and they wouldn’t know. He was sick of their small minds, sick of the greedy, petty span of Kakotara.
“I’ll tell you, and then I’ll bid you both farewell. I’m going to travel the whole length and breadth of Shadowbridge as no one has ever done before. I’ll see everything, and when I return I’ll be the greatest explorer who ever lived, because I can do it all in the blink of an eye. I’ll reign among the gods.”
“Fine.” She moved aside. Her look mocked him. “Go on then. Travel the whole world.”
“I shall—I’ll travel the whole world.” Upon those words he launched headlong so fast that figs from the trees he’d created rained after him.
The instant he was gone, the spell he’d cast upon his brother broke and the clouds of confusion lifted. Baloyd’s eyes widened, first with the shock of recognition, then with the boil of anger. He opened his mouth and shouted at the sky. He flung curses at Suald and plunged back into the deserted house. Sounds of shattering and squawking and screams of rage echoed up and down the street, drawing a crowd. People looked at Betinela for an explanation. Some asked where Suald was, because they had more things to ask for. She said nothing, but stepped quickly aside as a glass lamp flew through the doorway and struck a man in the back. The crowd scrambled out of the way.
When Baloyd emerged with Seru’s blue-and-violet plumed bird dangling from his fist, the crowd scurried farther away, ready to flee. He’d wrung its neck. He dropped the dead bird, turned from them, and shuffled off, barefoot, exhausted, helpless. The neighbors waited until he was gone, then crept into the shambles to sift for treasure.
At home he sat, saying nothing, glowering. His wife chided him. “You could have been a god to those people. If it weren’t for your brother, you might have had all the treasures yourself. You could have granted anyone any wish they asked. If he ever comes back . . .” She didn’t finish the thought.
The children he’d entertained with rides returned the next morning, but when Baloyd proved unable to perform further feats of speed, they left him. A few of his neighbors came inquiring after Suald, but their inquiries provoked only rage, and they soon stopped coming. Baloyd plunged with suicidal vigor back into his dissolute life—gambling, drinking, and whoring—in a vain attempt to drown out the words his wife had set in motion, that, like a perpetual mechanism, swirled around and around his brain: I could have been a god. I could have been a god. He rarely went home, and when he did it was only to pass out until he awoke to go out again. Betinela left him. He had no idea when it happened, whether he’d been home or not, whether weeks had passed without her and he had simply failed to notice.
One hot afternoon while he lay unconscious, shouts from outside woke him. A crowd had gathered before his door. They called his name. As he arose in the shadows he winced and waited for his head to stop pounding. Then, scratching himself, he peered at them from the second-floor window. He supposed he’d done something offensive while drunk—throttled a favorite cat or kicked a child. They might have been there to hang him, although they weren’t hammering down the door as he would have expected. They were agitated all right, but not angry. And they weren’t going away. He descended the stairs uncertainly and opened the door.
They took hold of him and hauled him through the streets to Brink Lane. He thought of a man he’d pushed out of a window, but that had been so long ago. Maybe Suald’s spell had lifted—maybe he wasn’t a rat anymore, maybe someone had seen what had happened, maybe he was dreaming, maybe he was mad.
Through the twists and turns of alleys they hauled him. The sun stabbed at his eyes. His head throbbed with each propelled step. He began to think that if they killed him, it could only be a blessing. As they neared the dragon beam, he saw that even more people lined the spiral walkway all the way to the hex. Had something else been sent down from the Edgeworld gods—something for him? What if it was an avatar sent to demand back the gifts? What would he say? He didn’t know where they were now.