Gorel and the Pot Bellied God by Lavie Tidhar Page B

she moved out of his reach. All this was done in total silence. He fell. She was on him. He was aware of her naked body even as she squeezed away his life. With his last energies he rolled, catching her by surprise. She was underneath him now, still choking him. Her legs were around him, holding him down to her. She gasped when she felt his weight. At that moment he saw her face, and she saw his. Her eyes opened wide and her hands on his neck loosened their grip for just one moment, but it was enough. He grabbed her arms and pinned her down on the floor and gasped air. The girl said, ‘You.’ The fight seemed to have gone out of her.
    Gorel of Goliris stared at her face. The last time he had seen her, she was following a funeral procession. And before that… He said, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper, ‘If I let you go, will you promise not to kill me?’
    ‘You’re letting me go?’
    ‘If you won’t try to kill me,’ Gorel said. She said, ‘I thought you were going to –’
    She really did have lovely eyes, he thought, especially when surprised. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he said, and tensed, but she startled him by laughing. ‘I promise,’ she said. It was good enough for Gorel. He rolled off and lay on his back, gasping air. The girl stood up. Gorel ignored her. He dragged himself to the wall and leaned against it. Then he reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a small packet.
    Dust. He put some on his finger and breathed it in. His head swam. Above, looking down at him, the girl, an expression of distaste on her face. He took another pinch of dust, folded the packet carefully closed, and put it back. He rested his head against the wall and sighed. This plan wasn’t going very well. He wished he had his guns with him. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
    He looked at her, and felt his body abuzz with sensations unwanted. His body was whispering to him to get up, to take the girl, to… what was in that drink Mistress Sinlao had given him? He could feel it, but it was subsumed now by the dust: the black kiss brooked no competition. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said again, more softly. Her eyes were enormous, looking at him. Her body was green and slender. She said, ‘Waiting for rape,’ and the silence lengthened between them.
    ‘What is this place?’ he said at last. ‘What do they do here?’ Questions he hadn’t asked himself were forcing themselves on him now. He had assumed the place was nothing more than an expensive brothel, but…
    The girl sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘A breeding place,’ she said. ‘They breed people here. Hybrids. They bought me from my… from my…’
    He pushed himself up. He went and sat beside her. She did not object. ‘The boy you were with?’ he said, surprisingly gentle. She nodded. ‘I thought he loved me,’ she said. ‘I killed Dornalji for him. I thought we would be free, then.’
    ‘I thought he was just an apprentice,’ Gorel said. The girl smiled, a bitter almond smile. ‘His son,’ she said. ‘Now that Dornalji is dead, he inherits. Everything.’
    ‘Including you.’
    ‘Yes. And so he… he sold the deeds to the Mothers of Jade. The ones who run this house. And they… they like me. My lineage fits into their charts. I heard them say they could get five or six spawning-cycles out of me before… before I was no good to them any more.’
    He looked into her eyes, and felt an urge to reach for her, and resisted it. He said, ‘Your lineage?’
    ‘I’m of the line of the First Pond spawning,’ she said, as if that explained everything. It didn’t. Perhaps she read that in his bemused expression. ‘Before, I was at the temple,’ she said, patiently. ‘I am of the first line. When man and frog first… first joined. When the god and the princess met and the first children were spawned –’
    ‘But that’s just a story,’ Gorel said. ‘It’s like –’ he tried to remember what his adoptive grandmother