"They got away?!"  Andrew rages, tearing the piece of parchment he holds in half.  Of course, the consciousness in charge of the body of Andrew is not Andrew, but Stinnett.  Still, seeing an errand boy thrown into a fit of such violence would be humorous, had not Stinnett been the one pulling Andrew's strings.
    Andrew isnot dead, unfortunately.  Ericson's consciousness has been stuffed into some small corner of his mind, forgotten by Stinnett for the time being.  Now this consciousness springs out.
    "Please..." he cries, his face contorting in a mask of pain.  "please... Sir Stinnett" he's not sure that Stinnett is responsible, but when strange things like this happen, it's a good guess that Stinnett is the culprit.
    "Quiet whelp!" Stinnett's personality leaps forward, Andrew's face changing to reflect the demon within.  "If I didn't need this body to regenerate, you'd be slaughtered by now!  Consider yourself lucky!"  Stinnett is in no mood to fight with an angry host.  He submerges his personality to think.  Andrew, thinking this a sign of retreat, quickly makes the sign of some religion or another and runs from the room.
    Stinnett notices none of this.  He is deep within Andrew's mind, thinking.  He destroyed the last universe easily, but that had left him drained.  For all of this existance in this universe he had been regenerating, gathering his energy once more, so he could destroy it again.  It was his endless cycle.  He had been close... he was sure that if he had been able to take Dabiri's goddess away from him and put it to his own use, he could bring the cataclysm that much sooner.  Perhaps even at that moment... but that had not happened.  Instead, he had been defeated.
    Defeated!
    Stinnett hates that word.  He had lost, and it was due to the fact that he had underestimated the Dabiri's goddess.  Perhaps his goddess and the Goddess are one and the same.  If this was true, then She had finally tired of his interference.  Who was that warrior?  the question suddenly surfaces.  Hatred, black and cruel, obscures Stinnett's consciousness for a moment and then clears- brought on by the very thought that someone- some human- had bested him.  The question remained... who was that warrior?  The warrior he did not know, but the sword he had seen before.  He knew that sword... the last universe had a hero, and that hero had that sword.  That sword had been created by one Larrana Claire- who Stinnett had been afraid would become a threat to his power- and given to the hero so that the hero could complete some task.  Of course, the hero had never got the chance.  The hero died in the cataclysm, like all the others.  But if that hero's sword was still around... the hero himself might also be alive...
    A horrible thought occurs to Stinnett.  If the sword exists, might not the creator of the sword also exist?  Larrana Claire could still be alive.  Stinnett shivers, sending involuntary shudders through Andrew's body.  In his current state, he could not fight and win a battle against Claire.  If she lived, and she had somehow brought the hero back....
    Stinnett sees, for the first time ever, the possibility that something had gone wrong with his plan.
    The thought chills him to the core.

    "Yes".  Michael said, opening his eyes.  It took him a moment to realize he was awake.  There was a cleric looming above him, looking worried.
    "Are you all right?" she asked.
    "Of course I'm all right."  he said.  He then tried to sit up, but was stopped by a sharp pain in his abdomen.  Crying out involuntarily, he fell back to the ground.  "Then again..."
    A slight smirk crossed the cleric's face.  "You're lucky that you're alive.  Now that you're conscious, I can take care of you."  Before Michael could ask any questions, the cleric put one hand on the spot where the pain had originated- Michael could now see that it was covered in blood- and spoke some word.  A whole new burst of pain overcame him, and he felt consciousness swimming away.  With an overt act of will, he managed to keep from being swept away.  He spotted the cleric looking worriedly at him.  "Are you all right?" she asked again, looking even more concerned than she had been before.
    "Last time, that was a trick question."  Michael responded as the pain went away.  "I think I might be."
    "Try to sit up."  she ordered.
    Michael looked at the young cleric as though she had lost her mind.  "What, you like watching me suffer?  No thanks, I'll just lie here."
    The cleric looked annoyed.  "Come on!  I cured you, sit up!  You should be fine!"
    Michael stared stupidly at her.  "Cured me?  That hurt like hell!  You call that a cure?"
    "Yes!"  she spat back.  "I do!  You're cured, aren't you?"
    Michael sat up, just to prove his point.  He was not assailed by pain of any sort.  However painful her method, he was cured.  "I guess so."  he admitted grudgingly.
    "Hmph.  There's gratitude.  You bring a man back from the grave and all he can say is 'I guess so'" She got up and walked away.  "Arthur, you talk to him."  She yelled at one of the other clerics.  He looked up as though he wasn't sure what was wanted of him, and then walked over to Michael.
    "Nevermind Rose, she gets like that sometimes.  She expects something from everyone in return for her curative services, and when all they can manage is a 'thank you', she gets angry.  I guess nobody told her that a cleric's life is not about the money."  Arthur said.  "I'm Arthur, that lovely lady you were just talking to is Rose, that's Cary, that's Eve, that's Dean, and Father Dabiri is over there with our goddess."
    Michael got to his feet immediately, ignoring the other spots of pain on his body.  He looked around and located Dabiri, who was kneeling next to the goddess.  No longer in whatever shrine the clerics had constructed around her, she lay just as serenely on the grass.  Dabiri appeared to be praying.  Michael opened his mouth to shout something to Dabiri when Arthur cut him off.
    "Don't interrupt him!"  Arthur objected loudly.  "He's praying."
    "What for?"  Michael said, restraining the urge to go over to the goddess anyway.
    "He's praying for forgiveness for moving her.  I really don't think that it's a problem, but if she gets angry at us, she could revoke our powers.  Or she could punish us some other way... I'm not really sure how.  We've never done anything to get into serious disfavor... and we might have now."
    "We did it to save her, right?  Won't she understand that?"
    Arthur shook his head.  "You'd think so, but Father Dabiri's taking no chances.  He's also asking permission to move her further.  You see, we can't stay here.  Sooner or later, Thavirat's scouts will discover us, and more of us will be lost.  The clerics that I pointed out to you are all that remain.  Better than five of us died in that attack.  We stand no chance if they find us in the open."
    Michael nodded.  That sword he had- he stole a glance at his scabbard to ensure that it was still there- was a very powerful sword, but he was one and the army was a whole lot more. He shook the thought from his head.  After all, there really wasn't anything he could do to get them going until they were ready.  He just had to hope that nothing seriously bad happened.  He glanced over at the goddess, and the feelings that had consumed him when he first saw her enveloped him again.  He felt himself grimly determined to protect her at any cost, even to the death.  Some part of his mind spoke up, wanting to know why he felt this way- why he had gone from half-believer like most the other soldiers to complete, full fledged follower with just a glance at the goddess.  He didn't know- that was probably something Dabiri was more familiar with than he.  He continued looking at the goddess, when a thought occurred to him.
    Dabiri's goddess looked just like the woman in the dream.
    Michael shivered.  Of course, he reasoned, she looked like the woman in the dream.  He had fallen unconscious after the teleportation, right after he had seen the goddess.  Of course he would dream about her.
    That didn't seem right, somehow.  There was another explanation, lingering on the fringes of Michael's consciousness, that he couldn't quite seem to get.  Before he could think about it further, Dabiri opened up his eyes and stood up.  This mere action commanded attention, and the clerics quieted almost instantly.  Michael himself felt an almost obsessive need for word from the goddess, and if Dabiri was the conduit, then so be it.  Dabiri cleared his throat.
    "I have spent two hours communing with the goddess."  Dabiri announced, to Michael's suprise.  Michael had only seen the last fifteen minutes or so... which meant he had been out for a long while.  Rose had been right- he was lucky he was alive.  Michael's thoughts shut up as Dabiri continued speaking.
    "I believe that we are forgiven for moving her, and she has permitted us to move her again, which we must do at once.  We are not save here, as I believe all of us know.  We are not far from our former temple, which is burning as we speak.  Thavirat's scouts will discover us if we remain here much further.  We must go, and prepare a battle.  Michael, where is the nearest city?"
    Michael found himself somewhat suprised to be consulted, but responded nonetheless.  "Csytyr is, but it is not large enough to hold back an army such as Thavirat's.  I would reccommend Eltai, which is further to the south."
    Dabiri nodded.  "We will stop at Csytyr and then goto Eltai.  The goddess must be protected against the army, and we shall require a large army of our own.  Is this good?"
    Why is he asking me? Michael asked himself.  "Yes." he said, having no answer for his own question.  Dabiri seemed a very different person than when Michael first met him, and it was making Michael nervous.  This instance of Dabiri asking him for advice was just one example.  Still, if it protected the goddess....
    Dabiri nodded.  "Very well.  Arthur, Rose, fetch some wood so we can make something to carry her with."  Rose and Arthur nodded and vanished into the forest without question.
    Dabiri turned to Michael.  "Once we have constructed a platform to carry our goddess on, we will head to Csytyr."  Dabiri paused and then pointed to Michael meaningfully.
    "I want you to lead us there."