The Last God

by Michael McClung

  Aside from one sharp indrawn breath, silence descended on the dinner table. I saw Morno putting his face in one hand.

  “Oh, but you are wrong about one thing, Sage Lhiewyn,” said my dinner companion, with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Only one? I am relieved to hear it. But tell me where I have made a mistake.”

  “You said that masturbation was pointless. That depends, it would seem to me, on whether your aim was to create children, or to create pleasure.”

  A gasp, a muffled snicker, and lots of shifting on seats at that. Morno was now rubbing at his temple with a thick thumb, eyes closed.

  “I couldn’t argue with that even if I wanted to,” I replied.

  Morno stood abruptly, and with a pained expression not hidden at all behind his poorly constructed smile, announced that drinks would be served on the balcony for those who wished to partake.

  “Those among us who are tired and elderly could certainly make their farewells now,” he concluded, staring daggers at me.

  “You won’t go yet, will you, Sage Lhiewyn?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied, smiling at her, and mentally giving two fingers to Morno.

  “THE PROBLEM WITH KNOWING things is that sometimes you have to pretend that you don’t.” I stared down at the moonlit River Ose, drink in hand. The balcony was rather crowded, but nobody seemed terribly interested in getting close to me. Except her. Chang Ying stood beside me. I wondered why.

  “Could you give me an example?” she asked.

  “Certainly. I happen to know that Lord Ott, the balding gentleman who was sitting to your right and making a show of leering at your bosom, prefers young men exclusively.”

  “And why is it a problem knowing this?”

  “Watching his bad performance got tedious. Made me want to throw rotting fruit and yell at him to get off the stage.”

  “I see. Are there any other examples you would care to share?”

  “I know that your god is straight-haired and sallow skinned.”

  “Now why would you have to pretend not to know that?”

  “Because there has never been a god who was not bronze-skinned, and virtually all of them have curly, and often tightly curly hair.” It wasn’t precisely true, but very nearly so.

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “I do, priestess.”

  “Was Lagna bronze skinned and curly of hair, then?”

  “He was, like all the gods, bronze-skinned, and his hair was nonexistent.”

  “You met him, then.”

  “In a manner of speaking. I’ve seen a representation from the Age of Gods.”

  “I must bow to your greater knowledge of the gods, Sage. Perhaps my god desired a new look. Certainly gods are capable of changing their appearance.”

  “And yet they almost never do. Which do you think is more likely; that your god changed his appearance to better fit the expectations of his Chagan worshipers, or that you worshipers changed it to better suit yourselves?”

  “I will tell you a secret, Sage Lhiewyn,” she said, putting a hand on my arm and leaning in close. “I have seen my god. Biyu touched me with His divine hands. He filled me with His holy power, yes, and more than that,” she said, smiling. “He was sallow-skinned, as you termed it, not the color of bronze. His hair was long and black and straight and silken, and smelled of jasmine.”

  “Good to know he washes it.”

  She squeezed my arm, then let it go. “I know why you are so sharp-tongued.”

  “That’s no secret. I’m as old as dirt and in constant pain.”

  “It’s more than that. You are the most knowledgeable man in this great city, perhaps even the whole of the West. You have no peers. You have no one to talk to, whose conversation wouldn’t be a tedious chore for you. Of course you are miserable. Of course you are dour.”

  “Maybe, girl. Maybe. Mostly it’s the hip, though, I’ve got to say. That and the old man’s bladder.”

  I’m not too proud to admit that I delighted in the laughter that elicited from her.

  Soon after I made my farewells. I’d suddenly grown tired of all company, and longed for my pallet. Age is no proof against melancholy. Age, in this instance, was the cause of it.

  Morno braced me at the head of the stairs, arms folded, disapproval writ large across his face.

  “You’ve mastered the disappointed father look. It might have some effect on me if I wasn’t thirty years your senior.”

  “Masturbation? Did you really have to?”

  “You got off lightly and you know it, Hartreid. Give me credit for all the things I might have said, but didn’t.”

  A small smile cracked his facade. “If I gave you credit for all of that, the kingdom would be bankrupt. But tell me what you thought of the Chagans.”

  “Let me sleep on it.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  “Good night, Lord Governor.”

  “Good night, Sage Lhiewyn.”

  THE NEXT DAY WE HAD a visitor as soon as Jessep unchained the doors. It wasn’t Morno.

  I was checking the offertory – three copper marks and a cracked wooden button – when Jessep opened them and the scent of ginger blossoms wafted in. It was not a typical Lucernan smell.

  Chang Ying stood, small and colorful as a sowing fair, in the grimy portico. She saw me where I was crabbed up in front of the offertory, heavy key in one hand, the other clinging grimly to my cane. She bowed.

  “Is a priestess of a far, foreign god allowed in your temple, Revered?” she asked.

  “All are welcome,” I replied, and struggled upright. Well, as close as I ever get to upright nowadays. For his part, Jessep gawped.

  “That’s Jessep, my acolyte,” I told her. “Feel free to utterly ignore him.”

  She smiled and nodded at Jessep, and stepped inside, taking in with wide eyes the shabby glory that is the Temple of Lagna in Lucernis. Looking at it through her eyes, as it were, I saw it anew. Big and dusty. Uninspiring gray stone, with some admittedly pretty stained glass up high. Disordered as all hells down in the stacks, or at least apparently so. A few battered tables for petitioners to do their research at, with decrepit chairs to match.

  “I hear the Imperial Library in Chagul is so large it would take an hour to walk from one end to the other,” I said to her.

  “It is,” she replied. “Five hundred Keepers are employed there, and two hundred scribes. The shelves are ten man-heights tall in the Hall of Records.”

  “Do you think they have any openings?” Jessep asked her, and she smiled.

  “I do not think you would like to serve there. All male servants of the Imperial City, including those who serve in the Hall, are castrated.”

  “See, boy? There’s worse to work for than me.”

  “Maybe I could pose as a woman,” he muttered.

  “Sage Lhiewyn, would you be so kind as to give me a tour?” She smiled prettily. She did everything prettily.

  “My pleasure. Jessep, finish the opening chores, there’s a good lad.”

  Jessep rolled his eyes, but went about his duties without any further comment.

  I hobbled through the stacks with Chan Ying at my elbow, explaining our classification system and pointing out any text that I thought might be of interest to her. She was a pleasant guest, making appreciative noises and asking insightful questions. It was all very nice. It was also all very pointless.

  Oh, Chagan society was certainly very big on pointless courtesy and empty but obligatory gestures, and I might well have put Chang Ying’s visit down to that. But honestly, it felt more like the opening move of a chess match; her visit was necessary and expected in order to get on to the next stage of whatever it was she was playing at.

  I enjoyed her company nonetheless. I’m old, but not qualified to work at the Chagan Hall of Records.

  After a pleasant half-hour, the priestess of Biyu announced that she had to take her leave. I walked her to the door.

  �
��I hope I did not take up too much of your time, revered.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  “Regretfully, I cannot reciprocate your hospitality by inviting you to Biyu’s temple, though perhaps in the future you might see one constructed here on your Street of the Gods.”

  “Well, there’s an empty lot next to Vosto’s temple. You’d have to deal with his drunken faithful knocking on the wrong door, though.”

  “It was my hope that you would visit me at the embassy this week.”

  “Ships and I don’t get on well together anymore,” I replied. I knew the Chagans had arrived in some massive ship, bigger than anything you’d find on the Dragonsea.

  “Happily, you would not have to. The Lord Governor has generously extended the use of a private estate near his mansion for the duration of our stay.”

  “I don’t get out much, priestess. I’ll consider your kind offer.”

  “Please do, and consider my unseemly persistence as well.” She smiled and bowed, and walked down the stairs into the Lucernan morning. I watched her until she disappeared into the crowd, then turned to get on with my day.

  Jessep was staring at me, eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “You were nice to her.”

  “It’s called professional courtesy.”

  “Courtesy? You know that word? You didn’t even press her to leave an offering.”

  “That would have been incredibly rude, boy.”

  Jessep’s eyes got wide. “You like her. Lagna’s reward, you do. You’re attracted to her.” His face suddenly looked as it might if he’d found half a maggot in his beef pie.

  “What the hells is wrong with you, boy?”

  “You’re really old, and she’s really... not. I had this sudden mental image.” He shuddered.

  I lifted my cane. “Go do something useful, somewhere else, before I knock a few of those languages you know out of your head.”

  He left, making small gagging noises.

  I sighed, and lowered the cane. He wasn’t wrong. I was indeed attracted to this Chagan priestess, and it was indeed ridiculous and a little sick-making. But not only for the obvious reasons.

  She was putting herself in my way, deliberately. She wanted something, and it certainly wasn’t the withered husk of me. And I was afraid I knew what it was she did want. No, afraid wasn’t the word. ‘Glumly certain’ was closer to the mark.

  Damn.

  I had a chamber on the second level, a suite with an office, said office housing a table big enough to sleep three if they were intimate. It had all sorts of scrollwork and gold leaf, both the suite and the table. I hadn’t been in the suite for at least a half-dozen years, because fuck stairs.

  The mending desk had a nice stool at the right height, and good light, and I needed to climb fuck-all stairs to reach it. It was where I did most of my clerical work, and Jessep did his copying.

  I hobbled over to the mending desk to write a letter to Morno. Unfortunately, he and I needed to have a talk. I didn’t look forward to it. I never look forward to lying to powerful, intelligent people.

  THE CHAGAN SHIP WAS fucking enormous. I’d never seen anything remotely that big afloat. Magic had to’ve been at play in its construction, and its continued existence. The thing was big enough to contain an invading army. Or a years-long expedition to the West.

  Or to the Deadlands.

  No wonder Morno was fidgety.

  Far too big to dock, it rode at anchor far out in the bay, not far from Goat island, the sails on its four masts furled.

  “What the hells are we doing here, Lhiewyn? Do you realize how busy I am?” Morno was walking towards me, his face a picture of annoyance. His carriage was nowhere to be seen. No doubt it hadn’t been able to fit on the small street that gave access to the Widow’s Walk.

  He wasn’t happy with me for calling him out of his manse. He was likely even less happy about meeting me on the Widow’s Walk, the deserted open space between the Arsenal and the bay. Not that it was a terrible area; in fact it was rather scenic. But taking his carriage through the Foreigner’s Quarter to get there would not have been fun. The streets were narrow and crowded, and wheeled traffic often stalled, sometimes for a frustratingly long time. It wasn’t the reason I’d chosen the meeting spot, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t know it would cause him some inconvenience. And got a chuckle out of it.

  I was sitting on the sea wall, the darkening sea behind me. I’d settled Jessep at a wine shop called Tambor’s, just around the corner. It had a nice outside area, and served an absolutely horrid vintage that was dirt cheap, and still overpriced. The boy had been visibly suspicious when I told him I’d pay for as much wine as he could drink while I had my meeting. Then he’d tasted the wine, and after the shudders subsided he’d relaxed, his lack of faith in me restored.

  “Come sit down, Hartreid. You said you wanted me to talk to you about the Chagans.”

  “I meant write me a letter. Not drag me to the edge of the city for some cloak and dagger meeting.”

  “Well I guess you should have been more specific then.”

  “Lhiewyn—”

  “D’you think I had a grand time getting here myself, with this dead leg? Sit down. And give me a pull of your brandy. I know you’ve got a flask, don’t even try to pretend.”

  He pulled a silver flask out of an interior pocket of his waistcoat and sat next to me. I had a swig of his Coroune brandy and passed it back. I let the liquid fire make its way down my throat and ignite in my stomach before I spoke.

  “Your Chagan trade delegation is a sham. Oh, no doubt they’ll make agreements, and maybe even stick to them, but that’s not why they’re here.”

  “So why are they here?”

  “For me.”

  He let that sink in for a moment, then stood up. “Nice to see you as always, Lhiewyn. But I’ve got to be getting back to reality now.”

  “You know magic is fading, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should know that the Chagan emperor maintains power, in large part, because of his cadre of mages. Utterly loyal and terrifyingly powerful mages.”

  “I do know this, yes. It’s common knowledge. What does it have to do with you?”

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you a story.” Most of it would even be true.

  “This had better be a very good story, Lhiewyn,” he said as he sat again.

  “When I was a young man I went on an expedition to the southern continent.”

  “I know.”

  “Shut your brandy hole and listen. It was the stupidest, most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life, which is saying rather a lot, and I got this fucked leg as a souvenir. Barring those sailors who never left the ship, I was the only member of the expedition to survive. The eleven hells are – or were – more welcoming than the Deadlands. But do you know why we went there in the first place?”

  “Because you were idiots?”

  “Heh. I can’t argue that. But even idiots need some kind of instigation for their idiotic actions. Ours was the Eye.”

  “This is where I ask you what the Eye is.”

  “Your powers of deduction are truly astonishing, lord governor. The Eye, according to the incredibly ancient tablets I had discovered, is the source of magic. All magic. And it was located somewhere in the Deadlands.”

  “So an expedition was mounted, what, fifty years ago to try and find the Eye?”

  “Almost sixty years ago, now.”

  “And did you find it?”

  “I did. And you can never, ever tell anyone that. I need your word on it.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m serious, Hartreid.”

  “And I’m not in the habit of breaking my word. So was the Eye truly the source of all magic?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. Maybe even probably. I’ve had sixty years to think about it, and I’m still not sure. But if it is the source of magic, that’s incidental to whatever its true purpose is. T
o say the Eye makes magic is to say a cavalry sword cuts carrots.”

  Morno squinted at me. “You’re going to have to explain a little better than that.”

  “The Eye is what made the Deadlands dead. It also probably created ghrol. Maybe even demons.”

  “That’s—how do you even know this?”

  “We spent months there before it all went to shit. I wasn’t yanking my pecker the whole time. There is an entire complex surrounding the Eye, a stone maze built for giants. We called it Godhead, which is as good a translation as any. It’s floor to ceiling carved in pictograms. I got a fair portion translated.”

  Morno ran his hand through the stubble of his hair, then pulled out his flask again and took a long swallow. “So what happened? How did things go wrong?”

  Unbidden, a memory of the Eye swelled up from the dusty corridors of memory, and I shuddered. “We woke it up. The Eye. Everybody died except me, and that was only through sheer stupid luck. The end.”

  Morno handed me the flask and I had another long pull. It didn’t really help. But it didn’t hurt, either.

  “Just to recap,” he said. “You believe the Chagans are after the Eye, and hope to get its location from you, and whatever you know about it.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “And how did you reach this conclusion?”

  “That priestess of Biyu. Chan Ying. She’s pursuing me.”

  “That seems unlikely. You’re incredibly old, virtually penniless and deeply unpleasant.”

  “So you can see why it’s suspicious.”

  “Lhiewyn, I very much doubt you’re being pursued by anyone or anything except the specter of death at this point in your life.”

  “I’m many things, lord governor, but delusional isn’t one of them. You’ll have to trust me on this. This priestess of Biyu is going out of her way to ingratiate herself with me, and there’s only one reason for it.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I remain dubious. And if that’s all you have to base your suspicions on, you’ll forgive me if I remain dubious regarding your assessment of their motives.”

  “Hartreid, believe me or don’t. When you’re as old as I am, caring what other people think is too much effort for fuck-all reward. But if the Chagans do find the Eye and manage to survive it, the world is in for a shit show that’ll make the Cataclysm look like street-side puppet theater.”