“To start with, you had the Two Gods of the beginning. All they did was fight. Spend an eternity with someone, you’re bound to get a bit tired of their company. They hurled magic back and forth, trying to get the upper hand, even though they couldn’t actually kill each other. The universe was young, and they were dumb as newborns. But powerful. They had all the power in the universe to themselves, you see. But some of it began to leak. And sooner or later this loose magic came together to form the Twenty-One Lower Gods. They were the ones who actually went about making the world and all the creatures on it.”

He ticked off their names, one after another, counting on his fingers and toes as he went. That only took him to twenty gods, but Jig didn’t bother to ask about the twenty-first. He didn’t try to remember all the names. Not one had fewer than five syllables, and they all had some sort of fetish about hyphenation and apostrophes. Really, what kind of a name was Korama Al-vensk’ak Sitheckt, anyway? When Darnak first mentioned that one, Jig thought he was hacking up yesterday’s dinner.

“What about Earthmaker?” Jig asked. “If the Twenty-One made the world, why didn’t you mention him?”

He looked embarrassed. “Well, Earthmaker didn’t actually make the world, as such. He came along a bit later, and he was after helping those blessed races who lived in the earth. Dwarves, gnomes, and the like. But he didn’t appear until after the Year of Darkness.”

“The Year of Darkness?” he asked before he could think better of it. As Darnak started in again, Jig looked longingly at the others across the room who sat safe from this endless storytelling. What had he started? And how could he steer the dwarf toward something useful, something that would help Jig?

Jig tried to understand the difference between the Lower Gods and the Gods of the Beginning and the Gods of the Elements, but then Darnak would mention something new, like the Gods of Men, and Jig was back to being confused. He began to wonder if the others would hold it against him if he stabbed Darnak to shut him up. Or perhaps it would be easier to turn his sword on himself.

Jig interrupted, desperately trying to break the endless flow of words. “How many Gods of Men?” From the other side of the room, his sharp ears caught a very unprincely groan from Barius.

“Nine hundred fifty-four,” Darnak said happily. “Starting with Abriana the Gray, Goddess of Storms and Sailors. She was born of a union betwixt Taras of the Oak—he’s a tree god—and a human woman named. . . .” Darnak frowned.