The Kingdom of Gods (64 page)

“We will see you again,” Glee said. I nodded, noticing at last that they were holding hands.

Then they vanished, leaving me alone with Deka. “Explain,” he snapped.

I sighed and looked around. It was well and truly night. I hadn’t figured on the journey taking as long as it had. We had no supplies with which to make camp. It would be horse blankets on the ground instead. My old bones were going to love that.

“Let’s get comfortable first,” I said. His jaw flexed as though he would have preferred to argue, but instead he turned to the horses, bringing them closer to the daystone pile so that they could have some shelter from the wind.

We set up on what had been the foundation of a house, blown clean away by the force of the Tree’s fall. A few small pieces of daystone had landed here, so we gathered them into a pile for light, and Deka murmured a command that made them generate heat as well. I laid out our blankets separately, whereupon Deka promptly moved his over next to mine and pulled me into his arms.

“Deka,” I began. We had shared his bed since my last mortaling, but both of us had been too tired for anything but sleep. Convenient for putting off necessary conversations, but they could not be put off forever. So I took a deep breath and prayed briefly to one of my brothers for strength. “You don’t have to pretend. I know how it is for young men, and —”

“I think,” he said, “you’ve been stupid enough lately, Sieh. Don’t make things worse.”

At this I tried to sit up. I couldn’t because he wouldn’t let me and because my back complained fiercely when I tried. Too much time on horseback. “What?”

“You are still the child,” he said quietly, and I stopped struggling. “And the cat, and the man, and the monster who smothers children in the dark. So you’re an old man, too; fine. I told you, Sieh, I’m not going anywhere. Now lie down. I want to try something.”

More out of shock than any real obedience, I did as he bade me.

He slid a hand under my shirt, which made me blush and splutter. “Deka, gods —”

“Be still.” His hand stopped, resting on my chest. It was not a caress, though my stupid old body decided that it was and further decided that perhaps it was not so old after all. I was grateful; at my age there were no guarantees that certain bodily processes still worked.

Deka’s expression was still, intent. I had seen the same concentration from him when he spoke magic or drew sigils. This time, however, he began to whisper, and his hand moved in
time with his words. Puzzled, I listened to what he was saying, but they were not words. It was not our language, or any language. I had no idea what he was doing.

I felt it, though, when words began tickling their way along my skin. When I jumped and tried to sit up, Deka pressed me down, closing his eyes so that my twitching would not distract him. And I
did
twitch, because it was the most peculiar sensation. Like ants crawling over my flesh, if those ants had been flat and made of sibilance. That was when I noticed the soft black glow of Deka’s marks — which were more than tattoos, I realized at last. They always had been.

But something was not right. The marks he whispered into my flesh did not linger. I felt them wend around my limbs and down my belly, but as soon as they settled into place, they began to fade. I saw Deka’s brow furrow, and after a few moments of this he stopped, his hand on my chest tightening into a fist.

“I take it that didn’t go as expected,” I said quietly.

“No.”

“What
did
you expect?”

He shook his head slowly. “The markings should have tapped your innate magic. You’re still a god; if you weren’t, your antithesis wouldn’t affect you. I should be able to remind your flesh that its natural state is young, malleable, embodied only by your will. …” His jaw tightened, and he looked away. “I
don’t
understand why it failed.”

I sighed. There had been no real hope in me, probably because he hadn’t told me what he was doing ahead of time. I was glad for that. “I thought you wanted me mortal.”

He shook his head again, his lips thinning. “Not if it means you dying, Sieh. I never wanted that.”

“Ah.” I put my hand over his fist. “Thank you for trying, then. But there’s no point, Deka, even if you could fix me. Godlings are fragile compared to the Three. When the Maelstrom breaks this universe, most likely we —”

“Shut up,” he whispered, and I did, blinking. “Just shut up, Sieh.” He was trembling and there were tears in his eyes. For the first time since his childhood, he looked lost and lonely and more than a little afraid.

I was still a god, as he had said. It was my nature to comfort lost children. So I pulled him to me, intending to hold him while he wept.

He pushed my hands aside and kissed me. Then, as though the kiss had not been sufficient reminder that he was no child, he sat up and began tugging my clothes off.

I could have laughed, or said no, or pretended disinterest. But it was the end of the world, and he was mine. I did what felt good.

We would all die in three days, but there was so much that could be done in that time. I was not a true mortal; I knew better than to take Enefa’s gift for granted. I would savor every moment of my life that remained, suck its marrow, crunch its bones. And when the end came … well, I would not be alone. That was a precious and holy thing.

In the morning, we returned to Echo. Deka went to look in on his scriveners and ask again whether they had found some miracle that could save us all. I went in search of Shahar.

I found her in the Temple, which had finally been dedicated as such. Someone had put an altar in it, right on the spot where Deka and I had first made love. I tried not to think lewd thoughts about human sacrifice as I stopped before it, because I refused to be a
dirty
old man.

Shahar stood beyond the altar, beneath the colored swirl that now cast faintly blue light on us, like that of the cloudless sky outside. Her back was to me, though I was certain she’d heard me approach. I’d had to speak to four guards just to get into the room. She did not move until I spoke, however, and then she started, coming out of whatever reverie she’d lapsed into.

“Friends lie,” I said. I spoke softly, but my voice echoed in the high-ceilinged chamber. It was deeper now, with a hoarse edge that would only get worse as I grew older. “Lovers, too. But trust can be rebuilt. You
are
my friend, Shahar. I shouldn’t have forgotten that.” She said nothing. I sighed and shrugged. “I’m a bastard, what do you expect?”

More silence. I saw the tightness of her shoulders. She folded her arms across her chest. I had seen enough women cry that I recognized the warning signs and decided to leave. But just as I reached the doorway, I heard, “Friends.”

I stopped and looked back. She held up her right hand — the one that had held mine, years ago when we’d taken our oath. I rubbed a thumb across my own tingling palm and smiled.

“Friends,” I said, raising my own. Then I left, because there was something in my eyes. Dust, probably. I would have to be more careful in the future. Old men had to take good care of their eyes.

… and they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

The world remained surprisingly calm as the Maelstrom grew to dwarf the sun in the sky. This was not at all what I had expected. Mortal humans are only a few languages and eccentricities removed from mortal beasts, and it is the nature of beasts to panic at the approach of danger.

There were some beastly acts. No looting — the Order-Keepers had always been quick to execute thieves — but many cases of arson and vandalism as mortals destroyed property to vent their despair. And there was violence, of course. In one of the patriarchal lands, so many men slaughtered their wives and children before killing themselves that one of my siblings got involved. She appeared in the capital wreathed in falling leaves and let it be known that she would personally carry the souls of such murderers to the worst of the infinite hells. Even then the killings did not stop entirely, but they did decrease.

All this was nothing to what could have been. I had expected …
I don’t know. Mass suicide, cannibalism, the total collapse of the Bright.

Instead, Shahar married Datennay Canru of Tema. It was a small and private ceremony, as there had not been time to prepare for anything better. At my prompting, she asked Deka to administer the rites as First Scrivener, and at my prompting, Deka agreed. There were no apologies exchanged. They were both Arameri. But I saw that she was contrite, and I saw that Deka forgave her. Then Shahar had the Order of Itempas spread word of the event by crier and runner and news scroll. She hoped to send a message by her actions:
I believe there will be a future
.

Canru agreed readily to the marriage, I think, because he was more than a bit in love with her. She … well, she had never stopped loving me, but she genuinely liked him. We all sought our own forms of comfort in those days.

I spent my nights in Deka’s arms and was humbly grateful for my fortune.

So the world went on.

Until its end.

We gathered at dawn on the final day: Arameri, notables from Tema and other lands, commonfolk from Shadow, Ahad and Glee, Nemmer and a few of the other godlings who had not fled the realm. The Whorl was not as high as Sky had been, but it was as good a vantage point as any. From there, the heavens were a terrible, awe-inspiring sight. More than half of the sky had been devoured by the swirling, wavering transparency. As the sun rose and passed into the space of change, its shape turned sickly and distorted, its light flickering on our skins like
a campfire. This was not an illusion. What we saw was literal, despite the impossibility of the angles and distance. Even Tempa’s rules for physics and time had been distorted by the Maelstrom’s presence. Thus we beheld the slow and tortured end of our sun as it was torn apart and drawn into the great maw. There would be light for a while longer, and then darkness such as no mortal had ever seen. If we lasted that long.

I held Deka’s hand as we stood gazing at it, unafraid.

Alarmed gasps from the center of the Whorl meadow drew my attention: Nahadoth and Yeine had appeared there amid the bobbing sea grass. The gathered folk stumbled back from them, though some quickly knelt or began weeping or calling out to them. No one shushed them, for hope had never been a sin.