The Errant gestured, and flames rose once more from the clamshell niches low on the dome’s ring-wall, casting wavering shadows across the mosaic floor. A sledgehammer had been taken to the altar on its raised dais. The shattered stones seemed to bleed recrimination still in the Errant’s eyes. Who served whom, damn you? I went out, among you, to make a difference-so that 1 could deliver wisdom, whatever wisdom I possessed. I thought-I thought you would be grateful.
But you preferred shedding blood in my name. My words just got in your way, my cries for mercy for your fellow citizens-oh, how that enraged you.
His thoughts fell silent. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. What is this? I am not alone.
A soft laugh from one of the passageways. He slowly turned.
The man crouched there was more ogre than human, broad shoulders covered in bristly black hair, a bullet head thrust forward on a short neck. The bottom half of the face was strangely pronounced beneath long, curling moustache and beard, and large yellowed tusks jutted from the lower jaw, pushing clear of lip and thick, ringleted hair. Stubby, battered hands hung down from long arms, the knuckles on the floor.
From the apparition came a bestial, rank stench.
The Errant squinted, seeking to pierce the gloom beneath the heavy brows, where small narrow-set eyes glittered dull as rough garnets. ‘This is my temple,’ he said. ‘I do not recall an open invitation to… guests.’
Another low laugh, but there was no humour in it, the Errant realized. Bitterness, as thick and pungent as the smell stinging the god’s nostrils.
‘I remember you,’ came the creature’s voice, low and rumbling. ‘And I knew this place. 1 knew what it had been. It was… safe. Who recalls the Holds, after all? Who knew enough to suspect? Oh, they can hunt me down all they want-yes, they will find me in the end-I know this. Soon, maybe. Sooner, now that you have found me, Master of the Tiles. He might have returned me, you know, along with other… gifts. But he has failed.’ Another laugh, this time harsh. ‘A common demise among mortals.’
Though he spoke, no words emerged from the ogre’s mouth. That heavy, awkward voice was in the Errant’s head, which was all for the best-those tusks would have brutalized every utterance into near incomprehensibility. ‘You are a god.’
More laughter. ‘I am.’
‘You walked into the world.’
‘Not by choice, Master of the Tiles. Not like you.’