The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “You’re not?” he said.

  “Hey, it’s your lucky day,” Mauser said.

  “You need me, huh?”

  Gorel shrugged. “Where exactly is this temple?” he said.

  “Ever heard of Waterfalling?”

  “No, no,” Devlin said. He shook his head from side to side and began to back away from them. “No no no no no. I’m not going to no—”

  This time it was Mauser’s gun pointed at his face. Gorel looked at him, spat out the cigar, and smiled.

  “Do you want the job?” he said. “Or not?”

  His gun, pointed unwaveringly at Devlin’s face, was all the answer anyone needed.

  —

  They rode away from that abandoned place that day. They had left the dying god behind, and its worshippers clustered around it, feeding. Who knew, Gorel thought. Perhaps the god would thrive on its worshippers’ need. Perhaps it would grow, not diminish, and in years to come that lonely spot would be the birthplace of a new religion.

  Stranger things have happened.

  Though Devlin complained bitterly and at length about the loss of his property and its derivative income.

  They had served together on the ill-fated Mosina Campaign, in the Romango lands far from there. Gorel had been young, had only recently left the Lower Kidron. He’d sought employ with a group of mercenaries, each more savage and unruly than the other. They were a group of young bloods with a taste for murder: there was Gorel, and the half-Merlangai, Jericho Moon, and there was Devlin Fo-Fingga…

  But as tough as they thought they were, nothing could prepare them for the swamps of Mosina.

  …where tendrils of fog permeated the air.

  …where the landscape constantly shifted about them.

  …where people simply…disappeared.

  You could not fight what wasn’t there. And, separated from the main body of troops, their company sank deeper and deeper into the domain of the old ones.

  …what they were, these things which haunted the nightmarish swamps, he never learned. All he could remember was a circle of totemic poles rising suddenly out of the fog, hideous carved faces staring down on them, the eyes alive, and glinting…the mouths were cruel slashes, gouged into the wood.

  When they got hold of you…

  There was no getting away, and the screams of their victims pierced the fog and the eternal twilight of that place, lasting for hours, all through their slow and terrible sacrifice.

  It was this that he remembered, most of all. The endless screams, across the bogs.

  Only one got away.

  Devlin got away.

  He’d not lost so much as a finger.

  Only later did they realise what terrible bargain the thief had struck with the old ones. How he’d paid for his freedom with his comrades’ lives.

  A rat and a thief and a traitor, and Gorel wanted to kill him, but Mauser was right: they might need him for the job.

  They rode away from that desolate place and across the deadlands, heading towards the fertile places beyond.

  Gorel was no fool. He knew when he was being sold a dummy. But he owed Mauser, just as Mauser owed him, and the man had come looking for him specifically…the truth was he was curious. He had heard of this place they were travelling to.

  Waterfalling.

  8.

  They heard it long before they saw it.

  The great waterfall which gave the city its name fell down from the high plateau of Tarsh, which borders the deadlands on one side and reaches as far as the Zul-Ware’i mountains. In those mountains, where the twin and ancient races of the Zul and the Ware’i had died in their war of complete annihilation, the glaciers provided the water which fed the Nirian. It was a long, wide, and stately river, which flowed across that vast distance without undue hurry until reaching the sheer drop of rock that led its water, without warning, to plunge for a great distance down until it hit the Sacred Pool. It was not so much a pool, of course, as a wide if miniature lake. From there, the water flowed more gently, away from the Sacred Pool and into a carefully crafted series of canals and water-ways and an ingenious system of locks, around which there formed the numerous islands, embankments, and aits which formed the sprawling city itself.

  A rough-hewn path was cut into the side of the mountain, twisting and turning at a steep angle as it rose all the way up to the Tarsh plateau, allowing any resident of the city, when their time was due, to traverse it to the top of the waterfall. That path was long, and tortuous, and steep; and yet it was used. It was called the Path of Ascension.

  The sky was calm. The air smelled fresh and clear. A kingfisher flew against the sky. The colour of the water, as one approached, was a startling blue, and against it, the well-ordered flora of the city was in a range of vivid greens. Flowers bloomed everywhere in a cacophony of red and blue and yellow, and their scent filled the air like perfume. The houses were neat and built of wood and stood on stilts, and children ran laughing along the many bridges.

  It was, in nearly every way, a peaceful and idyllic scene, and it was only mildly spoiled, Gorel felt, by the still, serene, and perfectly preserved corpses in the water.

  But that came a little later.

  They approached the city just after dawn. A day’s ride away they had come to Mauser’s dead drop. There, Gorel found clothes, a stack of weapons that impressed even him, and a small, gaily painted wagon with the legend Mimes on it.

  Along with the wagon was a donkey.

  Gorel stared at the donkey, then he stared at Mauser.

  “All this just happened to be here?”

  “It pays to be prepared.”

  “But who’s doing the paying?”

  Mauser shrugged. “Does it matter, to you? A client’s a client.”

  “I don’t like the smell of this job, much,” Gorel said. Mauser grinned and tossed him a twisted packet of paper. Gorel unfolded it and stared at the powder…

  “Besides,” Mauser said. “It’s an old city, the foundations go back…who knows what arcane knowledge they have hidden there? Perhaps they would know of your homeland.”

  It was bait; Gorel knew it; Mauser knew it; Fo-Fingga, for sure, knew it.

  Yet that didn’t make it untrue.

  Gorel took a pinch, only a pinch of dust; just enough to quiet the craving. “All right,” he said. “But what about the wagon? No one is going to believe we’re anything other than what we are. Or fail to notice the weapons.”

  “I’ve got that covered, too,” Mauser said. Gorel stared at him in suspicion as the other man reached into a hidden bag the colour of bark and brought out three amulets. He handed one to Devlin and one to Gorel and kept one for himself.

  Gorel stared at the amulet. It was made of a warm metal and was light to the touch, and intricately carved with circles and lines that seemed to spell something to him, if only he could read their meaning…

  He knew what it was, of course. It reeked of sorcery.

  “They’re one-use,” Mauser said, almost apologetically. “But they’ll be enough to get us through. Just don’t put it on until we get close to the city.”

  “And this was provided…?”

  Mauser shrugged. “It’s not too late to back out,” he said. “If you don’t want the job.”

  “And what would you do without me?”

  “No one’s irreplaceable, Gorel.”

  They stared at each other, but there was no real question about the outcome.

  —

  The next morning, early, three humble mimes made their way in their gaudily painted cart across the plain to the city of Waterfalling. They were pulled by the small and patient donkey. They were not much to look at, three weather-beaten entertainers brought down by life on the road. One of them was missing a finger. They rode in silence and they could hear the city long before they reached it, the never-ceasing sound of an incredible volume of water falling from a great height until it hit the down-below.

  There were always rainbows ov
er Waterfalling. The constant spray of water in the air broke the light into joyous colour, while at night one witnessed the silvery form that comes when moonlight interacts with that same fog.

  To get to the city one had to cross the largest canal, which served as an effective moat around the city, barring invaders, and it was there that Gorel first saw the corpses. They floated just underneath the surface, their eyes open and serene, their noses pressed against the surface of the water as though ready, at any moment, to rise through and resume their lives. But their skins were leeched white, near translucent, and their depth never varied though sometimes they were pushed by the current as more corpses came down from…

  “The Sacred Pool,” Devlin whispered, and shuddered.

  “Shut up, fool!”

  Gorel’s hand was on the butt of his gun. He hoped the enchantment would do its work and conceal them.

  There were guards on the only gate, which blocked entry to the only bridge into the city. The guards were Ebong mercenaries, large beetle-like creatures with great helmet-like heads as opaque as polished black stone, and they held rifles.

  “Stop.”

  The mimes stopped obediently.

  “Purpose of visit?”

  “We are but humble entertainers, seeking to ply our humble trade—”

  “Do a mime.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, do a mime!”

  The next five minutes were some of the worst of Gorel’s life. Which was saying something. He, Mauser, and Devlin pranced and pretended to be trapped in invisible glass jars and to climb invisible ladders and to go down invisible stairs, and all in silence. They were terrible. Every moment Gorel expected the ruse to be discovered, and to enter a deadly shoot-out with the Ebong. They were not a race he liked to tangle with, at least, not without gaming the odds.

  When they were finished, however, there was a short hiss of noxious air which, for the Ebong, must have passed for enthusiastic clapping.

  “You can go. Warn you, though, not much call for mimes round here.”

  “And the rents are steep,” added his colleague.

  “Ask me, you’d be better off striking for the lowlands,” said a third. “Besides, you want to watch out you don’t hear the Call.”

  His colleagues turned their black helmet heads on him at that and the mercenary slunk away, or as much as an Ebong could ever be said to slink. The three mimes thanked the guards humbly, and rode through the open gate and across the bridge and into the city…

  And Gorel could hear it, now. And he realised he had been hearing it for some time, all through their approach to the city, though it was clearer now.

  A sort of faint crystal peal…

  A little sound of summoning, just at the edge of hearing.

  9.

  Once they were inside, the talismans began to lose their power. The three would-be robbers found a ramshackle inn that stood on an ait in the confluence of two of the smaller canals. There they checked their weapons while Mauser outlined the plan.

  How and when Gorel had met Mauser was a long and not entirely interesting story. It was during that unfortunate episode with the Demon-Priests of Kraag. Needless to say, both of them had barely escaped with their lives, and Mauser still had a neat little scar to show for it. Where he came from, Gorel was never entirely sure. He was a rare white-face, of a race of barbarians who lived high in the snow-peaked mountains of the Beyaz. Gorel trusted him—as much as he could be said to trust anyone. Devlin he didn’t trust at all, but then the man’s untrustworthiness was a sort of assurance in itself.

  The city was…strange.

  It was clean and prosperous and ordered, a little haven of peace in a violent world.

  He had had a chance to examine the corpses in the canals as they wended their slow way to the inn.

  There were the bodies of many races in the water. Human and Avian and Merlangai, Ebong and numerous others. Who could tell where they had come from, or how long they had been lying there, submerged, perfectly preserved in the cold water that flowed from the Sacred Pool?

  Even as he watched, he’d see a new body arrive from up-stream, fed into the system of canals, until it found a place and there remained, suspended. And always, at the edge of hearing, there was that faint peal of a bell, a sort of muted laughter, an invitation…

  And as he watched, he saw a woman stop in the middle of her shopping, and drop her bags, and stand, transfixed. Her child stood beside her, a little girl. A beatific smile filled the woman’s face, then she began to walk away, leaving behind both her shopping and her child. The little girl began to run after her mother, but the woman paid her no mind, and a shopkeeper and a flower seller with a kindly face held the girl from following, and tried, awkwardly, to comfort her.

  The mother went away.

  —

  The plan was simple.

  There was only one god in Waterfalling.

  The God of the Waterfall had many small temples scattered throughout the city, and one main one. The Grand Temple occupied the entirety of an island high up-stream. The path to the Drop passed close to it as it led farther up until it reached the plateau.

  It was not heavily guarded, for who would dare disturb the temple of the god in its own domain?

  “The ikon is inside the temple,” Mauser said. “It is a small, blue, amorphous shape faintly resembling a human figure. It is made of Ice VII. Some say it holds the soul of the god within it. Others that it is merely an artistic representation. We are going to go on the first assumption. The job’s to get in and get the ikon. The ultimate target’s—”

  “Assassination,” Devlin said, and leered.

  Gorel stared at the two of them. Devlin’s ugly grin and Mauser’s grim determination.

  “Assassination?”

  “Come on, Gorel. It’s not like it would be the first god you’ve killed. In fact, you’re almost uniquely qualified.”

  “Is that why I’m here?”

  “Would you rather be somewhere else? Are we keeping you from some urgent appointment?”

  Gorel lit a cigar and stared at the two of them. He began to wonder just who the mysterious Apocrita merchant who’d first hired him was, and just how, exactly, Mauser had then found Gorel…

  But Mauser was right. A job was a job and, besides, Gorel had his own purpose in being there. So he just nodded, affably enough, and said, “I’m going to look around. You two try to stay out of trouble.”

  “I think the trouble part’s going to come later,” Mauser said, and Devlin sucked on his wet, green teeth noisily and leered at Gorel. He left them there, checking and cleaning the weapons.

  10.

  Of course he’d known about the God of the Waterfall.

  11.

  Gorel was no fool. And the fame of Waterfalling had spread far and wide…

  Now he followed the Path of Ascension. Initially the road was paved, as he followed city thoroughfares and traversed small bridges. People stared after him but said nothing. He saw the temple then, a large, imposing complex of beautiful white stone. He skirted the temple and soon reached the first incline and there the city stopped and the Path proper began.

  It was cut into the very rock, and it rose steeply, at a sharp incline. Small pebbles rolled underfoot. The climb was slow and hard but there were places to stop and rest along the way, small alcoves cut into the rock. Gorel did not hurry. He enjoyed the climb, the cooler air up there, and when he turned he could look down on Waterfalling and far beyond, across the plains and to the deadlands where, far away, loomed the Black Tor.

  He thought of Kettle, then. There wasn’t a day gone past when he didn’t think about Kettle.

  As he climbed he saw almost no people. One he passed, and he realised with some surprise it was the woman he had seen earlier. She was resting in one of the alcoves, with that same happy, vacant look on her face. She didn’t seem to see him, and he walked on, discomfited.

  The call…no.

  The Call. />
  He could hear it more clearly now. And as the Path wound its way up, and up, and up, he could hear the thunder of the waterfall, and feel the spray of its roar on his face, and his eyes were dazzled by an explosion of rainbows; Come, come! said the Call but it was faint, still; it was not meant for him but for another. Gorel of Goliris traversed the Path of Ascension until he reached, at last, the Plateau of Tarsh, where the Nirian river flows until it reaches the escarpment.

  He saw it all, now. He stood in that place called the Drop. The river moved almost sluggishly as it neared the edge. A series of rocks slowed down the flow of water, and it tumbled over the edge almost reluctantly. When it did, it became a great thundering waterfall. Way down below, he could see the mist rising out of the impact of the water into the Sacred Pool.

  He stood there for a long time.

  When the woman at last reached the Drop she seemed as beatific as before. Though her journey must have been physically exhausting for her, nevertheless there was no change in her demeanour. For a long moment she merely stood there, smiling that vacant, enigmatic smile. She seemed indifferent to or unaware of Gorel’s presence. Then she took one step, and another, until Gorel felt compelled to shout a warning: for she was headed straight for the sheer drop beyond which was the fall. But the woman ignored him as though he weren’t there, and when he went to stop her she shrugged him away, not angrily but the way one would shrug off a mild irritant.

  Come…Come!

  For one moment the Call was so clear that it overwhelmed Gorel’s senses. Too late, he saw the woman step to the edge of the rocks. Then she took one step more—and, just like that, she was gone.

  He crawled to the edge and peered over. He saw her fall. She fell without grace through the air until the waterfall claimed her, the water engulfing her unto itself, then she was gone from sight.

  Gorel of Goliris remained at the Drop for a long while more, and his thoughts were troubled. He was not idle, though. When he was done, he wended his way down the Path and returned to the inn, where his two companions waited. It was night, by then. The stars shone down cold and indifferent, and the air was filled with the stench of the Black Kiss. He realised he had not needed a hit since they got to the city. It was all about them, as natural and as plentiful as water.