In a clearing in the forest lies a rock older than time. On that rock, enthroned amidst thick vaults of light admitted by the trees overhead, resides an old and broken god. Still as stone in the gently buzzing silence, his ancient form squats indistinguishable from its seat: a forgotten idol, a warning of some hidden, unremembered evil that still hangs in the air, and creeps in the darkness. What was once an angry and fanged visage is now rendered passive, his sad eyes mere slits beneath a gently sloping brow. A thick paw of greying-black fur holds a globule of red flesh against his black lips; a posture of contemplation and mourning. At the foot of the rock infant bones lie torn and scattered amongst dead leaves.

Through half closed eyes he surveys his former realm of power - not so much ruin as absence. The great halls of the forest, naves of light-suspended life and transepts of living matter still susurrate with teeming millions upon millions, yet the sound the god listens intently for, the beating, regulating mother-sound of the forest, is gone. Beyond the immediate chaos of chatter and buzz there is a shroud of emptiness. A red sky glimpsed through the canopy augurs ill. The god is alone. It will be night soon.

Shifting slowly, willing stiff old bones against eternity, the god drops down from his seat and approaches the remains of his cruel feast. With care, he timidly begins picking and sorting the fragments, occasionally snuffing a piece of bone or fur. In careful constellations he repositions the pieces, tracing lines of blood as though scrying for signs of an uncertain future: signs that might suggest that his sacrifice has been successful, that a break with the terrible secret of his destiny has been made. Rocking backward in frustrated incomprehension he covers his ears as though to staunch the overwhelming nothing that greets his unaskable question.

As the forest's evensong encroaches upon the quiet scene, the chattering and calling seem to mock the old god's suffering. Suddenly his doleful mien is racked with a resurgence of the tumult since passed. Flaring red teeth at the bloody sky he howls in sorrow and anger, disturbing anew the neat piles of gore. He rails wordlessly at the mother who showed him his fate in the stars, against the mother from whose womb in the forest was born his own bloody future: a mighty godhead overthrown by its scion. A malevolent prerogative born of oblivion overcame all: the old god had sought to prevent his destiny.

Quietening now, his old digits caress a patch of fur. He raises the matted clump to his muzzle, keening softly, but already the odour of life has gone. To render indecipherable what he can never comprehend, he scatters the remains, but gently this time. He turns away from the rock and scans the forest floor. This bloody rite awaits its final consummation. The god picks up the scent and passes into darkness.

Night falls three times before the old god reaches the forest perimeter. Clear above the thinning trees a fat moon casts pools of light amongst the border foliage and floods the open ground beyond; silvered realms overlooked by the death's head awnings of the forest. The old god keeps to the shadows.

The infant's scent, faint though still distinct, has altered during the course of the hunt. Tracked through swamps in the midmorning heat, the overriding tang of fear has given way to a more subtle musk of sureness and strength. Where at first the trail led wildly to and fro amongst the trees and lianas, doubling back to confuse the tracker with dead ends and feints, it now moves steady and direct toward the forest's edge. The old god has followed this bold scent as it has blended with the ancient ores of the earth, becoming corrupt with the stench of fire and death. As darkness falls, at the edges of his universe, the god catches one more faint whiff: that of guile. At the far bank of a shallow-swift brook the trail goes dead. The old god hides in the dark, scanning this new and hostile territory for strange movements, strange eyes seeking ingress into his dominion.

Sensing danger, the old god breaks cover, sinews vibrating with unfamiliar fear. Loping along the forest margins he dimly perceives a presence in a hollow through which a gathering stream falls plashing into a still pool beneath. He approaches quietly, scouting round the head of the falls before clambering down to the sandy shore of the pool. Here, illuminated by the strong tropical moon, he finds at last what he has been searching for. Tracks in the earth: the hunt has resumed. Quickening now, he follows the faint trail as it moves along the water's edge, blood and rage pounding in the old god's ears. Sensing his quarry's proximity he breaks into a charge, skirting a small outcrop in furious bounds, fangs and muscles poised to unleash bloody annihilation. He stops and crouches in terror.

A footprint. A final clear impression in the sand at the foot of a rocky shelf, luminescent at the water's edge. Slowly and fearfully, all rage dissipated, the old god approaches the strange imprint. Moaning softly he traces an outline of the figure before him. His own rough paw, its power and dexterity, now awkward and primitive set against the fresh perfection in the ground. In stunned incomprehension he compares the rough prints that stretch out behind him with the finely balanced contours here: so similar, yet so alien.

A movement on the far bank arrests the old god's attention. Peering across the glassy surface of the water he spies a figure, crouching like himself, half-lit by the full moon's luminescence. Watching. Turning to confront this mute observer, their eyes meet and become fixed in a stare of mutual half-recognition, close by but separate. Each mirroring the other, and both mirrored in the glistening water below, all physical differences are mere nuances of form, ripples spreading from the centre affecting a skull here, a limb there: subtle distortion. The old god understands that these physical mutations are less important than that great change that cannot be seen, that which he can barely grasp, but which is hinted in the inquisitive pale eyes of his observer: fear, yes; but power also.

Storm clouds gather high above the forest, choking the moon and extinguishing the pale fire that has burned upon the water. Two figures stand on opposite banks, two forks of a branch rent in two for all time. The hunt is over. The old god stares into the darkening eyes of the future. Dejected and defeated he commences the long crawl back to his dark and broken kingdom. The other, having caught in the countenance of his past a wild and primal memory, turns his face toward Elysian fields, rises and walks.

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