“Wait!” said the head wizard. “We said we could not defeat him. We did not say we could not remove the threat he poses to Rasa.”
The emperor sat back in his chair. “You have my attention,” he said. “How do you remove him as a threat without defeating him?”
The head of the wizards leaned in to the emperor’s ear and began to whisper. Slowly, the expression of puzzlement on the emperor’s face began to change to amusement, then joy. When the wizard leaned back, the emperor smiled and nodded.
“I see,” he said. “Make it so.”
So one of the wizards, who was from far Asmaracanda, summoned a sort of devil indigenous to that place, called a djinn. This djinn’s power was concerned with the granting of wishes, and he was constrained to answer three wishes for each master. The Asmaracandan wizard explained to the djinn that it was the wizard’s will that he be sealed into a ruby phial, and that the phial was to be sent to the Carrion-King as tithe.
Because it was manufactured by the wizards, it was of incomparable beauty of design, and of course the Carrion-King could not bear that it be opened by any hand but his. “Such a treasure,” he mused, weighing it in his hand, “must contain something even more precious.”
So saying, he pried the stopper out. And a smoke flowed out, and a mist flowed out, and the djinn said unto him, “Master, I am the djinn of the bottle, and I must grant you three wishes. What is your first wish?”
The Carrion-King was no fool. He said, “I wish first for eternal youth and second for eternal health.”
And so it was granted.
And the djinn said unto him, “Master, I am the djinn of the bottle, and I must grant you one wish. What is your last wish?”
The Carrion-King was no fool. He said, “I wish third to rule the world.”
And so it was granted.
But in his immortality and invulnerability, you see, the Carrion-King had ceased to be human. He was a god now, a god among gods of many nations, and the other gods did not take kindly to him usurping their territory. Now if he had wished to be undefeatable instead of invulnerable, this might never have come to pass—so perhaps the Carrion-King was just a little foolish after all. But what happened was that the Warrior-God of the Messalines, he whom they call Vajhir the Red, rode out to face the Carrion-King.
And Vajhir the Red’s chariot was drawn by the sun, which in their part of the world is an enormous lion with a golden mane, and Vajhir the Red’s javelins were lightning bolts, and Vajhir the Red fought the Carrion-King until the steppe trembled and the mountains called the Buttresses of the World cracked and Vajhir the Red was wounded and grew tired. And those mountains are called now the Bitter Root, and they lie between Messaline and the Great Salt Desert, which was a green and lush land before Vajhir the Red fought the Carrion-King.
But when Vajhir the Red grew tired, there was the Scholar-God of the Uthmans. And she fought the Carrion-King with her globes of glass filled with tincture of vitriol, with her vast mirrors curved to throw the sun’s flame a mile across bright water, with her tamed angels ranked ten deep and sporting spears that reached the breadth of the sky. And the God of the Uthmans, who has no name, fought the Carrion-King until the mountains called the Pillars of Heaven cracked and the span of the sky sagged at two corners.
And those mountains are called the Shattered Pillars now.
And then the Eternal Sky of the Qersnyk fought the Carrion King—and the Eternal Sky’s weapons were arrows faster than thought, and he rode upon a pale stud horse of the steppe breed that looked more like skin stretched over a skeleton than the steed of a god. And the Carrion-King bellowed and beat his chest, but he had forgotten to wish from the djinn that he never grow tired, and after two and a half battles with the gods of the world, he was weary.
The Eternal Sky fought him almost to a standstill and might have defeated him, but time was passing. The Eternal Sky had to take up his veil so night could fall over the land and the Eternal Sky’s hot face would not burn it sere.
In that battle, the mountains called the Range of Heroes were shattered, and the Heroes themselves were burned to ashes by the Eternal Sky before he thought to veil his face, and so that place is known now as the Range of Ghosts.
And that corner of the sky, too, sagged earthward.
So there was only one Warrior-God left, or so all the other gods of the world thought. They turned to Song, and from among the Holy Ancestors they cajoled the Old Master to stride forth, to stroke his white beard and pick up his staff and come and join the battle with the Carrion-King.
Wearily, the Old Master did. The Old Master and the Carrion-King fought each other up and down the sagging sky. They fought with staff and spear, and never could one get the better of the other, though one was ancient and one was new. But slowly, slowly, the Old Master wore the Carrion-King down, until it looked inevitable that the Old Master would win.