‘It’s rude to stare,’ the captive said reproachfully. Gorel found himself mumbling an apology. No male genitalia, that was certain. Hairless, too. He shook his head. ‘A thief’s a thief,’ he said. ‘Shall I shoot her?’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Gorel, put away the gun. You, what are you? Half-caste?’
‘Your mother was a half-cast, bird-shit. Half-bitch, half-whore. Your father was the excrement of garuda. Your grandmother was born of the piss of –’
‘Quiet,’ Kettle said. The captive stopped. Gorel was impressed. ‘You look like a mix of Merlangai and falang,’ Kettle said. ‘I’d say with some Nocturne blood somewhere in the mix. Am I right?’
‘What if you are?’
‘Is it difficult for you on land?’
‘I can manage.’
‘Would you be more comfortable back in the water?’
The lying figure smiled. She had, Gorel had to admit, now that he thought about it, quite an attractive face. Her teeth were like fish bones, sharp and dainty, and her eyes had the colour of the distant ocean… ‘Aren’t you going to shoot me?’
‘I was thinking of asking if you’d care to join us for dinner,’ Kettle said. Gorel sighed and holstered his gun. Kettle, he was learning, had some strange ways about him.
‘Yeah? What are you having?’
‘I believe my companion is cooking eels according to some secret recipe I am not privy to.’
‘I’m boiling them,’ Gorel said. Their captive stood up and stretched. She was very naked, Gorel thought. But then, what need was there for clothes when you were in the water? ‘It does smell good,’ she allowed. ‘Very well, since you ask so nicely.’
‘I’m Kettle,’ Kettle said. ‘This is Gorel.’
The thief bowed. ‘Sereli of Tharat, and let me say what a pleasure it is to meet you. Apologies for the way I spoke earlier. I have a tendency sometimes to use certain language when it is probably not called for –’
‘Like when someone is pointing a gun at you?’ Gorel said. Sereli laughed. ‘I’ve had worse pointed at me,’ she said. Gorel scowled. Then he went back to the eels.
In the event, Sereli had gone back in the water (executing a graceful, arcing dive) and returned moments later from further up the bank, dressed this time, and with a big of her own. She was also carrying something else.
‘A turtle?’ Gorel said. The creature stared up at him mournfully. ‘Ever notice how their heads look remarkably like a male penis?’ Sereli said. ‘Taste better, though.’
Gorel thanked her and took the turtle off her hands. The turtle wouldn’t fit in the pot. He ended up having to bash its shell against a rock and add the meat into the pot that way. Then he went back to his pack and took out his stash of dust and took enough for the world to slow down into a hazy cool flow like a slow river.
They made love that night, the three of them. Sereli was warm and cool, her body like differing pockets of temperature as one swims through water; Kettle was a dry heat, like distant wind from the sands of Meskatel. Against them Gorel was dry ground, long-trodden, weary from the passage of armies and years, seeking respite in water and air.
In the morning they headed to Falang-Et, together. A week later, they were finally there. Kettle flew in. Sereli swam. The city was a maze of waterways and canals. Gorel walked. He had left the graal outside the city. He took only his guns.
‘What do we need her for?’ he had asked Kettle. And the Avian smiled and said, ‘What if you have to swim to get into the temple?’
Sereli was going to Falang-Et for the same reason as Gorel and Kettle, which was to steal. She had no specifics in mind: it was the time of carnival, and the pickings would be easy. When Kettle offered her the job (she was nestled between him and Gorel at the time) she smiled and said stealing from a god should be exciting. She came as Gorel’s tongue explored her hairless wetness, Kettle like a cloak wrapped over Gorel’s back.
He took nothing with him but his guns. As he stepped into the city he was wary of guards, but Falang-Et was open, a sprawling expanse of greenery and water. As he came onto the main road a procession was passing, and for a moment he thought it was a carnival parade. Then he realised there was no shouting involved, and turned to look again, and had a shock.
Behind an arrow-head of mourners, near a large, cumbersome coffin, was the young falang girl he had last seen on the river bank the day he kidnapped the merchant. She was dressed in sombre dark green robes. She was exquisite, like a jade statue. Her eyes met his, and opened wide in recognition. For a moment he froze. The procession moved forward. The girl stepped ahead. Her eyes were still locked on him. She seemed to inch her head as if acknowledging a bond of sorts. Almost directly behind her, carried by six uniformed falang, came a large coffin.
Did she know him? But of course she did. Would she call him out? He waited, one hand hovering over the butt of his gun. But why should she call? They were complicit, he and her. She would want him gone.
The girl looked straight ahead, and passed, though she could not, it seemed, resist another, quick glance at him. Young and lovely, and a killer – and when they looked into each other’s eyes, however brief that contact was, they understood each other. Gorel stepped back and let the coffin pass. Goodbye, merchant of the Fifth Pond Lineage. Gorel wondered what it actually meant. Looking at the size and general opulence of the procession, it occurred to him that lineage might have been more significant than he had thought. Which meant the falang may not give up the hunt for the merchant’s killer too quickly. Well. His hand rested reassuringly on the butt of the gun. He would deal with that if and when it happened.
He did not see the other, the merchant’s apprentice, in the procession. He waited until the last of the mourners passed him. Then he continued on his way. His presence elicited some glances, but not too many – it was the time of carnival, after all, and there were many foreigners in the city, human and Merlangai, Diurnal and Ebong and Duraali, to mingle amongst the native falang, to drink and throw water and deal and trade in matters lawful or otherwise, and wench and drink – and that was what Gorel, too, intended to do, and so he headed away from the main road and into the side-streets, following a dank, scum-covered canal until he reached a long-house with a sign at the entrance that said, The Sorcerer’s Head: the sign further depicted a rather graphic image of a blood-dripping, human head with ethereal fire burning around it. The head was held in a hand possessed of long, green, webbed fingers. What long forgotten war, if any, the name was meant to celebrate Gorel didn’t know. But he appreciated the sentiment all the same. He did not approve of sorcerers.
He stepped through the open doors onto the long corridor. The long-house sat alongside the scummy canal, but its clientele was not interested in a water-side view, pretty or otherwise. The rooms first – some with their doors closed shut, others standing invitingly open. As he passed some he was aware of the overwhelming surge of stench in the air, a mixture of sweet-smelling smoke, cheap perfume, expensive perfume, cigars, rice whiskey, body sweat, piss, cleaning material, old blood, stale smoke to mix with the fresh one – a vista of smells he found intoxicating. The rooms were private universes, some inviting, some forbidden. In one he saw a Nocturne mistress, swathed in shadows, in her hand a burning whip, and at her feet an Ebong warrior, cowering, bowed, his moving feelers signifying excitement. In another, a huddle of species, each figure on its own, each with a mat and a dim brazier by its side, lying motionless, staring at the ceiling. He longed to join them. But not yet.
Other rooms: a group of naked women, laughing, two equally-naked falang boys moving between them like toys; in another a group of human males standing in a circle around two falang girls; in another a free-for-all, men, women, Ebong, a sleepy Diurnal being ridden by two Merlangai, one male and one female; more rooms where the stench of burning gods’ dust was overpowering, and Gorel breathed it in and shuddered, and almost stopped. But not yet.
In the long corridor those who wished a r
espite from the neverending orgy (or who found themselves coming short on the expense required) reclined on cushions, singly or in small groups. Servants passed with drinks. In the half-way point of the long house a long bar ran along the wall. Gorel saw behind it a cauldron of bubbling liquid. The bartender, a short, fat falang, looked up at him knowingly. ‘Falang-Et’s finest brew,’ he said. ‘Sorcerer’s Head’s Special Punch.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘What isn’t –’ the bartender smiled. His teeth looked like algae-covered, dying coral. ‘Alcohol. Sugar. Fruits of the season. And dust.’
Gods’ dust. He could taste it on his tongue, it burned his nostrils, and want of it, desire of it, clouded his mind. He found himself saying, ‘Give me a shot,’ and the bartender smiled wider and handed him a smoking glass. Gorel downed it in one. The feeling of it spread through him at once. The black kiss, the death-gift of the goddess Shar to her murderer. Her curse. But how good it felt. Better than sex, better than breathing. He would have stopped then, gone into one of the rooms, found a mat and a smoking brazier, and hooked himself up to one of the needles, surrendering to the black kiss’ oblivion, but for one thing: the thought of his lost home, the thought of Goliris, which brought him this far and would take him on yet, take him all the way back, until he returned, until he –
‘Hello, gunslinger,’ a husky voice murmured close to his ear. He turned and saw an uncertain shape, a figure clad in shadows: the Nocturne he had seen in the room, and she was still holding her flaming whip. ‘Looking for a good time?’
He looked at her curiously. Nocturnes kept mostly to themselves. He tried to guess at what shape lay beyond the darkness, catching glimpses here and there, a naked thigh, the hint of a breast, parts displayed and disappearing like a full bright moon behind an eclipse. He didn’t know what made him tell her the truth, so that when it came he surprised himself. ‘I’m looking for home,’ he said.
For a moment the shadows seemed to drop, and he caught the hint of a face, older than he supposed, and eyes deep and weary that matched his own. ‘Aren’t we all,’ she said, and abruptly she turned away, and the whip cracked and bled light; then she was gone.
‘You have a way with the ladies,’ the bartender said.
Gorel reached across the counter and grabbed his throat in one hand. The bartender gargled. ‘Keep your ears to yourself in future,’ Gorel said, squeezing, ‘if you don’t want to lose them.’ He released the choking falang, threw some money on the counter, and walked away. He had to admit it was a good punch they served here.
He stalked down the long corridor and was not disturbed. The door of the second room from the end was closed. He opened it and went in. Kettle and Sereli were standing by a window, looking out. They turned when they heard him come in.
‘Any problems?’ Kettle asked. Gorel shrugged. He did not bother to mention the funeral procession. ‘None so far.’
‘Good.’ The Avian turned back to the window, signalling for Gorel to come nearer. He moved towards them. Sereli smiled and squeezed his arm. ‘Out there,’ Kettle said, pointing. Gorel looked, and then looked up.
Wat Falang rose out of the marshy ground like an ill-begotten treasure chest. To call it gaudy would have been to use kindness, which was something Gorel did not possess in any great measure. It looked like someone had stolen a dragon’s hoard of precious stones and trinkets and then upended the whole collection onto the ground, and left it there. There were towers that looked like silver needles and walkways that glittered like strings of pearls, and outhouses that glittered in rainbows of jade and amethyst and rubies, and the whole ungainly thing shimmered in an eternal haze, a humid, suffocating cloud that glistened on the Wat’s walls like a silent, watchful, living ooze. It was a frog temple, and the home of the frog-tribes’ god. It was a maze of vegetation and marshy lanes and haphazard buildings, of gardens and workshops and prayer houses and storage hangars, kitchens and libraries and armouries and the falang god alone knew what else. It was a miniature city within the city of Falang-Et. And somewhere inside it, hidden, guarded, was the mirror. Perhaps it was a mere trinket to the god. Perhaps it lay in a roomful of treasures, of sorcerous items pillaged over the centuries, rings and swords and books and wands and all the other useless things sorcerers were so obsessed with making. Nothing beat a gun, when it came right down to it. As it might come down to yet. ‘Are you sure you only want to steal the mirror?’ Gorel said, and Kettle laughed. ‘I’ll take what we can find,’ he said. ‘But, yes. I seek mainly knowledge, which the mirror can provide. Not monetary gain. Well, not only, I should say.’
‘More for me, then,’ Sereli said.
‘As much as you can carry,’ Kettle agreed gravely, and Gorel laughed. Kerely stuck her tongue at him.
‘So where is it?’ Gorel said.
‘I can find out,’ Kettle said. Both men turned to her. She pirouetted on one foot and grinned at them. ‘I have a widowed aunt in town,’ she said, ‘who is very devout. If anyone knows the layout of the temple it would be her. I met her once down river, a few years ago. She might talk.’
‘So will you go to her?’
Kettle’s smile, Gorel had learned, could look as truly innocent as it was devious underneath. ‘Oh, I doubt she’d have much interest in me, the old bitch,’ she said.
‘But –?’ both Gorel and Kettle said simultaneously.
‘But,’ Sereli said, ‘she might be amenable to a bribe –’ and she leered, and her eyes were on Gorel – ‘at least, if you can prove your worth to her, O Most Holy Questing Knight.’
His name was Sir Drake of Kir-Bell, Kir-Bell being a minor principality in the far west, known mainly for a type of wine called draeken, which the people of that place make with the aid of their small population of indentured tree-sprites, who are remanded under Kir-Bell’s rule for their own safety. The process, which is not in the least – so say Kir-Bell’s master fermenters – painful, involves the annual slow bleeding of the sprites, said liquid being collected carefully into vats, and then left to brew by secret means. The resultant liqueur, the draeken, is much prized but seldom seen outside of that principality. It was a measure of the grave respect Sir Drake clearly felt for Mistress Sinlao of the Third Pond Lineage, that on visiting her at her modest abode he brought with him a small vial of the stuff.
Mistress Sinlao resided in an imposing, and not in the least bit modest, if truth be told, abode not far from the walls of Wat Falang, but in the opposite direction to the Sorcerer’s Head. Where the Head was squalid and dank, Mistress Sinlao’s place was opulent and airy; where it was dubious, Mistress Sinlao’s place was a lesson in respectability. It was a short while, then, before the similarities between the two places made its appearance to the knight.
‘Please, do come in, sir knight!’ The arms that dragged him in were soft and plump. Their owner looked like a well-fed toad, though he was not sure toads could beam in such a disconcerting way. ‘It is so wonderful to have such a distinguished visitor as yourself at our humble house! Please, follow me! We have so much to talk about!’
Mistress Sinlao (of the Third Pond Lineage) was effusive; she smelled of pond-water and expensive perfume; her skin was a dark, mottled green; she wore heavy rings on her fingers and her scalp was an imposing bald dome. She held him close to her as she led him through the gate and into the large garden that lay beyond. She also kept a running monologue, and an assumption that her visitor had a deep abiding interest in horticulture: ‘And over here we have the samtora flowers, very rare, their natural habitat is in Quicksilver Lake beyond Der Danang – we’re most fortunate to have obtained these specimens, you know, they are said to aid procreation –’ here a big, lusty laugh which made him uncomfortable – ‘oh, and these, not much to look at them, are they, they’re called urnak-dorn by the natives of Duraal – they do have the most barbarous language, don’t you think? – but quite wonderful, used by their medicine men for the aid of –’
‘Procreation?’ Sir Drake said, and M
istress Sinlao whooped a laugh and said, ‘How did you guess?’
Most of the plants and flowers in the garden, as it transpired, were of a nature to aid reproduction; which made Sir Drake uncomfortable all over again, though he couldn’t quite say why. The gardens were spacious and extensive. Above them the house rose like an imposing jade monument. There were many windows but one could not see through them. There were balconies with no one sitting on them. The doors to the building were high and imposing and closed. The house sat there like a silent, closed-eyed toad; and yet Sir Drake had the feeling that, at any moment, the doors of its mouth might open, and a long tongue would snake out, and snap him up, and swallow him inside. ‘The Gorgol Saber plants only flower at night,’ Mistress Sinlao said conversationally, ‘when the river tides are high and the moon is waning. All other sorts of conditions too. Very useful plants.’
‘Procreation?’
‘Colds. I do tend to suffer in the rainy season. Come, sit.’ There was an open green parasol and a table underneath it and three chairs. Sir Drake took one, and Mistress Sinlao another. ‘My niece,’ Mistress Sinlao said, with only the barest hint of distaste in her voice, ‘told me you are on a quest.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Do you mind me asking where you met the little half-breed?’ the distaste was now palatable.
‘She ran into me,’ Sir Drake said, ‘trying to liberate me of my valuables, as it happens.’
Mistress Sinlao snorted. ‘I hope you gave her a good hiding.’
‘I did what was necessary.’
Mistress Sinlao grinned. ‘I hope you made it long,’ she said. ‘And hard.’
Gorel and the Pot Bellied God Page 4
