Naturally this provoked a strong counterreaction
from others present. “What you mean is, you’ve
been against the Game ever since you started losing
in it! As long as you thought that you were winning,
it was a great idea!”
One of the graybeard elder gods, not Zeus, put in:
“Let’s get back to our immediate problem. You say
that the man they call the Dark King has the
Mindsword now. Well, that may be good or bad
news for some of us in terms of the Game, but does
it matter beyond that? The Game is only a game,
and what real difference does it make?”
“You fool! Are you incapable of understanding?
This Game, that you’re so proud of winning-it got
out of hand long ago. Haven’t you been listening?
Did you hear nothing that Apollo just said about the
death of Hermes?”
“All right. All right. Let’s talk about Hermes Mes-
senger. He had supposedly gone to collect all the
Swords again, to get them out of human hands,
because some of us were getting worried. But do
you think he would really have destroyed the
Swords, once he had them all collected? I don’t
think so.”
That suggestion was greeted by a thoughtful
pause, a general silence.
And that silence broken by a slow and thoughtful
voice: “Besides, are we really sure that Hermes is
dead? What solid evidence do we have?”
Now even Apollo the reasoner felt compelled to
howl his rage at such thickheadedness. “One of the
Swords killed Hermes! Farslayer, hurled from the
hands of a mere human!”
Apollo got a venomous retort. “How can we be
sure that that’s what really happened? Has anyone
seen the Sword Farslayer since then? Did any one of
us see Hermes fall?”
At this moment, Zeus once more stepped for-
ward. He conveyed the impression of one who had
been waiting for the exactly proper instant to take
action. And it seemed that he had at last timed an
attempt correctly, because for once he was not
howled down before he could begin to speak.
“Wisdom comes with experience,” Zeus intoned,
“and experience with age. To learn from the past is
the surest way to secure the future. In peace and
wisdom there is strength. In strength and wisdom
there is peace. In wisdom and-”
No one howled him down this time, but after the
first dozen words hardly any of his fellow deities
were still listening. Instead they resumed their
separate conversations around the circle, taking time
out from the general debate while they waited for
Zeus to be finished. This treatment was even deadlier
than the other. Zeus soon realized what was
happening. He retreated again to his own place in the
ring, and there withdrew into a total, sulky silence.
Now-at another place along the ring there was a
stirring and a swirling movement among the snow and
rocks. Attention became focused on this spot, just as a
new member joined the company there. Rather than
coming out of the sky as the others had, this god
emerged up out of the Earth. The form of Hades was
indistinct, all dimness and darkness, a difficult object
even for the faculties of another deity to comprehend.
Hades in his formless voice said that yes, Hermes
was certainly dead. No, he, Hades, hadn’t actually
seen the Messenger fall, or die. But he had been with
Hermes shortly before what must have been the
moment of that death, when Hermes was engaged in
taking some Swords away from some humans. It was
Hades’ opinion that Hermes had been acting in good
faith in his attempt to collect the Blades, though
unfortunately they had been lost again.
Now another side discussion was developing. What
about that offending human, the one that had
apparently thrown Farslayer at Hermes and brought
him down? The awful hubris that could strike a god,
any god, to earth cried out to heaven for vengeance.
What punishment had been dealt to
the culprit? Surely someone had already seen to it that
some special and eternal retaliation had been
inflicted?
The same thought had already occurred, long ago,
to certain other members of the group. Alas, they had
to report now that when they first heard of the
offending human he was already beyond the reach of
even divine revenge.
“Then we must exact some sort of retribution from
humanity in general.”
“Aha, now we come to it! Just which part of
humanity do you propose to strike at? Those who are
your pawns in the Game, or those I claim as mine?”
Apollo’s disgust at this argument was beyond all
measure. “How can you fools still talk of pawns, and
games? Do you not see-?” But words failed him for
the moment.
Hades spoke up again, this time with his own
suggestion for the permanent disposal of the Swords.
If all those god-forged weapons could somehow be
collected, and delivered to him, he would see to their
burial. All the other deities present could permanently
cease to worry.
“We might cease doing a lot of things permanently,
once you had all the Swords! Of course you’d be
willing to accept twelve for yourself-and incidentally
to win the Game by doing so! Where would that leave
us? What kind of fools do you take us for?”
Hades was, or at least pretended to be, affronted by
this attitude. “What do I care now about a game?
Now, when our very existence is at stake. Haven’t
you been listening to Apollo?”
“Our very existence, bah! Tell that stuff to some
one who’ll believe it. Gods are immortal. We all
know that. Hermes is playing dead, hiding out
somewhere. It’s part of a ploy to win the Game.
Well, I don’t intend to lose, whatever happens. Not
to Hermes, and not to Apollo, and particularly not
to you!”
Aphrodite, murmuring softly, announced to all
who would listen that she could think up her own
ideas for getting back the Swords. Those who had
the Swords, or most of them anyway, were only
mere men, were they not?
Apollo spoke again. This time he prefaced his
remarks by waving his bow, a gesture that gained
him notably greater attention. He said that if the
Swords could be regathered, they should then be
turned over to him, as the most logical and trust-
worthy of gods. He would then put an end to the
threat the weapons posed, by the simple expedient
of shooting them, like so many arrows, clean off the
Earth.
Before Apollo had finished his short speech most
of his audience were ignoring him, bow and all,
even as they had ignored Zeus. Meanwhile in the
background Mars was rumbling threats against
unspecified enemies. Others were laughing,
secretly or openly, at Mars.
Vulcan was quietly passing the word around the
circle that if others were to gather up the Blades
and bring them back to him, and if a majority of his
peers were to assure him that that was what they
really wanted, he’d do his best to melt all of the
Twelve back into harmless iron again.
No one was paying the least attention to Zeus
mighty sulking, and he reverted to speech in a last
effort to establish some authority. “It seems to me
that the Smith here incorporated far too much of
humanity into the Swords. Why was it necessary to
quench -the Blades, when they came from the fire
and anvil, in living human blood? And why were so
much human sweat and human tears introduced
into the process?”
Vulcan bristled defensively at this. “Are you try-
ing to tell me my trade? What do you know about it,
anyway?”
Here Mars, gloating to see his rival stung, jumped
into the argument. “And then there was that last
little trick you played at the forging. Taking off the
right arm of the human smith who helped you-
what was that all about?”
The Smith’s answer-if indeed he gave one-was
lost in a new burst of noise. A dozen voices flared
up, arguing on several different subjects. The meet-
ing was giving every sign of breaking up, despite
Apollo’s best thundering efforts to hold it together a
little longer. As usual there had been no general
agreement on what their common problems were,
much less on any course of action. Already the cir-
cle of the gods was thinning as the figures that com-
posed it began to vanish into the air. The wind
hummed with their departing powers. Hades,
eschewing aerial flight as usual, vanished again
straight down into the Earth beneath his feet.
But one voice in the council was still roaring on,
bellowing with monotonous urgency. Against all
odds, its owner was at last able to achieve some-
thing like an attentive silence among the handful of
deities who remained.
“Look! Look!” was all that voice was saying. And
with one mighty arm the roaring god was pointing
steadily downslope, indicating a single, simple line