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Sethelak swore in frustration. "For pity's sake, why didn't they leave directions?"

No one answered. They had all asked the same question, with minor variations, any number of times over the last four days. It didn't change the situation. They still had fourteen scrolls, written in a language none of the eminent sages present could even pretend they understood. The Mad God outside still rampaged through the now largely deserted city. The five wisest men and women of the city still cowered here in this sanctuary, which they had been assured held the answer to their dilemma. With dwindling food supplies, and a virtual assurance of death if they opened the door. Both the sanctuary and the food were Kani's doing, but she got precious little credit for either. She was only a novice priestess of the Goddess of Wisdom, and the goddess herself only knew why she had chosen to reply to Kani's prayers rather than those of her more senior devotees. Of course, Kani had been the only one with the foresight to scoop some offerings off the altar (with a hastily whispered prayer of thanks) when the hidden door swung open and the small group dashed inside. Otherwise, they would have either starved by now or fled into the waiting rage of the Mad God. As if to punctuate the desperation of their situation, the ground shook again. Kani wouldn't have wanted gratitude, even if she'd gotten it. She was painfully aware that as a very minor novice, she didn't belong here, in the company of these great minds. And she had her own secret guilt to atone for. The Goddess might have answered her because she'd had the temerity to remind her deity that if the Mad God were allowed to run amok, there would soon be no one left to worship her, or interested in doing so. Even if it got results, blackmailing a god was considered bad form. And the results, Kani had to admit, were of dubious usefulness. She stared at one of the scrolls, smoothing a curled corner over and over, hoping some pattern might emerge. There was little enough pattern to the scrolls. They were thin leather, of different sizes and shapes, though there was a general similarity between some of them. The characters on them were thin, spidery things, but they seemed to have been written in several different styles, and they varied in size from one scroll to the next, and even within the same scroll. The leather on the scroll Kani was looking at was much thinner near the edges, and she found herself idly wondering where it had come from. She knew she should focus on the problem at hand, but the others truly did know more than she did about languages, magic, riddles, and just about anything else these might refer to. There was, therefore, a certain irony that her thought about the leather bore fruit. She felt a chill run down her back that she feared might be the hand of Fate. "I suppose they thought it was obvious," she said in a strangled voice. Having everyone's attention, she held the scroll up to her arm. It fit over her forearm almost too well. "This is someone's skin. It's not written on, it's tattooed."

Sethelak suddenly dropped the scroll he had been holding. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Verna had a stronger stomach, or possibly just more experience. "I thought it looked familiar," she commented.

"So we need to... copy it onto someone."

"That's what it looks like," Kani whispered.

"But who are we going to...?" Garan, for all his wisdom, was sometimes slow on the uptake. Everyone else was already staring at Kani. "Well, I could..."

"No, you couldn't," Verna interrupted him. "With all of these together, it's pretty much an entire skin. You're, what, almost seventy? And you're the second youngest of us." Sethelak was youngest, but he was missing a leg, though he got along well enough without it. None of the venerable sages would survive being tattooed all over all at once.

The ground shook again, a reminder of what only Kani was willing to say out loud. "We don't have much time. We'd better get started."

What they had available for tools was rather primitive, but they managed to put together enough for everyone. It was mentioned briefly that the only ink they had was not meant for use on skin, and was mildly poisonous.

"The process is probably enough to kill her anyway," the ever-practical Verna reminded them. There was a general chorus of agreement that did nothing to reassure Kani.

The other five sages, who had never before taken Kani's word for anything, suddenly deferred to her on even the most trivial of matters. She found it amusing at first, but that was quickly replaced by annoyance. After all, she didn't know any more than they did whether the size and placement of the symbols was important, or what order they should be done in, if any. Her main concern by this time was simply that it be done as quickly as possible.

It wasn't too bad, at first. The constant pricking was an annoyance more than actual pain, but even that took its toll. About the twentieth time Sethelak apologized for hurting her, Kani snapped, "By all the Gods, will you shut up?" He was startled, and his wounded expression prompted her to apologize. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little on edge at the moment."

"Nonsense," Verna spoke up. "I was about to say the same myself. It's not like apologizing helps, and I'm sure we all feel bad about it, but we can't afford to stop."

The group reluctantly returned to their work, which soon did become painful, and quickly thereafter agonizing, as the areas already tattooed became swollen, in some spots bleeding and in others leaking clear fluid. By common consensus, they had her drink the last of the wine, to replace what fluids they could. Sadly, there wasn't enough to take her mind off the pain. The minutes crept sluggishly into hours, each symbol conveniently disappearing from the text as it was copied onto Kani's skin. There was, at least, no doubt whether this was what they were supposed to do. On the other hand, doubt was pretty much all they had about the final results. Kani couldn't report any obvious changes, so they continued with little more hope than they'd had when they started.

One at a time, each of the impromptu tattoo artists came to the end of their last sections, and stopped. Each of them felt their own combination of relief that their part was over, and mounting impatience to have the whole project completed. As with many things that seem to take forever, the end was surprisingly abrupt. "That's it." Verna carefully put down her needle. "And none too soon. We're out of ink."

"Do you feel any different?" Sethelak asked, hopefully.

"Different than what?" Kani returned sharply. "Than I did before I got holes poked in every inch of my skin? Definitely."

"Not... empowered, or enlightened?"

This time Verna answered. "I believe enlightened is the right word. There is actually a slight glow."

Everyone stared at Kani, she as curious as any. "Wow. There really is. Well, I'm not dead yet, so that's a good sign. I think we've done all we can. It's time to open the door. If I don't survive... it was always up to you to figure out what to do next, anyway. I'll do my best for you."

Verna gently kissed her on the cheek, one of the few spots left free of ink. "You already have." The others added their good wishes. Kani tried to smile, and hoped they couldn't see the terror souring her stomach.

They opened the door, and despite her small size in comparison to his two hundred foot frame, the Mad God focused on Kani instantly. He strode towards her, crushing an errant building underfoot. She walked towards him too, more to draw him away from the sages watching behind her than because she knew what she was doing. Shockingly soon, the god was towering over her. He swung at her with a sword twice her height, but she dodged. And felt, unexpectedly, good about it. He swung again, and again she ducked out of the way. It would take only one hit to end this, but every time he missed, the Mad God seemed to move slower, and Kani faster. They went on that way for a while, Kani gaining more confidence the longer she survived. For all her study, Kani had no practical experience of fighting. Even so, it became obvious to her that she would have to take the offensive if this was ever going to end. So, the next time the Mad God moved in, she tripped him. She was unsure whether she had been growing or the Mad God had been shrinking, because she was finding it increasingly difficult to focus on the world beyond the two of them. Everything else seemed distant, shadowy. As though only they were real. Them, and the sword. The only weapon, and he had a firm grip on it. However, though she had never fought before, Kani knew quite a bit about anatomy. With her opponent on his back, she stomped down hard on the inside of his wrist, and his fingers lost their strength. The sword fell to the ground and Kani snatched it up. Fear stabbed through her once again. She knew who this was now, even though he bore little resemblance to the proud deity he had once been. He was the God of War, and the sword was his symbol. She had seen it on coins, on altars, wielded by his devotees, so often that it had lost its significance.

It was impossible to kill a god. It was wrong to kill a god. She took a deep breath, and, tears streaming down her face, did it anyway. The blade slid easily through his chest and into the ground. He screamed once, more in anger than in pain, and then lay still. The silence came as a shock.

The Mad God dead at her feet, Kani took a moment to contemplate the age-old question, "What now?" Or rather, to try to. She kept getting distracted by the stinging all over her skin, and a new feeling that she realized had been growing in her for a while now. It was something she had never felt before, and she couldn't find words to describe it. Whatever it was, it seemed to localize nearby, so she looked up, and saw her Goddess, Anora. Kani hastily fell to her knees. Anora gently smiled, and shook her head. "You don't have to kneel, my dear."

Kani got to her feet, unsure of herself, and finally noticed that Anora was accompanied by another God, who she easily identified as Ephesus, the Smith. She almost fell to her knees again, but since Anora herself had told her not to, she settled for bowing her head instead. "I am honored by your presences."

"We are honored by yours, young Kani." Ephesus' voice was a warm baritone, rather than the bass she had always imagined it to be. "But it's time to go now, and you must leave your mortal form behind."

For a devotee of the Goddess of Wisdom, Kani didn't feel particularly wise. "I don't understand."

Anora explained, patiently. "The power that was his is now yours. But the flesh that was yours cannot contain it. For the moment, you are between worlds, and you cannot remain so. It's easy, though. Just let go."

"Let go? Am I dead now?"

"No, dear, you're not dead," Anora laughed. "You would be, if not for all the... decoration, but that's the point of it. Instead of being killed, you were able to draw his power into yourself. You did your part, too, not only going through the tattooing, but surviving the fight. If you had been hit, you would have been killed regardless."

"But why? Why all of this?" Kani was accustomed to getting answers, and this was more important to her than all the questions she had ever asked before.

Anora took a deep breath, with the air of one who had spent a lot of time explaining difficult things. "The Gods are immortal. However, they are not eternal, and the balance must be maintained. Every few thousand years, a god goes mad, and has to be killed. If another god did the killing, they would gain the power of the one they killed, but we would have one less god. So, it is left to a mortal, and the balance continues."

"So whoever kills the last god becomes the new one?"

"Of course. Isn't it obvious?" The twinkle in Ephesus' eye said that he was well aware of how many times Kani had used that phrase herself.

"I don't feel... worthy of this."

"Good." The strength of emotion Anora put into that startled Kani. She continued, less fervently. "It is when we feel we are worthy of it that we set foot on the road he just traveled." The goddess gestured to the fallen God of War, who was beginning to turn slightly transparent. "What is left of him will return to the earth. We will mourn his spirit, but not his flesh. And we will welcome your spirit, but you must leave your flesh behind. Look inside yourself, and you will understand."

Kani took her advice. She looked inside herself, and she found it was obvious. There was a part of herself that was still small, like the dolls she had played with as a child. And like those dolls, now that she was grown, it was easy to let it go.

Kani left her body beside the Mad God's, David felling Goliath and being felled in turn. The sages she had spent her last days with would know what to do with it.

"Bring the sword," Ephesus told her.

Looking down at the sword still stuck in the god's fading body, Kani made a face. "I don't want it."

"You don't have to keep it, dear," Anora told her, "but it should be passed along to the next God of War. You can start with something easy and work your way up. How would you like to bless the harvest for a while?"

"What do I have to do?" Kani was still unsure of herself.

"I think you'll find it obvious." The familiar phrase, and the twinkle in Anora's eye, was enough reassurance. Sword in hand, Kani took her place among the gods.