“Him? Who?” I said.
“You, frumpy little boy,” Sakaj chuckled. “Her memories of you.”
I opened my mouth, but it just hung there.
Sakaj went on: “She has refused to let me have them for years now. It’s been so precious. She says it’s the last thing of value she can give up. If only she knew how untrue that is!”
Halla said, “Two squares every day, and I will not tell anyone how sentimental and weak you sound.”
In the distance, somebody shouted, “Krak damn me! Thrash it all!”
Sakaj, Harik, and I turned to look.
The voice came closer. “Pound it in the ass with a spiked club! Never a convenient time! I should crush her skull with two fingers!” It sounded like Lutigan. The voice seemed nearer now but was suddenly muffled. “Stay there! This will just take a minute! No, I said by Harik’s flat, dripping maw that I’ll return in a damned minute!”
Lutigan trotted into the gazebo with a red shirt over his head, struggling to pull it on, although his head was pushed against a sleeve hole. “Damn it! Damn and red-hot damnation! Oh, there it is.” The God of War shrugged into his shirt and plopped down on a bench.
Pil materialized to my right.
Lutigan growled, “Now, what do you want?”
“Mighty Lutigan, I’ve come here to trade, and I know what I want, but would you please see your way to making the first offer? For the sake of form?”
Lutigan held up a hand to Harik and Sakaj. They sat back and watched him, laughing silently. Lutigan said, “Certainly not. I won’t make you an offer, you little snip! Knife, tell me what you want and what you’ll give. Be fast about it too—I’m otherwise engaged.”
Pil stared down for a moment. “I want you to send your sons away and let us live. In exchange . . . I am ready to belong to you. Your Magnificence.”
I called out, “Pil, please wait!”
“Bib?”
“I am here too,” Halla said.
Pil turned her head until she was staring directly away from me. “Is anybody else here? Is there a practical limit to how many sorcerers can be here at the same time? Really, what’s the largest number of sorcerers you’ve ever been here with at once?”
Lutigan roared, “I did not come here to listen to this shit!”
Sakaj started giggling, and Harik joined in.
“Everybody, wait!” I bellowed. The volume of my voice hurt my head.
The gods all leaned forward and examined me. After a moment, Harik raised an eyebrow at Lutigan.
I pushed on. “Since I killed Memweck, I claim the right to clean up this unholy mess. That way, Pil doesn’t have to enslave herself under duress, and Halla can keep her memories of me. Except for that time I dropped her sword overboard, she can forget about that.”
“Do not try to be humorous, Murderer,” Harik said. “You are a twitch away from losing your existence.”
“I’m not as afraid of losing things as I used to be. Besides, do you want me to cry about it when I can laugh?” I turned to Lutigan. “I want to pursue Pil’s line of bargaining, Mighty Lutigan. Send away your sons and let us live. Also, heal me of Memweck’s wounds. And relieve me of your command to make the Knife offer herself to you.”
“What?” Pil squeaked in the least sorcerer-like way possible.
I pushed on. “Oh, and I want ten squares to go along with that.”
“Hah!” Lutigan made a rude gesture at me. “Would you also like me to give you my privates so you can use them to have carnal relations with some diseased harlot? Memweck must have stabbed you in the brain.”
Sakaj smirked. “Maybe getting stabbed in the brain runs in the family.”
Lutigan didn’t comment on that. Instead, he turned to Harik and raised his eyebrows.
Harik shrugged and whispered, “Go ahead. If you destroy the Murderer, you shall owe me his worth.”
“You shall owe me his worth . . .” Lutigan mimicked his brother in a whisper. “You’re such a floppy feather.”
Sakaj flicked two fingers. Halla and Pil disappeared.
Lutigan stood and regarded me. That unnerved me more than if he had bellowed. At last, he sighed with a smile. “Murderer, you iota of filth, the Knife sounds ready to join me of her own choice, so I will relieve you of that. You’d probably just screw it up. I might send my sons away and provide you a square. Maybe, if you debase yourself and promise to do something incomprehensibly dangerous in the next week. Something that will almost certainly lead to your death. And you get no healing. But everything depends on what you offer me.”
“There must be something specific you want.” I made myself smile back at him instead of calling him a cross-eyed, wart-tongued, bony crocodile incapable of mastering basic clothing.
Lutigan looked over his shoulder. “There are much more interesting things to do than this. You have five seconds to make an offer.”
The obvious slammed me. “I’ll start a war!”
“Weak.” Lutigan curled his lip but sat back down. “And certainly not worth ten squares.”
“A big war! At least a thousand fighters on each side.” I was not much more than babbling, trusting to long experience and luck. Mostly luck.
“Ten thousand on each side.”
“Fifteen-hundred?” I nodded, trying to look cooperative.
Lutigan gazed at the ceiling of the gazebo. “Hmm. Five thousand, or I’ll kill the Knife. Two daughters have already died on you, and she’ll make it three. I might even kill all the children traveling with you and let you live with the guilt for a while before I annihilate you.”
I lowered my voice and put as much gravity into it as I could. “I don’t have any children, Lutigan. You can threaten Pil if you want. To me, it’s the same as threatening anybody else. The same with those kids. Two thousand on a side, your sons let everybody live, and I want ten squares.”
“If everybody lives, then you’ll get one square and like it. Two thousand warriors in each force—fine.
