Against All Gods

by Miles Cameron

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

The tyranny of the gods is absolute, and they are capricious, malevolent and almost all-powerful, playing cruel games with the fates of mortals for their own ends . . .

A vibrant and powerful epic set against an alternate Bronze Age, this tale of gods, men and monsters, conspiracy and war, is a rich, compelling and original read from a master of the historical and fantasy genres. The people caught up in toils of the gods are merely trying to survive. Victims of vicious whims, trapped by their circumstances or pushed beyond what the mortal frame can bear, a handful of god-touched mortals - a scribe, a warlord, a dancer and a child - are about to be brought together in a conspiracy of their own.

A conspiracy to reach the heavens, and take down the corrupt and aging gods . . . who are already facing troubles of their own . . .

An epic which draws on the Greek mythology of gods and heroes, this new trilogy is a must read for fans of Dan Simmons and Madeline Miller alike.


Praise for Miles Cameron:

'Utterly, utterly brilliant. A masterclass in how to write modern fantasy - world building, characters, plot and pacing, all perfectly blended. Miles Cameron is at the top of his game' John Gwynne, author of The Faithful and the Fallen series

'Cold Iron is fantastic. It shimmers like a well-honed sword blade' Anna Smith Spark, author of The Court of Broken Knives

'Promising historical fantasy debut featuring an expansive cast, an engaging plot, and a detailed eye for combat' The Ranting Dragon on The Red Knight

'Literate, intelligent, and well-throughout . . . a pleasingly complex and greatly satisfying novel' SFF World on The Red Knight

Release date: June 23, 2022

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 400

Sample

Characters in Against All Gods express distance in paransangs and stadia (singular stadion).

The parasang is approximately five kilometres, or the distance a fit man can walk in an hour of hard walking. It’s not an exact measurement. This is, after all, the Bronze Age.

The stadion is approximately six hundred feet (roughly two hundred metres, give or take). The foot is the measure of a man’s foot – not standardised. There are thirty stadia in a parasang in Noa and Dardania; fewer in the Hundred Cities, more in Narmer. But don’t be fooled; there are no standardised systems of measure. Every city measures everything from weights to distance, from grain to volume, in a different way. I have chosen to use the archaic Greek/Persian stadion and parasang (and the ‘foot’) to keep it relatively simple.

There is no money. This is a barter economy, and the relative value of gold, silver, grain or any other commodity varies from place to place and from transaction to transaction. Precious stones, like emeralds, rubies and lapis, are all useful for trade, but again, have no standard value.

There are no maps or charts, although Narmer and Ma’rib have ‘world pictures’ that begin to approach maps. People tend to express travel as a set of waypoints: ‘I went to A, then B, then C.’ Written down, these itineraries are the way pilgrims and merchants learn their routes.

Most people cannot read; the ability to read is almost a magic power. Scribes hold that power, and a good scribe can read most of the languages, ‘modern’ and ‘ancient’ of the world. There is no paper. Everything must be written on either papyrus (mostly in Narmer) or inscribed on clay tablets. Book-keeping and accounting, like reading, are near-magical powers.

Finally, the most durable metal is bronze. Iron is almost unknown, and its ownership is illegal and taboo. It is worth noting that a good work-hardened bronze blade is the equal or superior of much ironwork; only steel would exceed bronze, and bronze can be worked much more easily. This is an age of bronze, extended and enforced by the gods.

Protagonists

Atosa – Chief jeweller of the Palace of Hekka.

Daos – An orphaned child with mysterious powers.

Era – An epic singer and dancer, swordswoman, abandoned daughter of a godborn father and a Narmerian dancer.

Gamash of Weshwesh – Godborn aristocrat, master magos, and past tool of the gods.

Hefa-Asus – A Dendrownan smith from the far north, in Poche. A great maker.

Nicté – A tough woman of Northern Dendrowna, apprentice of Hefa-Asus.

Pollon – Scribe, musician, archer, and man of reason. A little patronizing at times.

Zos – Godborn sell-sword, cynical and past his best.

Hakrans aboard the Untroubled Swan

Aanat – Master sailor, ‘captain’ of the Untroubled Swan, senior husband.

Bravah – Youngest husband of the family, a little jealous, a little too fond of anger.

Jawala – Strongest and wisest of the Hakran crew/family, senior of Aanat’s three wives (and with two fellow-husbands).

Miti – Youngest in the family, independent, and stubborn, wife of the Untroubled Swan crew/family.

Mokshi – Middle husband of the family, older, superb cook, steady and reliable.

Pavi – Middle wife of the Hakran family, veteran sailor and merchant.

Other Characters

Agon of Mykoax – God-King of Dardania.

Anenome – Short, blond, and long limbed, reputed the best warrior in the world, a godborn sell-sword.

Atrios the Great – War King of Mykoax, killed by his wife after the failure of the Holy War against the Hakrans.

Axe – Tall, dark, and old, a killer mercenary who has survived many wars. Partner of Anenome.

Bror – A stuffed bear.

Cyra – Goddess Queen of Noa, old and powerful, and very competent.

Dite – A mysterious, exotic and very powerful woman.

Hyatti-Azi – Former Hattussan prince, and a great captain among the Jekers.

Kussu – A market rat boy.

Makeda, Tisa, Theklassa – Three nomad warriors.

Maritaten – The new goddess-queen of Narmer, often referred to as ‘Lady of Narmer’ or ‘Lady of the High House’.

Mekos – God-King of Kyra, a powerful city-state too close to Narmer.

Mura of Samar – Pollon’s lover and landlady, a merchant of nomad birth.

Nannu – A persistent donkey.

Persay of Mykoax – A mad former slave and failed bull-leaper.

Spathios – Scribe for the god-king of Hekka.

Taha – A former slave from Py and veteran scout.

Thanatos – God-King of Hekka, neighbour to Kyra and very rich.

Thayos – Lord of Dardania, Captain of the Wave Serpent, a merchant and a pirate.

The Old Gods

Antaboga – The World Serpent. The Last Dragon.

Arrina – Narmerian Sun Goddess, lover of Enkul-Anu, now banished to the Outer Darkness.

Nanuk – Old pantheon god of the Sea, by his Northern name. In the south, Nammu. Sometimes a big man, sometimes a sea monster. Supposedly killed by Timurti.

Ranos – The Father and Lord of the old pantheon.

Shemeg – Old pantheon sun god.

Taris – Former Queen of Heaven and top god of the old pantheon, killed by Ara in the last ‘War in Heaven’.

Temis – Also the Dark Huntress, Black Goddess – One of the Sisters. Lady of Animals, sometimes a goddess of death and chaos. The only one of the old gods to still hold a place in the new pantheon.

The ‘New’ Gods

Anzu – The winged lion-headed god of rage and insanity, a dangerous killer.

Ara – God of War and Strife. Only marginally sane. Still, a Greater God.

Druku – God of Drunkenness and Orgies, who is tired of being treated like a drunk. A Greater God.

Enkul-Anu – Bull-headed God of the Storm. Master of the pantheon. Just trying to hold it all together.

Grulu – Goddess of Spite and Envy; completely mad or perhaps just senile.

Gul – God of the Underworld, Lord of the Hosts of the Dead. A Greater God.

Illikumi – A snake god, God of Liars, also many merchants. Not very powerful but very clever.

Lady Laila – A sort of demi-goddess. Apparently, just a servant. Apparently.

Kur – The underworld, where Gul and Urkigul rule as Enkul-Anu rules heaven. Seven layers of hells, most of them rumoured to be very cold.

Nerkalush – The son of Gul, a junior god looking to increase his power.

Nisroch – Herald of the Gods, a son of Enkul-Anu with plans of his own.

Resheph – A junior god with a high opinion of himself, son of the God of War.

Sypa – Goddess of Lust; a Great Goddess and consort of Enkul-Anu.

Tyka – Also the Blue Goddess, the Antlered One – The other ‘Sister.’ The goddess of death in childbirth, of fertility, of things reborn and things dying and rotting and being healed and reborn.

Telipinu – The chamberlain of the gods, son of Sypa and Enkul-Anu, a very junior godling.

Timurti – Goddess of the Sea, totally lost to age and madness. A Great God.

Urkigul – Gul’s wife, Lady of the Underworld. A Great Goddess.

Uthu – The ‘new’ sun god. Almost powerless.

Titles

Ra-wa-ke-ta – The champion of the god-king.

Ra-pte-re – The chancellor of the god-king.

Basilios – A great lord.

Wanax – A king who is not also an appointed god-king, a Dardanian term also used for generals and powerful lords.

God-kings – Mortals appointed by the gods to rule important centers, usually given immortal resin (ambrosia) to prolong their lives and powers.

Godborn – The literal descendants of the gods and god-kings, either the current pantheon or their predecessors. Few of them have any real powers, but their claim to superiority remains mostly unchallenged.

Auza, Home of the Gods

‘What the fuck just happened?’

Enkul-Anu, lord of the hosts of heaven, He-Who-Holds-The-Thunderbolt, towered over the other gods, his size marking him as the most dangerous, the most powerful and the most beautiful god.

The other gods flinched away – even the older gods who didn’t fully understand … anything.

Enkul-Anu, god of gods, Storm God of Auza, sat on his great black marble throne. His skin was the polished deep red of carnelian; his eyes shone like molten gold in a massive bull’s head, with neither iris nor pupil, and his long black hair fell from his polished golden horns. He was taller than an elephant, and by his side was a great basalt bucket of thunderbolts that growled with suppressed power and showed malevolently in the Aura, powered by the souls of his victims ripped from their bodies.

He ruled the Great Palace of Heaven, the magnificent and many-roomed palace atop Mount Auza, Gate of Heaven, where megarons were layered, hall on top of hall, with working spaces and deep caverns hiding the many treasures and secrets of the gods.

Many, if not most of the countless minor deities thronged the hall as courtiers, sycophants, soldiers and messengers, but he alone was seated. This was not the Hall of the Gods where all lay on their magnificent couches, nor the Hall of Judgement where no mortal ever passed; this was the Hall of Hearing, where petitions came, where the occasional mortal visitor saw an endless vista of heavy black marble columns supporting a massive vault of dark stone inlaid with a thousand scenes in ruby and emerald, ivory and diamond. In lurid, god-lit colours and glowing traceries, Enkul-Anu conquered his enemies, destroyed the former seat of heaven, overthrew Titans and demons and enslaved humanity, his brilliant scarlet skin carefully lit so that the eye could follow his triumph on every surface.

The other gods were represented: Ara, the God of War and Violence, slew Taris, the former Queen of Heaven of the former pantheon, on the steps of her temple on distant Dekhu; and Timurti rose from the depths, a hideous crustacean, to wreck a human fleet; Druku lay in drunken abandon in most scenes – he was after all, the God of Drunkenness and Orgies; Sypa, Goddess of Lust, consort of the Storm God, coupled with him even as they fought monsters.

And across the back wall, they all were represented lying in state – all the great gods in their aspects, and even the two Enemies: Temis, the Dark Huntress and Tyka, the enigmatic Blue Goddess, standing alone as if banished from the table of the gods. All in a magnificent mosaic of precious stones that was forever lit from within by mage-fire.

Enkul-Anu thought it was all lurid and rather tasteless, but it served its purpose. And he seldom really looked at it any more, because he had to watch his fellow gods all the time. A thousand years after their conquest of heaven, some weren’t wearing well.

Several of the older gods stood apart, or leant against the veined marble of the walls under colourful depictions of their own great deeds, but their slack faces and absent expressions gave an impression of inaction at odds with their youthful vigour and perfect immortal forms. They were silent, except for Timurti, the great Goddess of the Deep Sea, who muttered to herself, striking her immortal thigh repeatedly and rhythmically with her fist. Grulu, Goddess of Spite and Envy, stood alone and locked in her own world. Uthu, the new Sun God, was one of Timurti’s brood and not even able to make light yet, although he had her Bright Spear.

Because Arrina was the real Sun Goddess …

Enkul-Anu frowned and turned his gaze away from the ­deities that surrounded him, his senses tuned to the world below his feet. He looked down from Auza, sensing the rage of a distant and important worshipper – sensing that something had slipped. Somewhere over to the east, one of his mortal powers was cursing the gods. A mortal power who should have been dead. Too gods-be-damned much has slipped these days, Enkul-Anu thought. When we took heaven, it was different. What happened?

A thousand years – that’s what happened. Most of them can’t handle it. Senile fools. And the young are worse. Weak. Soft.

‘Summon the Herald of the Gods!’ Enkul-Anu bellowed.

He hadn’t meant to bellow, but almost everything sent him into a rage these days – perhaps because he had to do everything himself.

Fucking idiots.

A dark-skinned godling – one of Sypa’s many brats – tapped a magnificent gold-encrusted spear on the black marble floor and summoned the Herald of the Gods by name.

‘Nisroch!’ he intoned.

Teifani? Telafanos? Teolophi? Enkul-Anu couldn’t remember the young pup’s name. His chamberlain. Handsome. Definitely Sypa’s. He preferred his son by Arrina …

Her name could no longer be spoken aloud. She had betrayed him, and she was gone to the Outer Darkness for eternity.

Arrina …

He shook himself as his son, the herald, Nisroch, appeared on eagle’s wings, his feet touching the floor lightly as he landed – a huge waste of power, as he’d summoned a gate and stepped through it. The flight was some sort of artistic flourish.

Fucking idiots. We gave them too much power. They have no idea what they’re doing with it.

‘What just happened?’ Enkul-Anu roared.

Nisroch didn’t quite shrug. ‘All sorts of things, Great God. The god-king of Narmer is recruiting charioteers against your express order. The god-king of Kyra prepares to make war on Hekka. In Mykoax, the god-king—’

‘Someone did something stupid. At Weshwesh. I can feel the fucking stupid right through the scarlet marrow of my bones. One of you children …’

Nisroch blinked. And looked around. ‘I don’t like to carry tales—’

‘That’s what you do, herald.’ The great god glared down at his messenger. ‘You are my eyes and ears. My spy. You carry tales!’

The Storm God made a gesture, showing that in his hand he held a thunderbolt glowing with its own titanic energy.

No one in heaven was sure if Enkul-Anu’s thunderbolts could actually kill a god, but the balance of guesswork was that they would. And no one was in a hurry to be the one to test them. Even after a thousand years, the threat was enough.

Nisroch flinched away, all his elegance gone.

‘Resheph,’ he said. ‘Resheph … has slain … the daughter of a mortal.’

Enkul-Anu looked at his herald, and then around at the gods on their couch-thrones of ebony and gold.

Ara, God of War, looked blurrily at him.

‘My son,’ he said. He wasn’t always coherent, so it was quite a cogent statement. ‘My son!’

It was true. Resheph was Ara’s son.

‘What mortal?’ Enkul-Anu demanded in a voice like the thunder he controlled.

‘Irene, daughter of Gamash of Weshwesh,’ the herald said cautiously. He didn’t quite cringe away.

Enkul-Anu sighed heavily. He looked at the herald, and the thunderbolt glowed malevolently.

‘Fucking idiot,’ he said quietly. ‘Didn’t I send him to kill Gamash himself?’

Silence.

‘Didn’t I?’ Enkul-Anu bellowed at the great black marble hall of the gods. ‘Didn’t I so order it?’

The gods all froze; all except Sypa, who wore a winning smile, Druku, singing an ancient drinking song to himself on his couch, and Lady Laila, who was herself somewhere between godhood and serving status – Sypa’s confidante and everyone’s favourite …

‘You did,’ Nisroch admitted.

And then the greatest god, god of gods, tilted his head to one side.

‘Well.’ He sat back on his great throne.

And then he allowed himself a slight smile.

‘Why didn’t you say?’ he spat. ‘A has-been. His worshipping days are past and he’s not been good sport for twenty years.’ His laugh was as infectious as his frown was terrifying. ‘So … why did Resheph kill her? I ordered him to kill the old fool. Not the daughter.’

The herald shrugged, taking a subtle cue from his father.

‘Why do gods kill mortals?’ he asked rhetorically.

Enkul-Anu began to laugh. And when it was clear that he was amused, all the other gods laughed with him.

But then he turned, all business, to Nisroch.

‘Tell the king of Narmer to stop recruiting charioteers or I’ll fall on him with fire,’ he said. ‘And tell the king of Kyra to stick to something he understands, like incest. Make my views clear. And tell the king of Hekka …’ Enkul-Anu, great Storm God of Auza, smiled over a recent memory, and then glanced at his consort and turned away. ‘Never mind. Tell him he is in my thoughts.’

The herald bowed deeply. ‘And Resheph?’

Enkul-Anu shrugged majestically. ‘What’s a mortal life? Gods will be gods.’

Nisroch nodded. ‘Yes, Great God.’ He paused. ‘And Gamash of Weshwesh?’

Enkul-Anu found himself increasingly interested in his consort’s smile. In fact, she licked her lips, and when Sypa licked her lips, the results were staggering.

He waved a scarlet godly hand in dismissal.

‘He’s old – he’ll soon be dead, and he’s had his warning.’

‘But …’

Nisroch couldn’t follow his father’s decision-making. And he liked sending demons and godlings to kill mortals. It felt … important.

Enkul-Anu went over to Sypa, scooped her in his arms, and walked from the hall.

Nisroch sighed, and glanced at his half-brother, Telipinu, the chamberlain, ra-pte-re of the gods.

‘Any idea what this is all about?’ he asked.

Telipinu was a surprisingly friendly young godling, and they were half-brothers. He shrugged.

‘Never even heard of this mortal, Gamash,’ he said. ‘But my mother is all in a rage about Hekka. There’s a priestess there … Let’s just say the great Storm God’s been indiscreet.’

Nisroch shook his head. ‘Of course, that’s what it’s about.’

He went back to his secrets and his spies. He liked to know things. But some things he didn’t want to know.

Gamash

Rage. An old man’s rage.

The Temple of the Sisters in Weshwesh had more than a hundred steps – one hundred and forty-four, in fact, as the old seer had reason to know. But he climbed them without counting; indeed, without seeing them. Rage carried him, and as he leapt up the steps, his age and pain were forgotten in an anger that so enveloped him that, even as his old knees trembled, the weight of his daughter’s corpse was nothing; nor the spreading stain of her blood on his embroidered robes, nor the terrible wound where a sword had ripped across her womb and killed her and her unborn child.

Rage.

The Furies were coming to surround him. Not one, or two, but a murder and then a flock of Furies – an uncountable host of dull red-black wings beating in the air over his head. The souls of those unjustly killed, or so priests said.

Gamash had been a priest; ordinarily, he hated and feared the damned things, sent by Gul from the underworld to torment the living. Now they tasted his rage and his despair and they drank deep when they came close, and they were never glutted.

Those that drank deepest learnt her name, and sang it.

‘Irene!’ they sang. ‘Irene!’

A hundred discordant voices, and all they did was make his rage burn the hotter.

He had reached the top, his steps never faltering as he walked towards the one temple in all of Weshwesh that men feared – the one temple with no lush maiden, no fat priest, no well-fed keeper. Just the brown stains of the sacrifices on the old green marble.

He passed under the magnificent pediment forty feet above him, clear against the lightning-swept evening sky, where Tyka, the Goddess of Fortune and Death, stood over the reclining couches of the other gods and goddesses, the two gold rods of her sign, the occulae, radiating from her forehead and gleaming like a stag’s horns. And by her side, leaning in as if to speak, her sister Temis – the Dark Huntress – in black basalt with gold accents, wearing a man’s tunic and carrying a bow and a sword. It was like most of the other statue groups in the finer temples; the greater gods lay at their ease. There was the voluptuous Sypa, every sculptor’s favourite; and Druku, the god of drunken revelry, sitting on a stool, his beautiful male body the parallel of Sypa’s; the brutal God of War in gold and bronze – Ara, killer of men. In the centre stood Enkul-Anu, god of gods, storm lord of Auza, ruler of the universe, He-Who-Holds-The-Thunderbolt. He was flanked by a dozen others, every statue painted in bright colours and the whole lit brilliantly with auric magelight to show their eternal power, all of them facing the two ‘Sisters’. The ‘Enemies’.

No one was supposed to worship either of the Sisters. But they were occasionally appeased, and widely feared … and, truth be told, there were some worshippers. Secret worshippers. Especially of the Huntress.

Gamash no longer cared for the rules of men or gods. Nor did he look up. He knew the gods far too well already, and none of them were likely to help now.

None except the Enemy.

He entered the pronaos and no priest ran to stop him. There were silver vessels waiting for a sacrifice, but no acolyte to tend them, and no guards.

Tyka and Temis were too dangerous to need guards.

Rage carried him into the dark porch of the temple. The Furies above him lit his way with the glow of hundreds of red eyes and the beat of their glowing wings, which looked like red-hot metal in the imperfect darkness, and he went through the sacred door to the inner sanctum without a hesitation, almost wanting them to see his despair and punish his sacrilege.

There, in the deeper black of the cella, was the altar. Once a year it was choked with blood; but Tyka, the priestless deity, lacked the donations and the slaves that might have left her altar gleaming and clean in the Furies’ light. Every godborn aristocrat claimed descent from the dozens of gods, greater and lesser, who benighted the world, and they ran to serve their putative ancestors. But not one of them claimed to be the offspring of Tyka or the Virgin Huntress Temis.

Instead, the room stank – the cloying, sweet stench of rotting meat and old blood.

The man put his daughter down on that rank surface with a gentleness that belied his dark fire, and he had a moment of clarity to say her name aloud.

‘Irene.’

The one good thing. The one …

His voice echoed in the cavernous sanctum and mixed with the tiny Furies’ chant. They glowed red with his hate.

He raised his arms.

‘Temis!’ he said to the silence.

‘Temis!’ he cried.

He drew a bronze dagger from his robes, wiped it in his daughter’s clotting blood, and then slashed it across his own hand so that a long, slow drop ran down his wrist and fell on the altar.

‘Long ago I did your bidding, Huntress. Now all I ask is vengeance.’ He raised his bleeding hand, and said, ‘Tem—’

And She was there. An icy but gentle hand on his face, the crisp lapis-blue of her flesh and the golden horns above her eyes revealing her identity.

He sank to his knees in awe.

Not Temis. But Tyka. Not a remote voice.

A presence. An immanence.

Terror.

Tyka – whose name was too fearsome to speak, and so most priests called her the Enemy. But it was the forbidden name which came unbidden into his head.

The Blue Deity reached out with her lapis hand, and talons of shining, pure gold, and the same hand which had touched him now stroked Irene’s cheek, and came to a rest on her neck.

Where one gold talon pierced his dead daughter’s throat.

And Irene stirred, and sat up.

‘———Mine———’, Tyka said through Irene’s dead mouth. Her voice was hard, like the buzz of an ill-tempered hornet.

The Furies fled. Their red light vanished, and the deity’s blue light was the only light.

Even the old man, with nothing whatsoever left but death, quailed before the dark deity and her obvious anger.

‘Yours?’ he asked. The words escaped him before he could think, and he waited for her lash.

But his purpose remained. He raised his hands, no longer caring which immortal answered him.

‘I beg a boon!’

He fell to his knees and reached out a hand.

‘———Blessing-Curse———’ replied the corpse’s mouth, almost as quickly as he could speak, and Tyka reached out with her free claws. He shuddered and closed his eyes, and felt the deity’s touch as if a statue had come to life.

He could not withdraw his hand. And she was silent for so long that the cold became pain, and the pain became agony – agony that reached him even through his rage. The cold was incredible – seeping up the length of his arm and working towards his heart.

He waited for death.

But instead Tyka spoke – now with calm clarity, the sound of a perfectly tuned lyre playing.

He opened his eyes and saw her nails were no longer gold. They were black, like terrible rose thorns, and as he watched one punctured his skin. He felt it as pressure – the cold had stolen any feeling of pain – but he saw the black talon sink deep into his palm and then …

He heard her voice in his head.

I hear you! Your rage calls to mine, man, and I hear it and use it. Do not mistake me for one of THEM. I am other. I am neither human nor god but I will lead you to a vengeance.

He tried to meet her eyes but they were too intense, shining like molten gold. He couldn’t keep her black-blue face in his field of vision; it was physically painful, and he was so afraid that he could not form words. Thanks? Awe? Terror?

Listen to me, mortal man. My hand will touch the wheel, even as I touch you now, and the wheel will falter.

He fell on his face.

Her cold hand touched his head.

I mark you for my own. Now attend! When the stars fall, you will know my metal. Do with it as you must, and know my will shall be done.

The cold hand was drawing the warmth from his body. And in the place of that warmth came a terrible chaos …

Take this poisoned chalice, man. See how all you believe is a lie.

He couldn’t breathe as he wrestled with the weight of her meaning, a labyrinth of knowledge exploding within him with her words.

There are not four elements, and the world was not born in fire.

All of your magic is but the clumsiest structure for something infinitely finer, while the gods no more control the Aura than a cat controls mice.

I am no deity. I am neither man nor woman, and I am not immortal. Nor are any of your so-called gods.

Resheph killed your daughter in vengeance for your winning the battle of Vetluna years ago, and he did so on Enkul-Anu’s orders. He was ordered to kill you, man. But he is a fool.

There were no discrete words. It was a profusion of alien thoughts, images, conclusions he had never himself reached to problems he had never imagined – all growing in his head like summer vines in every direction – so that he wondered at the movement of planets he had thought were stars while simultaneously watching the formation of—

It was too much; his sanity was swept away in a moment of utter negation.

Everything you believe is a lie.

His world turned to absolute black, and then it in turn was shattered by the sound of a baby crying.

‘Tyka is taking my child,’ Irene said, in her own voice. ‘Oh, Father, I loved you.’

And then the old man was alone, his rage burnt out like a sudden fire of bark, leaving only ash, and he was weeping by a stinking altar.

There was no corpse.

No dead child.

It was as if Irene had never been.

‘Oh, Gods,’ Gamash said with a groan. ‘What have I done?’

He managed to drag himself down from the temple un­discovered, and when he awoke a day later, his slaves creeping about him in terror, his first thought was that his heresy was discovered.

His second thought was rage at the manner of his daughter’s death.

He was supposed to kill you.

But that rage led him to his memories, and that labyrinth within his mind – the untameable eternity of thought that Tyka had put in his head with her hand – and he fell to the floor, and his slaves feared he was having a fit and put him to bed.

The second time was better than the first, and he was a tough old man, a victor in twenty battles, a veteran of pain and humiliation and many defeats. He lay on his bed while slaves hurried to obey him, but his first foray into the vast complexity that now sat in his head and … he was lost again.

The third time he awoke, he had some possession of himself, despite the omnipresent labyrinth, and he ate some figs and drank sweet wine and lay on a couch and stared up at the night sky.

A night sky that made more sense and less – that had new meanings. And had lost old ones.

He lay and watched the stars and tried to process what he had learnt, though it had been more violent than learning, as if a master had beaten some philosophy into a slave with a bronze rod, and he was still bruised – not least because he had prided himself on the depth of his knowledge, the power of his erudition.

I was the great warrior mage.

All gone. All wrong. All foolish and vain.

No wonder the priests call you the Enemy if this is your gift, he thought. But he thought it with wry amusement, not anger.

By the seventh day, he had remade himself. That is: he’d accepted the images of heresy in his mind and begun to try and work through them. Many were, mercifully, already fading; a mere mortal mind could not contain all the knowledge, all the thought, all the interrelations, that he’d been forced to accept.

He felt intellectually violated and satiated at the same time.

He cast a horoscope, saw that the Octopus was in the Gate and the Sisters were wandering, and knew that even the heavens reflected the new chaos in his soul. And the chaos to come.

There was really only one decision to make, and it was simple enough: accept the revelation and turn his back on everything he’d ever been and done, or refuse it.

His rage was still there. And because of it, he saw the revelation for what it could be, assuming it was all true, of which he was not yet convinced.

It was a weapon. A mighty weapon