the best interests of your children?"

"I..."

"And WHO CONVINCED YOU that drowning them now would wipe your sins from the
UNIVERSE?!?" Katze roared.  "It is too late!  You cannot destroy them now, they
are no longer yours to destroy!"

Tirrasan roared angrily and shoved the ocean at Katze.  Katze pulled her sword
and stood her ground, as much as she wanted to flee.  If drowing is what it
took, then she would do it.  The wave broke over her head, but instead of being
pounded by the weight of all the water, everything stayed dry, as if the wave
had never existed in the first place.  Katze stood there, blade in the ready
position, watching a very normal ocean and a humbled Tirrasan on his knees in
the sand.  "M'liege," Tirrasan muttered.

"No," Katze said.  "To your feet.  I am not your liege."

Tirrasan rose, and Katze saw him for the first time taking on his title of the
Old Man.  Katze actually, oddly, felt some pity for the guy.  She looked at him.
"You who were once so proud of the D'wani, why did you forsake them?"

"They turned their back on who they were.  They agreed to the Codes.  They
forfeited everything they loved for what?  To join with the Kiratyu?  Who
weren't even their worthies?"

"The Kiratyu suffered as much for their part in the Joining."

"Yes, but the Kiratyu were not my people."

"They became your people when they joined with the D'wani."

Tirrasan stared at the sand.  "I have no answer for that," he finally said.  "I
was angry, and in my rage, my anger got the best of me, and I wanted to wipe
their stain from this land.  And I tried to sit on this rage, but somebody found
me, and he told me that was the best thing I could do."

"Who?" Katze asked.  "Who convinced you that this was the proper thing to do?"

A third voice, that sounded very British to Katze's ears, answered the question.
"I believe that would be me."

***
"What do you do when
the old man's gone -- do you want to be him?  And
your real self sings the song.
Do you want to free him?
No one to help you get up steam --
and the whirlpool turns you `way off-beam."

Katze turned to face the new voice, her sword still in ready position.  There,
walking down the beach towards her and Tirrasan was a figure, dressed rather as
if he'd just stepped out of a board meeting.  He wore a black business suit,
with a blue tie, and he tipped his bowler hat to her as he stopped.  His shoes
were the shiniest black Katze had ever seen.  He smiled cheerfully.  "My
business card," he said, and handed a card to Katze.

Katze took the card in the hand that wasn't holding the sword and frowned as she
read it.  "J'Naith Taral, First and the Fairest, Prince of the Void," she spoke.
"With offices in several dimensions.  I didn't realize extradimentional entities
needed business cards."

Tirrasan looked at the new arrival and fell to his knees again.  "Master!
Master, I have failed you!"

J'Naith smiled.  "I'm a very busy man, the job keeps me traveling, and people
always want to know where to find me if they want to make a deal.  Business
cards work well."  He glared at Tirrasan, and sighed.  "So bloody hard to get
proper help these days too."

Katze stared at J'Naith.  "You're not what I expected."

J'Naith smiled, and straightened his clerical collar.  Katze blinked as J'Naith
seemed to utterly switch costume in a millisecond.  "You were expecting hellfire
and damnation and pitchforks, were you?" he said in that same oddly-British
accent.  "That's so passe!  It's all about the business of saving souls."

"That seems ... well, an odd line of work for you to be in."

"The work of the Lord is never done!" J'Naith smiled, showing off a row of
pearly white teeth.  "You see, we're on the same side here."

Katze blinked.  "What do you mean, the same side?"

"Who said anything about there being sides?" J'Naith asked, this time in the
form of an Asian man in Buddhist robes, but with the same voice he had been
using throughout the whole performance. Katze found the accent stranger coming
from this form than the prior two. "We are all in this together, searching for
enlightenment and nirvana."

Katze was baffled by this and just stared at him.  "You want to just pick one
form and stick to it?" she finally said, not bothering to deflect his last
assertion.

J'Naith grinned and flicked through what appeared to be a longshoreman, an Army
general, and a schoolteacher before he returned to his business suit and bowler
hat.  "So what say you to taking his job?" he asked, pointing to Tirrasan still
prostrate on the dirt.

"To be honest, I don't particularly like the ocean, and I've got other more
interesting things to do yet," Katze said.  "Besides, he'll never fall in your
trap again."

"Me?  Trap somebody?  You insult me.  I never trap, I make deals.  They're all
agreed to, and I make sure I have the proper paperwork."  J'Naith presented a
rolled scroll out of nowhere.  "They always get something out of the deal, in
Tirrasan's case here, it was permission to recreate the D'wani once he wiped the
slate clean.  He failed at that job, so I get my pound of flesh."

Tirrasan cried out, "Spare me, Master!  I tried!"

J'Naith stared in disgust at the prostrate form.  "No, you are forfeit to me
when you failed for the last time."  He looked up at Katze.  "Come with me, I
have something to show you.  No tempting, I promise."  Before she could protest,
he took her hand, smiled, and the world swirled around them.

Next thing Katze knew, they were sitting on the wall overlooking Rhye.  J'Naith
smiled again, showing all his teeth.  "Now that we don't have that annoying
Tirrasan around anymore, let's do proper introductions, shall we?  I'll start.
You, my friend, have many names, one for this land, and one for the place you
grew up.  And someday, my friend, you will even combine them!"

Katze stared at J'Naith.  "The name I choose to use is my business.  You will
stay out of it."

J'Naith puckered his face up in a pout, and then returned with his teeth-showing
grin.  "I shall.  So which do you prefer, Liberator of Marraketh?  Oh, I know
this one.  You prefer the name you've been called.  You're so used to Katze that
you can't get over the fact that it's not really your name!"

Katze growled.  "Knock it off, now.  The name I choose to be called is the name
I will be called by, whether it is my real name or not.  And besides, I hope we
can't be seen up here.  It's broad daylight."

"Oh no, don't worry about that.  Metaphysics is so much fun.  Nobody will see us
up here, not even if they're *looking*," J'Naith crowed.  "Which leads me into
my next question.  If the King were to die, his crown would go to his next
living relative.  His only living relative.  The one who *is* Tjarlin Mrythen
Katze, as much as she wishes to deny to the universe that that is her name!"
J'Naith laughed at his joke, and Katze glared at him.  "The point is, it
wouldn't be hard to push the King to his death, and then the crown would be
yours!"

"I don't want it, and I have never wanted it," Katze said.  "You forget,
J'Naith, I was raised somewhere where we take our anti-monarchy tendancies
seriously.  The fact that Marraketh has a king is regrettable, yes, and I would
have passed on the crown if it had come to me legitimately, so offering to
remove Mikje and make me queen won't work.  I don't want it."

J'Naith sobered, and appeared in his clerical collar again, as opposed to his
bowler hat.  "None of the kingdoms of the world appeal to you?" he asked.

"None, J'Naith.  I'm not a ruler," Katze said quietly.

"Interesting.  You are quite the trickster, Liberator."  J'Naith thought for a
second and then said, "I know!"  He spread his arms out to encompass the whole
reach of Marraketh.  "Marraketh, K'lin, the entirety of the seventh dimension,
free of the tears that Tirrasan put into it when he tried to destroy the D'wani!
All yours, to do with as you see fit.  You don't have to rule, just keep the
place running smoothly, maybe accept a few prayers...not strenuous work.  You
could even walk amongst the people, perhaps play your silly games in the other
dimension..." He trailed off, waiting for her to decide.

Katze thought.  Free of the stains that Tirrasan had put on the place.  Free of
the Wyrm.  Free of twenty-eight years of domination and humiliation.  Free of
the sea fear.  It was tempting, but..."As much as that would be nice, I don't
think it would work.  While it would be nice to fix the tears that Tirrasan put
into this world, he had your help putting them there, J'Naith.  The Wyrm, I'm
sure, is your doing.  I don't know what you will ask me to do if I accept your
kind offer, so I will have to reject it."

J'Naith frowned.  He switched into a form that resembled Monty Hall wanting to
make a deal, with the awful suit, and spoke once more.  "That's thrice I was
sure I had you, and thrice you have rejected my offers.  But I have an offer
that you cannot refuse!"

"We'll see.  What is it?"

"Not only this dimension, but the one that you spend all your time playing in.
You can have them both.  I'll remove the influence of the one you call the Wyrm
and his allies, and you can make the world a better place, and can do favours
for those you call your friends.  Of course, if you choose this option, they're
not going to remember you, and they're just going to think of the gods twisting
things in their favour as a string of extraordinary good luck, but you'll still
know who does it.  And who knows, maybe you can change those humans for the
better.  The planet would become such a better place with you making all the
calls..."

Katze thought.  The old tired planet she'd grown to know as home could really
use somebody to look after it, and being the benevolent dictator had some appeal
to it.  And god only knew that humanity themselves could use a patron saint with
all the trouble they got into...the offer was tempting.  She thought of her
friends -- Greg and Josh, Ari and Mal, Aris, Cal, some of the rest of the VR
crew...hell, even some folks at TRES.  Some of them could use the streak of good
luck coming their way...

J'Naith produced a scroll.  "Let's make a deal!" he cried.

Katze frowned at him and thought a bit more.  How many of her friends would be
there if there had been no Jihad to call them there in the first place?  There
was a good number of them, and of the rest that she thought were from Earth in
the first place, she had no idea what to make of what their lives would have
been like if she accepted this offer.  "Let's not," she said quietly.  "No
deal."

J'Naith dropped the scroll he was about to get her to sign.  "What do you mean,
no deal?" he asked, sounding as dangerous as she had ever heard him.

"No deal.  Taking this offer would be quite the coup, but I don't want the
responsibility, and I don't want to ponder what my friends would be or where
they would be if the Jihad never came to pass.  And even though *they* wouldn't
know the difference, I would, and I would always wonder if I'd made the right
choice.  Besides, the damage, again, is mostly your fault.  So, I'm afraid I
will respectfully have to decline this offer as well."

He glared at her and returned to his business suit and bowler hat.  "Altruism."
J'Naith shuddered, and then looked at her again,  "What *would* you want?"

The best thing she could do in this situation was keep her mouth shut, but
Katze's thoughts escaped faster than her common sense could reel them in.   "To
have my dad welcome me into his house and love me despite what I am and not
think I am a demon," she said quietly.

The smile returned.  "What an interesting request.  I'll confess it's not
something I would have considered obvious upon meeting you."  J'Naith fetched
the scroll he dropped, shook it out and offered it once again to Katze.  "One
small signature, and I can make that reality."

Katze took the scroll and stared at it.  To erase that bad memory, all she had
to do was sign this piece of paper.  All she had to do.  It would be so very
easy.  But what would she give up for one minor change?  "I want to know what
you get out of this deal," she said suddenly.

"I want Marraketh," J'Naith said.  "And the only way I can get that is through
you."

Katze sat there for a bit longer, contemplating the scroll and the words.
"Would you like a pen?" J'Naith said, and offered her an ink pen from his suit
pocket.  Katze took it numbly, thinking.  On the one hand, reconciliation with
the man she'd been raised by.  On the other, a homeland she barely knew.  She
uncapped the pen.

J'Naith smiled the largest grin he ever had as he watched the last thing
standing in between him and a possession prepare to sign.  "Go ahead, go ahead,"
he murmered, trying to speed up the process.

Katze frowned one last time, weighing the decision.  And then her thoughts
focused on the people in Marraketh, all who had been so kind to her over these
last two weeks -- Remmick and Rene and Grahm and Kendren and Saulin ... and even
Tyrene, the man who gave the things that mattered most to him so that she could
even contemplate doing what she was about to do.

She capped the pen and handed it back to J'Naith.  "I can't," was the only
justification she could make for this one.

J'Naith screamed, "You can't deny me!  I am the First!  I am the Fairest!  I can
give you your deepest desires!  I can give you what you want!"

"Begone, J'Naith.  You had your chance to take this world, and you failed.  I am
still here, and I have rejected your offers to make me king four times over, and
I even rejected your chance to trick me by giving me what I most want. But you
cannot, because what I most want isn't in your abilities.  Begone, this land
belongs to the one who Created you, and not to you."

J'Naith screamed long and hard and then disappeared into nothing.  Katze found
herself on her knees in the sand where she has started the night's trip into the
surreal, only to find the ocean turning orange from the sun rising.  Tirrasan
still lay in the sand himself, sobbing.

A hand touched her shoulder.  "Well done."

***

"The legends (worded in the ancient tribal hymn) lie cradled
in the seagull's call.
And all the promises they made are ground beneath the sadist's fall.
The poet and the wise man stand behind the gun,
and signal for the crack of dawn.
Light the sun."

Grahm Valkurk had sat awake all night, next to the scrying pool, watching.  He
had made many plans, some of them set in motion ages ago, and many of them were
coming to fruition tonight.  Tonight, if all went well, his ancient enemy would
be handed several blows, enough to loosen his grasp upon this place.  But it all
had to go well.

He touched the water in the pool and watched the ripples spread across, forming
images of people sleeping in their wake and shook his head.  So much depended on
one person.  So much depended on one person and the decisions they would make
and he was afraid it would all go wrong.  He hated those moments in which
destiny and free will collided, and nobody knew for sure how it would turn out
-- not even him.  It would all come down to one person -- one he trusted, but he
had seen J'Naith twist even those he trusted to the path of darkness -- to make
the right decision.

He whispered a few words in the darkness, and the pool changed images for him.
He watched, quietly for a few minutes, and whispered one word -- "Now."

The image changed and he watched.  "She is yours," he whispered to some unknown
presence, and just watched the scene play out, smiling to himself.

Time went by as Grahm watched the night continue to move forward.  Suddenly, he
heard yelling coming from the living quarters of the Warren.  He whispered a few
words to the pool, and the scene changed, to the room of his old friend Kendren,
who found his right hand completely obsessed with scrawling.  It was enough to
distract him, Grahm thought, and he touched the water of the scrying pool again.
"It is time, Kendren, time to awaken to who you are.  It is time to return to
Rhye."

He whispered again, and the pool showed him a split image of the two people he
was most interested in.  He waved his hand at the scene taking place out on the
beach, and smiled.  That will do, the rest of that was all in her hands for how
it would play out --  "Be strong," he muttered -- and now it was just to take
Kendren's shock from him.  He turned towards the scrying pool again, where he
found Saulin as the first on the scene...

Saulin burst into the room, swinging a lamp, "Master Kendren!  Are you alright?"
he asked before his eyes had registered what was in the room.  He glanced around
the room, and was somehow able to not drop his lamp despite his surprise.

His master and teacher, Kendren was sitting there frantically scrawling into a
book.  Well, his right hand was frantically scrawling, but the rest of him
seemed rather involved in this pursuit.  That wasn't the part that surprised
Saulin, though, it was the fact that his teacher, a man whom he had simply
thought of as "old" his whole life, looked younger than he did.  "Amon-Keth
walks among us!" Saulin whispered.

Kendren stared strangely at his student, just as his hand dropped the pen he
contained.  "What in the name of Kyrill are you going on about, Saulin?"

Saulin blinked, put his lamp down on Kendren's desk, and gestured Kendren at the
mirror.  Kendren turned and stared at himself.  "N'kanyu tiri, Marken, you
weren't lying," he said quietly.

"Who's Marken?" Saulin asked, puzzled.  Strange things were going on here, and
he had his suspicions.  An idea started to form in his head that he wasn't sure
he liked.

"An old friend," Kendren replied, still staring at his reflection.

Saulin nodded, and picked up his own lamp.  "I need to check on something,
Master Kendren."  He fled out of Kendren's room, finding desperately that he had
to check on his own student.  Something was very wrong here, and Saulin felt as
if he was getting in over his head.

He found the room he was looking for.  He knocked, but got no answer from inside
the room.  Saulin took a deep breath and pushed open the door.  "Katze?" he
called quietly, wondering if she hadn't heard the knock.

There was nobody in the room.  The bed was unmade and the lamp was missing, as
if somebody had fled the room in a hurry.  But oddly enough, there was a pile of
clothes neatly folded on the desk, of the strange type Katze wore, topped off
with that odd blue head covering she wore around.  He stared at it, knowing she
never went *anywhere* without it.  Strange things were afoot here.

He looked around the room.  In the corner was a staff, and propped up on the
wall next to it was a longbow and quiver.  Saulin thought it odd that his
student didn't have a blade, but maybe Katze was special in some way.  There was
a knapsack in another corner, and looking into it, Saulin saw a couple books
written in an alphabet he couldn't read.

A figure darkened the doorway.  "Saulin."

Saulin spun, looked up at the figure, and let his jaw fall for a second before
his wits caught up with him.  "My Lord," he said quietly.  "You do exist."

"Of course, I exist."  The voice was bemused, even though Saulin couldn't see
his face.

Saulin sunk to his knees.  "Forgive me, my Lord, my weapons are all in my room,
so I cannot let You have them.  But I offer You me, my Lord -- the sword I
possess, the staff that I control, the bow which flings my arrows where they are
needed to smite the infidel.  But most of all, I offer You my faculties, which
have allowed me to make a free and reasoned choice for You."

The figure stood there for a long time, contemplating.  "I believe you are
sincere, Saulin Tjalip, but it is your help I need at this moment.  Prepare a
wagon for Rhye, to go just after the dawn has broken.  And bring those weapons
you have offered Me with you.  You may have use for them."

And as quickly as the figure had appeared, he left, leaving Saulin shaking but
jubilant.  He rose to his feet, and headed for his room.  There was a job to be
done.

As he walked past Kendren's door, he saw an older man, who had bearings much
like Grahm Valkurk, tending to Kendren.  The two obviously knew one another, but
Saulin had more important things to worry about.

***

"Let me tell you the tales of your life of
your love and the cut of the knife
the tireless oppression
the wisdom instilled
the desire to kill or be killed."

Katze rose from the sand and turned to see who had spoken to her.  It was a man,
dressed somewhat like a monk, and Katze remembered meeting him once before.
"Yrulin," she said.

Yrulin nodded.  "And Hyuke and Grem and Kyrill," he said, as they appeared
around him one by one.  "Welcome home, Tjarlin."

For once, Katze wasn't irritated by the use of her given name.  It fit, for the
first time since she'd known it was hers.  For the first time since she'd found
out who she really was, she felt comfortable with that identity.

The four of them looked out over the sea, nobody saying anything.  The first
rays of the morning sunlight streamed from behind them, casting long shadows
over the beach and the ocean.  Katze thought that was strange, that metaphysical
creatures would cast shadow, but she decided to ignore it.  It had been a weird
night.

She broke from the group that surrounded her, and walked to where Tirrasan was
sobbing in the sand.  Quietly, she knelt next to him.  "There is a future
without J'Naith," she said quietly.

"It's all ruined," Tirrasan sobbed.  "All of it, my last chance to restore the
D'wani, all gone.  All because of you."

Katze frowned.  "Because of me?  Because I wouldn't let you drown Marraketh?"

Tirrasan suddenly rose, and Katze followed him up, drawing her sword.  "Because
you were born!" he screamed angrily at her.  "You were born, and you ARE NOT
D'WANI!"

Katze blinked at him, trying to understand his rant.  Tirrasan angrily
continued.  "The Mrythens were *nothing*.  Nothing, until I chose them.  They
were farmers.  Mryth is like Keth, only where Keth has the implication of land,
Mryth had the implication of dirt.  Dirt diggers, that's all they were, they
would have been nothing!"

"The Mrythens were farmers.  Interesting.  But what does this have to do with
me?"  Katze was still confused as to what this had to do with anything.

"I chose them.  I chose them, seduced the farmer's wife, and a son was born.
And instead of taking on the family farm, he went to Rhye and became a soldier,
and there he met his wife.  And they had a son, and then there was much
rejoicing when their son had a daughter.  And I was happy, for that daughter's
first child, who was going to be a girl, I knew...because that one would have
been the new Empress of the D'wani.  But the damned Kiratyu thwarted me again!"

Katze frowned for a second.  "N'kanyu tiri," she muttered, "that was the plan
all along."  She looked up.  "And Mikje has no clue that he's the son of the sea
god, does he?"

"No.  But if your father hadn't fallen head over heels in love with your mother,
then my plans would have succeeded.  I tried so hard to break them apart, I
tried to get Mikje to not allow the marriage, but it was too late.  And as
predicted, their first child was a girl, but she was a half-breed.  You.  You
keep ruining things for me.  And since they gave me a half-breed for my plans, I
reacted in anger, and with J'Naith's encouragement, I thrust Marraketh under the
spell of the beast.  I made sure that both your parents would not escape for
their crime against me, and I would have made you pay too -- if your stupid
father hadn't thought faster than me and put you out of my reach!"

Katze tried very carefully to keep her calm, but the events with J'Naith flashed
back in her head.  All the torment her father had gone through to put her in the
position to make that choice earlier was directly due to the two of them.  She
glared at Tirrasan, trying desperately to keep her raging anger in check, and
wished like hell he hadn't managed to succeed in eternally tormenting Tyrene by
allowing him to fall under the spell of the Master and allowing his wife to have
been killed.  She carefully said, "You lose.  Game over."

"Oh, but I've not lost yet.  My son still rules Marraketh."

Katze tried desperately to keep her anger from overflowing.  "You would have
drowned them all if I hadn't stopped you.  Including your son!"

"Oh no, miracles are quite capable of happening.  You would have died, and that
father of yours, but Mikje would have survived, to usher in the glorious new age
of the D'wani."  Tirrasan smirked.  "They still might.  You can't kill your
family -- and Mikje is your great-grandfather, as much as you hate to acknowlege
it."

Katze dropped her sword into the ready position nearly instinctively as Tirrasan
materialized a blade from nowhere.  "But now," he said quietly, "it is time to
destroy you, the half-breed who insists on ruining everything I do.  Unlike you
mortals, I know not to let family ties get in my way."

He lashed out with his sword, which reminded Katze of a long stinger, and she
parried the blow, spinning out of his reach.  "This is stupid, Tirrasan, stop
and I'll let you live."

Tirrasan looked at her, eyes buring brightly with a manic glee, and came
forward towards her. "I win or I die.  Either way, he shall be paid."  He swung
again at her, his sword hissing through the dawn air, and Katze dodged to the
left to avoid the tip of his blade.

She stepped back a couple more steps, circled slightly towards him and said
simply, "If you insist."  Tirrasan, thinking she was leaving him an opening,
swung his blade in a backhanded swing, as if he was swinging a tennis racket.
Katze quickly stepped into the swing and brought her sword up to parry his,
knocking his sword off the trajectory of his blow.  Quickly, before he could
respond, she used the moment she had to bring her blade down into his chest to
end the whole farce.

The expression on Tirrasan's face slid from manic glee to shock as he realized
what had happened and he dropped his sword onto the sand.  Katze freed her blade
from where it was impaled, and stood there quietly, waiting for anything to be
said.

Tirrasan stood there for a moment, blinking, before he finally said, in a half-
whisper to where only Katze could hear, "Even gods must sometimes fall."  He
wheezed for a second, coughed up a bit of blood, and collasped to the sand.  He
coughed again and then lay still.

Katze knelt next to him, closed his eyes, and whispered, "Rest in peace,
Tirrasan."  She stepped back, cleaned the blood from her sword, and sheathed it
quietly, and then turned to where the others were watching.

She recognized the four who had met her earlier, but the only one of the other
four she recognized was Saulin.  What was he doing out here, she wondered.  The
other two were a young man and an older greying man who looked somewhat like
Grahm.  The last person, a woman, gave Katze the eerie feeling of looking in a
mirror, much like she'd had with Tyrene, and for the first time that morning she
was truly surprised.

Kyrill stepped forward.  "Tjarlin, my dear Liberator, I want you to meet
somebody."  She nodded towards the other woman present in their group of eight.
"Your mother."

Katze stood there in disbelief.  "How?"

The older man she didn't recognize smiled, and Katze recognized the smile.
"Grahm."  She looked closer at the younger man.  "Kendren.  It has truly been a
night of miracles, hasn't it?"

Grahm smiled and said, "Technically, I was Grahm, but am no longer.  You know me
from your history studies as Marken Yuvall.  And most of these are your
miracles.  You may not have noticed, but your greatest wish was not the one you
expressed to J'Naith.  When you could have legitamately had anything you wanted,
without regard to consequence, you chose, instead, to make your father's
suffering for his world to not have been in vain, and that is why your mother is
here."

And for the first time since she had started the whole ordeal that night, Katze
began to cry.

***

To be continued (and concluded) in Chapter 5: The Reckoning.