He was clothed at least, in a huge, sleeveless smock that covered but did not fully conceal a big body that was both muscled and fat. He reached to fend off the crawling children, or to pull one suddenly close to squeeze them against his chest, while they squealed in delight. The man’s face did not change expression, which puzzled Luck – until he realised that it wasn’t a face at all but a mask, a near perfect rendering of a man, made from some soft and pliant material. Real eyes reflected the firelight through slits. No feature moved, the lips parted in a fixed smile. There was something familiar about the face. The drug, Luck thought, still hurting his mind and gripping his body, as well as his neck, stinging where the dart had entered.
He focused again on the children, sliding over the huge frame. Noticed something else. They laughed as the man grabbed them, hugged them, ran his hands up and down them before letting them slide away. But their smiles were as fixed as the one on the mask and their eyes were dead.
Luck shuddered – and a voice came from behind the unmoving lips.
‘You are awake. At lassst!’
The voice was high-pitched, sibilant; the words in the language of their land. A countryman, then. A beginning. ‘I am,’ Luck replied. ‘My name is Strovyn, of Askaug.’ He craned around and saw, a half-dozen paces away, the trussed, still unconscious form of his brother. ‘And that is Hendrik. We are fur traders. We—’
‘Oh, ssstop.’ The hiss was soft, the tone amused, mock-hurt. ‘When our time together is going to be so short, why ssspend it lying to one another, hmm?’
The children had stopped moving; all were staring at Luck now, their deadened eyes unnerving. He shifted, and agony shot through his lashed limbs. The pain in his head made thinking almost unbearable. But, tied up as he was, thinking was all he had. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘A guest owes his host the truth of himself. But a host owes something too and I was confused by the hospitality.’ He pulled at his wrists, the pain immediate and intense. ‘I can understand you taking no chances with visitors. We came armed into your country. But we mean you no harm. How about freeing us and let us begin again?’
‘Free you?’ His laughter came loud and high-pitched, and the children immediately joined him, laughing in trills and runs that sounded like the song Luck had heard upon the lake – instantly ending when the masked man did. ‘I cannot have gods running free in my country. Sswimming free. Flying free.’ A tongue darted out, to lick the rigid lips. ‘Oh yess, I know what you are. Even who you are … Luck of Askaug.’
It was a shock, his name sliding from that fixed mouth. Luck swallowed. ‘How … how do you know me?’
A little laugh, echoed by the children. ‘We are cut off here, it is true. But occasionally a stranger will come by and talk before they … passss on. Tales are told. Less of you, admittedly. More of your brother gods.’ The tongue licked again, withdrew. ‘Who would have thought Bjorn Swiftsword would be here, in my hall?’
The more he talked, the more Luck was able to place him. ‘But you are a stranger here too, are you not? Your voice tells me you are from the southern lands. Did you, perhaps, also hear tales of us there?’
The man stood abruptly, spilling a dull-eyed boy from his lap. ‘I do not wish to talk about that!’ he screeched. ‘There was no life before. No land! No place! There is only here. Here! Now! Me!’
He stepped from the dais on which the chair stood – a throne truly, elaborately carved from black hardwood – and began talking fast in a language Luck had never heard, one made deep in the throat as if growled. The children scattered, snatching up their balls and ropes, and ran to crouch against the walls. He gave a shout and doors crashed open; there was the sound of running feet and in a moment the space before the dais was filled with painted, naked bodies – six men hurling themselves to the floor, their faces lowered, their arms raised high to the masked man, who called out more of what had to be commands. The six men grunted, shot up and turned to grab the two bound gods. There was relief as the cords around Luck’s ankles were cut and he could stretch out his legs; pain returned as he was thrown onto some sort of board and lashed tight to it around chest and waist. He was then jerked upright and he could see the whole room.
It was the rough image of a mead hall, if one could be fashioned from woven reeds. Beside him his brother was thrown upright, similarly tied to a board, at the base of which Luck saw wheels. Bjorn had woken and the brothers exchanged a swift look that was part pain and part promise. They knew two things at least: that they were alive; and that it was hard to kill a god.
Then sight was taken, when cloth was bound over their eyes, and drawn tight.
The wheeled boards were swivelled, rolled. Luck hoped to feel night air – for there were beasts outside, of scale, fur and feather. It would be impossible to possess one while blind and strapped to a board. But blindfolds could slip, and cords loosen.
Night air did not come. They were moved, bumped over some threshold, but were inside still; doors closed behind them. They halted, and a near silence came, broken only by breathing – his own, Bjorn’s, others’, how many he could not tell. Then he heard the crackle of flame, and sudden heat came near his face. Luck tensed – it was one of the very few ways to kill a god, dissolving him in fire. But the heat passed, and that voice came again. Rage gone from it, excitement returned. ‘Sshall I sshow you,’ it hissed, ‘wondersss?’
Luck’s blindfold was snatched off. For a moment he still couldn’t see, for he was dazzled by torchlight. He looked down, up at Bjorn, finally across to the man who held the torch. His ‘face’ was still immobile atop that big body, light still dancing in the eye gaps.
‘You were right and I apologise,’ the masked man said. ‘I have broken so many rules of hospitality. It has been so long since I entertained. So I will begin again. First, I will give you my name. Not my old name, which no longer matters.’ The tongue shot out, snake-like, then withdrew. ‘I am Peki Asarko. Welcome, godss of Asskaug, to my realm.’
He bowed, stepped away. They were rolled after him, as Peki Asarko swept the torch through the room, a reed hall near as long as the first, not as wide. ‘My realm!’ he said. ‘Mine – for I have made it. What savages they were, these people, when I first came here! Head-hunters. Cannibals. Why, they even wanted to eat me!’ He laughed, and the men Luck couldn’t see who pushed the boards laughed loudly too, stopping as soon as their leader spoke again. ‘But there was some time between the killing and the eating. So, of course, I did what it is we do. I … died.’ He sighed the word, then shouted, gleefully, ‘and then was born again!’
His laugh came once more, longer, echoed as before. Luck thought. A god? He knew few enough of those from the south. But this Peki Asarko – not a Midgarth name, it had to be taken from the tribe he ruled – was unlike any he’d met anywhere. The king-god continued, ‘They were surprised at my resurrection, of course. It was almost enough to make them worship me. That, and a little, uh, animal magic, of course.’ The tongue darted again. ‘They’d never seen a god, which I thought strange, since some of us do travel. But after a day I started to choke on the marsh gases and realised why none had come here. The people had adapted, though many still died. Especially the children. My sweet children.’ He sighed. ‘I stopped that. Saved them. Led them here, to the big island’s top, where the gases do not reach. They worshipped me then. And even more when I introduced … the ceremonies.’
There was a swoop of the torch, a change of tone. From pompous to excited. ‘Look here!’
Flamelight fell on the figure of a man – tall, naked, painted. Immobile. His eyes were wooden, painted too. At first Luck thought that he was a carving, and cunningly done. Until, with dread spreading a chill over his heart, he realised what he was seeing.
Peki Asarko put words to his dread. ‘Flaying. We peel their skins off in large pieces. It’s harder than you think. They don’t live long after that. Well, some a little longer.’ He gave a
small laugh, unechoed. ‘Then I … put them back together.’ He grunted. ‘Do you know, in my home town, they didn’t understand it. How I was doing it for the people.’ His voice had gone into a whine, continued on the same note. ‘It was the way to end the resentment of us, don’t you sssee? This way,’ he ran a finger up one painted arm, ‘they are immortal too.’
He turned and walked further up the hall, using the flame he carried to light other torches in metal sconces on wooden pillars. All that was dark was now light, all that was hidden, revealed – a line of flayed men, women, children, right to the end of the room. The shock of it was like a kick in Luck’s stomach, and the sickness he’d felt from the moment he’d entered the mists on the Lake of Souls surged up his throat and out. He’d eaten too little over too long so bile came fast, bitterness filling his mouth. Beside him he heard his brother spit and curse.
‘There, there. I know. I know!’ Peki Asarko had returned. Handing his torch to a man behind the board, he patted Luck’s arm. ‘I was sick the first time too. You grow used to it.’ He giggled. ‘More! You learn to love it.’ He gripped. ‘Now let me show you a sspecial wonder. My latesst … resurrection.’
He scampered ahead, the men again running Luck and Bjorn swiftly after – to halt before a figure set a little back in the shadows. ‘Here! Here!’ the masked god cried, lowering the torch he held.
From the moment he’d awoken from his drugged sleep, Luck had suffered shock after shock. But this was of a different level. From a different world. Because before him was another flayed man.
Bald. Black of tooth. Black of eye.
Peki Asarko leaned close. ‘I know you’ve sseen one like him before,’ he whispered. ‘You have his boat, of course, that’s how you came. And why you came, isn’t it? To traverse our lake, climb the mountain, discover why the killers have come and what they intend? You worked out their route, didn’t you, clever Luck of Askaug?’ He clapped his hands, spoke louder. ‘I have good news! I will ssave you the journey. I can tell you all that. But first,’ he swivelled away, and thrust his face into Bjorn’s. ‘The way you’ve been staring at me, Sswiftsword.’ He ran his fingers over his mask. ‘You know me, don’t you?’
Bjorn didn’t reply, just stared. Until Peki screamed, ‘Answer me!’ and hit him, backhanded. The blow sent the board sideways, the man behind struggling to drag him upright once more. When Bjorn lifted his eyes again, Luck could see hatred in them, as clearly as the blood on his lips. ‘I know whose face you wear,’ his brother said softly. ‘His name was Rukka the Handsome, brother of Karn, whose head you shrank and gave to the black-eyed killer.’ Luck gasped, sickened by recognising in his turn the preserved skin of the hunter, as Bjorn continued, ‘So I tell you this: they were both my friends. And I am going to kill you, for both their sakes.’
‘Wonderful!’ Peki laughed, and clapped. ‘The legend that is Bjorn Sswiftsword! Another heroic god, just like those who judged me, who drove me from my home. So noble. So … dead!’ He lifted his hand again, but Bjorn didn’t flinch and Peki Asarko merely stretched out his fingers and patted his cheek. ‘But not yet,’ he said, turning back to Luck. ‘I wouldn’t be so cruel. First you must learn what you came to learn. Then you must die.’
He turned back to the flayed man beside him. ‘This one,’ he said, ‘killed five of my people before they took him – so they hurt him too badly in the taking. I like to talk first, as you know. He died – but lives again.’ He patted the man’s face as he had Bjorn’s. ‘But his companion was taken more quietly – the one you must have met – we did talk. Did you discover that they can speak our language? That they have been studying it, us, for years? Preparing?’
Luck thought about the two spaces for paddlers in the craft, the duplication of many of the tools. Of course there had been two. ‘Preparing for what?’
‘Oh, gods,’ Peki Asarko tipped back his head and laughed. ‘Only the conquest of the world.’
‘And you will help them?’ Bjorn shouted. ‘Betray your people? Your brother gods?’
‘Who betrayed me? Exiled me? Just because my … tasstes in death differed from theirs? Just because I chose to kill with poison not with blades?’ He hissed this, his big chest rising. ‘Besides,’ he continued, his voice soft again, ‘this is not betrayal. This is redemption. For they do not come to destroy the world but to save it. With a special place reserved for those who help them. An elevated place.’
‘Amongst their gods?’
‘Oh no! They have no gods. Or rather,’ he raised his eyes to stare at the roof, ‘they have but one.’
Bjorn growled again, about to rage. But Luck got in first. ‘Is this one a baby? Neither man nor woman?’
Peki gasped then, his eyes shooting down to stare. ‘How could you know what only the chosen have seen?’
The memory came, that blinding vision in the globe. ‘I saw it – in glass.’
‘You?’ Peki’s high voice rose higher in excitement. ‘Then, brother … you are chosen too. Rejoice, Luck the Lame, Luck the Well-Named, for it is we … different ones who will have an honoured place in the new world, when all these warrior gods are gone.’ He glanced back at Bjorn before leaning closer in. ‘For I saw it too! In the glass! The one the other left me, before I let him go on to Askaug to … continue his work.’ He reached up now, fiddling with the straps that held Rukka the Handsome’s face in place. ‘Oh, and I saved one more surprise. Is it the best? The best for last?’
Peki Asarko took off his mask. The face beneath could have come from any town or village in Midgarth – red eyebrows and hair, a scattering of freckles, a thick nose, full lips. He was ordinary. Except for the eyeballs, lined in black circles. Except for the blackening teeth. Luck remembered the lure of the smoke that had risen from the drug he’d poured onto the globe. How he’d craved it again, though gradually the desire had dwindled. It was clear that for the god before him, the taste had grown along with its fulfilment.
Peki Asarko was looking at him as if expecting some bond of kinship. Which gave him a chance to learn more.
‘Why do they want to conquer Midgarth?’
‘Midgarth?’ Peki gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Midgarth is nothing. Our world is nothing. They have shown me worlds of wonder in their glassss!’ He turned his black eyes to the roof. ‘There is a city on an inland sea far in the south, where five times the whole population of our country live, with red temples and stone palaces that make our mead halls look like fishing shacks.’ His eyes glistened. ‘There is an island to the west, where a fire god rules who has killed all the other gods. It is in his land that the saviour will be born. Has been born already, perhaps. And the chosen people beyond the mountains are going to fetch this saviour … to rule us all!’
Luck had suspected that there were other worlds – even before the black-eyed killers arrived and proved it. But so many? So different? His mind reeled, groping among questions. What people dwelt beyond the mountains? How numerous, how strong? He did not know how long Peki would remain talkative – or what would happen when he stopped talking.
‘Tell me …’ he began.
It was the moment Bjorn leapt. Bringing out the hands he’d somehow freed – it would take a cleverer man than Peki Asarko to bind Bjorn Swiftsword for long – he jabbed his fingers into the throat of the man who was wheeling him, then grabbed him as his board fell to the floor. Luck’s slammed down too, his own guard dropping him to lunge at Bjorn – who grasped one of the man’s arms, snapped it, threw him aside.
Peki was frozen, staring at Bjorn on the floor now freeing the rest of the ropes around his legs. Then he jerked, screamed, ‘Help! Help me!’
‘I’ll help you,’ said Bjorn, ‘for Rukka and for Karn.’ He rose, stepped clear, reached. But Peki, agile for a big man, grabbed the flayed assassin and hurled him at Bjorn. His brother threw the tortured body aside, came again – and then was swarmed … by children. Silent, they ran in from
the door. One boy jumped onto his back, another leapt and grabbed him round the throat. Bjorn ripped their hands clear, hurled them away, reached again for Peki Asarko. But when a small girl slammed into his legs, he buckled, fell onto one knee. A dozen bodies hit him. For a moment he thrashed – until he was drowned by numbers.
‘Blind them! Take them!’ Peki screeched and now men rushed in, replaced the children, seized both gods, struck with clubs, knocking Bjorn out, binding him swiftly to the board again. The blindfolds were retied on both of them. Then they were rolled away fast along the mud floors, briefly out into the air then into another building. There Luck heard something different. Up to then, all sounds had come from wood, reed, earth. Now there was the scrape of metal on metal, the familiar screech of bolts drawn, the smell of iron. Stripped from the boards, their hands tied again before them, though not their feet, they were bent and hurled forward, landing hard. A metal door clanged shut behind them. Bolts were shot home.
Peki’s voice reached him, muffled but still high-pitched and clear. ‘Sleep if you can. Live if you can. Die if you wish. It is six hours till morning, and with the dawn, one of you will join my parade of immortals. But which one?’ He giggled. ‘Play throw-sticks for it if you like. Oh no! Whoops! You can’t.’
Shrill laughter receded, vanished. The silence itself felt muffled, the air thick, like a weight pressing him down. But the men had rushed the retying of his blindfold and Luck was able to scrape it off on his brother’s knots. Yet freeing his eyes did not return his sight. Lifting his head, he banged it into a metal ceiling a hand’s breadth above him. Rolling, he found a wall an arm’s length to one side. Managing to roll over his brother – so gone to the world he made no complaint – he found another. His legs were not bent behind him any more so after shuffling he swiftly reached one end. He decided not to bother with the other. He knew now where he and Bjorn were. Or rather in what. He also knew why.
Peki Asarko had fashioned a box of iron against this day – the one when he captured a fellow god. A sealed box, so no mouse or rat could enter that a god could become and escape. Yet Luck’s first concern was not escape but survival. A box this small had almost no air, and what they had they were using fast.
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