Clown Wyrm - 7. Chapter 7 - Old Gods

Mercury turned to Periwinkle, and then back to Silverwinter. “What are the old god and R’Kathlug – did I say that right? Can you tell us a little more about them?”

Silverwinter shot Mama a confused glance, and Mama mirrored the look back at her with a shrug.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking me,” Silverwinter replied to Mercury, focusing on the clowns. “R’Kathlug is the old god. It’s what causes all the trouble.”

Mercury and Periwinkle made eye contact, and he asked Silverwinter, “What trouble?” as she placed his drink in front of him. It was in a short glass, and its three cherries were nestled at the bottom among crushed chunks of ice.

The woman behind the counter scrunched up her face at the clowns. “What are you talking about? Where are you two from? R’Kathlug has been a plague for centuries. How’s it possible that you don’t know this? Everyone knows it.”

Mercury leaned toward Silverwinter and whispered, “We’re not from around here.”

Silverwinter moved even closer to Mercury. “Okay, so where are you two from?”

“We don’t know if you’d believe us if we told you,” Mercury replied.

Mama looked very curious, and a jangling from Glimdrim’s bells alerted the group that he and Krizibop had left their table and were approaching the bar to hear the details about Mercury and Periwinkle.

“Before we get into that confusion,” Periwinkle said with a roll of his eyes, “can you please tell us more about R’Kathlug?”

“Okay,” Silverwinter replied in a doubtful tone, “R’Kathlug is an elder god that did not fall, like each of its contemporaries. All the other gods have died and been forgotten, but R’Kathlug has never faded from prominence or power. It’s a monster from the ancient world that sucks the lifeforce out of Armonia and only provides any benefit to the king and the royals.”

“I’m sorry,” Mercury added, “but Armonia is the name of this country, right?”

“Yes,” Silverwinter confirmed, but she was even more confused, “you’re in Armonia. How do you not know where you are?” She continued explaining without letting either of them reply. “The old story that I remember says R’Kathlug was in hiding and did not emerge until its kith and kin were dead.”

“I grew up,” Mama interjected, “being told that R’Kathlug was what actually killed the other old gods in their war with our ancestors.”

Glimdrim nodded, and his bells tinkled. “Yeah, Mama, that’s what I was told as a kid too.”

“Really?” Krizibop asked. “Because I grew up hearing the old gods died to bring about the emergence of R’Kathlug.”

“But what is R’Kathlug?” Periwinkle asked.

Silverwinter looked worried and replied, “It’s a dragon.”

Neither Mercury nor Periwinkle was expecting to hear that.

“It’s a ground dragon,” Silverwinter went on, “an earth wyrm of gargantuan proportions. It lives beneath the palace, and only the king has access to it. No one else gets to see it…” she paused before concluding, “except for its victims.”

“Victims?” Periwinkle asked, and he was surprised that his voice cracked.

Mama chimed in, “You better believe it! The king feeds living people to the beast. There’s a whole class of citizens we refer to as the stolen. These sacrifices are always displaced people or vagrants from the towns surrounding the capital, folks who tend not to be missed with no connections to the world, so people rarely go looking for them. The king’s offerings feed the dragon, and in turn, the dragon somehow gives the royals their magic, and they like to use their magic as the claim of their right to rule.”

“But how do you know all this is true if no one ever sees the dragon?” Periwinkle asked, “Couldn’t the king just be perpetuating some old myth?”

Silverwinter looked somber. “Oh, it’s real alright. The dragon is what allows the royal family to do their expansive magic. Among the rest of us, only the master geneticists are granted the ability to cast spells. But there are stories,” she added, “about the old god providing magical abilities like flight, or talking to animals, or becoming invisible.”

Mercury and Periwinkle were skeptical.

“You’re really talking about magic,” Mercury asked, “real magic?”

“She’s right,” Mama added. “The final remaining old god used to share magic with the masses, and it still provides magic to the king and his family.”

Silverwinter shrugged. “If the royals didn’t have magical abilities, people might overthrow them.” She then called out, “May the old god fall, and may its fall be great!”

A few of the other patrons in the place shouted their agreement.

“Down with the royals!”

“Hear, hear! May they fall indeed!”

“All royals are villains!”

Silverwinter looked pleased with the replies.

Mercury was enjoying her beverage very much, and partway through it, she stuck the joint between her lips. “Do you have a light?” she asked Silverwinter, who leaned forward with a match that she struck on the bar top. She held it up to Mercury, who inhaled the smoke. “Thanks,” she managed to say before breaking into a fit of coughing. “Wait a second, what is this? It’s not weed.”

“A weed?!” Silverwinter repeated in a disturbed voice. “Of course I’m not giving my customers a weed to smoke. That’s the finest ristleherb from up on the slopes of Mount Shiltrin.”

Mercury looked down at the joint in her hand, took another hit, and declared, “I like it!” She passed it to Periwinkle, who also took a puff as Mercury tipped up the last of her Long Live no King.

“Wait, what did you think you were smoking?” Silverwinter asked with genuine interest.

Mercury nodded at Periwinkle as he gave the joint to her again. “Back home, we smoke a dried flower called cannabis, but it’s also got a lot of different colloquial names, including just simply weed.”

“Interesting,” Silverwinter replied, “never heard of it.”

Mercury enjoyed a little more of the smoke, and she gave Periwinkle a sideways look. “Okay, so, we were at a bar,” she commented between puffs, “when everything went wrong for us,” and she glanced back at Silverwinter, “a meadery, in fact.”

“Mead,” Silverwinter said, and she sounded impressed, “calling thigelieg mead isn’t common these days. Where’d you two come upon a meadery? And what about the confusion you mentioned about where you two are from?”

“The bar is back in our hometown,” Mercury explained, “and it was new. We were at the opening, when… something…”

Mercury and Periwinkle made eye contact again, and he added, “We woke up and found ourselves nowhere near our home.”

“How did that happen, sugar?” Mama chimed in.

“We don’t know,” Periwinkle answered. “We haven’t been able to remember much between the late-night snack we ate, and waking up.”

Silverwinter, Mama, Glimdrim, and Krizibop were confused.

“Help me understand,” Mama urged. “You two had a meal, but not somewhere around here, and then you woke up, and you were here?”

“We really don’t know what happened to us,” Mercury reiterated, “but yes, that’s the gist of it as far as we’ve been able to figure out. The first person to come upon us was a knight, and she wondered if our arrival here had something to do with magic.” Mercury and Periwinkle did not divulge any details to their new friends about having been the warrior woman’s prisoners.

“Hmm…” Silverwinter replied, and she turned to Mama. “If that’s true, and they got here by magic, but since only the royals have magic, do you suppose the king’s up to something nefarious?”

Mama gave her a knowing look. “Isn’t he usually?”

“What else can you tell us about him, and about magic?” Periwinkle asked.

Silverwinter sighed. “Magic is what’s poisoned Armonia. A significant percentage of births at the genetic manufacturing facilities fail because of the dark gods’ magic”

“Curse the old god!” someone at the bar called out.

Silverwinter grinned as she picked up Mercury’s empty glass. “Can I get you another Long Live No King? And how are you doing on yours?” she added to Periwinkle.

His glass still held about half his drink. “I’m okay at the moment, thanks.”

“And actually,” Mercury replied to Silverwinter, “can I try your floral mead, please? I’m sorry, but how do you pronounce the other name of it?”

Silverwinter chuckled. “One glass of thigelieg,” she enunciated very clearly, “comin’ right up!” She grabbed the bottle and a glass goblet from behind the bar and poured the golden liquid into the chalice. It swirled as Silverwinter passed it to Mercury.

“Thanks,” the clown said, accepting it and enjoying a sip. Mercury had only tried mead a few times besides the opening ceremony at Unholy Mead, and Silverwinter’s proved to be delicious. It smelled of jasmine, tasted like honeysuckle, and felt spikey in her throat as she swallowed. “Wow, that’s good! You know, I’ve got another question. What happened during the war with the old gods?”

Where Mercury and Periwinkle were from, large contingents of people belonged to this or that religion, and they even had clown friends who were much more religious than either of them, but they knew nothing of so-called old gods.

“And I’ve got a follow-up,” Periwinkle added. “Are there new gods?”

“Only R’Kathlug,” Silverwinter replied, “and it’s not really a new god. R’Kathlug just happened to be the only old god to survive, and it was given the designation new god, but I think it’s as ancient as its predecessors who are no more.”

Mercury was very curious. “So what happened to the old gods in the war? How did they die?”

“I’m no expert,” Silverwinter began, “but I think the earliest deities of the Earth were elementals, you know, spirits of fire and water and things from nature, whatever our ancestors didn’t understand and couldn’t control. As people conquered things like fire, or they learned to manipulate water for agriculture, those earliest deities dwindled and disappeared, and they were replaced by stronger gods. It’s like the gods got more…” Silverwinter paused, looking for the right way to explain. “It’s not that the gods were getting more creative; they were just getting more specific, and inevitably, more complex. A water god is a simple deity, but the gods of farming and harvest were much more powerful, and they demanded more from their worshipers.” Silverwinter noticed Periwinkle’s drink was almost gone, and she pointed at it.

“Yes, please,” he replied. “I really enjoyed it, and I’d love another.”

Silverwinter began to fix his drink as she continued. “At some point in our history, people started worshiping their own labor as a god, meaning they were giving credit to a deity for the hard work they’d done themselves. In my opinion, that’s what led to the war with the old gods.” Silverwinter set the beverage onto the bar in place of Periwinkle’s empty glass.

“Was it really a war?” Mercury asked, as Silverwinter opened her stash box of pre-rolled joints and took out another for herself to enjoy. She extended a second to Mercury, who graciously accepted. “Thanks, and how did the humans fight against the gods?”

“Well, it’s called a war,” Mama chimed in, “but it was a massacre. The gods didn’t stand a chance; I don’t think our ancestors knew what the cost would be, though.”

Silverwinter lit her joint and inhaled a breath of the smoke as Mercury asked, “What are you saying; it was easy to kill the gods, but there were unforeseen consequences?”

“That’s probably a good way to put it,” Silverwinter confirmed, reaching the lit match in Mercury’s direction. “The war was thousands of years ago. Countless masses of the gods’ worshipers were slain when their masters fell. The population of the planet was decimated. The stories say the war was massive. A third of the people of Earth actively fought in it and died in the fighting, but another third of the population also perished as civilian casualties, and the third who remained were unable to rebuild after the devastation.” Silverwinter took another puff from her joint and exhaled a cloud above her head.

“Which gods existed at the time of the war?” Periwinkle asked.

Silverwinter let out a little cough behind her hand, and she cleared her throat. “There was a god of wealth, a god of celebrity and fame, multiple gods associated with the high technologies of the age, which were very advanced. Part of the story is that most people at the time had no comprehension of the power of their tech, and when those gods fell, we began the era that we’re in now. It wasn’t a quick battle; even though a few of the old gods fell early on and they were easy to kill, the war lasted much longer, but eventually all the gods were no more, or so people thought.” She took another pull of smoke from her joint as Mercury came to a conclusion.

“And that was when people realized…” she paused and glanced at the menu to reread the dragon’s name, “R’Kathlug, is that how you say it? Was that when the dragon was revealed to the world? And what were the names of the other gods?”

Silverwinter raised her eyebrows. “I dunno. Mama, do you know any of the old gods’ names?”

“Huh, I do not.”

Silverwinter focused back on Mercury. “Sometime after the war, R’Kathlug emerged, and people realized at least one god still existed.”

“What’s it a god of?” Periwinkle asked.

“R’Kathlug is the god of magic.” Silverwinter took another puff and continued. “Magic was a myth during the age of the old gods; it didn’t exist before R’Kathlug emerged. The dragon was hidden beneath the earth, somehow kept secret from the other gods, and it did not share its magic with the world until it surfaced, after the old gods had been slain. The earliest people to bond with R’Kathlug and use its magic set a system in place that remains to this day. Only the elite have access to the dragon and its magic. All the lowly rest of us live in subjugation under those with power.”

“Ain’t that the way it’s always been?” Mercury mused, shaking her head.

“You got that right,” Mama confirmed.

“Are the royals who are in control now,” Periwinkle asked, “direct descendants from the original people who discovered the dragon?”

Silverwinter took the last hit from her joint, snubbed it out, and exhaled another cloud of smoke. “No, different noble families have overthrown whoever was in charge and stolen the power. The usurpers are always high up, people who may not have had direct access to the magic, but were close enough to whoever was king at the time to cut off his access to the dragon so they could take the power for themselves. Over and over again through the years, one royal group kills off whoever is king, and then they eventually get killed off by other royals.”

Periwinkle turned to Mercury. “You know, I’ve always wanted to kill a god.”

She snorted a laugh. “Religions are so terrible.”

Silverwinter was grinning from ear to ear. “It’s always nice to meet fellow anti-deists.”

Mercury perked up at the barwoman’s words. “Is that really a thing, anti-deists? Periwinkle and I have been opposed to religions for most of our adult lives, but the way you say it makes it sound like there’s an active group standing up to religion.”

“There are always rebels,” Mama stated with a smile. “This village is far enough from the capital that it’s always been a haven for a lot of anti-royalists over the years. Most of the folks who live in town came here because of the rebels who originally established Tingedale.”

Silverwinter put up her hands and everyone looked at her. She was focused on Mercury and Periwinkle. “Before we continue, do either of you need something to eat?”

“No, thank you,” Periwinkle replied, and both he and Mercury laughed, “we ate plenty, not long ago.”

“Yeah, thanks, though,” Mercury added.

Mama went on, “Most folks out here, far from the capital, prefer to be away from the seat of power. Tingedale is a long way from a lot of resources, so Tingedalians have always helped each other and those in need. There’s a lot of good people around here who are willing to take care of others.”

“We met a few assholes when we first arrived,” Mercury grumbled.

Silverwinter and Mama both looked surprised.

“Well,” Mercury added, “the first guy did help us out, and he gave us some food, but when he found out we’re clowns, he turned into a total dickface.”

Periwinkle frowned. “Then we crossed paths with a woman who also talked down to us about the local clowns.”

Glimdrim and Krizibop pouted.

“I know,” Mercury replied to their expressions, “rude! But I guess we also have people where we’re from who don’t like clowns.”

“And maybe we were a little irritable,” Periwinkle added with a guilty cringe. “I mean, we were really hungry; it had been like two days since either of us had eaten anything. Never mind the stress of us being totally lost.”

“You know,” Mama chimed in, “I suppose it’s not mutually exclusive to be a helpful person, and also to sometimes be an asshole. Tingedale has many good people, but I’ll admit, there are a few folks here in town who are not my favorites.”

Silverwinter laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Excuse me,” Periwinkle said, “Miss Silverwinter, ma’am.”

She focused on him and shot him a toothy grin. “Just Silverwinter is fine. And yes, doll, what can I do for you?”

He waved at the menu painted on the wall. “You’ve given your beverages names that have more to do with how you feel about the royals, and how your customers feel, rather than standard cutesy drink names, like the Sunny Afternoon that Mama’s been enjoying, right?”

“Precisely,” Silverwinter confirmed, “people know the stance of this tavern’s patrons and its owner,” and she indicated herself, “even when I’m not here.”

“And you can openly oppose the leaders without fear of reprisal?” Mercury asked.

Silverwinter shrugged. “Fear is a part of life, but we can’t let fear rule us. Besides, not everyone is called to be as outspoken as some of us.” She chuckled. “And my doorman is huge.” The others laughed with her.

“Oh, and Silverwinter,” Periwinkle added, “how’d you get your name?”

“I chose it for myself after I turned seventeen, because I no longer felt that my given name worked for me. I had a few new names selected that suited me better, and in the end, I landed on Silverwinter.”

Both Mercury and Periwinkle were very excited.

“That’s how we got our names too!” he declared. “I love meeting people who have chosen special names for themselves.”

Mama gasped in feigned shock. “I can’t believe you didn’t ask me the same thing and give me the same attention and treatment! You don’t actually think my actual name is Mama, do you?”

“Oooh-hoo,” Glimdrim cooed in a playfully accusatory tone.

“Mama is one dramatic diva!” Krizibop added, and Mama let out a cackle that made everyone else laugh.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Periwinkle said to her. “Of course your name’s not Mama. Please, tell us your name.”

She flashed the group a kittenish smile. “I’m just teasing; I love to be called Mama! I just wanted a little of that affection.”

They laughed all the more.

Krizibop was the next to direct their conversation.

“So Mercury and Periwinkle, how do you suppose we’re supposed to get you two home? And are you ready to tell us a little more about yourselves? I know you’ve been a bit hesitant, but are you beginning to feel more comfortable around us?”

The two clowns looked at each other and nodded.

“We’re from Earth,” Periwinkle began.

“Well, yeah,” Glimdrim interrupted with a giggle, “you’re on Earth!”

“We know,” Mercury replied, “but our Earth is… different, and when we left, we were in the second decade of the twenty-first century, not the seventy-seventh or seventy-sixth or whatever century. We think we’re from a different Earth.”

The others looked skeptical.

Periwinkle continued. “There’s no such thing as magic in our world, and only a few countries have royal families, but most of them are more like ceremonial figureheads with no real power. We do have much higher technology than what seems to exist in this world, but I don’t think it’s as advanced as what you were talking about from the past of this Earth before the fall of the old gods.”

“Yeah,” Mercury confirmed, “we’ve got phones and cars and junk in our world, but this Earth feels like the Middle Ages as they were taught to us in school, with knights in armor and whatnot.”

Silverwinter was calculating Mercury and Periwinkle’s words, and she was remaining silent.

“So then,” Mama asked the pair, “how do you two think you got here, some sort of magic that leaked into your Earth?”

“We really don’t know,” Mercury replied. “We don’t remember much between our dinner and being here.”

“And since magic doesn’t exist in our world,” Periwinkle reiterated, “we have no frame of reference for comparison.”

“A world without magic,” Glimdrim mused.

“Yeah,” Mercury confirmed, “but as far as I’m concerned, nature is magical enough! Nothing in our world needs to be supernatural, because nature is super, and natural.”

Glimdrim considered the idea and tilted his head to one side, causing his bells to ring. “I like that; nature is super enough.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mercury added, “I’d love to be able to do magic!”

Krizibop turned while finishing the last of her drink, and she choked on it and coughed.

“You okay?” Silverwinter asked. She was still thinking about the information Mercury and Periwinkle had shared.

“I just noticed how dark it is outside,” Krizibop managed to wheeze. “Did clouds roll in?”

Everyone looked at the window.

Periwinkle was suddenly worried. “Oh no, is the dark going to make it difficult to find your home in the forest?”

His question made Glimdrim and Krizibop laugh.

“Of course we can find our way home at night in the dark!” Glimdrim declared.

“We go home late all the time,” Krizibop added.

Silverwinter finally voiced something that had come up in her mind while listening to Mercury and Periwinkle. She was serious, and her tone made everyone focus on her. “Now I have a question for you two.”