The Kingdom of Gods

I followed her down the alley as she poked through the piles, picking up the oddest of items: a handleless clay pot, a rusted metal canister, a chunk of broken windowpane. This last seemed to please her the most, by the look of delight on her face.

I leaned in to peer over her shoulder. “What will you do with it?”

She whipped about and I froze, as she had placed the tip of a long and wickedly sharp glass dagger at my throat.

“This,” she said. “Back off.”

I did so quickly, raising my hands to make it clear that I meant no harm, and she put the knife away, resuming her work.

“Glass,” she said. “Grind it down for knives, use the leftovers to grind other things. Get it?”

I was fascinated by her manner of speaking. Shadow dwellers’ Senmite was rougher than that of the people in Sky, and quicker spoken. They had less patience for long, flowery verbal constructions, and their new, briefer constructions contained additional layers of attitude. I began adjusting my own speech to suit.

“Got it,” I said. “Then?”

She shrugged. “I sell them at the Sun Market. Or give ’em away, if people can’t pay.” She glanced at me, looking me up and down, and then snorted. “You could pay.”

I looked down at myself. The black clothing I had manifested back in Sky was filthy and stank, but it was made of fine-quality cloth, and the shirt and pants and shoes all matched, unlike her clothes. I supposed I did look wealthy. “But I don’t have any money.”

“So get a job,” she replied, and resumed work.

I sighed and moved to sit down on a closed muckbin, which squelched when my weight bore down on it. “Guess I’ll have to. Know anyone who might need” — I considered what skills I had that mir td mght be valuable to mortals. “Hmm. A thief, a juggler, or a killer?”

The girl stopped again, looking hard at me, and then folded her arms. “You a godling?”

I blinked in surprise. “Yes, actually. How did you know?”

“Only they ask those kinds of crazy questions.”

“Oh. Have you met many godlings?”

She shrugged. “A few. You going to eat me?”

I frowned, blinking. “Of course not.”

“Fight me? Steal something? Turn me into something else? Torture me to death?”

“Dear gods, why would I—” But then it occurred to me that some of my siblings were capable of all that and worse. We were not the gentlest of families. “None of those things are my nature, don’t worry.”

“All right.” She turned back to examine something she’d found, which I thought might be an old roof shingle. With an annoyed sigh, she tossed it aside. “You’re not going to get many worshippers, though, just sitting there like that. You should do something more interesting.”

I sighed and drew my legs up, wrapping arms around them. “I don’t have a lot of interesting left in me.”

“Hmm.” Straightening, the girl pulled off her stupid hat and mopped her brow. Without it, I saw that she was Amn, her white-blonde curls cropped short and held back with cheap-looking barrettes. She looked ten or eleven, though I saw more years than that in her eyes. Fourteen, maybe. She hadn’t eaten enough in those years, and it showed, but I could still feel the childhood in her.

“Hymn,” she said. A name. My skepticism must have shown, because she rolled her eyes. “Short for Hymnesamina.”

“I like the longer name, actually.”

“I don’t.” She looked me up and down perfunctorily. “You’re not bad-looking, you know. Skinny, but you can fix that.”

I blinked again, wondering if this was some sort of flirtation. “Yes, I know.”

“Then you’ve got another skill besides thieving, juggling, and killing.”

I sighed, feeling very tired. “No whoring.”

“You sure? You’d make a lot more money than with the rest, except killing, and you don’t look very tough.”

“Looks mean nothing for a god.”

“But they do mean something to mortals. You want to make money as a killer, you need to look like one.” She folded her arms. “I know a place where they’d let you pick your clients, you being what you are. If you can make yourself look Amn, you’d make even more.” She cocked her head, considering this. “Or maybe the foreign look is better. I don’t know. Not my thing.”

“I just need enough to buy food.” But I would need more mortal things as I grew older, wouldn’t I? There would come a time — soon, probably — when I would no longer be able to conjure clothing or necessities, and someday shelter would be more than just a pleasant accessory. Winters in central Senm could kill mortals. I sighed again, resting my cheek on my knees.