Wee Piggies of Radiant Might

by Bill McCurry

  Sakaj glared her disgust up at Fingit. “If I had feet, I would kick your balls through the top of your skull.”

  Fingit roared, “Well, I do have feet, and you’re a pretty handy target, darling!”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Fingit ran toward Sakaj and aimed a kick directly at her nose. Unable to dodge or even flop out of the way, Sakaj closed her eyes. Fingit exerted all his divine strength to pull the kick aside at the last moment, and it just caught her ear. Spinning, Fingit toppled to the grass.

  Sakaj opened her eyes and released a trembling sigh. She whispered, “Thank you for not murdering me, at least.”.

  Fingit rose. “To hell with you.” He grabbed her attenuated shoulders and lifted, and then he dragged her flattened body as if he were pulling a piece of lumber along by one end.

  “Set me down!” Sakaj wiggled her body like a floppy rug as she repeated the command several times, accompanied by increasingly awful profanity.

  Fingit dragged her down a gentle slope to a black pond. He hauled her into the knee-deep water and hurled her toward the middle, spinning like a fisherman’s net. She smacked onto the surface, settled a moment, and sank.

  Fingit waded out of the pond and trudged up the slope. Then he stopped and took a couple of uncertain steps back toward the pond. He looked around and saw that no one else seemed to be in Unicorn Town right then.

  I really ought to fish her out. But she’s probably not dead, and she can jump out of Unicorn Town whenever she wants. Of course, Krak will vaporize her once I tell him what’s happened, so she might not be anxious to go home yet. And if she’s dead forever? In that case, there’s nothing I can do to help her anyway, is there?

  Fingit turned away from the pond and began wandering through the Unicorn Town murk, thinking about how to explain this to the Father of the Gods so that Krak wouldn’t vaporize him too.

  Thirteen

  (Sakaj)

  Sakaj concentrated on suppressing her anger. She found it difficult, especially with a black aquatic weed wafting up her nose. She told herself that if she had arms, she could fashion that weed into a strangling cord for the next time she saw Fingit. Or if she had a drop of power, she could come upon Fingit unaware, cast him into a magical sleep, and replace some of his intestines with the black weed. That shouldn’t be impossible for the Goddess of the Unknowable.

  But Sakaj did not have arms, so she may as well plan to carry Fingit off into the Void on a talking cow, there to destroy him beneath an avalanche of nasty hard cheeses. She considered it unlikely she could accomplish any of that, unless she now lay at the bottom of a mystical pond. She supposed that the pond could be mystical, considering that it existed in the Dark Lands. Yet unless it produced well-endowed love slaves, or a school of demon fish with which to destroy her enemies, it wasn’t mystical enough to suit her.

  All of my stratagems have failed. If we rely upon Harik and Lutigan to fight our war, Cheg-Cheg will destroy us all. The Veil will never be lifted, and we’ll die as demented, degenerate creatures. Well, to the hells with that! Krak certainly did not sire me on that chintzy tart he found out in the Void just for me to hand over my life uncontested. I heap filth upon capitulation! Instead, I shall conquer.

  I wish this damned weed would get out of my nose.

  Sakaj wiggled her nostrils to dislodge the aggravating strand of aquatic life. Amazingly, it worked.

  Perhaps that’s a good omen. Or perhaps I just have nostrils of godly might. Either way… the Freak is still the key. Perhaps it’s still too hypothetical for her to care. I could present her with a greater pending disaster. Show her a few burned babies and disemboweled puppies. That would get her attention. Wouldn’t it?

  It gags me to even think it, but what if Fingit was correct? Was my plan too complicated? I could set the Freak aside for another time and work with that which is closer at hand. The Murderer has been mutilated. If I touch the Farmer, Harik will be bleating to Krak before I’ve drawn my third breath. That leaves the Nub, whom Fingit betrayed. Can I trick the Nub into calling on me?

  The possibly mystical pool in which Sakaj lay measured just a few feet deep. She exerted all her divine powers of concentration, as well as her incipient panic, to perceive the window onto the world of man. After a long, grinding effort, she heard the voice of that ridiculous torturer. The torture hadn’t yet reached its climax.

  Louze was saying, “Talking about your leg, then, and your miraculous recovery—I can’t nearly believe you are so tough, even using magic. Honestly, you haven’t shown me much in the way of being tough-skinned. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, of course.” Louze whirled the crosspiece and smacked the Nub in the crotch. Even at the bottom of a pond on another world, Sakaj heard the young man groan. “You’re not anything more than human, I don’t think.” He dragged the end of the crosspiece over the young man’s intact nipple and murmured, “Hmm?”

  After a pause, Louze sighed. “Well, to hell with that shit for now. Let’s talk about military matters. What do you think? Would that be good?” The Nub’s head drooped, and Louze slapped his face with the iron crosspiece. “How big is that army following along behind you? Is it dragging war engines? How many archers? How many whores? How much food and oil and arrows?”

  Desh sighed and then spat blood, his head still drooping. “I don’t know any of that.”

  Sakaj attempted to insinuate herself into the Nub’s mind. It required astounding effort, particularly since she had to accomplish it unnoticed. It was like placing a flower on your lover’s pillow without waking him, except that instead of gripping it in your delicate fingers, you must deposit it from the jaws of a slobbering hound that’s strapped to your arm.

  “Tell him,” Sakaj mumbled to the Nub beneath his consciousness. “Tell him Sakaj’s name.”

  The Nub hauled his face up toward his torturer. One eye was swelled shut, blood dripped from his mouth, and bruises stood in patchwork on the rest of his face. He hissed, “Fingit, Krak, and Sakaj will eat your rotting liver, Louze. They’ll dangle your entrails for the dogs in hell.”

  “Fingit, Krak, and who?” Louze stepped back and stared at the Nub.

  Only the near obliteration of all her limbs prevented Sakaj from dancing around like a deranged blowfly. The Nub had spoken the name of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was an invitation for Sakaj to sweep into the world of man, claim everything she coveted, steal all the power she could transport, and destroy every other thing she wished to destroy.

  Sakaj gathered her power and wrapped it inside the malice she bore for mankind and everything that might deny her glory—especially Fingit. She held Louze and the Nub and the rotting building in her mind down to the tiniest detail. She willed herself into the world of man and then experienced a complete failure to shift herself even an inch out of that murky pond.

  “No!” Sakaj shrieked. That was a mistake, and she swallowed a sizable quantity of nasty pond water. Rarely had she been called to the world of man, and this time the Veil had prevented her from answering.

  Damn the Veil nine times nine! May it be swallowed by the unending chasms! May whoever created it… ah. Well, shit.

  Louze leaned toward the Nub, and Sakaj strained to hear the man’s whispers. “Ah, you poor little fellow. Your suffering has just about ended. But there’s no mercy or hope for you today. Soon—maybe tonight or tomorrow or maybe in an hour—I’ll come for you, and I will break, cut out, or tear away things you can never get back. You’re going to tell me every secret, even the teeny tiniest. And when I’ve taken it all, then I’ll set you free.” He stepped back. “If you hadn’t sneaked into Lord Reth’s stronghold, I wouldn’t have had to do all this horrible shit to you. Makes me a little sad for both of us.”

  Sakaj closed her eyes and tried to array all the players and variables against each other in various combinations. Perhaps the Nub will liberate himself yet. I cannot see any way in which he might accomplish it, but I assume it’s possible in some theoretical fashion.
If he does, I must arrange matters so that he will call to me. With my subtle guidance, perhaps he will extricate himself. Then I shall suck the boy as dry as a beetle’s husk before Fingit looks up from playing with his fingers. In the meantime, I should not like to return home just to be obliterated by Krak, yet Fingit will certainly bring Krak here soon anyway. I’ll wait until I hear the hooting old loudmouth and then slip back home before he notices.

  (Fingit)

  Fingit crashed through a low table built of rare pressed woods. Splinters scattered across Krak’s music parlor floor. A black crystal vase shattered against the back of Fingit’s head as he tumbled and smacked into the marble wall, just beneath a tasteful painting of Krak playing the harmonium. An iridescent rose from the vase came to rest on Fingit’s throat. Five terrified burgundy and cobalt butterflies thrashed their way toward safety.

  As he struggled to sit, Fingit touched the waterfall of blood now sliding toward the back of his collar.

  That’s not too bad. At least none of me is vaporized yet.

  Krak seized the front of Fingit’s shirt and hefted him into the air again. He tried to relax to lessen the likelihood of breaking a leg or skull when he got hurled again. Instead of throwing him, Krak yelled, “You squatty, ass-grabbing, idiotic, floppy-fluted, pipsqueak of a god! I should take you to Unicorn Town and tear you into a thousand pieces! Dumbass! You are eaten up with dumbass!”

  Fingit felt pretty sure that no words ever uttered would make this situation any better for him, so he just gave a tiny smile. A line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he hoped the smile made him look contrite, anyway.

  Krak heaved Fingit again, this time toward the middle of the room where no undestroyed obstacles remained. Fingit bounced against the marble floor, rolled, and skidded to a stop facedown. Krak put his hands on his hips. “You were the only one I trusted not to do something stupid. The Nub was our most reliable producer, and you threw him away!”

  Fingit looked up. He tried to think of a different way to convince Krak this was all Sakaj’s fault. He had attempted that when he first gave Krak the news. That was when Krak had started tossing him around like firewood. Therefore, Fingit jerked when Krak said, “Where’s Sakaj?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  Krak walked across the room, kicking some scraps of furniture out of his way, and stood over Fingit. “Where did you last see her?”

  “Unicorn Town.”

  “Come on.” Krak yanked Fingit upright and pulled him through the expanding mansion to the room containing the now-permanent gallows. A minute later, they had hanged themselves; some unknown time after that, they awoke in Unicorn Town.

  Krak squeezed Fingit’s arm until it felt like it might pop in two. “Where was she?”

  Unable to think of any reasonable explanations or delaying tactics, Fingit led Krak to the pond.

  “Where, by the water?”

  “No.” Fingit pointed using the arm that wasn’t being crushed. “Out there. Under the water.”

  “You drowned her?” Krak yelled.

  “No!” Fingit pulled as far away as Krak’s grip allowed. “Well, probably not.”

  Krak closed his eyes for a time, still holding Fingit. When he opened them, he said, “It grieved me when Fressa was killed and I lost one of my offspring in this war. It will grieve me twice as much if I’ve lost a second child in Sakaj.” Krak squeezed harder, and Fingit felt watery shock that his arm wasn’t crushed into powder. Krak showed Fingit his divinely brilliant teeth. “However, if you have caused me to lose that second child, I will not grieve at all to lose a third. Now, go get her if she’s there.”

  Fingit waded to the spot where Sakaj had sunk, probed around for a bit, and even dove a couple of times. At last, he came up with Sakaj’s clearly lifeless head, attached to her mostly flattened body.

  I could go the other way. Just drop her and swim to the other side. Then all I’d have to do is elude Krak for the rest of eternity.

  Fingit towed Sakaj’s body to shore next to Krak. “She may not be dead. She may have just released her body on this side.”

  “We’ll find out pretty soon. Until then, don’t go anywhere without me.”

  “Fingit!” came the Nub’s voice out of blackness.

  Fingit gaped for a moment. Then he frowned at the sky until it swept and twisted to show the Nub. The young man had been tied and gagged with impressive skill. He had also been beaten and cut up with equally impressive skill. Fingit hadn’t expected such thoroughness from that ape-armed human torturer. The Nub lay on his side, knees up, on a tall wooden bench inside a poorly torchlit building.

  “The little ass-wart is alive,” Krak grunted.

  “There’s still hope then!” Fingit smiled. He resisted the urge to jump around in supplication like some fluffy runt of a dog.

  Krak stepped back and nodded. “Sure. There’d be more hope, of course, if you hadn’t tricked him into the hands of his enemies and left him with no defense against being mutilated and murdered.” Krak glared at his son. “That would have helped.”

  “Still…” Fingit gazed up at the Nub as if waiting for him to spontaneously pop out of his bonds.

  Krak lay his hand on Fingit’s shoulder with a meaty whack. “Fine, let’s wait and observe the manner of his death. Do you want to make a game of it? Whatever the Nub’s enemies do to him, I’ll do to you?”

  Fingit began a chuckle that turned into a cough when Krak didn’t smile. He shook his head. Then he and Krak sat on the cushy black grass and listened to the Nub call Fingit a dozen more times in the next hour. Fingit sagged more with each call that he couldn’t answer. After the fourth pleading look that he tossed at Krak, the Father of the Gods waved Fingit away. “There’s no point in my calling out to him. I can’t reach out to him through the Veil, and I doubt he’ll call me.”

  “I know.” Fingit sagged.

  “Then stop slumping and sighing. It’s ungodlike.”

  The Nub called Fingit seven more times. Then the young man called in a shaky voice, “Krak?”

  Krak jerked. “Might as well. I can’t make things any more awful than you’ve already made them, eh?”

  Fingit jumped up. “Wait! He has to save himself, but since you can’t just say, ‘We can’t help you,’ could you, oh, somehow imply a little bit that he can save himself if he really tries?”

  Krak looked at Fingit as if he were a backward sheep. “That’s almost the same as helping him. Do you want me to give him a magic sword and make him impervious too?”

  “I know, you’re right, but maybe you could get the idea across. Indirectly.”

  Krak rubbed his gigantic jaw. “Maybe I could—if I combine subtlety with cruel indifference.”

  “You are just the god for that.” Fingit gazed upon Krak with such overwhelming hero worship that even a child could see it was false.

  Krak snorted, and he even grinned a little. “You little shit.” Krak drew the Nub closer, and the sorcerer appeared from out of the blackness. “What do you want?” Krak thundered. “How dare you interrupt me! I am the damned Father of the Gods! Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m sorry.” The Nub cringed. “I’ll go now.”

  “Hell, you’re here already. You might as well say what you want.”

  “I’ve been tortured and am being held prisoner, Father Krak.”

  “You’re boring me. I don’t want to know what happened to you yesterday. What do you want right now?”

  “I want to escape.” The Nub emphasized that with a clenched fist.

  “Go ahead and do that.”

  The Nub deflated a bit. “I want your help to escape.”

  Krak answered in a tight voice, just above a whisper. “Hold it right there! What do you think is going on here? Do you expect the gods to jump down from our mighty thrones to untie knots for you or put out fires that you started? Be honest. That doesn’t sound very logical, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” The Nub seemed to s
hrink further.

  “Now,” Krak said as if they were speaking over the dinner table, “look at your current situation, which is being held prisoner, right? How did they bind you? A cell? Chains? Suspended from a cliff and being pecked by ravens? What?”

  “I’m tied up.”

  “What, with rope?” Krak smirked at Fingit.

  “Um…”

  “Rope!” Krak shouted. “You called on the gods because of a little dead grass? Every sorcerer in history would puke if they knew that.” Despite their impending decline and destruction, Krak and Fingit gritted their teeth and covered their mouths to keep from giggling aloud.

  The Nub said, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a poor sorcerer, but I don’t know how to untie myself.”

  “By the Black Whores and their black hearts! Sorcerer, assuming you have enough imagination to fill a gnat’s ear, list seven ways to get out of rope bonds.”

  “Well, untying them. Cutting, burning, and breaking. Getting somebody else to untie them. Chewing through them. Tricking an animal into chewing through them…”

  Krak grunted. “That’s enough. Now, if you keep on thinking, I’m sure you’ll come up with a way to free yourself—without bothering the most powerful being in all existence!”

  “Yes, Father Krak.”

  “Don’t bother me anymore. Not for at least a week, anyway.” Krak hurled the Nub away in just the same manner he’d hurled Fingit all over the music parlor.

  Krak leaned back and watched the Nub struggle in his bonds. “Maybe that will do it. It would have been better if I could have just traded with him, of course. Even if I destroyed him in the process, I might have gotten enough power to save us.”

  “Maybe he’ll save himself, and we’ll get another chance.”

  Krak shrugged. “Maybe Cheg-Cheg will die from a disease of the penis, and I’ll build a summer cottage in his skull.”

  Fourteen

  (Sakaj)