His voice made the darkness of the Empty tremble. I laughed again, filled with inexpressable joy. Pain suddenly blossomed in my eyes, grinding, terrible. I clung to my joy and fought back against it, unwilling to look away. My god stood before me. No Maroneh had seen Him since the earliest days of the world. I would not let a simple thing like physical weakness interfere.

The Dateh-creature shouted with its many voices and let loose a wave of magic so tainted that the air turned brown and foul. Itempas batted this aside with all the effort of an afterthought. I heard a clear ringing note in the wake of His movement.

“Enough,” He said, His eyes turning dark and red like a cold day’s sunset. “Release my children.”

The creature stiffened all over. Its eyes—Madding’s eyes—grew wide. Something stirred at its midriff, then bulged obscenely in its throat. It fought this with an effort of sheer will, setting its teeth and straining. I felt it struggling to hold all the power it had swallowed into itself. This was futile, however, and a moment later it threw back its head and screamed, streams of viscous color fountaining from its throat.

Each color evaporated in the blaze of Itempas’s white heat, becoming thin, shimmering mist. The mists flew to Him, swirling and entwining until they formed a new ring of His multilayered aura, this one turning in front of Him.

He lifted a hand and the mists contracted to encircle it. Even through my agony I felt their delight.

“I’m sorry,” He said, His beautiful eyes full of pain. (So familiar, that.) “I have been a poor father, but I will do better. I will become the father you deserve.” The ring coalesced further, becoming a swirling sphere that hovered over His palm. “Go and be free.”

He blew on the gathered souls, and they scattered into nothingness. Did I imagine that one of them, a green-blue helix, lingered a moment longer? Perhaps. Even so, it vanished, too.

Then Dateh stood alone, half slumped and knees buckling, just a man again.

“I didn’t know,” he whispered, gazing at the shining figure in wonder, in fear. He fell to his knees, his hands shaking as if palsied. “I didn’t know it was you. Forgive me!” Tears ran down his face, some caused by fear, but some, I understood, were tears of awe. I knew, because the same tears ran slow and thick down my own face.

Bright Itempas smiled. I could not see His face through the glory of His light, or my hot tears, but I felt that smile along every inch of my skin. It was a warm smile—loving, benevolent. Kindly. Everything I had always believed Him to be.

The white blade flashed. That was the only way I knew that it moved; otherwise I would have thought it had simply appeared, conjured from one place to another, through the center of Dateh’s chest. Dateh did not cry out, though his eyes widened. He looked down and saw his lifeblood begin threading the Bright Lord’s narrow blade in pulses: one-one, two-two, three-three. The sword was so fine, the strike so precise even through bone, that his pierced heart just kept beating.

I waited for the Bright Lord to withdraw the sword and let Dateh die. But He reached out then, with the hand that did not hold the sword. The smile was still on His face, warm and gentle and utterly merciless. There was no contradiction in this as He took hold of Dateh’s face.

I had to look away then. The pain in my eyes had grown too great. I saw only red now, and it was not anger. I heard it, though, when Dateh began to scream. I felt reverberations in the air as bones cracked and ground together, as Dateh flailed and struggled and finally just twitched. I smelled fire, smoke, and the greasy acridity of burned flesh.

I tasted satisfaction then. It was not sweet, or filling, but it would do.

Then the Empty was gone, shattering around us, but I was barely aware of it. There was only the red, red pain. I thought I saw Sky’s glowing floor beneath me, and I tried to push myself up, but the pain was too great. I fell, curling in on myself, too sick to retch.

Warm hands lifted me, so familiar. They touched my face, brushing away the strange thick tears that issued from my eyes. I worried, irrationally, about staining His perfect white garments with blood.

“You have given me back myself, Oree,” said that shining, knowing voice. I wept harder and loved it helplessly. “To be whole again, after all these centuries… I had forgotten the feeling. But you must stop now. I would not add your death to my crimes.”

It hurt so much. I had believed, and belief had become magic, but I was only mortal. The magic had limits. Yet how could I stop myself from believing? How did one find a god, and love Him, and let Him go?

The voice changed, becoming softer. Human. Familiar. “Please, Oree.”