The New World by Michael A. Stackpole

created things, especially his children, he found bits and pieces of his creation shut off to him. At first this was intriguing, since he found his children’s surprises a challenge. He could always discover and destroy their little plots, but he allowed them to plot because he found the challenges so entertaining.
    Grija, being the first of his children, was conceived in haste and therefore lacking in imagination. Grija latched on to death as his aspect without thought, while the others choose more carefully. While all of his children hid things from him, Grija had the least amount to hide. Over the eons, Nessagafel had come to know him very well.
    Almost completely .
    Grija grew closer—though distance was again a concept without meaning in the Underworld—so Nessagafel gave himself form and substance. He had not yet escaped the heavy shackles and slender ring his children had fashioned for him. An eternity of imprisonment would soon end, however, as well-laid plans slowly coalesced.
    Grija came to him as a wolf, so Nessagafel became a wolf’s carcass, rotted and bloated, flesh black where his fur had fallen out. One eye hung against a blood-caked cheek. His lips had been eaten away, giving him a perpetual snarl.
    “Very nice, Father. A vision of my future?”
    “Not one you would ever see, my child.”
    Grija recoiled from the comment. “I shall never end up thus. Things progress as I have planned. Soon, very soon, I shall set you free. As my agent, you may again raise your Viruk to the heights they once enjoyed. You may rid the world of Men.”
    Nessagafel allowed the flesh to slough from a forearm. “And you will then bring your Ansatl to full flower? Men defeated them when you sought to make them ascendant.”
    “Wentoki followed in your footsteps and became a man. He gave Men magic. Without him leading them, my Ansatl would have crushed Men.”
    And then would they have come to oppose my Viruk—what remained of them? He would have laughed had he not found Grija’s transparency so tedious. When Grija and the others conspired to create Men, Grija chose an aspect which Men would never respect or truly worship. They might pay Death attention and deference, but revere it? Impossible. And then Wentoki, the clever one, had created the Fennych and Tsiwen had created the Soth. Grija attempted to make his own creatures, the Ansatl, but the lizard-men were, like Grija, shallow and ill-suited to conquest. Their appetite for killing meant they always overgrazed their home and Men were forced to destroy them. Even now, the remaining populations remained on a scattered archipelago where they had split into factions and waged cannibalistic raids on each other.
    Grija bared his fangs. “There need be no conflict between us, Father. The Ansatl and Viruk will rule the world between them. We shall destroy those who oppose us, then we shall balance each other. Twin powers, night and day, light and dark.”
    “Creation and the absence thereof.”
    “Reality and the void from which it was sprung.” Grija looked up toward the heavens—another unnecessary gesture. “You were correct when you decided to unmake things, but you wanted to go too far. You had to be stopped.”
    “Of course. Much consideration of my errors has convinced me of this. But your brothers and sisters must be destroyed. They are too unpredictable and too difficult to control. If they did not fear you, Grija, they would have long since destroyed you.”
    “Speak plainly.”
    Nessagafel opened his jaw in a smile, then let the bone hang loose from one side of his head. “They think you weak. They have accepted that Wentoki is the key to keeping me locked away here in the Ninth Hell. They have no idea that when you agree to strip divinity from him, you will assume his power. Then, using it to control me, you will destroy them. They think you incapable of such subterfuge.”
    Grija growled defiantly, yet both of them knew it would become a whimper if Chado,