Storytime: Cheap, Slightly Worshipped.

May 30th, 2012

Dawn crawled over the walls of the great brick-and-mortarless city of Gar, trying to take it by surprise. And for the most part it did – not a bird peeped in its gilded cage, not a baby cried, not a beggar woke up screaming about bats in an alley. But no success is total, and so the conquering rays of the sunrise touched themselves upon movement in the least-fashionable corner of the great bazaar of Gar, where a man was wrestling an enormous tarp with fists and good-natured swearing into a shape that could be called tent-like. After some time, he succeeded, and added a sign to the top of the heap, crudely scrawled on in cuneiform script.
Saidot the priest, formerly-owned gods, lightly used, cheap and effective. It wasn’t really strictly true, but that was pretty good for an advertisement, and Saidot only felt the faintest quivers of anguish in his conscience when he looked at it. He sat down, brewed a suspicious murky sludge that could be passed off as tea so he’d have something to avoid drinking, and waited, surrounded by his wares.
Soon enough, a poor child came by.
“Hello there,” said Saidot.
The child picked its nose at him. “Whassin the pots?” it asked in that wheedling tone used by its kind whenever something puzzled them.
“Gods,” said Saidot. “All kinds. I’ve got big gods, small gods, thin gods, and fat gods. I’ve got lightly used rain-gods, and I’ve got some good worn-in hearth-gods, and I’ve got fresh-as-new earth gods. I’ve got nigh-omnipotence and almost seven-tenths of an entire pantheon. So tell me, small, strange child, do you want a god?”
The child considered this. “Is there a god of poopies?” it asked.
“Shabbling Dingman, the lord of the refuse,” said Saidot. He picked up a dusty and neglected urn, stoppered and sealed five times over with some mysteriously green stains mottling its crack-curved surface. “He reigned over the sewer-pits of Makmori for decades! Only five-“
The child took the urn and left at a run without paying. Saidot shrugged. Free advertising was free advertising, and it wasn’t like he’d been able to get rid of that particular product for a decade.
The city was waking up now; creaks and moans and grunts and the dusty, rambling sound of thousands of sandals waddling out into the streets while their owner’s feet are still mostly abed. Saidot rolled up his sleeves, cleared his throat, and began his spiel.
“Gods! Miracles! Wonders-in-a-jar! Used gods for sale here, lightly owned, lovingly worshipped, set aside only with the greatest of reluctance and available to an eager owner HERE! I have tall gods, short gods, long gods and stubby gods! Buy them, take them home, and worship like you’ve never worshipped before! You sir, you look like you could use a prayer, why not go straight to the source?”
The man who’d inadvertently made eye contact with Saidot tried to back away, but the priest had already shoved a cup of murky quasi-tea into his hand and social discomfort had latched its iron hooks deep into his soul, tethering him to the booth with polite hopelessness.
“Now what’ll it be, sir? A good round-the-home god, to help bless those corners clean? Perhaps a workplace god, to strengthen your hammer and chisel, to knot the ties that bind? Or, ahem,” and here Saidot managed to turn nothing more than the clearing of mucus from his windpipe into a leer, “something of a more intimate nature, for the married man? Bana Ripu was worshipped in Teelo for one hundred years, until they ran out of logs sufficiently sized to construct the ah, prize attribute of his altars.”
“NicetomeetyoulovelydaypityI’vegottogonow,” said the man, politely dropping his cup on the counter, which it fell through. “Oh! Sorry!”
“No harm done,” said Saidot, peering through the rift in the cloth. “It landed on Old Yellow Legs.” He heaved a misshapen, five-times-repaired urn onto the counter, freshly coated in maybe-tea. “He’s seen worse, he has – when you’re the god of faux pas, one grows accustomed to such missteps in your person. Poor old thing,” he said, shaking his head mournfully. “It was a chore to find a proper home for you already; how will I find you a worshipper with tea-stains? Ah poor, poor old thing. I will try harder next time, and scrub you clean, however many hours it’ll take.”
A silence ensued, and the man knew it was over before it had even begun. “I’ll take him,” he said, and sagged in defeat.
“Excellent choice sir! Shall I wrap him for you?”
“No, no, no,” said the man, and looked at the urn again. “Yes, yes, yes. Please.”
“Thank you, and be sure to come again.”
The sun was high in the noon sky now, bright yellow on cool and blue. The great bazaar was full to the point of completely overflowing, as was normal, and Saidot’s calls took on an almost melodic rhythm in an effort to be audible over the crowd.
“Gods! Gods! Gods! All the gods the world could need and more! Gods that can fit in your pocket, gods that could crush the palace of a king with their littlest finger! A god for every man, a goddess for every woman, an imp for every child and a devil to chase the vermin from your door! Found across the world, brought to this stall, and taken home by YOU!”
“YOU!” agreed a man.
“Yes indeed!” said Saidot, and examined his newest acquaintance. He was a tall man grown bent and bearded – no, too formal, grown maned – and he was wearing a decimated cloth sack and an alarmed expression. He was patently a beggar and probably mad, but Saidot had been both in the past and bore him no ill will for such things.
“Greetings, sir of the streets! Would you like a god?”
A single digit was thrust at him with trembling urgency. “The eye! The eye, eye, I, eye, I I see it! It’s in the sky!”
“The eye is in the sky,” affirmed Saidot. “The burning ball that sees by searing, yes indeed.”
“That’s the harm, the seeing slipping sliding everywhere in my hair in my heart all the time of day and the tone of night,” hissed the beggar. “Need answers to keep the bees out of my baskets and the flies from my eyes and the eyes, the eye, and the hand!”
“I think I’ve just the object for yourself, sir,” said Saidot, hauling up an extremely large and scorched urn.
“The eye?” whispered the beggar, shrinking back a little.
“Far from it, sir! Behold the thousand burning crows – each one an omen, a portent, a sign all its own! Scholars have spent lifetimes, wise men have perished, entire kingdoms have given up trying to interpret their purposes, powers, and portents! The eye will never be able to see you as long as you take shelter beneath their coal-caked wings!”
“Yes!” cried the beggar. He thrust a battered and violently destroyed sandal into Saidtor’s arms, seized the urn, and marched away down the streets, head held high and back straightened to the point of regality.
Saidot examined the sandal, extracted a stray toe that had been left inside it, and shrugged it onto his left foot. “A good fit,” he noted happily. “The day is kind!”
The day was also wearing on, and the walls of Gar were beginning to encroach on the edge of the sun, nibbling away a little sliver of daylight every few seconds. Some vendors – the richest, the luckiest, the laziest – were already packing up and departing for homes and meals, beds and blankets. Saidot was blessed with possessing none of the four, and thus unburdened, was free to continue his sales.
“A little worship puts a little light in your life, a light to read by, a light to see by! And I am a seller of candles in this manner – long-burning, warm-holding! You sir – a god for your troubles? You, ma’am – a deity for your shelf? I have gods for the young, the eld, and the undecided; gods for the mighty and gods for the meek and even gods for the median! Look! See! A temple need not be the only place for you to find comfort, a priest need not be your middleman! Come, and buy, and be the master of your own soul!”
“Do you have anything for termites, young man?” inquired a stooped and wrinkled face.
“Certainly!” said Saidot, fishing around behind his counter. “Would you prefer fire, sword, or terrible hooves?”
The old lady pursed her lips in thought. “All three,” she said.
“Ah, a connoisseur, a crafty one, a customer who thinks past the problem and strikes its heart! Here!” – and Saidot heaved a bronze urn onto the counter with a grunt, its weight troubling his bad back – “This is Terrimac the Terrible, the blazing bull-angel with the head of an ox and the heart of a blazing stone! In his left fist is the bonfire of the ages and in his right is the sword of bright burning and in his other left fist is, well, a fist. With which he strikes down the unrighteous!”
“And termites?”
“And termites.”
“I’ll give you seven coins for it.”
“Twelve.”
“Nine.”
“Deal.”
Saidot shook the old lady’s hand, put the urn into a bag, and watched her hobble away with it. “If I were ten years older,” he began, then shook his head. “No, twenty. Well, fifteen. Ach! No matter!”
The day was near done, the shadows eating the courtyards, the sun’s heat fading away from under the feet of the city. Saidot was one of a dozen or so hardliners, and even they were beginning to pack, but his cries remained undaunted.
“Might beyond the realm of man, in the palms of your hands for a fistful of coin at most! Keep the wisdom of the ages, the strength of the seas, the speed of the serpent at the end of time, all on your shelf, all for a pittance, all right here! Right now! All the gods!”
“Saidot the priest?” asked a muffled, annoying voice.
“The same!” affirmed Saidot with what was left of his gusto. “Tea? It’s a bit cold now, but I’m sure that-“
“Come with me.”
The tone of voice was an order, but Saidot was busy rooting around in his tea urn and ignored it. “Just let me find a cup and-” and at this point Saidot lost his train of thought as the bazaar guards picked up him and his entire stall and carried it away. Some time and seventeen bruises later, he was deposited with great force on some extremely nice marble tiles, which he examined with interest. He knew at once from the horrible and marvelously intricate depictions of tortures on them, no two alike, that he must be in the palace of Gar, which took up an entire fifth of the city.
“Saidot the priest,” said a voice.
“Yes indeed,” said Saidot.
“Raise yourself before the council of Gar.”
“I’m afraid that this is impossible, honoured sir, as my knees are presently quite badly hurt.”
“Raise yourself before the council of Gar,” said the voice, in the peevish tones of one who has never been made to feel more than minor annoyance, “or be chopped into a fine mince and thrown into the refuse pits.”
Saidot raised himself before the council of Gar and bowed as politely as he knew how. “Esteemed sirs, how might I help you this fine evening?”
The largest and most physically round member of the council – whose hat was truly marvelous – looked at him through his nostrils. “You sell gods.”
“Yes indeed, sir, of all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds.”
“You boast of their quantity and quality.”
“Please, sir,” said Saidot with a pained expression, “it is not boasting to speak the truth, and the truth is this: these are the finest gods in all of the land, and I have many of them.”
“Then you will not object to gifting the council of Gar with a tithe,” wheezed the eldest councilor. “A merchant of wonders such as yourself can surely spare a single god, in exchange for permission of his peddling within our borders.”
Saidot shrugged. “I suppose not, sir. Although I make no demands of you, you are within your rights entire to request such a thing. What god has caught your eye? I can recommend the Jackal Gheeni, Marmoosk, perhaps Yve-“
“The most powerful you possess,” said the thinnest councilor, a man merely eight times Saidot’s weight. “And the eldest.”
Saidot’s eyes widened. “Ah! Ah! Such quality is requested!” He grinned, just a bit too late and a bit too wide. “I beg of your pardon, sirs, but perhaps it would be, if I may suggest, just infinitely, slightly more prudent if-“
“The most powerful and eldest,” repeated the angriest councilor, whose face was fixed somewhere between a snarl and a sneer. “Nothing less. Not one whit less. This city demands a strong god.”
Saidot’s smile had gone away, but his grin was still there. “Right! Right! All right then! Sirs, that is. Allow me one moment…” He turned his back on the council of Gar, suppressed the urge to glance over his shoulder, and began to root through the wreckage of his stall, not even daring to curse as his fingers brushed over a fresh crack in each urn he inspected. At last he found it, deep at the bottom of the heap, where he’d left it; surrounded on all sides and secure.
He placed the urn – plain, small, round – on the floor. The councilors looked at it.
“What,” asked the youngest councilor, a twelve-year-old with a high voice and enough jewelry to coat four adult men twice over, “is this?”
“Talminus kel No kal,” said Saidot, carefully pronouncing the words. “And I promise you eighteen times over, sirs, that he is by far the most puissant and primordial of all my wares. I found him in a ruin, sirs, that was by the name of-“
“Good,” said the tallest councilor, a creaking crane of a man whose thigh-bones were nearly as long as Saidot’s legs. “Leave us.”
“Of course!” said Saidot.
“And the city.”
“Naturally,” said Saidot.
“Within five minutes.”
“Right,” said Saidot, and with that he was out the door at a dead run, with the stall slung over his shoulder.
“On pain of slow grating and sieving!” called the councilor after him, but Saidot the priest was already out of the palace of Gar and accelerating. He was a great maker of snap judgments, after so many years in the markets, and he knew that it wouldn’t be more than a few minutes before the largest and physically roundest of the councilors picked up his gift and opened it.
Fearing a thing may grant you wings, but god-fearing can practically strap a cruise missile to each foot, and so despite middle age, physical imperfection, and only one sandal, Saidot the priest was nearly a kilometer out past the gates of the city of Gar when about a fifth of it had an early, rapid, and extremely loud sunrise.
“Good riddance,” said Saidot, eventually. He coughed for another three minutes, then managed a second breath. “God riddance ahahahahahahahahahaCOUGHahaha. Aha. Ha.”
He sighed. Five sales in one day, and only once had he been made to run for his life. That was all right, in the grand scheme of things.
After all, he’d certainly had worse days.
Nighttime crept on, inch by inch belly-dragging itself over the landscape, over the sky, over the head of Saidot the priest as he packed and walked down the roads. But only for so long. Morning was just a stone’s throw away.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.