Bad Faith

by Jon Hollins

  “Once,” Will said. And all noise seemed to drop away at the word.

  “Once,” he said again. “Before. Previously. Our former gods. No longer.”

  And there was a bite to Will’s words now.

  “They were cast down, these gods. They were deposed. They were replaced. And who did that? Who threw them down, as we would Barph?”

  Lawl needed to gain control of this situation quickly. “Your enemy!” he called. “Barph—”

  “You did!” Will rode over him with a voice like cannon fire. “You took your faith in these failed figures away. And they fell. They tumbled. That is your power. You toppled gods. All of you. You have trod this path before! You tread it again! Your refusal to be oppressed! Your refusal to bow to tyrants!”

  And Lawl felt it now. The worship. The adoration. The fervor. As the crowd chanted and howled and yelled, he felt it all rushing past him, flowing through his fingers and pouring into Will.

  “You refuse again!” Will was still shouting. “You stand proud again! You lift me up! You place me upon your shoulders! You give me the power to throw down Barph! You! You make me your champion! Your power in me!”

  He strode the boards now, like some carnival barker. Lawl and the others were forgotten, discarded props, straw men already burned down.

  “There will be no more tyrants. There will be no more petty power-mongers. No more gods of nothing. Now there is me! Now you have chosen me!”

  And now Lawl saw Will’s face truly in the light. He saw the wolfish smile again. Saw the way the skin was draped over the leering muscles and the bared teeth. He saw the hunger in Will, and he knew what this was.

  And proud as he was, Lawl fled the stage.

  48

  The Voyeur

  Barph watched the world slip by beneath him. He watched as his priests kicked and beat at those who defied his orders, at those who struggled so futilely against the chaos he had decreed be sown. He watched as those very people stuck spears into his priests’ guts. He watched his priests die, their eyes cast imploringly up at him. He watched their hope die with them.

  He stood in a heavenly garden, leaning on a wall. The bricks, once so neatly pointed, now crumbled beneath his arms. Someone had tried painting some of them. They smelled faintly of piss and stale wine.

  He began to walk through the tangle of overgrown weeds and brambles. Toil had used to care for these gardens. He had cared so very much for them. He had killed mortals who had dared to compare their gardens to his. The memory made Barph smile. Then it did not. He stopped, chewed his lip pensively. He pulled a rose from the nearest tangle of branches and rolled it back and forth between his fingertips, feeling the thorns prick at his skin.

  He had expected his and Will’s confrontation back in Vinter to be the end of Will’s little venture. The conflict had come earlier than he had been hoping for, but he had known the fun couldn’t last forever. Will could not ever actually win. He could just twist futilely, fighting with just enough vigor to make life interesting, but eventually even Will would realize exactly how pathetic his efforts were.

  And so, face-to-face with Will, Barph had decided to end things then and there. And he had done it with joy. It was best to go out on a high note, after all. And so Barph had defeated Will and mocked him. He had killed Will’s dragon allies. And he had annihilated the spirit of Will’s men.

  Perhaps, looking back, the price had been a little higher than he had expected. Perhaps he had left the field of engagement a little earlier than he had anticipated, but … he had won. He had crushed Will and his rebels.

  A thorn on the rose pierced Barph’s skin. He winced, dropped the rose, ground it beneath his heel.

  Will Fallows had not gone away. He had not faded into amusing insignificance. He had not even taken to drowning his sorrows in a bottle.

  Will Fallows had had the audacity to thrive.

  He could feel Will’s power now, like a slight pressure against the side of his head. A sense of depression.

  He could still end things if he wanted. Of course he could. Their last meeting … He had been caught off guard. Will’s power was still nothing that could truly affect Barph’s dominance. But it was still there. Still nagging. Still refusing to go away.

  And what if Will’s power continued to grow? What if they met and Barph was caught off guard again?

  He summoned a thunderbolt to replace the discarded rose. He held it crackling in his hand. It was almost weightless. The electricity tickled his skin.

  He looked down, saw Will Fallows. He was back in Verra after his little trip into the Analesian Desert. It had been amusing to push Balur’s old tribe into their path. Certainly the slaughter had not quite lived up to Barph’s expectations, but watching Balur squirm had been fun all the same.

  Now Will paced back and forth among the sleeping forms of his followers. Occasionally he looked blankly up at the heavens. His eye failed to see Barph looking back down at him, though. He was little more than blind.

  Barph hefted the lightning bolt. He could throw it with enough force that Will would be nothing but a smear across the pages of history.

  And yet … and yet …

  He had always mocked Lawl for throwing thunderbolts. Had always told his father that he used them because he was too stupid to come up with a better solution.

  Barph hesitated for a moment, enjoying the memory. The look of outrage on Lawl’s face. Betra’s eyes wide. Cois failing to hide hir smile. The sizzle across his arse cheeks as Lawl had flung the bolt at him.

  He smiled. Old days.

  Dead days. And it was the other gods who had killed them.

  Barph let the thunderbolt fizzle. There were other—more amusing—ways to deal with Will Fallows.

  49

  Breaking Faith

  Another guard tugged his forelock as Will walked past. Will only just remembered to acknowledge the gesture.

  He had owned sheep before. He remembered it clearly. It was as if he had seen a play about the whole thing. Quite recently. He remembered the players, the names. He remembered the emotions that had played across their faces. He remembered how it had felt to own sheep. Counting heads. Fretting when one went absent. Caring for their needs. Feeding them. Helping them thrive. And then, when it was time, holding their heads back so he could slit their throats.

  My flock, he thought. That’s how I think of them. Like they’re sheep.

  He knew that was wrong. He knew he shouldn’t feel that way. But he did.

  He should talk to Lette. Talking to Lette helped.

  Lette was asleep. He should let her sleep.

  She still felt human to him, at least. And Quirk and Afrit. Balur too, which made him smile, given that Balur wasn’t human at all. Cois, if he concentrated hard enough, could feel meaningful. But the rest of them? Not even Lawl felt as if he mattered much. Not even the dragons.

  What if Lette stopped feeling that way to him? What if he stopped caring whether she got the rest she needed or not?

  What if she stopped caring for him?

  What if she worshipped him?

  He rubbed his head, trying to excise the thoughts. Trying to find some sort of peace. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to curl up beside Lette and find oblivion.

  He kept walking, away from the camp, away from the sleeping bodies, and away from the throbbing pulse of their adoration. Maybe if he walked far enough away he could get some rest.

  He headed out into the hills. And he could have walked faster. He could have folded space and fled. He had that in him now. But he did not. He knew he wasn’t really running away. A shepherd didn’t leave his flock.

  One of the hills of the Barrons was taller than the others, rising up to a sharp peak overlooking the resting horde. An old ruin was perched at its summit—an old temple to Toil or Cois perhaps. Maybe even to Barph. He headed there, clambering hand over hand when necessary, waiting for the soothing strain of aching muscles, but it never came.

  When he reached the
summit, whatever power had once resided in the place was long gone, drained away into the centuries. Now it was just broken stone columns, shadows, and ivy.

  But … wait. Seriously? Was there really an actual shepherd out here?

  An old man was jerking upright from where he had been lying against the ruined stump of an old fountain. Will could see a bedroll and the dying remains of a fire. He held a crook and was wrapped in a thick traveling cloak, the hood pulled up to obscure his features.

  “What?” the shepherd said, blinking into the darkness. “Is someone there?”

  Will almost laughed. Almost.

  “You are a poor actor, Barph,” he said. His initial surprise was over. The time when such illusions could have fooled him was long past now. But still he threw up his own. He clothed himself in an image of himself, something he could fling one way while he dived another. And that time was coming. Beneath the illusion of easy indifference, he tensed his muscles.

  The shepherd straightened, pushed back his hood. Barph grinned out at him, teeth as white as stars in the night.

  “Hello, Will.”

  This would be the end of it. Just the way Barph said the words, Will was sure of it. And would he be strong enough? Fast enough?

  He knew he was not. He knew there were still so many miles to go. And if he fought here, he would never get to travel them.

  But surely Barph knew that too.

  And Barph was not attacking him. Could there be an opening here? A moment when he could seize an advantage?

  “Why are you here?” Will managed to growl.

  Barph shrugged. A movement too careless to actually be careless. “Just to talk. I have no one to talk to anymore, Will.”

  A strange play for sympathy. So misplaced. So unbelievable. Could it be a sleight of hand somehow? Still Will started to close the distance.

  “You lie,” he said. “All you do is lie.”

  Barph shrugged. “Honestly, my trade is more in half-truths than straight lies. It’s far more entertaining that way.”

  “Anything you’re here to tell me,” Will said, “I can’t trust.” He could feel his anger like a beast inside him, raising its shaggy head. But he had to bide his time.

  “You haven’t asked what I want to talk about,” said Barph. “Quite frankly, that feels a little impolite.”

  And he turned his back on Will.

  Will’s anger almost got the best of him, almost sent him skittering forward in a suicidal charge. He heaved back on its leash. He had to play this smarter.

  Instead, he sent his illusory self stepping forward, gathered shadows around himself, stood where he was. And when Barph turned back, where would he look?

  “I have no interest in hearing it,” he had his illusion say. “It will be a lie.”

  “A half-truth,” said Barph. “We went over this.”

  Will again resisted the urge to rush Barph while his back was still turned. He had to be stealthy. He slipped off to the side, slipped a knife from his belt.

  “I remember a time before I took the Deep Ones’ blood into me,” Barph said, looking off over the Verran landscape. “A time before I was divine. I remember what it was like to change. We all do. All of us gods.”

  Of all the things he could say, Will had not expected that.

  “Hard,” Barph said. “Isn’t it?”

  And what was this? Why was Barph here? This had to be an attack. But was it more subtle than that? Was it an attack on his confidence? On what the power was doing to him? Will knew he was different now. But this was what it took. He kept stalking.

  “There is no truth here,” he had his illusion say again. It was as much for him to hear as Barph.

  “I know how you feel about me, Will,” Barph said. He still hadn’t turned around. “I know so many things now. It’s …” There was a slight hitch in his voice. A pantomime, Will was sure. “… different now. With all of this inside me. With all that I am now.” Will kept moving. “And it strikes me that of all the people in the world, there are not so many people who could understand that.”

  Will almost laughed before he could throw the sound to his illusion. “You’re appealing to my sympathy? I thought you were meant to be the trickster god. Don’t you have a reputation to maintain?”

  “No, Will.” Barph’s voice was distant. “Not sympathy. I’m just … nostalgic. Simpler days. When I was Firkin. When we sat and talked.”

  For twenty-five years Barph had pretended to be someone he was not: a mentor, a friend, almost a father figure for more of those years than Will cared to think upon.

  And gods, whichever way this went, Will would be glad for an opportunity to fight this god. “Well,” his illusion said through gritted teeth, “you should have thought about that before you cut my throat.”

  Barph cocked his head to one side. And then, so very, very slowly, he began to turn.

  Will held his breath. Because this would be the moment that everything hinged upon. This could be the decisive moment in Avarran history: Was Barph talking to him or to the illusory simulacrum of him?

  He had penetrated Barph’s own illusions easily, of course. It was likely Barph could do the same to his. Except … Will knew that not every flavor of divinity was exactly the same, and his illusory powers had not come directly from the Deep Ones. Rather they were secondhand, transferred to him from Cois. Who knew what the cocktail of divine sources would allow him to do?

  “You’ll lose her,” Barph said, still turning, still bringing his eyes around, yet to find their resting place.

  And Will couldn’t even answer.

  “We all lost people,” Barph said. “It’s inevitable.” He shrugged. “Or maybe that’s a half-truth. A lie you can ignore. Perhaps you won’t leave her.”

  And he said it to the illusion.

  Will actually couldn’t believe it. This was the moment to strike. It couldn’t be clearer if his own followers suddenly burst out of nowhere and sang a jaunty tune about how this was the moment to strike.

  Forty yards left to close. Still moving slowly, still keeping shadows and silence clustered about him, Will kept on closing the distance. But he needed to buy time.

  “You came here,” his illusion asked, “to give me relationship advice?”

  “No.” Barph shook his head and Will braced. But Barph just stood where he was, looking oddly contemplative. “I didn’t come here for any of this. But now … now I suppose what I really want to do is talk about old times. About the world when it was young. About who we used to be. Me and Cois and Lawl and all the rest. About when Lawl first united us. When we had just risen up and stolen power for ourselves. A time before I hated all of them.”

  Will was thirty yards away now, creeping, body held low, praying that he wouldn’t kick a stone or be sent sprawling by a stray root.

  “There was a time when Lawl wasn’t a dick?” he had his illusion say. It bought time.

  Barph smiled. And it was a genuine smile.

  “Does he grate on you, Will?” he asked. “And no, he was always a prick. But he used to carry it better. One can be a prick when one is full of revolutionary fervor. Once one is in control, though, it rapidly loses its appeal. But he liberated us all. It was his plan that set us free. And so we tolerated him.” The smile became a sneer. “Does any of that sound familiar, Will?”

  Both Will and his illusion grimaced.

  “I’m not the one in control,” he said. “I’m not the sole god reigning over the world. I didn’t connive for that position.”

  It was Barph’s turn to grimace. “No,” he said. “You are not.” He turned. Will froze. Barph’s eyes were about to sweep straight over him.

  And they did. And they kept moving. Barph made no indication of having seen anything.

  Twenty-five yards.

  “Regrets?” Will’s illusion said. There was the hint of a weak point here.

  “No,” said Barph, almost flinching. “They deserved it. I deserved it. This is justice. This is right.
This is … this is what the world needs. I’m what the world needs. I’ve set it free. I’ve liberated it from the strictures Lawl put on it.”

  “Liberated?” Will’s illusion was as outraged as he was. “You’ve visited death and destruction on the world! You’ve ruined lives! You’ve killed thousands, hundreds of thousands. Perhaps millions. That’s not liberty. That’s genocide.”

  “So humans are worse off.” Barph shrugged. “What about the birds in the sky? What about the squirrels in the trees? What about the giants hunted and oppressed? What about the Analesians trapped in the desert? Why are your human concerns so important, Will? Am I not god of all things? Wheat grows free now. Hedgerows can sprawl as they were intended to do. Why are their concerns less important to me?”

  “You’re insane.”

  It really hit Will. Barph was out of his fucking gourd. He had always thought it was something vindictive or petty or cruel, but Barph was just utterly nuts.

  “I simply have a broader perspective.”

  “That’s why the other gods punished you. That’s why they condemned you to eight hundred years of solitude. Because you’re unhinged.”

  Barph leaned forward, civility slipping away, teeth bared. “They did that because they’re fucking animals, Will. They’re beasts, and they deserved to be treated as such. They had been beautiful and wonderful. And I had strived to make the world beautiful and wonderful just for them. I kept their lives interesting, exciting. I entertained them. I made the millennia pass. Do you have any idea how fucking boring eternity is, Will? Are you hoping to discover it with that petty scrap of divinity in you? I made the years tick by. I brought them highs and lows. I brought them unpredictability. I brought them chaos. I brought them wine, for fuck’s sake, Will. And what did they do to me?”

  “They stopped you,” Will’s illusion said. “Because you had to be stopped.”

  Ten yards now.

  Barph stared at him, wild-eyed, for a moment. And then, abruptly, all the tension went out of his body, and he threw his head back and laughed. He roared at the heavens.