Thea marveled at what was inside Shar’s lair. Crystal and volcanic glass shaped in the forms of many different beings were interspersed throughout the large open area just past the entrance. Some of the statues were life-sized and some were representations of things Thea didn't even recognize.
“There are thousands more of them deeper in,” Zag told her after he noticed the look of awe. “I have no idea how she shapes them, I’ve tried and been unable to duplicate it in even a rudimentary form.”
“They are amazing,” was all Thea could say.
They wove their way through the statues and made their way through a dragon-sized portal to face a door that seemed to be a solid slab of volcanic glass. Thea could swear she could see the shadows of a massive inferno through the opaqueness of the obsidian.
“Do you want that outfit to burn up or would you rather save it?” Zag asked as he rested his hand on the doorway.
Thea hesitated, the military part of her did not want to waste the material while her motherly side screamed to not put the eggs down.
“I’ll hold them if you will, I can attest to my track record of not dropping things,” Zag offered with a sloppy half-grin on his face. “I’ll even swear to the fire god I won't eat them.”
Thea, for a moment, just stared at him. Her mind, in her high levels of tension, was unable to catch the joke right away, as it slowly sank in her expression changed. Her eyes widened at comprehension, her lips twitched as she tried to suppress smiling at something so stupid. She wound up snorting as she tried to slowly exhale the breath she hadn't realized she was holding and fell into a fit of giggles.
Zag’s smile widened as he watched the tension float away from her. He took an egg in each hand after she hefted them up, in her arms, towards him.
When Thea handed off the eggs she found herself amazed at how large Zag’s hands were. He could hold the eggs, one in each hand, where she had to use her forearms to cradle them to her chest. She was captivated by the gentleness with which he held them, a sharp contrast to the violence she had just witnessed outside the cave.
“As willing as I am to stand here holding these eggs, we are, quite literally, keeping a god waiting.”
Thea jumped as she was startled out of her thoughts. She turned her head away from him to try to hide her embarrassment as she mumbled an apology. She quickly undid her clothes and re-took possession of the eggs freeing up Zag to open the doorway.
Zag placed his hands directly in the middle and leaned into it. Stone grated as the bottom scraped along the floor of the cavern. Bits of gravel fell from the top, crumbling from the ancient supports that framed the door.
The heat coming out of the chamber was immense. Flames belched out from a pool of lava on the far side of the room.
The haze of heal flickered throughout the chamber as they entered. Zag waited till Thea had crossed the threshold and shoved the door closed.
Thea looked around for some figure, some physical presence of a deity to mark where she should proceed to. Her eyes picked up a flicker as a wave of heat seemed to rush towards them, at the same time she felt a hot, albeit soothing breeze, brush over her cheek.
The heat waves formed into what she initially thought was a mirage, it flickered and wavered but soon solidified into two stately figures, two men sitting on rough stone chairs with their hands folded at rest on a stone table.
“Isn’t that the wind god? I thought he was staying outside,” Thea questioned what she was seeing.
“I am still outside, the natural laws and paradoxes as you understand them were, in part, formed by me,” the figure of the Wind God answered sarcastically. “Why would I not be able to defy them at my leisure?”
“Stop being so dramatic, brother mine,” the Fire God said. “They need to have at least a good enough impression of us to hear out the entire thing. The dragons already find you tiresome after all.”
“Lady Thea Annagenisi, I present you with Jann, the God of Wind and Ifrit, the God of Flame,” Zag introduced them.
“Very funny, Zaganursarrum, you present us to her when she is the guest.” Ifrit chortled at the subtle joke. Jann sighed in exasperation, impatience clearly marked on his face.
Zag smirked at the two gods while Thea glanced back and forth between the two parties with confusion.
“Well, let us get on with this,” Jann prompted.
“Indeed,” Ifrit agreed. “Allow me to take those phoenix eggs, I should be able to remove the chaos from within them without too much trouble.”
Thea nodded and took a step forward. She was shocked, however, when the eggs floated out of her arms and into the hands of the fire god.
“To do such a thing,” Jann grumbled. “It’s amazing in its own way, but completely disgusting.”
“Why don't you explain to them what we need them to do, and what they will be up against?” Ifrit asked of Jann as he rolled the eggs in his hands.
“What!?” Jann looked at him askance. “I’m already well into the explanation to those outside, it’s beyond annoying to have to do it at the same time from two different points!”
“You’re a god, Little Brother, you’ll be fine…” Ifrit’s voice trailed off as he held an egg up to look at it more closely.
“Wait!” Thea shouted in a panic and pointed to Ifrit. “Where is the other egg?”
“What? Oh, I merged them together because I was tired of holding two things with the same problem,” Ifrit explained without even glancing in her direction.
“See, you tell me to explain something to them, a task difficult enough already, and then you distract them with your antics!” Jann bickered at him before Thea could respond.
“It’s fine, if you had started explaining it already we wouldn't be having this problem,” Ifrit dismissed his ranting.
“Jann is far from captivating enough to prevent her from noticing that,” Zag snarked at the bickering deities.
“Well it isn’t an issue, I can make them one egg, two eggs, or even more than that if I really wanted to.”
“It is a problem you daft idiot,” Thea yelled. She snapped her mouth shut as she remembered what she was talking to.
“Oh!” Ifrit exclaimed as the light of clarity entered his eyes. “You feel protective and cannot help panicking, I see, well don't worry, they won't be harmed by this at all.”
He went back to his work on the egg while Jann sat there with his face buried in his hands like he wanted to cry.
“You really don't have to worry,” Zag told Thea as she looked at him for assistance. “Ifrit is as softhearted as it gets, it makes me wonder if he really represents fire at all.”
“He doesn't,” Jann interjected. “That is part of what I have to explain.”
“I’ve already had my beliefs torn asunder recently, I don't think I can really bring myself to trust either of you,” Thea glared at the gods before turning to Zag with a softer look. “I do trust the dragon, however.”
“Quite, Zaganursarrum is a very honest child,” Ifrit agreed absentmindedly as he had gone back to work on the egg.
Thea turned to Jann, her expression and body language shifted and displayed that she was all business.
“You said he wasn't the god of fire?” she prompted him to elaborate.
“Well, not exactly,” Jann responded. “My three siblings and I were born out of order and chaos. Think of them as the first gods if you will, although they are more universal laws than actual living existences per se.
“What we are made of is not the elemental concepts we are associated with, we are all actually the same. We are made of chaos, order, and the other universal laws that stemmed from those two.
“In fact…” Jann held up his hand and the black mist or shadow that they had seen the humans they had been in conflict use formed a ball which floated above it. “We are even made of this stuff.”
“What is it?” Zag asked.
“There is only a limited amount of what I’ll call ‘stuff’, for simplicity's sake, and for the universe to function properly it needs to recycle what isn't being constructed or used anymore so it can continue to evolve and grow.”
“Are you saying our world is being recycled?” Thea looked confused by the explanation.
“No,” Jann shook his head, “this ‘thing’ is manipulating the universal laws and using it as a weapon to invade this world, without its influence there would be no way a human body could utilize the power the way the ones you have come across have.”
“Do you have any idea how it found this world?” Thea continued asking her questions.
“That...is in part my fault.” Jann sighed. “Agios somehow thought he could use its existence to kill me, how he found out about it in the first place, I have no idea.”
“My son told me that the spirits worshipped by the human tribes have an adverse reaction to it,” Zag interjected. “Do you know why that is?”
“Those spirits are the remnant of itself that the human god left behind to aid them when they were brought to this world. It is, you could say, an instinctive response as they sense the existences malicious intent when the humans channel the power it provides them. It also may be, in part, due to it being humans who are in touch with the power.”
“Hmm.” Thea looked thoughtful as she rolled the information over and over in her mind. “Why is it that, if you are going to get involved, you have not simply confronted it where it is trying to come through?”
“We cannot fight something like that and deal with the interference that any of our children it has corrupted at the same time,” Jann replied and sadly shook his head. “We also would really like to limit any further harm done to our children, it turned out we trapped ourselves in our own cleverness when we tried to foster your senses of independence through tricking you into believing you needed to free yourselves of us.”
“So, then,” Thea looked Jann straight in the eyes, “what is it you want us to do?”
“You are already doing what we would request of you. You already intend to free your people of the threat and my young apostle intends to do the same for her people. I was overjoyed when fate brought you and her to young Zaganursarrum, if it were any other dragon then it would have been even more difficult if no dragon stepped in at all.”
Thea and Zag both tilted their heads with an unasked question at his statement.
“Dragons do not have the numbers to fight back the destruction shadow wielded by these traitors and no other race possesses a power capable of driving it back. Even the human witches can only slow it down as it even corrodes the collective power their god left behind as the spirits.”
“Power?” Thea asked, still confused. “Dragonfire?”
“Yes, you provide the numbers and Zaganursarrum provided the weapon to combat this thing and create a situation where we can move freely with our sisters to remove it from this world.”
“I see…” Thea said after all of that.
Zag grunted and rolled his eyes, “Leave it to you, WInd God, to turn their own moves against them.”
“Well, I do feel a sense of responsibility for this, since I was the one who initiated the mistrust to cause the revolt against my siblings and myself, and that was what led to this in the end.”
“Seeing you look sheepish has been a more satisfying reward than I ever imagined,” Zag taunted him.
Jann snorted, “You two should leave, it will take Ifrit some time yet to remove the corruption from the eggs and the others have been preparing food outside.”
Thea looked at Zag with concern.
“It’s fine.” He gave her a reassuring smile and with his hand on her shoulder, he escorted Thea out of the chamber.
Zag wondered as they made their way out what kind of disaster the various characters outside would create whilst trying to prepare food fit for human bodies.
