Perhaps it discerned the trend of his thoughts. It growled. It threatened him. It pleaded. He ignored it, except to say, “When you’re ready to pledge yourself my slave.”

Hellish laughter rolled across the desert. It was the great jest of the godling’s lifetime.

Question, Ethrian said to himself. How do you force a god to keep his word after you strong-arm him into giving it?

He climbed out of the pool and returned to his resting place. The desert air dried him quickly. “Sahmanan, come here. Sit. Tell me about yourself.”

She started talking, and casting frightened glances upward.

“No. Tell me about the child. About the little girl who grew up to become a priestess. About her mother and father and sisters and brothers. Tell me what games she liked, and what songs her friends sang when they played.”

Black, brooding disapproval drifted down from above. The beast knew what seeds he was planting.

“Tell me your story. I’ll tell you mine.”

“Why?”

“Because we were all children before we became whatever we became. In the child is the understanding.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“From an enemy. Lord Chin, of the Tervola. A man with a black heart, but brilliant even so. One of my grandfather’s master teachers.”

“Your grandfather?”

“Varthlokkur. They called him the Empire Destroyer. The most terrible wizard ever to tread this earth.”

“I don’t know the name.” She seemed taken aback.

“He’s one of the great old wickednesses of the world. You could’ve seen him if you’d waited a second longer out west. He showed up just after you charged into the wall.” Ethrian laughed a soft, wicked little laugh. “He might have seen you. I’m sure he saw me.”

Her eyes widened. She glanced up, momentarily worried.

The stone beast ignored her. It was too busy with its patrols.

Ethrian toyed with Sahmanan for weeks, prospecting for a vein of humanity. It was there. He knew it with a certainty that was absolute. It compelled her to “waste” her strength on her restoration hobby.

He had few successes. That vein lay deep, like a diamond seam. Layers lay over its top. The meek, innocent ingenue with empty eyes. The creature older than the stone beast itself, that had built itself a heart of steel. The priestess….

Ethrian resumed a normal cycle of sleep and waking, doing his sleeping during the fury of the day.

He wakened one afternoon, suddenly. Instinct made him leap into the air. Terror wriggled down into the core of him. The stone beast had flung out a tremendous bolt of power. The surge left a bleak, hungry vacuum behind. He shuffled this way, then that, moving aimlessly while trying to assemble his wits.

“They came back!” Sahmanan wailed. “They’re going to destroy us!”

He felt the stone beast’s fear. It had fought, and had lost, and in its despair had flung everything in one great black hammer stroke. If that blow failed, doom was upon Nawami.

Ethrian raced around the beast’s paw. He clambered up its back. Sahmanan followed. At the base of the thing’s neck, she gasped, “Get down! He failed!”