"What can you help us take that we cannot take ourselves?" asked the priest.
"I can give you access to minds that you could never identify on your own"
replied Gim Gim.
"Only because you need access to the minds we already have."
"You have benefitted from Krarsht before" said Gim Gim, waving his hand, hoping
the motion would be interpreted as referring to the temple, which, from his
brief sight of it, had in part been the result of krarshtkid labors.
"The Mouth's goals are not those of the Horned God."
As an expert on prediction, Gim Gim knew that it was the custom in some parts of the Homeland to place little fortunes inside dessert pastries. Allegedly, this was an imitation of Kralorelan customs. Since his wide-spread travels had never taken him to the eastern parts of Genertela, he had no idea of whether this attribution of origin of the custom to Kralorela was true. But he began to think that the conversation was leading in this direction. He was tempted to murmur "Long roads are short to the swift" or something else equally pointless, just to get a reaction from the figure he could not see.
Instead he said, "Perhaps we are ready to converse face-to-face?"
The other hesitated, then said, "Yes."
The man behind him took the statement literally, for removed Gim Gim's blindfold - -- and his mask.
Blinking a bit, Gim Gim gazed around the room. It fit his preconception of the temple -- except that it was very well furnished. His interrogator was sitting in front of a desk. Standing behind him was a very large man, looking like a Bison Rider by appearance, but not by dress. Gim Gim wondered if the story that the Thanatari knew how to bind spirits into the bodies of human prisoners was true. The evidence that he had seen both physically and spiritually, suggested that it was.
"May I sit?" He inquired, pointing to the chair on his side of the desk.
"Yes, you may, but not the broo," responded the other, snapping his fingers and
nodding to the other broo in the room. That broo took Fineman by the arm and
led him out of the room. It was a good thing that Fineman was illumined,
thought Gim Gim, else he might have responded in some other fashion to the
insult. Of course, the presence of the scorpion man, stinger raised, would have
been a deterrent in any event, not to mention the power of the Thanatari priest.
Gim Gim sat and studied the face, or rather the faces, in front of him. This was the first time he had seen a Thanatar priest in repose. He was dressed in the full regalia of his profession, including a horned helmet and armor of tarnished silver. As far as he could determine, the man in front of him was physically indistinguishable from the native Pavisites (quondam Sartarites) that Gim Gim had met. Even his features showed no particular sign of the horrible acts he had performed to be what and where he was. If anything, he looked to be in better physical and mental condition than the average Pavisite -- but then he lived better than most of them did.
Of course, no normal citizen of Pavis had four heads hanging from his chest. The heads seemed active enough -- one appeared to be asleep, while the others were blinking, opening their mouths, and showing other signs of life. One of them was a troll head, the other three human -- indeed, one of those seemed vaguely familiar -- Gim Gim groped after a memory but could not recall the face.
"What, exactly, are you proposing?" said the priest.
Gim Gim, although no Etyries member, knew negotiation very well. Eventually, after an hour of complicated haggling, the two reached a verbal agreement, involving everything from krarshtkid tunnel digging under carefully controlled circumstances, access to the Thanatari's chaos food supply, weapons for the Thanatar Temple, and information leading to the opportunity to kidnap two Lankhor Mhy priests.
It was obvious that the Thanatari had expected to reach the deal, for as soon as it was concluded, one of them appeared with three maps, one quite old and two of more recent vintage. Studying them, he realized that the third map summarized the information in the first two.
"We show you the originals to demonstrate that our copy which we give you, is a
true one," said the priest.
Examining the map, Gim Gim saw the main tunnel, the paths to the various temples, and a path marked "to the Pool of Gorpgod." "What does THAT mean?" he asked.
"I do not know -- it is an old phrase, and none have travelled that difficult
road for a long age. It requires climbing gear and strong warriors, I am told."
Suddenly, one of the heads spoke up "The Eye of the Father is near."
The priest looked startled. He looked down at the head, which looked as vacant and incapable of speech as ever.
Glancing
at the head himself, Gim Gim tried to figure out what its identity
was. He could not tell, for to him it was just another human head.
"I thought heads could not speak?," he said. "They can't," replied the priest.
Rising abruptly, the priest said, "This meeting is at an end. The Doom Master will arrange a way to communicate with you," and left the room, with the other man following him.
Within minutes, Gim Gim and Fineman found themselves escorted out of the temple, stripped of their tokens, and sent on their way. "That was what Pavis people call a bum's rush," said Gim Gim.
"What happened?" asked the broo. Briefly, Gim Gim described the discussions, and
the event that had ended them. "What do you make of it?"
"Obviously it was a communication from their God, and they want to figure out
what it meant," said Fineman. "What do we do now?"
Gim Gim produced the map. "Well, let's take a quick look at the passage marked here, to the pool of Gorpgod."
They took the road to trolltown, then looked at the sharp angle that led off the main road. Turning into the cleft, they soon enough came to a cavern which opened up, finding a dragonsnail blocking the way.
"It would require a priest of Primal Chaos or a couple of food animals to go
further," said Fineman.
"Judging by the angle of the exit, we could use some climbing gear here too,"
said Gim Gim.
"That's your problem, not mine," said the broo cheerfully. Illumination made him
the only broo Gim Gim had ever encountered who could BE cheerful, let alone
have a long-run goal that did not involve physical suffering or death.
"Remember that I am mustering a group two nights from today, and will need to
know the location of an adventuring party of the requisite religious belief and
strength." "Requisite?" thought Gim Gim; this must be the only broo who ever
heard of the word, although he knew that Fineman spoke at least half-a-dozen
languages very well, and was one of the three literate broos in the Rubble (not
that Gim Gim knew all the broos there, but he suspected that he knew all the
literate ones).
Fineman and the two torch-carrying monsters accompanied him back to the entrance of the Krarsht temple. There, Gim Gim produced his own torch, lit it from one of the torches the krarashtkid/broos held, bowed farewell, and walked back up the long tunnel to New Pavis.
As always, his mind raced on. He had committed himself to delivering parties containing Lightbringers to Fineman's chaotic monsters, and two Lankhor Mhy priests to the worse fate that awaited them at the hands of the Thanatari. It was a good thing that there was enough treasure left in the Rubble, still, that it was possible to find new parties to send to their fates without worrying about reducing the "tourist" flow to the city. What a strange economy this city had, he thought. No wonder that the world-lines converged here -- for, sooner or later, almost every potential Hero in central Genertela would pass through this place. Of course, Gim Gim knew well that for every Hero there were thousands of victims -- indeed, it was the presence of the victims that made being a Hero possible.
Of course, as if being a Hero was not enough, all the stories were told about the Heroes, and almost none about the victims. Every fool who heard a story or a song imagined himself to be a Hero, and none noted how great the odds were that they were going to be one of the -- usually nameless -- victims of the great Sagas. A good thing, too, for the flow of hapless would-be Heroes provided the raw material that made Gim Gim's career possible.
Although he had always made a point of keeping his identity masked, Gim Gim knew that he himself would be remembered in the end. But what could he say of himself, now, that one of the few "people" with whom he could actually converse was a broo?
One consequence of the lack of conversational partners was that he spent too much time thinking, and not enough doing, these days. He would sleep a few hours at the rented house, and then arrange the ultimate fates of several parties of victims who thought they were heroes, and would never know the part he had played in their lives.
And he had to arrange a tunnel-climbing party, too.
Gim Gim shrugged, and began climbing the stairs back to the city.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #213
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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