What have you seen since last you looked on me?" He said, "Misery and want, and fear, and death. I saw a beggar begging for help from a muddy stream.… - Tanith Lee

Kernik had stumbled on an immutable truth, a truth older than the world. Priests claimed the gods made men, but this was not so. Men made the gods. Firstly, by forming them in clay, by chipping them from stone. Secondly, and more importantly, by believing in them, believing in them utterly.

Various had been the cruelties of the goddess in the early years of her reign. At Azhrarn’s instruction she performed many deeds in order to educate the earth and the viciousness of the gods, and, more important, their indifference to all human suffering.

Flat or round, there has always been hate in the world.