"I took you as Mother Queen of the giants," Annam answered. "You are to people Toril with my progeny-true giants-not with Ulutiu's bastard races!"

"Toril is as empty as it is young," Othea responded. "There is room enough for giant-kin."

"Did you not claim the same defense after your dance with rat-faced Vaprak?" Annam demanded. "And now ogres overrun Ostoria. Everywhere, they plague the empire of my children, gnawing at its seams like vermin."

"Perhaps your children are weak and Vaprak's are strong."

"I should have drowned the ogre when first you bore it!" Annam stormed, and a blizzard swept across the shore on roaring winds. "I should have crushed Vaprak's skull for daring to cuckold me. I shall not make the mistake twice."

The All Father made tight his grip. Though the shriek that rose from the Ocean King's throat was long and loud, it was a mere gust against the tempest of Annam's anger. Ulutiu saw he would soon die, so he pulled with hands that were like flippers and he kicked with feet that were like flukes. But Annam was the strongest of the strong, and nothing could escape his grip.

"Do not!" Othea's tone remained sharp.

Annam was not pleased. "This shall be a lesson to you."

The All Father bore down, and bones snapped and organs burst. Ulutiu wailed, and a tremendous swell rose far out in Cold Ocean. It came rolling to shore with a terrible speed and crashed against Annam's looming figure, breaking over his head and tearing at the Ocean King's body.

Even the sea could not defy Annam. He stood against the torrent as steady as the pillars of his palace, and when the receding waters no longer swirled about his waist, the All Father held Ulutiu. The Ocean King was limp and silent, but still his heart beat. Weak and erratic it beat, and Annam thought his punishment had been just.

"As with Ulutiu, so it shall be with all your lovers," Annam proclaimed. The All Father turned and whipped his arm toward the center of Cold Ocean, and Ulutiu's body raced through the sky as a shooting star. "I will have no more bastard races loose in the empire of my children!"

Othea watched a long time, until Ulutiu faded to a fleck of darkness in the sky. She watched until that speck arced downward, and still she watched as it splashed among the icebergs at Cold Ocean's distant heart. Then she looked at Annam, and the tears in her eyes were as large as ponds.

"There shall be no more giant-kin," Othea promised.

"That is good." Annam smiled, to make plain she had pleased him. "For I will not tolerate them."

Othea smiled not. Verily, she twisted her mouth into a sneer, and the sneer was more angry than a fiend's snarl. "Neither shall there be more true giants."

"What?" Annam demanded, and he was not happy.

"I will bear no more races for you," Othea said again. In her eyes shone a black gleam of anger, and it was a fury so cold that her tears turned to ice and tumbled down her face like an avalanche. "I love Ulutiu's children more than I love yours, and so I have done with you."

"I am the All Father!" Annam's voice tore at Othea's face as a fierce wind tears at a mountainside. "You cannot refuse me!"

"Why can I not?" Othea demanded. "Will you punish me as you punished Ulutiu? I welcome it!"

So mighty was Annam's fury that he could but roar, and the winds howled as they had never howled before, on their breath bearing shards of ice that scoured the plants from the soil and the soil from the stone. From his belt the All Father took the great axe Sky Cleaver and raised it to strike.

His rage did not frighten Othea, for she had spoken in truth and would gladly follow Ulutiu. When Annam saw this, the fury in his heart changed to shock. Sky Cleaver slipped from his hand, and the axe sailed far over the plains, until at last it came down on a mountain and split it asunder, and so Split Mountain was created.

Annam did not see this, for his thoughts were as mad dragons, whirling about his head in a tumult more befitting a mortal than a deity. He was the All Father. It was his right to have Othea, and he could have her by force, if he wished. Yet Annam was no evil god, and it would not please him to loose the spawn of a wicked union on this young world. The ettin had been horrible enough. Anything worse would destroy the empire of his children and not strengthen it.

But Annam could not yield to Othea. He had seen that Toril would be a world of many races, not just ogres and giant-kin, but of humans and dwarves and dark-loving beings even more horrible. The All Father saw that if his children were to fare well, they would need a wise and powerful king to lead their empire.

So he spoke to Othea, saying, "You shall bear me one more giant, and he shall be the greatest of all, wise and strong and just, for he shall be king of giants."

"I have already borne you a titan," Othea replied. "Let him be king of the giants."

"Nay!" Annam decreed, and his mighty voice rocked Othea on her heels. "The titan is keen and strong and forthright, but he is also proud and vain. The empire of my children must have a better king than that."

Annam took breath, drawing it not into his chest, but deeper into him, down into his loins, and there he held it.

"Storm all you wish," Othea said. "I will not yield."

The All Father exhaled. The wind that came from his mouth was not a tempest, but a divine zephyr, warm with the breath of spring and the promise of life, and Annam blew this breeze upon Othea, so that it passed over her body as chiffon passes over a bride's head, and the Mother Queen trembled.

No obsidian was ever as black as Othea's face grew then. "What have you done, Annam?"

The All Father smiled, for his trick had pleased him well. "Can you not feel the answer in your womb?" he asked, and in his eye he had the look of a wyvern. "I have got a king on you."

"A king that shall never be born!" A bottomless rift shot across the plain, for such was Othea's anger. "I will hold him until the end of time!"

"Ha! That you cannot do," Annam said. "If you try, he shall grow within you until he splits your bulk asunder."

The Mother Queen gave thought to her husband's words, and after a time she said, "Then will I spill him out early and summon Vaprak's brood. They always have need of tender fodder!"

Annam's mouth fell open and out rushed the thunder and lightning. "He is your child too!" the All Father roared. "You would not feed him to ogres!"

"Not if you have gone," Othea said, and now a crooked smile was upon her craggy lips.

"You offer a bargain?"

"Leave Toril, and I will hold the infant until he can fight his own way from my womb," Othea said. "But if you return before he is born, then will I force him out, and then will Vaprak's brood feast on your spawn."

So cold was her voice that the clouds froze in the sky, and they fell to ground to become the glaciers of the mountains.

The All Father grinned. "Well do I like this game, for my seed is strong and will not long be denied," he proclaimed. "I shall return when my king-child calls my name, and then shall I watch the empire of my children spread over Toril as wind speeds across the plains."

Annam waved an arm toward the heavens. From his hand spilled a rainbow of five colors; onto this rainbow he stepped, and climbed into the sky with strides as long as rivers.

Othea watched him go, and when the blue firmament had swallowed him up, she looked toward the heart of Cold Ocean. Though the distance was immeasurably vast, she saw the terrible vengeance of her husband. There Ulutiu lay upon an iceberg all streaked with crimson, his body twisted as bodies cannot twist From his ears trickled dark blood and from his mouth bubbled red froth, and together they spilled into the gray waters of his sea.

"I swear the voice of Annam's child shall never sound outside my womb." Though Othea but whispered, the waves caught her voice and carried it across the waters to the ears of the Ocean King. "I wish I could avenge you better, but the All Father is powerful and this little is all I can do."