“… skip most of the boring-as-bird-shit religious overtones, and we can go to the heart of the matter.”
That’s the Murderer talking. He has a sweet voice for such a nasty-looking old scab.
The Murderer went on: “Every time you do magic, it’s the result of a juvenile, mean-spirited pissing match with some god. I mean, it’s so petty it would embarrass naked children on a dusty street in the nastiest village on civilization’s ass.”
Well, that’s an awfully insulting way of putting things. If he didn’t belong to Harik, I’d try to arrange for him to drown on that beer or be trampled by some flabby herbivores.
“Have you ever bartered with your neighbor for a pig or a quilt?” the Murderer asked. “It’s exactly like that, except your neighbor is an inconceivably powerful immortal crybaby, and the pig is a three-hundred-foot-tall pillar of fire you need to burn down a city. It’s the same thing, fundamentally. Just the details are different.”
Fingit heard the boy speak for the first time. “That’s crazy.”
Yes, it is! Good boy!
“Let me ask you this.” The Murderer leaned back. “What does a man have to sacrifice in order to do magic? Or a woman. As a rule, women are better sorcerers than men.”
“They have to sacrifice whatever else they might have wanted to do with their life.”
“Wrong!”
The boy leaned further forward, palms flat on the table. “A family?”
“Not that, either.”
“I… don’t…”
“Himself, Desh.” Bib tapped himself on the chest. “He trades himself away to the gods, one piece after another.”
“What kind of pieces?”
This should be good. I wonder what kind of idiocy and superstition the Murderer believes.
“I’m asking the questions, but I’ll humor you in light of your finding out that everything you ever knew was horseshit. A god will make a sorcerer do something, or have something done to him, to get power. Or maybe he’ll give up something or accept something he doesn’t want. For a little bit of power, the sorcerer could agree to get three bad colds that winter. For more power, he might have to steal money from his brother and throw it in the river. For a lot of power, he might have to take the blame for a murder he didn’t do.”
Shit… he understands that a little too well. Harik shouldn’t have let this man live so long.
“Is this all true? Bib, don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying, son. Now, based on your vast reservoir of sorcery knowledge, what’s the greatest danger to a sorcerer?”
“Disintegrating yourself. Well, you did mention it. Also, cooking yourself and blowing yourself up. You know, losing control of the magic.”
“Nope. Oh, control can be an annoyance, but the biggest danger is paying too much. Gods will ask a sorcerer to give up memories, forget how they feel about people, do things they thought only a monster would do—until they agreed to do them. A sorcerer has to decide for himself what price is too high, because the gods will take everything they can. In the old days, you’d see sorcerers as crazy as blowflies or wandering in the forest until they froze to death. They traded it all to the gods.”
Void suck my toes! The Murderer is like some kind of disease. He’s going to ruin that boy!
Fingit tried to think of a way to assassinate the Murderer without Harik finding out, but he couldn’t come up with one. Of course, he couldn’t even make his presence known in the world of man right now, so he didn’t have a lot of influence over events.
The Murderer continued: “And if you were an actual sorcerer, you might say, ‘Bib, how can I avoid paying too much?’ I’d tell you to never make the first offer. Making the first offer is a sure way to end up paying too much. Make the god extend the first offer. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded. “Don’t pay too much. How do I know if it’s too much? What are things worth? How do I know if it’s a good deal?”
“There are no good deals. There are bad deals, and there are deals that are less bad.”
“You’re just trying to confuse me now.”
“No, I’m just telling you things that are confusing. Last question. What is the most important thing for a sorcerer to know?”
“I used to think it was knowing your enemy. Now I think it might be knowing what you don’t know.”
“Hah! You should know that sorcery is less about magic than you might think. Mainly it’s about looking tough, being sneaky, and waving your hands around a lot.”
Sakaj whacked Fingit on the arm. “Do something, you pokey fool! The boy sits there, ripe as a melon.”
Fingit let every thought dribble out of his mind except for the boy’s essence. He urged all his supernatural will up toward the human and compelled the little meat-clump to heed Fingit’s call. To ready himself for the commands of his god. Fingit overwhelmed the boy with the most profound mysteries of his godly being.
Almost a minute passed while Fingit crushed this callow human’s capacity to resist.
The boy glanced down for a fraction of a breath and then continued staring at the Murderer, mesmerized by whatever that grimy old shit-hook of a sorcerer was saying.
Fingit’s breath whooshed out of his body, and he shouted an oath that even impolite gods would find unsettling.
Sakaj turned away. “You impotent, insignificant idiot.”
Up through the window in the sky, Fingit saw the boy shifted in his chair, bent over, and seized the table leg so hard it creaked. He uttered an appalling psychic scream that could only be heard by supernatural beings with predatory intentions.
Fingit’s breath caught. That’s it! That’s an open offer right there! He’s bemoaning his pathetic ignorance, the fact that everything he ever knew was horseshit. It’s the same as beseeching the gods for knowledge and offering up his innocence in exchange.
“Yes!” Fingit bellowed, almost tripping and falling onto
