by Bill McCurry
Fingit looked around, expecting Krak—or a searing beam of light—to hurtle through the door right away.
Sakaj paid him no attention. “Every one of those immortal turd-eaters gave up. They all gave up except for you and me. You hung on to your sanity, which probably makes you the least imaginative and most boring god that’s ever existed.” Fingit began to object, but Sakaj pushed on. “And I persisted even when I was as crazy as a bug in a butter churn. Those bastards down there didn’t elevate themselves hundreds of times to discover how to reach across the Veil. They didn’t figure out how to get you over there to help them. I did those things! Who the hell do those cheap paper gods think they are?”
Sakaj’s eyes crackled with divine lightning, and her cheeks flared as red as her gown. With her chin up and her breath quick, Fingit became aware that Sakaj was exceedingly attractive—when she was clean and not dismembered, and her hair didn’t look like something pulled out of a yak’s ass.
“But, what can you do about it?” Fingit asked, covering up his sudden interest in Sakaj’s charms. “Krak has spoken. He’s told us how things will be. That’s the way it is. You know that. Unless you want your breasts to get a tan that goes all the way down to your ribcage?”
Sakaj laughed. “No, I don’t intend to get one of those. Effla didn’t heal for a month after Krak chastised her bosom off. But I will damned well elevate myself every day for another year before I let any of those smirking, gloating creatures back there snatch even a grain of glory.” Sakaj took a step toward Fingit and placed her hand on his chest.
Oh, I am such a dimwit… she knows. She knows I’ve got a little thing for her, and now she’s going to lead me around by the metaphorical dick just because I’m stupid and she can do it. Fingit cleared his throat. “What’s your plan?”
“The Freak. We need her to make some deals. None of the other sorcerers can give us as much power as the Freak.”
“But isn’t she used up? No longer interested?”
“They’re always interested, if you offer them the right deal at the right time. You know that. We just have to create those circumstances. I am damn well going to get her to deal.”
Fingit chewed his lip. Sakaj grasped the front of his robe and shook it lightly. “We can do it, but I need your help. The Freak now protects her brother’s sons, the last of her family’s line. The Nub has attracted the love of a river spirit that will do anything to save him from harm. So, you will betray the Nub and give him to his enemies. I will promise the spirit to help her save the Nub, but only if she threatens to kill the Freak’s nephews. Then I will force the Freak to bargain with me in order to save those children. She always was soft for children.”
Fingit crossed his arms. “That plan’s too simple. Would you like to add a cavalry charge and an erupting volcano for spice?”
Sakaj waved Fingit away. “You’re adorable. It is not too complex for gods. Kingdoms have been won with plans far more complex.
“What if somebody kills the Nub? Then I’ve got nothing!”
Sakaj walked to Fingit and stared at him from a foot away. “I won’t let that happen. Trust me, the river spirit can slaughter any number of ruffians when my power is with her.”
Fingit shook his head, and Sakaj grabbed his jaw. “It will take both of us. But when we push through the Veil using the power that you and I secured, then Harik and the rest will gag on their envy.” She put her lips by Fingit’s ear and whispered, “And I guarantee that Krak will never forget what we did.”
Sakaj released Fingit and stepped back. She crossed her arms over the elegant flash of her cleavage, cocked one svelte hip, tilted her head so that her black hair brushed her bare shoulder, and said, “So?”
She let her question dangle until Fingit was ready to answer. After a good thirty seconds, he sighed. “All right. How do we do this?”
(Sakaj)
By the time Krak’s servants had lit all the lanterns, Sakaj had educated Fingit on her plan. Then she grew tired of his mumbling, head-shaking, and repeated questions, so she sent him away to hang himself. She patted his cheek and promised to be right behind him, just to take the sting out.
No matter what she told that nearsighted tinkerer, Sakaj’s plans balanced on the point of failure. Perhaps that was generous. Her plans were rushing like a waterfall into a lagoon of putrefaction. But she refused to surrender and let that bucket of walrus drool Harik, or that walking scrotum-with-a-sword Lutigan, drape himself in glory.
Sakaj suspected that assistance might be as close as whispering a plea for help. But that kind of help would be worse than her current problems. As a god, she hated to admit that she’d done the kind of ignorant thing she’d seen so many mortals do. But she had, and she’d better admit it, at least to herself. She had no room now for self-deception.
Eight years ago, as the most recent War of Shattering Woe was just ending, Sakaj found herself alone one day in the Dim Lands. Cheg-Cheg had elevated her by smothering her in his armpit on the final day of the war. At that time, the Dim Lands were as beautiful in their way as the Home of the Gods. Sakaj was dangling her feet in the River of Regret, coaxing fish to jump out of the water for her, when a cultured voice rumbled, “I’m awfully sorry about the armpit. It was a necessity of war, but still, I’m certain it lacked charm.”
Sakaj whipped about to see all three hundred feet of Cheg-Cheg blotting out the sky above her. Shock crashed through her brain, since previously Cheg-Cheg’s most articulate statement had been vomiting a battered chariot. He now ran his hideous, eviscerating talons across the tops of the trees as a gentleman might primp a flower arrangement.
Sakaj was a goddess who prided herself on being imperturbable. As the Mistress of the Unknowable, she also prided herself on being inscrutable. Therefore, when she squeaked like a girl whose pigtail had been pulled, she felt a bit embarrassed.
Cheg-Cheg demonstrated the good manners to ignore her squeak of surprise. “You have a beautiful spot here. It exudes loveliness. I shall be sad when I someday lay waste to it and befoul the earth so that nothing may ever grow here again.”
Sakaj stood tall and calmed her breathing. “That would be a shame. You could just, oh, forget to do it. Let it slip your mind.”
“Perhaps.” Cheg-Cheg gazed at the prismatic sun and the clouds of shifting colors.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” Sakaj said, pushing her hair back. “I didn’t think anyone could come here except gods, to tell you the truth.”
Cheg-Cheg glanced down at her before saying, “Oh, that’s not true. Not true at all. They call me the Dark Annihilator of the Void and Vicinity, correct?”
Sakaj nodded.
“Well, this”—Cheg-Cheg gestured around, obliviously cutting three massive blue gum trees in half—“is a Vicinity.” He peered down, and streamers of drool that burned like acid ran from his fangs. “I just wanted to pop in here for a brief visit before I set off into the Void. This place rather refreshes my soul, if you understand me.”
“I do understand you.” And then Sakaj did a stupid thing. She started thinking. She said, “If you travel between the Vicinities and the Void, you must know a lot about what separates different places.”
“I certainly do.” Cheg-Cheg tested the river with one claw of his nightmarish foot. “I travel them all when the mood strikes. I daresay no one knows the pathways better.”
“Well, I’ve always wondered… rather idly… about the separation—” Sakaj’s statement sliced off mid-sentence when an astounding noise flattened her to the ground.
“I’m so sorry,” Cheg-Cheg said as Sakaj crawled to her feet. “I couldn’t help laughing. Let me guess. You want to know what connects you to the world of mankind.”
“Um, yes.” Sakaj nodded. “We have some theories—”
“Ribbon of cloth,” Cheg-Cheg interrupted her. “That’s the right one. Although some of your other theories are terribly amusing. I particularly love the one about the tunnel. It’s so grotesque.”
Sakaj’s mind whirled. She now had the answer to an ages-old question. More importantly, only she had the answer. Then she did the truly stupid, ignorant, and moronic thing. “Would it be possible to, ah, affect the ribbon at all?”
“Most certainly.”
Sakaj held her breath. My children are valuable, but they’ve always been rare. Most humans are too obtuse to understand me. If I could alter the ribbon just a bit to help other sorcerers see my glory, I could make so many more trades. And get so much more power. Just a little tweak…
Sakaj explained her desire to Cheg-Cheg, and he agreed to help her with no more fuss than handing her a pebble from the ground. He explained that the sky there in the Dim Lands provided one of the closer connections between the realms, so that’s where the work should be done. She could accomplish her goal by washing the ribbon itself.
To Sakaj’s horror, Cheg-Cheg thrust a talon into the back of his appalling maw and dug out something white about the size of her head. He dropped it to her. She feared it would be part of someone he ate, but instead, it was a tough, head-size egg, warm to touch.
Cheg-Cheg instructed Sakaj to crack the egg and fling its contents into the sky, but he cautioned her to first wash herself with rigorous attention to the tiniest soil or stain. Any contamination could throw the wash awry, and the ribbon might not turn out as intended. Sakaj disrobed and bathed herself in the River of Regret, paying closest attention to her hands. Then with Cheg-Cheg watching, she broke open the egg and hurled its pearl-white contents into the sky. The jet of whiteness shot away and disappeared into the clouds.
“How will we know if it’s working?” Sakaj asked a few moments later.
Cheg-Cheg yawned. “A gentle white snowfall will be your sign. It should arrive just… about… now.”
Enormous snowflakes began wafting down through the still air of the Dim Lands. Sakaj caught one, and she saw that it was pink.
Despite her fear of Cheg-Cheg, Sakaj screamed at him, “What did you do? What’s wrong?”
Cheg-Cheg sniffed. “I did nothing wrong. You must have contaminated the wash. It must have bled.”
Sakaj gaped at the monster. Then she looked at her hands and saw a drop of blood on her left palm. She must have cut it on the eggshell.
“Well, that will have some unintended consequences, I’ll bet,” Cheg-Cheg rumbled. Then he looked hard at the goddess. “Really, you should know better. Upon how many humans have you perpetrated these very sorts of shenanigans? Now I must go. I shall assail your land again the next time I happen to wander by. Perhaps I shall destroy you utterly next time. I do enjoy my little visits with your people. Say hello to your father for me.” With a final caress of the trees, Cheg-Cheg faded out of the Dim Lands.
That was how Sakaj had caused the Veil to fall, and she’d been laboring ever since to fix things. And she would damn well be boiled like a shrimp and served to Cheg-Cheg on a cracker before she let anyone else take credit for the work she had put in to fixing this unholy mess.
Sakaj suspected that if she called out to Cheg-Cheg from the Dim Lands right then, he might answer, and that if he answered, he might offer help. But she had not yet reached the crisis of desperation that would lead her back to Cheg-Cheg for assistance.
Sakaj sighed and padded back downstairs to her waiting noose.
Ten
(Fingit)
“Make it rain toads for me. Or even better, porpoises.”
“I can’t even make it rain water.” Fingit grimaced at Sakaj as they lay side by side on the black grass.
“Well, raise a volcano then. These sorcerers are less interesting than mud. I miss the old days when we could just make things happen to people.”
Fingit ignored that and gazed back up at the Unicorn Town sky with its window onto mankind. There he saw the Nub and his river spirit, arguing among some rocks on a mountain slope. It was at least a three-day journey through these mountains, because Fingit and Sakaj had watched them walk across rocks and gravel for three soul-numbing days.
“I almost wish Cheg-Cheg would try to kill us again.” Sakaj yawned.
“Huh.” Fingit heard the pout in her voice. Four days ago, Cheg-Cheg had roared into Unicorn Town, forcing the gods to flee by jumping back home. The beast had snatched Lutigan and was lifting the God of War to his mouth just as Lutigan abandoned his Unicorn Town body. If Lutigan had been a second or two slower, he’d have been destroyed forever.
In that case, I might have thrown a little party. I wonder what kind of gift Cheg-Cheg would like? Fingit chuckled, drawing a frown from Sakaj. Oh, well, all this useless watching has made me a little irritable too.
Cheg-Cheg had ignored Unicorn Town since that attack, and Fingit had spent most of his time watching the Nub limp along during the daytime and sleep at night. The boy had created a magical false leg to replace his destroyed one, and it looked like he’d done a handy job, though unsightly. Fingit had also eavesdropped on the young man, whose conversations were less informative than the grunting and vomiting of drunken longshoremen, but without any interesting profanity. The Nub hadn’t said anything that gave Fingit good ideas about how to betray the young sorcerer.
“All right.” Sakaj sat up. “Describe the situation to me again. What have you found out? And do it in one sentence, you babbler. I do not need to hear how humans first learned to use fire and cover their private bits.”
Fingit held back a nasty statement about her being a giant whiner. “The Nub is headed for some awful city to free the Murderer and some woman, although why he wants to do it perplexes me. The Farmer severed the Murderer’s hands, thank the nasty Void-beasts for that. That’s justice for that foul-mouthed, irreverent sorcerer. He’s now a eunuch where magic’s concerned, soon to be a corpse where everything’s concerned.” Fingit glared at Sakaj and waited for her to say something about his using more than one sentence.
Sakaj pressed her lips together, but she said nothing about his long-windedness. “Good. I predicted this. The spirit will not accompany the Nub into that city. Men have laid too many stones one against another for her to bear it. The Nub will therefore ask you for help entering the city. He cannot do it without magic if he expects to save the Murderer, or if he even expects to live.”
“The spirit has been telling him to find another way,” Fingit said. “She’s made the same argument using the same words in the same tone of voice for two days. I wish I could send a hundred lions to eat her.”
“Stay focused. Betray the Nub, and I’ll send the spirit after those children. Then the Freak will trade us a lake of power, I’ll help the spirit save the Nub, and you will still have the Nub to squeeze until he’s a flaky husk.”
Sakaj lay back down beside Fingit, and in silence they watched the Nub and his river spirit walk and walk and walk.
When sunset scraped across the world of man, it turned the mountain valley hazy or stark by turns, depending on the shadows. The Nub and his river spirit stopped for the evening, made camp, and began preparing a meal for the young sorcerer.
Fingit nudged Sakaj. “I wish there was something to eat here. Or that we could bring something with us.”
“How do you know we can’t bring things with us? Have you tried? I haven’t.”
Fingit didn’t argue, nor did he ask her how she thought it could be done. The Smith of the Gods didn’t think that way. He instead started analyzing how to do it, and whether he had everything he needed to do it.
When the world of man had become as dark as Unicorn Town, Fingit chuckled. “Would you like some soup?”
“What? Don’t you dare!”
But Fingit had already released his body, and after some interval of unconsciousness, he was reborn in the Home of the Gods. He ran to the tiny blue cottage he’d built to replace his lovely, now-vaporized home. Then he clattered around in the obsessively organized kitchen for a while before packing a dragon-skin bag with a sealed clay jug of leviathan-coriander soup. He also packed golden bowls and platinum spoons.
He might have been a pauper by divine standards, but he still had some self-respect.
His suicide by hanging felt a little hurried, and the rope was scratchy, but it did the job. Fingit awoke in Unicorn Town, close to his abandoned body. He hadn’t gotten accustomed to that creepy phenomenon.
Unicorn Town had forced the gods to reconsider how their bodies existed. Before then, only two places mattered: the Home of the Gods and the Dim Lands. Whenever a god was elevated, he awoke in the Dim Lands with all the injuries and mutilations he had suffered during elevation. He would be trapped there until the next sunrise. Then he’d be reborn with a perfect body in the Home of the Gods, and his corpse would disappear at the same time.
Throughout the ages, the gods recognized in a desultory way that while elevated, they had two bodies: a lifeless corpse in the Home of the Gods, and an identical but animated body in the Dim Lands. They knew that this probably meant something, possibly something important. However, nobody ever saw his own lifeless corpse, so the gods figured they shouldn’t poke around with things that weren’t broken.
Unicorn Town seemed to work just like the Dim Lands at first. If a god was elevated while thinking about Unicorn Town as a destination, he awoke in Unicorn Town with all his wounds. But then Sakaj screwed the whole thing up by figuring out how to jump out of Unicorn Town and be reborn back home without waiting for sunrise.
Now a god could be elevated at home, wake up in Unicorn Town, jump back home, wake up in a perfect body, and literally trip over his own corpse. He could elevate himself again and wake up beside the body he left behind in Unicorn Town. If he did this over and over, he could theoretically populate a life-size model of an entire gala ball, or the Battle of the Whaling Balladeers, with nothing but his own corpses. If the gods survived the current war, at some point they would do exactly those things. They would do things far more inventive, elaborate, and horrible. Eternity is long.
