Downfall of the Gods

by K. J. Parker

  “Hello, uncle,” I said.

  The cormorant changed instantly into my uncle Thaumastus. “I told you,” he said. “Stay away from me.”

  “I was thirty thousand feet up,” I protested.

  “Thirty thousand feet over the sea. Therefore, on my turf. Where I told you never to come, ever again.”

  He wasn’t a cormorant any more, but he was still gripping my neck. All gods are infinitely strong, but some gods are infinitely stronger than others. “Let go,” I said. “You’re hurting me.”

  He scowled at me. “That’s you all over,” he said. “You never will do as you’re damn well told.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words came out as a squeak. “I was blown off course.”

  “Like hell you were.” He narrowed his eyes and peered at me, as though I were truly atrocious handwriting. “No, I know you, you’re up to something.”

  “That’s so unfair.”

  “You’re always up to something. You’re devious. I wouldn’t believe you if you told me my name.”

  “That’s a very hurtful thing to say, uncle.”

  He looked up, his fish-eye vision taking in the underside of every ship on the North Sea. “Which one is it?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You wouldn’t dare come on my turf if you weren’t protecting some mortal. So, I’ll ask you again. Which one?”

  “You’re completely wrong. I was blown off course. It’s the truth.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll sink them all, then.”

  Damn, I thought. “You please yourself,” I said. “Since none of them mean anything to me, why should I care?”

  He grinned. “That proves it,” he said. “If you weren’t up to something, you’d be giving me a hatful of sanctimonious spiel about not killing mortals. I think it’s the thing I dislike most about you, that awful self-righteous pomposity.”

  Overhead, I could hear the winds howling and the waves roaring. Damn and blast. “Is that it?” I said. “Can I go now?”

  He glared at me. Yes, he’s much stronger than me, but there’s still nothing at all he can do to harm me. He could lock me up in his dungeons, but I’d make a real mess of the structural integrity of his palace when I broke out. “Piss off,” he said. “And don’t ever come back.”

  He let go; I transformed into a little silver fish, shot up through the water, broke the surface and changed into a goose. Geese are fast, with good eyesight. It was blowing a gale up there. Waves as tall as mountains towered, crashed and pounded all about me. I quickly calculated Lord Archias’ likely course, making corrections in speed and bearing for the wind and waves; in a fraction of a second I’d got him pinpointed. I soared down and sure enough, bobbing about in the foam I saw the shattered timbers of a wrecked ship. For a moment I thought I might have come too late; but then a hand broke the surface, scrabbled for a grip on a length of shattered mainmast. I launched into a dive, turned myself into a giant osprey, gripped the hand in both talons and made a beeline for the shore.

  “YOU KNEW,” HE said.

  “Rubbish.”

  It had taken me a while to get all the water out of his lungs. When he spoke, his voice was low, quiet and rasping. “You knew something like that was going to happen. That’s why you flew.”

  “I didn’t know,” I yelled. “It was just a precaution.” He blinked his bloodshot eyes. “Ah.”

  “My uncle the Sea King and I don’t get on,” I said.

  “If he’d seen me on a boat with you, he might have— well, played rough games. So, for your sake, to make sure you wouldn’t be interfered with, I decided to make my own way.”

  “I sank.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “A storm came up out of a clear blue sky.”

  “It happens,” I said. “It’s something to do with cold

  fronts from the mountains colliding with water vapour rising from the seasonally warm Gulf Stream. Read a book about it, it’s all in Saloninus’ Geography.”

  “You made me sail in a boat,” he said, “knowing your uncle would sink me on sight.”

  “I keep telling you, I didn’t know. There was a risk, but definitely not a certainty.”

  He sighed. “It’s true,” he said, “what people say. Your whole life does flash in front of your eyes. I never believed it, but it’s true.”

  “Oh come on,” I said. “You were never in any real danger. You knew I’d save you.”

  “I was breathing in water.” He stopped. I recognised the abrupt silence. It means it’s no good arguing with her, she doesn’t listen. I found that insulting. “So,” he said. “What’s the quarrel about?”

  “What quarrel?”

  “You and your uncle the Sea King. What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh really. He sinks your favourites’ ships on sight because of nothing.”

  “He’s an idiot,” I snapped. “And ridiculously oversensitive. And he bears grudges over the least little thing.” “Such as?”

  “None of your business. Family stuff. Private.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s not like I’m interested or anything.”

  “He’s impossible.” It just came flooding out. Well, who have I got to talk to about anything, in the normal run of things? “He’s got absolutely no sense of proportion.”

  “That,” Lord Archias said gravely, “I can believe.”

  “It was years ago,” I said, “and it all came to nothing anyway, and we weren’t going to do anything nasty to him, and Zenonis would’ve made a much better Sea King. And it’s a complete lie saying I was the ringleader, I barely knew a thing about it, most of the time I wasn’t even there. It’s so unfair.”

  He was gazing at me. “You conspired to overthrow the Sea King,” he said. “And you can’t understand why he’s upset.”

  “Oh be quiet,” I said. “You don’t know anything about anything.”

  MORTALS ARE USELESS at most things, but they write good literature. I don’t go much on the shorter stuff, because most of it’s, well, a bit too mortal-specific for my taste, all about the human condition, and therefore not particularly interesting. But I like some of the plays. There’s one about a great human hero—name’s on the tip of my tongue—who offends one of the gods and is driven mad. In his madness, he kills his wife and his baby children. When he comes round out of it, his best friend tries to make him feel better. It wasn’t your fault, says the friend, the gods made you do it. Don’t you dare say such a thing, the hero replies. I believe in the gods, they’re noble and good. They represent everything that is holy and perfect in the Universe, and I won’t hear a word against them. All the stories the poets tell about how they sleep with their sisters and bind each other in chains are just blasphemous nonsense.

  Well; quite right about the sleeping-with-sisters. I’m terribly fond of Pol, but I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole, not in that way. The binding each other in chains, however, is rather more factually accurate. Adamant is the only material that seems to work, incidentally; iron’s useless, naturally; over the years we’ve fooled around with beryllium, titanium, monomolecular polymers and various different carbon fibres, but no joy so far. Adamant, however, appears to get the job done, or at least it has so far.

  Please don’t think we make a habit of it, or do it lightly. Father had to tie up Grandpa when he took over, because Grandpa’s got a filthy temper and it’s just conceivably possible that he knows how to end the Universe. And we had to chain up the Giants, because of their persistent and incorrigible antisocial behaviour; and anyway, they’re not real gods, just a bunch of invulnerable immortals with supernatural powers. My aunt Epicasta brought it on herself, and all she has to do is say she’s sorry and she can come out again; it’s just silly pride and spite that’s kept her down there all these years. Like I say, it’s a very rare occurrence.

  And yes, on balance I think it was probably a mistake to try and overthrow u
ncle Thaumastus. It’s perfectly true that he can be a complete beast at times—well, as witness his unreasonable behaviour in this case. But I have my suspicions that the motivation behind that particular conspiracy had less to do with uncle bringing the Godhead into disrepute and more to do with aunt Zenonis wanting his job. Why, I can’t begin to imagine. I wouldn’t do it if you paid me.

  It goes without saying, it doesn’t mean anything. Take Grandpa. I readily concede, he’s flat on his face, with chains on his wrists and ankles and Mount Gargettus on the small of his back, so he can’t move about much or read or anything, but he’s not injured in any way. At some point in the future, it’s more or less inevitable he’ll get loose again, and then there’ll be hell to pay, believe me. The Giants are cooped up in the Pit, but they’re perfectly healthy, just bored out of their walnut-sized minds; same goes for aunt Epicasta. There’s nothing permanent about any of it. For the gods, nothing is permanent, except existence. It goes without saying, no god has ever killed another. We couldn’t, even if we wanted to. Therefore, anything we do to each other can never amount to more than a temporary nuisance. This is probably just as well.

  So, I was quite right. Lord Archias couldn’t possibly understand the nature of divine feuding. Incapable of understanding, he certainly shouldn’t have presumed to pass judgement.

  You can see why I was upset.

  WE WENT THE long way round.

  It’s pretty boring traipsing all the way round the coast, but at least Lord Archias could catch fish to eat. I helped him a bit there; he must’ve realised, because after a while he stopped baiting the hook, but he didn’t say anything. Mostly I sent him sturgeon, and the ones he didn’t want he sold to passing locals, thereby making enough money to buy new shoes and clothes, flour and dried fruit, a hat, boring stuff that mortals are always concerned about. I just trudged along trying to occupy my mind. We didn’t talk much. To be honest, I was pretty well fed up with the whole stupid enterprise. For two pins I’d have forgiven him or left him to do what he liked, only I didn’t want the others sniggering at me. It’s a standing joke in our family, I never finish anything I’ve started; it’s not fair and I’m sick of it. So I stayed; plod, plod, plod across the horrible wet sand.

  Then one day I happened to look out to sea and I saw twelve ships. I thought nothing of it—ships, yawn—but Archias noticed them and got terribly excited.

  “You know who they are,” he said. “They’re the Hus.” I squinted into the sun. He was quite right. “So?” “They’re pirates.”

  “So?”

  He stared at them, shading his eyes with the flat

  of his hand. “They must be heading for that village we passed this morning,” he said.

  “Quite possibly. It’s all right, they won’t see us.” “And there’s a temple, and a monastery. I bet that’s

  what they’re after.”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Come on, the tide’s about to turn. I really don’t want to get my feet wet.” “Don’t you get it?” He looked at me angrily. “We’ve got to warn the village. The Hus are ruthless barbarians. They’ll kill the men and sell the women and children into slavery.”

  I shrugged. “It’s what they do. We haven’t got time to interfere. Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but the day after tomorrow it’s going to slash down with rain over the Crabhook Pass. Therefore we need to be over the pass by tomorrow evening, or you’re going to get soaked to the skin, catch a cold which turns into a fever, and be very ill. You don’t want that, do you?”

  He acted like he hadn’t heard me. “The temple,” he said, “happens to be one of yours. These savages are going to burn it to the ground, slaughter your nuns and piss on your smashed-up statue. Don’t you care?”

  I took a deep breath. Time for some straight talking. “No.” He couldn’t have been more surprised if I’ve drenched him with ice-cold water. “What did you just—?” “No,” I said. “I don’t care. I don’t because I can’t.” He sat down on the sand, as though his legs couldn’t carry his weight any more. “I don’t get it,” he said. I sat down next to him. “Listen,” I said. “What can you hear?”

  He frowned, concentrating like mad. “The lapping of the waves. Birdsong.”

  “Lucky you. I can hear prayers. Millions of them, all the damn time. For example; I can hear the nuns in the monastery chapel praying to me to protect them from the Hus—they know about them already, they’ve got a lookout. I can also hear the prayers of the Hus in their ships, invoking me in my aspect as Thurinn, goddess of plunder and the joy of battle. Lady Thurinn, they’re praying, send us success and great riches, so that we can feed our starving children over the winter. Lady Thurinn, help us, for there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou.” I paused. “You see the problem.”

  He looked at me.

  “The Hus aren’t joking,” I said. “For centuries they were peaceful shepherds, grazing their sheep and goats on the hillsides of their native fjords. But the sheep and the goats cropped the grass too close, the winds blew all the topsoil away, and now they go hungry. In desperation, about fifty years ago, they took to their ships and sailed into the terrifying realm of my uncle Thaumastus, in the wild hope of finding something out there to keep their families alive. After weeks of being hurled around by storms in open boats they made landfall on the north coast of your stupid Empire. They were stunned at what they found. Here were people who had so much, when they had nothing at all. They prayed to me, naturally, and I suppose I must’ve given them the impression it was all right to take a few sheep and some rather crude and gaudy religious artefacts— they were my artefacts, and I didn’t begrudge them.

  Ever since, not unreasonably, they’ve come back every year. Put yourself in my place. If they prayed to you, would you have the heart to refuse?”

  He thought for a while. “In your shoes?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d have warned them about letting goats overcrop.” Smartarse. “Yes, well, I didn’t. My aunt Agape covers agriculture. Faced with the fait accompli, what would you do? If you were in my shoes?”

  “Miraculously cover their hillsides with topsoil and then warn them about the goats. To the gods, all things are possible, right? Only, I guess, some possible things are more time and trouble than others, so they don’t get done.” I particularly dislike mortals with an answer to everything. “It’s infinitely more complicated than that,” I said. “If I interfered in something to do with agriculture, first I’d really piss off my aunt Agape, who isn’t nearly as sweetly reasonable as me, second I’d probably screw up some big, extensive long-term strategy and ruin the ecology of half a continent.” I gave him a moment to think about that, then went on; “To the gods all things are possible,” I said, “but there’s stuff we can do that we don’t because it would make things worse, not better.

  Counterproductive, I think is the word I’m groping for.” “I see,” he said. “In other words, you’re very powerful but hopelessly badly organised.”

  EVENTUALLY WE REACHED the point we would’ve been at if my stupid uncle hadn’t been so bloody-minded and Archias had crossed the sea by boat. I don’t think Archias and I had said two words to each other for the past six days. He made a slight detour to a village, to sell sun-dried sturgeon and buy flour and stuff. I waited for him at the crossroads. He hadn’t been gone long when a golden eagle swooped down out of the sky and perched on the finger-post.

  I was mildly surprised. My uncle Gyges is usually a kestrel.

  “What?” I said.

  “You’re in so much trouble.”

  I sighed. “Now what am I supposed to have done?”

  “More what you haven’t,” uncle said. “You do know what date it is?”

  “Not a clue.”

  He clicked his tongue. Eagles can’t do that, but luckily nobody was watching. “Wilfully blind, more like.”

  “Fine. What’s the stupid date?”

  “Yesterday was the last day of the
Greater Athanasia.”

  “But that’s not till—” I froze. “What month is this?”

  “Goosefeather.”

  Nuts. I’d lost track of time, plodding through the wilderness. The Greater Athanasia, held on the last three days of Deer Rut, is a huge and extremely important festival in my honour, held at the Great Theatre in Lyconessus. Every year I have to manifest myself as a thirty-foot pillar of fire on the last day. If I don’t, apparently, there will be famine and plague, or the world will come to an end, or something like that. Anyway, an awful lot of mortals will get frightfully upset, probably start doomsday movements and religious wars, burn heretics, make a dreadful fuss generally. I’d never ever missed it, not once, ever.

  “What happened?” I said. “Were there riots?”

  Uncle shook his head. “No, everything went off just fine. One of the best festivals in years, they said.”

  “But I wasn’t there.”

  “Ah.” He pecked under his wing, then went on, “The priests have contingency plans laid on, just in case. Obviously they know you quite well. They’ve got twenty thousand gallons of rock oil in a giant cistern at the back of the Theatre, and a very ingenious syphon arrangement, works by hydraulic pressure or something like that. When it was clear you weren’t going to show, they cranked it up, set light to it and hey presto, divine renewal for another year.”

  I was relieved, naturally, but also somewhat—oh, I don’t know. Disappointed? Offended in some way? I couldn’t say.

  “Well then,” I said. “No harm done.”

  “You’re still in big trouble. He wants to see you, now. Quick sharp. If you won’t come, I’m to drag you by your hair.”