2018-01-08
429
…but already their downfall was underway. And that terrible night came not long after, though he could no longer remember the exact sequence of events, what followed what…he was only a boy, and they had schemed in secret, in the shadows, the mages of Goliris, servants burning with a hatred of mastery. He remembered that awful night, the screams, the cruel, laughing faces. The stench of wizardry.
Then he was taken. Taken from his home, from his World, from all that he knew and loved. Transported, in the blink of an eye, away from there, the screams still echoing in his ears, and that awful smell, until he woke and found himself in a foreign land, by the side of a hill, and he was crying, for he was only a boy…
Now he lolled in the saddle, and his hands caressed the six-guns hanging on his sides. He had fashioned them himself, and each bore the seven-pointed stars of Goliris.
The land he found himself in as a boy was called the Lower Kidron, and the couple who had found and adopted him were gunsmiths. In that wild, untamed land the boy Gorel learned the ancient way of the gun, and it was from there that he set out on his journey, to claim back his ancient throne—though the journey had been taking longer than anticipated, and though he had killed many on the way, he was no closer to his goal…
Overhead, the clouds amassed. Somewhere, no doubt, the Avian called Kettle was planning the next stage in his inexplicable conquest of this part of the World. There had always been dark mages, and they were always bent on conquest, yet there was something different about Kettle, a hidden purpose, as though he alone could see some grand and troubling design no one else could discern…
But this was no longer Gorel’s concern. In truth, he had a job. And, despite all the current set-backs, he was intent on following it through.
The job was simple, as such jobs usually were. Find a man—and then kill him. And Gorel was good at the first, and very, very good at the second…
3.
The client had tracked Gorel down at an Abandonment on the edge of the deadlands. He was, unusually, an Apocrita.
The Apocrita were benign parasites, starting off small, attaching to a human host’s lower abdomen and gradually growing with their hosts until reaching puberty, when they began discarding and changing their humans with some frequency. Other than that unfortunate habit, the Apocrita were considered a highly civilized species, with a fine taste in wine and music and an almost fanatical devotion to the writing of poetry. What one was doing this far away from their natural habitat, a small monarchical feudatory state on the edge of the Yanivian Desert, Gorel had no idea, but nor did he care.
“I say,” the Apocrita said. “Are you the gunslinger fellow?”
Gorel was sitting down with a small cup of draeken, that rare wine, from the far western principality of Kir-Bell, which is made by slowly bleeding the indentured tree-sprites of that place and fermenting their blood. He stared at the Apocrita and made a noncommittal grunting sound and struck a match to light his cigar.
“Depends who’s asking,” he said, at last.
The Apocrita sat down opposite without being invited. He clicked his fingers for service and gruffly ordered, “Whatever that gentleman is drinking.” The server, a grave-wraith from Kur-a-len, gave an ugly leer but fetched the drink without comment. The Apocrita had nodal growths spread over the human host’s body and its own large, black sack-like mass was fused to the man’s back and spread round his hips to the front.
“There’s a man,” the Apocrita said.
“There usually is,” Gorel allowed.
“He stole something from me,” the Apocrita said. “The goods would most likely be spoiled by now, but that’s immaterial. What is important is that a message is sent. Do you understand?”
“What’s in it for me?” Gorel said.
The Apocrita shrugged. From his bespoke tailored jacket he took out a small black money-bag tied with a string. He pushed it across the table, casually and almost contemptuously, at Gorel.
Gorel picked it up, untied it, and stared at the powder inside.
Gods’ Dust.
The Black Kiss.
He took a pinch, snorted.
It hit him like an open slap to the face and he rocked back in his seat. Across from him, the Apocrita dust merchant looked at him with that same mild contempt.
“You will take the job?”
And Gorel said, “Yes.”
4.
The man he was tracking was hard to find. Gorel’s payment had long ago gone up his nose, and now, away from any gods, withdrawal hit him hard.
But he was nothing if not a professional. He followed the trail, for even in the deadlands there were pockets of habitation, Abandonments and ruins, strange little hamlets where the destitute and the near dead sought shelter in isolation. The man he was seeking had used many names, but he only had four fingers…
He’d lost him several times, but he sensed that he was finally close. Gorel always carried a job through. And so now, delirious, half-starved, and in a thoroughly bad mood, he and his graal at last approached the ruins of an old stone building, which might have once been a temple, though who had built it, and for what inexplicable reason, here in the middle of the deadlands, Gorel didn’t know.
Not that he cared.
As he approached he slipped softly from the graal’s hide. The beast sank gratefully to the ground, folding its legs under itself and withdrawing its head inside the dark carapace. It would remain motionless now until the sun came out again and it could once again absorb enough energy to bring it into waking.
Gorel drew both his pistols. He trod softly on the ground. He crept towards the building. Dark ivy grew in the cracks between the old stones, and inside he could hear murmured voices…
The door was nothing but a rotting wooden slab. Gorel kicked it open and went inside, where it was dark and dank.
A figure lying on a mattress scrambled up, said, “What do you—?” and stopped.
“Devlin Fo-Fingga,” Gorel said, grinning. His hand was around the man’s throat. The man’s skin felt slimy. His breath came and went through Gorel’s palm. “I thought it was you.”
“Who—what?” Devlin’s small eyes peered up at Gorel’s face, panicked. Then—recognition, followed by shock.
“ Gorel? Is that you?”
“Still alive,” Gorel said, dryly.
“No, no no no no no,” Devlin said, speaking quickly, his hands weaving a dance of denial in the air. “That wasn’t my fault, no no no, I wasn’t even there when the—”
There had been figures in the mist. Ancient carved totems with malevolent eyes. Buried Eyes, they called those stones. Seeing eyes. Gorel’s company had wandered through the mist, but every time it closed, men were missing…and the totems had a habit of appearing, out of nowhere, looming out of the mist and staring at you, calling to you…
Few had survived the Mosina Campaign.
“You cut a deal with them,” Gorel said, flatly. “They let you live—for a price…” He smiled grimly and shoved the gun in Devlin’s face. “How many did you sacrifice to the old ones of Mosina?” he said.
Beneath him, Devlin Fo-Fingga shook and shivered. Spittle came out of his mouth. “No no no no no,” he said, in plea or apology, it was hard to tell. “I never…I didn’t…”
“So imagine my surprise when a certain Apocrita merchant cornered me in a bar and mentioned he was looking for a four-fingered thief. Funny that, I thought. That description tends to stick in one’s mind. So I thought to myself, I might take this job. It is good to have friends, isn’t it, Devlin? Old friends, from the old days. I wondered, could it be my old friend, Devlin Fo-Fingga, alive after all these years?”
“Gorel, it wasn’t—!”
“The only thing I don’t quite get,” Gorel said, “is what exactly it was that you stole off that tight-ass merchant. He was surprisingly vague on the details. I only ask, because, if it’s still worth something…I might not kill you quite so slowly.”
His hands shook suddenly as the craving overtook him, and though he tried to cover it, Devlin’s small, sharp eyes noticed it—and suddenly the man was grinning.
“He never said, did he?” Devlin’s rotten teeth sucked what little light there was in the room. “Then come, I will show you, I will…For old times’ sake, Gorel.”
Gorel’s finger tightened on the trigger, and yet he couldn’t shoot. The craving was upon him then, and at last, reluctantly, he released Devlin. The man rose swiftly, like a rat.
“Come,” he said. “Come!”
A second, sturdier door separated the antechamber from the main body of the ruined temple. From his belt, Devlin selected a rusted metal key and unlocked the door. When he pushed it open, the darkness beyond was greater still.
Gorel hesitated on the threshold—
But he could feel it.
It lay thick and hard on the air. It suffocated the breath, tantalising and rich, the very scent of it almost enough.
Almost.
But it was never enough.
Ablution. Faith. Call it what you will.
The curse bestowed upon him by the goddesses Shalin and Shar.
Devlin hurried into the darkness. And now lights were coming alive, one by one, small candles being lit along the walls.
In the dim light Gorel could see they were not alone.
It was a large room, and the women and men lying on the floor seemed near death. Only the gentle rising and falling of chests gave indication that they still breathed, still retained a tenuous link to life. He could taste god-sorcery in the air, feel keenly the thin membrane between the two worlds stretching, here…
He had crossed it before and could never truly get back.
“What have you done?” he said—but even as he spoke he already knew the answer.
“Come, come come come!” Devlin said. His grin was manic, his eyes dancing wildly in his face. “It is waiting, It is ready, It is near!”
He took Gorel by the hand. The gunslinger followed him, helpless to resist. They walked, deeper into the room, stepping over the sleepers, Devlin putting a finger to his mouth in an exaggerated warning to be quiet. Here and there, groans from the sleepers. One propped herself up and stared at them. “Is it time, Devlin? Is it time, yet?”
“Not for you, Gammy Steel!” Devlin cackled. “Gammy Gammy, ugly Gammy, your time is not yet come!”
“I have money”—the woman said, then—“I…I can get some. I can get more.”
“Then do so.”
Ignoring her, he led Gorel on. The woman’s eyes followed them, then, with a sigh, she lay back down. Gorel could hear her stifled sobs.
They came to the end of the hall. Devlin let go of Gorel’s hand and knelt down, lighting a semicircle of candles facing the wall. One by one they came alive, and trapped within them was a god.
5.
It was chained to the wall with bands of steel. It had the breasts of a woman, the sex of a man. It was naked. The god’s eyes were two dark orbs, and its lips were thick and bruised and glistened wetly. There was no hair upon the body, and the god’s cock was a small, shrivelled thing. Sweat glistened upon the god, as fine as grains of dust.
Dust.
Gorel knelt before the god. Devlin’s hand was on his head, then, stroking. Gorel stared at the captive god, and the god stared back through eyes like bottomless holes…
“Better than dust,” Devlin whispered. “You want to know what I stole, Gorel? I took only that which was promised to me! Do you like it, Gorel? I see the mark on you, I can taste your need, old friend, your desire! Do you want it?”
“Yes!” Gorel said. “Yes!”
“Then the Black Kiss itself is yours for the taking, Gorel of Goliris.”
He was no longer fully aware of Devlin. The world contracted to the half-circle of candlelight. Gorel could smell the god, that rancid, sweet, overpowering scent of dust, and he knew he wanted it, needed it, the way he never needed anything else. On hands and knees, slowly, he crept towards the god. If the flames of the candles hurt him, if it burnt his flesh, he didn’t know, nor care. The chained god thrashed against his chains but he was held fast. Dimly, Gorel was aware of the others coming alive, felt their desire joining his. He crawled to the naked god and offered him his lips.
—
The first hit was always the best.
—
Flashes of light, flashes of consciousness. Gorel was fading in and out of the World. Rarely had it been this good, this… direct. Even the pain of losing his home, of being vanquished from proud Goliris—the betrayal, the hurt, the fear—they were all gone, and there was only bliss.
—
Flashing images, disconnected from each other. Strange sensations. The sweet and sour taste of the god’s mouth…a taste of blood, and sorcery.
He was only briefly aware of hands—Devlin’s?—going through his clothes, relieving him of non-essentials, coin and guns. A chuckle, close in his ear, hot rotting breath. A murmur: “Only the first taste is free…”
None of these things mattered. His lips fastened on the god’s.
Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing but the Black Kiss, the terrible Kiss of the gods.
6.
How long he lay so he didn’t, later, know. Time did not matter. Nothing did. The dark hall was Heaven, the only kind of Heaven man could hope for in this World. The dirty mattress that he lay on was his home, grander even than vanished Goliris. He had no need for money, for guns, for knowledge or desire. All was as it should be, here in the Hall of the Naked God.
The naked god…the chained god…from what dark place did it arise, what primordial bog did it crawl out of, with Fo-Fingga as his prophet and disciple? It was a question unimportant to Gorel—all questions were. He needed nothing, was nothing.
Only dimly, therefore, was he aware at last of someone moving through the bodies of the lost, of shouts, and a laugh, and steps again, and a hand reaching down and shaking him roughly awake.
A voice from far-away said, “You stupid fool.”
Gorel grinned, or tried to. The hand slapped him, once, twice.
Gorel tried to hit back but couldn’t lift his hand.
The voice said, “Devlin, if he’s dead, you’re next in line.”
“He is alive, alive!” a whiny voice replied. “A dead man’s no use to me, no use to anyone but the gods beyond the veil.”
“Gods,” the other voice said. “Save me from gods and their addicts.”
“You won’t—you won’t hurt him, will you?” the wheedling voice, Fo-Fingga’s voice, said.
“Gorel?”
“My god,” Devlin said. “Screw Gorel and those who ride with him.”
“Watch your language, little man. Now get him up and sober. I need him.”
“He’s good for nothing but another dose of dust.”
“Then get me dust. And hurry. My patience’s running thin.”
Hands tugging at Gorel, lifting him. He tried to fight them, but the Black Kiss was upon him again, and he soon enough subsided.
“He’ll have to sleep it off. As for the dust—”
“I’ll pay the going rate.”
“Why didn’t you say so to begin with?”
“Just get him ready, or you’ll lose another finger.”
—
Darkness, light. He was being carried. The stench of sorcery subsided, gradually. Cold water hit him, made him cry out. He was being scrubbed, none too gently, then hit with cold water again.
Then something soft. A towel.
A voice said, “Dry yourself. Think you can manage that?”
He wasn’t sure.
The voice sounded familiar. He dried himself as best he could. Hands dragging him, something soft beneath. A bed, no roaches there this time.
He slept.
—
When he woke up the room was bright with light. Gorel blinked back tears.
“Good to see you back in the land of the living,” a voice said.
The voice from his dreams. A familiar voice…
He sat up and stared at the small man sitting by his bedside. The man gave him a sardonic smile. His left eye was missing and covered by a plain leather patch. His hair was grey, and bald along the line of an old scar…
He was smoking a thin, home-made cigar.
Gorel said, “Mauser?”
“Were you expecting Fo-Fingga?”
“I was expecting no one.” He examined the smaller man. His fingers bunched into fists. “You took me from there?”
“I need you functioning.” A curious glance. “When did you…”
Gorel shook his head. “An itinerant god. Far south from here…it’s a long story.”
Mauser shook his head. “It’s good to see you again, Gorel.”
“You, too.” Gorel touched his head. It felt sore. His hands, he noticed, were covered in bites. Bed-bugs.
He scratched, half-heartedly. “I thought you were dead.”
His friend merely smiled at that. He said, “I heard you were around.”
“How?”
“Fo-Fingga tried to sell me your guns.”
“That little—”
Mauser gestured with his head. “They’re there. Are you fit enough to use them?”
The guns were on the table by the bed, the seven-pointed stars of Goliris shining on their handles. Gorel said, “I just…”
“Yes?”
“I need just a little bit.”
There was silence between them. Mauser’s smile evaporated. He took a drag on his cigar, held the smoke in before releasing it. His face was wreathed in blue smoke.
He said, “Perhaps you’re no good to me after all.”
“Screw you,” Gorel said. He stood up, reached for his guns. Mauser didn’t move. Gorel took the guns, began checking first one then the other. Mauser smoked, and watched. After he was satisfied with the guns, Gorel dressed himself, shaved, and stretched. He didn’t think he could stomach any food…but he’d try. When he turned around to Mauser, the smaller man had finished his cigar and in its place was holding a small packet of folded paper. He threw it to Gorel.
Gorel caught it, opened it carefully, and took a pinch of dust. He put it up his nose, snorted it, and smiled.
“What’s the job?” he said.
7.
“There’s really nothing to it,” Mauser said. They were standing outside the ruined temple. Devlin Fo-Fingga was on his hands and knees in the mud, with Gorel’s gun pressed painfully against his forehead.
“Please, Gorel…It’s all just a terrible mistake!”
Gorel pressed the muzzle of the gun harder against the man’s greenish skin. “I’m listening,” he said, to Mauser.
“A grab and run, a heist. You know what it’s like.”
“Aha. And what’s the target?”
“Gorel, please, let me go! What happened in Mosina wasn’t my fault!”
“Shut up,” Gorel said. “Mauser?”
“An ikon, that’s all. Look, are you going to finish him off, or what?”
“Haven’t decided.”
“He could be useful,” Mauser said, meditatively.
“A thief’s no good, with just four fingers.”
“He can still hold a gun, Gorel. You only need one finger to pull a trigger.”
“So, a rough job.”
“Did you expect anything else?”
Gorel chewed on his cigar.
“A religious ikon?” he said.
“You know any other kind?”
“And where exactly is this ikon?”
“In a temple, Gorel,” Mauser said. “Isn’t that where they usually are?”
“I see, I see,” Gorel said. He chewed on his cigar, then casually back-handed Devlin on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. The man fell down on the ground holding his face. He stared up in hatred at the muzzle of the gun.
“Oh, get up,” Gorel said. “I’m not going to kill you…today.”
The man slowly got up. He wiped the blood with his fingers, then sucked on them. Gorel looked away in disgust and Devlin grinned.
“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 over 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.
