They waited in the cold dark for the apocalypse to arrive.

Behind them, the world shimmered like a fresh-polished jewel, a glistening azure wrapped by ribbons of white. Zogrusz remembered his first glimpse of this planet, wracked by hunger and exhausted after his long wanderings. The colors, so rich and vibrant, had awed him after standing upon so many dead wastelands of gray dust and pockmarked rock. He had hoped, then, that his journey was finally over, that he had found whatever he had been searching for. And he had, but it had only been the beginning of his story.

He looked to his left, where Anecoya blazed in all her cosmic glory, her burning wings outspread. She looked to have been changed by their voyage to find the Wanderer, as if she’d fed and grown stronger on the light of that alien star. Zogrusz could feel the heat emanating from her, pushing back the freezing void, an aura of roiling energy that made his scales tingle. Her raptor gaze was fixed on the blackness, waiting for anything that might emerge.

On his right floated the same great chunk of earth and rock that Origenius had brought to his mountain, but the grass and flowers that had covered its surface had long since succumbed to the cold. The stone warrior stood like a statue amid this withered vegetation, his malachite sword unsheathed, his faceted eyes reflecting the starlight. Between his legs, Qala sat cross-legged, plucking the petals of a withered, ashen flower and letting them float away into the darkness.

Anecoya’s voice drifted across the bridge linking their minds. Are you certain, child? I still see nothing>

It is coming> Qala responded with absolute certainty. I’ve never sensed anything so alien . . . so cold. Like the emptiness between the stars has been given will and shape>

I feel it as well> Zogrusz said. It feels like the void> A presence brushed his mind, something heavy and vast, and he winced. Ycthitlig also knew he was here. That he meant to oppose it and was willing to sacrifice his very existence if it meant this world would survive. The Reaper did not care. It was not worried, or surprised, or even amused. It felt nothing except the hunger that drove it on, the desire to consume the flickering consciousnesses that would bring it another step closer to becoming one of the dreamers in the darkness.

A frisson of surprise went through Zogrusz when he suddenly realized that a small patch of stars in the vast sweep of the cosmos had disappeared, winking out of existence like they had been suddenly, violently extinguished. He adjusted his grip on the spear, trying to calm himself by exploring the fortifications Qala had erected in his mind. He could sense her handiwork, high ramparts and deep-sunk walls protecting his inner self, a bastion that surely Ycthitlig could not tear down.

At least before Zogrusz could shove the spear into him.

More stars vanished, as if somewhere out there an abyss was swelling larger, or a great maw was devouring the cosmos. Zogrusz knew what it was, though. The Horror was approaching, and its size must be immense if it was already occluding so many glimmering points of light. The others had seen it as well, as their minds seethed with the fear they no longer bothered to hide.

A world destroyer had come.

Ycthitlig emerged from the darkness. An eye appeared first, larger than Zogrusz at the fullest extent of his true form, a slitted black pupil set in a sea of sickly yellow. It was the color of jaundice, of infection, pus leaking from a festering wound. Surrounding this was a narrow ring of flesh set with gnashing mouths, each of these fanged orifices far smaller than the eye, but still large enough to swallow any of them whole. These openings gnawed at the darkness idiotically, as if they could draw sustenance from the frozen emptiness. Around these mouths was the bulk of Ycthitlig’s form, though when set against the blackness of space its dimensions were still not entirely clear – though Zogrusz could apprehend a vast profusion of dark tentacles like the arms of a monstrous sea anemone, undulating madly.

Ugly bastard>

Zogrusz’s paralysis broke as Anecoya’s words bloomed in his mind. He glanced over at the Phoenix and saw that her feathers were blazing brighter as she drew power into herself. He could sense that she was afraid, but then she crushed this rogue emotion beneath a layer of iron determination, and he couldn’t help but feel pride at her strength of will. He worked to match her, thrusting aside the terror that wanted to turn his insides to water and replacing it with anger about what this Horror had come to do to his world. He would fight for Rhas, for the humans and all the beauty they brought to the universe, for his friends who would stand so bravely against this emissary of the ravenous void.

Zogrusz surged forward brandishing the spear, his bellowed war cry swallowed by the airless dark.

Ycthitlig’s great eye shifted, focusing on him, and the full power of its attention slammed into the mental defenses Qala had prepared . . . and tore through them like they were cobwebs. Zogrusz gasped as the Reaper’s mind entered his own, and he reeled from the touch of its cold thoughts. His limbs spasmed, and he just managed to keep hold of the spear.

THIS ONE COMES TO GREET US, BUT NOT THRUMMING WITH GRATEFUL JOY. TAINTED THE SOWER OF THIS WORLD IS, POISONED BY THE WEAKNESSES OF LESSER BEINGS. A CLEANSING MUST BE DONE>

No> Zogrusz croaked, barely able to form this telepathic objection as he fought to regain control over his juddering body. He felt another being enter his mind, something bright and sharp and brimming with righteous fury. Ycthitlig’s vast presence recoiled for the briefest of moments, but then it descended like an avalanche upon this defender. It was Qala, he was sure of it, a tiny mote holding back the tide of darkness . . . and for a moment it seemed like she might do it, that she would shelter Zogrusz’s inner self from the Reaper. But then the unexpected happened. Something deep in Zogrusz’s subconscious answered Ycthitlig’s call, a seed that had long been dormant in the soil of his mind. Racial memories spilled forth, bubbling up from below even as the older Eldritch Horror pressed down from above. Zogrusz felt Qala’s anguished cry as she was crushed between these two implacable forces.

Flee> Zogrusz begged her as she desperately fought to keep his sense of self from guttering out. He felt her refusal, but the power arrayed against her was simply overwhelming, and with a final raging cry she was forcibly ejected from his mind. The Reaper’s will flooded into the sanctuary where she had tried to preserve him and

Zogrusz

felt who

he was

shatter.

And yet.

And yet.

When the tide of Ycthitlig receded it left something behind that was unbroken. Seamless. Untroubled by doubts or any of the petty emotions that he knew had once concerned him.

He was reborn – no, he had finally truly emerged from the cocoon that had coddled and constrained him since his emergence in the dark beyond the stars.

He was pure. He was perfect. The void fashioned into flesh and given purpose.

REJOICE, SOWER, FOR YOU ARE WHOLE>

***

Floating in the emptiness, Zogrusz watched the battle unfold with detached curiosity. On the hilltop Origenius had compelled into space, Qala huddled among the dead vegetation with her head in her hands. The jagged face of the stone warrior looming over her was twisted into an expression of rage – he gestured sharply, and great chunks of stone and earth tore free from around them and hurtled towards the Reaper. These newly-created comets could have knocked over a city’s walls, but the massive Horror seemed not to even notice as they impacted against its flesh and exploded.

Zogrusz shifted his attention to Anecoya. The blazing Phoenix was like a loosed arrow as she shot straight for Ycthitlig, her wings tucked into her sides and copper beak flashing. She meant to plunge into the great eye, Zogrusz knew, blinding the Horror as she ripped and tore at the jellied flesh.

He also knew this would never happen.

Serpents of glistening darkness twisted into existence, wrapping around Anecoya’s body and wings. She broke off her attack, her flames swelling brighter as she thrashed, desperately trying to free herself from the constricting tendrils. Fire crawled along their oily lengths but did not consume these bonds, nor could she wrest herself from their clutches. She opened her beak to give a soundless shriek as she was dragged struggling towards the waiting Horror.

Zogrusz glanced down when he felt the thready pulses welling from the spear in his hand suddenly quicken. Ribbons of blackness like spilled ink were twisting in the depths of the jagged dark crystal affixed to the end of the haft. How interesting. A thought occurred to him, and he looked to the great chunk of land floating nearby. As he suspected, Qala had raised her head and was staring at him intensely, her arm stretched out like she was trying to grasp something just out of reach. Another great throbbing passed down the length of the spear, and it almost felt like tiny worms were burrowing into his flesh where his hands touched the smooth metal . . .

Qala and Origenius disappeared as a vast tentacle smashed down on the stolen hilltop. It exploded in absolute silence into countless smaller pieces of spinning rock and earth, utterly obliterated.

The prickling sensation in his palms stopped.

Zogrusz turned from the rapidly expanding cloud of debris as Ycthitlig’s great arm retracted trailing a glittering tail of ice and frozen dust. He wondered if the stone man had survived this blow – the fragile, fleshy girl was certainly dead, but he supposed it was possible Origenius still clung to life.

It did not matter. Zogrusz knew the stone warrior did not have the power to threaten Ycthitlig – they were all insects before the terrible grandeur and beauty of the Reaper. So many of the lesser emotions that had poisoned Zogrusz had been excised when the Horror had revealed to him his true nature, but still he felt a thrill of excitement and anticipation gazing upon the glorious creature he would one day become.

Why had he once cared for these other cosmic beings? This world? The only thing that mattered in the universe was the progression from frail Sower to the divine glory of a Great Old One. Everything else was but a tool or an obstacle to be overcome on this path.

Anecoya’s thrashing had become more frantic as she neared Ycthitlig’s endlessly gnawing mouths. Zogrusz remembered how she had stood over him in the ruin of his temple façade, mocking his weakness. A voice in the back of his head whispered that he should feel shame for that moment, and anger for all her insults and sneering rudeness. And yet he did not.

He felt nothing as she was dragged into one of the mouths and consumed.

Ycthitlig’s great eye swiveled to focus on Zogrusz once more.

COME, SOWER. THIS WORLD AWAITS ITS RECKONING>