God Conqueror 2

by Logan Jacobs

  “We are Qaar’endoth’s consorts,” Florenia said.

  “Well, not all of them are exactly my--” I began to explain with a worried look at Elodette.

  “Where are the rest?” Danazar inquired.

  “Er,” I said. “The rest of what?”

  “Your consorts,” he said as if it were obvious.

  “Um, I don’t, have any other consorts?”

  Danazar looked shocked, as shocked as most people looked at the idea of my living with several lovers at once. “Only four?” he exclaimed. “And you call yourself a god!”

  I blinked. “Well, I don’t really define my divinity by the number of women I--”

  Danazar laughed and shook his head. “Well, do not worry, my friend, I am sure you shall acquire plenty more soon,” he said. “And it would be an honor for you and your companions to join me and mine. I am sure we all have much to learn from each other. Many tales to exchange. It is rare that we encounter anyone so interesting on our travels.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “We really appreciate the invitation, and we’ll try to be helpful along the way.”

  “All right, come on then, we’ll get something to eat, and then we’ll get your horses acquainted with the camels, while these lot pack up all their stuff,” Kiki said as she gestured impatiently at her caravan leader and his twelve pouting wives.

  We left them in the room, and the caravan members led me and my party back downstairs.

  The inn’s kitchen supplied us with a meal as wonderful as the one we had had the night before, consisting of stewed oats in thick, sweet coconut milk with other unfamiliar grains and seeds mixed in, more of the date pudding, some thick yogurts with fruit that even Ilandere enjoyed, and some circular loaves of braided seed bread. Instead of honey mead, there was hot tea, coffee, and warm sweetened milk for drinking.

  Once our bellies were full, we went outside and retrieved Generosity, Virility, Fury, Slayer, and Chivalry from the stables. Meanwhile, Kiki and her friends retrieved some of their caravan’s camels.

  I had never seen a camel before, and they proved to be extremely peculiar-looking beasts. They were even taller than the horses, but awkward, ungainly, and fragile-looking, with huge humped bodies balanced on top of long gangly legs. Their eyes were large and brown, their lips floppy and drooping. They smelled less than pleasant and seemed to drool a lot.

  Generosity snuffled the camels curiously and got an eyeful of spittle for his efforts. Slayer on the other hand snorted and tried to pull away from them.

  “Well, you’ll just have to find a way to get along,” Willobee told him with a trace of vindictive pleasure. I was pretty sure he still hadn’t quite forgiven the destrier for launching him off his back like a sack of potatoes during that rockslide on Mount Ugga.

  By that time, the rest of the caravan had gradually traipsed out of the inn, and the courtyard filled up with about sixty people plus their camels. They started loading all of their belongings onto the camels’ backs. This looked like a precarious operation to me, but they tied everything down, and had presumably done it countless times before.

  Fury snorted impatiently, no doubt thinking that it never took our own small group this long to get prepared to go somewhere.

  I patted him on the neck. “Don’t worry, boy, trust me, it’s worth it,” I said softly. From the information that I had gleaned about the desert so far, from the caravan’s remarks last night and from the gambling game they called Sandmaster, I wasn’t sure it was a place that my companions and I could have survived on our own without the guidance of people more experienced in navigating its perils. These perils apparently included sandstorms, quicksand, and sandworms, as well as hostile caravans that basically did operate as pirates, except that they traveled by camel instead of on a ship.

  The last members of the caravan to emerge were Danazar and his twelve wives, who by that time were not only fully clothed, but were also excessively accessorized in so much gold jewelry that it seemed like they would be in danger of sinking into the sand, and their eyes were darkened with charcoal and their lips painted with some kind of red substance.

  The caravan began to arrange itself in a vaguely linear formation. Danazar moved up to the head, toward a tall camel that was decked out in gold trim as if for a parade. His wives, however, moved to the middle of the line, and I realized that they didn’t have camels of their own. Instead, there were six litters waiting for them, attended by other caravan members, and I realized that they intended to be carried across the desert.

  Kiki noticed where I was looking and grimaced at me.

  “Doesn’t that… get a bit tiring?” I asked. “For the litter bearers, I mean? And if there’s a sandstorm… or sandworms, or something… wouldn’t it be better to have their hands free?”

  Kiki shook her head in contempt. “We just all keep our fingers crossed every time Danazar asks a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage that he says no,” she replied. Then she glanced at my four “consorts,” including the two centaurs, and a flash of worry crossed her face. “Er, they don’t… yours don’t… they weren’t planning to…. ”

  I laughed.

  “We can ride thanks very much,” Lizzy said as she patted Generosity’s neck. “Or walk on our own damn two feet if it comes to it.”

  “Four hooves,” Elodette corrected her.

  Kiki looked relieved. “Right then.”

  The town was set about ten miles back from the edge of the desert, so we weren’t immediately stepping off into sand. Instead, first the entire caravan of over sixty members, twelve of whom insisted upon riding inside cumbersome litters, plus my attachment of eight, about twenty camels, and our five horses had to squeeze through the cobblestone streets of the town. A lot of the townspeople shouted out names as they recognized passing faces and smiled and waved.

  “So, uh, your caravan passes through here pretty often?” I asked Kiki. Two of my selves were riding towards the rear with Kiki, Zembo, and my five friends. My other self went up ahead to keep an eye out for whatever was going on up in the front of the procession.

  “Yup, we make about eight round trips a year, between Pandrosy, that’s the town we just left, and Bjurna, where we’re headed,” she said. She was wearing the same bright orange scarves as yesterday, but they seemed to be wrapped around her body in a slightly different arrangement, perhaps to provide more coverage from the sun and sand or to allow for greater mobility. Her faintly leathery skin suggested that her age was somewhere around forty, but she had the energy and spryness of a much younger woman. “Each crossing takes about four to twelve days each way.”

  “Um, four to twelve days?” I repeated. “You mean, depending on whether you have camels to carry your stuff or not? Or is it the litters that makes the difference?”

  “Oh, the camels help, and the litters don’t,” Kiki replied, “but it’s the sandstorms that make the real difference. Sometimes, you get buried in sand or the sand fills up your lungs, and you suffocate and die. More often, inexperienced travelers get lost and then they wander in the wrong direction and die of thirst.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said. I suppose these were the kinds of practical questions that it would have made sense to ask the night before, but the caravan members hadn’t been remotely interested in discussing anything of the sort. They were far more interested in hearing Willobee’s songs, attempting the impossible gnomish riddles he posed to them, and repeatedly trying to figure out how the hell he was swindling them out of every piece of gold they put up as stakes. Oddly enough, not a single one of them actually seemed to object to the fact that he was doing so. They seemed to consider cheating at gambling to be fair game in a certain sense, the natural thing to do and in fact a demonstration of your superior skill, as long as you didn’t get caught.

  From my other mouth, I said, “Last night, before you started talking to me and my friends, I overheard how your caravan kept toasting all those people… I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what happene
d to them? Was it a sandstorm?”

  “Ah, yes, Miree’s caravan,” Kiki said sadly. “Miree was a cousin of Danazar’s… it wasn’t a sandstorm that got them, it was the worms.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Ah, so am I, so am I,” Kiki sighed.

  “It is regrettable,” Zembo spoke up, “but it is a natural part of the merchant life cycle, yes? We buy, we sell, we die.”

  “Well, I suppose that does rhyme,” Willobee said doubtfully, “but I don’t know that there is much, ah, spiritual solace or philosophical revelation in that sentiment.”

  “It’s not supposed to be poetry, it’s supposed to be true,” Zembo replied.

  “Poetry is more true than facts are,” Willobee asserted.

  “I don’t know about that,” Zembo said doubtfully.

  “Well, Willobee is much cleverer than you are, my love,” Kiki pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Zembo grumbled, “but that doesn’t mean he’s right about everything.”

  “Some of what he says is brilliant, but most of it is nonsense,” Florenia told them.

  “Hmm, yes, I’ve met a lot of folks like that,” Kiki said thoughtfully. “I think too much sun gets to them after a while. Kind of bakes their brains a different color.”

  “My brain is iridescent,” Willobee said. “Most people’s are just monochrome.”

  “How would ya know a thing like that?” Lizzy snorted. “Did you get your head cut open to have a look-see?”

  “Some things, you just have to take on faith,” the gnome replied.

  “The only thing that I have true faith in is Qaar’endoth,” Florenia said.

  “That’s not called faith, after all the cool shit we seen him do by now, we know what he’s capable of because of our own eyes,” Lizzy objected.

  “Yes, it’s rational to believe in Vander,” Elodette surprised me by agreeing. She noticed me staring at her and added quickly, “I don’t mean as a god. That’s ridiculous. I just mean, as someone who will get something done if he says that he will.”

  Kiki squinted at us in confusion. “So are you a god or ain’t you?” she asked me. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge either way. Just curious is all.”

  “I… don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I mean, I kind of hope I am, only because that would give me a better chance of accomplishing my quest. But, I don’t know if I’m really special enough to call myself that. It was just something an oracle said once that gave me the idea.”

  “Well, what did the oracle say?” Kiki asked.

  I recited Aurelana’s words. “The faithful will perish, save for the strongest of them all, and that one will be the vessel of Qaar’endoth. And the vessel shall be multiplied with each proof of fealty. And from the alliance of the faithless shall come the age of Qaar’endoth.”

  “Hmm, so you’re supposed to be this Qaar’endoth guy?” Kiki said thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know,” I repeated, “but the high priest of my temple, Father Ludo, thought so. All the members of my order were slain by Thorvinian raiders, and I was the only survivor. And I’ve been multiplying myself by setting up statues at altars. Well, I’ve done it once so far, anyway. Not counting the time that I fixed the statue at Qaar’endoth’s altar, because that gave me my second self back too. So I kind of know it works? So, I don’t know, but at least some parts of the prophecy do fit.”

  “All of it fits,” Florenia said.

  “Well, I don’t really know you, and I don’t know anything about Qaar’endoth,” Kiki said, “but I really hope you are a god.”

  “You do?” I said. “Thanks, but… how come? Since you don’t know me?”

  “I just think it would be really cool if gods were like humans, and you could talk to them, like I’m doing with you right now,” Kiki explained.

  “Shoragua is our god,” Zembo said warningly, “and Shoragua keeps us alive in the desert.”

  “You know that I am loyal to Shoragua,” Kiki replied. “I just wish I could have a conversation with him once in a while, that’s all.”

  By then, we had left the town behind, and were spreading out more comfortably as a caravan across a sparse and dusty field of grass while the sun grew hotter and hotter.

  When we finally reached the desert proper, even though my companions and I had already sort of seen it from the summit of Mount Ugga, I was once again struck with awe. From atop the mountain range tens of miles away, it had looked like a flat, bare expanse. From up close, I could see that it was composed of seemingly endless rolling golden dunes. I could see how easy it would be to get lost in a place like this, especially in the midst of a sandstorm, and never be able to find your way out.

  “I ain’t never seen anything like it,” Lizzy said wonderingly.

  “Our herd used to cover so many miles every single day, but… we always kind of looped around our same forest,” Ilandere agreed thoughtfully.

  “The forest has all the things a sensible creature needs to survive,” Elodette declared as she stared out at the desert that stretched before us. “This place… has none of those things.”

  “I knew deserts existed, theoretically,” Florenia said. “I mean, I’ve read about them. But none of the books discussed them in much detail. They were mostly just mentioned as the natural boundaries between territories that tended to inhibit expansion because they make it impractical to sustain supply lines.”

  “You, Willobee?” I asked, since he was the only member of my party who hadn’t yet spoken up on the subject of deserts yet.

  “Well, I have traversed many a cultural desert in my day,” the gnome replied. “And, uh, I have observed the sands of time sweep over and obscure what once used to be. But that’s… that’s all I got.”

  “Collective experience: zero,” Lizzy summarized unhelpfully.

  “That’s what friends are for,” Willobee said as he gestured at the camel-driving merchants surrounding us.

  “Welcome to our second home!” Danazar shouted exuberantly to my self that was up front near him. “The desert is the tempestuous mistress of my people, and alas, the grave of far too many of us. But her fickle favor is also the source of our wealth and fame. Because lesser mortals dare not tread upon her sands, they pay us to carry their stuff back and forth instead.”

  “Er, what kind of stuff, exactly?” I asked.

  “We transport courage, bliss, and delusions of grandeur,” the caravan leader answered solemnly. “Of the powdered variety.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Is that, er, you know, lawful?”

  “That depends on which lord or king you answer to,” Danazar replied.

  “… And which do you and your people answer to?” I asked.

  “Shoragua alone,” he declared proudly.

  Back towards the rear of the caravan, I squinted at Willobee suspiciously and wondered whether he had already known that our guides were drug dealers of questionable legality. Also potentially troublesome, what if the little gnome had known, and was hoping to sample some of their wares? Well, there was no point worrying about that now. Royal officials would have a pretty hard time throwing me and my companions in a dungeon and living to tell the tale. But it probably wouldn’t take a sandstorm much effort at all to swallow us all whole. So I was going to take my chances with the people who might be able to help us avert the latter fate.

  For the time being, the fearsome desert actually seemed pretty tranquil. We traipsed along for a few minutes. Then, the merchants suddenly veered left at a sharp angle and picked up the pace significantly, so that I could hear the horses and the centaurs start to pant with exertion. I knew that slogging through the soft sand took a lot more effort per step than just clopping along hard ground, although it wasn’t as nerve-wracking the way navigating the sharp rocks and the steep drop-offs of Mount Ugga had been.

  I fell back in step with Ilandere to keep an eye on her since I was the most worried about the delicate little princess. As for Elodette, she plowed on with a grim expression and le
ft deeper hoofprints than any other member of the caravan. I knew the brunette centaur would die before she admitted to having any difficulty with something that a camel could do, so I knew better than to inquire about her wellbeing.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Ilandere, whose face was even whiter than usual.

  “Yes,” she gasped out.

  “Hand me Willobee,” I said. “He can ride on Virility with me for a while.”

  Ilandere nodded gratefully. But before she could reach behind her for the gnome, the entire caravan came to a sudden dead halt, and Virility’s nose bumped into a camel’s ass, and he gave a disgusted snort.

  “Er, what’s the matter?” I asked Kiki in a low voice. “Why are we stopped right now? Did someone spot something up ahead?”

  “No,” she said. “We just have to keep changing up our pace and direction. Randomize it.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  Zembo spoke up. “Because Shoragua prefers it that way. If we do not comply with his wishes, he sends sandworms to devour us.”

  “I see,” I said. “What kind of god is Shoragua? What’s his personality like, and what is he in charge of?”

  “He is the god of desert survival,” Kiki answered. “His element is water. He appears as mists and lakes and lets his people drink of his own being to save them from perishing. But if you displease him he is without mercy. He only has a few simple rules, so it is not hard to obey him. And they only apply in the desert. He doesn’t really care how we behave when we are in the more temperate realms.”

  “That doesn’t really sound like a god to me,” Lizzy said skeptically. “It sounds like a bunch of practical rules someone made up and then they called the rules a god so that people would listen. But they didn’t even give him a face or nothing.”

  “I have beheld the face of Shoragua,” Kiki replied earnestly. “It is not a human face, but it is a face nonetheless. Shoragua only appears to his people in times of utmost need, so you had better hope you don’t meet him.”

  “Step more softly,” one of the caravan women cautioned Elodette.