Read Online Downfall of the Gods by K. J. Parker - Free Book Online Page B

alternative; simply doesn’t bear thinking about. The alternative would require the existence of some absolute ideal of Right, supervening and more powerful than the strength of the strongest. Right would confront the strong over some contentious issue, and the strong would back down, tails between legs. Bullshit. Pure fantasy.
    No, go back to the true definition of right; what we think is right. The key words are ‘what we think’. Which is why I’d prevailed over my father, by using the magic word ‘Please’. Short for, if it please you. If it pleases you to do what I ask, regardless of the fact that you don’t have to and nobody can make you. Also implied; if it pleases you to do this thing and thereby win my gratitude and good opinion; because, for someone like you who can have any material thing he wants just by snapping his fingers, the only thing left that you might want and not be able to get just by commanding, is the gratitude and good opinion of others. Their love.
    Objection, I objected. To the gods, all things are possible, and the strongest prevails even over the strong. If he were to command me to love him, I’d have no choice. But of course he’d know. He’d know I didn’t really love him, it was just magic.
    That, of course, is why he’d thrown me off the ramparts of heaven (this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you); and why I really didn’t want to be thrown. Physical injury was out of the question. The true horror of the ultimate divine sanction isn’t mere bodily discomfort. It’s having all the others snigger at you behind their hands for the rest of eternity, the perpetual loss of face, which never goes away and never heals. Shame is the word I’m looking for here. Honour on the one hand, shame on the other. Right is what brings you honour, wrong is what brings you shame. Which is why we bother with mortals—all right, their good opinion isn’t worth a lot, they’re only mortals, but when you’re poor, dirt-poor as the gods when it comes to things of real value (meaning things you want and can’t have for the asking), even the good opinion of mortals counts for something. Like the love of a dog. It’s only a dog, but it still counts for something.
    The amusing thing is that mortals don’t understand this. They believe in monolithic, abstract, objective Right and Wrong. Asked to define these terms, sooner or later they’re forced to admit that Right is that which pleases the gods, Wrong is what pisses them off. Even the few mortals who don’t believe in us think that way, except that in their case, right is defined as that which we were taught is pleasing to the gods, back when we believed in them—the ancient pie-in-the-sky confidence trick, whereby the stronger are kidded into subjugating themselves to the weaker, in consideration of goodies, trinkets and shiny beads once they’re dead. Lord, what fools these mortals be.
    So, I thought; why am I doing this? To gain the good opinion of one lousy mortal. What makes him special? He’s met me, he’s seen me in my true form, he’s been granted the ultimate transcendental vision of the Deity, and he doesn’t like me . This makes him special; make that unique (blessed are those who have seen and yet have not believed). Therefore, I am doing this to win the good opinion of one mortal, because it’s precious to me; because I can’t have it.
    A ND THEN THE GROUND JUMPED OUT AT ME AND HIT ME . I N YEARS TO come they’d call it the Great Asteroid Crater. I climbed out of it, dusted myself off and looked round to see where I was.
    Believe it or not, even though I’ve been living on and around Earth for millennia beyond counting, there are still some places I’ve never been. This was one of them. It took me a moment to get my bearings, until I saw the unmistakable profile of the Sugarloaf Mountain far away on the western horizon. That put me about dead centre of the Sparkling Desert, on parts of which rain has never fallen,