Page 8 of Jailer to the Death God
“Obey?” I scoff. “You get one request, and once that is fulfilled, I return to my realm.”
“Very well. My request is for you to stop killing my people.”
Black chains rise from the mouth of every corpse around the Pit, and I watch them warily—but they don’t wrap around me like they usually do when a summoner’s wish is expressed. They hesitate, wavering like snakes about to strike.
I have a god’s consciousness of where I am in the mortal plane—the tiny continent and self-sufficient kingdom of Cerato. A glorified island, really. I’ve received an unusually high number of souls pouring in from this pit, due to an ongoing plague.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I say. “I am not killing your people. A plague is killing them.”
“A plague you caused.”
I sigh. “Ah, you mortals. Convinced that everything is the responsibility of a higher power. No, little human, I did not cause any plague. Everything that occurs in this world is partly uncontrollable chaos and partly the natural result of human choices and their logical consequences. The gods have little to do with any of it. The only time my kind interfere with human development is the occasional hearty fuck, which results in mortals with magic, like your healers and such. Speaking of healers—why can’t some of them help you?”
“This plague is too powerful. I require the aid of a god, and youwillhelp me, because we’ve done everything you wanted for this ritual.” Her voice thickens, choked with grief.
“EverythingIwanted? You think I set up this profane spell? That Iwantto be bound to a sniveling mortal?”
“I don’t know or care what you want. I know what I need from you, and that is fewer plague deaths among my people.”
That’s an open-ended statement, one that could bind me interminably if I’m not careful. The chains begin to move toward me.
“Specificity, mortal,” I hiss. “How many lives do you wish me to spare? And be warned, I will not spare souls indiscriminately. I do not show mercy to the unworthy. I will need to determine which ones among your people deserve a chance at longer life.”
She frowns. “Fine. You will spare all plague victims you find worthy of longer life, for the next year.”
“What?” The chains shoot toward me, coiling around my limbs. Panic vibrates through my body as I feel myself solidifying, taking on a more corporeal form. I shrink from the height of three men to the height of one man—still head-and-shoulders above the average height for a human—but I can’t control the change, and that scares me. “A year? Are you mad?”
“Why yes.” She stares me down, a manic silver fire in her eyes. “I think perhaps I am, circumstances being what they are.”
The chains cinch tight around my limbs and wings, and I snarl at her through clenched teeth. My fury is boundless. No one has ever dared restrain me for a full year. The longest I’ve spent in the human world was three days.
It’s too late to bargain. The chains have locked in place around me. They disappear almost instantly, but I can feel them, like a ghostly brush of icy metal against my skin—an alien sensation I dislike deeply.
Enraged, I take another step toward the girl.
This time she recoils. And her heel slips off the edge of the Pit.
Eyes blown wide, she flails her arms, but she’s already falling.
I could let her fall. She would perish, pass through my furnace into the Unlife, and relinquish her hold on me.
But I am a just god, and as much as I hate her for binding me, this mortal does not reek of evil.
I can save her, and be true to myself…
Or let her fall, and be free.
3
I’m toppling into the void of the Pit. I’m going to die—
My idiocy is going to make Rose’s sacrifice meaningless.
A hand grips my arm.
Hauls me back onto firm ground.
Arawn yanks me farther from the Pit’s edge, and I crash against him, gasping from the shock of what nearly happened.
