| scream at the top of my lungs, and throw the covers away. My foot 
is fine, and | get up, running into the bathroom again, vomiting out 
the contents of my stomach into the toilet again. What the hell is 
happening to me? I've never been this terrified in my life. | don't 
understand what's happening, and | hear a noise behind me... 
Shuffle tick tick. | look around, trying to find the source of the sound, 
but there isn't one. Nothing. Just that horrible noise. It's all around 
me. | hold my hands to my ears to try to block out the sound, but it 
doesn't help. 


| throw on the first clothes | come to in my closet, a pair of rumpled 
sweatpants, and a tee shirt, and run out the door. | get into my car, 
and start to drive off in the opposite direction from work, coming to a 
stop light. | take a moment to think. | can't miss work, they're 


depending on me, I've got to make sure | don't miss work, it's 
important to...someone, | can't remember anymore. 


| get into the office, and my boss is at my cubicle wall, asking me 
why | didn't turn in any work yesterday? He takes a look at me, and 
shakes his head, telling me to go home. | stood up, and struggled 
out, while the rest of my coworkers looked on. Their eyes looked so 
hollow. 


| got into my car, and started driving. | had no idea where | was 
going. Was | being haunted? Was there something that | couldn't 
see? | couldn't remember, but something was tugging at the back of 
my mind. It doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is getting away 
form that noise, that tunnel, whatever it is, was. 

Time didn't matter anymore. | stopped at a convenience store, and 
bought a bunch of NoDoz. The attendant looked at me, and asked if 
| was alright. | snarled something at him, and walked out. The noise 
was all around me now...Shuffle tick tick. | screamed out into the 
night at nothing, and got back into my car, pulling off. My tires 
squealed, and the next few hours pass in a blur. 


It's too much, | need to sleep. | know | can't, if | do it'll find me. But | 
can't anymore, I'm so tired, I'm out of pills, and my hands are 
shaking. | think my car is running out of gas, and | pull in to a seedy 
motel on the side of the road. | stumble into the office, and slap 
down my credit card. The clerk hands me a key, and when she 
does, it makes a noise on the table...shuffle tick tick. | scream, and 
run out, running down the doors, panting. | find the door that goes 
with my key, and turn it in the lock. 


The room is dirty, smelly, but | didn't care. | sat down on the bed, 
and stared at the door. | got up, and moved the dresser in front of 
the door, and put the desk with the television on it in front of the 
bathroom door. Nothing is going to get me tonight. 


A manic grin spreads across my face. Nothing is going to find me 
here. It can't. I'm too far away! My eyelids grow heavy. I'm safe here 
though. | fall back, and pass into darkness. 


I'm in the tunnel again. No, no! | scream into the darkness and start 
running, but that horrible noise echoes all around me! Shuffle tick 


tick...shuffle tick tick. It's getting closer! How can it get closer! | can 
hear a horrible moaning, groaning sound. Like the voice of some 
horrible creature from beyond death, reality. Something is right 
behind me! It lands on my back, and | feel powerful jaws close 
around my foot. 


All | hear next is a snap, and feel a tear, as my body goes into 
shock. The thing jumps on top of me, and grabs me by the throat 
with its teeth. | wake up with a jolt, to see blood all over the bed. My 
foot is gone, my throat is raw, and torn. | stand up in a panic as best 
| can on the nub of bone left of my left leg. | shuffle over to the door 
as best as | can, and | shove everything out of the way with strength 
| shouldn't have. My jaw itches. | throw the door open, and run out, 
eyes streaming tears, throat weeping blood. | run out into the night, 
and | can't see anything. It must be midnight. | see a light in the 
distance, and | start to shuffle towards it. | see something on each 
side of me. I'm in a dark...tunnel? My eyes go wide, and | surge 
forward with renewed terror. | hear something in front of me, a 
person. 


| move as fast as | can down the dark metal tunnel, towards a sound 
in front of me, but the only sound that comes out of my mouth is a 
horrible moan from my mangled throat. I'm trying to call out for help, 
but something's wrong with my jaw. It comes out a throaty moan, 
almost a groan. My feet make an odd sound...a shuffle of one foot... 
a tick, tick as the bone touches the floor. | try to call for help, but | 
already know what's happening... 


The bored scientists look up at the screaming man in the bed. 
"D-344 has broken down into total psychosis. Note it, and bring in 
the other D-class marked for Object 845 imprinting. Then terminate 
the subject." In the corner, a rather old clock with a stuck second 
hand makes a shuffle sound, as the second hand scrapes against 
the top of the face, then two quick ticks as it catches up with the 
correct time... 


Shuffle Tick Tick... 


Agent Washburne (T1L): One, stack up. 


<Members of Trapper One can be heard acknowledging 
Trapper One Lead's command.> 


Agent Washburne (T1L): Execute. 


Agent Nicholas (Trapper One): All right, that water 
charge goes in 5. 


<Water charge detonates> 
Agent Nicholas (T1): Stairs, front! Clear left! 


Agent Roland (Trapper One): Door, right! Right side, 
clear. 


Agent Michaels (T2L): Overhead's clear. 


Agent Harrison (Trapper Two): Thompson, on me. 
Cross. Room clear. 


Agent Washburne (T1L): Trapper Home, Trapper One 
and Two reporting no contact. Two, secure that 
passageway, mark your territory, and then follow my 
team down. Keep an eye out for our man, and call it 
when you come down; | don't want any blue on blue, 
solid? 


Agent Michaels (T2L): Copy, One. 
Agent Washburne (T1L): Hoskins, you've got point. 
Agent Hoskins (Trapper One): Roger that. Movin’ up. 


Agent Washburne (T1L): Trapper Home, this is One; be 
advised we are moving further into the structure, down a 
ladderwell, over. 


Trapper Home: Solid copy, One. Proceed, over. 


<Members of Trapper One can be heard calling out 


Sic Semper Tyrannis 


Eight days after the fall of Gyaros, a young priest of Mekhane 
beheld the dying flesh of his master. Red, cracked, and rotting. The 
high priest had hours left at most. The majority of those few who had 
returned to Akrotiri two days prior had already succumbed. 


"My boy, please forgive me." The elder's words creaked out of his 
throat, sounding less like a man than a fish struggling to breathe air. 
"| had hoped to spare you from our duty. You were supposed to 
survive, and to lead our people beyond this age of war." A cough 
wracked his body. 


The younger man watched without expression. "It doesn't matter. 
Nothing we do does any longer. Even if you and the others had 
lived. They already stole what fragments of God we could gather. 
Our Colossi are destroyed, and our allies abandon us by the day. 
This war is over Master. The Karcist is going to kill us all. My only 
remaining hope is that he does it before he consumes the Goddess 
rather than after. | could not bare the shame of outliving our maker." 


The sound of a slap echoed through the small chamber. 


Grand Karcist Ion, Sorcerer-King of Adytum and slayer of four 
divinities, gazed down upon the Island-City of Akrotiri from above, 
and frowned. So this was the great civilization that had stalled the 
western expeditions for nearly a century. The Architecture was a 
marvel to be sure, and by the look of the Colossi it's defenses had 
once been formidable. But no more. 


Three Colossi lay wrecked and ruined in the bay, and the harbor 
gates they had once guarded were ripped asunder. What few ships 
remained showed signs of great damage. Even the long dormant 
caldera upon which the island had formed had begun to loose steam 
once more. Tundas had dealt their foes a mortal wound at the cost 
of his life. "May we meet again in the Adytum to come, my friend," 


he whispered. 


He ceased his scrying and prepared to return inside the fortress of 
Kythera, but a hand on his shoulder forestalled him. He didn't need 
to ask to know who it was. "I promise that I'm well Lovataar. Merely 
anxious at the implications of this victory." 


His wife nodded, and the two lapsed into a companionable silence. 
Soon, the peace he felt now would be felt by all mankind. The 
Broken One was not a mere spirit given life by the thoughts of its 
people like the Hittite Totem or Aryan Firebringer. It was a true god, 
like the Father was. Already he could perform miracles and conquer 
a continent. With this western god's strength, humanity would be 
united. For the first time, the Father himself would be vulnerable. 
And lon knew how to exploit the vulnerabilities of gods better than 
any man who had ever lived. 


"Ah, my love. | never have been able to decide if your obsession 
with brooding is among your most or least attractive qualities." 
Lovataar grinned at him, and he felt his worries fade away. This was 
a day of triumph, of ascendancy. No need to fight the battles of 
tomorrow. Not yet. 


He returned the Daeva's smile. "| would think that it must have been, 
else your decisions ere now seem strange indeed." The two stood 
and began to return. "How fares the preparations?" 


"Orok says the invasion force is ready. I've already informed them of 
the item we need for the ritual. Saarn has the profane instruments 
Tundas recovered ready to be used once we have the last piece. 
The only remaining question is the fate of the population." 


lon paused for a moment, considering the question. He had put it off 
as long as possible. He always did. "We need a living priest. but 
aside from that... Burn the city, and let the blood of its people fuel 
the flames. They're too dangerous to be left alive. The forces they 
command were once considerable, and could become so again. And 
it serves as an example for future foes." 


"You know that you don't need to justify it to me, only to yourself." 
He should have known two hundred years together made hiding his 


intentions impossible. "Now come, before you get distracted and this 
oversized rock crashes into the sea." 


Beneath them, the floating fortress-island of Kythera surged through 
the clouds, a hawk approaching its prey. Risen from the earth in 
Adytum's wake by the power of a newly dead god, it would be the 
instrument to end the iron heathens. 


The priest of the Broken One trudged through the streets of the city, 
ruminating on the final instructions of the man who had raised him. 
The weather seemed too beautiful for such a tragic time in the 
history of his people, with only a small cloud-front to the east 
marring an empty sky. Such was the cruel irony of fate. 


"Let god and savior be as one." It was a stupid plan, one he would 
never have conceived. Even if it worked, what would be the point of 
surviving in such a world? Better, perhaps, to die a martyr than to 
live as a monster. 


A scream broke into his thoughts, and the crowd around him began 
pointing at the sky. At first he felt only confusion, but then he 
realized. That wasn't a cloud. And monsters from the fringes of hell 
came pouring down in the final rain Akrotiri would ever see. 


Orok, the horned Klavigar of war, was returned to Kythera after a 
mere hour. The Heart of Mekhane and an accompanying priest in 
tow. Saving him from the fighting pits, lon reflected, was certainly 
among the wisest decisions he'd ever made. 


"My Ozirmok, | have brought to you what you desire.” Orok pulled 
forward the priest's chain. "This one came to me with the final 
instrument, begging to be spared." 


lon smiled wolfishly at the man, who would not meet his eyes. "For 
his action, he will be. But first, he has a role to play." lon reached out 
and parted the flesh along the heathen's wrist, and drank deeply of 
his blood. The foreigner recoiled, but calmed once lon finished and 
healed the wound. He only needed a little after all. 


Using the verses Saarn had spirited from the Mekhanite archives, he 
began doing what they had desired to do for millennia: rebuild their 
god. The final piece was placed on a dais prepared for the 
occassion, and the ritual began. 


"Blood of corrosion, be cleansed and once more flow. Let entropy 
still and life renew." He poured the vial of black liquid over the Heart, 
which began to move. "Flesh that was never flesh shall twist and 
grow amidst the beat of the Heart." The pillar folded in on itself, 
wrapping around the smaller piece of metal. "And may the name of 
the Maker shine through this vessel, so that it may be what its 
predecessor could not." The smaller carving faded into the metallic 
mass, now shifting and writhing without order. 


lon held out his right arm, which divided into three before reforming 
into a serpent's likeness. "God of soulless order, | bring the chaos of 
life." He began to walk forward. "Within me lies the blood of your 
faithful, the seed of your influence on the world. | have let it grow 
within me, just as | will grow to become what you could never be." 
The serpentine maw that had once been a hand hung over the 
unborn foetus of the reborn god. "| am the Ouroboros, the serpent 
that consumes all, even myself." In a single motion, he swallowed 
Mekhane. Behind him, her priest smiled. 


"Fighting the Flesh lord is pointless, but | made preparations for this 
eventuality," The dying elder explained to his wayward pupil. "The 
artifacts stolen from Gyaros were meant to be taken. | corrupted 
them, in all cases leaving a fragment to be hidden away while the 
remainder became a knife pointed at lon's heart. Let god and false 
savior be as one. He won't consume Mekhane; he'll share her ill 
fate." 


"You profaned the fragments of God itself! This is sacrilege, heresy, 
it-" he was interrupted by a hand against his mouth. 


"I'd slap you again, but | don't have the strength. This was the only 
way for her to survive, even if it meant killing most of her myself. For 
this to succeed, a follower of Mekhane must open the path to the 
curse. And in so doing, become a party unto it. | had intended to do 


it myself, but now | must leave this task to you. In truth, | can only 
guess at what it will entail. But | know that you will be bound as well. 
You will suffer greatly. What would you sacrifice to save Mekhane?" 


"Everything." 


lon felt a brief moment of euphoria after the deed was done. Then 
there was pain. 


He fell to his knees as steel erupted from his limbs, spilling his blood 
upon the ground. He felt every piece of himself writhe as his 
physical and metaphysical bodies were wrung out, re-organized, 
and ripped asunder. Amidst the chaos, he managed to open his 
eyes. He later wished that he had not. 


His friends’ and soldiers’ flesh ran wild as the summer breeze, the 
untamed and unleashed power of the Grand Karcist tearing them to 
shreds. Of his Klavigar, Saarn was nowhere to be found while Orok 
was engulfed by a mountain of life. Lovataar watched in horror at 
her husband's fate, only to join it as dozens of hands broke free of 
her abdomen to wrap around her tall form. He wouldn't have let her 
come if he'd known she was expecting. 


As he felt Kythera begin to fall from the sky and lava rise from the 
island below, he saw the laughing face of the Mekhanite priest, who 
alone was spared. "Without you, your people will die. But you will 
live on, buried by the Goddesses' forge. And | will never allow 
you to break free, even unto the thousandth generation." 


With those he loved most taken from him, and his body falling into 
pieces, it was a relief when the ash came to claim him. 


Sic Transit Gloria Mundi