When Two Prophecies Collide

by SoundofInsurrection

Sequel to When Two Worlds Collide. Read the first installment, otherwise you're going to be very confused. For those who have read WTWC, welcome back for one wild ride as the crew stares down the barrel of an impending apocalypse.

4. Chapter 4 Self Discovery

Chapter 4

Self-Discovery

Rhuadhán was eventually as patched up as the wolves could make him. His ribs were still cracked, but the outer injuries had been healed. And thanks to the positive vibes and magic emanating from the red wolf that had planted itself at his side, he felt his exhaustion and magic fatigue steadily easing, to about the levels he had been at when he first entered Lha-Chu Valley.

While the wolves had been going about their work, the storm passed by them and dissipated. With the clearer visibility, he could see the whole of the pack of guard wolves that had been sent. There were 21 wolves in total- seven black, seven white, and seven red.

That told the Champion everything he needed to know about what happened outside of what he had been immediately aware of and where the wolves came from. Not terribly long after Milarepa made his ascent up the mountain, a different monk, Götsangpa, was tasked with outlining the path of the sacred khora route around the mountain. He encountered all sorts of difficulties in trying to navigate and divine out what the proper path should be. Being the devoted man he was, he persisted and spent many weeks out here, pioneering the mountain passes and slopes and valleys, and piece by piece he had put together his map from the top of Drölma summit down through the Aksobahya Valley.

Götsangpa bumped into the Dakinis down at Kandrö Tora on the southeastern passes of the Gold and Red Cliffs. The Dakinis had taken a fancy to him and offered to help him with his task, guiding him over the next several days around the mountain and pointing out all the holy spots surrounding it that should be seen by pilgrims making the Khora journey for traditional purposes. And then, some kilometers north of where Rhuadhán currently was in the Lha-Chu Valley, Götsangpa had the misfortune of doing something that upset the Dakinis. They led him astray off his path, intending to lead him into a pass where a great white lion, Parvati's personal servant, was waiting to kill him for whatever upset he caused.

Tara, one of the many regional names for The Mother, took pity on the monk and sent these same twenty-one wolves to the pious Götsangpa to protect him. Once the dangers of the fickle Dakinis were driven off, the wolves led the monk back on his path, helped him find the remaining holy markers along the path for his map, all the way up to the finishing point of Drölma summit. When Götsangpa reached the summit and was assured of his successful circumnavigation of the mountain, his wolf guides gathered together and were transformed into the gigantic cubic rock at the top of Drölma summit, known as Drölma Do. Drölma Rock not only marked the end of the journey, but supposedly would turn back into the wolf pack to aid someone if they were being targeted by the Dakinis for a wrath that the person did not justly incur on themselves.

Rhuadhán, while not remotely the especially chaste monk that Götsangpa was, had denied three Dakinis, including Parvati, entertainment of any form for the night and abruptly sent them away so he could focus on his time sensitive mission. Three white tigers, one of whom was even bigger than a lion, had been sent after him. And the Drölma wolves had been sent by The Mother to stop them because he had been the good future Consort he was supposed to be by putting his duties before personal pleasures and comforts.

Either the Master of Kangri Rinpoche, as tigers were more his forte, or the Dakinis had gone outside the normal bounds of the ritual's tests to pull this stunt as retribution for not taking the Dakinis' bait and issuing a threat while brushing them off. The wolves being sent to aid him and get his test back on track would not disqualify him for having the aid.

Once Rhuadhán was back on his feet, the wolves took off at supernatural speeds to head back up to Drölma summit where they belonged. Götsangpa had been on a different sort of quest and could have the continued aid, but the Champion needed to undertake the official parts of the test on his own.

The Champion checked through his belt's pouches and breathed a sigh of relief. Tucking for landing against impacts as he had, and with his namjar having been wrapped tighter around his torso and holding the pouches against his body as it had been, had also incidentally protected the contents from breaking and he still had everything he needed.

Rhuadhán climbed up the rock shelf next to him and recovered Milarepa's Staff, saying apologetically, "I'm sorry for dropping you during that last bit, love. Thank you for helping keep me on my feet while I was dashing about; I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. You've been an absolute peach through this." He glanced the artifact over and thankfully the magically imbued staff looked no worse for wear.

He looked up at the relatively clear sky, checking the positions of the stars and calculating how much time had passed to see where he stood in this test. Best as he could rough guess it, it was some time just after one in the morning. That lethal game of Keep-Away hadn't killed as much time as it felt like to him. If he had to guess, from the outside perspective, those tigers had been at their sport of trying to catch the man-blur for only a few minutes before being so abruptly interrupted. Given how far Drölma Rock was from here, The Mother must have sent the wolves to help him before he had asked the Dark God for the aid of some advice, as soon as The Three became aware there were tigers incoming, and the silence from the Dark God was because the aid was already on the way and he just needed to hold out.

The wolves patching him up once they arrived had taken longer to reverse the damage done in those few minutes, close to half an hour. They had done a bang up job with it, though. His side ached something fierce, but it wasn't a life threatening injury. He'd need to avoid other impacts that could turn the cracks into breaks and risk severe complications ensuing, but it would heal in a few days if he didn't do something to make the injury worse. Otherwise, besides his shemdap being shredded on one side and his hair having come loose from the braid, he wasn't any worse off than when he entered the valley. He cast a mending cantrip on the pleated skirt of the wrap, causing what pieces that hadn't been torn off to rejoin so his wouldn't be pulling a Marilyn Monroe every time the wind blew to keep his arse and family jewels covered and from freezing more.

He ripped a small piece off one end of his namjar to use as a replacement hair tie and set about re-braiding his hair to keep it out of his face. As he did so, he calculated the trek ahead of him against the time left. He had twelve kilometers or so left to get to Shiva-Tsal, which would take him about two hours for the barefoot hiking up relatively moderate slopes once he got out of Lha-Chu Valley; and then just two kilometers past that was Drölma summit and his finish line of the Drölma Rock, which was a steep hike and would take upwards of half an hour. Unless the Master of Kangri Rinpoche pulled another especially egregious stunt at Shiva-Tsal, from what they knew, the ritual there shouldn't take more than forty-five minutes to an hour to complete. They figured they should add an extra hour onto his time to get up to Shiva-Tsal for any complications outside the hiking itself for the Valley of the Dead to avoid or otherwise get past them.

That meant he had about four and a half hours expected work left. Sunrise was at 7:13 this morning. That left him about six hours to work with. Even with getting slowed down earlier than expected on the western slopes with the storm coming in so soon, and this stunt with the tigers, he still had an hour and a half window of margin for unexpected troubles beyond the time already budgeted for such troubles.

Rhuadhán unfurled his namjar and draped it how it had been to loosen his belt, expecting at some point soon he'd need spell components or talismans as he got ever closer to his goal and with still having so much time to spare. Rhuadhán gave a smirk as he finished setting himself to rights and looked up towards the mountain summit.

"I hope you're listening, you over-confident, self-righteous prick," the young Champion called up with a purposefully sardonic tone, "and aren't off somewhere sulking because that stunt with the tigers failed to kill me or make me tap out of this Test! I might not be at my peak yet and this body is vulnerable to injuries; but I am still the Master of Magic and Time! Even the Primordials know to keep out of my way when I reincarnate, unless they want to risk me finding ways to pay them back for the trouble when released from mortal flesh and my soul is unrestrained in the afterlife! You apparently need a reminder that there isn't a force in existence with the power to stand in the way when Magic and Time are allied! I have the unfailing protection of my patrons to make up for certain limitations I have right now! So enjoy the cheap laughs while you can because that's all you're getting! You don't have a prayer of a chance at stopping me! All you're accomplishing is making me more determined to beat you at your own game! I'll take your worst and still finish your last test! And then I'm coming up that summit at dawn, claiming my prize, and being one step closer to finally obtaining everything owed to me! And when this is done playing out, you are going to be nothing more than small notes in the Histories recalling the odds you stacked against me and I overcame during my ascension to power!"

And with that, Rhuadhán turned his attention towards the path ahead, focusing once more on Lemuel's mantra and resolved to survive whatever punishments would undoubtedly be coming his way for his defiance. Whatever pains he incurred, they were ultimately passing inconveniences and were a price worth paying to make it clear that he wasn't going to bow to anyone else's will. He'd go through this damn test because the benefits outweighed the costs, and follow the rules so he wasn't disqualified, but he'd do it on his own terms. He knew from everything he had been taught that reaching a temporary state of enlightenment didn't require being obsequious and penitent for someone else's definitions of "sin"; it required shedding external influences that obscured one's ability to understand and embrace one's truest state of being. He knew who he was, and he knew what power he was capable of growing into if his will remained unbroken. Nothing that dissenting bastard threw at him could steal that knowledge from him or convince him to abandon his goals.

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The next eight kilometers of travel- the two remaining for Lha-Chu Valley, and the first six of Dolma-La Pass leading up to Dirapuk Monastery- passed quietly.

No more storms to try slowing him down. No more animals to try menacing him. No stray spirits or quasi-goddesses to harass him. Even with having to make the barefoot climb over alternately gravelly or rocky surfaces and increasing spots of snow and ice, which had reformed even more blisters than the Drölma wolves had healed up for him, he was back to making rather respectable time up the Khora.

'There's no way the old man has given up and is just going to let me waltz through this last leg...' the Champion thought warily as he came around a curved, narrow section of the pass. He stepped out under the open sky from the wide, snowy ledge that overhung a length of the trail. He glanced up at the ledge, around himself, and along the slopes on either side of the path, a full perimeter scan that he was doing with increasing frequency. There was no sign of any lurking threats in his vicinity. '...Even with the Drölma wolves waking up and running back and forth through here so recently, which might temporarily scare off some nasties, this has been far too quiet. That blighter must be plotting something major to screw with me in the Valley of the Dead.'

Just ahead of him, the path rejoined where the Lha-Chu River flowed. There was a split in the path here. The left hand path, going up over a decent sized foot bridge, he knew from Lemuel's Kailash geography lessons, led off the Khora route a short distance to Dirapuk Monastery.

Pushing straight ahead, following along the river for less than half a kilometer, he'd reach another bridge that he'd need to cross. Stepping off that bridge to the other side of the river put him at the official start of the Valley of the Dead length of Dolma-La Pass. It was a comparatively less steep climb for about two kilometers. There were small streams from glacier thaw, that may or may not be freezing over, criss-crossing along the path; but those would be shallow and easy to hop across, especially this time of year when they weren't swelling from spring and summer thaws. He'd eventually come to the sheltered meadow, which would undoubtedly be blanketed in snow, located at the intersection of a few mountain slopes.

He'd have to take the path almost directly straight ahead of where he entered the meadow from. Taking the usual far-right option there would lead him to the spot where the Dakinis had tried to lure Götsangpa. Going the far left way, across from the Dakinis' would-be death trap, would lead to a cave Götsangpa later took up residence in, and the not so far left path would lead up onto a glacier.

From that meadow, it was a kilometer and a half to Shiva-Tsal and its waiting test. When he was done at Shiva-Tsal, it was a two kilometer hike up an especially steep path with three false summits that an unwary pilgrim might mistake for Drölma summit, but those false summits at least served as a small flat stretch to rest at on the way if needed. He had to make sure he didn't call it a morning until he reached Drölma Rock, marking the true summit at end of the torture leg of the hike, where Magie and the Dark God's wolves waited.

He was six kilometers from his goal of reaching Drölma Summit by dawn, with just one side stop left along the way. He didn't need to look at the stars to know he had left that ambush site in Lha-Chu Valley about an hour and a half ago. He had roughly four and a half hours for what was about an hour and fifteen minute long hike, and that was providing he did it the old fashioned way and didn't use Time magic to speed things on the home stretch from Shiva-Tsal to Drölma summit, and a ritual that had a maximum guess of an hour to complete.

There was no chance of some ambush or trap of some kind not lying ahead to try keeping him from finishing the Khora route in record time, having some time to rest himself, and going up that summit in a marginally refreshed state.

Unfortunately, besides the obvious answer of spirits or animals, the Champion had no way to guess what tricks the Master of Kangri Rinpoche might try next.

'Well, no use waffling to myself about it...' Rhuadhán thought, heading towards the river. It had been near six hours since his last break for a drink and he was starting to feel parched. Better to have a short break now, before he went trekking up the last leg of the journey and whatever dangers awaited.

When he bent down to conjure a cup and fetch himself a drink, the Master of Magic felt a faint flickering aura of magic coming from the water. He reversed his plan for retrieving a sip, swiftly standing back up and moving away from the water. Lemuel hadn't mentioned Lha-Chu River having magical properties, like Gauri Kund did. That was something his former monk of a best friend most definitely would have told him about as being somehow part of the ritual to get to the summit, or a secondary feature of this place to either take advantage or be wary of.

Rhuadhán couldn't tell from so brief a sensing if the water was newly enchanted with some property, or something magical was lurking in the water, but being near it was undoubtedly a bad idea. If he cast the cantrip to actively see auras with his own two eyes, he'd have to drop the enchantment to see in the dark because those two spells did not interact nicely with one another. The enchantment for seeing in the dark, he couldn't recast it without study, and he hadn't been able to bring his spell book with him. He did know an alternate cantrip to make a single object glow with a light that simulated its aura, but it wouldn't work on a river and its ever changing water.

Nothing leaped out at him as he stared warily at the river for near a minute, poised to activate his Time magic if needed to outrace some new magical creature or water spirit or another sort of spirit just using the water as cover.

'Well then...' Rhuadhán thought after the minute had passed. 'If it's a sentient nasty of some kind, it's apparently content to lurk unless I get in easy grabbing distance. If it's an enchantment on the waters itself, it doesn't matter what it is so long as I leave the river alone... I think I'll go rustic and melt some snow for a drink...'

He conjured a cup and walked over to the slope opposite the river and spotted many a pristine sections of snow. He couldn't passively sense magic auras over here, and holding his hand out a few inches from the snow and extending his awareness wasn't picking up any fainter traces. That was more promising, but he'd still cast a general counter-curse on the melted snow to be safe.

He tried to scoop up some snow with the cup.

"Tried" being the operative word. The snow melted and disappeared beneath his cup before he could touch it, as though his cup was some kind of vaporizer.

Sapphire eyes narrowed and he said with mild exasperation, "Now that's just petty... and lacking subtlety." Rhuadhán gave a resigned sigh, dismissing the conjured cup from his hand. "Well, it's you, so I shouldn't have expected any better. Fine then. I wasn't that thirsty to begin with, so I'm not going to the river to be ambushed or magically drugged. Bugger off with whatever attempted trap this was."

With that, the Champion started up the pass to get to the other bridge he needed to cross. He stayed near the slope to avoid getting too close to the river in case it wasn't a passive enchantment on the waters that he had sensed. He was also once again feeling grateful to have the staff with him for support, as his blistering feet were beginning to hurt enough to make him limp a little as he navigated the rocky path and tried to avoid especially sharp looking rocks. Being able to put some of his weight on the staff and have less on his feet made it slightly more tolerable.

When he reached the bridge, he cautiously approached it, hand not holding the staff reaching out to sense for magic in the river beneath it. There was magic present here as well. So either the whole thing had been enchanted to try drugging him wherever he might think to stop for refreshment, or there was a spirit or other nasty shadowing him up river. He scanned the other side of the river, and didn't see anything lurking there.

As he couldn't avoid crossing the river, Rhuadhán decided it was better to be safe than sorry. He tapped into Time and made a speedy crossing over the bridge, looking out for anything that might try to rise up from the water to grab him.

Nothing came after him, and he stepped off the bridge and a few meters into the Valley of the Dead. Time was released as he looked around again, half expecting something to try pouncing him after the river failed whatever its purpose was. Still, nothing came to harass him.

He didn't trust this one bit...

Regardless of his growing sense of something decidedly unpleasant waiting to spring, however, there wasn't anything to do but wait for whatever it was to show itself. And being in the innately creepy vibes area of the Valley of the Dead, this is where people with undisciplined thoughts were most likely to start having mental troubles in the trek, even when spirits weren't around to cause trouble. Knowing that, he wasn't going to give free openings to mindfuck him out of pushing forward.

The young Champion once again brought to mind the mantra Lemuel taught him and concentrated on it to help zone out from some of the pain in his feet and the uneasy feeling caused by knowingly walking towards some sort of unavoidable trap. After a few passes of the mantra, he could feel himself starting to ease the reactive nervousness, and after a few more he had his thoughts and emotions under proper control. Whatever the Master of Kangri Rinpoche was plotting, it wasn't going to be a large enough obstacle to keep him from the finish line so close at hand. He'd keep pushing forward, no matter how difficult the old bastard made his path to victory.

Rhuadhán turned his attention to the task ahead and, mantra still going in his mind, started up the path that would lead him through to Shiva-Tsal.

Outside the protection of being in a bent stream of Time, the Champion made it precisely three steps further into the Valley of the Dead when the trap was sprung.

As his foot connected for the third step, a burst of magic left the ground, shot straight up into the bare sole, and flashed up through his body along the path of his veins. The magic left a discordant ringing sensation in its wake that stunned all capability for movement; not unlike being struck by lightning, though pain didn't accompany the magic.

That reverberating sensation grew as it filled his body, and within seconds it began to congregate within his head, scrambling his capability to think straight. Rhuadhán's vision blacked out as the magic grew in intensity, body going numb as his consciousness slipped away.

And then, as suddenly as it started, the magic shot back down his body and into the ground.

The young Champion's body dropped to the ground, limp as a ragdoll, staff clattering to the ground next to his inert form.

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.

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The first thing Rhuadhán became consciously aware of was the pain of rocks pressed against the side of his face and skinned knees stinging. A bewildered groan escaped him as he reactively rolled himself onto his back and a hand went up to brush off the gravelly bits. Normally strong muscles were trembling with fatigue like he had spent a sixteen hour day out training with the hunters.

He could feel a few small sticky spots as he brushed the rocks away. Bits and pieces of what happened just before he passed out began to filter back into his memory.

Eyes blinked open, intending to assess how much blood was on his hand and therefore how bad the cuts were. He couldn't see a thing.

The Champion's first thoughts were that he had been stricken blind. Was the Master of Kangri Rinpoche going to force him to fumble about up the last kilometers of the path without being able to see where he was going or what was around him? That was impossible to do. He had some training in navigating in darkness without aid of magic to see, it was part of bootcamp training with the hunters; but he was in the middle of a treacherous mountain filled with all manner of hostile things that went bump in the night and could be directed by the Master of Kangri Rinpoche to where he was. He could avoid wandering off a cliff with his staff poking about, but he'd have no way to tell where he was, what turns to take, where the Shiva-Tsal monument was, or make it safely up inclines. He'd be lost in no time, and likely set upon by spirits or animals before he could do anything to defend himself...

And speaking of his staff, where was it?!

He reached out and felt along the ground for it, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt warm wood beneath his fingers give a comforting pulse of magic in recognition.

"There you are, love... Knew you wouldn't have gone too far on me. Right and proper artifact that you are, you know we're in this together."

Ruadhán drew the staff closer and his head settled back against the ground, staring straight up as he tried to collect his thoughts and figure out what to do next. And that's when he noticed a few stars above, peeping through thick clouds with hazy glimmers of light.

He wasn't blind; it was only that his enchantment on his eyes had gone out during whatever magic had hit him and the minor source of natural light was being obscured.

'Well, that's a relief,' the Champion thought with another sigh escaping him, shifting to a defensive one knee crouch. His balance was a bit wobbly, but at least he wasn't lying prone. He planted the butt of the staff against the ground in front of himself for helping keep his stability and to be at the ready to lash out if he heard or sensed something trying to sneak up on him. He worked to gather up his thoughts in rational order and then considered the current status of his situation.

'First things first, I need to see proper so I don't get jumped. Then diagnostics on what that magic was about so I know what's going to be fucking with my progress. Then get my arse moving because I have no idea how long I've been laying here and I can't get enough of a look at the stars to tell me. Unless that old prick is being entirely unsporting, again, and knocked me out until just before the sun's due to rise, which would get him in ten kinds of trouble with The Three, there should at least be some measure of time left where I stand a narrow chance of being able to finish this test if I keep my head and don't dawdle.'

Given that he was at the last leg of the khora route, at such a high elevation off-limits for overnight camping, creating light to see by wouldn't get him spotted by pilgrims camping on other spots to the west or east of the mountain, nor the monks at the monasteries. There was a slim chance authorities might still be awake and doing patrols; but he highly doubted they'd be this far up the khora and able to see him because there'd generally be no one attempting to trek up this way so late at night to monitor, and that storm raging for a few hours earlier was sure to have kept everyone else bunkered down. That left as the only real risk attracting the notice of whatever creatures or spirits might be around. With the Master of Kangri Rinpoche dogging his steps anyway, refraining from doing something just to avoid that sort of attention was a moot point and left him at the disadvantage.

He sifted through one of his pouches until he felt the familiar teardrop shape of his favorite sunstone.

Near three and a half years ago, his father and Master Horton had informed him that The Three wanted the newly initiated Priest to undergo some sort of complex magical procedure for being put into a bodily stasis and his consciousness sent out in an advanced form of astral projection. It was meant to be a sort of mental odyssey for resolving some past life baggage that could potentially hinder his ascension to power and undermine his capability to fulfill his future role as Consort to The Daughter. He hadn't been the least thrilled with the reminder of his pending obligation for an arranged pairing in exchange for being granted the opportunity to gain such power. He did want that power, however, and he wasn't keen on whatever past life drama he hadn't unlocked memories of yet manifesting to blindside him and bite him in the arse, so he had agreed to undertake the ritual. That had been the first time he met Magie, who had been called in to help put him under and make sure his body suffered no ill effects.

When he woke up, a bit over three months later, which had been a longer time unconscious than expected, he had felt extraordinarily disoriented from returning to his body. He couldn't remember a thing about what took place in that time period. Lemuel and his father had been there to assure him that, while he had needed longer to complete whatever tasks The Three had set for him to refine his soul, he had passed those challenges even better than expected. Lending credence to those assurances was the fact that, once his wits were about him again and the initial shock of waking up that morning in a gods damned ger in a remote mountain in Mongolia had passed, he had noticed there had been an inner shift. It was less time consuming to gets his thoughts into a quiet Zen state; and he had felt a little less discordant inner vibes that needed to be ignored so they couldn't pull his higher consciousness out of his meditations. He had also discovered in the recesses of his mind a few new spells that he had apparently earned or created while doing his soul-searching out-of-body experience.

One of which was an easier to sustain light spell using a sunstone. With a bit of practice, he had been able to not only light up a stone, but tuned the magic lent to the stone to determine the initial intensity of the light. He was sometimes stuck in the ger for a few days on end, when not even the High Priests wanted to be dealing with active Siberian blizzards. The only things to do were talk to or play a local wood and stone board game with Lemuel, his father, or Master Horton, play the morin khuur his father had turned up for him because his guitars and violin had been left in London (much to his displeasure, regardless of them saying they had been concentrated on "necessities" and traveling light), and practicing magic. After a bit of messing around with the sunstone, whose charge could hold out for upwards of six hours at a time, he had figured out ways to adjust the intensity with different words of command, instead of dispelling the light and then creating a different one. Lemuel liked to go to sleep early, so the mystic had appreciated his tent mate finding a way to make a dimmer for the magical light that also didn't waste magic.

Rhuadhán quietly incanted, "Bentushirak Endalam." The sunstone lit up, pushing back the darkness around him and casting its warm glow for near ten meters around on the harsh landscape of the rocky mountain pass.

What that light revealed brought Rhuadhán's thoughts to a screeching halt and it felt like his blood was rushing from his head as his stomach simultaneously dropped down to his knees.

The landscape around him wasn't just desolate anymore. It was rapidly turning into a literal wasteland. Before his eyes, he could see the tiny bits of scrub between rocks rotting and dying as though in some sort of fast motion video. Rocks, parts of the very mountain side, were crumbling, bit by bit, breaking up into smaller pieces and then falling into dust. His own hands, clutching staff and stone, were beginning to age and wither, muscles shrinking and twisting, skin becoming spotted and weathered.

The Champion's eyes widened in fear. "What?! What the hell is this?! What sort of heinous curse did that bastard unleash?!" His gaze went back up, looking up the slopes immediately around him to check if whatever devastating destructive magic had been cast was going to bring a rockslide of some kind down on him before he could move out of the way in whatever degenerative state he had been likewise cursed with.

...It took several seconds, but Rhuadhán noticed something as he scanned around himself... His gaze went over a part of the mountain slope it had initially looked over, and the initial crumbling he had seen was for a moment gone... It swiftly began starting again, and the longer he looked at it, the further the decay went... His gaze went down, and his hands seemed almost normal, but then began to likewise start rapidly aging again... Then he noticed that his staff and sunstone in those hands weren't appearing to age, as though their magical properties preserved them.

"Son of a bitch! He didn't unleash some sort of corrupting, destructive spell on the whole area! He cursed me with some sort of freakish death vision!"

A slow, mocking clap came from ahead, as a glacial voice devoid of compassion said in English, "You've always been so quick, Majikahla. I told Him that you'd figure it out in under a minute of being able to see around you, so thank you for winning me that bet..." The Champion lurched to his feet in response to becoming aware he was not alone and infuriated golden hourglass gaze went to the speaker. "Now don't get hasty, old friend; I didn't leave Shiva-Tsal to attack you while you're off kilter..."

The quasi-god held up his hands, in a gesture of peace; but a sharp smirk pulled at his lips in a silent, near dare for the Champion to disregard his advice and see what happened with their respective states currently being what they were. The sharp ivory canines and incisors peeking out from beneath one side of his upper lip were the only properly distinguishable feature and gave away his smirk. The being was like the embodiment of night from head to toe. A void black gaze was just barely noticeable as two darker spots in his face. Hair of living shadows floated down from the top of his head, undulating down his back like countless tentacles of some great sea beast and obscuring the exact lines of his form. Skin and nails were the same shade as the closely fitting, ethereally ebon robes he adorned himself in.

"Then why are you down this way, Anubis?" Rhuadhán asked mistrustfully. He used a cantrip to stick the sunstone to the side of the staff, which the staff thankfully didn't try sloughing off, and then settled his now free hand on a talisman hanging off his belt in case it was needed. Unlike the Dakinis, he didn't even have scattered memories of this deity and any past interactions they might have had; he only knew what lessons he had been given about the Lord of the Underworld.

Smirk turned to a grin, exposing the full row of sharp, canine inspired teeth. "Now, now... That's Yama in these parts, Majikahla. Do show deference to local customs. Otherwise you ruin half the fun of being able to take guises and set a different ambiance."

"I am in no mood for such games right now," Rhuadhán snapped out. "Why are you here?"

Yama's grin remained. "I've come to escort you safely to Shiva-Tsal, old friend."

The Champion shook his head to that answer and said, matter-of-fact, "No. You've personally come, instead of sending your spirits, to pull some trick that will ensure I fail to reach the summit."

Grin shifted back to smirk and the quasi-god said with a hint of mocking indignity rippling out from his shadowy form, "Do you think I'd risk my Father's wrath by intentionally doing something to undermine the mission He and His counterparts have sent Their Favored on? You should know better, Majikahla. I only ever speak the truth as I know it; and the truth is I'm here to ensure you make it safely to Shiva-Tsal. And while we walk, we're going to have a friendly chat about this mission of yours…"

"So this is to be some attempted mindfuck," Rhuadhán interjected sharply, displeasure growing.

"Such a cynical assumption, Majikahla," Yama said sardonically. "I'm not sure if it's just your usual attitude this time, or if my reputation among mortals has colored your judgment of my character and you lack so many memories that you believe all that's said. The Three wish for you to be Consort to my baby sister, which means you're to be family if you prove worthy. I think a brotherly chat is well within my rights to claim while I have you so conveniently here…"

The Champion held back a humorless laugh. "You're saying nothing that dispels my assessment that you're here to cause trouble for my journey."

"I don't see why you'd come to that conclusion… Not unless you fear what truths I might speak as I guide you along. If you don't wish to heed my words, I can't force you. You already have my assurance I am not going to try to attack you, and I am bound by my word. So what's the harm in letting the Lord of the Underworld walk at your side? You're trembling with fatigue, not quite the hale self you're used to being. Refuse my aid again, and I can go wait up at Shiva-Tsal for dawn. But instead of the lesser spirits being kept at bay by my presence, you'll find them swarming in. Dawn is three and a half hours off; that curse knocked you out for over half an hour. At the pace you'll be able to manage in this weakened state, do you honestly believe you'll have time to continuously stop and deal with such disruptions, undertake the test at Shiva-Tsal, and then make it up to the summit?"

"It seems I have no choice but to accept your offer," Rhuadhán conceded through gritted teeth, starting forward and leaning on the staff to help him as muscles continued their tremors and each step brought sharp stabs of pain to broken blisters on his feet.

The Lord of the Underworld's smirk disappeared, and his glacial voice, so like his creator's, said stoically as the Champion approached him, "You always have a choice, Majikahla. It's a privilege of being mortal. No one could force you to take this Test. No one has forced you to push this far forward up the khora. You could send up a flare right now to signal to Magie that you want to be withdrawn from this Test…"

"That's not an option," Rhuadhán rebuffed the suggestion immediately, casting a withering glare over at the deity before turning his gaze back down to watch his footing as best as he could before the decay-vision crumbled away the appearance of the more unpleasant looking rocks and he risked stepping on them.

"It's always an option," the Lord of the Underworld disagreed stoically. He turned towards the path as the mortal drew alongside him and said as his form started floating forward to lead the way, "But you've chosen your priorities, and now it's simply a matter of what you're willing to risk sacrificing in the pursuit of obtaining them."

"I am finishing this Test and ascending that bloody mountain at dawn," the Champion stated immovably. "And when I reach the summit, the old bastard is going to hand over the Vajra, and then I'll be that much closer to fulfilling my obligations and claiming what is owed."

A quiet laugh reverberated from the shadows. "You've certainly set your will on those goals… But I can't help but wonder, old friend, with your memories as scattered as they are from reincarnating, and the limited resources and knowledge your attendants have, do you truly understand the power of what you seek from the Master of Kangri Rinpoche? The potential consequences if you can manage to awaken the power of the Vajra and unleash it on the world?"

This was a subject the young Champion was quite comfortable with, and he indulged the question to help pass the time and keep the quasi-god from seeking out other avenues to try mindfucking him. A casual gesture of the Champion's hand caused a small glowing illusion to form ahead of them on the path, the cantrip replicating a picture he had been shown. The picture came from a text that was almost five hundred years old.

Depicted was a figure as black as the god drifting alongside the mage-priest, wide face twisted into a fearsome animalistic scowl. He was adorned in tribal vestments of red, gold, and bone; with tiny severed heads hanging from the hems and elaborate silver jewelry at his neck, wrists and ankles. A crown of gold and skulls and red blossoms topped the figure's head, and around him was a halo of flames in which his enemies were burning. The source of that fire was the Vajra- a golden half-staff with both ends adorned in structures made of lotus blossoms cradling diamond spheres, and other symbolic adornments down the length of the staff.

"Not my most flattering depiction by a long shot," Rhuadhán said with a strained smirk forming, dismissing the image to concentrate on where he was walking. "I'm trying not to take it personal, as I've been told the Hindus have done this with just about everyone worthwhile because they like to embellish with their own symbolisms to the point where they're over-egging the pudding; and with their creative minds being what they are, even the most metaphorical of visions given by the gods can be taken a bit too literal…" He let his voice become a shade indignant as he asked, "By the by, have you seen how they depicted your sister?! Bloody hell! Smashing together different regional lore together as they did and not having any proper images of Her to use, they turned Her into some confused fusion of myself and The Destroyer! Lemuel told me no one's cleared that one up because of the conspiracy to keep The Daughter's identity a complete secret so the Queen of Evil couldn't go killing Her right out of the cradle; but I have to say, that mental image did not warm my pre-wedding day cold feet any."

Yama gave a snort of derisive laughter at that. "Yes, I've seen those images of my sister… They're even further off the mark than yours. She takes more traits from The Mother than any of the other influences used to create her, and her appearance is not remotely that of some man-eating demon."

"So I've learned. Once this war is done with and the cat's out of the bag on Her identity, we're getting some proper portraits taken to clear that misconception up in perpetuity. I am not looking at a pair of four-armed, blood dripping from fangs, hell-beasts every time I enter a temple or other places faithful choose to hang images of us at…"

Rhuadhán shook his head at the thought as he cautiously stepped an inch further than his current stride would have done to avoid a sharp rock; then circled back his line of thought to answer the original question. "Regardless of the trappings, though, the vision that High Priestess had from The Mother was absolute in certainty. 'Mahakala' was going to be returning to the world, and I would successfully lay claims to the Vajra and wield it when the forces of The Destroyer tried to descend on the world. And I know that as I am the Master of Magic and Time, there's not a single creation of magic that I can't gain control of. I will suss out what's needed to activate the Vajra and how to safely wield it; and make sure that when I do, it is only put to those uses I direct to help ensure this world is protected from what's coming."

"So you believe the staff is the Vajra?" Yama's voice now epitomized sardonicism.

Rhuadhán gave a sigh and shifted his grip on the staff to help keep him balanced because the slope was increasing its angle a fraction. He could also see the first stream ahead. He'd need trudge through it, he did not have the strength at the moment to leap over it. "Is this where you try to convince me with some misleading half-truth that I've been sent on a wild goose chase and the Vajra isn't here?"

"No," the Lord of the Underworld said, tone remaining the same. "This is where I tell you that the staff is but a tool; it is not the Vajra itself. And the Vajra isn't some petty magical artifact that will automatically latch onto you just because of who you are and reveal its secrets to you with a few coaxing words and a diagnostic scan or two to see the signatures of the spells it was imbued with."

The Champion gave the deity a half-feigned affronted look and then said in a stage whisper to the staff he was holding, "You just ignore him, love, he doesn't know what he's talking about. You're as fine an artifact as any, and it doesn't make you any less of a peach for having different talents than the Vajra."

"I can see why some people wonder if you've finally cracked after all these ages and things you've put your poor soul through."

Rhuadhán gave a snort of dismissive laughter. "In case you missed the memo, old friend," he said the last two words no differently than the others, but the full weight of dry English sarcasm was present nonetheless, "I don't give a damn about what other people think about my methods. There's a reason I've gotten this far, with the pathway made open to go all the further; while others can only muck about their daily drudgery and miasma of jealous gossip. And whether the Vajra is the staff or a complimentary artifact the staff empowers or directs, it really doesn't matter to me. I'll take command of it quick enough once it's in front of me and I'm subsequently able to puzzle out how they work together..."

He stopped talking to concentrate on the ice crusted stream. As they came within a few meters of it, he held out a hand and couldn't sense out any magic resonating from it.

"None of the streams are inhabited like the river was; nor are they under enchantment..." Yama said, sardonic notes still heavy in his voice.

Rhuadhán glanced at the deity suspiciously, but said nothing about that limited assurance given. He stepped to the edge of the stream, and had to ignore the slight sense of vertigo caused by seeing the illusion of that edge crumbling beneath his foot and throwing off his perception of just where that edge was. He could feel that edge, he reassured himself; it was there, he wasn't about to go dropping off into the river.

The stream seemed to swell before his sight, as though spring had fallen and glacial melt was entering it, and then the water evaporated as though there was a drought and the sediment strewn ground cracked open. The Champion looked away, reminding himself that the water was still there to deal with, then looked back. His staff poked out before the illusion could ramp up again, and he momentarily saw the proper result of it cracking the ice like it was nothing more than a layer of dried cake frosting, but then the ice melted supernaturally fast before his sight to join the swelling river.

Rhuadhán gave a frustrated sigh, hoping against hope this infernal curse would be removed if he passed his test; or that Magie could undo the curse when things were done at the mountain summit and there was no time limit to worry about. He poked his staff down into the stream and could judge by the wet mark left behind on the wood when he lifted it up that the stream was only five centimeters deep at the beginning. The middle-ish area his staff could reach didn't show as deeper than fifteen or so centimeters. And the flow was sluggish as could be without being stagnant, from the feel of the water against his staff.

Easy enough then; just step carefully to avoid potential partial impalement on any sharp rocks in the stream and he'd be fine.

The Lord of the Underworld was silent as the Champion started picking his way across. Rhuadhán noted with some irritation that the shadowy form easily floated himself across and then waited on the other side for his walking companion.

The Champion joined him soon enough, the water was only three meters across.

They continued on in silence for a few minutes. The occasional gust of wind, the thump of staff on rocks, and his own heavier breaths creating misty clouds in the cold air were the only sounds to assure Rhuadhán he hadn't suddenly been struck deaf while walking.

Just as the Champion was turning his thoughts to Lemuel's mantra, Yama's voice came from the shadows. "You're looking rather tired, old friend. Would you like to stop and rest a moment?" His glacial voice held none of the solicitousness that usually accompanied such words.

"I don't need a rest."

"Are you sure?"

"Bugger off with the stall tactics." Rhuadhán spared another passing glare for the deity. "I'm moving slow enough as it is; I'm not resting until we reach Shiva-Tsal."

"It's a rather unpleasant state you're in, I'd imagine."

"It's a passing inconvenience," the young Champion said dismissively.

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"This physical state might be a passing thing, Majikahla, but it's only meant to be a taste of what Time does to the world and the effects of tampering with it..."

"As you've just acknowledged," Rhuadhán bit out tersely, "I am the Master of Time. I don't need lectures on Its nature or effects from entities who lack the capacity to even tap into It."

"Am I not allowed to express concern for my old friend who so stubbornly insists on not being content with his blessings and tapping into such a destructive force that will have increasingly detrimental effects the greater your connection to it grows?"

Rhuadhán held back a humorless laugh. "And with so simple a statement, you only illustrate your ignorance of Time and what I do with it."

"Would you care to enlighten me and ease my concerns for your future welfare?"

Rhuadhán allowed a mocking laugh to briefly escape him then. "I may not have my full knowledge at my disposal right now, but what I know of Time, Its nature and effects, my magic within It, and what I do to mitigate potential dangers would take days to outline, and weeks to explain so you'd have a proper base of understanding. I will pass and save my breath for breathing."

"So convinced that you, and you alone, can comprehend the force you toy with," Yama's voice held a hint of warning. "But just because I can't control Time, old friend, does not mean I haven't witnessed its effects in general, or on you. Title or no, even when your powers are at their height, you have never been able to fully Master Time. Your last three attempts have killed those incarnations, and two of those attempts nearly tore your very soul to shreds."

"We-ell..." the Champion's word came out uneven through gritted teeth, having stepped on a pointed rock just as he started speaking. He gave an annoyed grunt and said, "You know what they say. 'No pain, no gain'."

"Sometimes I can't tell if you're genuinely so determined to do as you aim; or if you've become tired of existing, but your ego won't allow you to end things unless it's at least in a manner that will be memorable for ages to come."

"I am not the least suicidal," Rhuadhán said without hesitation. "If I was, my will wouldn't preserve my soul as it does. I just understand nothing comes without sacrifice, and what I want is worth the risks."

"Hmm, yes... That legendary will of yours..." Yama's glacial voice was a shade quieter as they approached the next stream, which had somewhat faster moving water, if still shallow. "Always set to achieving what You desire, you've frequently been willing to sacrifice others in attempts to get it..."

"If you're about to read me a litany of whatever sins past incarnations have possibly committed," the young Champion's voice was nearly as icy as he interrupted, "I am not the least interested in hearing it. Your idea and mine for what constitutes a sin are probably quite different. The Three are helping me with what is actually karmic baggage, and I don't need it redoubled. The Past can stay in the past because I'm more interested in moving on with my lessons learned from my experiments and continuing to improve my methods until I can finally achieve the desired outcome."

The Lord of the Underworld was silent as the Champion went about sensing and poking the stream. As Rhuadhán started crossing, Yama said, voice warning again, "While it's true that souls evolve over time, how do you expect to learn lessons from that which you refuse to acknowledge as mistakes? When you bear so few of the consequences of those mistakes? You've gone through so many variations of this same cycle of behavior. History repeats itself. And, every time, my gates receive new floods of souls that were killed prematurely because you once again tampered with Time. My hall echoes with the wails of mourning; the pleas for mercy; the entreaties for return because they had so much to live for..."

"Sounds like a rough lot, mate," Rhuadhán said wryly, almost halfway to the other side and cursed gaze on the fluctuating image of the water around him as he tried to make sure staff and feet kept sure footing. "And while it's not a rousing good time for those souls either- given how Time works, I'm guessing whatever I did, it didn't actually make them go toes up that much sooner than they were meant. They can always reincarnate; it's not like I destroyed their souls. I'm also willing to guess that the majority of them weren't exactly the 'innocent' types to begin with. I'm not shedding tears over killing enemies or the useful idiots they employ. And if there were a few innocents in the mix, well, apologies for that I suppose, but casualties of war happen. I know I've done more than my fair share of protecting as well; and if I can claim the power I'm after, I'll be able to protect countless more. So if it comes down to it, I'll crack those eggs to make the omelet."

"And they call me cold..." the Lord of the Underworld said stoically.

"Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but Time ultimately doesn't give a fuck about the dreams and plans and comforts of lesser beings," the Champion said dismissively as he stepped out of the stream. He could feel his legs starting to get sharp prickles from the cold and being wet, even if this decay-vision was making it impossible to judge the nuances of what state his body was in. He made gestures to dry himself and then cast a full body warming cantrip to ward off frostbite as he continued speaking. "And you have no room to tell me how to do my job. If you had been keeping a better eye on what was going on in your domain, Loki wouldn't have been able to pull the Queen of Evil's four horsemen of the apocalypse out of Tartarus and put them into play. Whatever extra souls this war sends down to your halls, that's directly on your arse this time. So you're just going to have to hold your nose, plug up your ears, and swallow down the wailing omelet when I serve it to you."

Yama offered no response to that assertion and followed alongside the mage-priest as he determinedly pushed on.

Some minutes of silence passed. Rhuadhán concentrated on Lemuel's mantra, trying to ignore the pins and needles feelings along the entire lengths of the soles of his feet and that the trembling of his muscles was slowly getting worse.

Another stream was crossed, then the quasi-god said with quiet seriousness, "I might be able to hold my nose and swallow it down, old friend, but are you sure that my sister will be willing to?"

"Last I checked, She doesn't have any more of a say in my methods than you do." Rhuadhán's words came out between labored breaths, and he was grateful to notice that the mountain slopes around them were angling down and he could see other slopes looming in the darkness. They should be coming up on that meadow within the next minute or two and there weren't any more streams to cross. "Is this infernal curse permanent?"

"No, it's not meant to be," Yama said, a shake of his head only discernable by the brief increased swaying of the tendrils of his hair. "Pass the test of Shiva-Tsal, and it will come with the side benefit of the curse being lifted."

"And if I fail, it will hardly matter," the Champion stated what the deity left unsaid.

"Precisely."

They fell into a heavier silence.

When they reached the meadow, Rhuadhán immediately headed towards the path he knew was the correct one so the Lord of the Underworld couldn't attempt any shenanigans to get him turned around and lead him down the wrong path. Once near it, he picked out a larger looking rock formation at the bottom of the right hand slope and paused his journey to lean against it.

As the Champion took a minute to catch his breath, the Lord of the Underworld said, "I don't know if you realize this, Majikahla, but while my sister might not have a say in your methods, she does have a say in who she chooses as Consort. If you get too ruthless, I highly doubt one of her nature is going to find it tolerable."

Rhuadhán glanced over to the deity and said dryly, "I'm only as ruthless as I need to be. If the universe hasn't been imploded and Time collapsing in on itself, and this world keeps spinning with all its little people living their little lives and nature's making a recovery from the corruption and war, I'm sure she's smart enough to weigh that against whatever I end up needing to do to ensure it happens and find that there's no competition on which was more important."

"She might be willing to accept such from a Champion the Three chose who she was obligated to accept as an ally… That doesn't mean she'll take you as Consort for the services rendered."

"She has to choose from those who are deemed worthy to put their name forth." Rhuadhán gave a small grunt of pain as he pushed off the rock and turned to head up the pass towards Shiva-Tsal. He continued speaking to his shadowy companion, "Let's go over Her options, old friend. We've got the boys over on Team Evil, who went quids in for their Queen's plan to destroy this world, and whose natures are antithetical to hers. Even if those buggers survive this war, they've already crossed themselves off the list. The boys on Teams Good and Neutral have either paired off already, or don't have the proper skills to fulfill all the roles She'd need as Consort and be acting replacement for the Lord of Light and the Dark God while they recover. Which means She needs to choose an up and coming star with no prior commitments to a counterpart and a rounded skillset. I'm ahead of the pack by leagues, and I'm the only one who stands a chance of making it over the finish line. So unless She wants to jeopardize the balances of this world, she'll do her duty and make the 'choice' The Three want her to make."

"So you're comfortable with such coercion to be selected?"

"The Three aren't going to hand the only true divine offspring they've been able to create off to just anyone. First off, She's their precious only child and they want her to be happy. Secondly, who She selects doesn't just affect her private life; it affects the whole bloody universe. They calculated out that our talents will play off the other's in the most beneficial of ways. So I'll welcome Her to the club of being so powerful that your usual rights get suspended if it's deemed necessary to preserving the continued existence of creation, and I'm sure she'll come around like I did to this arranged pairing."

"She's not The Three, though. She's not calculating things by the same measures, with the vast wealth of experiences and knowledge such ancient deities as my Father and His Counterparts have. Nor is she like you, weighing out things as the costs and benefits to oneself and looking for the most expedient option. What if she believes there's a more compatible choice? Or that a pair of Consorts, in following this world's traditions, can collectively fill her needs better than you? He or they might not be able to ascend to the level you aim for and have lesser powers, ones that might not help hers develop as swiftly and far as yours can, but she might weigh other things as being more important than just how well they can maximize her gifts and speed this world's recovery from a war."

The Champion gave the Lord of the Underworld a mildly vexed look. "Name one thing that would be so important to Her that I don't already have in spades and could tip the scales so much that she'd be foolish enough to choose another."

"Concerns for what comes after the war? It's one thing to need certain qualities in an ally against a common enemy so that your collective strengths are magnified to the point of negating your individual weaknesses and making you the victors; but there are different qualities one might desire in a partner they'll be spending an eternity with so they have personal fulfillment as well as professional."

"I'm a man of many interests and pursuits, and I can be quite charming when I'm not in War Mode," Rhuadhán said with an easy smirk forming. "Even once it's not necessary to spend so much time getting tantric with that little minx to enflame that divine spark of hers and push her to be capable of handling all I'm capable of putting out, I'm not thinking rocking her existence to its core is going to lose its entertainment value for either of us any time soon. It'll only get more fun once She's caught up to where I'm at. And unless The Three are misrepresenting their work and did a botch job on her creation and she only cares about her immediate purposes for existence- whatever interests she has and wants me to be a part of so she doesn't get lonely, I'm sure there will be at least a few I don't mind entertaining between other obligations. Depending on what they are, I might just be able to teach Her a thing or two about them or otherwise enjoy pursuing those mutual interests together."

"And there we come to the crux of the issue… Companionship is well and good, but such a thing can also be provided by other attachments a person has. With your will and knowledge of magic being what it is, you might be able to accomplish some of the tantric arts beyond what most born mortal can. But sacred coupling is a temporary melding between two souls, made all the more apparent when divinity is involved. Will is only one half of what makes a soul…"

"I'm aware of what an omudais is formed of," the Master of Magic said with mild exasperation at this new lecture.

"Yes, you are. Academically," Yama said with grave seriousness. "And you've spent all your existence strengthening your will to try fortifying your soul, but you've neglected the other half because you know what a ruthless force it is that you wish to become Master of. The only things you have ever truly loved are yourself and magic…"

"Well, lucky for me, your sister is magic in its purest state. I can't love someone I don't know, but I'm sure that'll come in time."

"But do you have Time, old friend? Title or no, you are not truly Master of Time yet. Your attempts have met with repeated failure. You're at a point where it's all but impossible for you to truly have what you desire. And tonight I'm free to tell you why that is. It's because you've boxed yourself into quite the little paradox, Majikahla. Time doesn't allow itself to be swayed by anything but its own preservation. Even if you gained the power to influence its course towards your own ends or to work with the goals of the collective Divine by convincing Time that such a shift is more conducive to its preservation, anything outside yourself and the Divine might still need to be offered up at some point in sacrifice to preserving Time.

"So you calculated out that it's not worth allowing your soul to embrace any sort of profound love; that you can spare yourself untold pain when needing to offer up whatever sacrifices Time demands to preserve itself by not feeling attached to those sacrifices. You decided to harden yourself to love and forge your soul with your will. But even with forging your will as strong as it is to match the force of Time, it has only been enough to keep you from tearing your soul to shreds when you try to join with it. Even your unparalleled will is not enough on its own, Majikahla. You need the other half of what constitutes your soul to be just as strong as your will so you can keep your identity and not be subsumed by Time during that merge…"

The Champion gave an annoyed huff at that assertion. "So you're telling me the answer to the problem is 'love' and feeling enough of it by the time I make my next attempt so that I finally meet with success? A bit cliché, but as you're bound to be honest, I'll take you at your word for the sake of this conversation. If that's the case, that's not an insurmountable problem complicating the current plans for me claiming Consort to The Daughter. As you pointed out, other aspects of creation get exempt from being sacrifices to Time because they need each other for coexistence. Hence the appeal of taking your sister as a wife because a Goddess is a safe bet that I wouldn't need to sacrifice her to Time. If I've got to start the loving before taking up my rightful place as Master of Time, old friend, then why don't you tell me what Magie refuses to. Reveal where to find that darling little sister of yours. I'll pop on over to wherever She's being kept hidden after I finish this Test, and get on with learning enough about her to love her enough to not risk getting torn to shreds."

"If it were so simple, Majikahla, I would tell you where she is. But you can't cheat your way into becoming Master of Time by just raising enough superficial love that you manage your goal of claiming Time. Not unless you want that victory to be hollow and all your worst fears to come to life."

"And how do you figure that?" Rhuadhán asked, smirk returning. "Between Magic and Time, I'll have the power I rightfully deserve. The universe stays intact and the worlds stay whole, so I have plenty of things to influence and play with. I'll have that little minx of magic made flesh as my wife; and if she's half the lass I've been led to believe she is, I'll be quite content to have that one thing outside myself or magic that Time can't take from me. And as a side bonus, The Destroyer is going into a permanent lockup, so I'm not going to constantly be called upon in the future to help route her and clean up the messes made. Which means I can actually spend that existence doing more of the things I enjoy. I am failing to see where this supposed paradox is that I should back out from while I still can because it's going to keep me from moving forward any further."

"Because even if, by some small miracle, and no shortage of blessings by Eros, in a few short years you manage to scrounge up enough capacity to love to properly purify your soul and survive merging with Time; with the strains that will cause your soul, it's going to be quite some time before you'd have enough strength to claim a further position as sole Consort to my sister. And in the amount of time it'd take you to regain that strength, it'll be too late to try claiming her."

Rhuadhán's smirk slipped a fraction and his voice was sharp as he asked, "What do you mean, it'd be too late?"

"I mean that you don't seem to be properly factoring into your calculations just who and what my sister is. She might be created from Magic rejoined, but that's not all of who she is. Those streams were tied back together with the metaphysical threads of Will and Love, and then The Three took the immense time needed to foster my sister's fledgling existence to be more than just a sum of those parts so her divine nature could properly develop and be attached to the unclaimed force of creation they felt was most needed here."

"Aye, so I've been told," Rhuadhán said wryly. "No one's told me just what force outside of magic She has attachments to, though."

A fleeting flash of teeth as the deity smirked. "Perhaps they wanted to keep private an amusement many of us have had of what my sister's domain is and that you have now set your will to being her Consort…"

"Care to fill an old friend in on the joke?" the Champion asked with an eyebrow raising.

"Pandora's Box is opening up on this world and unleashing all its evils, and She is The Three's gift to push their influence out…"

Rhuadhán stopped walking, staring at the quasi-god. "Are you telling me that She is literally… The Three are offering me Hope itself for my wife?!"

A sardonic chuckle reverberated from the shadows. "I wish you had your full memories right now… You'd understand just how poetic your choice to pursue her is…"

"Knowing myself, I'm guessing at some point I said something less than flattering about Her nature…"

"Are you asking me to tell you what you said?"

"Why not? Go ahead and let me in on the joke." Rhuadhán turned his attention forward and continued the hike up the pass towards Shiva-Tsal.

"I believe your exact words were: 'Hope is the denial of reality…' " The young Champion stopped walking as the Lord of the Underworld spoke those words, mimicking the mortal's voice with eerie accuracy and causing him to feel a peculiar chill go down his spine. " '…It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.'" Yama's voice returned to its usual glacial etherealness as he said, following in Rhuadhán's shadow as the Champion resumed walking, "While some would disagree with you, and did, your cynicism isn't always unwarranted…"

"Are you telling me I shouldn't want Hope itself?" Rhuadhán unknowingly asked the deity parroting his own words back at him a very similar question as the one he had originally said those words to.

The quasi-god's voice was pensive, and he gave a different answer than had been given once before, if just as crushing. "I would never tell anyone not to have hope, old friend. Hope gives endurance through times of strife and trials; it brings inspiration and empathy to those touched by its vision for a better future. Hope is a powerful force to be reckoned with… But like any force in creation, it can't exist in some cosmic vacuum entirely on its own, and Hope is a fragile thing when its spark is not being kept properly banked by both Will and Love. When in its natural amorphous state and left alone, it gravitates on its own towards what it needs and creates the symbiotic exchanges with those forces who benefit from it and protect it from the forces of Evil that would smother it out because its nature is so abrasive to them.

"Magic has made Hope take form because we need more than just its passive influence; we need it pressing forward into places it would normally shy from to protect itself. But my sister is a newly formed god, and her divine existence is currently as fragile as the force she's tied to can be. The Three and Eros are lending my sister what Divine Love and Will they can as she continues to form her identity and strengthen her ties to her domain; but the time is swiftly approaching when they'll need to try containing the Queen of Evil to stop her. They're not going to be able to continue as they are; and there's already been a few close calls where, by either neglect or intent, she's almost been snuffed out…"

The young Champion's pace slowed as his quick mind started to put together what point the Lord of the Underworld was leading to. The border of Shiva-Tsal was just in sight up ahead; some of the over hundred boulders that rose up from the ground could be seen as they rounded a bend, narrow natural pillars that loomed up like silent wardens at this region's gateway to the Underworld.

"…If my sister is to maintain proper sentience until such time as she has grown strong enough to sustain herself, and if she is to have the energy she needs to spread her influence as far as it needs to reach out, she needs a Consort who can take the place of The Three. She needs a Consort who can make certain that even when darkness is surrounding her and trying to snuff out Her light, she does not forget who she is and the power at her command to push back. A Consort whose soul's fire is blazing at its purest state and has the endurance to sustain that fire for not only itself, but for her as well, for as long as she needs that aid to become fully self-sustaining…"

Rhuadhán had stopped walking again by the time Yama finished talking, feeling again like the blood was draining from his face and his stomach was in a freefall as he realized the paradox initially mentioned. "You're telling me that because of how I've pursued power throughout my lives, even when Hope itself is being offered to me, I can't claim it. If I was willing to trade my aim to take control of Time for claiming my role as Consort and concentrate my power on keeping Her alive, the Queen of Evil's plans will unfold as she plans because I won't have the power to sway things back in our favor and we're all likely destroyed in the process. If I push forward with becoming Master of Time, I will be able to stop Evil and save creation, but my reserves of power will be too exhausted from playing my part. If I try to claim the role of Consort for her, I wouldn't be able to fulfill my responsibility. So unless I wish to be remembered throughout all of History as either the one who chose love over duty and let the universe be destroyed for it, or the one who killed the embodiment of Hope, I have to sacrifice my right to Hope itself to claim dominion over Time and consign myself to an existence watching another have what I will never be able to claim…"

"Quite the predicament you've boxed yourself into, isn't it, Majikahla?" Yama's words held no pity for the other's plight.

The Champion shook his head in denial, falling into a deeper state of numb shock. "The Three wouldn't have made such a promise to me of having both if there wasn't some way to make it so with the right maneuvering… There must be something you're not telling me that can allow me to do both…"

"Are you truly so sure they wouldn't dangle that carrot in front of you if they were desperate enough to gain your cooperation and allow for Kali to be defeated, knowing full well they'd never have to cut the string and give it to you? That there's not the truly intended Consorts somewhere out there, not being kept ignorant of where my sister is and already fostering a connection to her for when she's ready to make her choice? That no matter how enraged you might be when you discover the deception, The Three might not be counting on you being as infamously cold and focused as you have been throughout your existence, trusting you'll make the choice that preserves yourself and subsequently allows them to have less ruthless contenders have the task of protecting their preciously fostered little spark of Hope?"

"There's many among the divine I'd expect, or at least not be surprised by, such tactics being employed, but not The Three," the mage-priest said, shaky voice not lending any strength to those words. "When The Three make a promise, they keep it."

"You've been told by others they made you a promise, but can you remember striking a deal with them before you reincarnated?" Yama asked, another flash of sharp teeth showing as a mocking smirk passed over his lips. "Have they ever explicitly confirmed that promise to you since your rebirth? Or have they simply never refuted what others have said, occasionally dropped enticing little whiffs of that carrot's scent to keep you chasing it, and only aided as needed towards the goal of you completing your quest to gain the power you need to protect this world and claim Time?"

"Now you want me to doubt my father, my mentors, and my best friend, along with my patrons, to believe what you say, without any shred of proof to back up these claims?" Rhuadhán asked, glaring at the quasi-god. "I don't know what delusions you're laboring under, but I am not that fickle to those I deem worthy of trusting."

"But are they truly worthy of your trust, old friend?" the Lord of the Underworld asked.

As the Champion went to unleash another sharp retort, a three-dimensional image appeared between them. A moving image, much like the one Magie had implanted into the right side of his Yule gift, with the subject depicted being The Daughter. And in this little snapshot of some moment captured, she was again scantily dressed and undulating.

But the sight wasn't one Rhuadhán found the least enticing this time because the woman he thought was his intended bride wasn't dancing, and she wasn't alone. The view was from above and one side, making it plain to see she was lying in a bed somewhere, white blouse unbuttoned and splayed open, a simple cotton bra all that was keeping her chest covered. One of her hands was clutching the edge of the pillow at her head; and the other was grasping at the bare svelte back of the man leaning over her, her delicate fingers partially obscured beneath his wavy brownish-auburn hair.

The interloper was propped up on one elbow, with his forearm up under her shoulder and hand having a hold of her braided hair to keep her head tilted back. From this angle, the man's face couldn't be seen, but he was clearly trailing kisses along her exposed neck and down her chest. One of his black jeans covered legs was wrapped over her leg closest to him, holding it pinned down so it couldn't get in the way of what his other hand was doing. That other hand had disappeared underneath the hiked up hem of the fluffy blue skirt she was wearing. And what that hand was quite obviously doing, even if it couldn't be properly seen, was the source of her writhing, as well as the moans of bliss that began emanating from the image a few seconds into it starting. After several seconds, silvery eyes opened and the hand on the pillow left its place to grab the back of the man's head and pull him in for an impassioned kiss. The image paused mid-kiss, and then restarted from the beginning.

Rhuadhán tore his gaze from it, leveling an infuriated glare on Yama. "This image isn't real!"

"Oh, I assure you, old friend, it's very real," the Lord of the Underworld said stoically, glacial voice just loud enough to be heard over the heated sounds coming from the image. "My sister has no idea what you've supposedly been promised, and she was given The Three's explicit consent to choose who she desires as Consort or Consorts."

The young Champion turned away from the lewd image with gritted teeth and began limping towards Shiva-Tsal. As he did, he bit out with barely restrained rage, "I don't know what sort of twisted game you or They are playing right now, but it doesn't matter... I can track the blighter down and apprise him of the monumentally bad idea it was to try stealing my wife."

"She's not your wife, Majikahla..." the quasi-god reminded him as he floated alongside and kept the image playing ahead of them.

"Yet," Rhuadhán snapped out, gaze fixated on the boulders ahead.

"You can't force her to choose you..."

"One night with me, and she's not going to remember whoever that rank amateur is..."

"Your technique might be more refined, but he offers her the truest forms of love and understanding and she can sense that whenever they're together..."

"You think I can't?! And turn that bloody thing off already!"

The image continued on as Yama's pitiless voice echoed back, "Not if she's not open to allowing someone else to make the attempt... She's deeply in love with him and already accepted his marriage proposal..."

"It's hard to get married if the groom can't make it to the wedding day because he came down with a sudden case of death..." Rhuadhán bit back a gasp of pain as he stumbled forward a couple steps, having stepped on another sharp rock and only managing to not fall to his trembling knees because of the near death grip he had on his staff to keep himself upright and regain his balance.

"Killing her beloved is hardly going to endear yourself to her..." the Lord of the Underworld pointed out without comment on the mortal's physical hardships.

"Oh, I can be subtle when I want... Especially once my powers are better restored, I'm sure I can make it look like a convincing mishap the poor chap had..."

"She's a Goddess with innate divinatory capabilities that are steadily growing. You don't think she won't be able to know what really happened?"

"Then I'll just need to take a little trip back through Time and beat the bastard to Her, now won't I?! And I told you, turn that bloody thing off!"

"You know how unstable Time is at this present section of its flow," Yama said with clear reproof.

More of the boulders at Shiva-Tsal could be seen; many with shirts, jackets, or sweaters arranged over them from pilgrims who left the clothes behind as their offerings. Packs of cigarettes, toys from younger pilgrims, small instruments, statuettes, and a sundry of other offerings could be seen scattered between the boulders and grouped up around others. And the closest end of the gargantuan, near thousand meter rock formation that formed the gateway itself, was coming into view.

"I am the Master of Time! I can shore it up and make sure it's stable enough to keep my counterpart from being hustled into choosing an inferior Consort!"

"You'd risk collapsing Time and potentially undermining Kali's defeat?"

"To keep that miscreant's hands off my wife, you bet your underworld's halls I would!"

"You've taken others to your bed. Don't you think it's hypocritical to want to deny her the same comforts?"

"I've not slept with anyone since I saw her bloody image! And She doesn't need to be settling for lesser comforts like I've been when I'm already here to take care of her needs!"

"But can you give her what she needs, Majikahla? What about what she needs from a Consort that you don't have the power to give her now and in the near future?"

"I will find a way to give Her whatever she needs!" The furious young Champion all but roared the words at the quasi-god. "There is absolutely nothing She could desire or need that I can't provide once I'm at the height of my power, and I will find a way to make do until then so she doesn't suffer! I have been willing to sacrifice my comforts, my personal life, my gods damned body even, to do as asked, but I'm not sacrificing my right to finally have someone who will be able to last through the ages with me! I will not allow that to be stolen from me!"

"You really may want to consider the advice of your former self, Majikahla, before you do something that can't be undone..."

"Bugger off with trying to stop me from claiming what's mine!" Rhuadhán said, continuing his implacable limping march forward. "Even if I said that, my past self was a bloody idiot! Hope is the denial of reality, but that's not a negative thing! I'm not chasing the unattainable! What miserable existence others settle for living in, the hardships they accept as being par for the course, that's not reality! Not for me! I refuse to allow other people's perceptions define what's reality for me! I've had Hope that something better can be made if I sacrifice whatever it takes to gain the power to actually make a bloody difference that's lasting! And you know what? My will made that happen! I've become the Master of Magic and Time! I have power at my disposal that not even the bloody primordials can harness! I control the forces of reality and shape what reality is! I keep this fucking universe in check so the rest of you can keep on going about your existences in a reality that's better than it was before I choose to step in!"

They were now among the outer boulders and the Champion continued to rant at the deity, concentrating on his anger to give him the strength to keep putting one aching foot in front of the other.

"...I have made more than my share of sacrifices. I have more than given back to this bloody universe for the power I have scratched out for myself! So if I want to claim one thing as being purely for myself, I've earned that right and I will not have it stolen from me! If it comes down to it, I'll claim Time in full, personally beat The Destroyer into an eons long coma, adjust to Godhood further, and then pull my wife forward from a point before she met that little prick, spirit her off to a dimension within Time where no one can interfere with me coaxing her into making the right choice, and we won't leave until the vows are exchanged and I've put a set of Divine triplets in that belly to ensure my claims can't be undone! Once that's settled, I'll send Her back through Time to spots she's needed so things don't get buggered up and wait for her to rejoin me sans the lover. And for anyone who takes issue with me doing so, I'll tear their fucking essences apart before the first sentence of dissent is finished as a warning about what happens when someone tries to divert Time from the course It is set on taking! Now turn that vulgar image off, and open the damn gate so I can start my test, or your name is going at the top of the list of people to erase from existence for taking advantage of me being in a weakened state to fuck with me!"

The image was released, and the sounds disappeared. But instead of the rock face shifting to reveal the gate to the Underworld, magic came shooting out from the gateway and struck the Champion in the chest.

Searing pain enveloped Rhuadhán before he could react, causing his weary body to convulse and twist where he stood. Spasming hands lost their grip on the staff and he fell to his knees and hands as the magic coursed through him with an almost blinding level of agony. A strangled gasp tore its way from his throat as his arms gave out and he tumbled onto his side.

And then the magic was gone, leaving the Champion heaving ragged breaths and dazed mind unable to form any thoughts on what might have just happened to him.

The shadowy figure stepped in front of Rhuadhán and bent down to meet his gaze. The shadows rippled and shifted to his guise of Anubis, taking on a countenance similar to the Dark God's avatar of Set. Void gaze stared out, framed by darker cinnamon colored skin. Shadows-made-corporeal hair swayed around his face and down to the ground where he was crouched. The wesekh draped around his neck and over his shoulders was a simpler version of his Father's, silver and jet with a line of ankhs around the outer edge.

"Did you really think I'd let you take your test in a time and place of your choosing?" the Lord of the Underworld's voice reverberated out, elongated teeth flashing as he spoke. "Your test for Shiva-Tsal started the moment you woke up from my first spell..."

Rhuadhán blinked rapidly as he gave a pained groan, shaking hand going up to rub at his eyes. The hand halted in its course as he noticed something and stared at it in bafflement.

"…And it's fortunate for you that the sacrifice I wanted you to make wasn't the rights to my sister," Anubis said, mocking smirk forming. "Your test tonight was to see if you were willing to sacrifice your pride, and your self-delusions about why you've hardened your heart so deeply, to admit what truly brought you here and drove your mission to claim my sister as your wife. If you could put to words what Hope truly means to you and show cause for why you should be deemed the Consort to stand guard for her…" As the young Champion's sapphire gaze went back up to look at him, the deity said with smirk growing to a grin, "So congratulations, old friend. You passed your test, and you're one step closer to joining this family. I trust you'll forgive me for the ruse."

Rhuadhán gave another groan, this time of understanding, and wearily shoved himself up into a sitting position. "You're a right bastard..."

A sardonic laugh resounded from the Lord of the Underworld. "Comes with the domain, as you should well know, Majikahla." A clawed hand reached out and touched the ground. As it lifted a 15 centimeter long feather, crimson red with powdery black edges and a snowy white spine, manifested before the Champion. "I believe you're going to be needing that to make your ascent up to the mountain and claiming the Vajra from the Master of Kangri Rinpoche."

"Yeah, thanks for that, mate," Rhuadhán said wryly, taking up the feather of Ma'at and securing it away in a pouch. Once it was safely in his possession, he looked back up at the quasi-god. "So, about what you said before and that illusion. That was all some trick as part of the test?"

Another laugh from Anubis and he shook his head. "Oh no, old friend. I didn't ever lie to you…" He continued speaking without concern for the furious storm regathering on the Master of Time's face. "…However, I needed to crack those defenses of yours, and it takes something with equal force and hardness to break the nigh indestructible. You really are your own worst enemy and competition sometimes…"

Anger turned to confusion. "What are you on about?"

The Lord of the Underworld's expression remained faintly mocking in its amusement. "What did you think The Three had you off doing during those months of soul-questing, Majikahla? It's not time for you to claim my sister, but your past lives have far more karmic baggage than you realize that needs to be worked out, and who better than Hope herself to help put the past to peace to pave the way for a different future?"

"…So the blighter with his hands all over my wife was me?" Rhuadhán asked with eyebrows raising in surprise.

Anubis laughed again and gave a nod. "Yes. That was you, more or less."

The Champion thought on that revelation for some seconds. "But She doesn't know about the arrangement I have with The Three?"

The Lord of the Underworld shook his head. "No. That aspect of yourself was sent to her for the recovery it needs, and to aid her with a danger that was on the horizon, and they let things follow the natural course with you two. She became quite taken with you all on her own."

Rhuadhán processed that information, eyebrows lowering as he grabbed his staff and pulled it next to him. "…And I asked Her to marry me three years ago?"

Anubis nodded. "Yes."

"…And She said yes?"

Another nod. "Quite enthusiastically, I'm told."

"…And there's not some other bloke on the side since then?"

The Lord of the Underworld shook his head. "No. You've never been the type to share and she only has eyes for you, so she promised she'd wait for things to sort themselves as they need to and kept to that promise. She's missing you quite dearly, and looking forward to your wedding day and building a life together if we all survive this war."

The Champion hefted himself to his feet with the aid of his staff, exhausted beyond any previous means of reckoning, but a cheeky grin formed nonetheless. "Oh, we're surviving this, mate. I'm not resting until I get to consciously find out what your peach of a sister tastes like."

The fraternal look of disapproval from Anubis made Rhuadhán give a snort of laughter.

"Don't look at me like that, old friend," the young Champion said unrepentantly, turning to continue on his journey for the last, pure torture, incline of his hike. "You're the one who showed me that bit of softcore and gave me all the more fuel. I'm looking forward to finding out just what sort of noises She makes when it's the proper me in all my glory stoking her flames… Oh, son of a- now you're just being petty! Who needs enemies with friends like you?!"

The Lord of the Underworld's laughter, and an unconcerned "I'm sure you can handle me having a little brotherly sport, Majikahla", were the only responses the deity deigned to give as he started walking to the gate of his domain.

Rhuadhán grabbed a talisman off his belt to ward off the quartet of spectral, anthropomorphic canine-warriors that had suddenly shimmered into existence in a circle of about fifteen meters around him and were now marching in unison to close in. The sphere of protective energy was activated just in time to deflect simultaneous scimitar slashes meant for both his legs, chest and staff-holding arm.

The mage-priest stepped into a stream of Time to make a limping dash between two of the guardians and be able to safely start the near climb of a hike up the slope. There was only the faintest hint of the eastern sky lightening as the stars began fading for dawn. If he didn't stop to try banishing the spirits and stayed in Time, he could definitely reach Drölma Summit ahead of his dawn deadline, get Magie and the wolves to handle these attack dogs his future brother-in-law had set on him, and maybe even manage a sip of water before needing to cast his spell to ascend to the Kailash summit.

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A/N: 1- Deku and Dargon- thankies for the feedback! It is so very appreciated! 2- This chapter is a bit over 16k words, so I'm cutting it here to avoid a mega chapter.

3- For those who haven't studied Greek mythos, Eros (Cupid to the Romans) in their earliest depictions was the first of Gods who spawned the universe by bringing together the forces of creation via love. When the outside cult of Aphrodite, and her temples offering "sacred prostitutes", swept in, he was culturally demoted to a child of hers who had to do her bidding; and new creation myths that helped boost Zeus's status, which historically ended up being a major precursor to purely patriarchal One Gods in the Sky and factors into Abrahamic religions, replaced the original. I am correlating Paladine to the OG Eros in the Greek mythos, with his wife being Psyche (aka Soul). Y'all should be able to guess on the first try who was behind corrupting that mythos as it pertains to internal lore of this story.

4-On a side note, a friend sent me a copy of the Dragonlance musical (The Last Test/Trial) centered on Raistlin's godhood-seeking shenanigans that was done in Russia back in 2014/16 (I was sent the 2016 special performance) and had subtitles so I could understand what was being said. I made mention of it in the first installment, at the beginning of Book 2, but only in passing, and some of you may have otherwise heard of it or already seen it. I have been dying to see it for years, but didn't have the money to blow flying out to Russia to watch something I wouldn't be able to properly follow, and I couldn't find a recorded copy anywhere at the time I started writing the first installment. IT WAS FREAKING AMAZING! And if you haven't seen it, you should. Some plot points were noticeably off because they had to try to squeeze so much material into a two hour show and certain plots needed to be simplified to do so, but the actors are phenomenal and the music was PERFECT. I can easily forgive the plot issues because of the absolute love and passion for the story that clearly went into its creation. The spirits of characters were faithfully depicted, so many little nuances and details by the actors in gestures and expressions were just so very spot on; and with the opening of every new score I could tell just what scene was about to unfold because it was so very expressive. I spent almost the entire time watching it grinning like an idiot. And I've watched it half a dozen more times since the first. And had the soundtrack of some of Raistlin's rock-infused songs going in the background when my inspiration or mental stamina for this story is flagging. I can't say enough wonderful things about it. Few people can make a musical on par with Russian composers and actors, and these folks lived up to that legacy. SO WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY! Then tell me what you think!