Half of Fressa plopped down in an untidy pile right next to Fingit, spattering him with intestines. He rolled away from the viscera, sat up, and saw Sakaj running around the monster’s clawed toes toward him. He shouted, “Sakaj! Take us home!”
Fingit didn’t remember closing his eyes, but he opened them upon the once-radiant sunrise of the Gods’ Realm. He sat up on the grass of the dim and sickly Emerald Grove. Krak, once more frail and palsied, was coughing as he rolled onto his belly. Gorlana lay on her back, chatting with her imaginary friend as they pointed at clouds. Sakaj had wrapped her arms around a nasty tree and was kissing it, perhaps with tongue. He looked away as she wrapped one leg around the thing.
Somewhere behind Fingit, Harik cursed and then giggled. Fingit turned to see Lutigan kick the God of Death in the knee. Harik giggled again and limped away downhill. Lutigan wrestled a gummy branch off the tree Sakaj was humping and chased Harik, roaring.
Fingit stood and looked in every direction. “No Fressa. She didn’t come back.”
“What?” Krak mumbled.
“I think Fressa’s dead. Forever.”
“Huh. The little squidge didn’t give me a birthday present last year, so who cares?” The Father of the Gods sat up and scratched his crotch.
Murdering us all at the same time every day shouldn’t be an impossible task. I should just ask Cheg-Cheg for advice.
Seven
(Fingit)
Harik bounded away from where Fingit stood with Krak, running toward some gray rotting bushes while Lutigan pursued him. The God of War whacked Harik a glancing blow with a tree limb and then chased him out of sight.
Fingit tried to push his spectacles higher on his nose and then remembered that Krak had just crushed them in Unicorn Town. All right, my main task is to gather up my family and elevate them. Well, to hell with Sakaj—she can elevate herself, she’s good at it. I’ll just take insane Krak along to find nutty-as-hell Harik and Lutigan before Cheg-Cheg shows up again. Easy. Catch them first. Then worry about elevating them.
Fingit grabbed Krak’s arm and hauled him upright. The Father of the Gods plopped back onto the dingy grass, chuckled, and lay there as limp as a dead rooster.
“Come on, Father! We have to catch them now!”
Krak answered Fingit with a long raspberry that left a line of drool on Krak’s cheek. In Unicorn Town, he’d been the incomparable ruler of all creation. Here he was a gross, whiny old man again.
Fingit had himself devolved into a flabby specimen too diminished to carry even frail old Krak around. He hauled off to kick his father’s backside but then stopped himself. He called over to Gorlana. “Will you watch Father and make sure he doesn’t crawl away somewhere?”
Gorlana sat up and looked away from Fingit. “Watch him yourself. We’re planning a party.”
Fingit closed his eyes for a moment. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to your friend. She’s the most trustworthy one around here.”
Gorlana looked at Fingit and smiled like a young girl in love. “Certainly Tink-Tink will watch him! If Father tries to leave, she will tell me which one of his knees to break.”
As Fingit trotted away, he uttered an epithet that compared Gorlana unfavorably to a Void-beast’s unmentionable parts. Halfway down the hill, he spotted the prismatic spire propelled above the Marketplace of Reticular Diversion. It stood at the center of the Gods’ Realm, and while its stock had near evaporated, it should still have everything Fingit required.
An hour later, Fingit jogged and puffed back into the Emerald Grove, leading a puppy on a leash and carrying a monumental spiked hammer over his shoulder. This ought to do it, although I owe the blacksmith one of those see-the-gods-naked mirrors.
Krak lay on his back, snoring, just where Fingit had left him. Gorlana stood guard with the same diligence as her invisible friend, which is to say none at all. Fingit couldn’t spot Gorlana anywhere in the grove or in the vale below it. Well, the Void can suck her away. Father is the important one to keep track of.
Fingit let the inexpressibly adorable white puppy sniff Krak and begin licking the god’s face. Krak woke, said, “Puppy!” and collected the fluffy, melon-size beast into his arms as he sat up. It alternated between licking Krak’s chin and gazing at the god with enormous, adoring eyes.
“He’s all yours.” Fingit shifted the appalling hammer to his other shoulder. “Let’s go show him to Harik and Lutigan.”
“What are you going to do with that?” Krak eyed the weapon.
“Conversation piece.” Within moments, Fingit was striding down through the woods, leading Krak and his new puppy, which Krak had named Dominion. Krak made baby talk, Dominion yipped, and Fingit ground his teeth.
Fingit expected to find Harik in the Hall of Ambiguity, a rather nasty tavern where the God of Death sometimes went to hide from his wife. Indeed, Harik was sitting against the back wall slurping a beverage, the scent of which Fingit found repugnant from ten paces away.
“Harik, my son, meet my new friend and heir, Dominion!” Krak lifted the puppy high in both hands. “He’s the only being in existence with the subtlety of understanding required to assume the throne when I abdicate.”
Harik glanced over the table at the puppy. “It looks rather like an effeminate rodent to me, not that I mean to give offense. Fingit, what in the name of the Void and our mother’s chins do you plan to
