“General Elkay.”
“High General Rethais.”
Rethais took a deep breath. “I wish it had been under better circumstances. An election win after your retirement, rather than divine intervention. I assume it is divine intervention which prohibits you from returning?”
“Even if I could return, I would not be able to serve. Not until the next election. After all, as far as the universe is concerned, I am dead. Even if I had just been injured, I require time to… recover. You have no idea the horrors I saw…”
“What did you actually see? Where did the Allbirther take you?”
“To a horrible landscape made of flesh and pain…” Elkay sighed. “Descriptions fail me.”
“We should… meet. Discuss these things.”
“I want to. But I am tied up, unwillingly.”
“By the deranged Thantophor? The Death God? Or perhaps the Whenvern?”
“No.”
“The Space Shark Panelix?”
“No.”
“The… Her? The Allmaker the Tsithanai worship? She has left the soft womb as described by the Kronospasts, to ask you to do a task?”
Elkay breathed sharply through his nostrils. “I, alongside the Dessaron, the Raptor’s Army of Four and the three unfortunate souls that were… captured with me, we have been tasked with keeping guard over the Thantophor. Normally I would call such a task ludicrous and insane, but the Allmaker requested we do this task and I am in no position to argue with deities.”
“So that is where my brother went… Last I heard of him, he left a message saying he was required for an urgent mission…”
“It was urgent.”
Rethais tutted down the other end of the line. “What actually happened? Because I have had nothing but conflicting reports. The Banikans say that the Thantophor destroyed one of their worlds. We have other reports that the world was half-destroyed by some sort of fleshy mass in the first place…”
“Very, very basically, the Allbirther tried to take control of the Thantophor, things backfired, the Thantophor became enraged and aggressive and began attacking, threatening to destroy the universe.”
“That seems like a very Thantophor-y thing to do!” Rethais almost laughed.
“It is not. The Thantophor normally dislikes-“
“It is the Thantophor we are talking about, yes?”
“Yes.”
“The Death God.”
“Yes.”
“And he dislikes death?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
Rethais hissed down the line. “And how would you know that?”
Elkay paused. “Uh…”
“How do you know the Thantophor. Do you know him personally?”
Elkay continued to pause and hesitate. “Before I answer… Is this line… secure?”
“Of course it is. What have you been hiding from me, Elkay?”
The former High General took a very long, deep breath before deciding to answer.
“Before the incident on Vreka 1… Arkadin had visited me several times during the night, when I was alone. We would spend time sitting in bed, talking about things, before I went to sleep. He only ever stayed for a few hours and erased all traces of his presence by morning.”
“You… slep-“
“NO!” Elkay shouted a little louder than he had wanted to. “Absolutely nothing like that happened. All we did was talk. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“And now you are spending time guarding him?”
“The brief friendship and lingering trust… It is the only thing stopping Arkadin from killing us all. He stays put because he wishes not to hurt us.”
Elkay fell silent. He swore he heard a brief laugh down the other end of the phone.
“So you are abusing the Thantophor’s… biases to keep the Thantophor down?”
“Essentially, yes. We do this, he is not out there killing and slaughtering and threatening the universe. Death still continues, but at a… slightly slower pace.”
“Very well. I will have to inform the general populace though.”
“I know.”
“I will… be lavish with the truth though, if you wish. After all, you did sacrifice yourself for us all…”
“Thank you…” Elkay muttered.
“Thank you too, old friend…” Rethais replied as he closed the connection.