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    The Last God: The Amra Thetys Series
    The Last God: The Amra Thetys Series
    The Last God: The Amra Thetys Series
    Ebook125 pages2 hours

    The Last God: The Amra Thetys Series

    By Michael McClung

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    About this ebook

    From the author of the Amra Thetys series comes a new novelette set in the same world, featuring the world's grumpiest old man:

    Sage Lhiewyn, high priest of the god of knowledge, would like nothing better than to spend his remaining days getting his naps in and collecting offerings from what few faithful remain. Unfortunately, he's going on a trio of adventures instead.

    With his less-than faithful acolyte at his side, Lhiewyn will have to face down a rampaging sewer demon, outwit the beautiful, wily priestess of a foreign god bent on unearthing his greatest secret, and stop a killer whose body count doubles with every new moon. Looks like his nap will have to wait....

    A note to potential readers: It is not necessary to read the Amra Thetys series to enjoy this novelette, though of course I think it would be an excellent idea if you did. -Michael McClung

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMichael McClung
    Release dateOct 31, 2017
    ISBN9781386281122
    The Last God: The Amra Thetys Series
    Author

    Michael McClung

    Dr. Michael McClung is the founding director of the Oregon Osteoporosis Center. He graduated from Rice University in Houston and from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. After his training in Internal Medicine at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, he completed a fellowship in Endocrinology at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He then joined the faculty at the Oregon Health Sciences University, where he is an Associate Professor of Medicine. At OHSU, he founded a clinic devoted to the care of patients with disorders of bone and calcium metabolism that eventually grew into the Oregon Osteoporosis Center. In 1987, Dr. McClung joined the Department of Medical Education at Providence Medical Center where he is actively involved in the training of young physicians. He is board certified in both Internal Medicine and in Endocrinology and Metabolism, and is a fellow of the American College of Endocrinologists and the American College of Physicians. Dr. McClung is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of osteoporosis and bone density testing. His Center has been involved in many of the important clinical studies that resulted in the availability of the medications now used to treat osteoporosis and Paget's disease of bone. He has published more than 200 papers and book chapters, is co-editor of a book for clinicians about disorders of bone and mineral metabolism and is a member of the editorial boards for several journals in his field. Dr. McClung is widely known as an educator, translating clinical research information into practical strategies of evaluation and treatment for other physicians. He is an active member of multiple international societies focusing on bone diseases and their treatment. He serves as a member of the Council of Scientific Advisors for the International Osteoporosis Foundation, on the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Osteoporosis Foundation, and as a medical advisor for the Paget Foundation. He was a member of the World Health Organization Fracture Risk Task Force that led to the development of the FRAX® tool. He is a member of the global advisory boards for multiple companies and organizations. He has served on the Endocrinology and Metabolism Advisory Committee of the FDA and has participated in the development of evidence–based guidelines for the treatment of osteoporosis for several national and international societies.

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    • 5/5
      This story breathes ,it tells of human strengths and weaknesses. Sounds funny , after all it’s fantasy, but it’s real in its use of people’s truths and reactions. Read it for fun and it’s great. Read it as part of a series and you see the authors beliefs and wit laid in an apparently effortless flow.
      Or I could be totally wrong, read it and decide. Well worth the candle.

    Book preview

    The Last God - Michael McClung

    Dedication

    For my crazy chickens

    A NOTE TO THE READER:

    While writing The Last God , I took great pains to make it enjoyable for and accessible to anyone who has not (yet) read any of the books in the Amra Thetys series. It exists in that universe, and the characters here have been seen there more than once, but the Amra books have no bearing on this one, beyond a very little table talk.

    For those who are curious, however, this book would fit in chronologically at about the same time as the fourth Amra book, The Thief Who Wasn’t There. Perhaps a little after.

    Down in It

    GENERALLY, I FIND ROBES to be eminently sensible, practical and comfortable. Having to wear them is one of the few perks of being a priest, really. Wearing robes while wading hip-deep through sewage, however, was about as pleasant as you might imagine. More so, if you imagine I bother with small-clothes in the Lucernan heat. The footing was treacherous, and more than once I was glad of my acolyte's steadying hand on my elbow. Then again, it was his fault I was here in the first place.

    Jessep.

    Yes, master Lhiewyn?

    You're fired, boy.

    You don't pay me.

    Petty detail. You sleep under the temple's roof, don't you?

    The one that leaks? The one you made me climb up and patch last week? His right eyebrow, slathered in my arthritis balm along with the rest of him, started to lift. We’ll get to that. At any rate, I could always tell how incensed I'd gotten him by how far that eyebrow climbed up his forehead.

    Well it's not like I can do it, I replied. I can barely stand for five minutes at a stretch.

    There are these people called workmen, he muttered.

    They cost money.

    We have money.

    That's for emergencies.

    A leaky roof in what amounts to the biggest library on the Dragonsea isn't an emergency? The eyebrow twitched higher.

    Don't get testy with me, boy. I was testy before you could form two-syllable words.

    I'm a scribe, not a roof-tarrer. What good is it speaking and reading fourteen languages if my brain ends up splattered all over the Street of the Gods?

    Don't be such a baby. I gave you a rope. There are plenty of places to tie yourself to up there.

    Oh, really? You know that for a fact, do you?

    "I am the high priest of the god of knowledge."

    Then I guess Lagna's knowledge didn't extend to his temples' roofs, because there's bugger-all to secure a line to up there, old man.

    "That's master old man to you."

    Not if I'm fired, it isn't.

    Boy, I'm standing bad-hip-deep in Lucernis' biggest cesspool, and I'm a high-gods-damned-priest. Don't whine to me about a little tar.

    And I'm what, floating above all this lovely effluvium? His eyebrow threatened to merge with his hairline, now.

    Just hand me the book, you big baby. This thing won't summon itself.

    Something something, muttered my subordinate. My hearing isn't what it was. I just assumed it was disparaging, and responded appropriately. "Boy, we're here because of you."

    His eyebrow didn't actually merge with his hairline, but not for lack of trying.

    Me? Me? I'm sorry, but I don't remember ever saying 'Hey, I've got a ruddy good idea, let's go traipsing through the city's sewage looking for shit demons.'

    But you did say 'Master, here's a letter from Lord Morno,' now didn't you?

    What was I supposed to do? Pretend he hadn't sent a courier?

    You should have burnt it, unopened. I reflected for a moment. Or eaten it, maybe.

    Jessep looked around. Well, I can't disagree with you on that. But you didn't have to open the letter, now did you?

    I grunted.  The danger of being in the business of knowledge. Sometimes you read things, and then you're in the possession of facts you'd rather not have in your head.

    Morno certainly knew how to write a persuasive letter–

    To Lhiewyn, Sage of Lucernis, High Priest of Lagna, etc., etc., Greetings;

    The sewage works is testing a new method of disposing of the city's waste, which I know you will rejoice at hearing. While the new 'incinerator' is a promising advancement, they can't seem to get it working on a large scale. I am certain Lagna's favored could be of immense assistance in winkling out whatever technical issues are holding back the progress of this civic endeavor, should he choose to be. See Khoe Lund at Hanged House for more details.

    On another, wholly unrelated matter, I note that the Crown's tax exemption for Lagna's temple expires in six short months, barring a grant of renewal...

    Your servant,

    Lord Hartreid Morno, Governor of Lucernis, etc., etc.

    And the next thing I knew, it seemed, Jessep and I were navel-deep in a cesspit, hunting a shit demon.

    SOME BRIGHT SPARK HAD come up with the idea of burning Lucernis's shit instead of dumping it into the River Ose. It wasn't a bad idea in and of itself; Lucernis sat atop a reserve of natural gas that was already put to use lighting many of the city's streets. Using that same resource to incinerate the city's considerable waste couldn't help but reduce disease. And stench. Lucernis was the largest city in the West, and smelled like it.

    The problem is, it doesn't work, Khoe Lund told me when I met him at Hanged House. He scratched his big, curly-haired head with thick, blunt, none-too-clean fingers.

    Could you be a little more specific?

    The shit won't burn, holiness, and pardon my coarse language.

    The proper title is 'revered', actually, Jessep told him.

    Master Lund has to deal with shit all day, boy; let's not give him any more. Coming to Hanged House, I'd been of a mind to give everyone in my way a verbal battering. But Khoe Lund had one of those plain, affable faces, and his manner was sincerely apologetic from the moment I'd laid eyes on him. It would've been like kicking a puppy. Also, he was a very large man. I'd decided to reserve my ire for the one who deserved it – Lord Morno.

    "Master Lund, it's my understanding of the state of nature that anything will burn, if you get it hot enough. Even rock."

    Aye, that's true, revered. Anything at all. Except, it seems, Lucernan turds. Which is why we're all so puzzled, and why the powers that be here at the House prevailed upon the Lord Governor to ask you to consult with us.

    Well, I suppose we should begin with what process you are using to burn the sewage.

    Oh, aye. I'd be happy to show you the prototype and mock-up here in the workshop, and then we can go to site, if you're of a mind to.

    I'm of a mind to take a nap, but since that's not likely, lead on, master Lund.

    Hanged House – originally called DeGris House – was an exceedingly large structure that had once belonged to the hereditary rulers of the city. When Morno had had the DeGris scion executed for gross perfidy and all the Degris properties confiscated, the DeGris name had died a sudden death at all levels of society. Lord DeGris had gotten his neck stretched at Traitor's Gate. In vulgar, semi-witty Lucernan fashion, DeGris House had quickly been renamed Hanged House by some wag. The name had stuck.

    The house had stood empty for better than a decade. Eventually it had been granted to the Royal Society of Arts and Letters, and all manner of experimenters, artists, poets, philosophers, and other, even more disagreeable folk had taken up residence with the Crown's blessing.

    Lund led us through a warren of rooms and hallways until we came to what had at one time been the attached carriage house. I knew we were getting close before he said anything. There was a distinct smell of shit and noxious gas.

    Inside the workshop, we were confronted with master Lund's incinerator, in miniature. The scaled-down version still stood taller than me. It was also in pieces.

    We've been going over and over it. It works fine. Its big brother doesn't, and we just can't figure out why.

    Perhaps you can walk me through what's supposed to be happening here, I said. Also, something to sit on would be nice.

    Jessep found an empty crate for me to perch on, and Lund set about explaining how his contraption worked.

    As you can see, revered, the incinerator is basically barrel-shaped. The sewage gets pumped in at the top, in the form of sludge. Gas is fed to the hearth areas via this pipe, and is ignited via this clever little striking mechanism. There are three chambers within for drying, burning and cooling. Gases are discharged here at the top, and ash gets removed at the bottom. These rabble arms act as rakes, and are present at each of the hearth areas to keep the sewage moving, to prevent back-ups. Here we power them by hand, but at the site, we use oxen.

    I studied the thing for a while. It was really rather clever. I’d no idea how much sewage one of these things could deal with on a practical level, or how many would be needed to take care of Lucernis’s waste, but that wasn’t my concern.

    "So where specifically

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