Free The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner Page A

“My father thinks that weshould forget the old gods. He says that a country with two sets of gods is like a country with two kings. No one knows which to be loyal to.”
     
    The track continued on the far side of the stone road. We followed it into the trees until the sun set behind a bump of mountain. The twilight lasted while we set up a camp just off the trail and Pol made dinner on a small cookfire. The pine needles provided easy kindling.
    While we ate, I picked at the magus. I liked to watch him lose his temper and then regain it when he remembered that I was supposed to be beneath his contempt. When he and Pol tried to plan how to make up the day we had lost at the mountain house, I told him that if he had wanted to move faster, he should have had a cart for the early stage of the trip. Before I was done with my dinner, I asked for seconds and complained that he should have brought more food. I talked with my mouth full.
    “You don’t have to carry it,” Ambiades pointed out.
    “Yes,” said the magus. “Maybe we should have you carry your own share tomorrow?”
    “Oh, no, not me,” I said. “I’m worn out just hauling myself up here.” I lay down on my bedroll and wriggled on my backside until I could put my feet up on the trunk of a fallen tree. “Why didn’t you bring something more comfortable to sleep on?”
    The magus started to answer, but Sophos interrupted.He asked the magus to tell him more about the old gods of Eddis.
    “I thought your father didn’t want you to hear about them,” said Ambiades.
    Sophos thought for a minute. “I think he just doesn’t want people to believe in them, to have superstitions. I don’t think he objects to an academic interest.”
    “He doesn’t?” Ambiades laughed. “I thought an academic interest was exactly what he objected to. Didn’t he threaten to throw you into the river tied to a stack of encyclopedias?”
    Even Pol laughed as Sophos blushed. “He doesn’t think I should spend so much time on book learning, but he thinks it’s all right for other people.”
    There was a little silence at the fireside that I didn’t understand. To judge by the look on Ambiades’s face, whatever it was that bothered him had come upon him with a vengeance. To fill the silence, the magus told Sophos he would teach him some stories of the old gods. He began with the creation and the birth of the gods, and he didn’t do such a poor job. I lay on my back and listened.

C HAPTER F IVE
    E ARTH’S CREATION AND
THE BIRTH OF THE GODS
    Earth was alone. She had no companion. So she took a piece from the center of herself and made the sun and that was the first god. But in time he left Earth. He promised to always send her light during the day, but at night she was still alone. So she took a piece from the edge of herself and made the moon, and she was the first goddess. After a while the moon too went away from Earth. She promised to send her light to keep Earth company at night, but the moon’s promises are worth nothing, and she sent only part of her light and sometimes forgot entirely. When she forgot, there was no moonlight at all, and the Earth was lonely again.
    So she breathed out into the firmament, and she made the Sky. The Sky wrapped himself all aroundher and was her companion. He promised to stay with her always, and Earth was happy. Earth and the Sky’s first children were the mountain ranges, and Hephestia was the oldest. They had more children who were the great oceans and the middle sea, and their youngest children were the great rivers Seperchia and Skander.
    One day the Sky wanted to know what he looked like, so the Earth made a thousand goddesses and spread them all across the world to hold mirrors for the sky, and those are the lakes. The Sky looked at himself in the mirrors. He was blue and white with clouds and sometimes black and spangled with stars, and when the sun set, he was beautiful indeed. He grew vain. He looked at the Earth, who was round