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

already, specially constructed by the Aelen Kofer. Suicide would not take them onward to any wondrous eternity.
    The Adversary’s cunning termites of doubt kept gnawing at the foundations of his faith.
    â€œIf I understand Double Great right, Piper, it’s all right if Anna and the kids take off. All we have left is to dump the trash through the midden hole.” Heris waved. “Let’s do the drop, Renfrow.”
    â€œAs you wish.” The Bastard fiddled with petcocks. A thousand amber beads, from pinhead size to an inch in diameter, rolled down through silver glass tubing. A silver ball followed so nothing of the Night could head in the other direction.
    The Bastard closed and opened petcocks again. Beads and ball disappeared into Asgrimmur’s pocket universe.
    â€œThere’s one load gone,” Heris said. “Let’s get crushing and grinding. We’ll have this done in another hour. In two we’ll be sucking down Aelen Kofer ale.”
    Hecht checked his family again. “You’re sure you don’t need fire support?”
    â€œYou stay. Pick a falcon.” Heris stepped past him. “You gods get a sudden notion to knock boots with a mortal girl, just remember that their mother, father, and aunt already wrote the last verse for four major Instrumentalities.”
    It was more than four but Hecht was not about to start threatening gods. Heris ought to have better sense, too. She should have noticed, as well, that only one of these gods was male.
    Hecht was distracted by the novelty of her concern for Lila and Vali.
    Some of the divinities did have reputations. Old northern myth and culture valued virginity, chastity, and fidelity much less than did the followers of Aaron of Chaldar. And Chaldareans were less obsessive than Pramans, who stoned somebody if they even thought about sexual congress with anyone but young boys or the renewable virgin houris of Paradise.
    Anna and the children left. Hecht leaned on his falcon and brooded about the quirks of religion.
    The Founding Family had been crystal clear and bloody fierce in matters sexual. There was no room in the Faith for buggery. But, as people generally do, the Faithful overlooked rules they found inconvenient. Nor did useful pre-Revelation gods vanish in the light of the god who was God. They put on disguises and went to work as ifrits and other spirits, now supposedly in thrall to the Adversary. And the thing about boys …
    That had confused and appalled Piper Hecht even when he was young Else Tage.
    He thought of Osa Stile, ensorcelled so he would remain a pleasure boy all his life. Osa was still out there, nearing forty, looking a small twelve, still unconvinced that those who had warped him did not deserve his loyalty.
    The hammer mill cycled. It shook the chamber. The smash and rattle startled Hecht out of his dark reverie.
    Heris joined him. “This is going all right but it’s taking longer than I expected.”
    â€œEverything does.”
    â€œWhy? The individual steps aren’t causing complications.”
    â€œMy staff call it friction. Natural drag that just slows things down even when there aren’t any problems. Titus Consent has an equation he uses to guess how much friction we can expect in an operation. And, guess what?”
    â€œIt doesn’t help?”
    â€œIt does. But the attempt to calculate friction causes friction of its own. I suspect an undiscovered law of the universe.”
    â€œAnd that doesn’t drive you nuts?”
    â€œOf course it does. But if you accept it, don’t fight it, and take it into account, things go fairly well. Most leaders can’t handle friction. They make things worse by screaming, yelling, threatening and punishing. People slow down when they’re afraid to make mistakes.”
    â€œMore philosophy. More intellectualization. More friction.”
    â€œYou could be right. They’re ready to run another