It is the best feeling I have ever had. I wanted to share it! So I sent the light forth in spreading-ring wavelets, seeking, feeling, knowing:
An old woman in a place that does not revere old women the way the Darre do. She has nothing—no home, no family, no money, not even her full mind—but she has stood to scream at the cruel boys who’ve tried to take the little dog she loves, stood to fight them, because even she deserves to have something that loves her back—
Yes.
A young man who is smaller than he should be, visibly weaker; others have smelled his weakness. They hurt him, as they have done over and over, for no reason other than their own pleasure, but in this lone moment he is sick of it, he is done, and he balls his fists and launches himself at them even though he knows it is futile—
Yes, this one, too.
A child, a girl, the least valued of her many siblings, the one who seems like nothing so her parents treat her like nothing, give her nothing that she does not take first, and she demands nothing except the one thing they owe her, which is that they look at her, look at her, LOOK AT ME RIGHT NOW—
Oh, yes, yes, yes!
And more, and more, new fires igniting as the wave of power circled the globe. Nothing special about any of them, nothing unique, just the right confluence of circumstance in the right moment of my maturation, and that was all it took. It hurt every time this happened, took that spark of me that seemed as necessary as their own strength—but I grew, too! Their power made me powerful even as I diminished. It was theirs! I was theirs! They took what they should always have had, and I made it real for them, made it right for me!
“Shill!” Ia came through the light and grabbed me flesh and soul; I laughed wildly, wanting him to laugh with me. “Look at what you’re doing to yourself! Stop this!” But I did not care about his concern. I wanted more: to be more, to give more. This was me, and I had found myself at last, and I would revel in it ’til I no longer could!
So Ia did the only thing possible: he surrounded me with the quintessence of himself so that the nothing of him clashed against the everything of me.
And then, only then, did I stop doing what I was doing—whatever that was—and settle back into myself.
I sagged to the floor, confused, because… because… what? I felt glorious. I also felt almost dead. This was a very strange combination of feelings.
“No, Shill.” Ia held me still, stroking my hair back from my face. “No. Make them earn what you can give them. Make sure they’re worthy, little Sibling.”
“Wh-what?” I couldn’t think. Why was Ia being so nice, all of a sudden? What had happened, exactly? I tried to sit up and could not. Ia helped me. I would think about that later, though, because suddenly there were more important mysteries to ponder.
Like: what had wrecked the Raringa? There was rubble everywhere around me, a burst pipe at the back of the room spraying a flood, fallen lanterns smoldering and and torn scrolls fluttering and broken record-spheres rolling about. Most of the people in the chamber were not hurt, for which I was relieved. But—suddenly I remembered what I had done, what I had been compelled to do to Eino, and I gasped, looking around for him. “Where—” Then I saw him, and my mouth fell open.
Because Eino floated unconscious at the center of the room in a slow-curling funnel of hair and robe. He glowed, blacklit and shivery—and all around him, swirling too in a delighted dance, were dozens of small colored balls. Some of them had clouds. As I watched, down through the hole in the Raringa’s ceiling came a tiny sun, which circled Eino once and then passed into Eino’s flesh, vanishing. I could feel other suns out there, queuing up to do the same thing: at least ten of them, happily giving themselves over to remake him into what they’d yearned for: a new god of mischief and troublemaking and stirring things up just for shits and giggles—or maybe because tradition had held sway for too long.
A new… trickster. The Trickster.
And elsewhere, everywhere around the mortal realm, all over this planet—there were others. One… two… six… a dozen… more. Newborn gods: mortals suddenly and shockingly turned immortal, all of them still forging the selves they would become, solidifying in power… but all of them made by me.
“Oh,” I said, blinking. “Whoops.”
It was Yeine, later when we had all gone back to Fahno’s house, who explained what had happened.
“It’s something I thought might take place eventually,” she said. She sat at the kitchen table; everyone in the house had gathered round in awe. Juem, with shaking hands, had offered her a roasted gran banana, and to everyone’s surprise she had grinned and enthusiastically accepted. It had been her favorite, apparently, when she was mortal.
She looked at me, where I sat across from her. My mortal shape was taller than hers now, all grown up, with nice strong arms and long fast legs and nice white teeth, which I used to grin back at her.
“I turn my back on you for three days, Shill.” She shook her head, amused and wry. “Well, that will teach me to assume I know what the universe needs. I thought it lacked… something. I thought that something might be what it had lost—and that was indeed the case.” She turned now to Eino.
Eino, who floated in the middle of the room, because he could not figure out how to make himself stand on the ground. Everyone was giving him a wide berth, and he looked distinctly worried, himself. Poor baby god! At least he’d finally figured out how to make the planets stop bothering him.
“Welcome to the family,” she said gently, and Eino flinched.
“Please,” he said, fidgeting; his robes kept swirling around him in an unfelt wind, and his hair kept getting into his face. “Please, great Lady of Twilight—”
“Yeine will do.”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable. I leaned over to whisper to Yeine, “Boys aren’t supposed to get familiar with strange women.” Then I winked at Arolu, so he would know I had listened to him. He groaned from where he sat, looking faint as he had all afternoon.
Yeine coughed, though I could tell she was really laughing. “Ah. Things have changed a bit since my day, I see; back then we couldn’t shut men up around strange women. But I think you’ll find, Eino mau Tehno, that the rules of mortality no longer apply to you now. Speak to whomever you like.”
He stared at her, and gradually began to sag toward the ground. “It’s true, then. I’m… this is…” He lifted his hands, stared at them. “I’m a godling.”
She regarded him for a long moment, thoughtful. I stared at him. “Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t believe he actually seemed upset about it. “You’re a godling, and now you’ll live forever, and you’ve got all kinds of magic! Now nobody can make you get married, or keep you from dancing. Now, if you wanted, you could make every man in Darr free, just like that!”
I snapped my fingers—or tried to. But as I lifted my hand, there was a terrible, vertiginous moment in which my stomach dropped and the room spun and I felt myself diminish. I shuddered and closed my eyes. Yeine, however, touched my hand, and a moment later I felt better. Not good. Just not awful anymore.
“No, he can’t,” she said, sternly. “Or rather, he can, but if he does so in your presence, he will harm you. Power cannot be given, Shill; isn’t that what you finally understood? People can only take it—and then only what is already theirs by right. Only what they can claim, and hold, with their own hands. Anything more is dangerous to them and others. Anything less, however…” She squeezed my hand, and I looked up to see her smile. “Well, that’s where you come in, my big girl. Nahadoth and Itempas will be so proud.”