<Just like you to be after making up to Himself just because he’s a god, and all,> Bahzell retorted, and the earthquake rumble of Tomanak’s chuckle rolled through him. Then the god continued, but his voice was softer, somehow.
<Aye, that we will,> Bahzell replied, his own “voice” gentler than it had been a moment before. He felt Walsharno’s unspoken agreement behind his own, then gave himself a mental shake. <Still and all,> he pointed out in something much more like his normal style, <that sounds as if it’s after suggesting we’ve a way to go yet after this little unpleasantness as is waiting up ahead of us somewhere.>
Tomanak said seriously.
Bahzell frowned, intrigued almost despite himself. A portion of his awareness remained firmly focused on the movement of Walsharno’s muscles under him, the caress of the late afternoon breeze as the day wound towards twilight, the jingle of mail and weapons harnesses, the creak of saddle leather, and the slightly dusty smell of grass crushed under the hooves of coursers and warhorses alike. But most of his attention was focused on the question it had never occurred to him to ask and on the answer he would never have anticipated, if he had asked.
There was no disrespect or challenge in the courser’s question. He accepted what Tomanak had said, as a yearling accepted the decrees and explanations of his herd stallion. He was simply seeking explanation, not demanding that Tomanak justify what he had already said.
He obviously recognized Bahzell’s and Walsharno’s confusion, for he went on.
Bahzell and Walsharno were silent, stunned by the immensity of the concept Tomanak had just laid before them. The idea that there were an infinite number of Bahzells paired with an infinite number of Walsharnos, each fusion experiencing its own outcomes, fighting its own battles and meeting its own fate, might have made them feel small, and insignificant. No more than two single grains of sand upon an endless beach. Yet they were anything but small and insignificant. The exercise of their free will would determine their fates, and their fates would be not grains of sand on a beach, but stones in an avalanche thundering to a grand conclusion which would determine the fate of all universes and of every creature who had ever lived … or ever would.