"Father has issued a meeting in his council chambers this morning. Are you going to come with me?"

The bored sigh and almost agitated tone were unusual, coming from Father's chief war councilor and general—the god of war, Ba'al.

Sauntering down the polished stone walkway, the war god's body flickered as he passed the pillars that lined the colonnade. The light of the dawning sun, set just so, gave off the burning hue of fire across his features. In his wake, electricity sparked as the air around him burned with his godly aura—the smell of ozone becoming ever-stronger as he drew closer.

I flickered the storm cloud in the palm of my hands and forced lightning and thunder to sound off. Through the dark, rolling smoke, I could feel the force of the rain brushing against my fingers. A simple trick, but one worthy of my station. I shifted my gaze toward my elder brother.

"I suppose," I said, returning my focus to my project. "Father has a way of becoming very cross if I skirt his summons. Did he incline to tell you the reason? It's so rare for us to be directed to the council chambers these days."

Ba'al grinned at me. "Probably war, again. Those damned Egyptians if I had to guess. Always meddling in affairs that don't concern them." My brother shifted his weight and drew the dagger he had sheathed on his forearm. "Nothing would please me more than slow-roasting Horus over a sacrificial flame. Just the thought has me so…" He trailed off.

I rolled my eyes as Ba'al savored the thought of another war between our pantheons. It was almost as if he got off on it. "I would think the Egyptians' falcon god would be gamey," I told him. Then I remembered that he was not only the god of war. "Unless of course, dear brother, it's not really eating him that you're getting at."

Ba'al cocked an arched stare at me. "A sex joke, really? Is that how you keep the divine armies entertained—orgies? I may be a fertility god, but I have standards, of which Bird-boy does not meet. The only thing of Horus' that I would fuck would be his wife."

I'm sure, I thought, over her husband's corpse for the sake of spite. Of course, I would never tell him that aloud, but given the commonality of his "adventures" and his lust for blood and women, gossip had begun to spread throughout the pantheon as to the details that even the great and boastful Ba'al declined to share.

"It's a wonder how Father loves you so," I said with a laugh.

Ba'al placed his hand on my shoulder, dissipating the storm that I had going. "If I didn't know any better, I could swear that's jealousy I hear in your voice, brother."

I swatted his arm away, smiling. Ba'al was so inclined to tease me, knowing my pride would always give him a rise. "Me, jealous? Never!"

Throwing his head back, Ba'al laughed, jostling his armor and filling the air with an aura of heated bloodlust.

Of all of my brothers, I had always been the closest to Ba'al. He was Father's favorite, his champion. The eldest, he had been gifted astounding powers. Warfare, fertility, and storms were all within his domain. He loved them all and cherished every aspect of his station.

Over the centuries, Ba'al and I had grown close. So much so that he had requested Father make me his second, subservient to him concerning war but divinely authoritative in my own aspects. He had taught me the ways of his arts. Though I had never been the fondest of mortal lovemaking, I had zealously honed my skills in war and with nature. Father cast me as the chief of the armies of Heaven, answerable only to General Ba'al and to him.

The memories danced before me in perfect clarity. Light flashed in my sight alone as Ba'al and reality flittered out of existence. I recalled my first time stepping upon the battlefield of the gods, thousands of mortal lifetimes ago. Far from honed in the art of war, I had led the battlefront of a divine army whose numbers were as innumerous as the stars. In a chariot wheel of fire, I scanned the opposition.

The field between us rested upon the Chaos Sea; its shifting tides rising to the heights of mountains and its waters shimmering in the eternal blackness that beckoned the void. To touch the waters of chaos, Father had told me before Ba'al and I had set off to make war, would be to force the very fabric of being to unravel itself around us and we would become uncreated.

I was eager, regardless. Ba'al, though next to me in his own chariot, had allowed me to take the reins and sound off to begin the fighting. As he deeply nodded, I shot a bolt of lightning from my fingertips toward a formless sky every bit as black and lifeless as the waters beneath me.

It had been the gods of Egypt that we had gone to fight that time. They and their many gods had outnumbered our own. And in the fighting, I was felled. Had it not been for a violent gust of wind that I had formed, I would have been swept up by the waters.

Upon reorienting myself, I had been surrounded. Horus, the Egyptian god of war, paced methodically toward me, a smile of personal vendetta etched on his lips and his eyes glinting with bloodlust. A wide berth had been given to us, and I knew that I had no hope against the elder foreign war god.

It was Ba'al that saved me, clouding me in a thunderstorm and sending me away.

Despite my brother's actions, the battle was lost. The Egyptians had conquered more of our territory, and it doing so had made an enemy of Ba'al, myself, and the rest of our pantheon.

I came out of my memory just as I recalled the look of disappointment on Father's face upon my return—the shame.

While my own aspects had indeed made me powerful, I was in no league with my brothers—any of them. Although he frequently joked to me, Ba'al had hit a sensitive spot. I was very jealous. The other gods within our pantheon had been given an allotment of power in order from birth.

As the youngest of our father's children, I was, of course, the last to receive a portion. For all my efforts, I had attained the status among the humans as a god of righteous anger and wind. If it were not for Ba'al and Father's kindness, I would have spent many centuries bitterly building on my attributes, perhaps even turning that righteous anger on my own family. Instead, I had been elevated and even feared among the pantheon for my prowess in my fields.

"Come on, Yahweh," Ba'al said, punching me in the chest with the gilded hilt of his dagger. "You said that Father is cross, but he'll nail you to one if you miss out on his assembly summons… again." He turned to walk down the marble stone colonnade that we had met at, down to the far end where a set of intricately-carved, golden double doors opened for him.

Summons. More of a family meeting. Simply another round of mind-numbing droll about nothing.

I slid off the stone railing that I had been lounging on and headed down the same hall. When I came to the doors, I stopped.

The same doors had duplicated themselves throughout the halls of the gods, save for those to our own personal temples.

Large and intimidating, the doors were wide enough for a score of elephants to march through with ease. In mortal terms of size, an archer would be able to fire his arrow directly up and would not hit the top. Though at scale for a god should they wish it, I had always felt small walking through the many entrances held within the grounds.

I scrutinized the details on the paneling. Made of solid gold, each door told the story of creation. Father had formed the heavens and the plane of the gods on the right, and next to it, the formation of the earth and humankind on the left. Every facet so meticulously carved.

Creation, I thought. Were it that I had been in Father's place. All the stars would sing of my glory.

I shook off the thought as I flung open the doors with pure willpower. As much as I hated to admit it, Ba'al was correct. Jealousy ran deep within me.

As I passed the doorway, I teleported myself across the area to the center of the council chambers.

Inconceivably large to mortal eyes, the semi-rotunda that made up the chamber was fitted with ivory columns, carved inside of which were the thrones of the council members—Father's seventy children. The room itself was tiered by level, the same as an amphitheater. Rising seven times upon itself, each tier was larger than the one below it, and its columns further spread.

I had always assumed that it was Father's way of prioritizing his children. At the lowest section, on the floor, the ten columned thrones were closest both to one another and to Father, who sat alone in the center upon a throne of pure creative light.

I willed myself to move up to the highest tier, to the throne on the farthest left. The column that held my throne gleamed a polished white. It was large and tall, and detailed along its height with the creative words that gave birth to existence.

The throne itself was a part of the column, padded with the softness of down feathers. On its back, my name was carved vertically in the same language that ran down the sides of the support piece.

I took my seat. As I did, a thundering echo raced from Father, alerting us that the assembly session had begun. Just as well, it also meant that I was the last to sit, again.

At least Ba'al is also last, I thought. Father cannot be angry with both of us, especially where his exalted son was concerned.

The entire chamber silenced immediately, and all divine powers were quelled as Father's words filled the room. "Now we the gods shall preside over the fates of mortal men, and of all creation."

I lounged back in my seat, resting my elbow on the arm of the throne and my head in my palm. The council sessions had always begun in the same way. Father's speech had been drilled into us to the extent that we had all memorized its opening.

"From the sun, and the moon, and the stars. To the grass, and the trees, and the rocks. From the firmament of the heavens to the primordial sea that is the source of creation. From all the beasts that walk the earth to the mortal men that dwell upon it, and worship us. From the wars that they wage in our names, to the peace that comes thereafter. And from my sons, the Elohim, among whom the powers that create and the powers that destroy are allotted. I, El-Yon, the Most High, and the father of the gods, call to session these judgments herein."

I took a deep breath. If Fate proceeded to smile, this meeting would not take the decade that the last one had.

So it began.