“A Reaper?” the red-haired goddess scoffed after Zogrusz had finished telling of Ycthitlig’s visitation. “And what is it going to reap? Eldritch Horror cultists? Fine by me.”

“I would be surprised if such a being would traverse the cosmos just to snack on a few minds,” Zogrusz muttered, annoyed that she would be so cavalier about the lives of his followers.

“Then we fight,” Anecoya said confidently. “You’re an Eldritch Horror. It’s an Eldritch Horror. With me at your side, we can banish it back to whatever abyss it crawled from.”

Zogrusz shook his head emphatically. “No, no, no. You haven’t seen them out there, in the void. The Great Old Ones. They are . . . beyond comprehension. Incredibly vast and ancient.”

“But this isn’t a Great Old One,” she countered. “You said it was a Reaper, some lower tier of Eldritch Horror.”

“Still far beyond what I am,” Zogrusz said. “Just how much stronger I don’t know. But given how much my power has increased with each time I wake, and that Ycthitlig claimed to be an entirely different class of Horror . . . I believe it likely we could not stand against it even if there were a dozen others just like us.”

“I’m not frightened,” Anecoya said, almost sneeringly. “You haven’t seen my full power yet either.”

“Zog is right,” Rhas suddenly interjected. The moon-colored cat had been quiet during Zogrusz’s story and the argument that followed, eyes closed and motionless except for the occasional twitching of its ears. “Whatever is coming is almost certainly well beyond our ability to repel. There are . . . legends among the web of world-minds I am in contact with about the arrival of Eldritch Horrors, and how in their wake planets simply . . . go dark. Scoured clean of consciousness. I’ve never been sure how much weight to put in these stories – we world-minds love to gossip and pass along rumors that extend in whisper-chains across the universe – but the common understanding is that the arrival of an Eldritch Horror puts a world in great danger. Which was why I was so confused when I first witnessed how you interacted with the People of Xochintl, Zog, and then what you said in our conversation. After speaking together, I could not imagine that you were going to end life on my surface. But if you are just here to prepare the way for something far greater and more terrible . . .”

“Then what do we do?” Anecoya exclaimed, throwing up her arms. “I will not abandon this world or my devout.” She glanced at Zogrusz questioningly. “And what happens to you after this . . . Reaping? You also won’t have any followers left.”

“I believe,” Zogrusz said slowly in an attempt to convey his uncertainty, “that I am supposed to leave this world to its fate. And then travel elsewhere in search of other planets suitable to feed an Eldritch Horror. Establish another faith that assuages my hunger and helps me grow stronger . . . and in time whatever beacon this creates will draw another Reaper. Eventually, after enough worlds are Sown, perhaps I myself will change into this higher stage of Horror.”

“So is that what you will do?” snapped Anecoya. “Fly off and leave this world to die? Continue your journey to become some sort of all-powerful evil god?”

Zogrusz’s mouth-tendrils fluttered in agitation. The idea of deserting this world was difficult to even consider. Humans had proven themselves to be remarkably complex creatures capable of creating all sorts of wonders. And he simply liked them. Nearly every interaction he’d had with humans had been interesting and exhilarating, from that first exchange with the guard outside Xochintl all those years ago to his conversations with the fisherman Izel at the end of his last cycle. And then there was Rhas. The cat would cease to exist if the minds on this world were extinguished.

“No,” Zogrusz said softly. “I will do what I can to help stop Ycthitlig.”

Suddenly Anecoya snapped her fingers. “What if we halt this flow of dread that is drawing the other Eldritch Horror here?” she suggested, her voice rising in excitement.

“And how would we do that?” Zogrusz asked, suspecting he knew where she was going with this.

The red-haired goddess shrugged, her expression carefully innocent. “We get rid of your cult.”

Zogrusz folded his arms across his scaled chest. How convenient – exactly what she wanted anyway. “And how do you propose to do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . a crusade?”

Zogrusz snorted. “Some goddess of love and compassion you are.”

Anecoya narrowed her eyes, anger clouding her face again. “I’m a pragmatist. As the humans know, infections cannot be allowed to spread. It must be cut away or the rest of the body will sicken and die.”

“I’ll die as well,” Zogrusz retorted.

“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to accept,” she said, her smile sickly-sweet.

“You’re speaking of mass murder,” Rhas scolded her. “Purging hundreds of thousands – maybe millions of the minds that are part of me.” The cat shook his head sadly. “I’m disappointed, Annie. I thought I raised you better than that.”

Anecoya scowled, hunching her shoulders as she crossed her arms. “It was just an idea,” she muttered sulkily.

“She’s right, though,” Zogrusz admitted, which brought a confused glance from the goddess. “If we can’t fight Ycthitlig, we have to dissuade it from coming here. And the only way we know how to do that is to uproot what I have accidentally sown.” He saw Rhas stir, and continued hastily before the cat could object. “But it will be difficult. I learned how resilient belief can be. The remnants of my people survived centuries of persecution from those who followed her”—one of his mouth tendrils extended towards the goddess—"religion of kindness. It would not only be monstrous but also very difficult to ensure that no traces of my religion remained, and we don’t know how little dread devotion Ycthitlig requires to find this world.”

An uncomfortable silence descended after Zogrusz finished speaking. Anecoya looked impatient, like they were wasting their time sitting around in a cavern hoping for a flash of inspiration, while Rhas had adopted one of those inscrutable cat-postures with its head raised over its outstretched paws, a pose Zogrusz had seen commonly represented in stone at the entrance to many Amotlan buildings. It was impossible to know what Rhas was thinking: it might have been about mass murder or munching mice or defeating rampaging elder gods.

After a good long while of listening to the many-legged insects scurrying along the walls, Anecoya gave an annoyed grunt and abruptly stood. “This is pointless. Come find me if a plan materializes. Until then, I’ll be preparing a welcome for this Yickthleg. He wants the world, he’ll have to take it from me!” The goddess’s blazing gaze fell on Rhas, as if he might challenge this statement, but the cat continued staring straight ahead with serene indifference. Anecoya’s mouth twisted at the lack of reaction, then she turned sharply on her heel and strode back towards the tunnel leading outside. After her footsteps faded, Zogrusz also looked at the cat, but before he could open his mouth, Rhas spoke.

“I am in communion with the closest world-minds, Zog,” the cat murmured, its tail flicking back and forth. “Let us hope they have a better solution to our problem. If they do not, I fear we must prepare for the worst.”