The Mad Voyage of Prince Malock by Timothy L. Cerepaka Page B

imagine that, by the time I end
the tale, I will be hungry enough to eat you.”
    Malock nodded. He thought about reaching for his
sword while the Loner God talked, but he realized the could not do
that without the hungry god noticing. He would have to think of
another way to free himself, and quickly, because he didn't know
how long this tale was going to be.
    “It started in the beginning,” said the Loner God.
“Literally. When the Powers first crafted this world, they made us
gods first of all. Our job was to maintain the various domains and
realms of this world, both the concrete and the abstract. We were
the first of all creation, older than the stars, older than the
earth, even older than the sea. The sun was young in those days and
there was not an imperfection to be found anywhere.”
    A hint of longing colored every word that came from
the Loner God's mouth. The story utterly contradicted the creation
story that Malock had been told, however, which said humans were
created first and gods second, but somehow he didn't think the
Loner God would appreciate hearing that version very much.
    “Then the Powers created you mortals,” said the
Loner God, his tone turning to annoyance. “Humans and aquarians.
Smarter than animals, but not quite as powerful as we gods. We were
told you mortals served a special purpose in the world, but to be
frank, the Powers never told us what that purpose was. I imagine
they thought that would be enough to keep us from actively trying
to kill you all.”
    Malock, too, wondered what that 'special purpose'
might be. He gave it little thought, though, because he was too
busy trying to come up with a way to get out of this situation
alive.
    “So the Powers left the world, putting us in charge
of it,” the Loner God said. “We gods quickly became divided over
the matter of you mortals. Half of us wanted you to worship us, to
shower us with adoration and respect, to build temples in our honor
and to sing hymns in our name. The other half saw you as little
more than cattle and rather tasty cattle at that. Guess which group
I was a part of.”
    Malock knew, but did not say.
    “Those of us who saw you mortals as food came up
with the sport of mortal-hunting,” said the Loner God. “Several of
us gods would get together and hunt down mortals. They were not
much of a challenge, mostly because you mortals are weak and slow,
but my, oh, my, were they fun. The dumb mortals were especially fun
to hunt because they tried to fight us and always failed
spectacularly.”
    He spoke of the sport the way Malock's father had
always spoken of drafna-hunting, like humans and aquarians were
mere animals or something.
    “But you see, the mortal-lovers didn't like that,”
said the Loner God. “Didn't like that one bit. They argued and
debated with us about the ethics of it, often sabotaged our hunts,
took certain tribes or races of mortals under their protection, and
occasionally even traded blows with us over it. But nothing serious
came of it until dearest sister Mica, then the Goddess of Earth,
slew the Ink God when he tried to hunt some of her followers.”
    Malock had to interrupt here. “But gods can't be
killed. That's impossible.”
    “Impossible for you mortals, maybe, but we gods are
certainly capable of taking each other's lives,” said the Loner
God. “Anyway, that was the last straw for both sides. The
mortal-lovers were angry that the Ink God had tried to kill mortals
under their protection, while we mortal-hunters were angry that
Mica had killed one of our own and taken his domain under hers.
This started a terrible war between us, the first and only war
between the gods.”
    “War?” said Malock. “It couldn't have been that bad,
could it?”
    “Oh, it was terrible,” said the Loner God. “Think of
the absolute worst war you mortals have ever fought among
yourselves. Then imagine the sea at war with the sky, the clouds at
war with the trees, love at war with hate, countless