The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(325)

“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 to that sort of thing.”

I reached out to touch the world around me as best I could, my senses numbed and unsteady as they were. I could feel a few of my siblings then. Mostly the very youngest. I remembered the days when I had been fascinated by mortalkind—especially children, with whom I had loved to play. But some of my kind were drawn to adults, and with that came adult cravings.

Like the taste of Shahar’s skin.

I shook my head—a mistake, as the nausea was not quite done with me. I said something to distract myself. “We’ve never needed such things, Ahad. If we want a mortal, we appear somewhere and point at one, and the mortal gives us what we want.”

“You know, Sieh, it’s all right that you haven’t paid attention to the world. But you really shouldn’t talk as though you have.”

“What?”

“Times have changed.” Ahad paused to sip from a square glass of fiery red liquid. I had stopped drinking that one after the first taste because mortals could die of alcohol poisoning. Ahad held it in his mouth a moment, savoring the burn, before continuing. “Mortalkind, heretics excepted, spent centuries believing in Itempas and nothing else. They don’t know what happened to him—the Arameri keep a tight grip on that information, and so do we godlings—but they know something has changed. They aren’t gods, but they can still see the new colors of existence. And now they understand that our kind are powerful, admirable, but fallible.” He shrugged. “A godling who wants to be worshipped can still find adherents, of course. But not many—and really, Sieh, most of us don’t want to be worshipped. Do you?”

I blinked in surprise, and considered it. “I don’t know.”

“You could be, you know. The street children swear by you when they speak any god’s name at all. Some of them even pray to you.”

Yes, I had heard them, though I’d never done anything to encourage their interest. I’d had thousands of followers once, but these days it always surprised me that they remembered. I drew up my knees and wrapped my arms around them, understanding finally what Ahad meant.

Nodding as if I’d spoken my thoughts aloud, Ahad continued. “The rest of our clients are nobles, wealthy merchants, very lucky commoners—anyone who’s ever yearned to visit the heavens before death. Even our mortal courtesans have been with gods enough to have acquired a certain ethereal technique.” He smiled a salesman’s smile, though it never once touched his eyes.

“That’s what you’re selling. Not sex, but divinity.” I frowned. “Gods, Ahad, at least worship is free.”