At that time, you must understand, I was
making a living of sorts writing fantasy novels. So it was, to a
significant extent, all my own fault.
My stuff was plain, industrial-strength,
injection moulded heroic saga, all blond young men riding
bareback through the dew saluting the rising sun with their
swords before breakfasting on berries, acorn and roast squirrel.
Once you hit on the formula you can keep it up pretty well
indefinitely, just so long as you don't look down. Or, to
paraphrase the poet Gilbert, though I'm anything but clever, I
can write like that for ever.
These things tend to come in flavours, like
milk shakes, and my stuff was the then fashionable Celtic
flavour. Celtic is probably the easiest. It certainly lends
itself to semi-automated production techniques, to the extent
that someone a little bit cleverer than me could probably find a
way of interfacing a basic plot-and-dialogue programme with the
Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology on CD-ROM and spend the rest
of the day sitting by the pool with a long, cool drink.
Being a traditionalist and (I flatter myself)
an artisan if not an actual craftsman, I preferred to do most of
it manually. And it was while I was doing my daily 5,000 words
and describing yet another open-air banquet under the stars...
Yes indeed, nuts, berries and roast squirrel. My characters have
it in for squirrels. They can't see one gambolling innocuously up
a tree without fumbling for the old bow and arrow. Perhaps
squirrels were bigger in those days, I remember reflecting,
lending some minor frisson of danger to the proceedings, although
they'd have had to be significantly larger and fiercer than our
modern bushy-tailed chums to inject the spice of danger into
following a wounded squirrel into the long grass.
I was just letting my mind drift away down this
neglected waterway (Hemingway could have pulled it off, `In the
autumn the crop circles were still there, but we did not go there
anymore...') when the doorbell rang.
`Yes?' I said.
`Hello,' he replied.
You can't work in an industry for any length of
time without absorbing at least some of the technical data. It
didn't therefore take me long.
`The triple bull's head,' I said, `narrows it
down to a choice of four. Take into account the serpentine legs
ending in fishtails and the bag of grain in the left hand and you
might as well have a lapel badge with your name on and have done
with it. Cernunnos,' I said. `Celtic god of crops, rainfall and
standing around watching other people work. Am I right?'
He nodded, in triplicate.
`It's one of those telegram things, right? My,
but we've come a long way from the doggerel-reciting strippers of
my youth. Celtic godograms, yet. And they try to make out we're
not a sophisticated nation.'
He wrinkled three pairs of brows. `What,' he
enquired, `are you blathering on about?'
It was then that I had an uncomfortable
feeling. It wasn't the heads so much - I've seen some pretty
convincing prosthetic heads in the theatre and the movies. But
the legs were something else. They were, in effect, two fingers
to gravity, anatomy and the late Charles Darwin. And, because it
was absolutely impossible for those legs to be supporting
Chummy's weight, it inevitably followed that he was hovering
about six inches from the ground. Now I'm not saying that George
Lucas and the boys couldn't rustle up something that could cover
that but they'd need a budget equivalent to Western defence
expenditure for a decade, and I don't suppose the kissogram
people have that sort of money.
When you've eliminated the wildly improbable,
the impossible must be the truth.
`You are him, aren't you ?' I said.
`Yes,' he replied. `Can I come in? I'm starting
to feel a bit conspicuous standing out here in the street.'
`I am indeed - yes, thanks, lemon and one sugar
- the god Cernunnos,' he said, and took a biscuit. `Sorry I took
so long.'
`What?'
`To answer your invocation,' he replied. `By
the way, I hope I'll do. Taranis is off today and I'm the duty
god. I've got a power of attorney thing somewhere if you need it
for the paperwork.'
`What?'
`You invoked the god Taranis,' he replied.
`Didn't you?'
Denial froze on my lips like chocolate sauce
poured on ice cream. He was right. No point in denying it when
the magic words were leering greenly at me from the screen on my
desk. Would it do any good to explain that it was only a story I
was writing, sorry to have troubled you? There was sure to be a
call-out charge and maybe a prosecution for wasting divine time.
`Yes,' I accordingly replied. `I did.'
`Ah.' The god leaned back in my armchair and
kicked his boots off - as soon as he was through the door he'd
changed into a human, greatly to my relief. On the debit side,
he'd changed into a young man with long hair, a fancy embroidered
waistcoat and cowboy boots but it was better than bulls' horns
and snakes. `Good. Right, what have you got lined up for today?'
`I beg your pardon?'
He glanced at my clock. `Half past four,' he
said. `Give me half an hour to freshen up and we can get on with
it right away. What's first, the wicker cages?'
`I...'
`Do say it's the wicker cages. Tranny'll be
furious if it is. A simple soul, our Tran, except in his
incarnation as the swineherd of the sun. Not much call for that
nowadays though,' he added, and sighed. `Not much call for any of
it, come to that. In fact, Tran hasn't had a day's work in 400
years. Funny, that. He only goes to the dentist once every
Halley's Comet and the moment he's out of the office...'
`Excuse me,' I said.
`Sorry. Yes?'
`Would you,' I asked politely, `please
explain?'
The worst thing about being a god (Cernunnos
explained) is the boredom. Talk about been there, done that, got
the votive offering. It was bad enough when we were full-timing.
Now we're just - what's the word? Consultants. Now we're just
consultants, it's enough to make you cry in your beer.
Yes, consultants. Means we're too burnt-out to
be any use but we own too much of the equity for them to be able
to get rid of us completely. So we hang on, grimly. I mean, what
the hell else can we do? We live for ever. You lot might be able
to hack it through your twilight years on gardening,
grandchildren and golf, but we can't. All right for you - all you
need to do is keel over and fast forward to the Second Coming.
We've got to go the long way round.
So, when we do get an invocation, of course we
make the most of it. Out of the office, all expenses paid, and a
bunch of devoted worshippers poised to dedicate themselves to
performing our every whim. And the really cool part of it is, of
course, the new lot have to do all the work.
The work, yes. Raising the sun, growing the
crops, all that stuff. Answering prayers. Smiting perjurers.
Actually, I used to quite like that bit, though I never was much
good at it. Usually it was a case of ten oaks trees needlessly
chaffed for one direct hit on a bearer of false witness and even
then the bugger'd as often as not be wearing rubber boots or
something. Gross anachronism, of course, but if they played by
the rules we wouldn't be out to smite them in the first place.
So, as soon as the rest of the congregation get
here, we can make a....
What do you mean, just you? Just you and thirty
helpless prisoners of war bound hand and foot in tallow-soaked
wicker cages?
Oh. I see. Just you.
`Yes,' I confirmed. `Just me. And no wicker
cages.'
`OK. Right. Fine. It's been a long time, you
see, and I know I'm a bit out of touch. So, just feasting and
sacrifices and the mead-horn overflowing...'
`There's some cans in the fridge,' I said.
`Cans.'
`And I've got some ham left and I think there's
some bread and a tin of pilchards.'
`Excuse me.' The god frowned. `I don't want to
seem pushy or anything, but if that's your idea of showing your
supreme being a good time, I'm glad I peaked early. I expect you
pray a lot, too.'
`Well,' I admitted, `no, actually I don't.'
`That's something, I suppose,' Cernunnos
replied. `The real bummer with hallowed ancestral rituals is,
well, the scope for variety is a trifle limited, you know? And
when you've heard the same bloody service three times a day for
2,000 years, it makes you want to start revising the old
scriptures, starting with Thou shalt not destruct-test the
patience of the Lord thy God. OK, then, just what did you have in
mind?'
I sucked in a deep breath. I have no oak trees
in my house. I do have a rather nice old oak settle thing which
used to belong to my grandfather but it hasn't been a tree, as
such, since Prince Albert started shaving. Nor was I wearing
rubber-soled shoes.
`I really am terribly sorry,' I said, feeling
with my toe for the carpet (which had a foam rubber underlay,
although I'm not sure that'd have done me any good) `but I seem
to have called you on something of a wild goose chase.'
`I see.' Cernunnos rubbed his chin. `You mean
in my incarnation as the patron deity of the hunt, small mammals
and wildfowling division? No problem, can do. I'll just change
into my avatar and we can catch the evening flight...'
`A fool's errand,' I amended, and then quickly
changed that to a false alarm. `The invocation was quite
accidental. You see, I'm writing a book and one of the characters
-'
`Oh.' His face fell. `So you didn't...'
`No.'
`And you don't...'
`No.'
He shrugged. `I see,' he said, sadly. `Quite
all right..Accidents will happen. Don't suppose you meant any
disrespect by it.'
I felt as if I'd just broken the headmaster's
study window and someone else had owned up. `That's really very
decent of you,' I said.
`Ah well.' He shrugged again. `To err is human,
to forgive divine. Just try to be more careful in the future.'
`I will, I promise.'
`And,' he added brightly, `you've got the rest
of your life to make it up to me so it's not exactly going to be
a dead loss. Are you sure there're no wicker cages lying around
that you've forgotten you had? In the attic, or something?'
To extend the simile, the boy who'd just owned
up in my place was now telling the headmaster I'd promised him a
fiver if he threw the stone. `Excuse me-' I said
`Mm?'
`What exactly do you mean,' I enquired, as
calmly as I could - a bit like tackling the Great Fire of 1666
with a soda syphon - ` by the rest of my life to make it up to
you? I mean, I really am truly sorry, but...'
`Well.' The god gave me a funny look. `Leaving
the intentions completely to one side for a minute, you have
effectually invoked a god, using the proper procedures and the
prescribed forms, and here I am.'
`Yes, but...'
`And here,' he went on, his voice now slightly
tinted with the faintest blush of petulance, `I stay, until the
cult revival comes to an end and nobody believes in me any more.
Then I can go home. Or rather,' he amended, with a slight
shudder, `back to the office. Till then, it's business as usual.
It may only be a congregation of one but I've always held the
view that quality's what counts in the final analysis.'
`But I...'
`You do believe in me, don't you? Well, there's
a silly question. You can't not because here I am. And here,' he
added with a tiny garnish of malice, `I stay.'
I swallowed hard. `You mean,' I whispered, `I'm
stuck with you? For the rest of my life?'
Cernunnos nodded. `Ah,' he said, `enthusiasm.
It's what makes it all worth while.'
A god about the house may sound like it has a
potential upside. I'm here to tell you, it doesn't.
My tentative suggestions over the next few days
that he might just find it amusing and a novel experience to muck
in and make himself useful were greeted with a mixture of
responses ranging from tolerant scorn to near-arctic offence. It
became clear immediately that rolling up his sleeves and drying
while I washed was a non-starter. I still maintained that he was
a god and the Miracle of the Ironing of the Five Thousand had a
nice, contemporary ring about it. His response to that was a
fierce refusal to prostitute his craft, a brief speech about the
integrity of the supernatural, and a zap of static that loosened
two fillings. In any event, he relented enough to tell me now
that he was just a consultant, there was a limit to what he could
do, miracle wise, even if he wanted to. He certainly had plenty
of magic but it was more your Industrial Light And variety - loud
bangs and flashes, things turned into other things, maybe a
plague of tadpoles if he worked up to it and stuck to decaff for
a day or so beforehand - rather than serious tampering with the
fabric of reality. And, apparently, in order to carry out
domestic chores, produce wealth or do anything else remotely
utilitarian, you have to take the back off reality and get in
among the cogs and springs up to your wrists. Because, he
explained, Life isn't like that. Which, I had to admit, made a
kind of sense.
The downside, of course, was that I had on my
hands a bored superhuman sensation-seeker with the mentality and
attention span of a hyperactive nine-year-old. And failure to
keep him amused and entertained was probably going to result in a
lot worse than grizzles and the occasional outbreak of
bed-wetting.
`Food?'
He shook his head. `You people nowadays, you
don't seem to know the meaning of the word. Take that place we
went to last night. Some of the things they put on my plate were
bright green.'
`Vegetables.'
`No wonder you lot are so scrawny and effete.
Hasn't anybody ever told you what you're supposed to do with the
stuff? You feed it to a cow and then, in due course, you eat the
cow. It's one of those rare instances where it doesn't pay to cut
the middleman.'
`All right, then. Wine.'
`That's fine,' he said, `up to a point. But you
and your pansy associates just curl up and go to sleep after the
first nine hours and it's no fun drinking on your own.'
`Women?'
Cernunnos shook his head. `No disrespect,' he
said. `But let me put it this way. Mortal women - did you ever
have those Rubik Cube things down here? There was a craze for
them up our way a century or so back. Well, once you've worked
out how to do it, every possible permutation, there just isn't
the incentive, you know?'
`Um,' I replied. `All right, then, you suggest
nothing..'
`OK.' Cernunnos folded his arms decisively.
`Wars,' he said.
`Did you,' I croaked, `just say wars?'
`That's right.' The god nodded. `A bit jejune,
perhaps, but you know what they say about simple things.'
`Wars?'
`Yeah, wars. The stricken field. The groans of
the dying mingled with the ululations of the victors as the ranks
of spears sway like a cornfield in the wind...'
`Um...'
`... While above the shouting and the clashing
of honed steel, the God stands and holds in his hand the golden
scales...'
`Let me,' I said, `just stop you there for a
moment. Does the phrase atomic bomb mean anything to you?'
He looked puzzled. `No,' he said.
`Mutually assured destruction? Three minutes
warning?'
`You've lost me.'
I explained.
`Of all the...'
`It wasn't me,' I said defensively. `I wasn't
even born.'
`... Load of bone-headed killjoys...'
I wiped my forehead. `So can we just
blue-pencil -?'
`I suppose so.' He frowned, and then his eyes
lit up. `Adventure,' he said. `Strange quests. Marvellous deeds
of hand and eye which will live for ever in...'
`Just come with me,' I said, and led him to the
window.
`Well?'
`That,' I said, pointing, `is called
Birmingham. It's all I have to offer. If you can see any
cloud-capped mountains or enchanted castles let me know and I'll
cut us some sandwiches.'
He sighed, nodded and sat down again. `All
right, then,' he said. `What do you do?'
Strange, how different things look different to
different people.
Be that as it may. If there is a heaven (and my
views on this point are rather more fluid than they used to be,
understandably enough) I sincerely hope that the apartments there
set aside for Uncle Walt are in the nice part of the complex with
a view out over the clouds and decent plumbing.
`Tell me again,' he said, `the word you use for
the magic mirror that can show you the far-away and the never-was
and which brings forth the heavenly music.'
`Videos,' I said.
`And the really strange ones,' he went on.
`Where the animals talk in the tongues of men and the colour are
bright as it is always summer.'
`Winnie the Pooh,' I replied. `The jungle Book.
The Hundred and One Dalmatians.'
`Extraordinary,' he said, releasing a long
sigh. `And to think you did that all by yourselves with no help
from us. Makes you wonder why we bother, really.'
I smiled awkwardly. After all, I just rented
the bloody things. `Glad you like them,' I said. `We can watch
Bambi again this afternoon, if you like.'
`Can we?'
Oh, I thought, for crying out loud. And then I
thought, yes. Yes, please. Anything rather than Well, if we took
away the nuclear bomb whatsits, we could still have quite an
interesting war. What are those things that go bang? Since the
god appeared to have regressed, on his timescale, something like
a thousand and eighty-nine-years, I reckoned that as long as the
supply of cute flicks held out, there was a chance of waking up
next morning to find the roof still on and the pavements
relatively corpse-free.
(And what, are you wondering, is it really like
living with a god?)
Well...
To be absolutely straight with you, gods are no
different from any other sort of unwanted pest who come and
colonise your spare bedroom, eat your food, drink your beer and
coffee, fail to put the butter back in the fridge on a hot day,
leave dirty marks on the towels, put their feet up on the
furniture and never put books back where they got them from.
They're no worse - they know how to use the toilet and they don't
burn holes in the upholstery with their numinous auras - but
neither are they any better and there are certainly no fringe
benefits whatsoever. They will not, for example, forecast the
winners of horse races (or at least not accurately) and they
refuse point blank to turn base metal into gold or even water
into wine. From my close observation of one particular specimen,
I can't decide whether this is Won't or Can't, although if I had
to make a decision I would go for the former. I have to admit
that I'm a bit shaky nowadays on the Psalms of David but I do
remember quite a lot about dwelling in the House of the Lord for
ever. If that's supposed to be one of the special prizes I'll
just take the wooden spoon and run, thank you very much.
But worst of all, for someone who was at that
time making his living out of the Celt business, was the bugger's
apathy and ignorance when it came to the finer points of
Celtistry and, most aggravating of all, his own religion. He
neither knew nor cared. It didn't take long for me to come to
form the opinion that any burning bush with Cernunnos on the
other end of the line would probably come up with OK, my people
can talk to your people, one of these days we really must do
lunch.
All this time, of course, I wasn't getting any
work done. And the wolf, who at the best of times has a kennel
outside my door with his own rubber bone and now with his name on
it, had taken to swaggering about on the landing as if he owned
the place. I had a bunch of lame-brained sunburnt young idiots
hanging around an enchanted well with nothing to do (serve the
idle bastards right, of course. In my young day characters in
books made their own amusements and still had change out of a
halfgroat) and an editor reminding me forcefully of approaching
deadlines. No earthly use, of course. Even when my celestial
freeloader was catatonic in front of the video, I couldn't do a
hand's turn. Understandably enough, I maintain. I defy anybody to
be even remotely convincing about the Tuatha De Danaan when
unseen choristers are maliciously hammering out Winnie-the-Pooh,
Winnie-the-Pooh, willy-nilly silly old Bear in his inner ear.
How to get rid? Good question.
My only idea was to try to throw the summoning
process into reverse. That, however, was more easily
conceptualised than done. There are countless invocations to gods
down there behind the sofa cushions of literature - rather fewer
incantations designed to put the divine suitcases out on the
pavement. Evil spirits, yes. Say the right magic words and you
can rid yourself of the forces of darkness as effortlessly as
flushing the bog. Getting shot of the soi-disant good guys is
another kettle of apples entirely.
I tried another tack. To dislodge a broken
cotter pin, drive in a punch. Likewise, to remove an unwanted
god, summon another god the sight of whom your celestial squatter
can't stick at any price. I set to work with a big pile of books
on Celtic myth and legend and a pair of road-mender's earmuffs.
One of the reasons why we in the fantasy
business are so keen on Celtic mythology is that nobody actually
knows anything about it. Apart from the names of some of the gods
and a few garbled myths preserved in later written sources, the
myths and legends of the Ancient Ones have long since taken their
rightful place in the black plastic bag of history. This means
you can basically do what you like with the Celts and not cringe
every time the letterbox goes snap in case you've got another
thick wad of Dear-sirs-are-you-aware letters.
You only become aware of the downside when you
urgently need hard data. For example, the name, address and (for
choice) fax number of any particular god's mortal enemy. Now if
I'd had the sense to summon Loki, I could have got shot of him in
10 minutes flat by summoning Thor. Likewise Quetzalcoatl and
Tezcatlipoca. There is a dock leaf to virtually every divine
nettle. As for Cernunnos, however, either he was universally
liked and respected by his colleagues (something I would have a
certain amount of difficulty believing) or else the recipe had
gone gurgling down the plughole with the cultural bathwater. And
I wasn't going to take a chance and guess. Supposing I summoned
Lug or Manannan and they wanted to watch the snooker instead?
I was pondering this setback and wishing,
reasonably enough, that I had been born a frog and died young,
when there was a hammering at the front door. I answered it.
`Right,' said my new visitor. `Where is he?'
`Who?' I said. Superfluously. I knew who she
wanted just by looking at her.
She was about six foot three and built like an
East German discus thrower. Correction. Imagine that you'd melted
down two East German discus throwers and used the result to make
one big one. In her fist she held a big bronze key, which of
course meant (I'm sure you're way ahead of me) that I was in the
presence of the goddess Epona. As explained above, nobody knows
what most of the Celtic lot were gods of, but in Epona's
portfolio didn't include glowering, intimidation and looming
snottily in doorways, it has to go down as a sad misapplication
of resources.
`Men!' she snorted. `Look, don't think you can
cover up for the nasty little jerk because I'm omniscient and I
know he's here somewhere. Either you show me where's crawled
under or I can blow this ghastly little slum to smithereens and
sieve him out of the rubble. Your choice.'
`This way.'
Actually, I'm not sure she was actually
technically omniscient because if she had been she'd have known
to duck under my reproduction Louis Quinze cut-glass chandelier.
`Ouch!'
`Sorry, I thought you'd have...'
`I'm taking official note of that,' she
growled, picking splinters of glass out of her eyebrows, `in my
capacity as Goddess of Accident Prevention and Interior Design.
In your next incarnation but two you will now be a hedgehog. But
not,' she added grimly, `for terribly long.'
She kicked open the sitting-room door. I heard
a strangled cry. I followed.
Epona was standing, hands on hips, in front of
the television screen. Cernunnos had half risen from my nice new
Parker-Knoll recliner and half turned himself back into his
divine form, which I assume is some of celestial etiquette thing.
The passage of his scaly legs didn't do wonders for my expensive
Scotchgarded loose covers.
`Try and explain,' Epona snarled. `Go on, just
try it and we'll see just how well you conduct electricity.'
Cernunnos slumped back into the chair and I
heard something go rrrp. I made a swift command decision and
decided not to press the point.
`Gosh,' said Cernunnos. `Er, hello. What're you
doing...?'
`Five days,' continued the goddess. `Five days
I've been hanging around outside that bloody cinema. Boy, when
you stand someone up, you sure don't muck about.'
Cernunnos' face fell. `Oh hell,' he muttered.
`I'd forgotten all about...'
`Five days!' Epona leaned forward and prodded
Cernunnos savagely in the neck with her key. `Of all the
inconsiderate...'
`Look, I'm terribly sorry, but this job...'
`Bugger your stupid job.'
`But, Freckles...'
`Don't you Freckles me.'
Time, I told myself, to withdraw unobtrusively
and leave the ever-young people together. I left the room.
And so, very soon afterwards, did Cernunnos. As
at 12 noon today he hasn't come back. Yet. I mean, there's always
the risk that he'll come back eventually, if only to judge the
quick and the dead. But that's by the way of being an acceptable
level of risk because by then I'll be ready for him..
As soon as I'd taken back the videos and done
the best I could with the various unwashed cups, half-eaten
peanut butter sandwiches and small, ineffable marks on the
furniture (including the piece of gum that passeth all
understanding, a few dazed-looking flowers and stalks of young
corn where he'd trodden without thinking what he was doing, and a
comprehensively broken mirror which had belonged to my
grandmother) I set about installing a few anti-god devices.
Not a case, I realised at the outset, where a
few window locks and cloves of garlic were going to be any use.
This was a situation demanding a whole new approach to home
security.
The system is based on the simple premise that
faith moves mountains. Only believe, my argument runs, and the
rest is straightforward.
Accordingly, my house is now a shrine. I've
redecorated the spare bedroom as a sort of chapel with a high
altar, chantry and built-in gabled reredos (you get them
flat-packed from Texas Homecare), and every available square inch
of the rest of the place is crammed with statues, frescoes,
stained glass windows and other pictorial representations of the
god Cernunnos.
Belief is, of course, a highly personal thing.
And if I can choose to believe in the god in the form of a small,
hungry white mouse, that's entirely my own affair. As far as I
can judge from a pretty exhaustive study of the available source
material, gods are honour-bond to respect one's wishes and adopt
the incarnation of the consumer's choice.
Anyway, that's the form my anti-god precaution
take. Oh yes, and a very large, bad-tempered cat.
The End
Text reproduced with permission.
© 1998 
Uwe Milde
[Top of Page]
Back to Tom Holt's books
Back to fiction index
Back to Home
visits to this site.