by Glen Cook
That popped up and down a couple of times, but otherwise he ignored me. I managed to croak, "Who are you people? What are you?"
Two of these characters could pass for giants and one for human, but the rest were not like anything I had ever seen on the streets of TunFaire. You spend any time at all out there, you will see members or virtually every sentient species, from pixies the size of your thumb to giants twenty feet tall. You will even see some horrors like the ratmen, who were created by sorcery run amok.
Maybe that was what we had here, fugitives from some cellar way up at the pinnacle of the Hill, where our magician masters live. Trouble was, for the last four generations most of them people had spent their lives in the Cantard, managing the war. None of them would have messed up this much.
Some things you could be sure of just by experience.
I sagged. My ugly buddy did not help. I hung on like a drowning man, gradually pulling myself back into our world. I had had practice climbing lampposts on nights when the weather had turned incredibly alcoholic. "I know you people can talk."
Speaking of talk, where was my curse, the feathered prince of gab, the Goddamn Parrot? He sure wasn't in this basement—unless he was dead. Even the Dead Man could not stop his beak from rattling here.
The big guy, who was pretty obviously the head weirdo, nodded to the guy who had feathers for ears. But Beanpole Man just looked at me and shrugged like he did not have a notion.
I muttered. "I have been kidnapped by morons."
Yeah. Right. And what did that say about the blinding intellect of the guy who got kidnapped?
Gravity would not leave me alone. I sagged yet again.
Maybe I should let go, fall back down, go to sleep, and eventually wake up again somewhere else, where all the nightmares had not yet wormed their ways into every human mind.
Et tu, Cthulhu? The world is full of crackpots, and who can you trust?
7
The greenish woman moved toward me. "Please accept our apologies, Mr. Garrett. We needed to see you quickly. Daiged, Rhogiro, and Ringo," she said, aiming a wicked nail with each name by way of making introductions, "had to work fast. They aren't used to being gentle."
"No kidding."
I looked around for the Goddamn Parrot. Still no sign of him. Maybe he had had sense enough to get away. Maybe I was in real luck and he mouthed off and got his neck wrung.
Somehow some of the woman's arms had disappeared. Her hair had become more managable. Her color had improved, her teeth had lost their sharpness, and her neckline now plunged to navel level.
I had fallen in with shapeshifters.
Now that I noticed it, the giants were several feet shorter, the ugly boys were less repulsive, and the long pale guy had ears. The sexy gal had changed, too, though she had been fine the way she was. She had shortened up and gone blonde. She giggled. Her appeal had not faded a bit.
Why would she want to turn into a bimbo?
Soon they all looked normal, within the very extended range considered normal in TunFaire. They could have gotten by outside—except that they tended to be a little ethereal in a strong light.
Did somebody feed me magic mushrooms while I was asleep?
I said, "That's a better look for you." The woman was too close. I watched her hair. Fleas and lice are bad enough.
She flashed an inviting smile, licked her lips with a tongue that split at the end. She told me, "I appreciate your thoughts. They're flattering. But you don't want to get too close to me." She gestured at the blonde, who stared at me like she wanted me for dinner. In a less stressful moment I would have leaped onto her plate. I failed to correct the snake woman's misconception about her effect on me.
"You got any chairs around here?" I had a concussion for sure. I was keeping my balance about as good as a ratman on weed.
"I'm sorry. We jumped into this rather precipitously."
I lowered myself back down to the floor so I would not have so far to fall when the time came. "Tell me something useful. Who are you? What are you? What do you want? Give me some of the good stuff before I fade away again here." My head really hurt.
"We are the last of the Godoroth. Through no wish of ours, nor any fault, we have become entangled in a struggle with the Shayir."
"The sun of knowledge shines on me," I muttered. "I'm afraid not." I didn't have a clue.
"Only one group can survive. This place is the cellar of our last mortal follower. We will shelter here till the contest is decided. In his prayers our follower suggested we enlist your aid. By temperament you are well suited."
"Leave my tailor out of this."
She scowled. She didn't get it. "We were considering bringing in a nonbeliever already. The Shayir must have gotten wind of you and so set a trap for you."
"Must be the bump on the head. I'm not understanding any of this." I asked again. "Who are you? What are you?"
The blonde giggled. That rogue Garrett. He says the cleverest things. However, the boss guy didn't find me amusing. Lightning crackled on his brow. Literally. He had grown a tad again, too. Should have clued me right then. His type don't have any patience.
"You've never heard of the Godoroth?"
" 'Fraid not. None of those other names, either."
"Ignorance was one point that recommended you." She didn't sound like she believed in ignorance, though.
Thunders pranced around the big guy's melon. The brunette flashed him a look that might have been disgust. Then she told me, "I'm Magodor. Collectively, we are the Godoroth. We were the patron gods of the Hahr, one of the first tribes to settle this region. They were primitive by your standards. They planted crops and herded cattle but were not very good at it. They lived as much by raiding as by agriculture. Almost all physical trace of them has vanished. Their blood still runs strong in the rulers of this city, but their culture is extinct. And their gods are on the verge of extinction."
That bad at agriculture—and the interest in institutionalized thievery sounded like a cultural aspect that had persisted amongst our rulers.
"The worship of the Shayir was brought into this region by the Ox-Riders of Grim during the Gritny Conquest. The Gritny were much like the Hahr in the ways they lived. They did not last long. They were just the first wave in an age of great migrations. Every decade saw its raiders or conquerors. Each wave left its seed and a few settlers and their ideas. Of the Ox-Riders no physical trace remains. But their gods, the Shayir, are persistent and resilient. And now, brought low by time, we and the Shayir must fight for a place on the Street of the Gods."
Street of the Gods. That was the insiders' name for the avenue that runs the length of what cynical and undereducated types refer to as the Dream Quarter, that part of the South Side where TunFaire's thousand and one gods all have their main temples. Another legacy of the remote past, from an age when the temporal power reigned supreme and was totally paranoid about the worldly ambitions of priesthoods. Those old emperors had wanted every priest where he could be watched easily—and could be round easily at massacre time.
I looked around. Gods? Right.
"You know how it works on the Street? It's all marketing. If you win a good following, you migrate west to temples and cathedrals nearer the Hill. If you lose market share, you slide downhill eastward, toward the river. For three decades we have hung on by our nails, in the last temple to the east, while the Shayir holed up across the Street and one place west, with a monotheistic god named Scubs in the status niche between us. But Scubs won a family of converts last month. And immigrants from the Cantard have imported a god named Antitibet who has enough followers to seize a place a third of the way to the west. Which means a lot of shuffling around is due. And which also means that either we or the Shayir will have to leave the Street."
Yeah. I understood that. I knew how things worked in the Dream Quarter. I didn't have a clue why, or how, the priests worked it all out amongst themselves, but the results were evident.
Farthest west a
re the Chattaree cathedral of the Church and the Orthodox compound. These are feuding cousin religions that, with their various schismatic offspring, claim the majority of TunFaire's believers. These are rich and powerful cults.
And at the east end are dozens of cults like this one represented here, gods and pantheons known only to a handful of faithful. At that end of the street the temples are really nothing but worn-out storefronts.
I thought I understood the situation. Which did not mean I believed these characters were actual gods and goddesses. Didn't mean I didn't believe, either. You ask me, the evidence in the god business is always thin and, in most cases, thoroughly cooked by priests who survive by charging admission to heavenly attention. But this is TunFaire, the wonderful city where any damned thing can happen.
"You are a skeptic," Magodor observed. She looked very pretty right then.
I confessed with a nod. I did not confide my own beliefs, or the lack thereof.
Wisps of smoke trailed from the big guy's nostrils. He was up to eighteen feet tall. If he got any more perturbed he would run out of headroom.
"We will explore your thinking another time. For the moment let's just say that we Godoroth are in a situation both simple and desperate. We or the Shayir are going to leave the Street. For us that would mean oblivion. The Street has a power all its own, a manna that helps sustain us. Off the Street we would be little more than wraiths, and that only transiently."
Maybe. The ugly boys looked as solid and eternal as basalt.
She reiterated, in case her point had gone over my head the past several times: "If we're forced off the Street we are done, Mr. Garrett. Lost. Forgotten."
I'm not often accused of thinking before I open my big yap. I could not be convicted this time, either. "What actually does happen to gods who run out their string? You have gods or your own to report to, stand on the scales, be judged and all?"
Rumble-rumble. A crown of little thunderheads rode the big guy's head now. He was over twenty feet tall. Too tall for the cellar, even sitting down. He was bent over, glaring at me ferociously. I got the impression that, despite being the boss, he was not too bright.
Isn't that a lovely notion? Even in the supernatural world it isn't necessarily the cream that rises to the top.
Lack of brilliance was a suspicion I had entertained concerning numerous gods. Mostly their myths consist of vicious behaviors toward one another and their worshippers, spiced up with lots of adultery, incest, bestiality, parricide, and whatnot.
"Some just fade till even the ghost is gone. Others become mortals, prey for time and the worm." I cannot say that she sounded entirely convincing.
The big guy closed his eyes, breathed lightning. His companion had better control. She had gotten herself down to six feet tall and was quite attractive in a mature, country sort of way. I had no trouble picturing her galloping across the sky on a stormy night, wearing an iron hat with horns, scattering ravens while harvesting the fallen heroes. Trouble was, she eyed me like she had no trouble picturing me dangling across the neck of her mount.
My head still hurt. My stomach kept rolling over. I wanted desperately to go back to sleep.
I said, "I'm not comfortable here." I was also, still, very confused, completely distrusting of my senses. "Is there somewhere we can sit down, just you and me, so I can get a handle on this without being distracted?" If I wasn't trying to keep from stepping on my tongue when I looked at the blonde I was worrying about the big guy's temper or about the ugly brothers taking a notion to bang me around again. I did know I was in one bad spot, whatever these things were.
The big guy spat from the side of his mouth, like those country boys who chew weed instead of smoking it. A ball of fire hit stone a few yards from my hand, melted right down into the slate. Charming.
8
There was another cellar above part of the one where I had awakened. It was more normal, used for wine storage and lumber rooms. Lots of dust and spiders. Plenty of rats. Refreshingly mundane. My companion illuminated our way with a light from within herself. She seemed fuzzy but appeared solid once we climbed into a kitchen where a dozen women were cooking and baking. They paused to stare, baffled. Who was this guy coming out of the cellar?
Apparently they didn't see Magodor. Nor did they seem inclined to challenge my presence. They went back to work. That was not reassuring. It meant they were used to strange doings and to minding their own business.
Their number meant I had to be way up the Hill. And that meant the house probably belonged to one of the great and most wicked of the sorcerers who are the true powers in Karenta.
I hate it when I get noticed by those people. That never is good for me.
Magodor led me into a small drawing room apparently set up just for us. She told me, "You will have to manage without refreshments. We're not allowing ourselves to be seen by mortals."
I dropped into a chair so overstuffed I sank almost out of sight. I caught an arm and saved myself. In moments I was so comfortable I was ready to sleep. I knew I had a concussion, so I fought the drowsiness. "How come?"
"Our enemies would find out where we are."
"That's a problem?"
She offered me a sour look. Must have been my tone. "You've never seen a war of the gods. Pray you don't." The woman with all the teeth and arms and the snake problem shone through momentarily. "Neither we nor the Shayir need worry about injuring mortals under our protection." But wasn't that sort of thing supposed to be bad for business in general?
The nasty side faded. Lovely. Yum!
"That wouldn't be smart, Garrett."
"Huh?"
"Your thoughts are obvious. They were with Adeth. They were with Star. They are with me. You should know that my lovers seldom survive. I offer the warning only because we need you healthy. I am Magodor the Destroyer."
Into my head flooded images of famine and pestilence, of acres of bones, of cities burning and ravens darkening the sky. Boy, would she be a fun date. When the visions cleared, Magodor looked her loveliest yet, a make-the-celibate-monks-howl-at-the-unfair-moon sort of girl.
"Resist me."
"Will do." I was not sure that these Godoroth were not just slick con artists with a little hedge wizardry, aiming to use me as a stalking-horse. But why take chances?
"Until we triumph over the Shayir." If anything, she grew more desirable.
"Uh," I said, wondering if I ought not to hold a hand over my eyes. "Let's have some details. Like who was who down there and what you expect me to do."
"Meaning, if we really are gods, why not handle our problems ourselves?"
"Something like that." She talked too much for any god I ever heard of.
"Even gods are constrained."
"How?"
"We cannot, for example, invade the temple of the Shayir. More will become evident in time. You haven't agreed to help."
I didn't intend to, either. I didn't tell her that. I don't have much use for gods of any sort. I figured what I needed to do was be polite, stall, ride it out, and soon enough I would be out of there. All the gods I had heard of had notoriously short attention spans. They all wanted to go boff their father's girlfriend or their brother or their pet three-headed dragon. Two hours after I was gone, these characters wouldn't remember me.
‘Are you going to help?"
"You haven't told me anything. I don't even know who I would be representing. I know the name of one lovely who dotes on devastation. I know the name of a long drink of water who has feathered ears. That's not much."
"Jorken the Messenger. He is of no consequence."
"Then there are the big guys. Daiged, Rhogiro, and Ringo? What are they?"
"Avars. We inherited them. They were servants of the Old Ones. They have no attributes but strength."
"Don't forget ugly. They're really big on ugly."
"You have no idea. And of course, being you, you're really interested in Star."
"Star?"
"She has an old
er name, but it means Morning Star. She is the whore avatar of Woman, the Temptress, the temple prostitute who always comes across."
"How romantic."
"I could see the romance in your eyes whenever you looked at her."
"Some things we can't control."
"Or you wouldn't have followed Adeth."
"Adeth?"
"The one trying to lead you into a trap. You are lucky we were watching. You would not have enjoyed her company as much as Star's."
"The redhead? Some things we can't control."
"If you must lose it, concentrate on Star. She might get interested. She hasn't turned it on for you yet, Garrett."
Wow. She ought to bottle and sell that indifference, then. Be a comedown from the god racket, but she would get rich and famous and maybe famous would put her feet on the ladder back to the top. I could get rich myself, managing her. Cut myself a percentage of the take and...
Sssss!
Snakes out of green hair. Magodor was irritated. I don't think she could read my mind, but she was bright enough to realize I wasn't paying attention. I came alert fast. They might not be gods, but they might believe they were and had every right to be vicious and capricious. I put on my killer grin, hoisted an eyebrow charmingly, said, "I'm awake! I'm awake!" same as I used to tell the sergeant of the guard when he caught me with my attention wandering back in those good old Marine Corps days, dancing with the Venageti in the islands.
"You don't seem especially interested."
"Consider the mortal's viewpoint. He's been kidnapped. He has a knife across his throat. Somebody supposedly wants to hire him, but he can't find out what for. You haven't said a word about payment. The one thing that does come across is that these would-be employers don't look any more trustworthy or stable than any other gods."
With every word sweet Maggie grew less attractive. I quit before she decided to drop me down a hole and interview elsewhere. "Why not finish telling me about the others?"
I basked in the pale green light of her disapproval. She wasn't used to backtalk. But she took control. Maybe she was desperate.