For Somtow Sucharitkul

a spectacle of unmitigated horror with a dash of Bakti

Gods do not normally expect to look out the windows of their palatial heavens and see an enemy army advancing.

Gyasiros Rex, Lord of Yalah, god and king in one, watched the forces advance and tried to think of what to do. His all-seeing eyes showed him the scope of the encirclement, despite the fact that the nearest enemy trooper was a good hundred kilometers away, but the fierce determination in the would-be attackers did not worry him. His Fluxland kingdom had an energy shield impenetrable to all except those he, as a god, might choose to admit, and it had been placed there by the sheer force of his will. Neither the troops nor their weapons could pass that shield until and unless it was broken down.

The tremendous power that Flux gave to selected individuals always seemed either to corrupt or drive the wielder of such power into some unique form of madness. Gyasiros had been born in Flux and trained as a wizard in the great magical university at Globbus, where he’d shown exceptional power in taking the raw energy that was the Flux itself and transforming it and all inside it as he willed. He was certainly a god in his own Fluxland, his power there absolute, and he loved it. Not merely political power; the very trees, rocks, animals, and even the sky were of his design and his to create, destroy, or alter as his mood moved him. He was worshipped by his people, who knew, too, that divine will rewarded the faithful and punished the transgressor.

He liked things this way, and he was in no mood to change or accommodate to anyone else’s thoughts or ideas. The rest of World concerned him not at all, except for the necessary trade through the stringers that brought him new toys and, occasionally, new books, which filled him with new ideas.