Ekron

Saturn - 1

For twenty years Anubis tried to seduce Achish to abandon the lower levels of Kish and join him, in Ekron, to end Maria's control over the cave in Dobruj, and therefore, her restrictive control over the remaining celestial beast: Szörnyet. The presence of Irkalla and his goat in Dobruj meant that, in case of disagreement between Anubis and Maria, regarding usage of the beast, Maria could always force inaction by sabotaging his connection to Szörnyet. He had a powerful weapon that he could control, but Maria had the power to disconnect it whenever she wanted. Besides, he had to maintain its mechanism as a secret, making everything more complicated. It was an objectively bad situation, but what really bothered Anubis, and moved him to act, was the fact that Carmina Drekkva was still in existence, even if reduced to a blood supply for the Macsks, and he wanted her shredded in pieces, her eyes destroyed, and her memory lost. So, after twenty years of visiting Achish in his handicraft shop, begging him forgiveness for the fall of Ekron, in his name and Gog's; he decided to change his strategy.

There was something else that could tempt the vulture chimera, eager for knowledge and boundaries to violate. But it had to be done carefully, because there was someone else involved, someone Anubis didn't want to insult by any means, as she had become one of his closer allies: Llacme. His proposal had to appear as a favor for her when it actually was a bait to get the real favor from Achish.

Anubis visited Llacme at her castle in Sibara, now decorated in blue crystal and iron. She had a sapphire new throne, fit for a human. She sat on the throne like a person and rolled the surplus fifteen feet of her thin body around it, leaving her enormous wings unfolded on the sides. Her mechanical arms had become much more sophisticated, covered in black chrome. She wore veils and garlands in her antlers and started to move her hands while talking like a human. When Anubis arrived, he found Cymra's sons standing beside the sapphire throne. Accar and Chelis; twenty-six-feet-high black scorpions standing vertical on powerful rear legs, with wings like those of Llacme, their bodies were covered in thick long black fur and their stinger tails were longer than their bodies. Llacme stood from the throne and bowed down to Anubis, Accar and Chelis did the same. Anubis made a sign and they stood up.

"I've heard that your brother Cymra has been raiding your lands."

"We hadn't heard from him in seventy years, nobody even offers him sacrifice anymore, he was left for dead. Until a month ago when he was spotted hunting goats on the mountains near the Humner. He is not making any damage."

"The goats are a plague," added Accar.

"This issue worries me, Llacme," continued Anubis, "but not in the way you think. All this began when Vadállat was injured. We never really talked about what happened."

"You mean when you blinded Vadállat."

"I did not. If you remember what I did with Szörnyet, it was a totally different process. There was no harm involved."

"And I remember you conned me and made me believe that Cymra was behind it all."

"To form the alliance we have now, an equilibrium."

"At Cymra's expense."

"And now I want to, at least, try to compensate that."

"My father is now known as The Heretic Fish, Killer of Gods," interrupted Chelis.

"Because he killed Teremy and defied his prophesy," said Llacme.

"Well, that's the point, what if the prophesy was wrong, Cymra knew it in his heart and that's why he killed Teremy?" said Anubis.

"That is blasphemy!" replied Llacme.

"Not necessarily, from where I come from, Gods are entities that foresee reality in a way that transcend the limits of normal causality," said Anubis.

"How so?"

"In everything that we do, if we would have done it differently, something would have changed and reality would not be the same, so there are infinite possible realities for every moment that passes, hidden to us simple mortals; but not to the Gods, they see all those different possibilities, and my guess is that the Three Angels had that power too. What sense would it had for Teremy to warn Cymra about the tempting demon if he would not have the chance to resist that temptation? What if the demon has already tempted him and he endured the test?"

Llacme and her nephews looked at each other's faces, Anubis knew that his words had started to make sense in their heads, so he continued.

"When did Teremy say that this calamity would take place?"

"He said, 'In short time'."

"And eighty years have passed."

"Correct."

"There is even another possibility. Do you even know how old Teremy was?"

"They were supposed to be older than time."

"It could mean that he was millions of years of age, in that case, a "short time" may be a thousand, or ten thousand years from now, from his perspective. Then, ostracize Cymra for something he will not perpetrate in thousands of years may not be fair. Maybe the rejection he feels now is the very cause of his misdoing, and we still have time to prevent it."

"How can we know?" asked Llacme with a spark of hope in her eyes.

Anubis realized that she was ready to agree to anything; ignoring that his own words held more truth than he could possibly know at that time.

"That's the issue, right now there is no way we can know any of that, because you have the Angels displayed behind a glass like relics. We would need them to be examined by a scientist, someone with experience and vision."

"Like Maria?"

"Maria is a child; we need someone with more substance and reach."

"Do you know anyone like that?"

"Yes, only one, but I must be sure that you agree to give him complete access to the Angels before I propose him anything."

Llacme approached Anubis, took his hands made of ceramic and metal, and kissed them.

"Of course, he can come and analyze the Angels. Is there any possibility that he can heal Vadállat, even the slightest one?"

"I would not abandon that hope."

Anubis left Llacme's castle convinced of having conned her again. He didn't know that a big part of what he promised her, would eventually come true.