I dropped the diamonds. “The Father of the Gods, the Master of Creation—hell, the Creator of Creation—has a birthday? I thought he was supposed to be eternal. How can he have a birthday?”
“He can have whatever he wants.” Harik grimaced. “If someone possesses a thing that seems amusing, Krak will have one tomorrow. And it will be a nicer one, by far.”
I drove that knowledge into my memory. Someday it might be the perfect thing to save me when death was climbing up my spine. I turned my thoughts back to trading for the power to save Bea. “Mighty Harik, since you know everything, and have done everything, and have screwed up many of those things I’m sure, I extend to you the opportunity to make me the first offer.”
“Very well. I will save you, Murderer. I’ll do you a kindness that you do not in any sense deserve. I offer one square of power.”
Magical power was measured in squares. With one square, most sorcerers could produce one impressive, unnecessary, and wasteful effect. Or they could create several modest but useful effects. Theoretically, a sorcerer could accomplish a lot of small, critical tasks using that one square, but not many of us were smart enough and disciplined enough to manage it. I wasn’t.
I knew I would want far more than Harik’s pissant offer of one square, but he was simply bargaining hard. I needed to better understand what was in his termite hive of a mind. “What would Your Magnificence expect in exchange for this foundation-shaking amount of power?”
Harik pressed his lips tight. “You may refuse this by reflex, Murderer, but that is because you have no greater scope of vision than does an ant in a bowl. Thus, I command you to think hard before you respond. Think hard.”
Harik seemed to be waiting for me to answer, so I nodded. “Think hard. Think long. Think deep. Think high. I can keep going.”
“I want your memories of the Tooth, the sorcerer girl you killed. Stop!” Harik held out his hand as if he were commanding his hound to sit.
I had opened my mouth to shout no. Well, first I would have told Harik he could strangle himself with his own bile-dripping tongue. But when a god yells to stop, few people can keep going.
I found I was hunched forward, like a bull about to charge, so I stood tall and breathed deep. “Harik, let me be certain I understand this ridiculous impossibility. You want me to let you take my memories of Manon—my second daughter—as if she never existed for me. She would disappear from my life and my memory. That is what I gather from that reeling waterfall of ass-drool you called an offer.” No matter what I said, I wasn’t considering his proposal.
After a few seconds of silence, Harik leaned back and crossed his legs. “Your feeble awareness cannot understand how damaged you are.”
“Horseshit!” I paused and realized that was a sickly answer. “A wagon full of horseshit! Fifty wagons of horseshit pulled by a herd of horses shitting as they go!”
“You have been here two minutes and have not yet insulted me in a truly repellent manner. Armpit hair? Fah! Your thoughts dwell elsewhere. Agree to trade, or I doubt you shall survive.”
I laughed at the God of Death. I suspect it didn’t sound convincing, but it was a laugh.
Harik didn’t seem to notice. “Consider your recent greater-than-usual incompetence. You allowed Memweck to outwit you and pile guilt upon you. He has forced you to chase these stolen children as if you were some absurd cat chasing string. Pathetic.”
“I don’t believe that! You don’t believe that, do you? Are you playing a trick for Krak’s birthday? Is this a riddle?” I knew I was sounding silly, but it didn’t matter. I realized his offer to take Manon away was a ploy. He was just aggravating me until the real bargaining started.
Harik said, “Murderer.”
I waited a few seconds. “What?”
“Murderer.”
I slipped and lost my temper a little. “Harik, you ripe bucket of fluid mashed out of a dead cow!”
Harik didn’t answer or even move. I knew he was exaggerating this business about my thoughts being someplace else. He was an overdramatic, prissy old stump of a god. I admitted I’d been distracted at times. Well, going forward, I’d just concentrate harder on putting Manon out of my thoughts each day. I could remember her in the evenings at leisure.
But there was no way in the world of man, the Gods’ Realm, or the Void that I would let Harik take my memories of Manon. It would be as if I killed her again.
I made a couple of absent cuts in the air with my sword so I’d appear disdainful when I said, “No, I won’t give up Manon. But I will give up my memories of ever saying something nice about you.”
“Why suffer through guilt and grief? They will destroy you. Let them go.”
I paused. I had been telling myself these past days to let Manon go, just not so thoroughly as Harik was suggesting. The idea seemed less desirable when it came out of his mouth. “I reject that offer. I have a counteroffer. You give me five squares, and I’ll convince Bea that Whistler abandoned her and let those soldiers cut her up.”
“How terribly weak.” Harik walked to the bottom bench, spread his Void-black robe, and sat with ten times the grace I will ever possess. “Your memories of the Tooth are my only offer. I will trade three squares for them, however.”
“I had forgotten how amusing you are, Harik. You are the funniest self-obsessed, inbred, pie-faced eternal being I know. For three squares, I’ll be tickled to tie up Whistler and abandon him under that big tree.”
Harik shook his head. “Four squares for the Tooth.”
“Leave off this shit about the Tooth!” I snapped at Harik, but that was for effect. I had my temper shackled now. I opened my mouth to say something crazy
