Free The Iron Ship by K. M. McKinley Page A

gods and are not affected in the same way as you mortals are by pernicious narrative. You should be wary what you ask of me, but now it is too late. So be it! Take your piece, and be wary of it.”
    He lowered his voice.
    “This story is about six people, six siblings. They’re at the heart of all this, so it’s them we’ll name as our principal dramatis personae, to use the Old Maceriyan term.”
    “Who? Who? Which brothers?”
    “I said siblings, you arse! And if you do me the courtesy and wait, then you shall find out! That is the simplest precept of the story! Listen, and discover!” His eyes flashed, the questioner quailed. “So, where to start? We talked about births. So, do you start with their births? And if so, of which sibling? The first? She’s a woman. Not to be discounted on that fact, although her father already has. Or the oldest son? He’s mad, but not so much as he believes, so perhaps not. Or the fourth? He plays the major role, at least for a while. Or the sixth? Sweet Rel with the world about to smash down on his shoulders, perhaps we should start with his birth?”
    One of the patrons, ensconced away from the racket in his own high-backed booth, empty but for him despite the press, pricked up his ears. He had five siblings. He regarded himself mad. He had a brother named Rel. Such was Eliturion’s way to snare his listeners, often his stories concerned those who listened, though rarely did those whose lives were detailed dare reveal themselves. There had been suicides over it. The god drew no sanction over this. He was, after all, a god. No prison could hold him.
    Very well, tonight was his night. As a teller of tales himself, Guis Kressind grudgingly appreciated the attention. He leaned forward to better hear what slander Eliturion would offer his family. For had the god not already intimated, that all stories are by nature lies? A truth he held fast to. It allowed him to hate his own work and not despair.
    “Do you go back, look at their father in his prime, all arrogant and ambitious and dangerous? Do you go back to his father, or his mother, to see what made him that way? Or further, to whenever poor, impoverished so-and-so of so-and-so saved a lord which won a favour which granted a licence which garnered some wealth and set these six up for their privileged lives, five generations later? Don’t you think that would belittle the story of so-and-so, making his story only a backdrop on the stage for a story you happen to be more interested in? Unfair, goodmen and goodwomen! Unfair!” He sniffed thoughtfully. Eliturion never was one to allow a drama go unpaused. Guis thought him quite the worst actor in the Off Parade. “His story is quite a tale, actually. Who are you to weigh one life’s worth against another? Nobody, that’s who.”
    “And what’s your qualification?”
    “Shut up, idiot, he’s a god!”
    “He’s a drunk more like!”
    Eliturion smiled. “I am both. And the goodman there is correct. I am not qualified to judge, and that’s also a truth. But you asked for a story, and I choose the story to tell, so be quiet.”
    He began again, and his voice boomed. “Do you go back to times when the Old Maceriyans ruled the Earth and there were a damn sight more gods around than there are now? Or back before, to the first men, of before that to the days of the Morfaan, or even before the gods were born, when dark titans subjugated the Earth and wild magic ran as quicksilver across burning skies?
    “Yes yes, the gods were born. No, they didn’t create the world. Some of them used to say they did, before old Res Iapetus drove them away, but that’s not true. A god’s as much a part of the world as a man, perhaps less so, because a god doesn’t make stories, he’s just in them, a god is made by stories. Even me.”
    “But you’re telling it,” said a youth at the god’s table, flush with drink and enraptured.
    Eliturion dropped his head level with the youth’s own.