(Fingit)
Fingit crashed through a low table built of rare pressed woods. Splinters scattered across Krak’s music parlor floor. A black crystal vase shattered against the back of Fingit’s head as he tumbled and smacked into the marble wall, just beneath a tasteful painting of Krak playing the harmonium. An iridescent rose from the vase came to rest on Fingit’s throat. Five terrified burgundy and cobalt butterflies thrashed their way toward safety.
As he struggled to sit, Fingit touched the waterfall of blood now sliding toward the back of his collar.
That’s not too bad. At least none of me is vaporized yet.
Krak seized the front of Fingit’s shirt and hefted him into the air again. He tried to relax to lessen the likelihood of breaking a leg or skull when he got hurled again. Instead of throwing him, Krak yelled, “You squatty, ass-grabbing, idiotic, floppy-fluted, pipsqueak of a god! I should take you to Unicorn Town and tear you into a thousand pieces! Dumbass! You are eaten up with dumbass!”
Fingit felt pretty sure that no words ever uttered would make this situation any better for him, so he just gave a tiny smile. A line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he hoped the smile made him look contrite, anyway.
Krak heaved Fingit again, this time toward the middle of the room where no undestroyed obstacles remained. Fingit bounced against the marble floor, rolled, and skidded to a stop facedown. Krak put his hands on his hips. “You were the only one I trusted not to do something stupid. The Nub was our most reliable producer, and you threw him away!”
Fingit looked up. He tried to think of a different way to convince Krak this was all Sakaj’s fault. He had attempted that when he first gave Krak the news. That was when Krak had started tossing him around like firewood. Therefore, Fingit jerked when Krak said, “Where’s Sakaj?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
Krak walked across the room, kicking some scraps of furniture out of his way, and stood over Fingit. “Where did you last see her?”
“Unicorn Town.”
“Come on.” Krak yanked Fingit upright and pulled him through the expanding mansion to the room containing the now-permanent gallows. A minute later, they had hanged themselves; some unknown time after that, they awoke in Unicorn Town.
Krak squeezed Fingit’s arm until it felt like it might pop in two. “Where was she?”
Unable to think of any reasonable explanations or delaying tactics, Fingit led Krak to the pond.
“Where, by the water?”
“No.” Fingit pointed using the arm that wasn’t being crushed. “Out there. Under the water.”
“You drowned her?” Krak yelled.
“No!” Fingit pulled as far away as Krak’s grip allowed. “Well, probably not.”
Krak closed his eyes for a time, still holding Fingit. When he opened them, he said, “It grieved me when Fressa was killed and I lost one of my offspring in this war. It will grieve me twice as much if I’ve lost a second child in Sakaj.” Krak squeezed harder, and Fingit felt watery shock that his arm wasn’t crushed into powder. Krak showed Fingit his divinely brilliant teeth. “However, if you have caused me to lose that second child, I will not grieve at all to lose a third. Now, go get her if she’s there.”
Fingit waded to the spot where Sakaj had sunk, probed around for a bit, and even dove a couple of times. At last, he came up with Sakaj’s clearly lifeless head, attached to her mostly flattened body.
I could go the other way. Just drop her and swim to the other side. Then all I’d have to do is elude Krak for the rest of eternity.
Fingit towed Sakaj’s body to shore next to Krak. “She may not be dead. She may have just released her body on this side.”
“We’ll find out pretty soon. Until then, don’t go anywhere without me.”
“Fingit!” came the Nub’s voice out of blackness.
Fingit gaped for a moment. Then he frowned at the sky until it swept and twisted to show the Nub. The young man had been tied and gagged with impressive skill. He had also been beaten and cut up with equally impressive skill. Fingit hadn’t expected such thoroughness from that ape-armed human torturer. The Nub lay on his side, knees up, on a tall wooden bench inside a poorly torchlit building.
“The little ass-wart is alive,” Krak grunted.
“There’s still hope then!” Fingit smiled. He resisted the urge to jump around in supplication like some fluffy runt of a dog.
Krak stepped back and nodded. “Sure. There’d be more hope, of course, if you hadn’t tricked him into the hands of his enemies and left him with no defense against being mutilated and murdered.” Krak glared at his son. “That would have helped.”
“Still…” Fingit gazed up at the Nub as if waiting for him to spontaneously pop out of his bonds.
Krak lay his hand on Fingit’s shoulder with a meaty whack. “Fine, let’s wait and observe the manner of his death. Do you want to make a game of it? Whatever the Nub’s enemies do to him, I’ll do to you?”
Fingit began a chuckle that turned into a cough when Krak didn’t smile. He shook his head. Then he and Krak sat on the cushy black grass and listened to the Nub call Fingit a dozen more times in the next hour. Fingit sagged more with each call that he couldn’t answer. After the fourth pleading look that he tossed at Krak, the Father of the Gods waved Fingit away. “There’s no point in my calling out to him. I can’t reach out to him through the Veil, and I doubt he’ll call me.”
“I know.” Fingit sagged.
“Then stop slumping and sighing. It’s ungodlike.”
The Nub called Fingit seven more times. Then the young man called in a shaky voice, “Krak?”
Krak jerked. “Might as well. I can’t make things any more awful than you’ve already made them, eh?”
Fingit jumped up. “Wait!