An empty glass phial crashed to the warm stone floor when Callum slammed his fist down on his worktable. He had lived too long for the persistence of time to have much sway over his moods but these months of research had gone stagnant. The principles were sound, he knew, but the results were the same no matter how he treated the samples.

     There were few other men of science among the gods. Why that was, Callum himself had never understood. Mortals could only hope to toil briefly in search of truth before the next generation would start over, fortunate to be even one step ahead of their predecessors. As a god he possessed an unlimited potential for lengthy observation and a multitude of testing trials. Yet, for the first time since his childhood millennia ago, Callum had become frustrated and impatient.

     He reviewed the results again. Then again and again. He pored thoroughly over his long since memorized notes. He scrutinized the control samples against the results, all but begging for some minute difference to show itself. Finally he slumped down wearily, defeated, into a dusty old chair.

     Mortals would feverishly quest for the meaning of life but what truth Callum sought was the essence of death. The mechanisms of decay and decomposition he well understood both through field observations and detailed lab examinations. No, the question that plagued his mind was just what made mortals mortal. On any smaller scale the distinction between gods and mortals was negligible; mortal men possessed a similar cellular structure, a virtually identical anatomy for practical purposes and, in his own unpopular opinion, a quite advanced mental capacity. Yet the smallest disruption to the mortal system would result in death, accompanied and followed by decay.

     A god could be wounded, of course, but it was a trifling thing. While a sharp blade would easily part a god's flesh, mortal flesh would weep ichor while the mending would take days rather than the mere moments appropriate. That was assuming the wound even mended; often it seemed the very shock of the wound would be too much for the mortal constitution. It was a vulgar perversion of nature that a thinking man could fold over and die like a lesser beast.

     Through his research Callum believed the essential life-force of mortals was somehow tainted with, for yet lack of a better term, a mote of elemental death. If such a compound existed, he knew, a terrible panic would surely arise through society at word of the discovery! It was a little known fact that a god's flesh, if rent finely and kept apart, could eventually diminish beyond recovery. Even then, the flesh became as the dust of Gaia rather than putrefy. The very concept of a substance that could taint a god's life with mortal decay had driven the focus of his research for years now.

     For his part, Callum wasn't worried about protecting his people from an unlikely threat. If his hypothesis was correct and his efforts fruitful it would be a moot point to fear such an encroaching fate; what Callum sought was instead to cure mortality and uplift the pitiful mortals from their cycle of suffering. It was cruel of Gaia, he felt, to let her imperfect children fester for lost ages in such self-afflicted misery that had prompted the birth of his own people. If he were successful in this endeavor then he could very well usher in the most prosperous age in eons.

     It was with that desire in his heart that he rose from his seat and set back to work. He called for one of his assistants and directed the eager youngster to bring in a fresh course of samples. The few others were gone in the midst of disposing of the last failed batch when the first of the new specimens arrived. Though he took great care to explain the immeasurable value of its contribution to his work, he still failed to comprehend why it, like the uncounted others before it, struggled so energetically against the restraints.

Private laboratory, Southern capital, tenth century of Fourth Era