The Kingdom of Gods

I blinked. “What?”

Ahad stalked over to me, surprising me further. He hadn’t liked being near me for centuries. Planting his hands on the desk on either side of my hips, he leaned down to glare into my face. “Do you really think me so petty that I would still be angry after all this time? Ah, no — that isn’t it at all.” His smile flickered, and perhaps it was my imagination that his teeth grew sharper for a moment. I hoped it was, because the last thing he needed was an animal nature. “No, I think you’re just so gods-damned certain of your own importance that you haven’t figured it out. So let me make this clear: I don’t care about you. You’re irrelevant. It’s a waste of my energy even to hate you!”

I stared back at him, stunned by his vehemence and, I will admit, hurt. And yet.

“I don’t believe you,” I murmured. He blinked.

Then he pushed away from the desk with such force that it scooched back a little, nearly jostling me off. I stared as he went over to Hymn, grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt, and half dragged her to the door, opening it.

“I’m not going to kill him,” he said, shoving her through hard enough that she stumbled when he let her go. “I’m not going to do a damned thing other than gloat over his prolonged, humiliating death, which I have no reason whatsoever to hasten. So your money’s clean and you can wash your hands of him in good conscience. Be glad you escaped before he could ruin your life. Now get out!” And he slammed the door in her face.

I stared at him as he turned to regard me, taking a long, slow breath to compose himself. Because I knew his soul, I felt the moment that he made a decision. Perhaps he had already guessed at mine.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked at last, with brittle politeness.

“Children shouldn’t drink,” I said automatically.

“How fortunate that you’re not a child anymore.”

I winced. “I, ah, haven’t had alcohol in a few centuries.” I said it carefully, testing this new, fragile peace beneath us. It was as thin as the tension on a puddle’s surface, but if we tread delicately, we might manage. “Do you have anything, er …”

“For the pathetic?” He snorted and went over to a handsome wood cabinet, which turned out to hold a dozen or so bottles. All of them were full of strong, richly colored liquids. Stuff for men, not boys. “No. You’ll have to sink or swim, I’m afraid.”

Most likely I would sink. I looked at the bottles and committed myself to the path of truce with a heavy sigh.

“Pour on, then,” I said, and he did.

Some while later, after I had unfortunately remembered too late that vomiting is far, far more unpleasant than defecating, I sat on the floor where Ahad had left me and took a long, hard look at him. “You want something from me,” I said. I believe I said it clearly, though my thoughts were slurred.

He lifted an eyebrow in genteel fashion, not even tipsy. A servant had already taken away the wastebasket splattered with my folly. Even with the windows open, the stench of Ahad’s cheroot was better than the alternative, so I did not mind it this time.

“So do you,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but my wants are always simple things. In this case I want money, and since I really wanted it for Hymn and you’ve already given it to her, that essentially solves the problem. Your wants are never simple.”

“Hmm.” I didn’t think this statement pleased him. “And yet you’re still here, which implies you want something more.”

“Care during my feeble senescence. It will take me another fifty or sixty years to die, during which I will require increasing amounts of food and shelter and” — I looked at the bottle on the desk between us, considering —“and other things. Mortals use money to obtain these things; I am becoming mortal; therefore, I will need a regular source of money.”

“A job.” Ahad laughed. “My housekeeper thought you might make a good courtesan, if you cleaned up a little.”

Affront penetrated the alcohol haze. “I’m a god!”

“Nearly a third of our courtesans are godlings, Sieh. Didn’t you feel the presence of family when you came in?” He gestured around the building, his hand settling on himself, and I flushed because in fact, I had not sensed him or anyone else. More evidence of my weakness. “A goodly number of our clients are, too — godlings who are curious about mortals but afraid or too proud to admit it. Or who simply want the release of meaningless, undemanding intercourse. We aren’t so different from them, you know, when it comes m">vidence ofto that sort of thing.”