Petty Pewter Gods

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 older 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.

Doubtless, in the shadows of her heart, she put a tick beside "Garrett" in her book of destruction.

"How about the boss couple? Who are they?"

"Imar and Imara." I didn't have to be told, brother and sister and man and wife. "Lord and Mistress of All, Skystrider and Earth Mother. Sun and Moon, Scatterer of Stars and She Who Calls Forth the Spring."

"And so forth," I muttered. When you have the habit of backmouthing crime bosses and Guard chieftains, it ain't easy to break the circle.

"And so forth. We tend to accumulate titles, of both supplication and accusation."

That fit with what I knew about other gods. The Church, where I was raised, didn't have a full crew of gods like most religions. We had one God, No God But God—and about ten thousand saints who covered the same ground as lesser gods and goddesses. The Church had a whole heavenly bureaucracy, with saints who didn't do anything more strenuous than find lost buttons or keep an eye on the wine grape harvest. The Church's supernatural establishment was so big the whole thing would continue on inertia for ages after its last believer perished.

"All right. Now that I know who you are, I have a vague notion what your problem is. One temple. Two bunches of gods. Whoever loses out loses big time."

"Exactly." She was all business now. As if a beautiful woman can ever be all business, however much she wants to think that. Nature does not care about the clutter in the mind. Decorum is just another obstacle to be surmounted by instinct.

I tried being all business, too.

Instinct could get me dead.

I reminded me that lady spiders eat their mates.