Prologue
The Cruel Father looked down upon his creation…and was severely displeased.
His universe had been corrupted. His Kindred, the Kru’ell Ones, had been tainted by love…by compassion…by tenderness and mercy. All those womanly emotions he so despised and had taught his children to despise as well.
He had created the Kru’ell Ones to rule over females. To take them as concubines to feed their emotional appetites and then discard them, as easily as a man drops a used tissue. But now, what did he see when he looked down upon them?
“They have taken mates,” he growled to himself, glaring with his all-seeing eye upon the gray-green version of Earth which resided in his universe. The new Overlord, Kane, had taught the other Kru’ell Ones to revere females and treat them with respect. He had purged the hate from their hearts and fostered love instead. He had taught them to take females as mates instead of disposable concubines and to form a permanent bond with them.
It was unbearable! And the Cruel Father knew exactly who to blame.
“Mother of All Life,” he growled to himself, thinking of the Goddess who was his counterpart in the parallel universe which ran along side his own. She had done this thing. She had interfered in his territory and had brought her disgusting attributes of love and fidelity, spreading goodness and peace wherever she went like a pestilence.
The Cruel Father raged to himself. How dare she meddle in the affairs of his ‘verse? How dare she bring her sickening love and kindness into his territory?
And how could he repay her deed in kind?
Luckily, the Mother of All Life was not the only one who had a stronghold in the enemy’s territory. Long ago the Cruel Father had waged war across the dimensional divide with the female deity. He had been forced back, but not before he had left a small token—a scion of himself—within her domain.
Of course, the Goddess had instructed the ancient First Kindred to hide the relic—the Eye of Ten’gu they had called it. And so they had buried it deep, hiding it in the far recesses of their universe on a planet so icy and inhospitable they were certain no one would ever find and awaken it.
The Cruel Father reached across the divide, using just a tendril of his power— not enough to sound any alarms—and touched the Eye. For millennia it had lain dormant, his scion sleeping in endless, dreamless slumber.
“Awake,” the Cruel Father called to it. “Awake and claim your birthright. Decimate the Goddess’s ‘verse as she has ruined mine.”
He felt the Eye tremble…perceived that his scion was rising from the sleep which had claimed him when the First Kindred had buried the relic so long ago.
It would take some time for his scion to come fully awake—some time before the Eye opened and understood what he must do. But the Cruel Father could wait. After all, was revenge not sweetest when it took some time in coming?
“You will be sorry, Mother of All Life,” he growled to himself. “I will teach you not to meddle in my domain. You have turned my own Kindred into sniveling female-lovers like your own. We will see how well you like it when your own children are corrupted by my darkness. When the Eye of Ten’gu opens, your ‘verse will know pain and discord as it never has before.”
This he vowed. And then he sat back to watch as the events he had set in motion began, slowly but inexorably, to unfold…
Far from the Cruel Father’s universe, on First World, Nadiah woke from the dream with a gasp of fright.
“The Cruel Father…the Eye…the Eye must not open! It must not open!” she cried.
“What?” Rast, the Challa of First World, the home planet of the Kindred, sat up in bed beside his mate. In the dim light of their bedchamber, he saw that Nadiah’s blue-green eyes were wide with panic.
“The Eye…” She was nearly panting with fright. “The Eye is waking but it must not open!”
Another male might have shaken his mate to bring her out of what appeared to be hysteria but Rast had a better solution than that. He spread his great, feathery wings—the ones that had grown when he had proven that he was truly meant to be the Challa of the Kindred home world—and enfolded his wife in them.
Nadiah came to him at once and Rast could feel her trembling against his broad chest as he poured healing warmth into her through the enfolding feathers.
“What is it, sweetheart?” he murmured, stroking her golden hair and holding her close, trying to comfort her. “What’s wrong? You must have had a nightmare.”
“N-not a n-nightmare.” Nadiah’s teeth were still chattering in fright. Rast held her tighter, disturbed. He had never seen his mate so upset before.
“If it wasn’t a nightmare then what was it?” he asked gently.
“A vision.” She sat up and her eyes turned suddenly from blue-green to pure emerald—the color of the Goddess. When she spoke again, her voice was not her own.
“The Father of Cruelty with reach from Afar
To the Eye of his scion asleep in the Dark
Buried so deep ‘neath the mountain Ra’gar
It must not awake or the future is Stark
Do not let its lid rise, do not let it awake
For if it sees daylight, our ‘verse is at Stake!”
Though he and Nadiah had been joined for years now and had three children together and he knew she was the Mouthpiece of the Goddess, it still unnerved Rast when the Mother of all Life spoke through his wife.
“Goddess,” he said, addressing the deity who was speaking through Nadiah. “What must we do?”
“Warn Sylvan of the Mother Ship,” the Goddess said through Nadiah. “The Eye of Ten’gu must be unearthed and destroyed before it awakens.”
“The Eye of Ten’gu? What’s that? And how can we destroy it?” Rast asked, but the Goddess had gone. Only Nadiah was left, drooping in his arms, completely worn out from acting as a vessel to the Goddess.
“Oh, Rast,” she whispered, leaning heavily against him. “That was so scary—I don’t know when I’ve been so frightened!”
“Are you all right now?” Rast looked at her anxiously.
“Not scared anymore. Just…tired.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “The Goddess drove out the fear but hosting her is…taxing.”
“Of course it is, my Lyzel,” Rast murmured, stroking her hair tenderly.
“What did the Goddess say through me?” Nadiah asked. “What must we do to keep the Cruel Father at bay?”
“She said we must destroy the Eye of Ten’gu—whatever that is.” Rast frowned.
“The Eye of Ten’gu?” Nadiah sat up straight. “But that’s been hidden for millennia!”
“You know about it?” Rast asked in surprise.
She nodded, her long blonde hair swishing around her slender shoulders.
“Of course—it’s in some of our earliest scrolls and documents. It’s an ancient artifact, as old as the Kindred race itself.”
“Well, what does it do?” Rast asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Nadiah admitted. “But I do know that the very first thing the Kindred males who originally left First World did was to get rid of it. They buried it in the side of a mountain on Yown Beta where no one could ever find it.”