The Dragon Lords: False Idols

by Jon Hollins

  “No!” Barph snapped. And again there was that undertone of command. A steel bar rapping her will on the knuckles. “Do not put limits on it. Do not define it and control it. Do not put it in a neat little box and make a prisoner of it. Let it be. Let it be the thing it is and needs to be.”

  “They’ve been taking it away.” Will was staring into the middle distance. And Lette thought she understood, and a little part of her was amused to watch Quirk flounder with these ideas. “The dragons have been making people worship them instead of the gods,” Will glanced at Barph for confirmation. “They’ve been taking away the gods source of power. They’ve been weakening them.”

  Barph gave a small sad nod. “Yes,” he said. “And very soon, almost no one will believe in us at all. We will be old, forgotten things. Broken toys. And the dragons will ascend to the heavens, and will be worshipped as we were. They will assume the powers of the gods, and then, I think, the chances of them manifesting only rarely are very slim indeed.”

  “Shit,” said Lette. Because it really did all make sense. No matter if Barph was a trickster or not. Everything added up.

  “But,” said Will, who managed to dredge up a hopeful expression from the gods only knew where, “you said you have a plan.”

  And with that Firkin’s face lit up like a fire in a war chieftain’s hall. And his smile beamed like the sun, and he said, “Yes.” He licked his lips. “Yes I do. But in order to do that, I very much want to introduce you to some people.”

  And Lette knew, she just knew they shouldn’t have trusted the slippery bastard.

  “Who?” She had a knife in her hand.

  Firkin gave her a little bow. “My family.”

  54

  Deus Ex Machina

  Family? Will’s mind honestly couldn’t figure it out. Too much had happened too fast. Firkin didn’t have a family …

  No … not Firkin …

  Lette apparently wasn’t going to wait for Will’s brain to get its shit sorted out. “We are hiding,” she said, waving a knife around wildly. Will wasn’t sure she even knew she was holding it. “If you summon anyone here—”

  Firkin arched his eyebrows, but still didn’t say a word. Will saw muscles bunch in Lette’s neck.

  All of a sudden lightning lanced down out of the sky. Thunder tore through the trees, a cataclysmic boom that made the world quiver. Loose branches and leaves rained down in a storm of debris. Will’s leg was shaken hard enough that he had to bite down on a scream.

  Twenty yards away, through the tangle of the copse, a broad swath of the landscape was reduced to ash. The stench of charred soil and foliage filled the air. Will could see small flames dancing on the periphery of the impact crater.

  “Ha,” said Lette, with a note of satisfaction. “You missed.”

  Firkin rolled his eyes. “No,” he said. “That’s not what I do.”

  Honestly, thought Will, I could really do without all the dramatics.

  All eyes went in the direction of the crater. And for a moment there was nothing. But then they heard the crunch of feet on dry branches. Then they could just make out the silhouettes of figures moving toward them.

  Walking unhurriedly, they came into the light of the fire. There were six of them. The one in the lead was a man who was perhaps in his fifties. His age was difficult to judge. His long, flowing beard and hair were white as fresh fallen snow, but they were both thick and luxurious, and his body rippled with more coiled muscle than an eighteen-year-old griffin wrangler. A step behind him was a tall, voluptuous woman, all spilling curves within a loose-flowing dress of purple that seemed to swirl around her. She also lay in that nebulous fifties range, with a soft ample face that housed curiously hard eyes, and an incongruous nose that jutted out like a hawk’s beak.

  Behind this pair were two men, close enough in their features that they could be twins. They had smooth tanned skin, and cheekbones you could cut lemon slices on. Their loose curled hair was well oiled, as were their well-trimmed beards. Their choice in clothing, though, was markedly different. One wore slick silks trimmed with soft white fur. His fingers, wrists, neck, ears, nose, and lip were all adorned with heavy golden jewelry studded with bright jewels. He danced a coin along his knuckles as he walked without appearing to have any idea he was doing it. His twin, however, was dressed in the garb of the fields, dirty brown garments of cotton and wool, hems stained with mud and sweat. His hands, in contrast to his brothers, were heavy and gnarled with thick calluses.

  Two women followed these two men, as different as they were alike. The first was … Will felt his mouth fall slightly open no matter that Lette was right there. Balur was letting out a low moan. She moved like silk. Her dress covered her like an oil slick covered a lake. She was soft everywhere a woman needed to be soft, hard everywhere she needed to be hard. Her body … gods, how it moved. The subtle shift and sway of her body as she walked was a dance Will could have lost days watching. Her companion, on the other hand, seemed to have gotten dressed by stumbling into a closet while holding a book. White robes had accreted around her in a shapeless mass. She still held the book, and her head was down, tangled hair dangling in front of her face, reading as she came toward them.

  Will heard Quirk make a noise that might have been the start of a question, or a gasp, or just inopportune gas.

  The well-built man who stood at the front of the newcomers fixed Firkin with a stony gaze. “You,” he said.

  There was an ocean of emotions contained in that one word. Will felt them roll through him, as if the word was forcing them into his skull with a blacksmith’s hammer. He felt disgust and regret, fondness and disappointment, hope and anguish. He grunted, closed his eyes, tried to focus. Hadn’t he had his own thoughts once?

  “Grandfather,” said Firkin. He had definitely ratcheted up the smirk several notches in its intensity.

  Foreign washes of emotion were still swirling through Will. Lust. Rage. Boredom. The curious desire to start plowing a field. He felt caught in a storm of unexpected conflicts. He tried to focus.

  “Barph.” Unexpectedly it was the woman who had become the target of most of Will’s unwanted lustful thoughts who spoke. She nodded her head toward Barph just slightly, an echo of his own smile on her lips.

  “Lover,” said Firkin. If he grinned any further he was going to do some serious damage to his cheeks.

  “Why you—” said the twin in stained workman’s clothes. His fists were balled. And while Will wasn’t an expert on these things, he looked of a scale to kick Firkin’s arse.

  Except Firkin was Barph.

  Except …

  “Oh gods,” said Lette, clawing her face. “They’re the gods.”

  Barph’s family.

  Barph’s.

  And that was Lawl, Will realized. Lawl, king of the gods. Lord of law and order. Ruler of the Hallows and arbiter of men’s fate in that realm of death. Lawl with one white eye of justice and mercy and one black eye of rage and misfortune. And he had his hand on the chest of his son, Toil, god of hard work, champion of farmers, smiths, and craftsmen. Toil who made sure a hard day’s work was rewarded, and to whom Will had poured ten thousand libations day after day.

  All of them. They were all gods. The soft woman with hard features was Betra, mother of the gods, or … mother of Toil, Knole, and Klink. Holy shit. Toil’s richly robed twin—that was Klink, god of coin and merchants. God of the rich. And the woman with her nose in a book was Knole, goddess of wisdom, wit, and knowledge. Which would explain why Quirk and Afrit were looking at her with such ardent longing.

  And the woman that was causing such a disturbance in his loins … That was Cois. Which meant she wasn’t exactly a woman. She was … he was … Between hir succulent legs was more meat than Will was usually looking for. And yet … gods. Gods. Cois god(dess) of love, of fertility, of life. Cois, son and daughter of Lawl and Toil. Wife and husband of Toil. Who were in turn parents of … of …

  Of Barph.

  And gods
, could this day not be done with him?

  The gods were, he supposed, right there. He could just ask them.

  But he didn’t. He just … he couldn’t. They were the gods. You didn’t just pipe up and say, “Hey, arseholes, how about you mess with me less?”

  “So,” said Lawl, and Will felt all of his attention forcibly ripped away from his own thoughts, and focused upon the god whether he wanted it or not, “you return to power.” The head of the pantheon looked pointedly at Barph.

  Will wanted to look and see if the others were being similarly compelled to watch, but he couldn’t even achieve that.

  “I do, Grandfather,” said Barph. He had eased back on his smile finally.

  “You did not come to see me in the Hallows.” Lawl’s voice was perfectly civil. Will had the impression of tidal waves of emotion battering against the seawall of his calm.

  “You made me powerless, Grandfather,” said Barph. “Not stupid.” The smile twitched but then stayed at its dimmed brightness.

  Lawl took that head-on, and stared impassively at Barph. Strange torrents of feeling washed through Will. For a moment he was sure he was about to leap forward and tear out Barph’s throat. And he wasn’t sure why he was going to do it.

  Then abruptly Lawl laughed. And then Will was laughing. He could hear Lette, and Balur, and Quirk, and Afrit all laughing along with him. He didn’t want to laugh. He wanted to weep. Firkin’s body sitting there, talking with Lawl as if it were nothing. Ignoring him, as if he were nothing but a fly that had alighted on a nearby leaf.

  Lawl stopped laughing, but he was still smiling. Will could feel the rictus smile on his own lips.

  “It is good to have you back, Grandson,” said Lawl in booming tones. “We can use your insights at a time like this.”

  “His insights?” Toil stalked forward, and Will felt the smile ripped forcibly from his face. “You don’t find all of this just a little convenient? We are at our lowest ebb, and suddenly from nowhere Barph returns to us?” He jabbed a finger at Barph. “This has the stink of your shit all over it.”

  Barph did a very good job of looking mortally wounded by the accusation.

  Inside Will, a spark of genuine emotion flared among the oppressive weight of other people’s thoughts. How many times had he seen Firkin perform that pantomime of outrage? How many times had he made Will laugh, when Will was just a child, with that same performance? It was all so familiar, and so very foreign at the same time.

  “Come now,” clucked Betra, her matronly tones belied by the death stare she angled at Toil from behind her jutting nose. “He’s your son, after all.”

  “He fucked my wife!” shouted Toil, who was apparently not inured to this offense, no matter that it must have been more than eight hundred years old. “His own mother!”

  Will did suppose that was a lot to get over. There again, given that Cois was Toil’s child via the medium of divine rape by Lawl—Toil’s own father—Will wasn’t entirely sure if this was actually considered transgressive among the gods or not.

  “To be fair,” muttered Klink examining his manicured fingernails, “your wife—”

  “Say another word,” bellowed Toil, whirling upon his twin, “and there won’t be much left of you for the dragons to kill.”

  “Toil.” The word dropped into the conversation like oil sliding over water. Cois gave both Toil and Klink looks that Will could only describe as silky. Dramatic things happened in his loins. He heard Balur moan. For that matter, he heard Lette moan as well. Which he realized wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t help but be a little disappointed about.

  “Yes, wife,” said Toil through gritted teeth.

  “Be kind to our son, love,” said Cois.

  Will found the sound of hir voice made him go almost cross-eyed.

  Knole yawned, and turned another page in her book, apparently oblivious to all the drama. Will thought that if somehow, he emerged from all of this with both his sanity and his body intact, he might worship Knole more enthusiastically.

  “Yes, dear,” said Toil, still grinding his teeth. Cois sank back into the background. Will felt the weight of her presence on his willpower slacken, and almost gasped in relief.

  “So,” said Barph, “not too much has changed then?”

  Lawl considered that. “It has been”—he cocked his head to one side—“quieter without you.”

  “Less interesting, you mean.”

  Whatever mirth Lawl had been feeling disappeared like the sun before a rainstorm. “Do not presume that because time has eroded my animosity, you are yet in my good graces, trickster.” His voice rolled out like thunder. Will was fairly glad that he managed to keep his britches clean.

  Barph bowed his head. “Sorry, Grandfather,” Will heard him mutter.

  And it was so … so very not Firkin. And yes, he totally got that pissing off the king of all the gods was a very, very, very bad idea, but … he couldn’t help but want to see Firkin piss in this god’s eye.

  “I understand,” said Barph, not lifting his head up, “that you’ve been having some trouble with dragons.”

  “As if you know nothing of them,” barked Toil.

  This was a challenge that Barph seemed prepared to meet. “You accuse me, Father,” he said, finally standing up. “Yet I have been down here, let me remind you, powerless”—he spat the word—“for eight hundred years.” He looked directly into Toil’s eyes. “You have sat in your golden throne, fucking mortals behind my mother’s back for eight hundred years. And now the world rebels. Whose fault is that? I finally return to power and I am likely to remain that way all of five minutes. Whose fault is that? The people turn to the dragons and strip you of power, and you accuse me? Because I have been down here with them unable to do anything. Able to do nothing!” He roared these last words. He had been slowly advancing on Toil and now stood no more than two feet from him. His spittle sprayed the air. “At whose feet does this blame lie, Father?” The name became a bitter joke in Barph’s mouth.

  He turned and looked at all the gods. “You have come here as beggars, and you know it. You have come here because you are desperate. You have come here because you felt my power reach out across the land for the first time in almost a millennia, and you felt hope flare in your hearts.” He turned to look to Lawl. “Even you grandfather.” He turned back to Toil. “Even you, Father. You are here because you are out of ideas, and you know the only chance of someone coming up with one that works is me.”

  He spat upon the ground. “Now I can be graceful about that. I was not planning to lord it over you. But do not come here after what was done to me, after none of you aided me, after you abandoned me … Do not come here and rub my face in your accusations.” He took another step toward Toil. “My desire to survive is only a hair’s breadth ahead of my desire to laugh as we all burn together. And you, Father, you could so easily alter that balance.” He smiled a shark’s smile. “So tread carefully.”

  Toil’s face was almost purple. He clenched and unclenched his fists. But he said nothing as Barph turned his back on him.

  “So …” It was Betra who spoke now, and Will felt a strange sense of calm roll over him, a muting of emotion under misplaced motherly affection. “… underneath all this bluster and bullshit, do I detect that you do think you can do something about our current conundrum?”

  Barph hesitated. His back was still to them all, and Will couldn’t see his expression. He tried to pick up on the god’s emotions through the mess of his own feelings and those of the other divinities. He had no idea what he was feeling.

  “Yes,” said Barph, nodding as if to himself. “I do. I do. I do have a plan, and—” He turned around. His smile was wider than ever. It looked almost painful. He swept an arm at Will, Lette, Balur, Quirk, and Afrit. “And these fine mortals are it.”

  Now that, thought Will, doesn’t sound fantastic.

  “Them?” Klink looked at Will and the others with barely disguised distaste. “What use could
there be in them?”

  Will would have liked to take that little cultured piece of distaste and cram it so far up Klink’s arse that he would taste it at the back of his throat for a week. But that was about as likely to happen as all of this ending well.

  “Yes,” said Barph. “I shall be using these precise mortals.” Will’s heart continued to sink.

  “Even that one?” Cois was pointing at Will again. He glanced over at Lette. It sounded like she was growling.

  “Even him, Mother dearest,” said Firkin. There was a lascivious look in his eyes.

  And she … he … zhe was Firkin’s lover. Not just his mother, but … Zhe looked like … Gods the heavens were messed up.

  “You’ll like the plan actually, Mother,” Firkin went on. “Because you’re going to have to sleep with them.” He turned to the other gods. “All of you are, actually. There’s going to have to be a lot of sex.”

  There was a very distinct pause during which Will tried to work out if he really had heard what he thought he’d just heard.

  “Sex?” Betra said loudly. Her voice sounded scandalized in a way that was, in Will’s estimation, utterly false.

  “Lots, Grandmother,” said Barph, nodding to himself.

  Toil spread out his arms. “He’s messing with us. He’s always messing with us.” He wheeled on Barph. “You are small, and petty, and false.” He shoved his finger into Barph’s face.

  Barph shrugged, but his eyes were on Lawl. “I cannot force you to do anything. I can only talk and let you decide. That has always been the limit of my power, Father.”

  “You mix your words like you mix your drinks.” Cois did not sound as if she minded this, though. From Barph’s expression he didn’t mind the accusation either.

  “Let me put it to you simply then,” Barph said. “The dragons are going to kill you. They are going to take your powers. They are going to cast you into the Hallows, which they shall rule.” He looked directly at Toil while listing this fate.

  Besides his twin, Klink was nodding. “This plan is up there with your best, Barph,” he said, barely able to talk around the vast wedge of sarcasm in his mouth. “I can see why we were so anxious to come to you.”