Petty Pewter Gods gf-8

by Glen Cook

  37

  Slim doesn't find my line of work believable, but the notion I tossed out captured his imagination. "All right, Garrett. I'll do it. Might be fun."

  Might turn painful if some Godoroth thug got pissed off, but I forbore mentioning that. We need not trouble him unnecessarily. It might disturb his concentration.

  "All right, Dean. Let's get the barrel up here."

  I had a huge old wine cask in the cellar. It had been down there for ages. One day real soon now I planned to clean it up and fill it with water so we could withstand a protracted siege. I have all sorts of great ideas for that sort of stuff, like running an escape tunnel or two, but I never get around to working on them.

  Slim removed a couple of beer kegs while Dean and I wrestled the barrel up from the cellar. Dean mostly kept his opinions to himself because he didn't have anything positive to say. He did bark at Cat when she dared peek out the door of the small sitting room.

  The barrel was thoroughly dried out, which meant its ends and staves were not as tight as they would be when soaked and swollen. That left me worried that the damned thing might fall apart while they were carrying it out to Slim's cart. I wouldn't look real dignified falling out of an exploding barrel.

  As soon as Dean shut me in, I knew I had made a mistake. I should have just walked out the door. The results would have been less unpleasant. This was like being trapped in a wino's coffin. And I am not comfortable with tight places. Smelly tight places are worse. Getting rolled down steps inside a smelly tight place is worse still. And no effort to make me unhappier was spared when the bunch of them tossed my conveyance onto Slim's cart. Vaguely, I heard Morley mixing complaints about what could have happened to his clothing with chuckles about my probable discomfort.

  I should fix him up with Magodor. Maggie was just the girl for him. Snakes in her hair. Fangs. Claws at the ends of all those arms.

  Matters did not improve anytime soon. The cart started moving. Slim did not ride it, he led his team. He had no need to ease the bump and bang of solid wooden wheels rolling over cobblestones.

  It seemed I was in there for several infant eternities. Slim was supposed to head straight for his Weider distributor to get shut of me and my empties and reload with full kegs, but soon I became convinced that he was going the long way, looking for the princes of potholes. Every bump we hit made the barrel creak and move around the cart a bit.

  Bang! We hit a big one. I thought I was going over. Slim growled at his donkeys. I swear one of them laughed—that honking bray they have.

  Donkeys are relatives of horses.

  Bang! again. This time we got the mother of all potholes. My barrel bounced off the back of Slim's cart. It fell apart when it hit the pavement. I staggered up dripping staves and hoops, looking around fast to see if I needed to run. I didn't see a cherub, let alone a full-fledged third-rate god.

  "Sorry," Slim told me. "These damned donkeys seem to be taking aim at every damned pothole."

  The animal nearest me sneered.

  "Throw them to the wolves. Use them for thunder lizard bait. Don't suffer them a minute longer. If you do, someday they'll get you."

  Slim gave me a really strange look.

  "Thanks for the help," I told him. "You want what's left of this thing?" A barrel is a valuable commodity even if it requires some assembly.

  "Yeah. Sure."

  No danger greater than the bile of donkeys presented itself. I helped Slim get the barrel pieces into his cart. People who had watched me get hatched from a wooden egg just stood around and stared. They worried me only because they would brag about what they had seen and somebody somewhere sometime would realize that the clown in the barrel had been me.

  Could not help that. Could get my feet to stepping.

  The Goddamn Parrot swooped past, vanished without any comment.

  I had my feet moving now but did not know where to let them take me. South seemed good. If I made the Dream Quarter, the Godoroth and Shayir would not be able to bully me without irritating all the other gods.

  38

  I got so close I began to think I was going to make it. But I hadn't put enough thought into planning. I took almost the same route I had followed before. All too soon I began seeing strange shadows in golden light. I heard whispers just beyond the edge of hearing, though some of those emanated from the Goddamn Parrot, who was trailing me.

  The bird swooped in, plopped onto my shoulder while squawking something about changing course right now. I told it, "I've picked up something that I think is called Tobrit the Strayer. Shayir. It's more like a fear than anything. If it's the same one, the one time I saw it materialize it turned into an oversize and over-ugly imitation faun that was hornier than a three-headed horned toad."

  I spoke in a normal voice. The Goddamn Parrot screeched. Naturally, people stared. I made the turn the bird demanded. I tried not to dwell on the nightmare that life could become if the Dead Man kept the bird on me all the time.

  The Goddamn Parrot guided me to Stuggie Martin's. That swillery, for all its lack of glory, had seen a dramatic improvement in business. Overflow guys were standing around outside, drinking and muttering. Some of their buddies preferred to mutter and drink.

  Having failed to get so much as a taste off the keg delivered to my house, I decided to stop in, maybe revel in the ambience for one beer. My spirits were flying too high anyway.

  It did not occur to me that the Dead Man actually wanted me to visit the place.

  Yesterday Stuggie Martin's had been depressing. Today it was like the dead of winter inside. I called for a dark Weider's, then asked Stuggie's successor, "What's with these guys? They look like they just found out rich Uncle Ferd croaked and left everything to the home for wayward cats."

  "You ain't heard? Got to be that you ain't heard. It was your pal No-Neck, man. Most everybody 'round here liked that old goof."

  "Did something happen to No-Neck?"

  "They found him a little while ago. He was alive, but that wasn't 'cause somebody never tried to make it go some other way. They tortured him really bad."

  I smacked a fist down hard on what passed for a bar in there. "We tried to warn him. He didn't want to listen."

  "Huh?"

  "He did a favor for somebody that was sure to piss somebody else off. We tried to tell him they wouldn't let it slide."

  The barkeep poured me another and nodded. He had been sampling his wares, no doubt making sure he was serving only the best. He was having trouble keeping up.

  Hell, I was having trouble and my first few sips hadn't hit bottom yet.

  "You guys friends?" the barkeep asked, topping my mug for me.

  "Not really. Just had things in common. Like the Corps." This guy had the right tattoos. He could be diverted.

  When I arose a while later I was in a bitter, black mood. No-Neck had been tortured to death only because his precognitive sense had failed him and he had gone walking around with me.

  Thus we rail, in vain, against the whims of gods and fates.

  Unless his killers were really stupid, one god-gang would have it figured out and would be out of control.

  Getting into the Dream Quarter, fast, sounded like a really good plan now.

  The barkeep asked, "No-Neck have any people?"

  "I didn't know him. Just met him yesterday. He never mentioned any."

  "Too bad. He was a good guy. Be nice to let somebody know. So somebody could do right by him."

  Had I not been at the bottom of a deep barrel with herds of gods out to get me I might have volunteered to find No-Neck's family. But I was so far down there the open top looked no bigger than a bunghole.

  So No-Neck would be seen into the great beyond by the city's ratmen, who would cart his remains to the nearest public crematorium.

  39

  The Goddamn Parrot plopped onto my shoulder as I hit the street. "Shiver me timbers," I muttered. "Do I live a blessed life, or what?"

  "Awk. Something is followin
g you."

  "Am I surprised."

  "Many of the presences are coming this way."

  People stared. It was not often you saw a man chatting with a parrot. "And I'm headed thataway." I began trotting toward the Dream Quarter. Shouldn't be that hard to make the safety of the Street of the Gods. Getting back off again might turn out to be a grand adventure, though.

  Apparently the Dead Man had little trouble detecting gods once he took an interest. In fact, there was an amazing array of things he could do if you could just get him started. That was a secret I really wanted to crack. I might trade my keyness... Nah.

  I wondered if the Dead Man being able to spot them meant that my divine acquaintances had chosen to manifest themselves especially strongly during their struggle or if, perhaps, TunFaire was always infested with petty gods and we were detecting this bunch only because we were watching for them. My guess was that these two gangs were obvious mainly because they were fighting for their lives.

  The Goddamn Parrot fluttered up and away, off to I-don't-know-where, once again leaving me to dread a future in which the Dead Man could tag along wherever I went through that bird-brained feather duster.

  I walked around a corner and there was Rhogiro, bigger than life and twice as ugly, holding up a wall like your everyday garden-variety street thug. Obviously he wasn't really waiting for me but was there just in case something turned up. I never slowed a step. I whipped across into a narrow breezeway. It dead-ended on me. I put my back against one wall, my hands and feet against the other. Up I went. Meantime, Rhogiro realized who he had seen, came to the end of the breezeway and did some holy thundering. He was too big to get into the crack and too stupid to recall that he had divine powers. At least in the moments it took me to get up top.

  My luck, as always, was mixed. The climb was just two stories. Good. The roofs up there were flat and identical and stretched on and on. Excellent. They could be run upon almost like the street. None of the buildings were more than three feet from their neighbors. Fine.

  But in this part of town the slumlords wasted no resources on maintenance. My foot went through a roof almost immediately. I didn't get hurt, but I realized that I had to slow down or get down.

  Slowing down gave me time to think about what I was doing, which, mainly, was heading away from the Dream Quarter. I needed to get down and head the other way.

  I got down rough, after jumping to a roof so fragile I punched right through. I caught myself before I plunged into whatever disaster lurked below. I stared downward. My eyes were not used to the gloom there, but the area immediately below me looked empty. I lowered myself as far as I could, let go. The floor was not that far. And it held.

  The place had been abandoned. Only the masonry was more substantial than the roof. Now that I was into the gloom I could see light leaking through the overhead in fifty places.

  The walls consisted of plaster crumbled till it was almost gone, the lathing behind it mostly fallen too. The floor groaned and creaked. The stairway looked so precarious I backed down on all fours. I was interested only in getting out but did note that there was nothing left worth stealing except the brick itself and some wooden bits that would end up as firewood.

  I was surrounded by things on their last legs. My partner was dead already. My housekeeper had one foot in the grave. The city where I lived seemed ready to commit suicide.

  The street out front was almost empty. That was an ugly omen. These tenement blocks swarm with kids playing, mothers gossiping, grannies whining about their rheumatiz, old men playing checkers and complaining about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Where was the Goddamn Parrot? I could use a good scouting report.

  Didn't look like I had time for anything fancy. I ran toward the Dream Quarter. On the other side of the tenement row Rhogiro continued to bellow and blunder around. Maybe his displeasure was leaking over enough to have startled the locals.

  I could not see that some gods would be much missed.

  40

  I almost made it. The story of my life. A lot of almosts. I was almost king, except right at the last minute I got born to the wrong mother.

  I turned into Gnorleybone Street a few blocks short of the Street of the Gods. Gnorleybone isn't much used because it don't go anywhere, but it did offer a nice look at the distance I still had to travel. I saw only normal traffic for the place and the time of day. No funny shadows or lights, no big ugly guys, no pretty and deadly girls, no huntress or hounds, nothing but clear sailing. I slowed to a brisk walk, tried to catch what of my breath hadn't gotten so lost it was out of the kingdom.

  They say it's always darkest before the dawn. They ought to live my life. With me it's always brightest just before the hammer of darkness comes smashing down.

  I don't know what hit me. One minute I was just a-huffing and a-puffing and a-grinning, and the next I was crawling through a molasses blackness. Time passed there, inside my head, but beyond me seemed a timeless sort of state. Maybe I was in limbo, or nirvana, depending on your attitude.

  I sensed a light. I struggled toward it. It expanded to become a face. "Cat?" Fingers touched my cheek, caressed. Then pinched cruelly. The pain helped clear my head and vision.

  "No. Not Cat."

  Cat's mom. Imara. The Godoroth had gotten to me first. But when I looked around I saw no one but Imara. We were in a place like the inside of a big egg furnished only with a low divan draped with purple silk. The light came from no obvious source. "What's going on?... "

  "We will talk later." She laid a fingernail on my forehead, over that spot sometimes called the third eye. Then she trailed it down between my eyes, over my nose, across my lips. That nail felt as sharp as a razor. I shivered nervously but found her touch weirdly exciting, too.

  "You have a reputation." Her hand kept traveling. "Is it justified?"

  "I don't know." My voice was an octave high. I couldn't move. "Whoa!" That was a squeak.

  "I hope so. I seldom get an opportunity like this."

  "What?" I wasn't putting up much of a fight. This matronly goddess was about to have her way with me and, incidentally, establish her husband as my mortal enemy. There was no arrangement between them, only the arrangement Imar had with himself. Gods are always jealous critters, turning their spouses' lovers into toads and spiders and whatnot.

  Which seemed of no particular concern to her. She had one thing on her mind and pursued it with a single-minded devotion more often associated with less than socially ept adolescent males. I began struggling too late. By then the inevitable was upon me. I had no heart for a fight. I hoped she wouldn't turn into something with two hundred tentacles and breath like a dead catfish.

  I am one agnostic who got made a believer. I should have brought help.

  If they were all that way no wonder they were always getting into trouble.

  Panting, I asked, "You make a habit of just grabbing guys and getting on with it?"

  "Whenever I get away long enough. It's one of the little rewards I permit myself for enduring that bastard Imar."

  The Dead Man hadn't said anything about Imar's legitimacy. No doubt being a bastard was part of his divine charm.

  "Please stop for a while. I'm only human." Imara seemed human enough herself, except for the scale of her appetites.

  "For the moment, then. We have to talk, anyway."

  "Right."

  "Have you found the key?"

  "Uh... " I was at a serious disadvantage here. I was getting sat upon at the moment. "No."

  "Good. Have you bothered looking?"

  Good? I ground my teeth. She was a goddess of some substance. "Not really. I haven't been given a chance."

  "Good. Don't bother."

  "Don't?"

  "Ignore it. Hide out. Let it go. Let the deadline pass."

  "You want to get kicked out of the Dream Quarter?"

  "I want Imar and his band of morons to get kicked out. I've made arrangements. I've wanted to get shut of that belching idi
ot for a thousand years, and this is my chance."

  She began numbering Imar's faults and sins, which reminded me of the main reason I avoid married women. I didn't hear one complaint that I haven't heard from mortal wives a thousand times. Apparently, being a god is domestic and deadly dull most of the time. Pile it on for millennia and maybe some divine excesses start to make sense.

  Those recitals are boring at best. When you have no particular desire to be with the recitee they can become excruciating. Despite my improbable situation, my mind wandered.

  I came back fast when she decided I had recovered. "Ulp! So you're gonna dump the Godoroth and sign on with the Shayir?"

  How could she manage that? Any honest historical theologian will admit that deities do move shop occasionally, but the mechanism by which they do so eludes me.

  "The Shayir? That's absurd! Lang could be Imar's reflection. Why would I want more of that? And his household has nothing to recommend its survival. Let them sink like stones into the dark cold deeps of time." She said all that in a sort of distracted, catechistic manner. Her mind was on something else.

  Maybe the wrong gal got the temple whore job.

  "You haven't communicated with the Shayir?"

  "No! Shut up." She pressed her fingernails into my forehead again. I shut up. She took charge. She had her way with me for about a thousand years.

  That molasses darkness reclaimed me eventually. The last I knew, Imara was whispering a promise that I would never be sorry if neither Lang nor Imar ever got hold of the key.

  Why do these things happen to me?

  41

  I ached everywhere. I felt like I had done a thousand sit-ups, run ten miles, then finished with a couple hundred push-ups to cool down. I had bruises and scratches all over me. I was thinking about finding a new hobby. My favorite was getting dangerous.