For the next two years, the gods made a lot of plans about what they would do when they returned to the world of man. They speculated on what might have changed, what mankind had probably screwed up, and how best to fix things. Krak gave unto each of them a domain to command when the world of man was reclaimed.
After those two years had passed, the gods became discouraged and began fighting among themselves. The dismemberments and immolations weren’t so bad, but once the gods began wiping out demigods wholesale, Krak showed that he still had the largest balls in the universe by putting an end to it. Then came a year of surreptitious rage and bitching by the other gods about Krak’s high-handed ways. Several gods tried to overthrow Krak, and he demonstrated how the impossibly searing light of the sun can halt an insurrection when applied to a god’s scrotum. Weldt probably still had nightmares about it.
Divine power ran out, and after another year, the gods gave up. This began the time in which gods sat around becoming sadder, older, fatter, and stupider. Everyone was depressed, and no one could stand anyone else’s company. Some of the greatest maudlin poetry of all time was composed during that period. Also, during that time, Sakaj embarked upon her Year of Self-Annihilation.
By the sixth year after the Veil had fallen, most of the morose, flaccid, degenerating gods had slid into insanity and aberrant behavior, punctuated by brief periods of tedious lucidity. Fingit thought maybe he’d been spared the worst of that because he spent a lot of time alone in his workshop and had never paid much attention to anything else anyway. He puttered around with various projects and gadgets that became gradually less complex and interesting as his powers diminished. Krak had become weaker, more confused, and more ineffectual each month.
Now, eight years after the Veil had severed the gods from mankind, Fingit lay elevated in the Dim Lands along with most of his family, and that wasn’t as much fun as it sounded.
Being “elevated” was in fact the divine equivalent of being temporarily dead and trapped in the Dim Lands until the next sunrise. After several eons, the gods came to find the Dim Lands tedious beyond expression, even for their godlike imaginations. When a few gods began murmuring that they might prefer real death to all this sitting around, Krak decreed that henceforth no god would be called dead but would instead be described as elevated. “Death” sounded pedestrian anyway, like something a goat or a man would do, and unfit for divine beings. It was of course ridiculous to expect gods to feel differently about the Dim Lands just because Krak used a fancy word, but the tactic nonetheless did change the gods’ feelings about the whole situation more than they would admit.
Fingit tried to pick out some speck of logic or purpose in the symphony of bullshit around him. They’re all talking about tactics, but they’ve lost their minds. We should be talking about logistics, not tactics. We need to get the power flowing again, which means we need to cut through to the world of man. It will be an astounding undertaking. It’ll be the most heroic and perilous act of this age.
I wonder who’s stupid enough to let me talk them into it?
Three
(Fingit)
Fingit sighed as he trudged through the grove that had once been considered the loveliest spot in the Home of the Gods. The Gossamer Forest looks like a troll’s toilet.
Fingit had become accustomed to the trees being brown, even in spring and summer. But today, the leaves drooped in wilted gray clumps that dripped foul-smelling goo and the trunks put him in mind of a leper’s leg. The Whispering Brook had once rippled through the middle of the forest, home to bright fish and clever otters. All that remained was a coarse trench of black, viscous mud populated with nondescript but uniformly repulsive reptiles. Fingit didn’t want to think about the Falls of Hope and Loss. They had been his favorite retreat, and he resolved not to even walk down to those falls today.
Fingit adjusted his new spectacles. He hadn’t ground them quite right, but they were close enough to do the job. He only hoped the same was true of everything he’d tried lately. Yesterday, the gods had enjoyed a reprieve from Cheg-Cheg’s war-making. They didn’t know why, and Cheg-Cheg wasn’t known for explaining himself.
Fingit had put that day to the best use he could think of. He had sealed himself in the Forge of Thunder and Woe, where he had fashioned his most magnificent works throughout the ages. Ever since the Veil had fallen, his great smithy had gradually transformed itself into a sad clapboard workshop in the back of his home. He still had a small forge and a nice set of tools though, so he retained the grand name for the sake of nostalgia.
Today, he had set about bringing forth his most important creation ever. He would build a chariot to carry a god across the Void, through the Veil, and back into the world of man. Once the Veil was crossed, then all ills plaguing the gods would be set right. Fingit felt positive about that.
A number of technical problems faced Fingit in designing his chariot, but a philosophical problem loomed over all the others. What was the nature of the matter, the gasses, the streams, and the goo that lay between the Gods’ Realm and the world of man? And why was it screwed up?
One would think that at some point, since the beginning of time, the gods would have answered the first question. Krak and his brood had intended to answer it, and they had made it a high priority. Yet
