Kieran felt it when the edge of the Burn touched him. He was barely there, a helpless passenger in his own body, but the first brush of the Burn's raw energy stung him nonetheless.

What are you doing, asshole? You're going to get me killed!

Ka'an didn't reply. For the first part of the night Kieran had been able to get a rise out of him, but after a while the arrogant spirit had stopped responding. Ka'an was taking them straight into the Burn. That was where he'd been going the whole time. Kieran had never stopped fighting him, and was now so tired that he felt like a tissue-thin shred of himself. He was starving, he was stumbling, his head was stuffed up. Ka'an didn't care. All Ka'an cared about was getting something out of the Burn and then, for some reason, killing the Director of the Watch.

Kieran could be all right with that last bit, Thelyan was a prick and might as well die, but he was going to rescue Ash first. That was the plan. This was just a little setback.

All around him, Ka'an swelled with pleasure at the sensation of the Burn surrounding him. He was doing something with it, as he walked. Somehow taking in strength from it. Walking straighter, seeing more clearly. Kieran couldn't sense the patterns now, the way he had yesterday -- no, day before yesterday -- but he thought he had an idea what was going on. The Burn had looked inviting, when he'd sensed it in the distance before. Probably that had been Ka'an in him, wanting to do whatever he was doing now.

So maybe two could play that game. It was hard to think how to do it, there was no analogy. It wasn't inhaling, because he couldn't reach his lungs; it wasn't grasping, because he couldn't reach his hands. It was like swallowing without a mouth. Sporadically at first, then more strongly as he grew more confident, he copied Ka'an and took power from the Burn.

"Clever, Ghost," Ka'an muttered. "But I've been doing this far longer than you have." His Iavaian was archaic, with double vowels instead of cut vowels. Kieran thought he'd probably pronounce his name something like Kaaaan, like the sound of a kettle falling down stairs.

The thought gave Kieran courage; irrational, to build himself up by mocking his enemy, but if it worked it worked. He accelerated his grasping of power, growing more real by the second, more aware. Ka'an reeled it in harder as well. At the same time, walking sped to running, and the running got faster and faster.

Now Kieran was beginning to be able to see. Rather, to think about what he saw, for he'd been watching scenery crawl by the whole time, but without making sense of it. He'd never been inside the Burn before. He'd heard rumors about what it was like: dead, deader than a salt pan, without even the hardiest plants or insects. And that was what he was looking at, all right. Bare rock and rippled sand, across which Ka'an forced his body to run at an ever-increasing pace. Soon the ground was flashing by at a speed he wouldn't have thought possible. It was as if he didn't weigh anything at all. He was taking six, ten, fifteen feet at a stride. His coat was cracking like a whip. The soles of his boots were getting hot.

And the sun was going to come up any second now. He'd overheat, his heart would burst. Slow down, shithead, you're going to pop if you keep this up! Of course Ka'an didn't listen.

They were going gradually downhill. On the left, a low squarish shape cruised past and was left behind; in the twilight, it looked suspiciously like a ruined building. A little later, they passed another one, and Kieran realized it really was a ruin. Then they topped a rise and started ripping down the other side faster than an express train on a straightaway, and the growing light showed a city grid spread out below. The ruins rayed out from the shore of an immense lake, the biggest body of water Kieran had ever seen. He could just barely make out that there was land on the other side, just a faint line of purpled hills to prove this wasn't an ocean. Ka'an was driving them straight for it, while the pressure of power from the Burn's whirling pattern increased with every step.

Kieran could feel his skin now, and it was far too hot. Dry, no longer sweating, dehydrated. He ran helplessly along a straight street between dune-buried walls, some broken off at the lowest course of stones, some intact enough to still have a bit of roof on them. He passed a square well that was filled to its brim with sand. A mile jagged by in two breaths.

He took the water's edge in a flat leap that carried him thirty feet from shore, and when he hit he skidded two yards on his steaming heels before he sank in.

The lake closed around him, cutting off the main force of impinging power. It cooled him, and when he bobbed up for a ragged breath he gratefully swallowed the water in his mouth. He could see the pattern now, arrayed above him. So huge.

A moment of pure terror seized him. The Burn filled the sky from horizon to horizon, and all the space between. Its largest form was a many-armed spiral, ponderously rotating. Within that shape, smaller shapes spun, and smaller ones within those, faster as they got smaller. And it saw him, wanted him, beat at him, tried to change him. He could sense the patterns of his body being buffeted by this great power, knew that any moment the walls of his veins would give way, the delicate web of his brain would fray, and he would die in one bloody instant.

But it didn't happen. He stood neck-deep in insulating water, and somehow he didn't die. Ka'an was preventing it. They were both simultaneously in occupation now. Kieran could see what Ka'an was doing, how he was doing it.

Carefully, but with increasing dexterity, Ka'an was pulling in the power as it came. Some of what he took, he used to shore up the body's systems so the Burn wouldn't kill it. The rest, he fed into his own thought-form, so that he expanded within the Burn's shape and took its place. The process was accelerating, going faster as Ka'an got bigger.

That doesn't look hard. If a spoiled brat like you can do it... Kieran copied him, but he left maintaining the body to Ka'an. The spirit wouldn't want to kill his only vehicle, so he'd have to pay attention to keeping it alive. That would free Kieran to work faster.

Doubt nagged, a little; he'd never done anything like this before, never imagined it, never had any idea that stuff like this existed. But what did that matter? He'd discovered long ago that he couldn't expect any warning or practice before the shit hit the fan. Learn fast or die, that was the rule. He was a fast learner.

He reached. He caught. He organized. He went past the point of pressure, to where the power was no longer forcing itself at him, but just beyond him, and he grew to meet it. With half a thought, he put in an order to his body and walked it out of the lake, to get a better handle on the pattern. His mind's eye focused wider and deeper at once, grasping the intricacies of the greater whorl and its component movements. He disassembled the clockwork. He understood the Burn, and he swallowed it whole.

Then he was standing on the shore of a sterile lake, beside a ruined city, in the slanting gold of dawn. And so was Ka'an. It was hard to tell which of them had taken more power. Neither was in full control of the body they shared. Stalemate.

It would have to be dealt with. No compromise was possible. Their mutual hatred was like a balanced stone, poised to crush whichever weakened first.

We have business, Kieran sent.

Ka'an agreed with a mental snarl.

The body crumpled to the sand as they leapt into the battlefield of dreams.

Thelyan paused in mid-word when he sensed the surge of dark power to the west. His subordinates looked at him curiously, concerned. They had never seen such an expression cross the Director's face. Some of them had felt a pale shade of what Thelyan had sensed, but none of them knew what it meant. They were already confused by his preparations.

He pulled himself together, wrapping himself in the chill calm that was his strength.

"Gentlemen, it seems the Situation is, in fact, occurring. Warren, begin evacuating the research section. Vaughart, I want the northern wing locked down and cleared. All viable subjects are to be terminated. Rine, contact Strindner at Splitwood; have him leave a four-man team on standby and pull the rest back here. Liss, prepare your men for deployment."

Sergeant Liss hesitated as the others scattered. "Sir, do you have a time estimate?"

Glancing at the map, Thelyan performed some calculations. If Ka'an were in a hurry, he might use wind and Kinetics to 'fly' here; in such a case, his speed would be governed by the kind of wind he could summon. That method was wasteful of power, though. More likely, the evil one would simply run, and there were limits to what a body could do, even with a god's power in it.

"Six hours," Theylan replied. "Expect Strindner to reinforce you."

"Thank you, sir." Snapping off a salute, Liss removed himself.

Satisfied that there would be troops enough to weaken Ka'an, and that what could be preserved would be, Thelyan left the meeting room by a different door. He would wait outside, atop the mountain. He didn't want anything interfering with his senses now.

Just because he expected to win didn't mean he'd make anything less than a full effort. He had nothing to prove by holding back. No one but he and his enemy even understood the conflict.

Ash grunted as Chaiel let him fall. They'd been standing on the soles of each other's feet so Ash could probe the bubble's surface, when Chaiel had suddenly curled up like a pillbug. Ash collided with him, getting tangled in the ludicrous ropes and nets of Chaiel's hair and grazed by Chaiel's overgrown toenails.

"Damn it, would you pay attention?" But just as he said it, he sensed what had set Chaiel off. A thing like tugging and pressure both at once, a rolling wave of needles. It washed over and through him, left him gasping. "Kieran," he breathed. He'd tasted Kieran's personality in that. And the greasy menace of Ka'an as well.

How had it reached him, here in the bubble? A thought snapped into focus, and he followed it without taking time to analyze. Shot his attention down the wave's backtrail, searching. Somewhere out there was a bullet with his name on it, his scratched initials resting against the skin of Kieran's throat. That connection, somehow, was on a different level from the null sphere's blocking, just like Chaiel's visions. That meant that he and Kieran weren't completely cut off from each other. He would have wept in gratitude, if he could have spared the attention.

Dimly, he sensed Chaiel babbling. That wasn't important. He was going to find Kieran and help him, even if he used himself up doing it.

Kieran stood barefoot on a white limestone floor, beneath a roof painted scarlet, between pillars carved in the shape of bundled reeds. Before him, above him, Ka'an sat on a gilded throne. The dark god wore a body like a pampered version of his own; smooth of skin, attenuated and graceful, impossibly beautiful. Scarlet cloth brocaded with gold draped the god's slender body, leaving his chest bare to reveal a collar of gold and gems that spread across his shoulders. Bands of gold circled his upper arms, wrists, ankles, and waist. Atop his intricately braided hair sat a tall, sun-rayed crown of soft gold, its points decorated with looping strands of lapis and ruby.

A tight sense of anticipation bubbled up in Kieran's throat, and came out as laughter. There was going to be a fight. He felt it coming, like a hot wind, tensing his stomach, baring his teeth. The indignant expression on Ka'an's face just made him laugh harder.

The god rose slowly from his throne, jingling. "You will regret your laughter, Ghost," he thundered.

"You have no idea," Kieran gasped, "how stupid you look."

"See how the vision has dressed you." Ka'an pointed theatrically, arm straight out. "Deep down, you know yourself to be a slave."

Kieran glanced down, to see that all he had between himself and the world was a loincloth. All his scars and tattoos were on display. He looked up grinning. "I'll whup your ass buck naked if I have to, boy."

"I think not." Ka'an passed his arm through the air, and a golden shimmer coalesced into a curved sword in his hand. He stepped down from the throne platform. Green lightning crackled in his eyes, and his robes fluttered around him in an intangible wind.

That was a nice effect. Kieran watched the god stalk toward him for a moment, to see how it was done. Then he pushed with his mind, clothing himself in half a second, not bothering with theatrics. The same stuff he'd been wearing before; he doubted Ka'an would be intimidated by flashy clothes.

He reached into his pockets and held up what he found: three spare magazines in his left hand, the Hart all cleaned up and loaded and chambered in the right. He spun the gun on his finger, showing teeth.

Then he aimed it at Ka'an and put five slugs in him, center of mass.

Pillars rippled and light tore as Ka'an's overdecorated body jerked. When it fell, though, it fell not as a dead body but as a multitude of snakes. A susurration of rattling arose as they multiplied across the floor.

Kieran's grin turned to a grimace. He couldn't shoot them all. What did he want, a net, taller boots, some kerosene and a match?

Wait, why was he letting Ka'an set the stage? It was the same as clothing himself, really: he moved the dream with a thought, and instantly he was standing on a lone rock in the middle of an endless stretch of water. Snakes thrashed and drowned.

His rock lurched, crumbled. As he fell, he grabbed the idea of frost. He fell on ice.

Ice turned to stone. Bare desert, now. As he scrambled to his feet, Ka'an's shape coalesced before him. They glared at each other for a long moment.

"Well played, for a beginner," Ka'an said. "But you have not yet felt my true strength."

"Bring it," Kieran growled.

Everything happened at once, then. Too fast to analyze. He countered instinctively, shifting himself and the world in flickers, as Ka'an did the same. Storms raged. Armies charged. Fire, earthquakes, floods. Serpents, insects, sandstorms. One moment he was drowning in blood, the next he was miles above the earth and falling. Freezing, burning, deafening, blinding.

He was on the defensive from the moment it began. All he could do was keep coming back to images of safety. Empty desert -- but that was where the storms found him. City streets -- which cracked to chasms. Familiar buildings went up in flames. Green fields erupted with boiling masses of scorpions. Kieran was pushed farther and farther back into himself.

He was losing. Ka'an was going to win.

Of course I am. Did you think you could fight a god?

His dream-body was shredding, going to mist. A thousand different kinds of pain beat at him. He could endure it, but he couldn't find a place to attack from. This was no good. He had to think of something -- but Ka'an was giving him no time to think.

Surrender, Ghost. Why cling to this painful life? Death is your home.

He was a ghost? He remembered being dead, remembered dying. But then there was living after that. Ka'an was lying...

So why did the word ghost sound like it belonged to him?

No, he had a body... somewhere... this dream-body was modeled after it, this torn and tattered thing... he had arms and legs, he had skin, he had scars...

Taking a step backward into himself, he clutched at his memory of flesh. Hands, feet, clothes, something hanging around his neck -- he grasped it --

Bright as a scalpel, a thought cut through the fog:

Fight him, Kieran! Beat him and come back to me!

In a rush, he remembered. Eyes, hands, mouth, words, thoughts, Ash. Ka'an threw more horrors at him, but he realized that they were repeating. Ka'an had run out of ideas. They weren't doing anything, anyway. He'd gone past that part of the battle. Ka'an had won that part.

It doesn't matter. You're still you. Remember. Kieran Trevarde. Your name is Kai, which means courage. Do you remember?

I remember, he returned, and let the pains and horrors wash by him. Why had he let them matter in the first place? He didn't even need a body, in a dream. Or, if he wanted, he could have a body that just plain wasn't affected by all this weird shit Ka'an was doing.

At the moment he realized this, it all stopped. He was alone in a dark place. He swallowed down the urge to tense in expectation. Whatever happened, it wasn't going to affect him, because this was a dream.

Oh, really? That was Ka'an, sounding smug. He had something up his sleeve.

Kieran sent the sense of a snarl. You waiting for an invitation? Do your thing. Let's see if you can touch me.

Light swelled. Dim, flickering. It outlined a rounded, uneven space: a cave. Messy little lamps burned here and there, and the air was filled with a complex stench of rotted meat, burned meat, fresh meat, and unwashed bodies. In the middle of the cave a frail figure sat crosslegged on a wad of greasy fur.

It was even weirder seeing this version of Ka'an than the clanking emperor in gold. Seeing his own face smeared with yellow ochre, dotted with black. Yellow grease matted his hair into dreadlocks. His wrists were like twigs, his ribs standing out, his feet looking ungainly at the end of legs that were sticks of bone. He was dressed in nothing but blue beads. Ropes and ropes of little turquoise beads. His eyes were closed, the eyelids decorated with the smeared remains of dots meant to make it look like his eyes were open while he slept. Before him on the fur, between his feet, there was a stone bowl encrusted with something brownish. Food?

Opium. Kieran had almost lost himself in observing, but the realization of what was in the bowl jerked him back to himself. He knew, abruptly, what Ka'an was showing him: a past so distant there were no records of it. This was what Ka'an had been once. Mortal, and on the nod.

Vertigo hit him as he began to sense the enormous weight of time involved. Thousands upon thousands of years. How many thousands?

"Too many to count," the emaciated figure said without opening its eyes. Its voice was hollow, otherworldly. "Time is a figure like any other. Past and future are the same. Behold, I have dreamed: the People will grow greater than the number of seeds in a field of grain. All good things will come to them. For many years, it will be thus. Too many to count. Then will come a dark time, when the People fail and become less. In that time, I too will fail and become less. But it will only be as a sleep. I will return to bring the People back to the light."

Ka'an opened his eyes and fixed them on Kieran. Hollow, sunken, brilliant green. "I was given these eyes that I might see into the spirit world. I am holy. None may touch me. You may not touch me."

Loneliness snaked out from his words, threading a chill through Kieran's veins. He wavered as it struck him. A loneliness so immense no human soul could carry it. Holy and outcast. A whole life, and then life after life, without human contact. Any who touched him would be put to death. They had to do this, or the contamination of Ka'an's dreams would draw ghosts and sickness, and the people would suffer. All things pertaining to the otherworld had to be sequestered here with the Dreamer, and only the shamans dared even speak to him. It had always been this way.

Caught in the tide of Ka'an's memory, Kieran was whirled along. Life after life sped before him. Hidden in the dark, sacred and untouchable. Change came slowly; a tent rather than a cave, then a temple built of stones. Then there were battles, and the People triumphed. New arts rose. Cities spread and fell and rose again.

The People conquered to the east and north, many lesser people, enslaving them. Gold and jewels came; strange animals came; there was music and dancing, there was blood and crying, there were beautiful whores in his temples and cruel visionaries in his palaces. There was magic and wonder. Those who rose against him were destroyed. Those who venerated him were rewarded.

He was worshipped. He was adored. He was feared. He was always alone.

Time; the weight of all that time; it was unbearable, it was crushing him. He didn't want it. Better to give it up, let someone else take it. To be mortal, singular, to die, it was a blessing, and he yearned for it...

Kai! I can't hear you anymore! Kieran! Where are you?

Names. He'd had so many names. What did names matter?

Fight him, Kieran. Are you there?

He didn't want to fight anymore. He was so tired. Let someone else fight.

I love you, Kieran! Fight! I want you to come back to me!

So someone was talking about love. That didn't have anything to do with him. It couldn't. He was holy. No one could touch him.

The voice came again, and this time it was angry. Are you giving up? You don't ever give up! Loser unity, Kai! Don't you read? The underdog always wins! Confused, he groped after the source of this voice. It reminded him of something, maybe a time when he'd been happy...

Time? How could he find one moment among the years and years and years?

Kai, it's me, it's Ash, don't you remember? Remind him who he is. Damn it. Are you there? How am I supposed to do this? Kieran! Kieran Trevarde! Kai, Green Sky, Suneater, each one of these dots is a dead man, do you remember? You died and came back, you called the storm, do you remember? You're too mean to die, too beautiful to die, you don't care what anyone thinks except maybe me and I love you so much, I won't let you give up, damn it --

Wistfully, he listened to the voice rant. Was that meant to describe him? It sounded like such a strong person. He wished he was strong like that.

Hey Ka'an, are you listening? Let him go, or I'll personally reach down your neck and rip your balls off. Let him go, he's mine! Kieran, don't you let Ka'an win, you deserve everything good and he's just a spoiled child!

He was a spoiled child? Or was he the one that was too mean to die? Was he Ka'an, or the one who was supposed to be fighting Ka'an? He was drowning in this loneliness, the loneliness was Ka'an's, Ka'an who was a spoiled child, he didn't want to be Ka'an --

Shock. Perspective. A jolt like being shot. The smothering of years broke, leaving him light and empty and blind.

Rage boiled up to fill that space. The son of a bitch had almost won that time. Sneaky fuck.

I got it now, Ashes, he thought fiercely. You just sit tight.

For convenience, he built a scene. The barroom of a roadhouse outside Canyon, where the miners went to waste their pay. He didn't people it, left it deserted except for himself and a sort of clockwork bartender to work the taps. He leaned back against the bar and waited. He could feel Ka'an blundering around, trying to change the dream, but Kieran held it. A place this familiar was easy to make solid. Ka'an's many lives were working against him, here -- the god had trouble distinguishing between all the places he'd seen in all the lives he'd lived.

A minute later, Ka'an stormed in, furious at being made to use the door. He was wearing his emperor getup again. "You look like a twit," Kieran told him before he could speak.

"How dare you," the god fumed. His voice was low and menacing. "How dare you. You've seen what I am. You've felt how small you are. Yet you persist in this, this satire. I will make you suffer for this."

"Uh-huh." Kieran raised an eyebrow. "You done?"

"I am not."

"That's too bad, 'cause I'm just not impressed. Hey." He knocked on the bar. "Get us a bottle of the hard stuff."

As the clockwork bartender produced a chilled bottle of bootleg gin, Ka'an calmed himself. "You're very stupid, mortal, to speak to me that way. I felt your fear. Are you trying to make me angry?"

Kieran shrugged. "Have a drink with me. We haven't actually talked. You know, you really do look like a moron in that getup. Let me fix that for you." He had to push through some resistance to change how Ka'an looked, but it was only a matter of letting his familiar dream smooth over an anomaly, and in an eyeblink the god was clothed in a white linen suit like the tar runners wore. He could feel Ka'an's fury building.

Though this little success tempted him to get cocky, he reminded himself that he couldn't afford to. He knew where the battlefield was now. The real fight was still ahead of him, and he suspected it wouldn't be a messy slugfest like what Ka'an had hit him with. It would be like a gunfight. Twitch the right way and live. Freeze and die.

He pushed a filled shotglass along the bar at Ka'an. "So tell me. If being immortal is such a pain in the ass, how come you're so keen on coming back?"

"Why should I explain myself to a mortal?" Ka'an sneered.

"Okay, you need to get over that. Because obviously you can't just squish me, like you thought you could. I'm as tough as you are. My guess is that I'm a lot tougher. See, you had all that ammunition, you had all that skill and time, you did this a bunch of times before, and I came into it totally raw. But here I am. And there you are."

"If you count stalemate as such a victory --"

"Nah, we can fire it up again anytime. I'm just curious. Aren't you curious?"

"No." Ka'an spat the word contemptuously.

"Point for me: reason to live. Oh, now you're mad at me."

"I am rage, Ghost. You will learn that soon."

"Point for me. Kept my cool. What are we playing to? Three? You wanna drink that, gin's nasty when it's warm."

Ka'an's eyes narrowed. "Very well. You've chosen the game. My move: I submit that you're too weak to survive the power you seek. Your mortal mind can't possibly encompass the immensity of pain and pleasure that is my lot. It would break you."

"Doubt it."

"You tasted just the merest hint of what I --"

"You're bluffing. I got into that pretty deep. I think I saw the whole thing. What do you want, you want me to feel sorry for you?"

The air rippled around Ka'an as the god's anger swelled. "Pity is also a weakness," he said, tight and low.

And Kieran suddenly understood. "Shit, you do want that."

"I'll waste no more time here!" Ka'an pushed, but could not change the dream.

"You do want someone to feel sorry for you. Poor pitiful critter, he's had such a hard ten thousand years. Oh poor me, nobody loves me. Look at you getting pissed at me, you're just proving I'm right!"

"I am holy," Ka'an hissed, swelling larger, glowing. "I am sacred. No one may touch me!"

"You know what? You don't deserve my sympathy! In all those bazillions of lives you showed me, you never had the balls to break loose. You believed your own press. You made slaves of people, and then you feel all put-upon because no one could comfort you. And you're still doing it. Look, here I am right in front of you, the only person who could possibly know you for who you are, and you're trying to kill me for it. And then if you managed that, you'd just go on with your pity party. 'Oh I'm so lonely, oh I'm so high above everyone.' It's your own damn fault, Ka'an. Fucking get over it."

The god was all teeth and eyes now, snarling. "You have no concept of what true pain is."

"Yeah?" Kieran felt his own face going feral too. "Try this on."

His hand shot out and grabbed Ka'an's head, driving a path through between them, and down that connection he poured his life.

Ka'an cried out in disgust, then in anger, then in dawning fear. Kieran sent him image after image of squalor, degradation, and pain. But he didn't send it to show how sad his life had been. There was no self-pity in it. After each beating, each rape, each hungry day and freezing night, each trick, each loss, he got up and kept going. Out of pure stubbornness, pure lust for life, he pushed himself onward. And bit by bit, he forced his way from defense to offense. He made himself strong. He made himself hard and cruel. He took what he needed, got rid of whatever blocked him. He was very close to being evil, when he first met a pair of pale blue eyes behind smeared glasses.

Ka'an's struggling weakened, uncertain. This was not pain. The hurts that came after this were small compared to much of what he'd suffered before. He didn't understand why he was being shown this.

Then he began to think again that it was all about pain after all, when Kieran dragged him through being shot, the sickness and festering wound, helpless under the shadow of death. And then came the memory of dying. When the two of them together looked down on Ash's grief, Ka'an ready to leave the body behind, Kieran unwilling to abandon the one person who had ever come anywhere near knowing him.

And Kieran had won. They wouldn't be here now if he hadn't.

Kieran released his enemy, watched the spirit's image reel and clutch the imaginary bar. "Get it now?"

Pulling himself upright, Ka'an glared, speechless. Lost.

"Do you know why I won, that first time?"

In a growl, Ka'an said, "I suppose you'll tell me it was because someone loved you, and no one loved me."

"You've got it backwards. I won because I love someone, and you never loved anyone. Not even yourself. That's why I'll always win. Because I give a damn, and you don't. You'd surrender the first chance you got, if you could get past your pride."

"You don't know what I want." Ka'an's voice faltered.

"Actually, I do. You've been waiting all this time for someone to say: You're done now, kid. You don't have to be holy anymore. You did your job, it's time to quit."

"And you'd take my place? You'd do my work? No one will thank you. They don't understand that they need me."

"They don't need you, Ka'an. They don't need me either. Doesn't mean I can't help without being asked. No, I won't be the Prince of Pain. The Dreamer can rest now." He offered his hand.

The former god's voice was thinner now, his shape fading. "What will you be?"

"Human."

"My enemy..." Just a whisper.

"I'll get him. Trust me."

Ka'an's form was just a blur now, the hand he reached to Kieran's little more than a wisp. The murmur of his voice was almost inaudible. "I was beautiful..."

"Yes. You were."

With a sound like a sigh, the last resistance gave way. The fragment of smoke that was all that was left of Ka'an flowed over Kieran. For a breath's time it clung there. Then it was gone.

He took a deep breath, waking. Aches washed over him; heat, thirst, hunger. The sun stood overhead, burning down hard. There was no wind. The sterile lake was smooth as glass.

But he could feel the power inside him. So much power. All marshaled and ready to do whatever he wanted. It was exhilarating. He could almost see how having this power had made up for Ka'an's misery, made him hang onto it through life after life. For a moment he regretted it, a little -- having killed something that old, that strong.

That full of pride and malice.

No, he didn't wish he hadn't done it.

He closed his hand around the bullet that hung at his throat. Gave it a little power and felt it pull. Pretty much due east. I'm coming, Ashes. Don't you worry about a thing.