There was the crown right there, between Ember’s hooves. Should somebody ask for it? Or would he just give it to them when He was ready? It was ridiculous, like a question of dinner-party etiquette. But he supposed the ram would give it to Penny now, as a reward for his prompt display of sycophancy, and they’d all have to be his underlings. Maybe that was all it took. Quentin didn’t particularly want to see Penny crowned as High King of Fillory. After all this, was Penny going to turn out to be the hero of this little adventure?
“I have a question.”
A voice interrupted the old ram midstream. Quentin was surprised to find that it was his own.
Ember paused. He was quite a large animal, easily five feet at the withers. His lips were black, and His wool looked pleasantly soft and cloudlike. Quentin would have liked to bury his face in that wool, to weep in it and then fall asleep in it. Penny craned his neck around and bulged his eyes warningly at Quentin.
“I don’t mean to sound overly inquisitive, but if You’re, you know, Ember, how come You’re down here in this dungeon, and not up there on the surface helping Your people?”
In for a penny. It wasn’t that he wanted to make a huge point about it. He just wanted to know why they’d all had to go through so much. He wanted to square it away before they went any further.
“I mean—and this is already coming out more dramatically than I meant it to—You are a god, and things are really falling apart up there. I mean, I think a lot of people are wondering where You’ve been all this time. That’s all. Why would You let Your people suffer like that?”
This would have worked better with a big ballsy shit-eating grin attached to it, but instead it was coming out shivery and a little teary. He was saying “I mean” too much. But he wasn’t backing down. Ember made an odd, nonverbal bleating sound. His mouth worked more sideways than a human mouth would. Quentin could see His thick, stiff, pink ram’s tongue.
“Show some respect,” Penny muttered, but Ember raised one black hoof.
“We should not have to remind you, human child, that We are not your servant.” Ember spoke less gently than He had before. “It is not your needs that We serve, but Our own. We do not come and go at your whim.
“It is true, We have been here under the Earth for some time. It is difficult to know how long, this far from the sun and his travels, but some months at least. Evil has come to Fillory, and evil must be fought, and there is no fighting without cost. We have suffered, as you see, an embarrassment to our hindquarters.”
He turned His long, golden head half a degree. Quentin now saw that one of the ram’s hind legs was in fact lame. Ember held it stiffly, so that the hoof only just brushed the stone. It wouldn’t take His weight.
“Well, but I don’t understand,” Janet spoke up. “Quentin’s right. You’re the god of this world. Or one of them. Doesn’t that make You basically all-powerful?”
“There are Higher Laws that are past your understanding, daughter. The power to create order is one thing. The power to destroy is another. Always they are in balance. But it is easier to destroy than to create, and there are those whose nature it is to love destruction.”
“Well, but why would You create something that had the power to hurt You? Or any of Your creatures? Why don’t You help us? Do You have any idea how much we hurt? How much we suffer?”
A stern glance. “I know all things, daughter.”
“Well, okay, then know this.” Janet put her hands on her hips. She had struck an unexpected vein of bitterness in herself, and it was running away with her. “We human beings are unhappy all the time. We hate ourselves and we hate each other and sometimes we wish You or Whoever had never created us or this shit-ass world or any other shit-ass world. Do You realize that? So next time You might think about not doing such a half-assed job.”
A ringing silence followed her outburst. The torches guttered against the walls. They’d left streaks of black soot all the way up to the domed ceiling. It was true, what she was saying. It made him angry. But there was something about it that made him nervous too.
“You are incensed, daughter.” Ember’s eyes were full of kindness.
“I’m not Your daughter.” She crossed her arms. “And yeah, no shit I’m incensed.”
The great old ram sighed deeply. A tear formed in His great liquid eye, spilled over, and was absorbed into the golden wool on his cheek. In spite of himself, Quentin thought of the proud Indian in the old anti-littering commercials. From behind him Josh leaned into Quentin’s shoulder and whispered:
“The tide of evil is at the full,” the ram was saying, a politician staying relentlessly on message. “But now that you have come, the tide will turn.”
But it wouldn’t. Suddenly Quentin knew it. It all came to him in one sick flash.
“You’re here against Your will,” he said. “You’re a prisoner down here. Aren’t You?”
This wasn’t over after all.
