Volumes 9 and 10 - Dark Calling/Hell’s Heroes

“I don’t understand.”

“There are three parts of the Kah-Gash,” Raz says. “The trigger, memory and eyes. The trigger is the commanding force. The memory stores all that happens. The eyes see the hidden strings which bind the universes in place.

“This only became clear to us over the long course of time. In the beginning we didn’t know how many pieces there were, what function they played, where they’d gone. We were not even sure that parts of the Kah-Gash still existed.

“The Demonata knew no more than we did, but threw themselves into the search. Their desperate plan was to find the parts of the Kah-Gash, reassemble them and restore the original universe. It’s a plan they haven’t wavered from.

“For a time we saw no threat. We thought it was a fool’s quest. But then the parts began to reappear. They had the ability to turn up anywhere, in a comet, a rock, a tree, an animal, even in one of the new demons. The pieces never merged with any of the Old Creatures or original demons, but all other forms were fair game. They caused no harm, existing in harmony with their hosts, but their re-emergence filled us with panic.”

Raz shivers, then continues. “The Demonata pursued the pieces with a mad passion. When they finally found one, they experimented, seeking ways to harness its power. They found they could influence its destination when it moved from one form to another, ensuring it stayed within their grasp.

“The demons searched hard for the other pieces. They couldn’t cross from their universe to ours, but they didn’t need to. The parts of the Kah-Gash passed freely between universes. The Demonata could wait, even though it might take billions of years.”

We come to another elevator and ride it down to a random lower level. I find a park, full of strangely shaped trees and bushes. I dodge between them as Raz speaks.

“We couldn’t let them reunite the Kah-Gash,” Raz says. “We felt responsible for this universe’s new life forms. They were simple creatures, but they had a right to exist. So we counter-plotted. Although the demons couldn’t cross universes, we had the power to enter theirs. We launched a raiding party. After a brief battle, we freed the piece of the Kah-Gash and fled. The Demonata couldn’t follow. All they could do was keep searching and waiting.

“That’s how things continued over millions of years,” Raz says, as if talking about the passing of a couple of weeks. “The Demonata imprisoned pieces of the Kah-Gash. We crossed, fought and freed them.”

“Are you stronger than the demons?” I ask.

“No,” Raz says. “But we only needed to destroy the form in which a piece was stuck. When that happened, it shot free. If the demons had been able to focus, they could have directed it into another form of their choosing, but we distracted them.

“We also searched for pieces in our universe,” Raz goes on. “We had no wish to reassemble the Kah-Gash, but we hoped to capture the pieces and hold them from the Demonata forever. We learnt to influence the pieces, but only as the Demonata did. We can keep them in place a while, but eventually they slip free.”