The magus shrugged. “It’s not important why he wants the Gift. What’s important is that we get it. And now I think you’d better get some rest.”

Like a good tool, for instance, a very well-behaved hammer, I stretched out by the fire and went to sleep.

The next morning light came slowly to the gorge, and I was well rested by the time our day started, but the conversation of the night before still rankled, and I took care to chew with my mouth open at breakfast until the magus winced and looked away. The gorge grew wider, and the olive trees disappeared. We walked past juniper and red shank and green shank bushes and the occasional fir tree as the stone cliffs were replaced by steep hillsides covered with loose rocks. Finally, in the evening, the gorge widened still further, and we were in a narrow valley filled with trees. The path underfoot changed from hard rock to dirt and then to dirt covered with pine needles. We made no sound as we climbed out of the valley into a larger forest that stretched indefinitely in front of us.

“I told you there was nothing up here but trees,” I said as I turned around to look at the way we had come. I could see down the cut of the gorge until the trail twisted, and between the mountains I could see all the way out to the plains beyond. The road we had followed to the foothills was not visible, nor was the city, but we could see a bend of the Seperchia twisting across the plain, and beyond that there was a glimpse of the sea.

“Can we stop now?” I wanted to know. “My feet are tired.”

“No.” The magus shook his head. “Get moving.”

Our trail continued between the trees. We made no sound as we walked and walked. I looked up at the branches that blocked any view of the sky overhead, mountain fir, with their cones beginning to open in order to drop their seeds. I said, “This is boring. How come boring makes me so tired?”

When no one answered, I asked again, “When can we stop?”

The magus slowed down to look over his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“I just wanted—”

Pol was behind me as usual. He leaned forward to give me a shove in the shoulder blades.

It was almost dark when we came to a road through the forest paved with giant stones laid perfectly evenly. We waited under the trees until the magus was sure that the road was empty, and then we all sped across to the forest on the other side.

“Where does the road go?” Ambiades asked the magus.

“From Eddis’s capital city to the main pass through the mountains.”

“How did they lay it?” Sophos wanted to know.

The magus shrugged. “It’s been too long to know. It was laid at the same time as the old walls of our city. No one knows how it was done.”

“Polyfemus,” said Ambiades.

“What?” asked Sophos.

“They probably think Polyfemus did it. He was the giant with one eye that supposedly built the old walls of the city and the king’s prison. Don’t you know any of these stories?”

Sophos shook his head. “My father thinks that we should 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.

CHAPTER FIVE

EARTH’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 around her 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 and colorless, and he felt superior.

“I am quite beautiful,” he said to Earth, “but you are very dull. The only pretty things about you are your lakes.” And he spent all his time looking into the water and would not speak to Earth. So Earth swept up the dust from the mountains and made snow and the dust from the valleys and made dark black soil, and in the soil she scattered the seeds for forests and flowers and covered herself with green trees and bright colors and told the Sky that she was as beautiful as he. But he had eyes only for the lakes, who reflected his own glory. They bore him children, who were the smaller rivers and streams. Earth was jealous and made trees grow up around each of the lakes, hiding them from the Sky’s view.