Krak looked at Fingit as if he were a backward sheep. “That’s almost the same as helping him. Do you want me to give him a magic sword and make him impervious too?”
“I know, you’re right, but maybe you could get the idea across. Indirectly.”
Krak rubbed his gigantic jaw. “Maybe I could—if I combine subtlety with cruel indifference.”
“You are just the god for that.” Fingit gazed upon Krak with such overwhelming hero worship that even a child could see it was false.
Krak snorted, and he even grinned a little. “You little shit.” Krak drew the Nub closer, and the sorcerer appeared from out of the blackness. “What do you want?” Krak thundered. “How dare you interrupt me! I am the damned Father of the Gods! Who the hell are you?”
“I’m sorry.” The Nub cringed. “I’ll go now.”
“Hell, you’re here already. You might as well say what you want.”
“I’ve been tortured and am being held prisoner, Father Krak.”
“You’re boring me. I don’t want to know what happened to you yesterday. What do you want right now?”
“I want to escape.” The Nub emphasized that with a clenched fist.
“Go ahead and do that.”
The Nub deflated a bit. “I want your help to escape.”
Krak answered in a tight voice, just above a whisper. “Hold it right there! What do you think is going on here? Do you expect the gods to jump down from our mighty thrones to untie knots for you or put out fires that you started? Be honest. That doesn’t sound very logical, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” The Nub seemed to shrink further.
“Now,” Krak said as if they were speaking over the dinner table, “look at your current situation, which is being held prisoner, right? How did they bind you? A cell? Chains? Suspended from a cliff and being pecked by ravens? What?”
“I’m tied up.”
“What, with rope?” Krak smirked at Fingit.
“Um…”
“Rope!” Krak shouted. “You called on the gods because of a little dead grass? Every sorcerer in history would puke if they knew that.” Despite their impending decline and destruction, Krak and Fingit gritted their teeth and covered their mouths to keep from giggling aloud.
The Nub said, “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a poor sorcerer, but I don’t know how to untie myself.”
“By the Black Whores and their black hearts! Sorcerer, assuming you have enough imagination to fill a gnat’s ear, list seven ways to get out of rope bonds.”
“Well, untying them. Cutting, burning, and breaking. Getting somebody else to untie them. Chewing through them. Tricking an animal into chewing through them…”
Krak grunted. “That’s enough. Now, if you keep on thinking, I’m sure you’ll come up with a way to free yourself—without bothering the most powerful being in all existence!”
“Yes, Father Krak.”
“Don’t bother me anymore. Not for at least a week, anyway.” Krak hurled the Nub away in just the same manner he’d hurled Fingit all over the music parlor.
Krak leaned back and watched the Nub struggle in his bonds. “Maybe that will do it. It would have been better if I could have just traded with him, of course. Even if I destroyed him in the process, I might have gotten enough power to save us.”
“Maybe he’ll save himself, and we’ll get another chance.”
Krak shrugged. “Maybe Cheg-Cheg will die from a disease of the penis, and I’ll build a summer cottage in his skull.”
Fourteen
(Sakaj)
“Will you please cease fiddling with that collar and put your head through the noose?” With one hand on her hip, Sakaj successfully implied that her words were a request, a command, and an insult woven together.
Harik slurred as he answered. “I still find it incomprehensible that Krak requires our presence with such urgency, since your ‘window onto man’ has to date demonstrated an absolute lack of worth and shows no promise of providing value in the future. How does he get this thing to lay flat?” Harik writhed, trying to adjust Krak’s favorite coat into a better position on his shoulders, and he once again smoothed the fur collar. It was made from the surpassingly fluffy tail-tufts of infant manticores. Harik had complimented his father on the coat many times, and he had giggled upon finding it unattended. However, when Harik filched the coat to admire himself in it, he found that the Father of the Gods possessed a mighty frame with a chest of mythical dimensions, and Harik’s merely godlike chest seemed sickly in comparison. Thus, the collar wrinkled.
“Take that off, you idiot.” Lutigan swayed as he yanked his own noose down around his neck. “You look like a mouse wearing a steel pot. Besides, there’s no one in the Dark Lands for you to impress into rutting with you.”
One of Krak’s mostly unclothed demigoddess servants was holding a mirror in which Harik could admire himself. The God of Death winked at her. She smiled and winked back.
“You two proceed without me,” Harik said. “I suspect this is nothing of consequence really, just some trifle Krak may have mentioned and that Sakaj misapprehended to a stupendous degree. If it does amount to something, return and fetch me.”
Sakaj stepped between Harik and the tarty servant. “I don’t think I could have misunderstood the words ‘most profound crisis since the beginning of time.’ I also doubt that I misheard ‘bring Harik and Lutigan, or everyone will be destroyed forever.’ Those are simple and unambiguous statements, if you ask me.”
Harik frowned and fluffed the collar once more.
Sakaj launched a vehement sigh his direction. I just wanted to bring these fools back to the Dark Lands so Krak might not kill me right away. Two more stupid gods bumbling around ought to confuse matters. And if necessary, I’ll think of a way to sacrifice one of them.
But the two inebriated gods hadn’t wanted to go. The Dark Lands were boring, except for the horrifying parts in which
