Gorel and the Pot Bellied God (9 page)

‘You are not afraid?’

Gorel sighed, expelling bubbles. ‘If you wanted me dead,’ he said, ‘it would have been done by now, I expect.’

‘You don’t like gods, do you?’ Tharat said. Gorel shrugged.

‘But you like what we can give,’ Tharat said.

Gorel remained impassive. He was aware of the god’s power, in the water, on his skin, in his mind. The black kiss, the ultimate bliss from which there was no escape… Tharat said, ‘What we give, so we can take away.’

The pain was not physical. It was the opposite of that, an absence rather than a presence, but it was terrifying, a sucking great vacuum that had engulfed Gorel, emptied him, took away from him everything but need, until his whole being had been reduced to a desperate want, a single desire, that hurt and hurt and would not be fulfilled. He had no language, no thought. If he had, he might have whispered, ‘Stop…’

‘My predecessor did well with you,’ Tharat said, though the words were meaningless slivers of pain as they trickled through the thing that was Gorel, the thing that was burning, desperate need. ‘Very well indeed. Here –’ and something let go, went loose, and inside Gorel sanity dribbled back, like smoke, and he gasped. ‘Almost too well,’ Tharat said. ‘Perhaps you are not as useful to me as I thought.’

I should kill him, Gorel thought. But he could not move. He was bound by the god’s dark drug. More, his mind, his body, wanted to shout. Give me more.

‘Still, you fight well,’ the god said. ‘And you’re tenacious. It’s a shame you had to spoil so many of my children. A shame, too, that you did not accede to Mistress Sinlao’s request… it would have been good to have your blood-line added to the –’ the god shuddered and his shape flowed again and he was a mimic of Gorel: a smiling one. ‘Gorel of Goliris,’ he said. ‘I have heard stories of your home. You hope the Mirror will help you return there?’

‘Yes,’ Gorel said. The black kiss had him bound, but he fought it. His hand inched its way to the gun by his side.

‘I will help you,’ the god said. That took Gorel by surprise.

‘Why?’

‘Mysterious are the ways of the gods,’ Tharat said.

Fuck you, Gorel thought but didn’t say. The truth was that gods were nothing more or less than a concentration of their followers’ own forces, primeval and raw. Gods were hunger and pain, orgasm and beauty, cruelty and fear and love. They were a drug, potent and enticing, a constant temptation that fed you just as they, in their turn, were fed. ‘What do you want?’ Gorel said.

‘I want you to find the mirror,’ Tharat said.

‘Why?’

And then – ‘You want it, and you can’t get to it.’

The god roared. The pain of withdrawal was inside Gorel again but this time he fought it, and the gun was in his hand and he pointed it not at the god but at himself. The pain stopped. ‘Find the mirror,’ the god said. It bore now the shape of an enormous frog. ‘I will not interfere. Now go.’

The water exploded. A maelstrom pulled at Gorel. He was sucked into a tunnel of water, and the colours of the world were washed away.

Part Three

The Shadow from the West

They were deep into the maze of Wat Falang and the silence was oppressive. The only sound that could be heard was of water dripping slowly down the moss-covered walls. Gorel stalked ahead, hand on the butt of his gun. Sereli walked behind. The girl Tonar, who he had rescued from the Mothers, was by Gorel’s side. He reached out to her, held her hand, and she smiled at him, though there was tension in her eyes. Behind them Sereli snorted. Gorel ignored her. They were inside a tunnel, and there seemed to be no way out. They had been walking through the tunnels for what seemed like hours. ‘Does she know where we are?’ Sereli said. Gorel, not turning around, said, ‘She has a name. Ask her yourself.’

Sereli snorted again.

‘It’s not far,’ the girl, Tonar, said, but she sounded less than convinced. ‘When I served we did not use the tunnels much. We moved above-ground. This place –’ Gorel felt her fingers tighten around his – ‘it is the realm of the underworld, it does not belong to Her, nor entirely to Him.’

‘Looks like disused sewers to me,’ Sereli said. ‘Smells like it, too.’

Gorel didn’t agree, but kept his own counsel. The place smelled empty, disused, and yet not abandoned.
Something
lived down here, he could feel it, sense it in the air currents and the dripping water. Something bad. He thought again about the Mother’s children, those half-breed creatures he had reluctantly killed, and of the god Tharat. His old friend, the wizard Champol, had warned him once: Never put yourself between two gods for, like two walls, they would close in on you until they crush you. Well, here he was, against advice, with the elusive pot-bellied god on the one side, and the river god on the other, and his choices reduced to none. He did not like gods. Once, he had killed one, and been cursed by her forever. The need of the black kiss was in him, never fully satiated, but he ignored it, or tried to. The silence was oppressive. The tunnel forked ahead. Tonar said, ‘Left,’ and they followed the path without comment, even Sereli, as it descended further, going down, down, down into the bowels of the earth.

Kettle was not there. Kettle was to fly above, provide aerial support if the need arose. He had already flown over the temple, but could not, he said, come close to the inner court, what Tonar, like Mistress Sinlao, had called the
sanctum sanctorum
, the holiest place. Winds had buffeted the Avian, set him off-course. It was there they needed to arrive: a small, secluded garden in the heart of the temple complex, beyond walls upon walls and guards upon guards, and with a hunting party already set out after them – after Gorel, at least.

He had come back to the World from the place of gods, rising out of water in the dank canal that lay beside the Sorcerer’s Head, and when he pulled himself out of the water faeces had clung to his hair and his clothes, a little farewell message from Tharat. He found Kettle with the girl, Tonar, in the second room from the left which they had made their temporary home. Sereli was sitting by the window, scowling. When Gorel came through the door she looked up and said, ‘You stink.’

Without comment he stripped, and went to the tub of water that sat by the wall, and doused himself. ‘Need a hand?’ Sereli said, materialising behind him. Then soapy hands were on his taut stomach, rubbing up to his chest, the soap foaming, and her hand slipped down and held him there, between his legs, and he hardened. ‘Let me clean that for you,’ Sereli murmured. Her breath was against his back and he could feel her small breasts pressing against him. He doused himself with more water and turned. The girl Tonar was staring at him, her eyes large in her face, and he grinned.

Sereli continued to massage his cock. All the while he was looking into the girl’s eyes and she sat there, looking back at him, her expression – he could not quite read her expression.

He came in Sereli’s hand. The falang girl never moved. Sereli said, ‘Feeling better, gunslinger?’ and there was laughter in her voice.

He didn’t answer; turned; and washed himself clean at last.

‘Where’s Kettle?’ he heard Sereli say, and when he turned around again, drying himself on a dirty-brown towel, realised the Avian had gone from the room.

‘What’s this?’ Sereli speaking, the tunnel magnifying her words. He let go of Tonar’s hand and drew his gun, slowly. Ahead of them the tunnel seemed to open into a space, but it was dark. He had the sense of something moving there, of things watching, waiting. ‘Does she know?’ Sereli said.

There was, Gorel noticed, a strange sign carved into the wall. He looked at it. ‘What does it mean?’ he asked. The falang girl looked at it, her long green fingers studying the ancient design.

‘I don’t…’ she said at last. And then, ‘The Cavern of Sleep? No, it can’t be.’

‘When people say it can’t be, it usually is,’ Sereli said.

‘Is what?’ Tonar said.

‘Trouble.’

Gorel squinted ahead. ‘What is the Cavern of Sleep?’

‘I have never seen it myself. It is only a story.’

‘Stories have a way of coming true around here, it seems.’

The falang girl looked away from him. ‘It is from the story of the princess and the frog,’ she said. ‘The Mothers talk about the First Spawn Cycle but there is another story, that there were other cycles before that, the Unknown Cycles, as the god and his human mistress tried to bring children to the world.’

‘Please, no more children!’ Gorel said. Sereli chuckled softly behind.

‘The story – I heard it from one of the old women who trained me in the temple – is that some of the get from the Unknown Cycles did not die, but rather were thrown below ground, into a Cavern of Sleep. There they wait until they are called again, when the world is ended, and there are no more men or frogs or falangs. If this sign is right, then this is the Cavern – but I don’t believe it. It is only a story. More likely it is an old storage place.’

‘But you didn’t know it was here?’

She looked confused. ‘They say the Cavern moves. It is not always in the same place. If this is it –’

‘Gorel, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about,’ Sereli said. ‘That seems pretty obvious now. We’re lost. Let’s get out of here.’

‘Go back?’

‘Do you want to try it ahead?’

‘We can try not to wake anything up…’

‘But you have a propensity to doing exactly that.’

Gorel smiled. ‘I’ll go ahead and check it.’

Tonar clutched his hand. ‘No, don’t!’ Behind them Sereli snorted again. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. She strode past them. In her hands she held a long, thin tube of bluish metal. Gorel hadn’t seen her holding one before. ‘Where did you get that?’ he said.

‘None of your fucking business,’ she said. It was a Merlangai gun, and it bore the marks of the Drowned God. ‘Be careful,’ Gorel said, and Sereli laughed, turned back, and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, her tongue darting for just a fraction of a second into his mouth. Then she turned and stepped into the darkness ahead.

When Kettle came back into the room Gorel was sleeping. He had been woken up by the Avian. When he opened his eyes it was light outside, and Sereli was sleeping the other side of the room and – he felt a sudden, unexpected pang of jealousy, like a shard of glass tearing through his heart – she was holding the falang girl in her thin arms. Kettle grinned down at him and said, softly, ‘Get up.’

Gorel rose and stretched. Kettle motioned him to the small table. There were two small cups and a kettle sitting on its unvarnished surface. Kettle poured them a drink. ‘Coffee,’ he said, unnecessarily.

Gorel drank. The hot liquid burned his mouth. He put the cup down and extracted his small packet of dust. Kettle put his hand on Gorel’s arm. ‘This early?’

‘This late,’ Gorel said. He pinched a small quantity of dust between his fingers and brought it up to his nose. Then he looked back at Kettle.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Keeping my ears open. You’re a wanted man.’

Gorel nodded, the dust making him alert and yet strangely calm. ‘I’ve been told that before.’

Kettle didn’t laugh. ‘And this place isn’t safe any more. We need to make our move. Now.’

Gorel nodded again. He thought again of Tharat and felt hatred of the god rise in him. All gods, he thought. This was beyond wanting the mirror now, beyond, even, his eternal quest for his home. He was being played, he knew it. And he did not like that. ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

Before he fell asleep he had cleaned his guns, over and over, until they shone, and he had gone through his effects, choosing with care his weapons. He knew he would need all of them, when the time came. Now he dressed, unhurriedly, and strapped the gun-belt around his waist, and looked down at the seated Kettle and grinned, and said, ‘Let’s go on a treasure hunt.’

They roused the girls. Tonar was willing to show them the way. Kettle, it was agreed, would keep watch from outside. The way in, Tonar said, was through a hidden tunnel opening outside the temple walls. They departed as the air was still cool and the last of the Sorcerer’s Head clientele were snoring on cushions in the long corridors. No one saw them depart. They walked through the city streets as the sun rose overhead. Kettle, without words, spread his wings and with a gust of wind that stirred the dust on the road took to the skies.

The entrance to the tunnels was covered in a round metal disc. Gorel loosened it and lifted it up with difficulty. Below it looked dark and the smell wasn’t good. Tonar went in first. He followed her. Sereli came last.

They walked through the tunnels.