Gorel and the Pot Bellied God (4 page)

The falang merchant’s two long boats were gone.

He scanned the river but could find no trace of them. The river stretched empty before him in both directions. The sun glinted on the water. Gorel looked at the ground. There, his feet, and there the heavy bulk of the merchant as he dragged him. And there… there were other marks there, of smaller naked feet of a different sort. Webbed they were, and light, but very pronounced there in the mud. Two pairs of feet, not one, and going away from the river, following his own running steps as he came the other way, and fell blinded into the water.

He followed his own footsteps back now, and saw how the others matched them. They ended in the clearing. His knife still lay on the ground. Its blade was crusted with blood. He picked it up. He had hit at the merchant, yes. But did he cut? He bent down and tried not to gag. Shit had crusted on the merchant’s legs where it dripped out of him the night before. He examined the gash in the merchant’s belly. A wide, deep cut – and another, and another, sending out a river of blood, splattering whoever held the knife. And yet, Gorel remembered no blood on his hands, on his face. The falang’s acid, yes. But that, and nothing more. Two pairs of feet, and he could put faces, if not names, to them. Apprentice and Niece, he thought, and for the first in a long time a smile came to his face. With Gorel cast as Culprit, and thank you so much. He followed their footsteps again. Back to the river, by a different route, leaving him well alone. He followed them into the river. The water of Tharat soothed his aching skin. He paddled up-river and onto the other side of Tharat, to the place where the falangs had made their camp.

Packed in a hurry, he thought, looking at the ground. Packed and glided down-river like two fleeting shadows, and well on their way home now, Uncle and Master Procurator left behind for good. He almost felt nostalgic. To be young again… he laughed.

When he looked at his reflection in the water he saw puss. The falang had hurt him. But Gorel had been hurt before.

To work, then. Quickly, yes, but methodically too. First, the body. He removed the ropes and stowed them away. What to do with the corpse? He glanced at the river and thought – no. It was not meant for Tharat.

In the end he dug a grave, and rolled the merchant into it. He covered up the pool of drying blood and body fluids. He removed all traces of himself from that spot. The grave could be noticed – would be noticed. But he would be long gone by then.

He returned the short distance up-river. His graal was still there, still hidden in the shrubbery. It was absorbing sunlight, its jade carapace glimmering. Its long, curved tail was up, gathering moisture. A desert animal, getting drunk on the abundance of water in the air. Gorel roused him. The Graal stood, insectoid legs graceful against the ground. Then they rode away from that place.

For two days and two nights Gorel encountered no living being. He stayed away from the river and the river-road, and skirted any sign of habitation, human or otherwise. Only once did he sense something nearby, a sound as of great beating wings, and a shadow fleeing in the sky, but nothing more than that. This was pleasant, temperate land, but he was now in a buffer zone, of sorts, this almost-empty land separating the human settlements of the south with their falang neighbours up north. As pleasant as it was, the land here was a sort of fence, and he knew that once he’d crossed from one side of it to the other he would be a trespasser, and worse: they may be expecting him.

The merchant would be missed. And when the young couple, really not more than children – and certainly as cunning – arrived with their story already prepared and tested for faults, it would be a human killer the falang will be looking for. And yet the children would not want him caught. No doubt they were praying – but to which god? – that he was long gone, and in the opposite direction to Falang-Et. Well, Gorel thought, in that he’d have to disappoint them.

On the third night he camped by a tributary of Tharat, a narrow and clear brook whose water was cold and its touch refreshing. The burns on his face were healing. Having washed, Gorel built a small fire and dried himself beside it. For a long moment he was still. He felt no urgency. There was always the road, and he must always follow it, until Goliris could be found, until revenge could be exacted and right of birth returned. But he had learned patience, he had no choice. And so he sat and stared at the fire and remembered… there was a secret room his father once showed him, its entrance concealed in one of the disused corridors of the Dark Wings of the Palace, where the immense building faced onto the impenetrable jungles which seemed always to whisper in a voice like the rustling of leaves, and to conspire endlessly, and fight against the Palace’s intrusion into their grounds. To be of Goliris was to be of sea and of jungle, and to be king and ruler of both. His father had taken him into the corridor and pressed a hidden lever and a section of the wall opened before them. They entered the space beyond. Another corridor, a secret one. They followed it, deep down under the palace, where the space opened and the darkness was of a humid, itching quality, the darkness of the jungle. His father had lit a torch. A wind tried to blow it away and the king of Goliris hissed and the wind silenced at his command. In the light of the torch Gorel saw a great hall, or perhaps it was a cave, naturally made. There were many ancient roots dug into this place from high above. Ancient, but very much alive. ‘They had conspired against us, my son,’ his father had told him, ‘they had tried to impose chaos upon our order, and failed, and so now they belong to the jungle, as they must. Watch!’

And Gorel watched, and felt pride in his father. There were many men down there, in the dark, pale and naked like earthworms. Some women too, as naked and fleshless as the men, crawling in the dirt, speaking in no human tongue but in soft, pitiable moans and hisses. The roots were alive. The great fleshy roots of the trees high above moved here, in this underground cavern, with no water, no wind to move them. Of their own accord they writhed and thrashed, like questing fingers, and when they found the humans in their midst the fastened on to them with slow, but sure, greed.

‘Some of them have been here for decades,’ his father had told him, quiet pride in his voice. ‘From the time of your grandfather, and before. Look –’ and he took Gorel by the hand and they walked amidst the ploughed fields of the prisoners, and the roots shied away from them, and the prisoners whispered in their soft, sad voices and crawled away. They came to the opposite end of the tavern. Roots hang from the ceiling. ‘Every year he is fading more. But still he remains. Since before your grandfather’s days, he who was once a mighty sorcerer, and now there is no man living to remember his name. Look at him!’

Gorel looked, and saw the fat pale grub that clung amidst the roots, almost headless, merely a wide, gummy mouth fastened on the flesh of trees, and they in their turn had entered him throughout the years, had found his orifices and grown shoots inside them. The man was a fungus, feeding of the roots just as they fed of him. ‘I hope,’ his father said with the same quiet pride, and held Gorel’s hand stronger in his, ‘that one day you might take your own son down here, and show him the greatness, the durability of Goliris. Even our enemies we keep.’

‘You seem deep in thought, gunslinger. Missing home?’ the voice, cool and smooth and mocking, jerked him out of a half-dream and the guns were in his hands before the voice had finished speaking. A shadow rustled in the canopy of the trees. The voice had come from above. ‘Please refrain from shooting, if you possibly can.’

A mocking voice, and too close for comfort in its assumptions. ‘Show yourself,’ Gorel said.

‘Gladly.’ A shadow dropped down from the canopy and stretched itself lazily before Gorel. A high-pitched voice, melodic enough. An elongated, pale face, and a wiry body, and two great wings, now folded about him. An Avian – the same he had seen, a week or so before, stirring a fight in a drinking hole by the river. Gorel said, ‘You?’

‘So you remember me?’ the Avian’s eyes twinkled. They were large and black, looking like twin bruises set in his delicate face. Gorel made no reply, and the Avian chuckled. ‘I remember you,’ he said.

‘What do you want?’ he did not lower his guns. The Avian shrugged. ‘I saw your fire and desired some company.’ From a fold of cloth (he was very lightly dressed) beneath his wings he extracted a bottle. ‘Care to join me in a drink?’

No visible weapons, though he wouldn’t necessarily need them. He had flight, and nasty talons if he needed them, on both hands and feet. Gorel had fought for a time alongside a company of Avians in the Mesina Campaign; fought against them, too, when it came to that. ‘Sure,’ he said, holstering the guns without flourish. He was not fool enough to think this meeting was accidental, nor was he meant to think so. And he was curious.

‘Name’s Kettle,’ the Avian said, uncorking the bottle, taking a long gulp, and passing it to Gorel. Gorel drank. It was local rice whiskey, and potent; it nearly made him cough. ‘Gorel,’ he said. He sat back down, and the Avian joined him. He stretched against the trunk of a tree, wings rustling with the motion, opening a little on either side of him. There was something strangely sensuous about that movement; Gorel saw smooth, exposed skin, and muscles…

‘Where do you go, Kettle?’ Gorel said. Kettle titled his head sideways and looked at Gorel, smiling. Mocking, yes, but below that, something else too. ‘I rather fancy I am going the same way you are, Gorel.’

‘And where would that be?’

Kettle’s smile grew larger in reply. ‘What happened to your face?’ he said. Gorel touched the damage on his face. Already, new skin was growing there. ‘A little hunting accident,’ he said.

‘Nasty,’ Kettle said. ‘What were you hunting?’ and his smile grew even wider, revealing long, narrow, pointed teeth that glinted in the light of the fire. Gorel didn’t reply directly. ‘What are you hunting?’ he said, instead. ‘When you’re not fermenting brawls, that is.’

‘But it was fun, wasn’t it? Too bad you didn’t stay until the end,’ Kettle said.

‘Neither did you, if I recall correctly.’

‘Oh, I was there,’ the Avian said, and there was something so childishly gleeful in his voice that Gorel found himself smiling back. ‘Hovering?’ Gorel said. The Avian laughed. ‘I was, as you say, hovering,’ he agreed.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘Find the lay of the land. Find out what the locals think of the rising threat in the south, and if so what their plans may be.’

‘You said you flew from Der Danang to Ankhar, over the No Man’s Lands,’ Gorel said, remembering. ‘And that you were shot at over the Black Tor…’

‘You have a good memory, friend.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Gorel said, ‘but I can recognise shit when I smell it, and call it by its name.’

‘I’m not sure I get your meaning…’

‘If you came from anywhere, Avian, it would be
from
the Black Tor, I would say. An agent of this mysterious new mage I keep hearing about?’

Somehow, Kettle contrived to look both bored and amused. ‘It’s a possibility,’ he agreed. ‘And you, Gorel? Do
you
have an employer?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘But sometimes you are for hire.’

‘Sometimes we are all for hire, Avian.’

Kettle laughed. It was a laugh like the call of birds, high and penetrating. He made himself more comfortable against his tree and made a sign with his hand. Gorel passed him the bottle. ‘To your good health, Gorel not-for-hire,’ he said, and drank. ‘And to the health of Dornalji Spawn-Son, of the Fifth Pond Lineage, and M… Master of Procurement – or is it too late for that now?’

The gun was back in Gorel’s hand, and it was pointing at the Avian’s head. Kettle sighed and corked the bottle and leaned it gently beside him on the ground. ‘You are very attached to these toys of yours, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Please, put the gun away. You cannot resolve an argument with a gun.’

‘On the contrary,’ Gorel said, the gun steady in his hand, pointing directly between Kettle’s eyes, ‘I believe you can
always
resolve an argument with a gun.’

‘So direct,’ the Avian said, ‘so simple. If only life were like that, gunslinger.’ He raised his hands, stretched them upwards, a faint grin etched on his face. Gorel couldn’t help but be distracted somehow by the way the Avian’s flesh moved under his wings, tender skin covering lithe, sinuous muscles. ‘Please.’

‘You were spying on me.’

‘It is my job,’ the Avian said, and for the first time all hint of a smile disappeared from his face. ‘It’s what I do. I spy. You kill, but do I hold that against you?’

‘I kill when I have to.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Why were you spying on me?’

‘Oh, I was curious,’ the Avian said, and the smile returned to his face. His wings opened and closed, creating a slow, steady beat against his body. ‘A lone human, and a gunman besides, travelling up river to the frog-tribes’ lands – I had to ask myself why. And on whose behalf. And so –’and the smile widened again, and he licked his lips, with a small darting tongue that seemed to point, for just a fleeting moment, at Gorel – ‘I thought it might be enlightening to watch you. And it
was
! Imagine my surprise when I saw you crawling, stealthily, naked, through the water of mighty Tharat, and kidnapping that annoying little froggie, and tying him up!’