"Maybe it was to a great god," the town scholar tells him.

"Maybe it was to a great warrior," the town drunk tells him.

"Who cares?" Says his father.

Skizz gathers sticks on the hill by the temple, and he lingers by the door. It's open- a set of steps, seven, maybe, leading down into the dark.

He and all the other children are forbidden from playing there. It could be dangerous. The sandstone could crumble, filling the whole thing with sand. The stairs might be unsound. There could be spiders or skeletons down there in the dark.

This doesn't stop Skizz from peering inside. From wondering. From listening, and thinking sometimes maybe-

Maybe he hears someone down there.

-

When Skizz is ten- old enough to be brave without understanding the cost- he does go down the steps.

He brings torches because he isn't stupid, no matter what the Teacher says. He leaves them in nice rows down the steps, and he gets to count.

He was wrong. There are nine, not seven.

At the bottom is a room, held up with columns. The columns are carved all over with birds and beasts and leaves, things Skizz has never seen except in books and sometimes at the market when a trader comes in from far away on the great block byway.

There is a low shape that is too small to be a coffin, and on it is a box.

The box is made of a dark wood, and there is a mark on top inlaid in gold. It's very dusty but Skizz doesn't touch it. It seems like it would be- inappropriate.

He puts torches on the columns, and then faces the box again.

"Hi," he says. "I'm Skizz!"

Then he sits down, and he tells the box- which must, he figures with a child's perfect logic, be the source of the almost-voice he can barely hear- all about his day.

About his mother and his father, about lessons and stick gathering, about pranking Jerad, the absolute jerk.

He looks around at the carvings, at the box.

"Next time I'll bring a dustcloth and some oil," he promises.

-

Skizz makes good on his promise later that week. He brings a jar of oil and some rags he knows his mother won't miss, and every afternoon- when he should be gathering sticks- he cleans the temple.

It's slow going, of course, because Skizz doesn't really know what to do, so he imitates his mother and makes a mess of himself and the first column before he figures it out.

As he cleans, he talks to the box on its table, which he still hasn't touched. He mentions that the Librarian thinks it's a god and the drunk thinks it's a warrior and his father doesn't think about it at all.

"You know what I think?" Skizz says. "I think you're lonely."

Said, more quietly, "that's okay. I am too." Then, "we can be lonely together, can't we? That's just fine."

-

The traveling cleric pulls Skizz's parents aside when he is thirteen.

She explains, urgently and quietly, that their son blazes in her sight, so full up with holy magic that it's a miracle flowers aren't blooming where he walks. Have either of them noticed anything unusual? Have either of them seen a change in his routine?

No, they assure her, no Skizz is a good boy. He goes to lessons, he does his chores, he gathers sticks, he helps his mother in the market to sell her pots. He hasn't been scouted by any of the larger Conclaves. No one's said a word.

The cleric shakes her head. "Then whatever it is, they can't see it," she tells them.

Should we be worried?

"No. No, whatever has touched your son will become clear in time."

Is it dangerous?

"No. But it is unknown, and that can be frightening."

How do we know it?

"You will know it when he does."

-

Skizz, woozy and bloody, staggers down the steps.

He is sixteen, and his father is dead, and he cannot stay here anymore.

"I'm sorry," he tells the box. "I'm sorry, I don't want to leave you, buddy. So I'm not gonna. Don't be mad."

He picks up the box he has never touched before, and finds the strength to leave the small temple with its beautiful carvings, kept clean and neat.

He will not return to the little village in the desert for many years.

-

The first time Skizz kills a zombie with holy light, he is seventeen and he'd been meant to be tilling a farmer's field.

The zombie killing sort of puts the kibosh on that, but it does open up a whole new world of employment.

The town's cleric says, "I don't understand what I'm seeing. What are you?"

"Confused?" Skizz offers.

"What god do you serve? Who grants you your power?"

Skizz is older now. He thinks of the box, tucked into his things. He thinks of the little temple, the nine steps, the carved columns.

Skizz is wiser now. He says, "Search me!" with a smile that allows no further questions.

-

There's always just a little more sand where Skizz stops to rest.

It's never too much. It doesn't feel like he's sucking the life from the land, rather that a part of the land is shifting ever so slightly just for him.

For him and his buddy.

-

"It's a dangerous thing you carry, boy."

Skizz eyes the old man. It had barely been a fair fight, or much of a fight at all; bereft of his artifact, he'd been about as threatening as a zombie with no limbs.

"Can't say as I know what you're talking about," he says. "Don't struggle, man, I don't wanna make this worse."

"Do you even know what it is called? Where it's from?"

At the tilt of Skizz's head the man laughs. There's blood on his lips. It won't be long now. "You don't. Picked up a godpiece and you don't know anything about it, stars above. You are either the luckiest fool in the multiverse or the most cursed."

"You know it really depends on the day," Skizz says. "Any last words?"

"Yes. A warning. Gods do not love, boy. They are like a desert. All they do is take."

"Spoken like a man who never lived in the desert," Skizz says, and cuts off his head before he can choke on his own blood.

-

"Can you tell me what the I stands for?" Skizz asks. They're in a barn for the night, and his box is sitting beside him as he looks out the hay window at the stars. He cocks his head and listens.

You've never asked me anything directly before.

Skizz chuckles. "Well, bud, I'm a little drunk and I've decided to stop being afraid."

Impulse. I am Impulse.

"Impulse. Well, nice to meet you, I'm Skizz."

I know. Get some sleep, Skizz. We have a long trip tomorrow.

"Oh you're telling me."

-

Skizz?

"Yeah, buddy?" the Unclaimed Paladin says as they ride out of town, another zombie hoard cleared out, another crypt blessed to quiet.

If I ask you to do something for me, even if it's dangerous and I can't tell you why, will you?

Skizz laughs. "Impulse," he says to no one, "you point the way."

-

This desert is full of red sand, and there are demons here.

"We could eat you," says the one who is hiding by the cactus, watching Skizz and his diamond sword.

"You could," Skizz notes. "And if I die, please do. No one should starve."

The demon's head tilts. "You carry an unwanted thing."

"To you, maybe." Skizz finishes polishing the I on the box. "but then it's not yours."

"It isn't yours either."

"You're right. It's not. So are you gonna try and cross my wards, or can I get some shut eye?"

"The night is no safer than the day, human. The desert kills."

"Yeah," Skizz says as he set ups under the overhang, "I know."

He turns his back to the demon, cradles the box against his stomach, and sleeps until the sun starts to set.

-

In his dreams Impulse is almost as tall as he is, thick and strong, with long horns that shine the same gold as the I on his box. He smiles up at Skizz and his eyes are like emeralds half-buried in the sand. They are segmented, like a locust. Like the wings on his back.

"You really don't know what you've got," Impulse says. "And now it's too late to turn back."

"I never planned on turning back," Skizz tells him.

"I know." The hand that cups his cheek is calloused and covered in golden rings. "Wake up."

-

The desert acts mostly like a desert should, which is a relief. Still Skizz is tired and glad to see the temple that rises out of the rockface they approach. It is cut from sandstone- red and white- and is grander than the nine steps into the hole in the ground.

The demon is waiting.

"I didn't think you'd come," he says.

Skizz shrugs. "A buddy asked a favor."

"This will kill you. You understand that, don't you?"

Skizz looks down at the box, then up at the demon. "You got a name?"

"Tango. That is the name I give humans."

"Well, Tango, my name's Skizz. And I'm not that old, but you know what? It's been a good, eventful life with the person I love."

He squeezes the box a little tighter, ignores the way he can feel Impulse- feel his God- trying to be heard.

"So show me where I'm gonna die, Tango, buddy. And remember I said you could eat me, I was serious about that."

Tango shakes his head. "Just when I think I have humans figured out," he mutters, and leads Skizz up the stairs.

-

There is a raised dais on the floor. It is the last in a circle of seven.

All the other boxes are there, the same size, the same dark wood. An M, a P, a U, an L and an S and an E.

All are surrounded by bones, or fragments, or dust. One box has a scorch mark on it. Another has a dagger thrust into its wood, the handle long since rotted away and the blade held together with rust.

Skizz looks at the dais.

He looks down at the box.

"It's a good thing I wasn't cleaning this place," he tells the box, "or I'd have never finished."

He walks to the empty dais. Tango, back by the grand entryway lined in gold and lapis, watches.

Skizz finally listens again.

Don't do it. Don't. Skizz, please, I know, I asked you to come all this way, but please. I can wait. Just put me down and walk away, leave. You'll still have your power, you'll still be mine, and you'll be alive Skizz don't do it.

"Hey, Impulse?"

Skizz-!

"I love you, man." Skizz says, and puts the final box down.

-

Once upon a time, as these stories go, there was a god.

He was born of the rock beneath the deep desert, and he had been born to solve problems. The people asked for an answer and he provided it. He loved building. He loved helping. He loved his people.

But when a God cannot give the answers his people want, sometimes his people stop believing.

Sometimes they start blaming.

Sometimes, there are other gods and other answers, and sometimes there are wars.

Once upon a time, a god born of the desert was cut into seven pieces, one for every letter of the name his people gave him.

Once they were separated and as the god raged (for you can cut a god apart and they do not die, not like people do) he was taken to every corner the wind could touch.

There is a corruption that a god can catch, if they are not loved, if they are not worshipped. There is power there, but it costs.

Six boxes. Six paladins. Six lies.

Once upon a time, there was a God falling.

He needed one more piece before he hit the ground.

-

There is a little boy who lights his darkness with torches.

There is a young boy who cleans his shoddy temple, a temple meant for something else where the last Paladin dropped him before throwing himself into the sand to die in the desert sun.

There is a young man who steals him in the night, bleeding sluggishly from the first of many wounds that will scar and mark him like a jungle cat.

There is a man who carries a piece of him in his heart, and who wields his power in ways that make Impulse feel new again.

There is a Paladin named Skizz, who knew the lie for a lie but followed his oath anyway.

There is a Paladin of Impulse, and he loves his God more than the six before hated him.

There is a Paladin of Impulse.

And he does.

not.

die.

-

"Holy shit," Impulse says.

"Holy shit," Skizz replies.

"How in the shitfuck?" Tango adds, not that either Impulse or Skizz hear him because Skizz has just grabbed his emerald-eyed God around the middle and spun him, laughing, his every footstep converting the sand reddened by Impulse's blood into gold and beige and bronze and ochre, sage and ebony and all the colors between.

"Skizz," Impulse says, "Skizz ask me for something. Anything."

Skizz puts him down and smiles.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"I want to go where you go."

"Oh my god gag me with a shepherd's crook," Tango whines. "I can't believe you're gonna make me tell Etho we get you back with a paladin, ugh."

Impulse ignores him, and he smiles. When a god cries, it can drown worlds, but Skizz was fast enough to catch the tears. "Okay. Okay."

-

In a town in the desert- which was nothing but a village, years ago- there is a temple.

It's not grand. Nine steps down to a single room. The room is bigger now, the columns more properly carved. There are sigils on the floor which tell the story of a god who was slain and reformed.

On the dais, there is an open box with a charred mark on the lid, which might have once been an inlaid metal letter.

The box is empty, the temple too; there's a Paladin that comes through every few years and checks up on it. Sometimes he's alone, sometimes he's with a stranger- weird fellow, green eyes and horns.

Some of the older folks in the town know him and so does the local blacksmith Jerad, but most of the newer residents only know him as the Paladin of Impulse.