“But even when the ocean flowed, Isten was still alone. Yet now, as he surveyed the beautiful thing he had created, he was not angry or heartbroken. He was at peace, and that is the only time when you can make a sacrifice that works. So Isten cut out a piece of his own flesh and let it fall to the earth below. When it landed there, it began to stretch and change, until it became the first men and women of the world, sweet and pliant and peaceful.
“Isten’s new world was beautiful, and only a fool would not want to live there. There was no word for summer, because every day was as warm and bright as the last. There was no word for full because not a single belly had ever ached with hunger. There was no word for happy because no one had ever been anything else.
“Then, one day, a woman went to wash her clothes by the riverside. She knelt on the shore and dipped her dress in the water. But as she did, her hand skimmed against a rock, sharp and slick. The water around her streamed red, and when she lifted her hand into the light, she saw that she was bleeding, even though she had no word for blood. She could not explain to herself or to the villagers what had happened, but Isten had seen it all. He thought: I did not make rocks sharp enough to cut. I did not make human flesh soft enough to bleed.
“Soon enough, the vegetables that the villagers pulled from the earth became black and putrid with rot. The ground beneath their feet had grown hard and white with frost. And when one villager looked at his reflection in the lake, he saw that his face was creased with deep wrinkles. The villagers had to create a word for what they saw, so they called it despair.
“They begged Isten for an answer to their troubles, and so Isten searched. He came down to the Earth and walked upon it like a man. He walked until he heard a rumble beneath his feet, and the rumble was a voice.
“‘Hello, Father,’ the voice said. ‘I believe you are looking for me.’
“Isten looked all around, but he could see nothing. ‘Who are you?’
“‘Look below,’ the voice said.
“So Isten did. He peeled back the layers of the world he had made and found there was another one beneath it that smelled of damp and rot. Flies circled Isten’s head and maggots writhed under his feet. It was too dark to see anything ahead, but the strange voice still echoed around him, as if the blackness itself had a sound.
“‘It’s you,’ Isten said. ‘You are the one who brings decay to plants and flowers. You let frost lay upon the earth. You make my people grow white hair, and make their skin fold with wrinkles. You let them bleed, and you let them feel despair.’
“‘Yes,’ ?rd?g said. ‘All of these things are true, and I am all of these things.’
“‘How did you do it?’ Isten asked. ‘I did not create a world to rot or bleed.’
“‘But you did create me,’ ?rd?g said. ‘When you cut out a piece of your flesh to make the world, I was born alongside it. Creation can only exist alongside destruction, peace alongside pain. Wherever there is life, I will also be.’
“Isten thought, He called me Father.
“Isten left ?rd?g’s kingdom and returned to Earth, only now he called it the Middle-World, because there was another one beneath it. In this way, it became the world we know—a world where growth could easily become rot, where peace could easily become pain. A world that had a word for happiness, because now there was a word for despair. It was not Isten’s world anymore.”
When I finish the story, I feel breathless. Gáspár is staring determinedly at the blank space between his horse’s ears, but his eye darts toward me, and I can see the gleam of reluctant interest.
“Is that all you think of death?” he asks finally. “No wonder you’re so keen to throw yourself into my father’s arms.”
I blink at him, unmoored by his reaction. “What do you mean?”
“This god of yours, ?rd?g”—he says the word with a wrinkled nose, as if the very shape of it on his lips repulses him—“he doesn’t subject the denizens of his Under-World to hellfire and torment, and every human soul finds its way to him when it dies, no matter how good or evil they were on Earth—in the Middle-World. What’s to stop humans from doing harm, if you don’t fear for the fate of your soul after death?”
On the backs of my thighs, my old scars flare. “I think humans are perfectly capable of punishing each other. What a terribly absurd question to ask, when you’re sitting there with your missing eye. You should know better than anyone that people can be as cruel as any god.”