The Kingdom of Gods

by N. K. Jemisin

  “Tickle her, too!” Dekarta cried. Shahar threw him a glare, but he only giggled, too giddy with play-pleasure to be repressed so easily. I had a fleeting urge to lick his hair, but it passed.

  “I’m not feeling left out,” she said.

  I petted Dekarta to settle him and to satisfy my grooming urge, and considered what to do about Shahar. “I don’t think tickling would suit her,” I said at last. “Let’s find a game we can all play. What about, hmm … jumping on clouds?”

  Shahar’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Jumping on clouds. Like jumping on a bed but better. I can show you. It’s fun, as long as you don’t fall through a hole. I’ll catch you if you do — don’t worry.”

  Deka sat up. “You can’t do that. I’ve been reading books about magic and gods. You’re the god of childhood. You can only do things children do.”

  I laughed, pulling him into a headlock, which he squealed and struggled to get free of, though he didn’t struggle all that hard. “Almost anything can be done for play,” I said. “If it’s play, I have power over it.” He looked surprised, going still in my arms. I knew then that he had read the family records, because during my captivity, I had never once explained to the Arameri the full implications of my nature. They had thought I was the weakest of the Enefadeh. In truth, with Naha swallowed into mortal flesh every morning, I had been the strongest. Keeping the Arameri from realizing this had been one of my best tricks ever.

  “Then let’s go cloud jumping!” Deka said.

  Shahar looked eager, too, as I offered her my hand. But just as she reached for my hand, she hesitated. A familiar wariness came into her eyes.

  “L-Lord Sieh,” she said, and grimaced. I did, too. I hated titles, so pretentious. “The book about you —”

  “They wrote a book about me?” I was delighted.

  “Yes. It said …” She lowered her eyes, then remembered that she was Arameri and looked up, visibly steeling herself. “It said you liked to kill people, back when you lived here. You would do tricks on them, sometimes funny tricks … but sometimes people would die.”

  Still funny, I thought, but perhaps this was not the time to say such things aloud. “It’s true,” I said, guessing her question. “I must’ve killed, oh, a few dozen Arameri over the years.” Oh, but there had been that incident with the puppies. A few hundred, then.

  She stiffened, and Deka did, too, so much that I let him go. Headlocks are no fun when they’re real. “Why?” asked Shahar.

  I shrugged. “Sometimes they were in the way. Sometimes to prove a point. Sometimes just because I felt like it.”

  Shahar scowled. I had seen that look on a thousand of her ancestors’ faces, and it always annoyed me. “Those are bad reasons to kill people.”

  I laughed — but I had to force it. “Of course they’re bad reasons,” I said. “But how better to remind mortals that keeping a god as a slave is a bad idea?”

  Her frown faltered a little, then returned in force. “The book said you killed babies. Babies didn’t do anything bad to you!”

  I had forgotten the babies. And now my good mood was broken, so I sat up and glared at her. Deka drew back, looking from one to the other of us anxiously. “No,” I snapped at Shahar, “but I am the god of all children, little girl, and if I deem it fitting to take the lives of some of my chosen, then who the hells are you to question that?”

  “I’m a child, too,” she said, jutting her chin forward. “But you’re not my god — Bright Itempas is.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Bright Itempas is a coward.”

  She inhaled, her face turning red. “He is not! That’s —”

  “He is! He murdered my mother and abused my father — and killed more than a few of his own children, I’ll thank you to know! Do you think the blood is any thicker on my hands than on his? Or for that matter, on your own?”

  She flinched, darting a look at her brother for support. “I’ve never killed anyone.”

  “Yet. But it doesn’t matter, because everything you do is stained with blood.” I rose to a crouch, leaning forward until my face was inches from hers. To her credit, she did not shrink away, glaring back at me — but frowning. Listening. So I told her. “All your family’s power, all your riches, do you think they come from nowhere? Do you think you deserve them, because you’re smarter or holier or whatever they teach this family’s spawn these days? Yes, I killed babies. Because their mothers and fathers had no problem killing the babies of other mortals, who were heretics or who dared to protest stupid laws or who just didn’t breathe the way you Arameri liked!”

  Appropriately, I ran out of breath at that point and had to stop, panting for air. Lungs were useful for putting mortals at ease but still inconvenient. Just as well, though. Both children had fallen silent, staring at me in a kind of horrified awe, and belatedly I realized I had been ranting. Sulking, I sat down on a step and turned my back on them, hoping that my anger would pass soon. I liked them — even Shahar, irritating as she was. I didn’t want to kill them yet.

  “You … you think we’re bad,” she said after a long moment. There were tears in her voice. “You think I’m bad.”

  I sighed. “I think your family’s bad, and I think they’re going to raise you to be just like them.” Or else they would kill her or drive her out of the family. I’d seen it happen too many times before.

  “I’m not going to be bad.” She sniffed behind me. Deka, who was still within the range of my eyesight, looked up and inhaled, so I guessed that she was full-out crying now.

  “You won’t be able to help it,” I said, resting my chin on my drawn-up knees. “It’s your nature.”

  “It isn’t!” She stamped a foot on the floor. “My tutors say mortals aren’t like gods! We don’t have natures. We can all be what we want to be.”

  “Right, right.” And I could be one of the Three.

  Sudden agony shot through me, firing upward from the small of my back, and I yelped and jumped and rolled halfway down the steps before I regained control of myself. Sitting up, I clutched my back, willing the pain to stop and marveling that it did so only reluctantly.

  “You kicked me,” I said in wonder, looking up the steps at her.

  Deka had covered his mouth with both hands, his eyes wide; of the two of them, only he seemed to have realized that they were about to die. Shahar, fists clenched and legs braced and hair wild and eyes blazing, did not care. She looked ready to march down the steps and kick me again.

  “I will be what I want to be,” she declared. “I’m going to be head of the family one day! What I say I’ll do, I’ll do. I am going to be good!”

  I got to my feet. I wasn’t angry, in truth. It is the nature of children to squabble. Indeed, I was glad to see that Shahar was still herself under all the airs and silks; she was beautiful that way, furious and half mad, and for a fleeting instant I understood what Itempas had seen in her foremother.

  But I did not believe her words. And that put me in an altogether darker mood as I went back up the steps, my jaw set and tight.

  “Let’s play a game, then,” I said, and smiled.

  Deka got to his feet, looking torn between fear and a desire to defend his sister; he hovered where he was, uncertain. There was no fear in Shahar’s eyes, though some of her anger faded into wariness. She wasn’t stupid. Mortals always knew to be careful when I smiled a certain way.

  I stopped in front of her and held out a hand. In it, a knife appeared. Because I was Yeine’s son, I made it a Darre knife, the kind they gave to their daughters when they first learned to take lives in the hunt. Six inches straight and silvery, with a handle of filigreed bone.

  “What is this?” she asked, frowning at it.

  “What’s it look like? Take it.”

  After a moment she did, holding it awkwardly and with visible distaste. Too barbaric for her Amn sensibilities. I nodded my approval, then beckoned to Dekarta, who was studying me with those lovely dark eyes of his. Remembering o
ne of my other names, no doubt: Trickster. He did not come at my gesture.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said to him, making my smile more innocent, less frightening. “It’s your sister who kicked me, not you, right?”

  Reason worked where charm had not. He came to me, and I took him by the shoulders. He was not as tall as I, so I hunkered down to peer into his face. “You’re really very pretty,” I said, and he blinked in surprise, the tension going out of him. Utterly disarmed by a compliment. He probably didn’t get them often, poor thing. “In the north, you know, you’d be ideal. Darre mothers would already be haggling for the chance to marry you to their daughters. It’s only here among the Amn that your looks are something to be ashamed of. I wish they could see you grown up; you would have broken hearts.”

  “What do you mean, ‘would have’?” asked Shahar, but I ignored her.

  Deka was staring at me, entranced in the way of any hunter’s prey. I could have eaten him up.

  I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him. He shivered, though it had been only a fleeting press of lips. I’d held back the force of myself because he was only a child, after all. Still, when I pulled back, I saw his eyes had glazed over; blotches of color warmed his cheeks. He didn’t move even when I slid my hands down and wrapped them around his throat.

  Shahar went very still, her eyes wide and, finally, frightened. I glanced over at her and smiled again.

  “I think you’re just like any other Arameri,” I said softly. “I think you’ll want to kill me rather than let me murder your brother, because that’s the good and decent thing to do. But I’m a god, and you know a knife can’t stop me. It’ll just piss me off. Then I’ll kill him and you.” She twitched, her eyes darting from mine to Deka’s throat and back. I smiled and found my teeth had grown sharp. I never did this deliberately. “So I think you’ll let him die rather than risk yourself. What do you think?”

  I almost pitied her as she stood there breathing hard, her face still damp from her earlier tears. Deka’s throat worked beneath my fingers; he had finally realized the danger. Wisely, though, he held still. Some predators are excited by movement.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she blurted. “Please. Please, I don’t —”

  I hissed at her, and she shut up, going pale. “Don’t beg,” I snapped. “It’s beneath you. Are you Arameri or not?”

  She fell silent, hitching once, and then — slowly — I saw the change come over her. The hardening of her eyes and will. She lowered the knife to her side, but I saw her hand tighten on its hilt.

  “What will you give me?” she asked. “If I choose?”

  I stared at her, incredulous. Then I burst out laughing. “That’s my girl! Bargaining for your brother’s life! Perfect. But you seem to have forgotten, Shahar, that that’s not one of your options. The choice is very simple: your life or his —”

  “No,” she said. “That’s not what you’re making me choose. You’re making me choose between being bad and, and being myself. You’re trying to make me bad. That’s not fair!”

  I froze, my fingers loosening on Dekarta’s throat. In the Maelstrom’s unknowable name. I could feel it now, the subtle lessening of my power, the greasy nausea at the pit of my belly. Across all the facets of existence that I spanned, I diminished. It was worse now that she had pointed it out, because the very fact that she understood what I had done made the harm greater. Knowledge was power.

  “Demonshit,” I muttered, and grimaced ruefully. “You’re right. Forcing a child to choose between death and murder — there’s no way innocence can survive something like that intact.” I thought a moment, then scowled and shook my head. “But innocence never lasts long, especially for Arameri children. Perhaps I’m doing you a favor by making you face the choice early.”

  She shook her head, resolute. “You’re not doing me a favor; you’re cheating. Either I let Deka die, or I try to save him and die, too? It’s not fair. I can’t win this game, no matter what I do. You better do something to make up for it.” She did not look at her brother. He was the prize in this game, and she knew it. I would have to revise my opinion of her intelligence. “So … I want you to give me something.”

  Deka blurted, “Just let him kill me, Shar; then at least you’ll live —”

  “Shut up!” She snapped it before I would have. But she closed her eyes in the process. Couldn’t look at him and keep herself cold. When she looked back at me, her face was hard again. “And you don’t have to kill Deka, if I … if I take that knife and use it on you. Just kill me. That’ll make it fair, too. Him or me, like you said. Either he lives or I do.”

  I considered this, wondering if there was some trick in it. I could see nothing untoward, so finally I nodded. “Very well. But you must choose, Shahar. Stand by while I kill him, or attack me, save him, and die yourself. And what would you have of me, as compensation for your innocence?”

  At this she faltered, uncertain.

  “A wish,” said Dekarta.

  I blinked at him, too surprised to chastise him for talking. “What?”

  He swallowed, his throat flexing in my hands. “You grant one wish, anything in your power, for … for whichever one of us survives.” He took a shaky breath. “In compensation for taking our innocence.”

  I leaned close to glare into his eyes, and he swallowed again. “If you dare wish that I become your family’s slave again —”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” blurted Shahar. “You can still kill me — or … or Deka — if you don’t like the wish. Okay?”

  It made sense. “Very well,” I said. “The bargain is made. Now choose, damn you. I don’t feel like being —”

  She lunged forward and shoved the knife into my back so fast that she almost blurred. It hurt, as all damage to the body does, for Enefa in her wisdom had long ago established that flesh and pain went hand in hand. While I froze, gasping, Shahar let go of the knife and grabbed Dekarta instead, yanking him out of my grasp. “Run!” she cried, pushing him away from the Nowhere Stair toward the corridors.

  He stumbled a step away and then, stupidly, turned back to her, his face slack with shock. “I thought you would pick … you should have …”

  She made a sound of utter frustration while I sagged to my knees and struggled to breathe around the hole in my lung. “I said I would be good,” she said fiercely, and I would have laughed in pure admiration if I’d been able. “You’re my brother! Now go! Hurry, before he —”

  “Wait,” I croaked. There was blood in my mouth and throat. I coughed and fumbled behind me with one hand, trying to reach the knife. She’d put it high in my back, partially through my heart. Amazing girl.

  “Shahar, come with me!” Deka grabbed her hands. “We’ll go to the scriveners —”

  “Don’t be stupid. They can’t fight a god! You have to —”

  “Wait,” I said again, having finally coughed out enough blood to clear my throat. I spat more into the puddle between my hands and still couldn’t reach the knife. But I could talk, softly and with effort. “I won’t hurt either of you.”

  “You’re lying,” said Shahar. “You’re a trickster.”

  “No trick.” Very carefully I took a breath. Needed it to talk. “Changed my mind. Not going to kill … either of you.”

  Silence. My lung was trying to heal, but the knife was in the way. It would work its way free in a few minutes if I couldn’t reach it, but those minutes would be messy and uncomfortable.

  “Why?” asked Dekarta finally. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “Pull this … mortalfucking knife, and I’ll tell you.”

  “It’s a trick —” Shahar began, but Dekarta stepped forward. Bracing a hand on my shoulder, he took hold of the knife hilt and yanked it free. I exhaled in relief, though that almost started me coughing again.

  “Thank you,” I said pointedly to Dekarta. When I glared at Shahar, she tensed and took a step back, then stopped and inhaled, her lips pressed tightly together. Ready for me to kil
l her.

  “Oh, enough with the martyrdom,” I said wearily. “It’s lovely, just lovely, that you two are all ready to die for each other, but it’s also pretty sickening, and I’d rather not throw up more than blood right now.”

  Dekarta had not taken his hand from my shoulder, and I realized why when he leaned to the side to peer at my face. His eyes widened. “You weakened yourself,” he said. “Making Shahar choose … It hurt you, too.”

  Far more than the knife had done, though I had no intention of telling them that. I could have willed the knife out of my flesh or transported myself away from it, if I had been at my best. Shaking off his hand, I got to my feet, but I had to cough one or two times more before I felt back to normal. As an afterthought, I sent away the blood from my clothing and the floor.

  “I destroyed some of her childhood,” I said, sighing as I turned to her. “Stupid of me, really. Never wise to play adult games with children. But, well, you pissed me off.”

  Shahar said nothing, her face hollow with relief, and my stomach did an extra turn at this proof of the harm I’d done her. But I felt better when Dekarta moved to her side, and his hand snaked out to take hers. She looked at him, and he gazed back. Unconditional love: childhood’s greatest magic.

  With this to strengthen her, Shahar faced me again. “Why did you change your mind?”

  There had been no reason. I was a creature of impulse. “I think because you were willing to die for him,” I said. “I’ve seen Arameri sacrifice themselves many times — but rarely by choice. It intrigued me.”

  They frowned, not really understanding, and I shrugged. I didn’t understand it, either.

  “So, then, I owe you a wish,” I said.

  They looked at each other again, their expressions mirrors of consternation, and I groaned. “You have no idea what you want to wish for, do you?”

  “No,” said Shahar, ducking her eyes.

  “Come back in another year,” said Dekarta, quickly. “That’s more than enough time for us to decide. You can do that, can’t you? We’ll …” He hesitated. “We’ll even play with you again. But no more games like this one.”