Downfall of the Gods Read Online Free PDF Page B

bounce me into making up my mind?”
    He groaned, and shifted the weight of his Feather-Lite combination rucksack/tent/parasol/coracle. “When you decide,” he said, “please tell me. I’d like to know if I’ve got the option of just giving up and dying.”
    “Sissy,” I said.
    T HERE ARE SEVERAL different ways for members of my family to take on human form. We can weave a cloud of illusion—mortals look at us and see what we want them to—or we can create and inhabit an actual physical body. I tend to favour the latter. I’ve always loved dressing up, ever since I was a little girl, and besides, if you want to understand a man, I always say, you need to walk a mile on his feet. I take pains to equip myself with bodies that are fit, strong and healthy as well as radiantly beautiful. The body I’d selected for this job was about as close to functional perfection as human flesh and blood can get. Height-to-weight ratio, metabolic rate and lung capacity were optimal, the muscles and tendons perfectly tuned and supple, and I’d fuelled it with the full recommended daily intake of vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates. But next day, after nine hours or so of walking—
    “Keep up, can’t you?”
    “I’ve got a stone in my shoe,” I lied.
    “You’re dawdling.”
    “I’ve got shorter legs than you.”
    “So make them longer.”
    I’d toyed with the idea, but I was pretty sure he’d notice. So, when he was looking the other way, I dispensed with the flesh and blood, resumed my usual form and clothed it in an illusion of what I’d been looking like all day. Much better. I could float along beside him comfortably without getting splints in my shins. “You’ve changed,” he said suspiciously. “There’s something different about you.”
    “I’ve done my hair. How much further is it?” “Not long now.”
    “Let me see the map.”
    Boring. A waste of time. They have so little time, yet
    they don’t seem concerned about frittering it away on repetitive activities such as walking. If I had to move at their pace I’d die of frustration.
    “You’ve got the map upside down,” he said. “Makes no difference. I can read non-relativistically.” He pulled a sad face. “I don’t need a fixed viewpoint,” I explained.
    “But you do need a map.”
    “I’m trying to enter into the spirit of things.”
    “Admit it,” he said. “You’re tired.”
    Well, it was very perceptive of him. “Yes,” I said. “My mortal body can’t keep up with me.”
    “Fine.” He took off his cloak and spread it on the grass. “Have a rest.”
    “No, thank you.”
    “Have a rest,” he repeated. “Look, we’ll cover far more ground if we rest for half an hour and then proceed for three hours at three miles an hour than if we drag on at two and a bit for three and a half hours. Simple mathematics.”
    I sat down. It felt wonderful. “You’re not tired,” I said.
    “No. I’m used to walking.”
    I thought for a moment. “You could’ve insisted we carry on, thereby causing me pain and humiliation. But you didn’t. Why?”
    He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been a nice thing to do.”
    “But politically, in the power-struggle between us, you’d have scored points. You’d have allowed me to make a fool of myself, thereby securing a slight edge.”
    He gave me a curious look. “I don’t think in those terms. Do you?”
    “Always.”
    He gathered some dry sticks, lit a fire, boiled some water and made jasmine tea. My feet were killing me— my real ones. As I said, I’d got rid of the flesh-and-blood ones earlier; but the ache somehow lingered, just as humans claim they feel pain in long-since-amputated limbs. I pulled off the illusion of boots and wriggled my toes till the feeling started to come back.
    He was looking at me. “What?” I said.
    “Nothing.”
    He was lying. “What?” I repeated.
    “When you’re ready,” he said, “we’d better get going. We’ve still got a long way to go.”
    I