God Laughs When You Die Read online

  Molo had grown up learning the ways of the giant wild pigs that terrorized the mountainous regions of Ghoval, under the stewardship of old Dapu U’wambe. U’wambe had proven a kind enough father; he only beat Molo until Molo was big enough to hit back. But he’d taught Molo how to wrestle an unruly makopu to the ground, the surest methods for capturing the beasts without damaging their meat, and, most importantly, the slaughtering rites which hallowed the animal’s flesh while simultaneously honoring Cero-U, the war god who presided over the Hamado, the Three Hundred Gods of Unan.

  It was an ancient tradition therefore, for highranking members of the Goa to offer a hallowed makopu at important ceremonies.

  None was more important than this.

  “On this day we honor the Princess M'kele M'butu N'tozake Letitia Molumbo,” the Royal Jaba cried loudly from inside the wedding tent.

  Molo stood up and cracked his knuckles.

  “On this day, She Whom the Gods Bless in Grace and Beauty to Confound the Sun, Moon and Stars orders her Consorts, who number among the greatest swordsmen in Unan!”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  Molo smiled and turned toward the familiar voice.

  It was Milane.

  Molo didn’t know to whom she belonged or where she worked. All he knew was that the plain faced servant girl had visited him nearly every day of that year.

  At first her visits had irritated him. She enjoyed challenging him with questions, riddles that left him perturbed and irritated for hours after her departure. In time, her unquenchable curiosity, combined with her subversive wit appealed to him. He came to look forward to their visits.

  “I’m busy,” he said with mock gruffness. “Go away.”

  Milane leaned over the fence that surrounded the makeshift pen. The twinkle in her eye informed him that she wasn’t finished with him yet.

  “Surely all the Great and Beautiful of Ghoval will attend such an important performance,” she said.

  Molo shrugged.

  “I am neither.”

  Milane smiled.

  “That makes two of us.”

  Her smile dimmed. She stooped, plucked a smooth stone from the dirt and considered its shape.

  “Have you ever dreamed of a different kind of life, Molo Kananda?” she said quietly. Molo studied her for a moment. Then he shrugged.

  “There is only one life.”

  This seemed to stir something in the servant girl. Her clear brown eyes glittered as she stared into the distance.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Molo said.

  A hunting horn sounded from the wedding tent. Milane flung the smooth stone across the pen and climbed down from the fence.

  “I have to go,” she said, “Goodbye Molo.”

  “Wait,” Molo called. “Milane?”

  But she was gone.

  Molo gestured toward the slaughtering trough where he would end the makopu’s life. The boar rubbed its whiskers against his cheek, turned and trotted over to the trough.

  Molo sighed as U’wambe’s voice rose up in his memory.

  “The magician was right, boy,” U’wambe had said. “You possess a most dangerous gift; the capacity... to understand.”

  Molo shook his head. One thing he was certain he didn’t understand was Milane and every other member of her sex. But U’wambe was right about his other talents. Molo possessed a certain understanding of the great carnivorous pigs. Five years earlier, with sixteen summers behind him, he’d discovered this gift after a saber-tusked, bloodmaddened boar had trampled his steward, Dapu U’wambe.

  Molo was working at the far side of the Goa’s slaughtering pen when, alerted by U’wambe’s scream of pain, he turned and saw the boar run the old tender down. Molo had grabbed his sekh, the longbladed killing knife used by the pig tenders. As his hand closed around its hilt, the makopu turned, roared and charged him.

  Molo had sensed the creature’s rage. Its blind instinct for destruction and confusion beat at his mind like the thunder of war drums. He’d stood, stunned by the clarity of the makopu’s plight. That understanding demanded a response.

  Molo began to dance.

  It wasn’t the sort of dancing that Shenzi O’watu, Ghoval’s imperious Royal Dance Minister would have enjoyed; but it was dancing nonetheless.

  The boar stopped.

  Shaking its massive head like a bull beset by stinging flies, the boar pawed at the dirt and bellowed a challenge. A moment later, the makopu had reared up on its stunted hind legs and begun to dance as well.

  The two of them had drawn a large crowd before they finished; Molo leaping, pawing the ground and snorting, the makopu matching him move for move.

  Then Molo had made the mistake of turning his back on the makopu, breaking the spell. The boar wheeled and thundered back toward U’wambe.

  Molo had sprinted after it, his legs pumping, made strong by a lifetime of chasing the great beasts, and flung himself into its path. The boar had tasted blood and would not stop until it had drained U’wambe’s corpse.

  Molo had swung his sekh - its broad steel blade flashing in the morning sun - and split the boar’s skull.

  As U’wambe lay dying, he’d spoken the doom of Molo’s life.

  “You are gifted, boy,” he’d said, “because you understand.”

  Remembering his dying master, Molo grabbed his sekh and walked toward the ceremonial trough. Then someone screamed inside the wedding tent.

  Molo froze. A roar – as of many voices raised in horror - went up from the crowd inside the silken pavilion. Molo ran toward the tent just as a large group of panicked wedding guests stampeded out of it. He spun - his body twisting to avoid trampling - and ducked in through the bright yellow flaps.

  Inside, the wedding tent looked like Satan’s own slaughterhouse.

  Normally, a female of Royal station selected her three Consorts, one from each of the main schools of the Goa. During the Ordering ceremony the chosen three would spar with blades, skill and wits until a marital pecking order had been established.

  Master Kani, who was officiating at the ceremony, stood atop the wedding dais beside Queen Omune. King Ra-suldor, a former Consort himself and M’kele’s sire, stood protectively in front of them. Molo reflexively glanced away before catching himself. The Royal Family’s faces were unveiled. He could see the terror in their eyes.

  Princess M’kele stood between Ra-suldor and Master Kani, her face shorn of the familial veil that all of noble birth wore to shield their beauty from the hungry masses. Their eyes met and Molo’s world turned on its ear. Disoriented, he staggered backward and sat down on his rump.

  The members of the King’s Shield lay in a circle around the Royal Family. The guardsmen had been beaten into unrecognizable lumps of blood and bone. Only the three ‘Consorts’ stood fast, their weapons leveled at the intruder.

  A giant corpse loomed in the center of the room.

  “Zuvembie!" someone screamed.

  The remaining guests fell over themselves to avoid the zombie's crimson stare. The eyes of the undead held the power to steal human souls; enslaving them to the will of whatever dark master they served.

  Molo recognized the undead giant and nearly screamed himself.

  People in Ghoval still whispered about Koto the Gorefisted and his infamous 'Rain of Blood.' As the Governor of Nantan, Ghoval’s neighbor to the north, Koto's solved a month long gang war by dismembering all suspected gang members along with their families and flinging their remains from the walls of the Governor's Palace; while his personal orchestra played the Ghovalese National Anthem.

  Molo shuddered. When a zuvembie was created from the body and soul of a violent man, the result was an evil magnified ten-fold.

  The three Royal Consorts crouched and moved into an attack formation. Each was skilled in one of the three principal martial arts of the Goa school. Each had been raised by Masters. As Consorts, they were far more than well bred fops; they were trained to be the last line of defense for Princess M�
�Kele.

  Consort Leng leapt toward Koto Gorefist. A Master of Den Soma, the Slicing Hand, Leng swept a disarming strike toward Koto's forearm, intending to sever it. A moment later, Leng screamed. Blood spouted from the stump where his muscular right arm had been.

  The ambassador from Senea, the City of Stone and Sand, uttered a squawk and soiled his rainbow robes of state.

  Leng was officious and cruel. He’d once beaten Molo for daring to watch him during one of his many practice bouts. Leng’s skill, however, was beyond dispute. Molo had watched him cut through iron bars with his bare hands. Now Leng's right arm lay in a reservoir of blood at his feet; fingernails scratching convulsively at the floor.

  Molo was dimly aware of shouting.

  "Protect the Princess!"

  "Protect M’kele!"

  Consort Cavalu and Consort Makai moved toward the giant zuvembie.

  "Don't touch him!"

  Master Kani’s stentorian warning penetrated Molo's shock. The remaining guests had retreated to the furthest edges of the wedding tent, eager for bloodshed; too afraid to intervene.

  Consort Cavalu spun toward the dead giant. He was a Master of Sedo the Killing Dance. Molo had studied Cavalu intently, when his labors were done and he could sneak into the Sedo sessions unchallenged. Cavalu was arguably the most powerful of Master Kani’s students. Molo had seen him incapacitate as many as five opponents using only his hands and feet and the fist and boot daggers of the Sedo discipline.

  Cavalu dipped and whirled; his perfect features blurred until Molo could barely distinguish them. The shining daggers of the Sedo Master flashed toward Koto, forming a shimmering barrier between The Royal Family and the zombie. Cavalu's skill was so great that even the undead Koto Gorefist took two steps backward.

  “Hold,” Master Kani snapped. Cavalu stopped spinning.

  "Moren'e tuo'c, Koto sevanesu!" Master Kani cried.

  The zombie turned, its nostrils flaring as if it scented some dark delicacy in the air.

  Master Kani lifted his double bladed stave, the ceremonial weapon of the bladeseer. A white flare of power leapt from the stave and struck Koto D'umbualleh with the rumble of an erupting volcano.

  Koto tottered; the crimson fire flashed in his eyes. Then he fell to his knees, threw back his head and burst into flames.

  Cavalu pressed the attack, sped forward to cut the heart from the zuvembie's breast: Other than beheading, it was the only known non-magical way to destroy the undead.

  Master Kani's shout rang out over the din.

  "Hold! Fool! Have you no eyes in that pretty head?"

  Cavalu stopped, his blades a tiger's whisker from Koto's chest.

  "Why do you forbid, Master?" Cavalu grated.

  "Typical Consort," Master Kani said. "Loaded between the legs, empty between the ears.”

  Master Kani spat on the floor. He glanced at Molo as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the pig tender to be standing in the same tent with Ghovalese nobility.

  “Explain what has happened to this love toy,” he snarled, gesturing toward Consort Leng. Molo studied the unmoving zuvembie with the special dimension of his perceptions. Then he nodded and spoke.

  “The zuvembie is both a weapon and a trap,” he said.

  “Whatever force is used against Koto Gorefist will rebound upon its wielder tenfold."

  The Consorts scowled.

  Master Kani nodded his vulture-like head with something like vindication.

  “You dishonor us, Master,” Cavalu muttered. “To favor this gawking swill drinker over your chosen students.”

  “Oh, be silent,” Master Kani hissed. “He understands.”

  “Understands what?” Consort Makai sneered.

  “What is needed most,” Master Kani snapped.

  The old bladeseer crept forward, his stave held before him like the wand of a blind water smeller, toward the burning zombie, who appeared to have lost the power of movement.

  "This is a magical foe, my pretty idiots,” he said. “Not one to be dispatched like a common thug."

  Master Kani made an arcane gesture and extinguished the flames. Cavalu and Makai bowed, chastened.

  Master Kani sniffed at the black smoke that drifted up from the zuvembie. Then he spat on the teak wood floor.

  "Pah,” he snarled. “This one has been cursed by a bomwodesu, a necromancer."

  The wedding guests gasped. Some mouthed words of warding to repel evil spirits attracted to Master Kani's fell utterance.

  "Koto D’umbualleh has been resurrected and sent to disrupt this ceremony."

  "But why?" Cavalu rumbled, "Who would create such an abomination?"

  "Oh, a few assholes leap to mind," Master Kani said. "But I will glean the truth, with your permission, my King."

  Ra-suldor nodded. He grasped M’kele to his breast and nodded assurance at Queen Omune.

  Master Kani approached the zombie, who knelt on the floor with ropes of sizzling green drool drizzling out of its mouth. Then he raised his stave and rapped Koto across the forehead.

  There was a white flash. A smell like lightning over deep water filled the pavilion. When Molo could see again, Master Kani was lying on his back and the zombie was lying on its face.

  Molo shrugged through the Consorts and hurried to Master Kani’s side. The bladeseer was already sitting up, mumbling to himself. Occasionally he would flail about with his stave trying to hit one of the Junior Flower Girls.

  "See," Ra-suldor said. "Koto Gorefist has been defiled in more ways than one."

  The King pointed to a long slit that extended from between Koto's buttocks to the base of his neck. Molo saw what looked like hundreds of rough stitches sewn along the length of the slit.

  "Looks like he's been stitched together," Molo said.

  "Yes, but by whom?" Ra-suldor said. "And for what purpose?"

  Suddenly, a sound like meat sizzling over a cooking fire filled the wedding tent. A torrent of black smoke belched out of the incision in Koto’s back.

  "Get back!" Molo said.

  A fist punched through the smoldering rend. Then a head, followed by powerful shoulders, emerged through the slit. It was a man, or something that looked like a man, its body corded with muscle, stocky and thick-wristed as a Senean twelve year old. Its skin was pale as rotted milk. Its lips protruded over a mouth of sharp, yellow teeth.

  The top half of the creature's face was devoid of feature. Above its wide baboon's nose two black holes gaped where its eyes should have been. It was one of the su’pasha, the pitiless race of assassins that inhabited the Crimson City, far to the North.

  And it was unmistakably dead.

  “I have drawn offense from the Royal House of Ra-suldor,” the creature rasped in an imperious tone that even Master Kani would have been hardpressed to match. The remaining wedding guests gasped. The voice that issued from the su’pasha’s mouth had terrorized the people of Unan for centuries.

  “Nemeha Juvisee, protect us,” Ra-suldor swore. “Why do you darken this holy day, Samael Corpse Eater?”

  Six wedding goers fainted. The Ambassador from Senea, awakened only moments earlier, screamed and fainted again.

  “Just the asshole I suspected!” Master Kani cried triumphantly.

  With that, the bladeseer fell flat on his face.

  The pale creature turned toward Ra-suldor.

  “I petitioned thee for thy daughter’s hand in marriage and you rudely denied me.” it said. “I offer a final chance, Ra-suldor Suldor-son. Wilt thou grant me thy daughter?”

  “No, father!” M’kele cried. “I cannot love such a thing as this!”

  Ra-suldor took a step toward the su’pasha.

  “To my daughter’s refusal, I add my own,” he said.

  “Leave this place, Samael, or risk the damnation of the Holy Three Hundred.”

  The su’pasha seemed to consider for a moment. It cocked its blind head to the left as if listening to the tolling of a distant bell. Then it laughed.
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  “I was damned centuries before you were born, fool,” it said in Samael’s voice. “Tonight, however, I will repent my damnation while I luxuriate in thy daughter’s blood.”

  Molo drew his sekh. “Ware!” he cried, too late. A moment later, the Royal Consorts thrust him aside.

  “Lie there, where you belong, pigsplitter,” Cavalu spat. “This conflict is beyond you.”

  The su’pasha leapt high over the heads of the Consorts and landed next to Ra-suldor and M’kele. Moving in unison, the Consorts brandished their blades. Consort Makai had mastered the assassin’s art of Valakata, the Unseen Saber. He feinted toward the pale creature and vanished.

  The su’pasha made a short slashing gesture. Somewhere in the distance, came a sound like a rumble of thunder beneath the Earth. A moment later, the pale creature gripped a scimitar in each fist.

  Whirling, the su’pasha assassin thrust one blade over its head. The sound of clashing steel rang out and sparks flew from its upraised blade. Molo could see no attacker. Consort Makai was a true Valakatan Adept.

  The assassin parried a blow from Cavalu, who had spun to attack its flank, then it launched a left- handed attack upon the clear air directly to its left. More sparks flew, and Molo thought he heard Makai grunt in surprise or pain.

  Cavalu spun in, Sedo blades slashing, and scored the su’pasha across the backs of its legs, shoulders and head. Blood splashed the floor of the wedding tent. But Cavalu was too close. Sensing an opening, the su’pasha lunged and beheaded the powerful Consort with one scimitar while fending off Makai with the other.

  Cavalu’s beautiful head whirled past Molo and bounced out of the wedding pavilion.

  Molo leaped to his feet.

  The su’pasha hammered at its invisible opponent, smashing sparks from the empty air until there came a sound like a curse spat by Onu the God of tainted steel. It was the sound of a saber breaking.

  Makai materialized, bloody and battered, on his knees before the grinning su’pasha. A moment later, his head joined Cavalu’s in the dust.

  The assassin turned toward the Royal Family.

  Molo Kananda barred the way, his sekh raised on high.

  “What manner of working- class insolence be this?” Samael snorted. “What do you want, pig tender?”