Working God's Mischief by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

like an overgrown, deformed crabapple. “Eavijne’s first crop. They’re not good but there are enough to go around. Get one.” She ambled around, looking over shoulders, curious.
    Hecht was curious himself. How had she become fluent in modern Firaldian? Those must be potent apples.
    The Bastard, Cloven Februaren, and Heris finished readying their first dump of Instrumentality soul eggs. More than a hundred pounds lay in the glass hopper, set to go.
    The ascendant was not much use just now. The suggestion that the All-Father’s fall might have been engineered had hit him hard. Had he been manipulated himself? How had he, newly ascended and quite insane, been able to create a pocket world into which he had herded twelve gods?
    Asgrimmur kept trying to discuss it with Heris. Heris was busy.
    She finally grumbled, “Will you quit stressing about what happened back when? We have problems now. The Trickster ended up in there because what’s inside you spent what was left of him to make it happen. Now help me with the hammer mill.”
    Some of the soul eggs were too large for the injection tube. Heris meant to break those up. The eggs would shatter when hit hard.
    Anna and the children had been making themselves useful by moving equipment and materials no longer needed out of the chamber. The divinities were not pleased by their indifference.
    Two sizable, still-warm soul eggs had been set aside, on a table all their own. Two falcons not so subtly pointed their way. Heris talked about trying to reverse their misfortune.
    Hecht would as soon see them all destroyed. To the last and least these entities mocked the religion of his youth and the religion he had adopted since coming west.
    His mind might know that all things were true inside the Night but his heart desperately wanted that not to be so. There is no God but God!
    â€œPiper?” Heris asked.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou’re daydreaming. Again.”
    â€œHave to. It never gets dark here.” He glanced toward the doorway. The green area boasted a half-dozen Old Gods who looked like ordinary people with anachronistic senses of style. They included one of Red Hammer’s mothers—different myths assigned the honor to different goddesses—and his wife and that wife’s daughter by an unknown father.
    They made Hecht nervous.
    Cultures that had worshipped the Old Ones had had strange notions of justice.
    â€œIn a world of an eye for an eye the last man standing has got the world by the balls.”
    Heris said, “Piper?”
    â€œNothing. Something Pinkus Ghort said.” He checked his family.
    They were spent emotionally. Pella had begun spelling them at the falcons. The boy could be a surprise when he set the attitude aside. “How much longer do you want the falcons manned? Asgrimmur says we don’t need them anymore. But I’m more suspicious than him. I can’t help thinking how honorable I’d be if the Old Ones had the upper hand.”
    Cloven Februaren said, “You’re the product of thousands of years of the Instrumentalities having had the upper hand. You’d need to live that long with them to grasp their thinking. The simple fact that death is something that only happens to somebody else makes a huge difference.”
    Hecht said, “That should be changing.”
    â€œThe change started centuries ago. But they got it wrong, which is why we are where we are today.”
    â€œWhy did you come over here interrupting, Double Great?”
    â€œI wanted to tell you to get on with your work and stop worrying about the numb-nuts hangers-on.”
    â€œI missed your point. Assuming you had one.”
    â€œStop worrying about the gods. They can’t interfere. That would be suicidal. You got them by the short hairs. Yank or squeeze, as appropriate, when the mood takes you.”
    That did not reassure Hecht till he recalled that the Old Ones were inside their Paradise