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Ulutiu's body raced through the sky as a shooting star. "I will have no more
bastard races loose in the empire of my children!"
Othea watched a long time, until Ulutiu faded to a fleck of darkness in the
sky. She watched until that speck arced downward, and still she watched as it
splashed among the icebergs at Cold Ocean's distant heart. Then she looked
at Annam, and the tears in her eyes were as large as ponds.
"There shall be no more giant-kin," Othea promised.
"That is good." Annam smiled, to make plain she had pleased him. "For I
will not tolerate them."
Othea smiled not. Verily, she twisted her mouth into a sneer, and the sneer
was more angry than a fiend's snarl. "Neither shall there be more true giants."
"What?" Annam demanded, and he was not happy.
"I will bear no more races for you," Othea said again. In her eyes shone a
black gleam of anger, and it was a fury so cold that her tears turned to ice and
tumbled down her face like an avalanche. "I love Ulutiu's children more than I
love yours, and so I have done with you."
"I am the All Father!" Annam's voice tore at Othea's face as a fierce wind
tears at a mountainside. "You cannot refuse me!"
"Why can I not?" Othea demanded. "Will you punish me as you punished
Ulutiu? I welcome it!"
So mighty was Annam's fury that he could but roar, and the winds howled
as they had never howled before, on their breath bearing shards of ice that
scoured the plants from the soil and the soil from the stone. From his belt the
All Father took the great axe Sky Cleaver and raised it to strike.
His rage did not frighten Othea, for she had spoken in truth and would
gladly follow Ulutiu. When Annam saw this, the fury in his heart changed to
shock. Sky Cleaver slipped from his hand, and the axe sailed far over the
plains, until at last it came down on a mountain and split it asunder, and so
Split Mountain was created.
Annam did not see this, for his thoughts were as mad dragons, whirling
about his head in a tumult more befitting a mortal than a deity. He was the All
Father. It was his right to have Othea, and he could have her by force, if he
wished. Yet Annam was no evil god, and it would not please him to loose the
spawn of a wicked union on this young world. The ettin had been horrible
enough. Anything worse would destroy the empire of his children and not
strengthen it.
But Annam could not yield to Othea. He had seen that Toril would be a
world of many races, not just ogres and giant-kin, but of humans and dwarves
and dark-loving beings even more horrible. The All Father saw that if his
children were to fare well, they would need a wise and powerful king to lead
their empire.
So he spoke to Othea, saying, "You shall bear me one more giant, and he
shall be the greatest of all, wise and strong and just, for he shall be king of
giants."
"I have already borne you a titan," Othea replied. "Let him be king of the
giants."
"Nay!" Annam decreed, and his mighty voice rocked Othea on her heels.
"The titan is keen and strong and forthright, but he is also proud and vain. The
empire of my children must have a better king than that."
Annam took breath, drawing it not into his chest, but deeper into him, down
into his loins, and there he held it.
"Storm all you wish," Othea said. "I will not yield."
The All Father exhaled. The wind that came from his mouth was not a
tempest, but a divine zephyr, warm with the breath of spring and the promise
of life, and Annam blew this breeze upon Othea, so that it passed over her
body as chiffon passes over a bride's head, and the Mother Queen trembled.
No obsidian was ever as black as Othea's face grew then. "What have you
done, Annam?"
The All Father smiled, for his trick had pleased him well. "Can you not feel
the answer in your womb?" he asked, and in his eye he had the look of a
wyvern. "I have got a king on you."
"A king that shall never be born!" A bottomless rift shot across the plain, for
such was Othea's anger. "I will hold him until the end of time!"
"Ha! That you cannot do," Annam said. "If you try, he shall grow within you
until he splits your bulk asunder."
The Mother Queen gave thought to her husband's words, and after a time
she said, "Then will I spill him out early and summon Vaprak's brood. They
always have need of tender fodder!"
Annam's mouth fell open and out rushed the thunder and lightning. "He is
your child too!" the All Father roared. "You would not feed him to ogres!"
"Not if you have gone," Othea said, and now a crooked smile was upon her
craggy lips.
"You offer a bargain?"
"Leave Toril, and I will hold the infant until he can fight his own way from
my womb," Othea said. "But if you return before he is born, then will I force
him out, and then will Vaprak's brood feast on your spawn."
So cold was her voice that the clouds froze in the sky, and they fell to
ground to become the glaciers of the mountains.
The All Father grinned. "Well do I like this game, for my seed is strong and
will not long be denied," he proclaimed. "I shall return when my king-child calls
my name, and then shall I watch the empire of my children spread over Toril
as wind speeds across the plains."
Annam waved an arm toward the heavens. From his hand spilled a rainbow
of five colors; onto this rainbow he stepped, and climbed into the sky with
strides as long as rivers.
Othea watched him go, and when the blue firmament had swallowed him
up, she looked toward the heart of Cold Ocean. Though the distance was
immeasurably vast, she saw the terrible vengeance of her husband. There
Ulutiu lay upon an iceberg all streaked with crimson, his body twisted as
bodies cannot twist. From his ears trickled dark blood and from his mouth
bubbled red froth, and together they spilled into the gray waters of his sea.
"I swear the voice of Annam's child shall never sound outside my womb."
Though Othea but whispered, the waves caught her voice and carried it
across the waters to the ears of the Ocean King. "I wish I could avenge you
better, but the All Father is powerful and this little is all I can do."
Ulutiu raised his head and to his lips came a smile. Across the ice he
dragged himself, to where Cold Ocean lapped at the brink of his death-raft,
and into the crimson waters he plunged his arm. For a long time he remained
there, motionless, until it seemed the life had passed from his body, and the
Mother Queen wailed forth her grief. From her mouth spilled the Hundred-Day
Night, and that is why winter and darkness are as brother and sister in the
northlands.
But Ulutiu had not yet passed from this world. The Ocean King rolled onto
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