Arylos sat on the ground and leaned his head against the cot behind him, staring at the cavern ceiling as he wondered what his next steps were. He could hear Thoth talking to him, telling him about his injuries and the treatment plan, but Arylos could not afford the effort to understand him. He kept his eyes locked on the ceiling as if looking to the stars beyond the rocky mountain face as he wondered if he had enough strength to continue on. Thoth once again gave Arylos the cane, expecting the defeated Titan to take it in hand yet Arylos wanted nothing to do with the sign of his weakness.

“Arylos, are you still in there?” Thoth asked in a half annoyed voice.

Arylos latched onto Thoth’s words and glanced over at him with an anger in his eyes. “Do you ever stop talking?” Arylos growled quietly.

“Well, usually only when people punch me in the face,” Thoth said with a soft and nervous laugh.

“Don’t tempt me,” Arylos said in a softer growl as he looked back down to the cane before looking back up at Thoth. “So this is it then?”

“What is what?” Thoth asked in confusion.

“This body is done; I might as well retire to some old farm in the countryside,” Arylos said with an annoyed sigh. “I can kiss any chance of keeping the Eikons away goodbye. So I might as well enjoy whatever retirement I can before they come back.”

“That may not be true; you did defeat a Sage here in this city,” Thoth said nervously.

“Doesn’t matter; it still killed a lot of people, and that’s enough for them,” Arylos said while looking back up at the ceiling. “That’s why I hate them; so long as one of them still lives, they’ll keep coming. They’re a plague that can only be wiped out by destroying this reality.”

“And then you’re doing what they want,” Thoth finished in a soft voice while rubbing his chin.

“Why do you think they keep saying that they are ‘inevitable’?” Arylos mocked with a deep sigh.

“But why are they doing this?” Thoth asked, trying to find out more.

“Fuck if I know,” Arylos said with an annoyed growl.

“But haven’t you been fighting them your whole life? Surely you know something,” Thoth cut in.

Arylos rolled his eyes and sighed as his annoyance found a limit. “Yeah, one time Demise and I sat down for tea and he told me his entire evil plan.”

“You haven’t wanted to learn why you’re fighting?” Thoth asked defensively.

“I wish I did, but it’s always the same,” Arylos said while slamming the back of his head against the cot. “They go on about ‘life and evolution is a mistake’ and how it is a ‘pestilence of chaos’ and that ‘the Eikons restore order to the chaos’ yada yada yada. That’s all they talk about like it’s some hot chick they saw at a tavern once and didn’t take their shot at her.”

“And none of the other Titans wondered?” Thoth asked, not believing the lack of knowledge.

Arylos growled and looked back towards Thoth with an anger in his eyes that burned Thoth’s soul. “They were all dead by the time the Eikons came along.”

Thoth looked away, wanting to gather his thoughts before an idea came to him. “Wait, the Eikons came after the Titans?”

“Don’t believe their bullshit that they came before the Titans; their war didn’t start until after ours ended,” Arylos said with a low growl.

“No no no, I was thinking they came along at around the same time,” Thoth corrected in an almost excited voice.

Arylos glared at Thoth with his burning eyes as he furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s not possible,” he growled deeply.

Thoth snapped his fingers and jumped up and grabbed a book from a shelf on the other side of the room. “Tell me, other than Demise, who is the oldest of the Sages?” he asked as he approached Arylos again while flipping through pages in the book.

“Obelisk, Lord of the Mountains,” Arylos answered with a confused voice.

“Yes, the Butcher of the Eikons, now what does he do?” Thoth asked while sitting back down next to Arylos.

“Well, they don’t call him the Great Butcher for no reason,” Arylos said while straightening himself. “He dissects living things to find new ways for the Eikons to spread. If there’s a species the Eikons have not cataloged, he’s the first to look for it. He leads raiding parties on hundreds of worlds at a time to capture and dissect as many specimens as he can.”

“And he gathers traits and limbs from his victims and adds them to himself and the rest of the army, right?” Thoth asked while carefully reading through his book.

“Yes, it’s why I don’t know exactly what he was,” Arylos said as confusion came to him. “He attached so many other races to himself that he’s no longer what he was.”

“And that may be for a reason,” Thoth said triumphantly as he found the page he was looking for. He brought the book over to Arylos to read and Arylos saw sketches of a hulking and imposing figure in blood-stained metallic armor shredding enemies apart using serrated swords and spinning blades on bleeding limbs attached to its back. “I found this from a dead planet a long time ago,” Thoth explained while pointing towards the figure in the illustration. “The parchment itself was practically dust so I had to reconstruct it. They mention a creature named ‘Keldakan’ who would tear his enemies apart and graft their limbs onto himself. ‘The Great Butcher’, he was called. Starting to sound familiar?”

“You think this Keldakan is actually Obelisk?” Arylos asked accusingly.

“I just saw Kalndahvok brought back to life as an Eikon; anything is possible,” Thoth said with a nervous laugh. “Although you might think that this is impossible, but I must ask that you keep an open mind.”

“It’s plausible so far, why do you say it’s impossible?”

Thoth swallowed a lump in his throat before turning the page in his book, showing an illustration of several soldiers in a line wearing striking metal armor with the previously illustrated figure standing in front of the soldiers wearing colorful regalia. “Because Keldakan was real; I found records of him but under the name ‘Holy Emperor on High’.”

Arylos thought for a moment before he looked up from the book as the realization hit him hard. “Keldakan was a Dramad.”

“Dramad? What’s that?”

Arylos snapped out of his trance and took a deep breath. “They were a race my people had been watching for a long time. They had become wise and powerful and grew to an interstellar civilization. During that time, this Keldakan was named Anag’Aranza, their emperor who made them a space-faring people. That was until they started destroying the worlds they came across, not unlike the Eikons. When that happened, I destroyed their entire civilization, Anag’Aranza included.”

Thoth thought about Arylos’s words while rubbing his chin. “You don’t think this Obelisk is the first Eikon, do you?”

Arylos shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Doubtful; Demise keeps that title for himself. However, I would not be surprised if Aranza ran to Demise’s side after I wiped out his people. He may not be the first Eikon, but he is the first Sage. Each Sage must willingly serve Demise, often those I have wronged who came to him for help.”

“Like old boy Nerseis,” Thoth said softly.

“I think Nerseis was willing to do anything if it meant killing me, but he wasn’t ready to serve Demise,” Arylos said while rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think he could ever devote himself to Demise; only use him as a means to an end. That may have been why Tyranny came out so weak and conflicted.”

“And Kalndahvok?” Thoth asked, running through the names.

“Yeah, that one’s on me,” Arylos said with a deep sigh. “After I fought back during the Dragon Wars, I more than likely injured Kalndahvok’s pride, so he probably served Demise willingly. He came here alone and made his own army which tells me Demise trusted him not to fail. Yet he kept all of the Eikons he made linked to himself so if I killed him, they all would die. So what was the point?”

“That doesn’t sound like a mission to recruit reinforcements if the recruiter’s death kills the recruits,” Thoth wondered aloud.

“No, so he was here for another purpose, distraction?” Arylos asked while stroking his beard.

“Or maybe as a messenger of some kind?” Thoth suggested while stroking his chin.

Arylos thought to himself and slowly nodded while taking a deep breath. “Well, their message is probably that they are inevitable and I can’t stop them. Even with all of this thinking, what good does it do when I can defend my home from them?”

“You could still help the war effort; advise how to stop them,” Thoth suggested.

“How you stop them is by siding with them and destroying everything; ask me how I know,” Arylos said with a deep growl as he looked at the cane Thoth gave him. “Unless you have a way to get me a new body, I’m not interested.”

“We can get you out of that body though,” Thoth suggested nervously while closing his book. “Helena’s Nail is a simple enchanted artifact so removing it is a simple–”

“Not interested,” Arylos repeated as he set the cane on the ground and slowly pushed himself back up to his feet, his knees shaking from his weight all the while. “If you take me out of this body, I need a new one to take its place. Do you have any volunteers that I don’t know about?”

“I-I’m sure there’s someone we can find,” Thoth said with a nervous laughter.

“That someone you have to find has to be okay with losing everything,” Arylos said while taking shaking steps towards Thoth with a deep growl that Thoth knew was the sound of a creature that could still kill him. “They would have to have no family, no renown, no will to live. When they come to me, they have to be ready to die and be reborn as myself. They have to not only be suicidal, they have to wish they never existed. Korseis gave himself to me because he saw himself as useless and weak and therefore won’t be missed. Eroth gave himself up because he was nothing without Minourae and preferred a painful death to get his revenge instead of a lonely life without her. So tell me, do you know someone like that?”

Thoth quieted himself and slowly shook his head. “No I don’t,” he admitted softly.

Arylos backed away and covered his face as a coughing fit struck him, knocking the air out of him. He wiped his mouth as he regained control of himself. “That’s why I can’t throw this body away; who knows how long it will be before I can return. So I might as well put up with the fucking inconveniences.”

“Have you grown that attached to Korseis?” Thoth asked in an accusing tone.

Arylos’s eyes shone a bright red, reminding Thoth of his place. “I have grown that attached to Iris. It’s not fair to her for me to destroy myself because of such a petty thing. She may be 70 years old before I return, four decades of loneliness is not fair to her.”

“So even with the knowledge we know now, you’ll still stay here?” Thoth asked, keeping his anger in check.

“My goal is to protect my home; that is all it will ever be,” Arylos said in a deep voice while leaning against the cane. “I will not go rushing into war when I have a home to protect here. This is my priority, and nothing will change that.”

Thoth quieted himself as silence filled the room, finding himself unable to say anything to Arylos. Then a gentle knock on the wooden door frame broke the silence. Before Thoth could call out, a familiar brown-haired young woman came through the curtain like a shy child.

Arylos sighed and reached out his bandaged arm to her. “Come on Iris, we’re finished here.”

“So you’re okay now?” Iris asked softly as she approached Arylos, her eyes catching his bandages and the cane he leaned against.

“For now, yes; although they’ll have more torturous experiments for me later,” Arylos said with a laugh as Iris approached and took his arm around her shoulders. Before Thoth could say anything, the two of them moved forward and through the curtain, back into the wide cavern surrounded by refugees keeping warm around fires. Arylos groaned as he tried walking in time with the cane, internally cursing him for spending the time arguing instead of remembering how to use a cane.

“Come on honey, move it with your left leg,” Iris said, as if hearing the voice in Arylos’s head.

“This is not my first time using a cane,” Arylos told Iris with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, well, I have to do something,” Iris grumbled as she reached for Arylos’s hand on her shoulder, holding it tight to keep him from letting go.

Arylos let out a sigh as he took her hand, unable to return her tight grip. “I know you overheard my talk with Thoth,” Arylos said softly while lowering his head. “You don’t have to worry about me; I’m not going anywhere.”

“For now, what if those things come back?” Iris asked in a sad voice.

“We’ll deal with that if the time comes,” Arylos assured in a firm voice. “For now, afford an old man his indulgences of growing old and dying as an old crotchety man.”

“You’re already old and crotchety,” Iris grumbled, hiding a soft smile she had.

“We’ll, at least we’re no longer different now, are we?” Arylos said with a big smile.

Iris growled and made a fist in her right hand, but let go of her anger in the form of a deeply annoyed sigh. “You’re lucky that you’re hurt, otherwise I would punch you.”

Arylos laughed softly and pulled Iris close, kissing her scalp. “You love me and you know it,” he whispered in her ear.

“I tolerate you and you know it,” Iris said with a cocky grin. As soon as she did, Arylos lost his footing and fell to the cavern floor, taking Iris partway down with him as he caught himself with his arms, stopping from hitting the ground. Iris scrambled to Arylos’s side and offered to lift him up as Arylos groaned, barely holding himself up from the ground. Iris felt an urge come to her and she grabbed Arylos’s arm to pull him up but he waved her off.

“No no, don’t-don’t help me,” Arylos instructed while gasping for air. “I need to do this on my own,” Arylos continued while slowly pushing himself back up. Iris let him go yet kept her arms at the ready as Arylos turned himself around and sat on the ground. Iris sat next to him and checked on him with a nervous expression on her face but her expression just made Arylos laugh under his breath. “Nine hundred and six,” he said with a soft laugh.

“Uhh, what?” Iris asked in confusion.

“That’s how many faces I have taken over my lifetime; how many bodies I have possessed,” Arylos explained while still laughing. “906 times I took some farmer boy away from his family, away from his sweetheart, taking away his life so that I could walk in this world. All because there was something that needed doing, a war to fight, a people to save. Every single time I did it, I knew what I was getting into, I knew the cost that I was having these mortals pay, but I did it anyway because I told myself ‘it has to be done’, not knowing just how expensive that cost is until now. I told myself that their sacrifice would be remembered, they would be heroes. How many of them do you think were remembered like that? How many had statues erected for their selfless sacrifice?”

“A hundred?” Iris asked softly.

“Five,” Arylos corrected with a sad sigh. “Everyone else was marked as monsters or simply forgotten about, sometimes even by myself. I can’t do that again; I can’t ask others to pay that cost again because I know that I am not able to afford it myself. I can’t throw you away just to go fight in a war that I know I’ll lose anyway. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me, so I can’t ask anyone to make that choice again.”

Iris sighed and hugged Arylos, gently stroking his hair as he wrapped his good arm around her. “And yeah, this sucks,” Arylos continued with a soft laugh. “This is– uhh, embarrassing to say the least. This is a new low and yeah, I’m kind of ashamed of it. But it hasn’t changed my mind.”

“What do you mean?” Iris asked softly.

“As you told me, this is my home, not Mortehksun,” Arylos said while nodding in affirmation. “And I have to protect my home, my people, my family. I’m willing to do anything to achieve that goal. So while this royally sucks like hell, I would happily do it again. If it means keeping you safe, I should be honored to do it.”

Iris chuckled softly and kissed Arylos’s scalp, tightening her hold on him. “Just don’t get killed or I’ll make sure that you wish you didn’t die.”

“Yes ma’am,” Arylos answered with a happy laugh.