1.
Gorel of Goliris rode slowly, half-delirious in the saddle of his graal. The creature lumbered beneath him, moving sluggishly. It was a multilegged beast, native to the sands of Meskatel, which lay far to the south. Its tough carapace would turn a pleasing green in sunlight, as it depended on the solar rays for sustenance: but right now its skin was a dark and unhealthy-looking mottled grey, as the storm clouds had been amassing steadily over the deadlands and the creature was starved of nutrition just like its master, in his own way, was. Its tail was raised like the stem of a flower, the better to catch moisture in the air, the sting at its end naked like a spur.
They were much alike, master and beast. Hardy, obstinate, durable, and deadly. Gorel’s head hung limp on his chest. His gums hurt and his eyes felt fused shut, and everything ached. His hands shook uncontrollably.
Withdrawal.
He needed it.
He needed the Black Kiss.
What drove him into the deadlands was a mixture of heartache, desire, and need. Somewhere far behind him lay the Black Tor, and its enigmatic master, the dark lord whom Gorel knew only as Kettle. The Avian mage was a small, slight being, his fragile bones like those of a bird. The two had been together when great Falang-Et fell, and the river Thiamat flooded, its god dead…
Kettle had used Gorel, and Gorel could not forgive his onetime lover for that betrayal.
His journey since had taken him far and wide: to the great cemetery of Kur-a-len, where the dead still walk, and to the Zul-Ware’i mountains, where the remnants of an ancient war still littered the glaciers with deadly unexploded ordnance. What drove him, always, was his quest. The search for lost Goliris, that greatest of empires, the biggest and most powerful the World had ever known. His home, from which he had been taken as a child, to which he must return, and claim his throne…
Yet in all the World, in all of his searching, throughout the long years, he had never found a trace of his homeland, as though—he sometimes thought, in dark moments—it had been erased entirely from the memory of all living beings.
But the World was large—infinite, some even claimed. And Gorel would not rest until he found it once again.
Goliris…
Heartache, then, and need. Yet, what of desire?
It had happened long before, in the jungle lands where the Urino-Dag, the ghouls of the bush, haunt the unwary traveller in the thicket. Where the smell of rotten leaves and decay fills the still air, where a village once stood, where Gorel had come in his search…only to encounter the twin goddesses, Shar and Shalin, who bit him, laughing, with the Black Kiss…and even as he murdered them both, and all their followers, their curse was in him, and he was forever hooked.
Gods’ Dust.
But there were no gods in the deadlands. There were barely any human habitations to attract them, no subsequent illicit transaction of pleasure for faith. And Gorel was driven on blindly, across a land cracked with drought, under a black sky, driven as much away as towards, growing weak, growing delirious…
And in his delirium tremens, he remembered.
He remembered Goliris.
2.
The great towers of dread Goliris rose like an infection out of the fertile ground. They were not so much built as cultivated, planted there in aeons past by the magus-emperor Gon, the fungimancer. Where he had bought these spores, at what cost, or in what far-flung corner of the great empire of Goliris, was lost to the mists of time, but the towers grew, tall graceful stems with bulbous caps, gills protruding, and a small army of wizard-gardeners tending to their constant maintenance.
Goliris, mother-city, sat atop the shores of a great ocean. Its black ships, unequalled in all the World, departed from its shores to all corners and returned laden with goods and pillage. The hot, humid air was cooled by the sea breeze, and in its wide avenues and canals there strode, flew, and swam the ambassadors of a thousand races, come to pay tribute.
Gorel remembered standing at the top of the palace, holding his father’s hand. The room was cool and dark, and through the gills one could see the ocean spread out to the horizon, where a blood-red sun was slowly setting. Its dying light illuminated the great fleet, black sails raising overhead the seven-pointed-star flag of Goliris.
“Where are they going, Father?” the young Gorel had asked.
“To conquer new lands,” his father said. “To further spread the fame and power of Goliris. Gorel…one day, all this will be yours. For untold generations our bloodline held pure and strong, commanding empire. To rule is your destiny, as it was mine. Will you be ready?”
The young Gorel held his father’s hand and stared out to sea. The thought of his future, the terrible responsibility, both excited and frightened him. But he could not disappoint his father, could not reveal his inner turmoil.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, Father, I will be ready.”
“Good boy!” his father said. Then he scooped him in his arms, and for one brief, wondrous moment Gorel felt warm, and safe, and loved.
…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.
When they were finished, however, there was a short hiss of noxious air which, for the Ebong, must have passed for enthusiastic clapping.
“You can go. Warn you, though, not much call for mimes round here.”
“And the rents are steep,” added his colleague.
“Ask me, you’d be better off striking for the lowlands,” said a third. “Besides, you want to watch out you don’t hear the Call.”
His colleagues turned their black helmet heads on him at that and the mercenary slunk away, or as much as an Ebong could ever be said to slink. The three mimes thanked the guards humbly, and rode through the open gate and across the bridge and into the city…
And Gorel could hear it, now. And he realised he had been hearing it for some time, all through their approach to the city, though it was clearer now.
A sort of faint crystal peal…
A little sound of summoning, just at the edge of hearing.
9.
Once they were inside, the talismans began to lose their power. The three would-be robbers found a ramshackle inn that stood on an ait in the confluence of two of the smaller canals. There they checked their weapons while Mauser outlined the plan.
How and when Gorel had met Mauser was a long and not entirely interesting story. It was during that unfortunate episode with the Demon-Priests of Kraag. Needless to say, both of them had barely escaped with their lives, and Mauser still had a neat little scar to show for it. Where he came from, Gorel was never entirely sure. He was a rare white-face, of a race of barbarians who lived high in the snow-peaked mountains of the Beyaz. Gorel trusted him—as much as he could be said to trust anyone. Devlin he didn’t trust at all, but then the man’s untrustworthiness was a sort of assurance in itself.
The city was…strange.
It was clean and prosperous and ordered, a little haven of peace in a violent world.
He had had a chance to examine the corpses in the canals as they wended their slow way to the inn.
There were the bodies of many races in the water. Human and Avian and Merlangai, Ebong and numerous others. Who could tell where they had come from, or how long they had been lying there, submerged, perfectly preserved in the cold water that flowed from the Sacred Pool?
Even as he watched, he’d see a new body arrive from up-stream, fed into the system of canals, until it found a place and there remained, suspended. And always, at the edge of hearing, there was that faint peal of a bell, a sort of muted laughter, an invitation…
And as he watched, he saw a woman stop in the middle of her shopping, and drop her bags, and stand, transfixed. Her child stood beside her, a little girl. A beatific smile filled the woman’s face, then she began to walk away, leaving behind both her shopping and her child. The little girl began to run after her mother, but the woman paid her no mind, and a shopkeeper and a flower seller with a kindly face held the girl from following, and tried, awkwardly, to comfort her.
The mother went away.
The plan was simple.
There was only one god in Waterfalling.
The God of the Waterfall had many small temples scattered throughout the city, and one main one. The Grand Temple occupied the entirety of an island high up-stream. The path to the Drop passed close to it as it led farther up until it reached the plateau.
It was not heavily guarded, for who would dare disturb the temple of the god in its own domain?
“The ikon is inside the temple,” Mauser said. “It is a small, blue, amorphous shape faintly resembling a human figure. It is made of Ice VII. Some say it holds the soul of the god within it. Others that it is merely an artistic representation. We are going to go on the first assumption. The job’s to get in and get the ikon. The ultimate target’s—”
“Assassination,” Devlin said, and leered.
Gorel stared at the two of them. Devlin’s ugly grin and Mauser’s grim determination.
“Assassination?”
“Come on, Gorel. It’s not like it would be the first god you’ve killed. In fact, you’re almost uniquely qualified.”
“Is that why I’m here?”
“Would you rather be somewhere else? Are we keeping you from some urgent appointment?”
Gorel lit a cigar and stared at the two of them. He began to wonder just who the mysterious Apocrita merchant who’d first hired him was, and just how, exactly, Mauser had then found Gorel…
But Mauser was right. A job was a job and, besides, Gorel had his own purpose in being there. So he just nodded, affably enough, and said, “I’m going to look around. You two try to stay out of trouble.”
“I think the trouble part’s going to come later,” Mauser said, and Devlin sucked on his wet, green teeth noisily and leered at Gorel. He left them there, checking and cleaning the weapons.
10.
Of course he’d known about the God of the Waterfall.
11.
Gorel was no fool. And the fame of Waterfalling had spread far and wide…
Now he followed the Path of Ascension. Initially the road was paved, as he followed city thoroughfares and traversed small bridges. People stared after him but said nothing. He saw the temple then, a large, imposing complex of beautiful white stone. He skirted the temple and soon reached the first incline and there the city stopped and the Path proper began.
It was cut into the very rock, and it rose steeply, at a sharp incline. Small pebbles rolled underfoot. The climb was slow and hard but there were places to stop and rest along the way, small alcoves cut into the rock. Gorel did not hurry. He enjoyed the climb, the cooler air up there, and when he turned he could look down on Waterfalling and far beyond, across the plains and to the deadlands where, far away, loomed the Black Tor.
He thought of Kettle, then. There wasn’t a day gone past when he didn’t think about Kettle.
As he climbed he saw almost no people. One he passed, and he realised with some surprise it was the woman he had seen earlier. She was resting in one of the alcoves, with that same happy, vacant look on her face. She didn’t seem to see him, and he walked on, discomfited.
The call…no.
The Call.
He could hear it more clearly now. And as the Path wound its way up, and up, and up, he could hear the thunder of the waterfall, and feel the spray of its roar on his face, and his eyes were dazzled by an explosion of rainbows; Come, come! said the Call but it was faint, still; it was not meant for him but for another. Gorel of Goliris traversed the Path of Ascension until he reached, at last, the Plateau of Tarsh, where the Nirian river flows until it reaches the escarpment.
He saw it all, now. He stood in that place called the Drop. The river moved almost sluggishly as it neared the edge. A series of rocks slowed down the flow of water, and it tumbled over the edge almost reluctantly. When it did, it became a great thundering waterfall. Way down below, he could see the mist rising out of the impact of the water into the Sacred Pool.
He stood there for a long time.
When the woman at last reached the Drop she seemed as beatific as before. Though her journey must have been physically exhausting for her, nevertheless there was no change in her demeanour. For a long moment she merely stood there, smiling that vacant, enigmatic smile. She seemed indifferent to or unaware of Gorel’s presence. Then she took one step, and another, until Gorel felt compelled to shout a warning: for she was headed straight for the sheer drop beyond which was the fall. But the woman ignored him as though he weren’t there, and when he went to stop her she shrugged him away, not angrily but the way one would shrug off a mild irritant.
Come…Come!
For one moment the Call was so clear that it overwhelmed Gorel’s senses. Too late, he saw the woman step to the edge of the rocks. Then she took one step more—and, just like that, she was gone.
He crawled to the edge and peered over. He saw her fall. She fell without grace through the air until the waterfall claimed her, the water engulfing her unto itself, then she was gone from sight.
Gorel of Goliris remained at the Drop for a long while more, and his thoughts were troubled. He was not idle, though. When he was done, he wended his way down the Path and returned to the inn, where his two companions waited. It was night, by then. The stars shone down cold and indifferent, and the air was filled with the stench of the Black Kiss. He realised he had not needed a hit since they got to the city. It was all about them, as natural and as plentiful as water.
And he realised they were all, here, as much in slavery to the Kiss as he was.
When the city began, when the first jumper jumped, that no one knew. The city grew, and the god with it. The city prospered, and the god with it. They fed on each other.
And now someone wanted the god dead.
When he had returned, Mauser and Devlin were ready. There was no need for speech. All three men were armed.
They stepped out lightly; and only a fleeting egret saw them pass into the night.
12.
Later, when he was running, with Devlin lying on the canal bank with half his brains blown out and Mauser on his hands and knees trying to crawl away from the Speakers-to-Water as they closed in on him, there was no one to see him then, too. The good people of Waterfalling knew when to close their doors and when to draw the blinds on their windows, and the whole city lay silent and slumbering in the moonlight.
The job was botched from the very beginning. The very air of the city had whispered that this was all folly.
Nevertheless, they went in.
Over the bridge, into the temple complex.
Where the waft of incense and the chanting of priests could be heard…
Where ducks and geese congregated in the canals where the dead men lay.
Deep into the temple, searching for the inner sanctum…
A novice surprised them, innocently watering lilies, and Mauser shot her, the blast echoing loudly over the islet…
Devlin shot two further novices as they emerged, blinking off sleep, to see what was happening…
The blue ikon was there just as Mauser said it would be.
A small and amorphous representation of a vaguely human shape that could have been a waterfall.
The three men made for the idol…
The Speakers-to-Water emerged then. The priests of the God of the Waterfall. Dressed in flowing white robes, with water flowers in their hair. Their eyes were vacant and they moved in perfect unison. In their hands they held swords of ice.
Their lips moved as one. They said: “You shall not steal.”
“Screw that,” Devlin said, and he began firing. Blades of ice moved in perfect harmony, deflecting shots. Devlin screamed in rage and snatched the shotgun from his back and fired, once, twice, until he hit one of the Speakers in the guts. The Speaker collapsed to the ground, but his lips still moved, and with his fellow Speakers he said, “You shall not steal!”
Gorel and Mauser spread out, and it was then that he saw the corpses. They emerged out of the water, out of the dank canal. One at first, and then another, and another. Humans, Ebong, two Merlangai, an Avian shivering water off her feathers. The perfectly preserved bodies in the water. Now their eyes opened and a single force animated them, and they reached into the canal and pulled out blade-sharp staffs of ice. They advanced on the three men.
“You bring swords?” Devlin screamed. “What good are damn swords against guns?”
Gorel fired. He fired cleanly, methodically, without emotion. It was a scientific sort of extermination, a matter of numbers, not blood. The creatures in the water must have been living once, but they lived no longer, and the corpses were only that. He shot not to kill but to destroy, inflicting damage on skulls and knee-caps and finger bones, shooting to disable, if possible to annihilate. He was good at what he did. He had to be, to have survived this long. Perhaps he wasn’t the best—the World was filled with the stories of legendary gun masters such as Sixgun Smel of the Upper Kidron, or Yi-Sheng the Unbeatable, who killed the sea serpent, Og, or the wizard, Der Fliegenmelker, who collected the heads of his enemies and whose mound of skulls was said to be taller than a mountain by the time of his disappearance—but these were just that, legends, stories told around the camp-fire in hushed voices. They were of some distant past, and Gorel was of the present. As far as he was concerned, he was the best, and would remain so until someone finally managed to shoot him down, if they ever did. He wouldn’t have given them odds.
The men kept pulling more guns out of the bags they’d brought with them. But more and more of the bodies came, and their swords of ice flashed cold in the moonlight, and Devlin cried out when one just missed slicing off his arm, and Gorel was pushed back, back as they came, and Mauser fired with a calm intensity on his face, like a card-player calculating the odds of his hand.
There was so very little blood. The things that climbed out of the water had been in there too long, Gorel thought. What ran in their veins, if it ran at all, was a sort of amethyst liquid, and as it left their bodies it congealed and tried to slither back into the canal.
“We can’t hold them forever!” Mauser shouted. All the while the Speakers-to-Water were chanting, their lips moving in unison, the canal dwellers between them and the three shooters.
“Cover me!” Gorel shouted, then he was running, bodies blasted on either side of him as Devlin and Mauser fired. Gorel slid in the purple ichor and his forward momentum pushed him along, until he bounced off an Ebong and was through. He came right up to the Speakers in one fluid motion and with his two guns drawn. For a moment he looked into their eyes. What he saw in them it was hard to say.
He pulled both triggers.
With the fall of the Speakers the onslaught abruptly ceased. The preserved corpses did not fall but remained standing, motionless and eerie in the moonlight. The three men looked at one another, their ears still ringing with the sound of gun-shots.
Then they moved as one: racing for the prize, their enemies forgotten.
Gorel got to it first. He snatched the blue idol a moment before Mauser.
When he turned, Devlin had his guns pointed at the two of them and he was grinning his ugly grin. “It’s about time we settled this,” Devlin said.
Mauser fired but Devlin was quicker and Mauser was thrown back, hurt. The other shot missed Gorel. He had moved behind Mauser and the shot meant for him missed. Devlin’s smile dissipated and Gorel’s smile bloomed and he fired.
Devlin’s body fell back and he lay on the bank of the canal, his skull blown to pieces and his brain leaking slowly into the water.
Gorel was briefly pleased at a job finally brought to conclusion.
“Gorel…” Mauser said. He was still alive. The shot had opened an ugly wound in his stomach and he was trying to hold his intestines in. “Help me…”
Gorel held up the ikon. He said, “How do you destroy it?”
“I don’t…know. He said…”
“Who bought you off, Mauser? Who hired you?”
“Does it…matter…”
“It does to me.”
“It was him! It was that mage from the Black Tor! The one who brought down Falang-Et and killed Tharat…He said you…”
Cold fury rose in Gorel. “Kettle?” he said. “Kettle sent you?”
“Gorel, please…”
The Speakers-to-Water Gorel had shot rose up from the ground then. They looked at Gorel with broken eyes. And all the corpses that had risen from the water turned, as one, and focused their attention on the two men, the one living and the one dying.
Then the Speakers spoke.
They said: “Gorel of Goliris.”
Mauser said: “Help me!”
The preserved corpses advanced one step, then another.
“We know you, Gorel of Goliris. Come, now. Come!”
“Help me! Gorel, Please!”
Gorel ran.
He ran without destination in mind, yet the destination had always been there, waiting for him. He was not followed. Few saw him pass. And yet his feet led him inexorably upwards, and the voice in his head grew stronger and stronger until it was like a raging storm, and it said, Come to me…come!
It knew his name. In his hand, the blue idol was still. Gorel’s feet would not obey him. He felt a calmness descend on him then, and his face assumed a beatific aspect. He came to the Path of Ascendance and began to climb it.
It has been many centuries since I had last encountered a man of Goliris…the voice said.
“You know of Goliris?”
His lips moved, but whether sound emerged or not was immaterial. It was night. He was alone on the Path. Behind him, Devlin lay dead, Mauser dying. Another botched job in a long line of such. None of it mattered to Gorel.
Many have heard of, yet none had seen, Goliris…said the voice in his head. You seek it, still?
“Always.”
Yet now you must come to rest, Gorel. Let go of desire, of need. I will be all that you require.
“No!” his lips protested. His legs obeyed the orders of the god. “Tell me. Tell me how to find my home.”
Sooner or later, all things must come to an end, Gorel of Goliris. All empires pass.
“Including yours?”
But the god was not amused by the retort.
Gorel climbed, and climbed, and climbed. The physical effort of the rise meant nothing to him, for now he truly was under the Black Kiss, and every fibre of his being was bliss, and he was happy; as happy as a man could ever be.
Yet still he resisted. Yet still he fought the insidious Black Kiss of the god. And still: his feet led him on, step by inexorable step.
Until he found himself once more standing at the Drop.
The waterfall thundered nearby. Rainbows of moonlight sparkled in the rising cloud of spray.
Come to me, Gorel of Goliris, said the god. Come!
There was no resisting the Call.
And yet he dallied. And it was good, he thought, that he had prepared himself for this eventuality. And he busied himself with the things that he had left there, at the Drop, earlier, for just such an eventuality. And the voice of the god grew mistrustful in his head and it said, What are you doing?
But Gorel did not answer. And the Call of the god grew stronger and more insistent, until there was no resisting it further.
For one fleeting moment, Gorel thought of all the countless lives that had come here before him, had worn the rock smooth with the passage of their feet. Then he, too, took those last few, finite steps, to the edge; and fell to his doom.
13.
What did you do? said the god.
14.
The first impact was the worst. He hit the roaring mass of water on his way down and all his protective clothing couldn’t stop him from feeling the impact. Then the ropes tied to his harness pulled, and he shot upwards then back down and impacted again: but then the bouncing slowed, until he could at last control his descent.
What did you do! roared the god.
The water fell and fell and tried to push him down, down, down into the Sacred Pool, and the rocks beat at him, but Gorel welcomed the pain and used it to his advantage. The Kiss no longer held him. The god’s Call was never meant to last beyond the final Drop, and now it had no more power to hold Gorel in thrall. Slowly, slowly, he released more rope, hoping it would hold, and he lowered himself down the cliff.
“Tell me,” Gorel demanded. “Tell me what you know of Goliris.”
Then join me. Become a part of me! And you will know all that I know.
“No.”
Please, the god said. Please.
How long he journeyed this way he didn’t know. The bottom was a blur far down below. The cliff rose impossibly high overhead. At last he found it. He hit empty air and flailed, then he was through the screen of water and inside a hollow cave, hidden behind the water. He took off the harness and fell to the dry stone floor.
He lay there for some time, breathing heavily.
You have come to kill me! the voice accused. It sounded frightened, now.
“Tell me what I want to know.”
It was a natural cave in the rock, Gorel saw. Once, millennia ago, it had been explored, and the skeletons of humans and Ebong still remained in recesses in the wall.
Then, it had become a temple, of a sort. An altar sat against the far wall, and on it was a crude stone figure. Something living hid in the dark behind it, a creature like a ferret or a water rat. Baleful eyes glared at Gorel from the shadows but he paid them no mind. He held the blue ikon in his hand.
“Tell me,” he said.
I could only show you.
His mind flickered then. It went through countless rapid lives: he saw an Ebong mercenary arrive at the cliffs and look down, curiously, for the first time; an Avian flying overhead, who plunged down towards the water with a glad cry; an expedition of vanished Zul, searching for a weapon, who had come upon the place and fell victim to the Call; water-dwelling Merlangai who swam down the Nirian, a hunting party, until, too late, they too became a part of the god…
He saw the crude village underneath grow and prosper, become a town, then at last a city. The dead resided in the water, their eyes forever open. He saw people drawn from all over to this city, where the Kiss lay like an enchantment over the streets and houses. It was a small price to pay, for happiness, he thought. From time to time some would hear the Call, and climb the Path until they were one with their god. It was a small price to pay.
Do you see? Join me! said the god.
“Show me Goliris.”
Then he saw it. A small figure trudging in from the deadlands, a sorcerer of Goliris, and Gorel knew him, then: it was one of his father’s servants, a minor war-mage with the fleet—just another face in the corridors of the palace, a man who might have once smiled politely at the boy, this future king.
He came, and he dwelled in the city for some time, then he heard the Call and heeded it.
And Gorel saw deep into his heart, for the man was with the god now, and he saw the hatred and the loathing deep within the man’s mind, and he saw that the hatred and loathing were directed inwards, at the traitor’s own self. He saw then the sorcerers of Goliris gathered in a dark room, saw them plot the downfall of the royal family. He saw himself, the boy, taken while his father was murdered, saw his mother cry, but soundlessly, and he saw the empty throne, and cobwebs, and bleached skulls.
“How will I find it again?” he said, demanded, of this ghost.
And only the faint echo came back—You never will…
A great fury took hold of Gorel of Goliris then, and for a time he knew not where he was. Gradually he came back to awareness, and the god’s voice, weak, panicked, demanded, over and over, What did you do? What did you do?
Gorel sat there in the cave, cross-legged, and looked out at the waterfall. But the water, strangely, seemed to grow less fierce. Its flow was easing. The screen of water slowly parted, and the god’s voice cried, What did you do? You are killing me!
But Gorel had done nothing.
Beside him, the small, blue ikon was slowly melting.
The waterfall was dying.
As less and less water fell, Gorel could now look out from the cave, into clear air. At last it was all over and he went to the edge and looked down, and saw the pool, no longer sacred, and the corpses below lying still in the water. He looked up, then, and saw no water, falling.
Behind him, behind the altar, the mindless creature that might have been a ferret or a water rat growled, but Gorel paid it no mind. He sat, cross-legged, on the floor and lit a cigar, and he waited.
15.
The small, delicate shape fluttered in the air before coming to rest inside the cave. It leaned against one wall and crossed its arms and cocked its head and looked at Gorel of Goliris.
“Kettle,” Gorel said.
“Gorel.”
“It was you? You set it up, from the beginning. It was so convenient, how that trader found me, how Mauser just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“I would have asked you, but you would have turned me down.”
“You lied to me. From the very start, you always lie.”
A look of pain crossed the Avian’s face. “Gorel, I…”
“You’d tell me you love me?”
“You know how I feel.”
“And yet you’d use me.”
“Isn’t that what love is?”
The Lord of the Black Tor looked at Gorel of Goliris and Gorel of Goliris looked away, so that Kettle would not see his tears.
“What was it all for?”
“I needed a distraction. Something to focus the God of the Waterfall’s attention on. Something crude and obvious, and effective.”
“You used me as bait.”
“Yes.”
“And all the meanwhile you—”
“My engineers had done their work. We dammed the Nirian. My army dug a new channel for the river.”
“And starved the waterfall.”
“Yes.”
“Clever.”
Kettle shrugged.
“Why?” Gorel said.
“Why?”
“Yes.”
Kettle looked at Gorel of Goliris and his eyes were filled with pain.
“There’s a war coming,” he said. “And an enemy against which even I am helpless. I have been trying to consolidate territories, to prepare…Gorel, I need you. I need you by my side. Help me. Come back with me.”
“Never.”
“Will I ever be able to apologise enough? I love you.”
Gorel did not reply.
After a time, the small and delicate figure of the mage flew away. After a time longer, Gorel put on the harness, pulled on the ropes, and began the long, slow climb down the side of the cliff, and back towards the ground.
16.
The Dark Mage’s army came into the city of Waterfalling at sunrise. They came quietly and with purpose and they were not opposed. The city’s residents looked at them with numb surprise, as though waking from a long and pleasant dream that was now, inexplicably, over. Gorel of Goliris was stopped only once, on his way out of the city. But the people who held him must have received orders from high up, for they let him go, and he rode away from there, to continue his search for vanished Goliris.
High above the city, at the place that was once called the Drop, the Lord of the Black Tor looked down on his conquest, but his attention was elsewhere:
Far away, figures moved, numerous beyond count. They marched like shadows but they were not shadows. They marched in rows. They marched upon the World.
He saw them conquer cities, he saw them burn down temples, bring down gods, for gods and sorcery meant nothing to these soulless things. What they were, he didn’t know. They moved like automata. They were a wizardry of a sort he’d never known. Something ancient, and deadly, and newly awakened.
They came from the desert. They brought with them the smell of burnt cardamoms.
And as they moved, they spoke.
It was a roar, a cry of triumph, and despair.
A single word.
Goliris.