THE LAST GOD
MICHAEL McCLUNG
Copyright © 2017 Michael McClung
Dedication
For my crazy chickens
CONTENTS
Down in It
Godhead
The God of Forgetting
Down in It
GENERALLY, I FIND ROBES to be eminently sensible, practical and comfortable. Having to wear them is one of the few perks of being a priest, really. Wearing robes while wading hip-deep through sewage, however, was about as pleasant as you might imagine. More so, if you imagine I bother with small-clothes in the Lucernan heat. The footing was treacherous, and more than once I was glad of my acolyte's steadying hand on my elbow. Then again, it was his fault I was here in the first place.
“Jessep.”
“Yes, Master Lhiewyn?”
“You're fired, boy.”
“You don't pay me.”
“Petty detail. You sleep under the temple's roof, don't you?”
“The one that leaks? The one you made me climb up and patch last week?” His right eyebrow, slathered in my arthritis balm along with the rest of him, started to lift. We’ll get to that. At any rate, I could always tell how incensed I'd gotten him by how far that eyebrow climbed up his forehead.
“Well it's not like I can do it,” I replied. “I can barely stand for five minutes at a stretch.”
“There are these people called workmen,” he muttered.
“They cost money.”
“We have money.”
“That's for emergencies.”
“A leaky roof in what amounts to the biggest library on the Dragonsea isn't an emergency?” The eyebrow twitched higher.
“Don't get testy with me, boy. I was testy before you could form two-syllable words.”
“I'm a scribe, not a roof-tarrer. What good is it speaking and reading fourteen languages if my brain ends up splattered all over the Street of the Gods?”
“Don't be such a baby. I gave you a rope. There are plenty of places to tie yourself to up there.”
“Oh, really? You know that for a fact, do you?”
“I am the high priest of the god of knowledge.”
“Then I guess Lagna's knowledge didn't extend to his temples' roofs, because there's bugger-all to secure a line to up there, old man.”
“That's master old man to you.”
“Not if I'm fired, it isn't.”
“Boy, I'm standing bad-hip-deep in Lucernis' biggest cesspool, and I'm a high-gods-damned-priest. Don't whine to me about a little tar.”
“And I'm what, floating above all this lovely effluvium?” His eyebrow threatened to merge with his hairline, now.
“Just hand me the book, you big baby. This thing won't summon itself.”
Something something, muttered my subordinate. My hearing isn't what it was. I just assumed it was disparaging, and responded appropriately. “Boy, we're here because of you.”
His eyebrow didn't actually merge with his hairline, but not for lack of trying.
“Me? Me? I'm sorry, but I don't remember ever saying 'Hey, I've got a ruddy good idea, let's go traipsing through the city's sewage looking for shit demons.'”
“But you did say 'Master, here's a letter from Lord Morno,' now didn't you?”
“What was I supposed to do? Pretend he hadn't sent a courier?”
“You should have burnt it, unopened.” I reflected for a moment. “Or eaten it, maybe.”
Jessep looked around. “Well, I can't disagree with you on that. But you didn't have to open the letter, now did you?”
I grunted. “The danger of being in the business of knowledge. Sometimes you read things, and then you're in the possession of facts you'd rather not have in your head.”
Morno certainly knew how to write a persuasive letter –
To Lhiewyn, Sage of Lucernis, High Priest of Lagna, etc., etc., Greetings;
The sewage works is testing a new method of disposing of the city's waste, which I know you will rejoice at hearing. While the new 'incinerator' is a promising advancement, they can't seem to get it working on a large scale. I am certain Lagna's favored could be of immense assistance in winkling out whatever technical issues are holding back the progress of this civic endeavor, should he choose to be. See Khoe Lund at Hanged House for more details.
On another, wholly unrelated matter, I note that the Crown's tax exemption for Lagna's temple expires in six short months, barring a grant of renewal...
Your servant,
Lord Hartreid Morno, Governor of Lucernis, etc., etc.
And the next thing I knew, it seemed, Jessep and I were navel-deep in a cesspit, hunting a shit demon.
SOME BRIGHT SPARK HAD come up with the idea of burning Lucernis's shit instead of dumping it into the River Ose. It wasn't a bad idea in and of itself; Lucernis sat atop a reserve of natural gas that was already put to use lighting many of the city's streets. Using that same resource to incinerate the city's considerable waste couldn't help but reduce disease. And stench. Lucernis was the largest city in the West, and smelled like it.
“The problem is, it doesn't work,” Khoe Lund told me when I met him at Hanged House. He scratched his big, curly-haired head with thick, blunt, none-too-clean fingers.
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“The shit won't burn, holiness, and pardon my coarse language.”
“The proper title is 'Revered', actually,” Jessep told him.
“Master Lund has to deal with shit all day, boy; let's not give him any more.” Coming to Hanged House, I'd been of a mind to give everyone in my way a verbal battering. But Khoe Lund had one of those plain, affable faces, and his manner was sincerely apologetic from the moment I'd laid eyes on him. It would've been like kicking a puppy. Also, he was a very large man. I'd decided to reserve my ire for the one who deserved it – Lord Morno.
“Master Lund, it's my understanding of the state of nature that anything will burn, if you get it hot enough. Even rock.”
“Aye, that's true, Revered. Anything at all. Except, it seems, Lucernan turds. Which is why we're all so puzzled, and why the powers that be here at the House prevailed upon the Lord Governor to ask you to consult with us.”
“Well, I suppose we should begin with what process you are using to burn the sewage.”
“Oh, aye. I'd be happy to show you the prototype and mock-up here in the workshop, and then we can go to site, if you're of a mind to.”
“I'm of a mind to take a nap, but since that's not likely, lead on, Master Lund.”
Hanged House – originally called DeGris House – was an exceedingly large structure that had once belonged to the hereditary rulers of the city. When Morno had had the DeGris scion executed for gross perfidy and all the Degris properties confiscated, the DeGris name had died a sudden death at all levels of society. Lord Degris had gotten his neck stretched at Traitor's Gate. In vulgar, semi-witty Lucernan fashion, DeGris House had quickly been renamed Hanged House by some wag. The name had stuck.
The house had stood empty for better than a decade. Eventually it had been granted to the Royal Society of Arts and Letters, and all manner of experimenters, artists, poets, philosophers, and other, even more disagreeable folk had taken up residence with the Crown's blessing.
Lund led us through a warren of rooms and hallways until we came to what had at one time been the attached carriage house. I knew we were getting close before he said anything. There was a distinct smell of shit and noxious gas.
Inside the workshop, we were confronted with master Lund's incinerator, in miniature. The scaled-down version still stood taller than me. It was also in pieces.
“We've been going over and over it. It works fine. Its big brother doesn't, and we just can't f
igure out why.”
“Perhaps you can walk me through what's supposed to be happening here,” I said. “Also, something to sit on would be nice.”
Jessep found an empty crate for me to perch on, and Lund set about explaining how his contraption worked.
“As you can see, Revered, the incinerator is basically barrel-shaped. The sewage gets pumped in at the top, in the form of sludge. Gas is fed to the hearth areas via this pipe, and is ignited via this clever little striking mechanism. There are three chambers within for drying, burning and cooling. Gases are discharged here at the top, and ash gets removed at the bottom. These rabble arms act as rakes, and are present at each of the hearth areas to keep the sewage moving, to prevent back-ups. Here we power them by hand, but at the site, we use oxen.”
I studied the thing for a while. It was really rather clever. I’d no idea how much sewage one of these things could deal with on a practical level, or how many would be needed to take care of Lucernis’s waste, but that wasn’t my concern.
“So where specifically does the problem lie, Master Lund? Is the supply of natural gas not enough to heat a larger chamber, or some such?”
“No, that’s just it. On a mechanical level, there is no problem. And still the sewage won’t burn. Doesn’t even get warm, though the incinerator itself is as hot as a forge. So what do you think the problem is, Sage Lhiewyn?”
I jiggled and poked at the model some more, to make it look like I might have a clue. Finally, I sat back and manufactured a sigh.
“Based on this contraption? I haven't the faintest idea. Which means, I suppose, that I've got to go and look at the real thing.” I sighed again, and nothing about it was feigned this time.
LUND CALLED A HACK and we all climbed in, me with assistance from Jessep. I got a window seat. Cobbled streets and bad suspension tempered my enjoyment of the ride, but I did enjoy getting out of the temple on occasion. Lucernis is full of life. Too full, some might say. Certainly there are far too many holes for people to crawl out of, and far too many of them are idiots, but a change of scenery wasn't a bad thing. When you're surrounded by the accumulated wealth of human knowledge for weeks at a time, watching fishwives throwing mud and invective at each other in the street takes on a certain temporary charm. It can even be a learning experience. It was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase 'cack-spackled gobshite' at any rate.
The sewage site was only a half-hour carriage ride from Hanged House, in the wasteland area between the river and Loathewater, where nothing, it seemed, could keep the ground from being other than a bog for weeks after any rain.
“I'm surprised you were able to build your sewage site here,” I said to Lund as we approached.
“It wasn't easy, Revered,” the big man replied. “The soil here's some especially nasty clay. We had to cart in tons of gravel just to give us a semblance of solid ground. But it had the advantage of being close to source of the sewage, ha-ha. And it's practically uninhabited because of the ground, and because it already generally smelled like shit here anyway.”
“You are a practical man, Master Lund. Is that the furnace I see, poking out above the fence top?”
“It is, Revered. You can see the screw pump jutting out to the side, which is how we get all the sewage from the cesspit into the furnace in the first place. Nearly there now.”
Sadly, Lund was correct. A couple of minutes later I was standing next to a cesspit with a bigger footprint than the temple, nearly full to the brim with Lucernis's excretions. More of a cesslake, really. The stench was indescribable. I'd never smelled anything so vile.
“This will not be one of my fonder memories,” I muttered. Jessep looked as if he was on the verge of vomiting up his breakfast.
“You get used to the smell,” Lund said to Jessep.
“Kill me if I ever do,” the boy replied, and Lund laughed.
“If you'll follow me this way, Revered, we've got the incinerator partially disassembled for you to inspect. Revered?”
I barely heard him. My attention had been drawn to the contents of the cesspit.
“There's no need to tinker with your incinerator, Lund. Nothing's wrong with it.”
Lund scratched at his curly hair, his plain broad face a picture of confusion. “How can you tell without looking at it, revered?”
“Because the problem's in there,” I said, pointing my cane at the cesspit. “The issue isn't mechanical. It's metaphysical. You've got a shit demon.”
“A SHIT DEMON?” LUND asked me for the hundredth time.
“A shit demon,” I replied yet again. “Stercore demonium, if you want it in Kantic so it sounds nicer. Drink your beer, Master Lund.”
“But what the hells do we do about it?” Lund asked for the hundredth time.
“And how do you know?” Jessep chimed in, for at least the third.
I'd steadfastly refused to answer any questions until I had some alcohol in me, and my uncooperative bladder be damned. I had some careful skirting of the truth to do, and booze made prevarication easier. If Jessep hadn't been there I'd've been able to unload any old codswallop on Lund, who wouldn't have known the difference and wouldn't have cared, so long as he got his shit to burn. I took another long pull from the jack in front of me and wiped foam off my stubbled lip with the back of my hand. Then I let out a belch.
We had repaired to a ramshackle tavern in Loathewater, a place called the Dripping Bucket. It was the closest such establishment to the sewer works. The aroma of old spilled ale masked somewhat the general stench of the neighborhood. Fat, lazy flies circled endlessly in the sunlight that poured in from the doorless doorway. I leaned forward.
“What we do, Master Lund, is exorcise it. Or try to. That's what you do with demons. I imagine we'll have to call the Watch in as well, useless as they are. They probably have ordinances about this sort of thing.”
“And how do you know?” Jessep asked again. Annoying little bugger. I considered being mysterious about it, but he was a bloody-minded sod, and the question would keep coming up until he was satisfied. Or until I'd beaten his brains in.
“The smell, Jessep. The smell.”
Lund raised an eyebrow. “Begging pardon, revered, but I never noticed any unusual smell. Beyond the obvious, I mean.”
The thing about lying is you have to keep the lie at a level where you yourself can remember it effortlessly, and where you won't accidentally contradict yourself at some later date. The simplest way to do that is to stick to “what” and avoid “why” and “how.” I gave Lund a glare.
“That's what they told me in Gol-Shen when I said I smelled something awful. Almost word for word, as a matter of fact. 'You expect shit to smell like roses then, Lhiewyn?' Assholes. A week later they found the daemonist sacrificing cats. Would've been children next, mark me.”
“When were you in Gol-Shen?” Jessep asked.
“When your mother was still playing with dolls, boy.” Which was true enough. Any lie should be leavened with truth.
“Is it some power given you by Lagna, this sensing of demons?” Lund asked.
“I very much doubt it. He wasn't in the business of giving out powers even before he got his head lopped off.”
“So you don't know how you know there's a demon in the cesspit,” Jessep said. “You just do.”
“That's the long and short of it, lad.” And that was the biggest lie I'd ever told him. Sometimes a lie is best for all concerned.
“You never mentioned this ability before, master.”
I gave him a sour face. “Are you sure? Because it's a topic that pops up in my thoughts all the time. 'Beef stew would be nice tonight,' I'll think, and then immediately after that I'll think to myself 'I desperately hope I don't smell any shit demons today, like that one time forty years ago in a far-distant city.' Go and get me another beer, chalk-brain.”
When Jessep left to do my bidding, Lund leaned forward and spoke low.
“Begging pardon, revered, but are you sure?”
“I'm sure.”
“Because we've been out there for weeks and never seen a hint of any, ah, demonic–”
“Let's cut out all the polite talk, shall we? You're worried that I'm an old man whose wits are wandering. Fair enough. I can't argue that I'm not old as dirt. Get me some paper and I'll write a note to Kluge, that ass at the watch. He's a mage, and he loves to investigate this sort of fuckery, so that'll sort out whether my brains've gone to mush. He'll want to deal with the demon himself, mind you, and he'll fail, and gods only know how bad it'll get from there. But at least I'll have the satisfaction of saying I told you so.”
Jessep had returned while I was berating Lund. He put the jack down in front of me and said “Don't mind him, Master Lund. It's well past his nap time, and he always gets cranky without his nap. Crankier.”
I would have given the boy a tongue-lashing, but that would only have proven his point, so I just grunted and drank my beer while Lund went to get stationery from his office.
THREE HOURS AND HALF-dozen trips to the Dripping Bucket's horrific excuse for a jakes later, Kluge finally arrived, four watchmen in tow. His long, horse-like face did not light up with joy at the sight of me. Few were the occasions when we were forced into each other’s company, thankfully, but we knew each other well enough. Over the years, it seemed, he only grew dourer and more unpleasant. Unlike myself. I'd pretty much been born this way.
“Are you sure?” he asked me, sitting on the bench opposite and motioning for a drink.
“No. I sent you a note just to see if you'd believe me and come out here. And here you are, ha-ha.”
“How do you know? Did you see it?”
“I'm the high priest of the god of knowledge. I know many things, Kluge. Most of them are none of your business.”
“Where do you think it came from?”
“Gorm on a stick, you're unusually obtuse today. Where do you think it came from? Where do all demons come from?”
The Last God Page 1