The Kingdom of Gods

And I curled my fingers into claws. The bins exploded, the refuse contained in each rising into the air and swirling and churning in a circle, a hurricane of debris and foulness that surrounded the five men and herded them together. When I brought my hands together in a clap, all of it sucked inward — plastering them from head to toe with every disgusting substance mortalkind has ever produced. I made sure a bit of my own ordure was in there, too.

I could have been truly cruel. They’d meant to hurt Hymn, after all. I could have shattered the fungus log and speared them with spore-covered splinters. I could have broken their bodies into pieces and stuffed the whole mess back into the bins, muck and all. But I was having fun. I let them live.

They screamed — though some of them had the wit to keep their mouths closed for fear of what the scream would let in — and flailed at themselves with remarkable vigor given what their jobs entailed. But I supposed it was one thing to shovel and haul shit; quite another to bathe in it. I had madel bt i certain the stuff went into their clothes and various crevices of their bodies. A good trick is all about the details.

“Remember,” I said, stalking forward. Those who could see me, because they had managed to get the muck out of their eyes, yelled and grabbed their still-blind companions and stumbled back. I let them go and grinned, and made a chunk of wood spin like a top on one of my fingertips. A waste of magic, yes, but I wanted to enjoy being strong for however long it lasted. “Never touch her again, or I will find you. Now go!” I stomped at them, mock-threatening, but they were horrified and wise enough to scream and turn and run out of the alley, some of them tripping and slipping in the slime. They fled down the street, leaving behind their wagon and mule. I heard them yelling in the distance.

I fell to the ground — we were still at the back of the alley, where the ground was relatively clean — and laughed and laughed, until my sides ached. Hymn, however, began picking her way over the tumbled debris, trying to find a way out of the alley that would not require her to walk through a layer of filth.

Surprised at being abandoned, I stopped laughing and sat up on one elbow to watch her. “Where are you going?”

“Away from you,” she said. Only then did I realize she was furious.

Blinking, I got to my feet and went to her. Strong as I was feeling after that trick, it was nothing to grab her about the waist and leap over the front half of the alley, landing in the brighter-lit, fresher air of the street. There were a few people about, standing and murmuring in the wake of the muckrakers’ spectacle, but there was a collective gasp as I landed on the cobblestones. Quickly — hurriedly, in some cases — all of the onlookers turned and left, some of them glancing back as if in fear that I would follow.

Puzzled by this, I set Hymn down, whereupon she immediately began hurrying away, too. “Hey!”

She stopped, and turned back to me with a look of such wariness that I flinched. “What?”

I put my hands on my hips. “I saved you. What, not even a thanks?”

“Thank you,” she said tightly, “though I wouldn’t have been in danger if you hadn’t called out to them.”

This was true. But … “They won’t bother you again,” I said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“What I wanted,” she said, turning red in the face now, “was to do my business in peace. Should’ve left when I figured out you were a godling! And you’re worse somehow. You seemed so sad, I thought for a moment that you were more” — she spluttered, too apoplectic to speak for a moment —“human. But you’re just like the rest of them, screwing up mortal lives and thinking you’re doing us a favor.” She turned away, walking briskly enough that the limp made her gait into an ugly sort of half hop. I’d been wrong; the bad foot didn’t slow her down at all.

I stared in the direction she had gone until it became clear she would not stop, and then finally I sighed and trotted after her.

I hadn ahe nearly caught up when Hymn heard my footsteps and stopped, rounding on me. “What?”

I stopped, too, putting my hands in my pockets and trying not to hunch my shoulders. “I need to make it up to you.” I sighed, wishing I could just leave. “Is there something you want? I can’t fix your foot, but … I don’t know. Whatever.”

I could almost hear her teeth grinding together, though she did not speak for a moment. Perhaps she needed to master her rage before she started shouting at a god.

“I don’t want my foot fixed,” she said with remarkable calm. “I don’t want anything from you. But if it’s your nature that you’re trying to serve, and you won’t leave me alone until you’ve done it, then here’s what I need: money.”