While Ryan and his team were busy playing a grand, cosmic game of smash-and-grab with the Gardener's old toys, a different kind of game was being played in the shadowy corners of the universe.
The Gardener had been wounded. Its mind, a perfect, logical thing, had been cracked by Ryan's chaotic, emotional defiance. It was confused, disoriented, and its control over its own systems was weakened. And in the great, cosmic ocean, when a big shark is wounded, the little fish get brave.
Lord Malakor, the spiky, shadow-king from the Conclave of gods, was one of those little fish. Well, a not-so-little fish. More like a different, slightly smaller, and much grumpier shark.
