The Gutter Prayer

God’s shit,” says Aleena. “That’s your idea of a fucking short cut? Let’s save time by getting sodomised by magic worms?

Idge says that there are moments when revolution is possible. Most of the time, we’re all – everyone, from the poorest beggar out there to the Patros on his golden throne – caught in the gears, controlled by these invisible forces, and if we act against them we’re crushed. But there are moments when things can change, when the forces balance and it’s possible for people – individual people – to make a big difference. To – realign things. Remake the world.

Change is simultaneously a fast and a slow process. The great forces of history are slow-moving and unnoticed by those surrounded by them, visible only in hindsight where they appear inevitable.

Gods – all gods, I think – are just spells that keep going. Like waterwheels powered by the passage of souls, maybe. Prayer strengthens them, and so does residuum, the portion of the soul that remains in the corpse after death. The gods are not omniscient or omnipotent, just very different from us. More powerful in some ways, but locked into patterns of behaviour they cannot change, so they’re not really sentient, I suppose. Saints are p-p-points of congruency between our world and theirs.

Now, we turn to the gods – not for guidance or protection, but as experimental subjects. Deities, demons and other supernatural entities can be considered as self-perpetuating structures in the elemental chaos. They might be naturally accreting structures, or perhaps they were unconsciously shaped over many generations by blind faith. These self-perpetuating structures can channel elemental energy through congruent souls – or, to put it another way, saints manifest the sacred blessings of the gods.

Ongent just keeps huffing and puffing up the steps, as if he's out for an afternoon constitutional and his only worry is getting to the top of this little hill, not getting robbed and left in a ditch. She contemplates robbing him and leaving him in a ditch.

From here, you see the heart of the old city, its palaces and churches, and towers reaching up like the hands of a man drowning, trying to break free of the warren of alleyways and hovels that surrounds them.

Back up to the main street. The fires are mostly under control, and the Tallowmen - both the dead and the quick - have melted away, one set into the gutters and the other into the shadows.