Working God's Mischief

by Glen Cook

  “And how do you—ouch! This is a boy for sure. He’s trying to kick his way out.”

  “How do I what?”

  “How do you know Anselin will change anything? Do you know him?”

  “I do not. But know his situation. My spies in Salpeno have investigated him thoroughly.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the new king in Arnhand could become one of our best friends because his mother hates us.” Raymone Garete knew something about the troubles a son could have with his mother.

  “Oh! The waiting is almost over! Your little bastard is going to hit the ground running.” She made mock of the Brothen Episcopal Church, saying that. Their marriage had not been sanctioned by the Patriarch. But Raymone did not smile. Socia said, “You need to make your meaning more clear.” She wanted to nudge his thoughts toward something else that annoyed him.

  He said, “Anne always treated Anselin badly, blatantly favoring Regard. Some say because Charlve the Dim wasn’t his real father. But Regard is dead. Anne’s own machinations make Anselin the only heir.”

  Raymone rested a hand on Socia’s belly. The skin there had stretched till it glistened. Her navel had become a strange little knot that looked like it was about to pop off. His touch was featherlight.

  “So Anselin will reverse Anne’s policies just because they’re hers?”

  “Some. Maybe most. But he’ll still have to deal with people who aren’t his mother. They won’t let him do whatever he wants.” Half a minute passed while Raymone contemplated Socia’s stomach. “Anne of Menand may find herself locked up in a cloistered nunnery before they finish cleaning up the coronation mess.”

  “She’s slippery, though.” Socia could not concentrate on politics. The baby was clog dancing. “So you think we’ve won.”

  Raymone Garete thought nothing of the sort. “I haven’t looked at it that way. You could be right. We’ll have a respite, at least.”

  “So why so disappointed?”

  “It means a huge change in our lives if, suddenly, nobody is trying to kill us and steal everything.”

  “I need something to drink. No! Good God! Not wine. Water. Or small beer. No. Better. The water the Master blessed.” And, once Raymone delivered that, “It’s time for Mistress Alecsinac.” She groaned. “The pains are real, now. Yah!” She suppressed a scream. “Now, love! Get the midwives. And the Master.” She had no idea what use the old man could be but he had been there for all the landmarks of her life since she was fifteen. He needed to be there for this—especially if something went wrong.

  Terrified, suddenly, she needed Brother Candle desperately.

  “Wait! One thing. Who will you marry if I don’t survive?”

  Raymone Garete was no genius where women were concerned but he did slip this snare. “No one, heart of my heart. I will go on only to rear my son, in your memory.”

  Even that was only marginally acceptable. He should have tried for reassuring.

  “What a bullshitter. Go on. Get the midwives.”

  * * *

  When Brother Candle met the infant Lumiere he was surrounded by women, some unfamiliar. Those he did know included Kedle Richeut, Mistress Alecsinac, and the ladies of Count Raymone’s diminutive court. Those he did not know included a wet nurse and Raymone’s fiercely disapproving mother. Sister Claire had spent her last twelve years cloistered. She had come to see her first grandson at Count Raymone’s insistence.

  Raymone’s mother said nothing in his hearing but she was unhappy about the presence of heretics and witches. Nor did she approve of her son’s choice of wife. The border brat was little better than a peasant.

  Brother Candle was gracious toward the cross old nun but somewhat boggled. Not once had Raymone ever mentioned his mother. It was obvious he had little love for the woman. So why was she here?

  Count Raymone Garete operated by a complex code of his own device. He could not articulate it fully even to himself.

  The Perfect would learn later, from Bernardin, that the Count believed his mother had been involved in the death of his father when Raymone was a small boy. There might have been cuckoldry involved. A Connecten romantic love may have gone wrong. Or religion might have been involved. Bernardin would not explore the matter.

  Socia was sitting up. Two women were trying to make her more presentable. A touch of vanity not evident before?

  “Master. I’m delighted. Come here. Shove those crows out of the way.”

  Brother Candle did no shoving. He moved carefully. It was clear which women were Seekers and which were Chaldarean. It was harder to tell which of those honored Brothe and which clung to the lost Viscesment Patriarchy. The Episcopals were offended by his presence. He was a man, and a heretic.

  Socia inspired further indignation by patting her bed. “Sit. Look at him. What do you think?”

  He said what he thought. “He ought to be in the arms of his mother, suckling his mother’s milk.”

  Silence conquered the room. Every woman stared, amazed. Nor was Socia best pleased.

  “You’re his mother, Socia. Be his mother. Don’t put vanity between you. Or whatever it is that moves you. Sister Claire. You didn’t nurse Raymone, did you?” Point hammered home, Brother Candle said, “He’s a beautiful boy, Socia. Perfect in every way. Properly raised, he should be a worthy heir to Count Raymone.”

  Irked, Socia nodded. She had heard Brother Candle’s opinions about why so many noble sons turned wicked or were just plain incompetent.

  It was hard to deny that the greatest, most successful, and best loved lords often gave way to bad sons.

  Socia said, “Riann. Hand me the child, please.” She took him from the wet nurse. “He’ll be called Lumiere, Master.”

  “Excellent. May the Good God grant that he lives up to his name.”

  Count Raymone’s mother ground her teeth and muttered but did not expose herself to censure. She must have been warned.

  Brother Candle sighed. This religious contention was mad. When outsiders let it alone the Connec ran as smoothly and painlessly as it had in the shelter of the Old Empire.

  Socia said, “You will, of course, be his godfather.”

  “Is that wise? I don’t have many years left.”

  “Wise? I don’t know. It’s what I want. It’s right. Do you want to hold him?” The baby was asleep, nuzzling her chest.

  “I’d end up dropping him on his head. Or something.”

  “You would not and you know it. You manage fine with Kedle’s imps.”

  “If I fumble one of her devils I won’t have a fire-breathing count jumping on me before the brat stops bouncing. Speaking of fire-breathers, where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I saw him after the delivery. He said he was taking a patrol out. Something is happening on the Dechear, up near Viscesment. Maybe Anne and Serenity aren’t being as quiet as they should.”

  Brother Candle scowled. On the day his son was born? Bernardin could have handled that.

  Count Raymone had to learn to delegate.

  Socia became animated. She forgot Lumiere when she got into politics, which this would be if Anne or the Patriarch were involved.

  The old man took one of Socia’s hands. He held on while he considered the other women.

  He saw little to encourage him about Lumiere’s upbringing.

  The boy would follow his father’s path, getting close to no women but his wet nurse and nanny. He would be taught to belittle them or hold them in quiet contempt. That attitude would, in time, come to include everyone not of his own class.

  A failing that Count Raymone had, miraculously, avoided.

  “Socia, you know me. The eternal pessimist. Don’t take too much to heart my gloomy assessment of Lumiere’s future.”

  He had made a decision. For the infant’s sake he would not return to Sant Peyre de Mileage.

  Maybe he could get the boy’s feet on the ground before the Good God called.

  “Eternal pessimist? You might be a little
too positive about your bleak seasons, old man. We could surprise you. So. Get it into your head right now. You stay till you see Lumiere grow into a man.”

  “It may take that long to rediscover the Perfection I’ve lost since I met you.”

  “Always with the clever words. Always with the jokes. Come on. Take him. I insist.”

  There was an edge to Socia’s voice the Perfect found troubling.

  He took the infant. One blue eye opened momentarily, unfocused, but Brother Candle imagined himself being cataloged in the mind behind.

  Babies did seem like supernatural beings at the beginning.

  6. Realm of the Gods: The Tyranny of the Night

  The Old Gods all took human form. Even Asgrimmur could not say if that was compelled by the presence of humans or if it was just convenient. Some had trouble keeping the shape. They all shimmered occasionally. Which might explain why, in their prime, they had been called the Shining Ones.

  “There’s no power!” one beauty complained. “The magic is gone.”

  Most of the revenants had gone out into their world. A few had stayed to watch the mortals. Piper Hecht remained dreadfully uncomfortable, for reasons of offended faith and of concern for his family—though Asgrimmur continued to assure him that there would be no trouble.

  “They know they’ve just moved into a bigger prison. They know they’re dead if this world stays closed. They need magic to survive here. There is none. They know bad behavior means no way out. This world will dwindle till, in time, it becomes smaller than a pinprick.”

  “All part of the Aelen Kofer design, eh? Those sneaky bastards.”

  “This one is the gods’ fault. It’s their design. The Aelen Kofer just built the furniture.”

  Hecht backed away from the discussion. However confusing, all things were true inside the Night.

  The woman called Sheaf came in. She was eating what looked like an overgrown, deformed crabapple. “Eavijne’s first crop. They’re not good but there are enough to go around. Get one.” She ambled around, looking over shoulders, curious.

  Hecht was curious himself. How had she become fluent in modern Firaldian? Those must be potent apples.

  The Bastard, Cloven Februaren, and Heris finished readying their first dump of Instrumentality soul eggs. More than a hundred pounds lay in the glass hopper, set to go.

  The ascendant was not much use just now. The suggestion that the All-Father’s fall might have been engineered had hit him hard. Had he been manipulated himself? How had he, newly ascended and quite insane, been able to create a pocket world into which he had herded twelve gods?

  Asgrimmur kept trying to discuss it with Heris. Heris was busy.

  She finally grumbled, “Will you quit stressing about what happened back when? We have problems now. The Trickster ended up in there because what’s inside you spent what was left of him to make it happen. Now help me with the hammer mill.”

  Some of the soul eggs were too large for the injection tube. Heris meant to break those up. The eggs would shatter when hit hard.

  Anna and the children had been making themselves useful by moving equipment and materials no longer needed out of the chamber. The divinities were not pleased by their indifference.

  Two sizable, still-warm soul eggs had been set aside, on a table all their own. Two falcons not so subtly pointed their way. Heris talked about trying to reverse their misfortune.

  Hecht would as soon see them all destroyed. To the last and least these entities mocked the religion of his youth and the religion he had adopted since coming west.

  His mind might know that all things were true inside the Night but his heart desperately wanted that not to be so. There is no God but God!

  “Piper?” Heris asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re daydreaming. Again.”

  “Have to. It never gets dark here.” He glanced toward the doorway. The green area boasted a half-dozen Old Gods who looked like ordinary people with anachronistic senses of style. They included one of Red Hammer’s mothers—different myths assigned the honor to different goddesses—and his wife and that wife’s daughter by an unknown father.

  They made Hecht nervous.

  Cultures that had worshipped the Old Ones had had strange notions of justice.

  “In a world of an eye for an eye the last man standing has got the world by the balls.”

  Heris said, “Piper?”

  “Nothing. Something Pinkus Ghort said.” He checked his family.

  They were spent emotionally. Pella had begun spelling them at the falcons. The boy could be a surprise when he set the attitude aside. “How much longer do you want the falcons manned? Asgrimmur says we don’t need them anymore. But I’m more suspicious than him. I can’t help thinking how honorable I’d be if the Old Ones had the upper hand.”

  Cloven Februaren said, “You’re the product of thousands of years of the Instrumentalities having had the upper hand. You’d need to live that long with them to grasp their thinking. The simple fact that death is something that only happens to somebody else makes a huge difference.”

  Hecht said, “That should be changing.”

  “The change started centuries ago. But they got it wrong, which is why we are where we are today.”

  “Why did you come over here interrupting, Double Great?”

  “I wanted to tell you to get on with your work and stop worrying about the numb-nuts hangers-on.”

  “I missed your point. Assuming you had one.”

  “Stop worrying about the gods. They can’t interfere. That would be suicidal. You got them by the short hairs. Yank or squeeze, as appropriate, when the mood takes you.”

  That did not reassure Hecht till he recalled that the Old Ones were inside their Paradise already, specially constructed by the Aelen Kofer. Suicide would not take them onward to any wondrous eternity.

  The Adversary’s cunning termites of doubt kept gnawing at the foundations of his faith.

  “If I understand Double Great right, Piper, it’s all right if Anna and the kids take off. All we have left is to dump the trash through the midden hole.” Heris waved. “Let’s do the drop, Renfrow.”

  “As you wish.” The Bastard fiddled with petcocks. A thousand amber beads, from pinhead size to an inch in diameter, rolled down through silver glass tubing. A silver ball followed so nothing of the Night could head in the other direction.

  The Bastard closed and opened petcocks again. Beads and ball disappeared into Asgrimmur’s pocket universe.

  “There’s one load gone,” Heris said. “Let’s get crushing and grinding. We’ll have this done in another hour. In two we’ll be sucking down Aelen Kofer ale.”

  Hecht checked his family again. “You’re sure you don’t need fire support?”

  “You stay. Pick a falcon.” Heris stepped past him. “You gods get a sudden notion to knock boots with a mortal girl, just remember that their mother, father, and aunt already wrote the last verse for four major Instrumentalities.”

  It was more than four but Hecht was not about to start threatening gods. Heris ought to have better sense, too. She should have noticed, as well, that only one of these gods was male.

  Hecht was distracted by the novelty of her concern for Lila and Vali.

  Some of the divinities did have reputations. Old northern myth and culture valued virginity, chastity, and fidelity much less than did the followers of Aaron of Chaldar. And Chaldareans were less obsessive than Pramans, who stoned somebody if they even thought about sexual congress with anyone but young boys or the renewable virgin houris of Paradise.

  Anna and the children left. Hecht leaned on his falcon and brooded about the quirks of religion.

  The Founding Family had been crystal clear and bloody fierce in matters sexual. There was no room in the Faith for buggery. But, as people generally do, the Faithful overlooked rules they found inconvenient. Nor did useful pre-Revelation gods vanish in the light of the god who was God. They put on disguises and
went to work as ifrits and other spirits, now supposedly in thrall to the Adversary. And the thing about boys …

  That had confused and appalled Piper Hecht even when he was young Else Tage.

  He thought of Osa Stile, ensorcelled so he would remain a pleasure boy all his life. Osa was still out there, nearing forty, looking a small twelve, still unconvinced that those who had warped him did not deserve his loyalty.

  The hammer mill cycled. It shook the chamber. The smash and rattle startled Hecht out of his dark reverie.

  Heris joined him. “This is going all right but it’s taking longer than I expected.”

  “Everything does.”

  “Why? The individual steps aren’t causing complications.”

  “My staff call it friction. Natural drag that just slows things down even when there aren’t any problems. Titus Consent has an equation he uses to guess how much friction we can expect in an operation. And, guess what?”

  “It doesn’t help?”

  “It does. But the attempt to calculate friction causes friction of its own. I suspect an undiscovered law of the universe.”

  “And that doesn’t drive you nuts?”

  “Of course it does. But if you accept it, don’t fight it, and take it into account, things go fairly well. Most leaders can’t handle friction. They make things worse by screaming, yelling, threatening and punishing. People slow down when they’re afraid to make mistakes.”

  “More philosophy. More intellectualization. More friction.”

  “You could be right. They’re ready to run another load.”

  Februaren had sieved the material processed in the hammer mill. The finer stuff went into the tube for delivery into the void. Big chunks would take another pass through the hammer mill. “If we mixed this with water it would go through faster.”

  “Or oil,” the Bastard suggested.

  “Oil would create a viscous slurry.” A vigorous debate commenced.

  Hecht wrestled his temper. These men, participating in the industrialized destruction of the Instrumentalities of the Night, were bickering over the easiest way to make an end of the last relicts of entities who might have existed for millennia.