The Kingdom of Gods
Page 173
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Within his glimmering prison, Kahl stared at me — but I knew I’d baited the trap well. He was Vengeance, and I was the source of his oldest and deepest pain. He could no more resist me than I could a ball of string.
He hissed and flexed what remained of his power, a miniature Maelstrom straining to break free. Then I felt the unstable surge of his elontid nature, amplifying the God Mask and waxing powerful enough that the shell Naha and Yeine had woven around him cracked into smoking fragments. Then he came for me.
This was my gift to him, father to son. The least I could offer, and far less than I should have done.
My Deka; he never wavered, not even when the outermost edges of Kahl’s blurring rage struck and began to shred his skin. We both screamed as our bones snapped, but Deka did not drop me. Not even when Kahl wrapped his arms around both of us, tearing us apart by sheer proximity, in an embrace that he’d probably intended as a parody of love. Perhaps there was even a bit of real love in it. Vengeance was nothing if not predictable.
Which was why, with the last of my strength, I reached into Itempas’s coat, pulled out the dagger coated with Glee Shoth’s blood, and shoved it into Kahl’s heart.
He froze, his green, sharpfold eyes going wide within the God Mask. The power around him went still, as the calm within a storm.
My hands were bleeding, mangled claws, but thankfully they were still the hands of a trickster. I snatched the God Mask from Kahl’s face. This was easy, as he was already dead. As it came away, his face, so like mine, stared at me with empty eyes. Then all three of us began to fall, separating. Kahl slid off the knife as we twisted in the air. I hung on to it by sheer force of will.
But there came a jolt, and I found Yeine leaning into the diminishing plane of my vision.
“Sieh!” Such was her voice that I could hear her even over the great storm. I felt her power gather to heal me.
I shook my head, having no strength to talk. I had enough left, just, to raise the God Mask to my face. I saw her eyes widen when I did this, and she tried to grab my arms. Silly former mortal. If she had used magic, she could have stopped me.
Then the mask was on me.
It was on me.
IT WAS ON ME AND I —
I —
— smiled. Yeine had released me, crying out. I’d hurt her. I hadn’t meant to. We gods just have opposing natures.
She fell, and Deka fell. Yeine would be all right. Deka would not, but that was fine, too. It had been his choice. He had died like a god.
Nahadoth coalesced before me, just beyond the range of my painful, vibrating aura. His face was a study in betrayal. “Sieh,” he said. I had hurt him, too. He looked at me the way he looked at Itempas these days. That was worse than what I’d done to Yeine. I felt sudden pity for my bright father and prayed — to no one in particular — that Nahadoth would forgive him soon.
“What have you done?” he demanded.
Nothing, yet, my dark father.
I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. I had what I’d yearned for. It would be easy, so easy, to go and kill Tempa with the knife, as he had killed Enefa long ago. Easy, too, to absorb the Maelstrom, make the transformation permanent, take Itempas’s place. I could be Naha’s lover in earnest then, and share him with Yeine, and make all of us a new Three. I heard a song promising this in the Maelstrom’s ratcheting scream.
But I was Sieh, the whim and the wind, the Eldest Child and Trickster, source and culmination of all mischief. I would not tolerate being some cheap imitation of another god.
So I turned, the power coming easily as my flesh remembered itself. A beautiful feeling, greater than anything I had ever known, and this wasn’t even> <? real godhood. Closing my eyes, I spread my arms and turned to face the Maelstrom.
“Come,” I whispered with the voice of the universe.
And It came, Its wild substance passing into me through the filter of the God Mask. Remaking me. Fitting me into existence like a puzzle piece — which worked only because Itempas’s temporary absence had left a void. Without that, my presence, a Fourth, would have torn it all apart. In fact, when Itempas next awoke, the sundering would begin.
Thus I raised the knife coated with my son’s blood. There was plenty of Glee’s left, too, I hoped — though really, there was only one way to find that out.
I drove the knife into my breast, and ended myself.
23
IN THE SKY ABOVE, JUST WHEN IT SEEMED the Maelstrom would crush everything, It suddenly winked out of existence, leaving a painful silence.
As I pushed myself up from where I’d been curled on the ground, my hands clamped over my ears, Lord Nahadoth appeared, carrying my brother. Then came Lord Ahad, bringing a newly revived Lord Itempas and a badly wounded Glee Shoth. A moment later, Lady Yeine arrived, bearing Sieh.
He hissed and flexed what remained of his power, a miniature Maelstrom straining to break free. Then I felt the unstable surge of his elontid nature, amplifying the God Mask and waxing powerful enough that the shell Naha and Yeine had woven around him cracked into smoking fragments. Then he came for me.
This was my gift to him, father to son. The least I could offer, and far less than I should have done.
My Deka; he never wavered, not even when the outermost edges of Kahl’s blurring rage struck and began to shred his skin. We both screamed as our bones snapped, but Deka did not drop me. Not even when Kahl wrapped his arms around both of us, tearing us apart by sheer proximity, in an embrace that he’d probably intended as a parody of love. Perhaps there was even a bit of real love in it. Vengeance was nothing if not predictable.
Which was why, with the last of my strength, I reached into Itempas’s coat, pulled out the dagger coated with Glee Shoth’s blood, and shoved it into Kahl’s heart.
He froze, his green, sharpfold eyes going wide within the God Mask. The power around him went still, as the calm within a storm.
My hands were bleeding, mangled claws, but thankfully they were still the hands of a trickster. I snatched the God Mask from Kahl’s face. This was easy, as he was already dead. As it came away, his face, so like mine, stared at me with empty eyes. Then all three of us began to fall, separating. Kahl slid off the knife as we twisted in the air. I hung on to it by sheer force of will.
But there came a jolt, and I found Yeine leaning into the diminishing plane of my vision.
“Sieh!” Such was her voice that I could hear her even over the great storm. I felt her power gather to heal me.
I shook my head, having no strength to talk. I had enough left, just, to raise the God Mask to my face. I saw her eyes widen when I did this, and she tried to grab my arms. Silly former mortal. If she had used magic, she could have stopped me.
Then the mask was on me.
It was on me.
IT WAS ON ME AND I —
I —
— smiled. Yeine had released me, crying out. I’d hurt her. I hadn’t meant to. We gods just have opposing natures.
She fell, and Deka fell. Yeine would be all right. Deka would not, but that was fine, too. It had been his choice. He had died like a god.
Nahadoth coalesced before me, just beyond the range of my painful, vibrating aura. His face was a study in betrayal. “Sieh,” he said. I had hurt him, too. He looked at me the way he looked at Itempas these days. That was worse than what I’d done to Yeine. I felt sudden pity for my bright father and prayed — to no one in particular — that Nahadoth would forgive him soon.
“What have you done?” he demanded.
Nothing, yet, my dark father.
I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. I had what I’d yearned for. It would be easy, so easy, to go and kill Tempa with the knife, as he had killed Enefa long ago. Easy, too, to absorb the Maelstrom, make the transformation permanent, take Itempas’s place. I could be Naha’s lover in earnest then, and share him with Yeine, and make all of us a new Three. I heard a song promising this in the Maelstrom’s ratcheting scream.
But I was Sieh, the whim and the wind, the Eldest Child and Trickster, source and culmination of all mischief. I would not tolerate being some cheap imitation of another god.
So I turned, the power coming easily as my flesh remembered itself. A beautiful feeling, greater than anything I had ever known, and this wasn’t even> <? real godhood. Closing my eyes, I spread my arms and turned to face the Maelstrom.
“Come,” I whispered with the voice of the universe.
And It came, Its wild substance passing into me through the filter of the God Mask. Remaking me. Fitting me into existence like a puzzle piece — which worked only because Itempas’s temporary absence had left a void. Without that, my presence, a Fourth, would have torn it all apart. In fact, when Itempas next awoke, the sundering would begin.
Thus I raised the knife coated with my son’s blood. There was plenty of Glee’s left, too, I hoped — though really, there was only one way to find that out.
I drove the knife into my breast, and ended myself.
23
IN THE SKY ABOVE, JUST WHEN IT SEEMED the Maelstrom would crush everything, It suddenly winked out of existence, leaving a painful silence.
As I pushed myself up from where I’d been curled on the ground, my hands clamped over my ears, Lord Nahadoth appeared, carrying my brother. Then came Lord Ahad, bringing a newly revived Lord Itempas and a badly wounded Glee Shoth. A moment later, Lady Yeine arrived, bearing Sieh.
