"Because he is a god, Tarrin," she said patiently. "If they face him directly, they could destroy him, but in that battle would come the end of the world as we know it. It is why the Goddess had you claim the Firestaff in the first place, my brother. Think."
She was right. The Goddess told him that if someone used the Firestaff, the gods would have to rise up and destroy him, and the entire world may be destoyed in that confrontation. Confronting Val would be no different.
"Because Val is a child of the Firestaff, it means that all his power is here," she told him. "That gives him a great deal of power dealing with the other gods, whose power is in another dimension. Where they have to work through an icon, he does not. Where they can only devote a portion of their power to the battle, he does not. It makes him as powerful as any Elder God on this world. Perhaps even more so. That is why even the Elder Gods would be wary of confronting him. Even they run the risk of losing their icons. And if that happens, then the world would be in chaos," she said grimly. "The power guiding the forces of nature would be cut off, and the entire world's workings would run amok until the gods could form new icons and regain control. Very little would survive that."
Tarrin frowned. She was being very careful to spell out for him what would happen if the gods started fighting. But why? And that caused him to ask a quesion that, though he had never even considered before, made him wonder why he had never asked it before. "If Val's already a god, why does he want the Firestaff?"
"Because if a god used it, it would cause the god to have his full power manifest in this world," she told him. "A Younger God that used the Firestaff would have all of his power in that other dimension where his spirit resides, as well as an equal measure of power residing right here in this world, and it is a power that does not depend on the faith of the mortals who worship him. It would make a Younger God something even greather than an Elder God, truly immortal and wielding a power that even the Elder Gods would fear. For Val, who is already a child of the Firestaff, it would double the power he already possesses, and that power would make him unstoppable." She looked at him. "Do you know the story of Val, my brother?"
"Some of it," he answered.
"Then you know that he is a god without rules, without constraints. Do you know why?"
Tarrin mulled over that for a moment. "Because he's a child of the Firestaff."
"Yes. He is not a child of Ayise. His power was not granted by her, and it means that he did not have to accept the responsibilities and restrictions that came with that power. He is truly a god without rules, a god that does not care about the Balance. In fact, in his own way, he is a god seeking to destroy that Balance. We call him Val, god of darkness and conquest. The gods have another name for him."
He looked at her.
"They call him Entropy, the embodiment of the force that seeks to unmake all," she said, looking at him. "They fear him more than they fear any other thing." She looked at the army again. "I brought you here to show you what stands between you and your daughter, Tarrin," she told him in a quiet voice. "Now that you see what you have seen and heard what I have told you, do you understand why?"
"To show me what I'm up against."
"To show you that what you intend is impossible," she told him bluntly. "There is no way you can get Jasana back without surrendering the Firestaff to Val. He is a god, Tarrin, and he holds your daughter in the very center of his seat of power. You cannot sneak in, you cannot trick him, and you cannot beat him with either magic or brute force. He will sense you coming from a thousand longspans away, and he will hear every thought that passes through your mind. Any bargain you try to make with him, he will not honor, seeking to kill you as quickly as he can to regain the Firestaff before the appointed day. And if you do face him, he will crush you as if you are nothing and take the Firestaff from you, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. You intend to rescue Jasana, without thinking about the consequences. And now you know what will happen if you do."
You must be able to make the choices that must be made.
No! Not Jasana! He had chosen his duty, and it had cost Faalken his life! He had chosen his duty, and it had nearly killed Kimmie! He would not make a choice that would kill his daughter. He would not! The entire world did not matter more than his precious child, because the world would not be worth continuing if Jasana was not there to share in it.
In a flash, an instant, a plan formed in his mind. It was a simple plan, an elegant plan, yet a plan carrying flavors of nuance and subtlety that would make Keritanima proud. It was a plan that addressed all the problems of rescuing Jasana without getting her killed, and after going through it in that instant, he realized that it was a plan that would work, no matter if it was a god that would be the one trying to defeat it or not. The simplicity of it made it almost infallible.
He had to be able to make the choices that must be made. In that instant, he made his choice, and that choice was Jasana.
Quickly, he buried the plan in the deepest parts of his mind, submerging it into the Cat, the one place where no one, not even the Goddess, could dig it out. He knew that if she knew what he intended, she would not allow it. She would stop him, and he would not be denied.
If Val wanted the Firestaff, Tarrin would give it to him. It was not worth the life of his daughter.
"If there's one thing that you should have learned about me by now, Spyder," he said in a voice that held absolutely no emotion, "is that the world does not matter to me." He looked at her. "Val has my daughter, and I'm going to get her out of there alive. That's all that matters to me. The world can go to the Nine Hells for all I care."
"Then your daughter will grow up in a blasted wasteland."
"As long as she grows up, I don't give a damn about where it happens to be," he said, looking over the army one more time.
"You are foolish to say that to me," she said, drawing herself up. "I will not permit you to decide the fate of us all, Tarrin."
He felt her power build up, felt the terrible might of it even though both of them were working through projections. But he ignored her, keeping his back to her. "I'm not going to go out and intentionally destroy the world, fool woman," he said with a snort. "But I won't abandon my daughter. If it would have been anything else, anyone else, I would have let it go. But not Jasana. Not one of my children. I'll find a way to get her back. I'll do my best to keep the Firestaff away from Val. But if it comes down to it, I'll hand it over to him without hesitation."
"Then you doom us all."
"Then we all die," he said grimly. "That doesn't matter to me in the slightest."
"Then you leave me little choice, my brother," she said with terrible finality. He felt her power immediately build up to its peak, felt her half a world away, probably doing the same thing he was doing, sitting somewhere in a small room in a nice comfortable chair, projecting herself out across the vast distance between them.
"Go ahead," he told her without emotion. "Let's just get it all out of the way now, woman. It doesn't matter to me anymore. Nothing matters to me anymore except my daughter," he said in a dead tone. "Strike at me, Spyder, and I'll tear the Weave. I know how it's done. Try to stop me, and I'll cause another Breaking. You won't have to worry about Val destroying the world." He turned on her, and there was awful burning fanaticism in his eyes that took her aback. "If you deny me the chance to save my daughter, I'll destroy the world myself!"
There was a shocked silence from Spyder, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. "Mother!" she gasped in consternation. "This cannot be!"
I cannot interfere, the voice of the Goddess touched them both, a very subdued, serious voice, nothing like the voice he was so accustomed to hearing. You understand the rules, daughter. I cannot directly interfere. I cannot demand. I can only ask. If Tarrin decides to defy me, I can do nothing but deny him his powers. And he does not need Sorcery to tear the Weave, daughter. He's a strong enough Druid to do it. It will kill him, but he can do it.