by Bill McCurry
Fingit winced. “We can’t come to an arrangement then. You may go.”
The Murderer shrugged. “Come on, Desh, let’s leave.”
Is he leaving? They’re fading. He’s really leaving—Krak’s eyeballs! “Wait! Maybe we can arrange something. I’m moved by a young man with such promise.”
“So, we have a deal with my memories of my mother?” The Nub chewed his lip.
“Well, no. But for just those memories, I’ll offer you one-tenth of a square.”
“Desh…” The Murderer shook his head.
“Quiet, Murderer!” Fingit said.
“Bib, can you advise me?” The Nub looked pathetic.
The Murderer gave a slow answer. “Son, one-tenth of a square will heal you, but you’ll still lose the leg.”
“I… I can’t believe this! This is insane! Bib! Damn it to hell and halfway home!”
“Was there an offer somewhere in that rant?” Come on, just say yes and go back to your horrible life.
“No! If I ever find that bastard with the spear, I’m going to beat him to death! All right, I’ll settle for—”
“Wait!” the Murderer shouted.
“Yes?” The Nub sounded like a puppy waiting for a treat.
“If you’re taking the lower offer, hold out for an extra hundredth of a square and keep it for yourself.”
“You didn’t find some clever trick…”
“Sorry, Desh. Remember, there are no good deals.”
The Nub looked down. “I want eleven-hundredths of a square in exchange for all memories of my mother. That’s my last offer.”
“Impossible!” Fingit snapped.
“Make it possible!” Desh snapped in the same tone.
This is just a fraction of the power I was hoping for. I won’t even be able to rebuild my workshop with this. I can’t believe it. Fingit whispered, “Harik! This is all your fault! You and your damned sorcerer!”
The God of Death gave Fingit a casual shrug.
Fingit said, “Well… all right, we have a bargain.”
“Send a tenth of a square to Bib and the rest to me!” The Nub’s voice started trembling.
“Agreed. We could make a separate deal for the leg, you know. An offer you’ll like better?”
“No. This is plenty.” The Nub’s body was sagging a lot for something that has no objective reality.
“We’re heading off now.” The Murderer grabbed the Nub’s spirit again. “We’ll let you boys get back to kissing each other’s asses.”
“Murderer, one more thing,” Harik said. “I’ve extended my offer to cancel your open-ended debt. You may kill the person you most care for anytime within the next week to lift your obligation. The intentional act itself will seal the agreement. Perhaps a good opportunity shall arise.”
The humans faded from sight.
“Don’t feel bad.” Sakaj caressed Fingit’s arm as he drew the Nub’s power. “You made the first real trade in years. We’re witnesses. We know exactly how much you got, just in case Krak asks us.”
“Never worry, my fine fellow.” Harik patted Fingit’s other arm. “I feel certain the Father of the Gods will use all that power sagaciously just as soon as he thrashes you into surrendering it to him.”
Eight
(Fingit)
If Lutigan flexes his biceps one more time, I’m going to build a dragon to bite him in half.
Fingit watched the God of War lean back on his marble throne and flirt with Krak’s seminude demigoddess servants. Sadly, dragon-building was only a dream right now, since Krak had appropriated almost every drop of power Fingit had squeezed out of the Nub. That included more than just his spoils from confiscating the Nub’s illusions and taking the memories of his mother. A few days after the Nub escaped bleeding to death, he came begging for more power. Fingit had promised the little thug horrible nightmares. Who snapped all that power up in an eyeblink? Krak.
Fingit raised his platinum goblet for an angry pull of ambrosia.
I was the one who got everybody to Unicorn Town. I was the one who bargained with that little walking sausage of a sorcerer. I was the one who brought in the power. And this is what Krak does with it.
Krak had proclaimed that the highest possible priority was to rebuild his sanctuary, the Temple of Lordly Penetration. The original temple had been built on a scale Krak thought fitting for the divine master of all existence, and it had enclosed more land than a god could comfortably circumnavigate between breakfast and lunch. It stood seventy stories high amid the Towering Mountains of Unfathomable Might, and it rested upon the slopes of the tallest peak, Mount Humility.
As an interior decorator, Krak had always balanced magnificence with austerity. He had filled the stark and elegant white marble structure with grottos of weeping simplicity, each containing a still pool of water, three stunted trees, a vase holding one brilliant dahlia, and a few butterflies in masculine hues. Artful entertainment halls blended into elegant seating and then into simple gardens, with walls adorned by no more than two tasteful paintings. Fingit had always suspected that those gracious living spaces stood atop underground warrens housing an extensive staff of demigods and imps. Those beings were probably packed into quarters that would make a cyanide-filled salt mine seem luxurious.
The original Temple of Lordly Penetration had been the grandest structure in the Home of the Gods, and therefore in all of existence. Cheg-Cheg had crushed it in an afternoon. The monster hadn’t left too many of the marble blocks still touching. In fact, he had eaten a surprising quantity of the marble and then deposited semi-digested marble all over the Gods’ Realm in piles that inspired both awe and horror.
The new Temple of Lordly Penetration was an opulent two-story villa just large enough to house six egotistical gods. Krak had included gold fixtures and floors inlaid with rich woods, which protected everyone within it from insanity. He had also deemed it wise to place an eighteen-foot-tall statue of himself in the foyer.
Fingit glanced at the marble effigy and then at his father. What a chunk of nose filth.
Just two things prevented Fingit from calling Krak a son of a bitch and walking out. First, Krak had fashioned the walls so that they would be invisible to three-hundred-foot-tall monsters. Just that morning, Cheg-Cheg had passed within spitting distance, which for him was about a mile, and never glanced at the temple. Second, before Krak did anything else with Fingit’s power, he had siphoned off enough to regain control of the impossibly searing light of the sun. He hadn’t yet mastered it the way he had in the old times, but he could certainly burn off an arm or leg when a god got too snotty.
Fingit took another drink. Despite his rage, he had yearned for ambrosia during the years of deprivation. Lutigan was still working to get those demigoddesses off into a discreet alcove. Harik was attempting to engage the God of War in an intellectual discourse on some pretentious crap or other, but Lutigan responded only one time in twelve. In the meantime, Harik sipped ambrosia and nibbled wedges of tin apple. Maybe golden apples would make a resurgence someday, or at least silver ones.
Sakaj sat on her marble throne as if it were a cocoon. Her black hair fell luscious around her shoulders, and she wore a simple red gown with no jewelry. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and folded her bare arms around them, and her eyes flicked from one fellow god to another.
The mighty Father of the Gods rose like a whale and placed his palms on the gleaming black table, which had been formed from a single piece of onyx. He looked virile and strong, but Fingit could see a little tremble in the hands and a bit of a gut on the old fellow. Krak cleared his throat. “Children, we stand on the first step of the stairway that will return us to glory. Man has suffered without our protection and guidance. We have now battered through the barriers so that we may return to mankind, and to our obligations. We have behaved as less than gods, and we have lagged in our duty. But now we will grasp once again the power to defend and nurture mankind as our destiny demands.” Krak lifted his d
iamond goblet. “To our destiny!”
The other gods jumped up and repeated the toast with their golden goblets upraised.
“And to mankind too, of course,” Krak added as he dried his lips with a napkin. “Sit, everyone! Now that that’s out of the way, what do we do about Cheg-Cheg? We must make plans.”
Don’t you mean it’s time for you to tell the serfs what you want them to do according to the plans you’ve already made? You clever old son of the Black Drifting Whores of the Universe.
Fingit looked down and wondered whether that was an insult or the literal truth. Then he banned even the tiniest sign of discontent from his expression.
Krak leaned forward. “It all comes down to power. Fingit has struck some respectable bargains with this Nub fellow, and well done, Fingit. Of course, since the Nub is new to all this, I was expecting a more favorable outcome, but it’s still nothing to be ashamed of.” Krak nodded at Fingit, while Harik sniffed and Lutigan sneered.
“Now, let’s sum up our progress!” Krak rubbed his hands together. A flicker of impossibly bright light showed through his fingers as he rubbed them. Every other god at the table froze into polite attention. “Gorlana has discovered a few opportunities. She’s found three minor healers—none worth naming—but they’ve all taken the standard ‘village healer deal.’ In case any of you have forgotten during your insanity, that’s a trickle of power as needed in exchange for a long life of personal suffering and misery, ending as a horrible crone who’s burned by the people she spent her life helping. Nothing fancy there, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a nice start.”
The Goddess of Mercy waved a hand in acknowledgment.
Krak nodded toward the God of War. “Lutigan drew a little good luck. He found some awful thug of a bandit with a bit of an aptitude for sorcery. Oddly, the little toad didn’t want the standard deal. He wanted wishes!” All the gods laughed hard. “Where do people get these ideas? Wishes indeed! Anyway, he accepted an unknown number of opportunities to make himself unseen by his enemies, in exchange for an agonizing death when his power fails at the most inopportune moment imaginable. Nice work, Lutigan.”
Lutigan smiled and flexed his biceps again. Fingit suppressed some insults and indulged a brief fantasy that included a thousand bunnies hurling a net over the mighty Lutigan, dragging him down, and chewing out his heart. And his brain, if they could find the withered thing, banging around inside his skull.
Krak tapped the table with a sound like a lead pipe whacking granite. “Harik has stumbled onto an astounding bit of luck. One of his pre-Veil sorcerers still lives, against all probability. Harik has contacted this Farmer and tells me the man is stuffed with potential trades. His brutality makes the Murderer look like a child that’s been running around kicking people in the shin. Harik is even updating the Farmer on the Murderer’s movements, so I doubt we’ll have to put up with the Murderer’s smart-ass comments much longer.
“Fingit, as I said, is cultivating the Nub full time, and we should see a nice return on that over the next couple of years. And Sakaj… well, we all know that deals involving the unknowable are challenging. But when they pay off, they’re the most profitable of all. Keep searching, my dear. I understand that the Freak has probably played out, but more opportunities are hiding out there. Never doubt it!”
Sakaj smiled and nodded at Krak with her eyes cast down.
Krak lowered his voice and let his smile dissolve. “Now that we’ve created this sanctuary of sanity, our highest priority is to increase and stabilize our inflow of resources so we can rebuild our strength.” Everyone nodded. “I see two possibilities. We could bring the rest of the gods into our plans.”
No one around the table moved. A few eyes shifted back and forth. Fingit assumed that no one wanted to speak in case it might encourage someone else to support this idea. Obviously, they should save all their fellow gods from insanity and degradation, and they would. Perhaps just not quite yet.
Harik stared at the table. “Would we be bringing in… Trutch as well?”
Krak coughed. “Well, if we bring in everyone, then of course your wife would be one of them.”
“Ah. I suggest that’s not the best option then.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was, anyway.” Krak smiled. Everyone around the table nodded and made noises of agreement. “We six should focus on breaking through to the world of man from this side. Then we won’t have to go to Unicorn Town—damn it, Fingit, now you’ve got me doing it! We won’t have to go to the Dark Lands to make deals. We won’t have to commit suicide every day, either, and frankly I’m tired of elevating myself. If we can work deals from here without all this suicide and Dark Lands business, our production could go up by an order of magnitude.”
After construction had begun on the Temple of Lordly Penetration, Krak had considered how the gods might improve the quality of the deals struck in Unicorn Town. He concluded that their greatest problem was that they no longer enjoyed the advantage of home territory. All of the gods found Unicorn Town to be creepy, and that distracted them during negotiations. To overcome this disadvantage, Krak had created within Unicorn Town a small replica of the gods’ traditional trading arena, including the great marble gazebo, the nourishing sunlight, and the bare patch of dirt on which sorcerers would stand to be duped and derided. The structure filled a space no bigger than a ballroom. While the landscapes of forest and fields were just painted on the walls, the sense of familiarity made a difference.
Krak paused and then raised his arms. “So, our path forward is decided!”
Fingit nodded just like everyone else. About what I expected. Krak drives the wagon to market, and the wee piggies do what they’re told. Even if they are divine wee piggies of radiant might.
Krak stood. “From this point on, there will be no expenditure of resources. None at all! Not so much as a new tiara, resurrecting an extinct animal for a pet, or a shot of overnight virility. Nothing! We hoard any and all resources that come in. Once we have enough, we’ll make a push at piercing the Veil.”
No one leaped up and cheered Krak’s plan, but no one objected out loud, either. Fingit understood that any unhappy soldiers would soon be out there with the other crazy gods, minus a limb or two. They bent their heads and accepted their father’s will.
“Follow me then!” Krak ordered. He walked around the table to the far wall, where six wooden chairs stood, each polished to a luster one could almost drink. Above each chair hung a silk noose attached to a beam overhead. Krak climbed upon his chair and began arranging a noose around his neck. Fingit followed Gorlana, Lutigan, and Harik, who were climbing onto their chairs.
“Wait,” Sakaj whispered from Fingit’s shoulder. “Stay a few moments. I need to talk to you alone.”
Fingit glanced at Sakaj, who winked. I can’t think of a single good thing that can come from staying. But if I don’t stay, I guess I’ll never know.
A minute later, Krak commanded everyone to leap off his or her chair. A minute after that, four gods hung dead from the beam, while Fingit and Sakaj stood on their chairs and stared past the bodies at each other.
“This feels a lot more awkward than I thought it would,” Sakaj said as she reached out to stop her father’s body from swinging.
Nine
(Fingit)
Fingit followed Sakaj onto Krak’s second-floor balcony that overlooked the Vale of Dominating Perfection. Nostalgia swirled around him as the sun touched the farther mountain peaks.
Before the Veil fell, the gods’ home had sprawled beneath an ineffable golden sun of heartrending beauty. After the fall, that sun devolved to a yellow sun of elegant allure, and then a pale, dusty sun of wholesome charm. Later, it shifted to an orange sun of adequate inoffensiveness, and eventually, it became a burnt-umber sun that could be said to at least have a good personality.
Fingit leaned against the rail and appreciated today’s sunset of plum, magenta, goldenrod, scarlet, nutmeg, and periwinkle. He estimated that si
nce power began flowing back into the Gods’ Realm, sunsets had regained a good 25 percent of their pre-Veil glory.
Maybe it’s closer to twenty-seven percent. Can I determine what the precise sunset-glory-recapture factor is? I’d need some lenses and a lot of copper wire. Fingit slipped into an engineer’s reverie as schematics and power ratios flowed through his mind.
Sakaj’s hand slipped onto Fingit’s shoulder from behind, wrinkling his new white robe woven from the hair of the finest sacrificial goats. Sakaj had snapped Fingit’s train of thought, but he maintained his poise. He was a god, and a god would never do anything so prosaic as to jump in surprise. He did bite his tongue quite sharply, however, which made him angry with himself and with Sakaj. He used a long, deliberative pause to give his tongue time to recover before he spoke. “Everyone seems happy, eh?”
Sakaj stepped back and nodded, staring into his eyes.
“Are you happy?” Fingit asked, more from politeness than from any real interest in her happiness.
Sakaj shook her head, still staring.
Fingit glared at her. “Hell, you’re not going to stop talking and start knocking yourself off again, are you? Because that shit loses its amusement value real quick.”
Sakaj smiled with obvious warmth. “No, I’m not going to do that.”
Fingit felt a bit sorry that he’d spoken so harshly. “What are you unhappy about then? We’re on the road to glory and comfort and power and victory over our indestructible enemy. We’re back!”
Sakaj shrugged. “I’ll be damned if I sit by and let those demented back-warts take all the glory for themselves. You heard Krak.” She clenched her fists and strutted around the room like a constipated gorilla, dropped her voice two octaves, and mouthed each word as if it could fill a cavern with her magnificence. “‘Nice job with the pissant village healers! Cultivate this warlord like he was a broccoli stalk! Sakaj’s bunch takes a long time to find, but oh, they’ll be worth it!’ Screw Krak and all the rest of those pathetic, self-congratulating invertebrates.”