Is the Universal Eye silent only because it seeks to observe, O you proud gathering of kinds, or is it merely unable to recoil? - Fourth Interpretation of the Dark Veda, Sarmuni.

And a great darkness falls upon the village. A summer darkness of maddening warmth, infused by an age of anemic rain. The universe swelters behind the shroud of starless skies. The goodfolk have gathered in the Founder's hall. They whisper, and the whispers crawl away into the night, consume the false laughter of a distant river, and finally mingle with the infinitely hoarse groans of countless invisible creatures beneath the dead soil.

The Ninthborn is loudest: We are betrayed. Your THIEF was seen with soldiers of the Beloved. He was seen giving them maps. MAPS!

The goodfolk express outrage.

The Old Founder argues: Lies! Aparath knows the price of betrayal and can be trusted. It is your spies who betray us.

The goodfolk express doubt.

Or he is playing a game, shouts the Deerslayer, showing both sides what they want to see, while he ruins us both. and returns to giggling in an unlit corner, fingers tapping the blisters on his palms.

The goodfolk express uncertainty.

And with that, the three speakers now begin to plot irony and witty retorts.

But the Reciter, with ancient chants tattooed across his arms, has had enough. He stands in the doorway and casts a flickering shadow on the village center outside. He chooses a chant appropriate to the omens he sees and walks out, reciting the old words in his head. When he reaches the great mango tree, he notices three pairs of eyes in the branches. They burn golden from the firelight.

A child sits whistling on a branch. Another plays a flute in tandem with the melody. The third hums in loud, torn breaths.

The whistler pauses. Were these forests haunted by demons? he asks, singsong.

The Reciter remains silent. His chant is not yet completed. The child sighs and plucks something from the leafy darkness. It is green, plump, and silken. An impossible mango after a rainless monsoon. The child throws it to the Reciter. He catches it. The smell is fragile. It threatens to disperse so he breathes it in deeply and loses it somewhere within his lungs. He nods to the child and bites into the fruit.

You don't know, do you? Nobody remembers the demons anymore. Yet you recite the old words that condemn them. If the old words are divine, and you do not remember if they speak the truth, would it be right to think of ignorance as the womb of your gods?

The Reciter looks back to the hall and it's languid glow. He has no desire to engage in theosophy with the child, and he notices the sweat glistening on Nasturi's neck in the hall. The remains of the mango are seducing ants on the ground. He licks the last sweet lines of saffron dew trailing down his fingers and turns back to the hall.

The Beloved watches, Reciter. the child whispers.

He swerves back, but the branch is empty, the flute mute, and the chords lost.

The day takes form, as it always does, when the Firegod awakes and begins to scream in pain. The dawn is jagged at first, shaped by the irregular contours of the god's shattered incisors. As his torment increases and jaw opens wide in unthinkable torment, the night is vanquished.

The Deerslayer sits hidden and watches a city prepare to sleep for the day. The heralds had emerged long before the First Agony could be heard. As the citizens hurried to close down commerce and ritual, the torches were unlit to keep them pure. The streets were emptied before the first pink light crawled up from the north. As the first sounds of the Firegod's screams raced close, hordes of chattering child-swarms emerged from the undercity and began to cover the city with thick woven sheets. The do not relent until a simulacrum of night has been maintained under this vast blanket. They vanish before the screams of the First Agony can overtake them.

The city now slumbers safely.

The Deerslayer signals to the Reciter franticly. The Reciter's eyes lose focus for the span of a thought and his begins to chant loudly. His voice is the churning of gravel. It obscures every other sound, protecting the assassins from the First Agony. They descend from the trees and move towards the city.

It feels safe in the veiled city. The daylight appears as pinpricks and false stars.

The Deerslayer guides them to the heart. To the House of the Beloved. The way is unguarded. The gates are open.

The assassins wrap thick bands across their ears and disperse. The Deerslayer and the Reciter walk in through the gates.

The dead lie bloodless and blind, pinned to the ceiling. Upon the red floor beneath them, the thief Aparath stands alone.

Move away, Reciter. he warns, and blinks into inexistence.

The Deerslayer draws his great bow. An arrow is held and aimed at the singular point in the distance. The Reciter hears a deep, heartless thrum, a high pitched movement in the air, and soft, motherly squelch. Aparath re-appears with an arrow deep in his skull, and falls. The Deerslayer walks to him and plucks one eye.

How? the Reciter blurts out.

He stands the Lord of Hunters from the previous pantheon.

The Beloved coagulates into his form from the blood.

The Deerslayer utters an unspeakable curse and the walls shatter. The First Agony itself falters as the Firegod senses it.

Ten arrows fly onto the blood. They strike pristine marble floors and the dead fall like rain from the ceiling.

The Age of the Sun is past, Deerslayer.

The air boils and bursts. The Reciter flees outside the gates. The shroud has been torn apart and the torment of the First Agony blazes supremely. The citizens crawl on the streets, tearing out their ears and sobbing for the end of nightmares. He begins to chant, and then the House of the Beloved melts like old butter. The Deerslayer and the Beloved emerge from the slurry.

The Deerslayer draws out the eyes of Aparath, crushes them in his fists and coats his forehead with the remains.

Numberless pikes of bones and iron spring from the earth and fly against the Beloved. And strike each other instead.

I slew the Creator. the Beloved sings, singsong.

The citizens explode, covering the streets with their guts. The gore comes to life and coalesces like a swarm of locusts and falls upon the Deerslayer, engulfing him.

I enslaved the Firegod.

A cavern opened up in the ground between the two. It expanded and grew like a relentless yawn and the swallowed the Reciter. He fell upon the bones of the Creator.

The First Agony ended abruptly and shrilly. Something had silenced the Firegod, or he had freed himself. Both ideas terrified the Reciter as he scrambled to escape the cavern.

A great explosion blinded him, and he heard a body hit the bones beside him.

The Deerslayer's body, broken and mangled lay haphazardly upon a massive humerus.

Traitor, he choked.

The Beloved floated down above him and smiled warmly.

Fool.

The Deerslayer spat blood and spit high into the air. It rose high, plateaued, and fell with a sickening liquid hum on the face of the dead god.

The Beloved noticed the Reciter cowering near him.

Don't mourn him. He was condemned long ago when his brethren allowed the sun to die. You did not know the darkness that came before. Arise, and let the Firegod shriek.