Prologue Hell held them up with fingers of molten rock and gushing lava as the world around them thrashed in its death rattle. Its populace was gone, destroyed by their war, and only they remained, as once upon the torso of Charn did Jadis and her sister remain—and that world had been destroyed deplorably. Now only they were left, while all else was absent—even life itself had been wiped out, and only volcanic ruin throbbed in the wake of their war. They were the goddesses of Death and Death, each one created for vile purpose, each one fought for her own path—and both paths had bitterly led to this one. The image of failure had been dug deep into one of the goddess' faces; her sister and enemy could see it in the harsh smoke of their dying world. "Is this what you wanted?" she asked bitterly. "Is this...waste, this ruin, this death beyond death...was it all your goal? Is this what you wanted? Because you got it. Everything I loved and knew is gone, and soon we shall be too." "Don't be such a self-righteous fool, Celine!" shouted her foe over the churning lava around them. "We weren't created to destroy, we were created to rule. This waste, as you call it, is as much your fault as it is mine." "I did not enjoy killing them!" snapped Celine. "I worked hard night and day to prevent this from happening, and for nothing! There is nothing now, nothing even to rule, since it has all been destroyed!" "We can always start over," said her foe nonchalantly. "One world is not a great loss in a life where there are many others. Together we have the power to transfer ourselves to another and start over. Put this world behind you, Celine; I already have. Yes, I have lost much here as well, and I nearly lost you. But we're still alive. Together we can start over, move on, realize our destiny. We're not like those other people who died, Celine: we're special. We're as beyond them as they were beyond the apes and lizards they came from." "I don't believe you," growled Celine furiously. "I was just like them—it was you who were different, Kali! You and your thirst for destruction—you destroyed all of them, and for what? For me? Are you really that sick?!" "You would've done the exact same thing if your circumstances were the same as mine," she said evenly. Celine stared at Kali in terror, in sadness, in misery. Kali didn't care. She just wanted Celine, her so-called sister. She wanted her, nothing more. Left could not exist without Right; Up could not live without Down; Dark depended on Light; Celine and Kali were both of the same flesh, the same design; they could not exist independently. They were not made to. "Thank God I never got the chance to find out," said Celine quietly, as she ignited her weapon. Kali mirrored her exactly, just as she had a hundred times before, and prepared to fight another pointless war on a dying world. But Celine did not raise her weapon, she thrust it, and commanded it to jerk backwards as well. The goddess grabbed her sister and embraced her, impaling them both on her own weapon—thik! Kali felt the energy weapon burn through her abdomen and intestines, her stomach ripped open, her spine cut. Celine was dying in her arms. The blazing red of their world grew dim. "You..." "Now we will both die," hissed Celine weakly, "because people like us were not meant to live. If there's an afterlife..." She said no more, and died. Kali took her last breath, and spent it in silence.
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