Free Gorel and the Pot Bellied God by Lavie Tidhar Page B

and the silence was oppressive. The only sound that could be heard was of water dripping slowly down the moss-covered walls. Gorel stalked ahead, hand on the butt of his gun. Sereli walked behind. The girl Tonar, who he had rescued from the Mothers, was by Gorel’s side. He reached out to her, held her hand, and she smiled at him, though there was tension in her eyes. Behind them Sereli snorted. Gorel ignored her. They were inside a tunnel, and there seemed to be no way out. They had been walking through the tunnels for what seemed like hours. ‘Does she know where we are?’ Sereli said. Gorel, not turning around, said, ‘She has a name. Ask her yourself.’
    Sereli snorted again.
    ‘It’s not far,’ the girl, Tonar, said, but she sounded less than convinced. ‘When I served we did not use the tunnels much. We moved above-ground. This place –’ Gorel felt her fingers tighten around his – ‘it is the realm of the underworld, it does not belong to Her, nor entirely to Him.’
    ‘Looks like disused sewers to me,’ Sereli said. ‘Smells like it, too.’
    Gorel didn’t agree, but kept his own counsel. The place smelled empty, disused, and yet not abandoned. Something lived down here, he could feel it, sense it in the air currents and the dripping water. Something bad. He thought again about the Mother’s children, those half-breed creatures he had reluctantly killed, and of the god Tharat. His old friend, the wizard Champol, had warned him once: Never put yourself between two gods for, like two walls, they would close in on you until they crush you. Well, here he was, against advice, with the elusive pot-bellied god on the one side, and the river god on the other, and his choices reduced to none. He did not like gods. Once, he had killed one, and been cursed by her forever. The need of the black kiss was in him, never fully satiated, but he ignored it, or tried to. The silence was oppressive. The tunnel forked ahead. Tonar said, ‘Left,’ and they followed the path without comment, even Sereli, as it descended further, going down, down, down into the bowels of the earth.
    Kettle was not there. Kettle was to fly above, provide aerial support if the need arose. He had already flown over the temple, but could not, he said, come close to the inner court, what Tonar, like Mistress Sinlao, had called the sanctum sanctorum , the holiest place. Winds had buffeted the Avian, set him off-course. It was there they needed to arrive: a small, secluded garden in the heart of the temple complex, beyond walls upon walls and guards upon guards, and with a hunting party already set out after them – after Gorel, at least.
    He had come back to the World from the place of gods, rising out of water in the dank canal that lay beside the Sorcerer’s Head, and when he pulled himself out of the water faeces had clung to his hair and his clothes, a little farewell message from Tharat. He found Kettle with the girl, Tonar, in the second room from the left which they had made their temporary home. Sereli was sitting by the window, scowling. When Gorel came through the door she looked up and said, ‘You stink.’
    Without comment he stripped, and went to the tub of water that sat by the wall, and doused himself. ‘Need a hand?’ Sereli said, materialising behind him. Then soapy hands were on his taut stomach, rubbing up to his chest, the soap foaming, and her hand slipped down and held him there, between his legs, and he hardened. ‘Let me clean that for you,’ Sereli murmured. Her breath was against his back and he could feel her small breasts pressing against him. He doused himself with more water and turned. The girl Tonar was staring at him, her eyes large in her face, and he grinned.
    Sereli continued to massage his cock. All the while he was looking into the girl’s eyes and she sat there, looking back at him, her expression – he could not quite read her expression.
    He came in Sereli’s hand. The falang girl never moved.