Hunting Gods Read online

  HUNTING GODS

  Fate and the Wheel Book Two

  Copyright 2018 Ru Pringle

  Version: 7th October 2018

  https://rupringle.com/fiction

  This ebook is licenced for your personal enjoyment and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’d like to share it, please purchase an extra copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book but didn’t purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your use only, please go to an ebook outlet and purchase your own copy. Many thanks for respecting the author’s hard work and livelihood. For permission requests, write to the author at mailto:[email protected]

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons is coincidental.

  Cover and artwork by Ru Pringle

  Proofread by Sophie Houston mailto:[email protected]

  A List of Principal Characters and a Table of Contents are provided at the end of the book.

  For Sweary Seylie

  PART ONE

  ____________

  THE GOLDEN TOWER

  CHAPTER 1

  ____________

  Awakening

  THE MAN’S THICK BEARD was the colour of earth. Lobes of stiff hair sprouted from his head like sun-bleached snakes. Half-wrapped in impractical-looking white robes, the man’s amber-brown body resembled some of the knotty insects the boy had collected in glass jars he occasionally found washed up on the beach.

  The ship that brought the strange man to the island had been a thing of wonder. As soon as the slender dinghy that had borne him ashore was winched back on to its deck, the ship’s great dark sails had come out, like a storm gull spreading its wings. It had risen magically out of the water on its slender fin so that it seemed to float in the air, vanishing towards the horizon so quickly that he now wondered if what he had seen had been in a dream.

  Though the man was not ancient enough for his hair to have gone grey or white, his fingers were knobbed in a way he remembered from one of his elderly aunts. He walked with the aid of a staff of wood, as though his knees troubled him.

  The man was, the boy decided, even older than Tullis.

  In the parts of the day when Tullis had no jobs for him, he would stalk around the island after the man, flitting from shadow to shadow and rock to rock, watching.

  The man behaved like no one he had ever seen. He walked unpredictably, his snake-haired head stooped towards the ground, like a wading bird hunting wriggling things in rocky shallows. Every so often he would spear some pebble, plant, or insect with little metal tongs, or capture a faster moving or airborne creature using a small net before carefully dropping or coaxing it into a miniature container made of glass. Having stoppered the container he would label it using something lustrously black which worked like a stick of charcoal, placing both the container and the implement back in his leather satchel.

  He found the containers fascinating. Besides flowers or seashells they were the most delicate-looking objects he had ever seen. He watched the ease with which the man scribed his tiny symbols on them, and something in him burned.

  Later, after he had resharpened Tullis’s spears and mended the nets he had torn on coral during the day’s fishing, he heard Tullis and the man talking. He stole down from behind the thatched house and squirmed beneath the line of thorny bushes above the beach.

  From his hiding place he could see the man sitting on the wooden platform which passed for the island’s jetty, his knobbly feet dangling in the water. Tullis sat propped against the coral dyke at the back of the jetty, fidgeting, as though he had just sat down. The evening’s land-breeze ruffled the hair fanning from Tullis’s topknot. Both men held coconut shells. He knew they would contain the coconut wine that could usually be found fermenting in three enormous gourds behind the house.

  In response to some question, the strange man was moving his head in a way that suggested neither agreement nor rejection. He seemed uneasy in Tullis’s company.

  ‘The day’s work was good enough,’ he was saying, his words carrying clearly on the breeze. ‘I should have the samples I need within the week.’

  The man’s Torol was very clear. Few outsiders seemed willing even to try speaking it. He took a sip from the coconut shell, and a look of something like panic flashed over his face. The speed at which he made it disappear was impressive.

  ‘Most interesting.’

  He set the shell down.

  ‘I … have not tasted beterle quite like this before. Did you brew it yourself?’

  Tullis hacked something up from his lungs, and wiped his mouth on a hairy wrist. ‘So soon?’ he protested, having either failed to hear the man’s question, or chosen to ignore it. ‘I’d hoped you might stay longer. I had thought … that perhaps you could meet my sister.’

  A stiffness entered the strange man’s posture. He tilted his head. ‘Perhaps your sister has samples to contribute?’

  ‘My sister is an attractive woman. She works well.’

  ‘I am pleased for you. It must inspire great confidence to know that one’s sister functions properly.’

  Tullis’ mouth opened. ‘I meant … she is a hard worker.’

  ‘Ah! I understand. She has many samples for me, then?’

  ‘No … No! That’s not what I …’

  ‘A pity. Still, I should be pleased to talk with your family about some of the specimens I have collected. Background information is often more useful than the item itself.’

  Tullis gave up. He threw a stone down on to the beach.

  ‘I could not help noticing your pump,’ said the man.

  ‘My pump?’

  The snake-haired man nodded inland. ‘The wind-driven device you use to tap the rainwater stored in your island’s sand. It is ingenious. A simple engineering concept, but one I have not seen used before in quite that way. Your work?’

  For a moment, Tullis seemed very uncomfortable. He wanted to pretend that he had built the pump, but knew that whenever he lied his face became red. And so, looking between his knees, he mumbled: ‘It is my apprentice’s work.’

  The man’s woolly eyebrows went up. He cast a glance towards the bushes, as though aware he was being watched. ‘Then I congratulate you. Your apprentice is most able. I can barely wait to view his master’s work. It must be of a high order indeed.’

  Tullis nodded, guardedly. Wanting to say more, fearful of doing so.

  ‘I could not help noticing other items,’ the man went on, ‘which seem to have been drawn from the same fertile soil. There were cleverly crafted wooden latches and other furnishings, in and around the house you have so generously rented to me. I particularly appreciated the counterweighted blinds, and the sun-pit for heating water. I found other things. Working mechanical models fashioned from tied sticks. Painstakingly chipped rock sundials. Even … boards and pits, which I would swear have been used for Chemistic experiments using ground rock extracts. These things speak to me of a kind of frustrated genius. Interestingly, most were carefully hidden beneath bushes or sand. One might almost conclude that their creator was anxious to avoid them being found.’

  Tullis writhed like a worm.

  ‘So do tell me. Are these the work of the same … apprentice?’

  After hesitating, Tullis nodded.

  ‘His master must have been schooled at an advanced level.’

  Finally, Tullis’s shoulders collapsed. He shook his head. ‘It’s him,’ he said. ‘All him. I know nothing of these things. Somehow … I can’t explain it. He fixes things. He makes things. Things that work. I can’t understand how he does it. He’s never been to school.’

  The man stood slowly, braced on his staff. He stepped up on to the back wall of the jetty and strolled along the scuffed grass at the top of the beach to where the water pump’s fabric sails spun against tall pre-monsoon clouds. Listening to the creak and rumble of its gears, he played a hand over its turning wooden shaft.

  ‘Yet, you helped him, surely?’ he called back. ‘This is man’s work. I think I may have glimpsed this apprentice of yours. He is just a boy!’

  Tullis shook his head again. ‘He’s as strong as a bull seal.’ His hands massaged the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know where he gets it from. It’s a good job he’s placid-minded. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.’

  It was strange, watching from the bushes as Tullis and the man talked about him. He felt his fists tighten. His head was awhirl with thoughts. Some shamed him. He recalled the last time Tullis had raised a hand to him. He hadn’t meant to push Tullis into the wall like he had. Tullis’s neck hadn’t worked quite right ever since, which made him feel very bad. But there had been no more beatings either, and Tullis hadn’t punished him so much for not working hard enough, or for getting lost in ideas for making things which he said they didn’t need.

  ‘How did he come to be in your care?’ The man was walking back towards the pier now. The way he said “care” made it sound as though he wanted to use another word instead.

  ‘Cyclone,’ Tullis sighed. ‘Four summers ago. Worst even the oldest women can remember. We escaped the worst here, Nepton be praised. But West Torola, where his people are from – were from – took the brunt.’ He gave his head another shake. ‘The islands were unrecognisable afterwards. There’s nothing growing on them now any taller than this …’

  Tullis held a hand up level with his chest.

  ‘He was found way out to sea, clinging to part of a tree. He’d been drifting around f
or four days. One of the men who pulled him in said he was fighting off the sharks with his bare feet. His parents were never found. His uncle, who was also lost, was an old trading friend. I used to barter fish with him for fishing gear. Anyway. This island is not an easy place. I knew this, but he had nowhere else to go. What was I to do?’

  HE ENCOUNTERED THE MAN the following morning, stalking round the island at the strand-line of the beach in his halting, crane-like gait. For reasons he couldn’t explain he found himself crouched on a boulder, waiting.

  Some way off, the man squinted in his direction, a hand raised to shield his eyes from the glaring sun. Then he climbed the bank of white coral at the back of the beach and, having checked that he was in no danger from falling coconuts, sat down in the shade of a palm.

  Laying his staff aside, the man delved into his leather satchel, withdrew something wrapped in leaves, and ate from it, gazing out to sea.

  Squatting on his boulder, the boy watched the man and chewed his fingers.

  A while later, he had summoned sufficient courage to walk over. The man greeted him by holding out a chunk of whatever he had been eating.

  He took a bit. Sniffed it thoroughly. It was dense, brown and smelled of nuts. He nibbled a corner.

  It was unlike anything he’d ever tasted.

  ‘Your uncle Tullis has been singing your praises,’ the man told him.

  ‘He’s not my uncle.’

  The man’s eyes fell. They were remarkably clear and, in contrast to the rich brown of his skin, almost colourless, like seawater over sand. ‘No.’

  The eyes returned their steady gaze to the sea.

  ‘For what it’s worth, my boy … I don’t think that he means you ill. He just doesn’t know quite what to do now that you’re around. Particularly with so few people here. I believe he fears you sometimes.’

  He kept still, chewing, unsure what he was supposed to say.

  ‘You’re not alone, you know. Others like you do exist. People who make things. Who see things clearly. Things which people like Tullis have difficulty seeing.’

  Again, he stayed silent.

  ‘Speaking of which … Tullis and I have reached a kind of agreement. Whether or not this counts for anything rather depends on you. I think that perhaps you have already guessed this – but I am a scholar. A truthkeep, if you prefer. I study things. It pleases me to find out what makes them work, and I try to use what I’ve learned to make them work better, or to do or make things that no one has before. When I leave on the next merchant ship, I am hoping you might like to come with me to the place where I live. To see if you might like to live there too. But – and this is important – only if that’s what you really want.’

  The strange man turned to face him. His pale eyes glittered.

  ‘There is no end to the learning there,’ he said. ‘At least, there does not have to be. I am forty-two years old, my boy – older even than Tullis. And still each day seems new to me. My life since I was not much older than you has been so full of interesting things that sometimes I can hardly remember what I was doing last season, let alone when I was your age.

  ‘I am part of something which, though far from perfect, is, I believe, more important and worthwhile than anything I could ever have been by myself. And that makes me happy. I have seen some of the things you can do. One of my sworn oaths is to help others to make the best use they can of things they are good at. Especially people like you.’

  ‘Why?’ he demanded, scowling with suspicion.

  ‘That’s an excellent question. I suppose the answer is that by helping you, I am helping everyone. Including, ultimately, myself.’

  This didn’t seem to make much sense.

  ‘Well,’ the man said, ‘consider your water pump. Don’t you think that everyone might like to have a water pump like yours, instead of having to catch rainwater, or draw pails from a well? Imagine how happy they might feel towards you, knowing you were the one who had the idea, and that you shared it with them to make their lives better?’

  He pulled a face at that.

  ‘But – now imagine that because everyone had pumps, so much fresh water was taken out of the ground that seawater began to take its place, and then no one had any water they could drink at all. How would they feel then?’

  He felt his eyes grow wide.

  ‘You hadn’t thought of that, had you? That’s understandable. Such things take time to learn. Sometimes I think that the only difference between wise people and foolish ones is that wise people are always learning. Especially from their mistakes. Perhaps the most important thing anyone can learn is that the more you know, the more there is to learn. Answers usually lead to more questions.’

  The man fixed him with a look that made him feel a little odd. He didn’t think anyone who was grown up had ever looked at him so directly before.

  ‘So. My question for you, my boy – which you don’t have to answer right now – is this. Do you want to learn how to build the pump and keep the water?’

  Forgetting the man for a moment, he squinted at the faint line where the sea met the sky.

  He did this for quite a while.

  ‘What about Tullis?’ he asked eventually. ‘He pretends not to, but … I think he needs me.’

  ‘Did I forget to mention our agreement?’ The man slapped a palm against his own forehead. ‘I’m so forgetful sometimes. Tullis and I agreed on … Well, let’s call it a trade. So that all of us will benefit if you decide to come with me. Provided he is sensible, and works hard, I promise you that he won’t have to worry about feeding himself or his sister again.’

  They sat for a long time after that without saying a word. His head buzzed with thoughts, questions and fears until he felt that it might burst. No matter how hard he thought, things didn’t seem to be getting any clearer. If anything, they seemed to grow more confusing.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked, more from a desire to ask something uncomplicated than a need to know. He was startled to discover that a tiny furry face was watching him from the folds of the man’s robes. It had sharp little horns, and eyes like polished black pebbles.

  The man displayed teeth whiter and more even than he’d ever seen in the face of someone so old. He held out his knuckles in an unfamiliar greeting.

  ‘Gald Moela,’ he said. ‘Call me Gald.’

  Though uncertain what he was expected to do with the man’s knuckles, he nodded, captivated by the little creature. ‘My name is Murrin,’ he said. ‘Murrin Kentle.’ He added his clan name fiercely, even though thinking about it now only made him sad.

  ‘Well, Murrin Kentle. I am very pleased to meet you.’

  They just sat there again after that, chewing the nutty cake, or whatever it was, in silence, though Murrin’s head grew busier and busier. Then he had an idea. What if, as this Gald Moela had hinted, the answer to his confusion was not an answer at all, but another question?

  ‘Mister Gald?’

  ‘Just Gald will do. Yes? I’m listening.’

  ‘I want to know more about this place you are from.’

  The man’s grin seemed to light up the sky.

  MURRIN KENTLE OPENED HIS EYES.

  The fact that he still had eyes to open gave him considerable difficulty, as the last thing he remembered – with horrifying clarity – was seeing his own intestines piled in the grass at his feet like glistening butchers’ sausages. There was a detached quality to the memory which should have been dream-like. Yet the images were so sharp, the smell of his own insides so visceral, that he did not doubt for a moment that it had actually happened.

  He closed his eyes again without having seen anything with them.

  Some time later, feeling his eyelids flutter back open, his mind renewed its broken narrative. Parts of his body were clamouring for attention in ways that he wished they wouldn’t. The main culprits were his shoulder, his thigh and – as though he had been savagely and repeatedly kicked – his belly.

  The pain was enough to make him suck air between his teeth.

  A cream-coloured ceiling swam erratically into focus. He made out arched beams meeting in a carved boss, from which hung an elegantly simple chandelier of wooden spokes. None of its lamps was lit.