“Fingit, as I said, is cultivating the Nub full time, and we should see a nice return on that over the next couple of years. And Sakaj… well, we all know that deals involving the unknowable are challenging. But when they pay off, they’re the most profitable of all. Keep searching, my dear. I understand that the Freak has probably played out, but more opportunities are hiding out there. Never doubt it!”
Sakaj smiled and nodded at Krak with her eyes cast down.
Krak lowered his voice and let his smile dissolve. “Now that we’ve created this sanctuary of sanity, our highest priority is to increase and stabilize our inflow of resources so we can rebuild our strength.” Everyone nodded. “I see two possibilities. We could bring the rest of the gods into our plans.”
No one around the table moved. A few eyes shifted back and forth. Fingit assumed that no one wanted to speak in case it might encourage someone else to support this idea. Obviously, they should save all their fellow gods from insanity and degradation, and they would. Perhaps just not quite yet.
Harik stared at the table. “Would we be bringing in… Trutch as well?”
Krak coughed. “Well, if we bring in everyone, then of course your wife would be one of them.”
“Ah. I suggest that’s not the best option then.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was, anyway.” Krak smiled. Everyone around the table nodded and made noises of agreement. “We six should focus on breaking through to the world of man from this side. Then we won’t have to go to Unicorn Town—damn it, Fingit, now you’ve got me doing it! We won’t have to go to the Dark Lands to make deals. We won’t have to commit suicide every day, either, and frankly I’m tired of elevating myself. If we can work deals from here without all this suicide and Dark Lands business, our production could go up by an order of magnitude.”
After construction had begun on the Temple of Lordly Penetration, Krak had considered how the gods might improve the quality of the deals struck in Unicorn Town. He concluded that their greatest problem was that they no longer enjoyed the advantage of home territory. All of the gods found Unicorn Town to be creepy, and that distracted them during negotiations. To overcome this disadvantage, Krak had created within Unicorn Town a small replica of the gods’ traditional trading arena, including the great marble gazebo, the nourishing sunlight, and the bare patch of dirt on which sorcerers would stand to be duped and derided. The structure filled a space no bigger than a ballroom. While the landscapes of forest and fields were just painted on the walls, the sense of familiarity made a difference.
Krak paused and then raised his arms. “So, our path forward is decided!”
Fingit nodded just like everyone else. About what I expected. Krak drives the wagon to market, and the wee piggies do what they’re told. Even if they are divine wee piggies of radiant might.
Krak stood. “From this point on, there will be no expenditure of resources. None at all! Not so much as a new tiara, resurrecting an extinct animal for a pet, or a shot of overnight virility. Nothing! We hoard any and all resources that come in. Once we have enough, we’ll make a push at piercing the Veil.”
No one leaped up and cheered Krak’s plan, but no one objected out loud, either. Fingit understood that any unhappy soldiers would soon be out there with the other crazy gods, minus a limb or two. They bent their heads and accepted their father’s will.
“Follow me then!” Krak ordered. He walked around the table to the far wall, where six wooden chairs stood, each polished to a luster one could almost drink. Above each chair hung a silk noose attached to a beam overhead. Krak climbed upon his chair and began arranging a noose around his neck. Fingit followed Gorlana, Lutigan, and Harik, who were climbing onto their chairs.
“Wait,” Sakaj whispered from Fingit’s shoulder. “Stay a few moments. I need to talk to you alone.”
Fingit glanced at Sakaj, who winked. I can’t think of a single good thing that can come from staying. But if I don’t stay, I guess I’ll never know.
A minute later, Krak commanded everyone to leap off his or her chair. A minute after that, four gods hung dead from the beam, while Fingit and Sakaj stood on their chairs and stared past the bodies at each other.
“This feels a lot more awkward than I thought it would,” Sakaj said as she reached out to stop her father’s body from swinging.
Nine
(Fingit)
Fingit followed Sakaj onto Krak’s second-floor balcony that overlooked the Vale of Dominating Perfection. Nostalgia swirled around him as the sun touched the farther mountain peaks.
Before the Veil fell, the gods’ home had sprawled beneath an ineffable golden sun of heartrending beauty. After the fall, that sun devolved to a yellow sun of elegant allure, and then a pale, dusty sun of wholesome charm. Later, it shifted to an orange sun of adequate inoffensiveness, and eventually, it became a burnt-umber sun that could be said to at least have a good personality.
Fingit leaned against the rail and appreciated today’s sunset of plum, magenta, goldenrod, scarlet, nutmeg, and periwinkle. He estimated that since power began flowing back into the Gods’ Realm, sunsets had regained a good 25 percent of their pre-Veil glory.
Maybe it’s closer to twenty-seven percent. Can I determine what the precise sunset-glory-recapture factor is? I’d need some lenses and a lot of copper wire. Fingit slipped into an engineer’s reverie as schematics and power
