Gathering of the Chosen by Timothy L. Cerepaka Page B

the one who was going to be eaten by the crustaceans.
Isn't anyone happy to see me?”
    Saia looked at the other villagers, but
unlike Frissa, none of them came forward to greet them. Even Hazur,
the village elder, stood with the others, her old, aged eyes
looking at Tinkar with much suspicion and distrust.
    Tinkar, meanwhile, was looking at Frissa,
though the young girl seemed to hardly notice the god. “Is she your
daughter?”
    Frissa finally noticed Tinkar when he
spoke, but rather than cheerfully greet the stranger, she just hid
behind Carmaz. Carmaz wished he could hide somewhere, too, but he
knew that it was impossible to hide from the gods.
    So he said to Tinkar, “No. Frissa's
parents were murdered by some pirates when she was only a year old
and so doesn't really have any parents, so to speak. She
technically is raised by everyone in Conewood, including me. But
you knew that already, didn't you?”
    “I know the fates of all mortals,” said
Tinkar. “I simply asked the question to appear less alien to you,
though I doubt I succeeded.”
    Carmaz found it hard to believe that
Tinkar—or any god, for that matter—would bother trying to
understand him and the others. He suspected that Tinkar was playing
with him, which, considering how the gods in general treated
mortals, was not an unheard of thing for a god to do.
    Then Carmaz looked back at the villagers.
They still didn't seem likely to break the ice, so he decided to
explain to the others what was going on and why Tinkar was
here.
    So Carmaz stepped forward and gestured at
Tinkar. “This is Tinkar, the God of Fate and Time himself. He—”
    Carmaz didn't even get to finish his
sentence before the villagers started to hurl dirt clods, rocks,
and even precious shoes at Tinkar. Carmaz, Saia, and Frissa ducked,
therefore avoiding most of it, but Tinkar didn't even try to dodge.
The clods, rocks, and shoes rapidly disintegrated ten feet from his
body. Tinkar's facial expression didn't even change as the
projectiles disintegrated, as if he was unimpressed by the
villagers' actions.
    Once it became clear that throwing things
at Tinkar was not working, the villagers stopped doing it, but they
still viewed Tinkar with the same distrust from before.
    “I will give you mortals credit for being
willing to assault a god that is a thousand times more powerful
than all of you put together,” Tinkar said. “But if this had not
been on the north side of the Dividing Line, I would have killed
you all for the severe lack of respect you showed toward me.”
    “Go fuck yourself!” one of the villagers
shouted. “We don't want you stupid gods on our island!”
    Tinkar didn't even look offended by that.
He yawned and said, “Obscenities. Is that the best you mortals can
come up with? Wait. Do not answer that question. The future tells
me that that is indeed the best that you are able to come up
with.”
    “Are you going to restore Ruwa to its
former glory?” another village shouted.
    “No,” said Tinkar. “I did not come here to
help a bunch of heathens.”
    “Then why did you come here at all?” a
third villager shouted. He took off his shoe like he was going to
throw it at Tinkar. “Get out of here! No one wants you around.”
    The villager threw his shoe at Tinkar. His
aim, unfortunately, was severely off, because his shoe instead hit
Saia directly in the face.
    “Ow!” Saia said, rubbing his nose where
the shoe had hit. “Barc, what the hell was that for?”
    “Sorry,” said Barc, the villager who had
thrown the shoe, sheepishly. “My bad.”
    Carmaz again rose to his full height and
said, “Please, I understand how angry everyone here is at Tinkar
and the gods, but you must understand that Tinkar rescued Saia and
me from the crustaceans and has offered us hope for Ruwa.”
    “Hope for Ruwa?” Frissa repeated, looking
up at Carmaz with her large eyes. “What do you mean, Carmy?”
    Smiling, Carmaz scooped Frissa into his
arms again and then addressed