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Spirefather flickers into view, a hard light projection of a man. He is as men once were, when they first came to the red world, not as they are now. He is twice life-size, appearing like a god from the very beginning of human history.
    He is dressed richly, as befits a god. Behind him stands his wife, the Spiremother of Olm. She wrings her hands, face flickering from fright to hatred and back again. The Spirefather of Olm is stern and fearless. He speaks.
    “You have come to destroy me,” says the Spirefather.
    Yoechakenon nods once and readies his glaive.
    “Do you wish to?” asks the Spirefather.
    For the first time in several hours, the champion speaks. “It does not matter either way. I am a tool of fate.”
    “Ah. Do you know why you are to do this?”
    “It is fated,” says the champion.
    The Spirefather shakes his head. “Fate is a lie. You do not have to destroy me.”
    Yoechakenon does not agree. The wheels of the glaive spin.
    “Raise your weapon to me, and you will never be champion again.” He looks right at me, he can see me. “Kaibeli may tell you otherwise, but she does not know what my death will portend. Kill me, and the world will never be the same again. I will show you choice. I will free you with truth.”
    Yoechakenon is not surprised at the news of my presence. I am with him whenever I can be. He replies. “Then that is also fated. But that is not to be.” And he knows this is so, for soon he will be back in Kemiímseet, feted once again as the champion of the Empire, champion of Mars. That is a certainty, he can see the memory of it in his future. It happens; in many senses, it already has. But, and this is the truth, he thinks that he does not wish it to be so.
    He hesitates. He does not want to kill the Spirefather. He is tired, I can feel it. He is weary of death.
    The Spirefather puts his arm around the Spiremother of Olm. He does not intervene. The blades of the glaive draw sparks from the very stuff of reality as Yoechakenon spins the weapon about his head, a deadly orbit fixed by two deadly circles.
    He crosses the weapon back and forth over the bolus. Wounds gape. Strange liquids pour from them, red and brown and deep green. The hardlight projection winks out, a perfunctory end for a mighty spirit.
    “It is done,” he says. “The Spirefather is dead.”
    The spire shakes. Yoechakenon turns to leave, but he stops.
    Something is happening. Suddenly he is on his knees, the glaive clattering upon the floor, blades stilling instantly, lifespark dormant. “Kaibeli,” he gasps. “Oh, Kaibeli!” The bolus throbs upon the taproot, spilling its lifeblood quickly as it assails my Yoechakenon.
    I reach out to him, my duties entirely forgotten. I have known and loved Yoechakenon forever. He has been with me in one guise or another throughout Man’s long reign on the Red Planet. He and I are bound to the highest degree, and when he suffers, I suffer.
    I am buffeted by a hurricane of information pouring from the dying systems of the city; a welter of pain and distress, atrocities of every kind, cascade into his mind, the death throes of a city fifty-six thousand years old. Proud memories, pleasing memories, are interposed with rape and murder and blood and fire. The higher-dimensional shrieks of dying spirits scar his mind, he feels the skin peeling from the burning spires as his own. His personality is in danger of being destroyed. I realise then it is a suicide of sorts, the Spirefather’s death. A trap for the champion, that the other cities in the rebellious league might survive.
    There is little I can do. This is a Spirefather’s death curse, and Yoechakenon is letting it in. I am powerless before it. I hold tight to this man, whom I have loved for millennia. I hold him and stop him being swept away by the hates of mankind.
    It slows to a trickle, this torrent of pain. The bolus pulses, and the liquid runs but sluggishly from it, then ceases.
    Yoechakenon lies curled upon the