Brittle and Gilly crossed the dark pool without incident. While the rickety bridge couldn’t be bribed with a fish, Brittle did compliment how nice its ropes looked as they passed over from one side the bottomless rift to the next. Beyond the bridge were the dens of the mighty cave beasts. Unlike the day before, the beasts were up and prowling about by the time the pair tottered around the corner into view.
A great saber-toothed marmot saw them and charged, its orange eyes glowing against the dark.
Gilly postured, inflating her dewlap with a rattling hiss, but even she seemed to acknowledge that a three foot swamp monitor was no match for a saber-toothed marmot the size of a bear. Torn between watching their untimely death bound ever closer and giving Brittle his final telling off, Gilly hurriedly glanced his way as if to say, ‘Now what, splinters-for-brains?’
“Breathe through your mouth, Gilly Girl.” Brittle reached into his satchel and tossed a jute ball into the oncoming beast’s path. The friendly witch’s old family recipe worked its charms beautifully. A cloud of yellow-tinged monster wort burst into the air on the first bounce, stopping the charging cave beast in its tracks. The marmot took a tentative step forward, sniffed the air, and then went bounding after the ball with sudden, playful determination.
Brittle was all out of jute balls by the time they exited the dens. The beasts were happy though, having been reduced from voracious monsters to a pack of giant, playful kittens. Once more, it was cleverness, not might or pure heart that’d earned the upper hand. There was something to this, Brittle thought. After all, who needed swords and a squeaky clean heart when you could simply bribe your way through life?
Finally, no worse for wear, the pair arrived at the Goddess’s of Ill Fortune’s doorstep. Brittle insisted on knocking this time. Gilly was still trying to shake off the secondhand effects of the monster wort and was simply grateful for the opportunity to sit and stare at the ceiling for a while.
“You look…pleased,” Mara said upon opening the door. Whereas most hosts would have greeted their guests with the more traditional ‘Hello, hello, welcome! I’ve missed you so much. Do come in. I swear I won’t make those horrid sausages’ the Goddess of Ill Fortune gazed down at them with her mouth twisted to the side instead. Her dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did you do?”
“I promise no harm befell your beasties.” Brittle patted her arm as he toddled past into the dome-shaped chamber beyond.
Mara’s glare jumped to Gilly. “What did he do to my cave beasts?”
The lizard blinked her eyes one after another, too dazed to thump her tail. A whistle from Brittle reminded Gilly that they were supposed to be moving inside. She rose unsteadily onto all fours and followed without any of her usual sass.
The goddess whirled around, placing her hands on her hips as the door slammed shut behind her on its own accord. “Brittle Rotten Wood, you better not have uncorrupted my monsters. I spent good money ensuring they were the worst of the worst.”
“Ha!” A baritone voice called from the table. “Outplayed by your own sentient log, Mara. What irony.”
Mara crossed her arms with a scowl. “Oh stuff it, Edvin. You wouldn’t know irony if it struck you across the face.”
“Now, now, goddess. Simmer down. There are impressionable twigs present.”
Brittle followed the deep voice to its source. There, seated at one end of the long pecan wood table, was the biggest man he’d ever set eyes on. The stranger looked as if someone had squeezed a giant into a chair meant for a child. He was pushed away from the table, with one muscular leg crossed daintily over the other and holding a teacup that, in comparison, was about the size of a thimble hooked around his pinky finger. The tanned skin on his forehead was pulled so tight, his face was more skull than man. A skull that just happened to be wearing a well-groomed muskrat for a beard.
The man turned in Brittle’s direction and cracked a smile. His bright blue eyes practically bored right through Brittle’s trunk and deep into his soul. “Hope you brought your own, lil fella,” he said, lifting his tiny teacup aloft. “Mara has the gift of making any blend taste like boiled shoe leather.”
“Hello,” Brittle greeted, sliding into a chair on the open end of the table. The table appeared shorter than it had the night before at dinner. Then again, perhaps it was simply due to the fact that there was a giant taking up half of it now.
“Edvin, God of Ill-Gotten Gainz,” the man said, flashing another pearly grin as he jutted a hand the size of paddle blade in Brittle’s direction. “Gainz with a z, not an s, by the way. Important distinction.”
Remembering Sir Thomassin’s explanation from the day before, Brittle reached out and grasped the man’s index finger, as it was the only part of Edvin’s hand he could wrap his fingers around. “Brittle, with all the normal letters.”
“Alright, give it to me straight,” the god said. He released Brittle’s hand and struck a pose. “Not what you’d expect the God of Ill-Gotten Gainz to look like, right? I bet you were picturing a thin, seedy, weaselly lookin’ chap, yeah?”
Wary of accidentally insulting a god the size of a small, bulging mountain, Brittle looked to Mara for clarification. She only rolled her eyes before shuffling off into the kitchen to fetch the teapot.
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Edvin leaned across the table on one rippling arm, as if imparting a secret. “Between you and me, I’ve been doing a little rebranding of my image.”
“Rebranding?” The word was unfamiliar to Brittle, but he didn’t want to say so in front of a god.
“Yeah, I’m all about fitness now. Gone are the days of being associated with blood money.”
There was a soft clink as Mara kicked a plate of biscuits across the floor for Gilly. The dazed swamp monitor followed, disappearing beneath the overhanging tablecloth after it.
“You didn’t tell me you changed your name,” Mara said.
“Technically just a letter, but it’s going to turn my whole life around, Mara. Nothing but strength and gainz from here on out. Speaking of which, you’re looking a little twiggy in those arms, boyo.” Edvin reached behind him and produced an odd, cylinder-shaped canister out of thin air. He shook it at Brittle invitingly. “What do you say? Want to give your daily routine the boost it needs to see some real results? I’ll cut you a deal.”
“No sales pitches at the table,” Mara groaned as she poured Brittle’s tea.
Giving his thanks, Brittle lifted the chipped cup to his mouth, but didn’t drink. The sudden smell of rancid shoe leather permeated his nose holes. What’s worse, he didn’t have to guess where the odor was coming from.
Exhausted by the effort of playing host, Mara finally plopped into her chair with a sigh. Brittle noted she’d kept the generous buffer between them. The same courtesy did not extend to Edvin. From the looks of it, Mara had placed herself close enough to kick him from under the table if needed.
The goddess stirred a generous lump of sugar into her tea as her gaze wandered the table, coming to rest on Edvin's strange canister. “For the last time, put it away. No one wants your snake oil.”
“Snake oil?” Edvin’s bottom lip quivered. The sadness did not reach his eyes, however, which remained as bright and predatory as ever. “Oh, Mara, your accusations wound me. This is the finest grade ground egg shell powder money can buy.”
She took a sip of her tea and grimaced.
Edvin shook the canister at her this time. “Some of my fitness powder might make that shoe leather more appetizing.”
There was a vase of fresh lilies arranged neatly on the table between them – a gift from Edvin, likely, as Brittle didn’t think Mara cared all that much about the beautification of her home. The goddess glared over the top of them at Edvin, causing the flowers to wilt until they resembled drought-riddled corn stalks.
“Can’t fault me for being entrepreneurial, Mara, love,” Edvin said, setting his powder aside. “I’m just trying to make an honest living here. Partly your fault, you know. We both could have been rich had you’d let me take that ice box contraption of yours to market. We could have revolutionized modern civilization. Sold one to every household from here to the Kingdom of Weigh.”
“I told you, I created it by accident. It’s not something I can replicate.” Mara noticed Brittle’s curious stare and gestured over to the strange humming chest by her clay stove, explaining, “My powers aren’t meant to be good or helpful. Any time I try to bend the rules, I sabotage myself. That was the result of trying to make a self-heated bath.”
Edvin was ready with an answer. “Make more self-heated baths then.”
“It was a fluke, Edvin. I guarantee you, we’d end up with something far worse than a perpetually cold box if I tried again. Fire-breathing luggage, with my luck.”
“Son of a gum tree,” Brittle whispered, making a mental note to never ask the goddess for another favor so long as he lived.
“And anyway, we’re getting off subject.” Mara cut the air with her hand, speaking to Edvin whilst gesturing to Brittle. “I brought you here because of him.”
Edvin’s face went as pale as an off-white tablecloth. The words shot out of his mouth unhindered by either forethought or propriety. “You can’t prove he’s mine!”
Brittle lifted his head curiously. “Your what?”
“Gods.” Edvin appeared to be slowly sinking beneath the table. “I knew this would happen one day. I’m not ready to be a father.”
Oh dear. It was all happening so fast. While Brittle had asked Mara to help find his family, he hadn’t realized she’d be able to dredge up his long-lost father. “Papa?”
“Might and muscle, kid. You don’t want me as your papa. I barely make enough to get by. Can’t hold down a job. No marketable skills. My own dad can’t even look me in the eye anymore.”
“Mama said you left for a carton of mulch and never came back.” Brittle had the sudden insatiable urge to start tossing a ball back and forth.
“Nobody is anyone’s father!” Mara threw her hands in the air and brought them down onto the table with a slam. A shelf toppled over in the kitchen behind her, spilling its contents across the stone floor. The Goddess ignored it. “Brittle’s family was taken last summer by men in boats, Edvin. You have your ear to the ground on these sorts of things. Do you know what happened to them?”
“Gods, give me a second to collect myself here, Mara. I just learned the kid I raised for half an afternoon wasn’t even my own.”
It was a good thing gods were immortal, Brittle supposed. The look Mara was giving Edvin might have otherwise proved fatal.
“No, I don’t know anything about a bunch of sentient logs. But,” Edvin said, quickly, before the next shelf toppled over on his head, “I will look into it for you. It’s the least I can do considering how you so generously, albeit briefly, reunited me with my dear log son.”
“He’s not your son.”
“While that may be, I can’t help but notice that you based his melodramatic nature on my own. So in a way, Pittle here–”
“Brittle,” Brittle corrected.
“–is basically our lovechild.”
This time a shelf did fall on Edvin. Remarkably, it came hurtling from all the way across the room. What was even more remarkable was how it kept coming back for more.
Edvin’s belly laugh reverberated from wall to wall as he succeeded in batting the bothersome shelf aside each time it swooped for his head. “Alright, alright, I’ll look into it for you.” He waited for the shelf to fall lifelessly to the ground before passing Mara a wink to match the mischievous grin pulled across his lips. “For the record, decking your ex-lover with a plank is not the proper way to pine over him.”