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 are 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.