So… he was Ruin. He was a mighty god then, albeit not one of the Greater Gods although he was amongst the strongest who were not. But what could he want her opinion about? Was she to take the place of the mortal in the old stories, the one tasked with defending other mortals and presenting a case to shield them from the wrath of the gods? If so, the gods had chosen poorly. She was no brilliant speaker. She was not gifted with a silver tongue or cunning mind. She was a humble librarian who dreamed, now and then, of becoming a poet, nothing more and nothing less.
“Of… of course, Lord Ruin. How may I assist you?”
And then he did the most peculiar thing. He pulled out a roll of parchment and began to read from it. At first, Alyssa could scarcely believe her ears. Was this… was this supposed to be poetry. She cringed. It was terrible – absolutely, positively terrible. There was no other way to describe it, and even calling it terrible would have been an insult to terrible poetry everywhere, that was how awful it was.
“What do you think?” Ruin asked once he’d finished.
She took a deep breath. “May I speak freely, Lord Ruin?” He nodded. “It was… less than great.”
“I see.” He nodded. “How much less than great?”
“If I may speak freely again?”
He shrugged. “You may always speak freely to me. I wish to know your honest opinion. Hold nothing back.”
What followed was a ten-minute-long tirade about how he had flouted every convention, broken every rule, and generally murdered poetry as an art form. It had started off politely enough, but she’d picked up steam as she’d gone along. All her life, she’d studied poetry and the great poets, and her job as a librarian had only given her a deeper appreciation since she’d been able to actually read the original copies of some of her favourite works.
“And so,” she said at last. “That is why there are no words in the language of my people for how bad that was.” She winced. “Lord Ruin.”
He nodded again. To her immense surprise, he didn’t seem the least bit angry. If anything, he seemed amused. “Muse did warn me it was terrible.” Alyssa stared at him in horror. He had brought that… that abomination to Muse, the Greater God who presided over the arts, inspiration, and creativity? Was he insane? “Perhaps you could assist me in my next attempt.”
Her jaw dropped. “What?” she squawked inelegantly before belatedly adding, “Lord Ruin.”
“I shall, of course, compensate you for your time. Is there someone or something you would like me to smite?”
She stared at him. Was he serious? Would he really strike down her enemies if she asked him to? It was only when she saw the slight quirk of his lips that she realised he was joking. She couldn’t help but giggle. The stories had never spoken of him having a sense of humour although, to be fair, most of those stories had been written by people who’d been on the receiving end of his power. There was also something utterly ridiculous about it all. She was helping a god who had destroyed an entire continent with poetry. It made no sense at all.
“Perhaps. But for now, simply owing me a favour shall have to be enough. If it is poetry you wish to learn, there are some things you need to read.”
Ruin sighed. “Muse said much the same thing, but I was hoping a mortal would have a better idea since you don’t live as long as the gods do. If anyone could find a way to get out of reading a thousand books, it would be a mortal.”
“You’d be surprised by how many books we mortals can read.” Alyssa grinned. “Please, wait here a moment. I have one that may be of immediate assistance.” She paused. “And you need a lot of immediate assistance.”
* * *
“Did you know this would happen?” Ruin murmured. He was once again in Muse’s realm. Thirty years had passed since the day he had sought her help. The dream-like mists before them parted to show a scene from the mortal world: two brothers, one twenty-five and the other twenty-seven, facing off against a gigantic hydra that had already slain dozens of heroes over the years. Ruin was certain that today was the day it would fall.
“No,” Muse replied. “But I’m not displeased by the outcome. Remember, the future is not my domain. If you want to know more about it, ask Fate or Death.”
In the years since he’d met Alyssa, the mortal woman had grown to become the greatest poet in living memory, one whose works would endure for centuries. She had also given Ruin four children: three sons and a daughter. The two eldest were the ones they were watching. They were already legends in their own right, and the people called them warrior poets, for they had inherited not only some measure of Ruin’s might and prowess in battle but also some of their mother’s talent for poetry. He was glad. To this day, Alyssa found the wretchedness of his poetry utterly amusing. Worse still, Mischief had somehow found out about it, and she’d told both of his brothers.
“It will not be an easy battle for them.” His eyes narrowed. “And Death is watching.” Indeed, the mighty god stood on a hill overlooking the battle.
“I don’t think he’s waiting for them. The souls of all things are his to claim in death, and hydras are no exception.” Muse smiled. “If they win, they will have quite a ballad to write: the two sons of Ruin who slew the hydra so powerful that people called it Hero’s Bane.”
And though the battle was by no means easy, Muse was right. The ballad they wrote would come to be one of the most famous and beloved of their people, bested only by a humorous epic called ‘The Courtship’, which was about a bumbling god’s attempts to woo a mortal. It was also Ruin’s favourite. After all, he and Alyssa had lived it.
Rabblerousers
Many of the gods had siblings although exactly what that meant could vary quite dramatically. For younger gods, it could mean having the same divine parents. For older gods, it usually meant they had either been created by the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father at the same time or were cut of much the same proverbial cloth. Perhaps the most famous siblings amongst the gods were Death and Bureaucracy – also known as Death and Taxes – but there were many others. The twins, Wisdom and Knowledge, were another famous pair of divine siblings, and they shared everything with each other from their temples and clergy to their tools.
However, few siblings evoked the same visceral terror and dread as the trio known to gods and mortals alike as Mayhem, Mischief, and Rabble. The three of them had been inadvertently – and sometimes extremely advertently – responsible for more carnage, disaster, and general chaos than almost any other god. Dealing with one of them was a nightmare, but dealing with all three of them? Hah. There was a reason that whenever they needed to be reined in, the other gods always sent either Fate or Bureaucracy.
Naturally, the mortal world was in for a bit of a shake up since all three of them had somehow managed to schedule their holidays at the same time. There was nothing quite like a bit of mayhem, mischief, and rabble to keep the world interesting.
At least, that was what the three of them thought. Everybody else? Not so much.
* * *
Mischief liked to appear amongst mortals as a little girl with red hair and a light dusting of freckles across her cheeks. It made it so much easier to get away with things although it had led to the unfortunate belief amongst certain mortals that redheaded children were naturally mischievous and inclined toward evil. Beside her, the oldest of the three siblings, Mayhem, had taken on the appearance of a stout fellow in his mid-twenties, the sort of vigorous, young man who might make his living as a soldier or a mercenary. On the other side of Mayhem was the youngest of the siblings, Rabble. For this particular trip, Rabble had decided to don the shape of a middle-aged merchant with enough of a paunch to suggest he’d seen his fair share of success wheeling and dealing. Times were often tough in the mortal world, so only a successful merchant could afford to have an overly large belly. Thanks to some previous jaunts into the mortal world, they’d discovered that this configuration allowed them to have as much fun as possible, and these trips were all about having fun.
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And wasn’t that what life was about too? What was the point of living if they weren’t going to have any fun? They might as well be dead if they couldn’t enjoy themselves now and then.
Sure, some of their fellow gods would disagree. Death could be such a stick in the mud. He was a nice guy most of the time, but he wasn’t exactly the life of the party – pun fully intended. He would have lectured them about the importance of duty, rules, and obligations. Bureaucracy? Hah! Not even the gods had a word for how much of a party pooper she could be. Oh, Death was always good for a lecture or two, but he only did that because somebody had to. However, Bureaucracy was the one who’d come up with all the duties, rules, and obligations in the first place. The only reason they didn’t hold it against her was because the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father had made her that way. It would have been like blaming a lion for eating a wounded gazelle – except in this case, Bureaucracy was the lion and they were the gazelle.
The only Greater Gods who understood them were Muse, Annihilation, and Love, and even they didn’t really get it. Muse couldn’t appreciate the simple joy of watching people’s intricate plans explode in their faces, and Love was always going on and on about love and other emotions instead of focusing on the chaos. As for Annihilation, he liked chaos as much as they did, but he had a tendency to leave way too many bodies behind. Mayhem, Mischief, and Rabble wanted to have fun, but they didn’t want to turn the mortal world into a giant graveyard.
The way the siblings saw it, life was for living. Just because the gods lived longer than mortals didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy themselves. If anything, they needed to enjoy themselves more to keep from getting too bored or being driven totally insane by the passage of year after year after year. That was another reason they didn’t always get along with Annihilation. If he had his way, the mortal world would have been blown up ages ago. But if that happened, how were they supposed to entertain themselves? Messing with other gods wasn’t nearly as fun as messing with mortals, and it was a lot more dangerous too. The last time they’d pranked Bureaucracy, it had taken Death’s personal intervention to keep the goddess from simply murdering the three of them.
“Are we going to the festival, you know, the one you mentioned yesterday?” Rabble asked. Despite being the youngest of the three of them, he now appeared to be the oldest. Grinning, he reached down and lifted Mischief up to sit on his shoulders. It amused him, and she’d done the same thing for him in the past on the rare occasions when her mortal guise had been bigger than his.
Mischief nodded and kicked her legs back and forth, drawing a short laugh from Mayhem. The oldest of the three adjusted the sword on his back and tugged at the eye patch over his right eye. He’d always found it funny how much respect a mortal warrior could earn with a sufficiently gnarly scar and an eye patch. Out of the three siblings, he was also the one most skilled in combat although all three of them preferred to fight using more indirect means whenever possible. It was more fun that way.
“That’s the one,” Mischief said. “They only have it once every four years, so we’ll have to wait a while if we miss this one.”
“What is it about again?” Rabble honestly hadn’t been paying much attention when Mayhem and Mischief had first explained. He had been focused on stirring up some riots in a number of different mortal cities. However, he wanted to know what their plan was before they reached their destination. It wouldn’t be long now either. They were already close enough for even a mortal to make out the city’s tall, broad walls of white stone, as well as the flags of blue and green that flew upon the walls and battlements. As they passed a group of travellers, Rabble smiled. The group immediately turned on each other, their previously calm discussion about the weather degenerating into a ragged fistfight. It was hilarious. Up on his shoulders, Mischief rolled her eyes. He could be so immature sometimes.
“They’re celebrating the great peace accords that unified this kingdom under a single ruler.” Mayhem glanced back at the travellers rolling around in the dirt. His little brother could turn even the smallest disagreement into a pitched battle. “It happened roughly three hundred of their mortal years ago.”
“Wait…” Rabble rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think I remember something. Wasn’t that us?”
“Yep.” Mischief patted her brother’s head. Rabble’s mortal guise was in the process of going bald, and the skin on top of his head was incredibly smooth and shiny. It was vaguely hypnotic, and she wondered if any passing birds were blinded by the way it reflected sunlight. “We realised that if they kept fighting they’d wipe themselves out, and where’s the fun in that? Yeah, it’d be funny for a few years, but after that? Boring!”
A world full of corpses would have been incredibly dull, and they did sympathise with the mortals now and then despite all the trouble they led them into.
“And it was fun organising the whole thing, remember?” Mayhem smirked. “We led them into having a peace conference where the whole lot of them got supremely drunk. And when they all passed out, we put them in bed next to each other. They were so horrified and embarrassed that they signed the treaty the next day and vowed never to speak of it again.”
Rabble snickered and patted Mischief’s leg. “I definitely remember now. How did you do it? Did you spike the wine or something?”
“Nope.” Mischief cackled evilly and rubbed her hands together. “I convinced them they were drinking watered down wine, but it wasn’t actually watered down at all. It was the strongest stuff their vineyards could produce. They were all too proud to question it, and none of them wanted to look weak in front of the others.” It was her favourite kind of trick, the kind where she gave mortals some rope and let them hang themselves due to their own faults.
“Nice.” Rabble reached up to ruffle Mischief hair. “What’s the plan this time? And do you think you could stop rubbing my head? It’s weird.”
“But your head is so smooth and shiny.” Mischief snickered and patted the bald spot on his head. “It’s like polished marble.”
Mayhem bit back another laugh at his siblings’ antics. It was a fine day, perhaps a little too hot for the average mortal, but it had only just passed noon. They had plenty of time to enjoy their holiday, and this was the perfect kind of day to cause some trouble. He had also not felt the gaze of any of the Greater Gods upon them. Was that tacit approval, or were they simply choosing to stay uninvolved? It didn’t matter. As much as some of their fellow gods – namely, Bureaucracy and Fate – objected to their activities, they were mostly left to their own devices because this was why they had been created. Without them, the world would be far too boring and static. If the Supreme Mother and Supreme Father had wanted a world that ran like clockwork, they would have created a giant clock.
“We can split up,” Mayhem said. “We haven’t got an ironclad plan, so we can look around and see if anything catches our attention. We just have to make sure that we know what we’re doing before nightfall. That’s when the fun starts. What do you think?”
Mischief giggled. It was a sound of pure, undiluted villainy. “It’s been a while since I’ve explored this city, and things do look different on the ground, as opposed to when we’re using our powers to look at everything.”
“I’m fine with taking a look around.” Rabble laughed. “I’ve heard the merchants here have developed quite an elaborate system. I wonder what would happen if something gave their system a little nudge in the wrong direction.”
Mayhem’s lips curled. Given his current appearance, it was a wonderfully roguish expression. “Have fun but remember to reach out to us if you come across anything interesting.”
* * *
It didn’t take Mischief long at all to vanish into the back alleys of the less reputable part of the city. Like most mortal cities, the area was littered with street children and other people who either preferred to live in the shadows or had no say in the matter. All of them relied heavily on their cunning to survive, and although m
any gods overlooked such mortals, Mischief had always paid close attention to them. These mortals were the downtrodden and the forgotten, the ones who even other mortals refused to acknowledge with anything except dismissal and contempt.
But these mortals had a greater than usual talent for mischief despite of – or perhaps because of – their misfortune. The overwhelming majority of them were terribly poor, living day to day on whatever they could steal, scavenge, or trick others into giving them. As such, they venerated her and her siblings as the three gods who could most easily help them to survive. Oh, Death might get big temples and solemn poems, and philosophers and politicians were always arguing about what Justice would do, but here, on the street, it was Mayhem, Mischief, and Rabble who got people through the day. Every place like this had at least one shrine or temple dedicated to her and her siblings, and their clergy had been instructed to keep such places neutral ground. Any negotiations amongst the gangs, guilds, and other lowlifes who ruled these areas could be conducted there, keeping any unnecessary bloodshed to a minimum. After all, dead mortals were boring mortals.
On this occasion, she swiftly fell in with a group of street kids with members as young as four and as old as fifteen. They accepted her quickly enough – she was incredibly good at winning people’s trust – and she managed to learn where all of their haunts and hideaways were. For a group like this, fighting was always the last option. Running, hiding, and living to fight another day were far more important. In another situation, she might have spent a few days amongst them, enjoying a life without any of her divine responsibilities, but she was on a time limit. Everyone in the group was also looking a bit scrawny. Clearly, they hadn’t had much luck when it came to scrounging up food recently. She could help them with that.
“Come with me,” Mischief said. “I know where we can get some food. I can’t do it myself, but it’ll be easy if you all come. There’ll be enough for all of us, maybe even more than enough. We might even be able to save some for later.”
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