CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Tenalpians tossed Tod and Pira into a small, unfurnished cell with no windows and a door that was all but undetectable when closed. The elder god sat in one corner and waited for whatever was going to happen. Pira amused herself by pushing her right index finger into the cell walls. Tiny dimples formed in the metal.

"I can break us out of here," she said after finishing her first fifty.

"What's the point?" Tod asked. "They'd just kill us if we tried. Which brings up an interesting point.

What do they plan on doing with us?"

"Don't ask me. You created them." She twisted her finger, adding another dimple to the wall.

"That was a long time ago."

Tod only vaguely remembered his first and only batch of Tenalpians. They hadn't been much to look at, and their brains were little more than orange paste to fill their heads. As a race, they were unformed.

Never truly intended for survival. But survived, they had.

"What are you grinning about?" Pira asked.

"Was I grinning? Sorry."

He tried to wipe the smile from his face, but it only grew bigger.

Pira pulled herself away from her wall dimpling. "What's so amusing?"

"Oh. Nothing."

The angel flapped her wings impatiently. "What is it?"

"Nothing. Really."

She turned back to the wall, pressed in a few more dents, and tossed an annoyed glare over her shoulder.

Tod was smiling even bigger.

"I don't believe it," she sighed.

He fidgeted beneath her gaze.

"You're actually proud of these things."

"No, I'm not," he protested.

"Don't bother denying it."

Tod shrugged. "Maybe just a little."

Pira folded her arms across her chest and snarled in his direction.

"Okay. They're not exactly what I had in mind when I first made them. Still, you have to admit, they've done pretty well for themselves."

She scowled deeper.

"I'm not condoning their actions," he said. "I'm just pointing out the obvious."

A flash of divine fire sparked in her eyes.

Tod decided it would be best to keep any other observations to himself. They sat in silence for a few more minutes before the door opened, and two large purple Tenalpians and a smaller green one dragged their legless bodies in.

"They want the blue one," the lead Tenalpian announced in its language of squeaks and squeals.

Pira stepped between Tod and the Tenalpians. "Back off!"

The green blob held up a shimmering golden lump. A yellow ray arced from the lump to Pira. She twitched once and fell to the floor. The weapon was aimed in Tod's direction.

He raised his hands and stepped forward. "No need for that."

The green one smiled, although only Tod or a fellow Tenalpian could read an expression on its smooth, featureless face.

"Will she be alright?" Tod asked.

"The otherling is merely stunned. Please, come this way."

His escort led him through the winding halls where pear-shaped blobs of various sizes and colors went about their thoroughly inexplicable business. As their creator, Tod was surprised at how little he understood his chosen people. His head was filled with so many questions, he didn't know which to ask first. The walk ended at a room filled with Tenalpians hunched over glowing panels.

The Chief Science Officer, an unusually plump blob, looked up from his panel. "Ah, excellent. Over there, please."

The guards guided Tod to the empty space on the floor. The green pear and the Science Officer exchanged a few casual comments.

The Officer approached Tod. "I'm told you can converse. Is this true?"

Tod nodded.

"Excellent. That will make things easier. Would you please remove any physical accessories you are currently carrying?"

"You mean, get undressed?"

"I mean, remove any physical accessories you are currently carrying."

None of the Tenalpians wore anything in the way of clothing. Only simple harnesses to carry their loose odds and ends and leave their hands free for dragging.

"Uh..sure."

Tod stripped down to his skin without much thought. Although, among his perfectly smooth captors, he felt somewhat embarrassed by the quirks of his orcish body. Legs and hair were the exception here. His numerous jutting parts and dark crevices seemed completely out of place. Most the Tenalpians did an excellent job of hiding their revulsion.

The Science Officer handed Tod's clothes over to an assistant. "See that these are scanned thoroughly."

A team of five assistant analyzers surrounded Tod. They held up various clicking and beeping devices.

"Raise your upper right appendage please," a brown Tenalpian requested.

Tod complied.

"Now your left."

The Science Officer twisted the dial on a chirping gizmo of his own. "Interesting. Very interesting."

"If you don't mind me asking," Tod asked anyway. "What's this all for?"

"I would be more than happy to explain it to you, if your underdeveloped mind were capable of comprehending it."

"Could you try anyway?"

"If you insist. We are looking for the Core of the universe."

"What's that?"

"It's very difficult to explain. I scarcely imagine you could understand it." The Officer dragged himself over to a table and exchanged his chirping gizmo for a humming device. "The Core is the essence of the universe. It is the primal origin which maintains the basic building blocks of the cosmos."

"Oh." Tod nodded as if he understood.

The Science Officer was not fooled. He rubbed his head with a pseudopod. "Perhaps an analogy would help. If you are capable of abstract thinking. Imagine, if you can, that the universe is a single, tremendous life form. A plant, if you like. And that each tiny piece of it is merely a part of a much larger whole. In essence, one plant with a billion leaves. Have I lost you yet?"

Tod didn't care for the Tenalpian's condescending tone. As their creator, a little respect wasn't too much to expect. Then again, they didn't really owe him anything.

"Go on."

"Excellent. Now this universal plant draws its continued existence from a vast reservoir of potentiality. In simplest terms, its food. That food is the Core. Without it, the cosmos would starve to death in a very short time, and eventually, cease to exist."

Tod's jaw dropped. What sort of monstrous race had he spawned? "You want to find it to destroy it."

The lab filled with shrill Tenalpian chuckles.

"Apparently there's been a misunderstanding" the Science Officer replied with a smirk. "Destroying the Core would destroy the universe."

"You don't want to destroy the universe?"

Another round of laughter rose from the Tenalpians.

"Of course not. It's where we live. Now, if you would be so kind as to step this way."

The Officer pointed to a cylinder with a small door in it. There looked to be barely enough room for Tod inside.

"One more question," Tod asked.

"Aren't you the curious one? Ask your question."

"If you don't want to destroy the universe, then why did you attack the Palace?"

"That is a necessary part of the Purge. By trimming the unessential bits and pieces of the cosmos, we can extend its continued existence."

"The universe is dying?"

"I would think that would be obvious. Even to a simple creature such as yourself. Now, please enter the analyzatronascope. This won't take long."

Tod squeezed through the small door and stood in the crystal tube. It was a tight fit. "What's this do?"

If the Tenalpians heard him through the glass, they didn't respond. The Science Officer gestured, and switches were thrown. An assortment of devices lowered from the ceiling and slowly rotated the analyzatronascope. The bottom of the tube pulsed steadily, like it was breathing. Tod's legs began to tingle from the knees down.

"This isn't dangerous, is it?" he shouted through the glass.

The rotating array started to sparkle as the tingle spread to his waist. He felt dizzy, but the tube left him nowhere to fall. The top opened, and a glittering ball lowered within six inches of his head. His scalp began to itch, but not in an entirely bad way. The sensation crawled down his prickled flesh and joined up with the tingling at his waist. The ball sparked with a rainbow of colors, both beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

The Science Officer gave the signal, and the energies filled the analyzatronascope. They saturated Tod's body, suffusing it with surging power. The effects on his physical being were varied and many. His hair stood on end. His knees trembled. The roof of his mouth tasted like honey, and his liver jiggled in an altogether disagreeable way. A hundred other unpleasant sensations ran through him, but he quickly forgot about all them. For the analyzatronascope opened his eyes, and Tod beheld the universe in its true glory.

In the space of one moment, he went from nigh-omniscient to completely omniscient, from being all-seeing in a purely theoretical sense to truly being all-seeing. The differences between the two states were subtle but remarkable. The many twinges and pangs of his body were just the tiniest sliver of information assaulting his mind. As an elder god, he did not go mad from the exposure to his brother's universe. He didn't exactly care for the feeling, but he could deal with it.

Neither Tod nor Desaphanus had ever taken the time to analyze their powers in depth. They just took them for granted. They willed something to happen, and it did. They never bothered to investigate any further. There never really seemed to be any reason to. Desaphanus was always busy building his universe, and Tod had never been all that curious. The result of their complete lack of interest: a gaping hole of ignorance on the true nature of reality.

But now, Tod finally understood. The elder gods had never actually created something from nothing.

They'd been cannibalizing their own near-infinite beings. It was like tearing off a finger and reshaping it into whatever fit your needs: a planet, a fish, the law of gravity. The main problem being that keeping a severed finger alive is much harder than a digit still connected to your hand.

The universe was much more than a single severed finger. It was the being of the elder gods chopped into countless smaller pieces and spread across eternity. The strain of keeping it going, maintaining a basic force of life in every teeny-tiny piece was unimaginable. Yet Desaphanus had managed just that with his incredible will. Under proper care, the universe could quite possible have gone on forever. But Desaphanus hadn't known when to stop, and the drain became too much, even for an elder god. The balance was destroyed, reducing Desaphanus and his universe to a titanic tug-of-war. Both fighting tooth-and-nail to continue existing. The universe had won. Sort of.

When Desaphanus died, the last of the cosmos's life force went with him. Rather than fade into darkness alongside him, the universe latched onto the only available source.

Tod was the Core.

When he died, everything else would as well: Pira, Xyreen, Kalb, the stars, the sun, Wa'suria, Tenalp, and even his Cat. They would all just fade away into dark, inescapable oblivion.

Like a forgotten dream.

Tod couldn't let that happen. There had to be a way to stop it, and now that he was fully omniscient, he had to find that way.

The analyzatronascope wound to a stop. His senses fell back into his body.

"Thank you," the Chief Science Officer said with a frown. "That will do for now."