The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels by William Golding Read Free Book Online Page A

jeering noise and spat down at his feet. He took up a stone and threatened the ground with it. He pretended to throw down once or twice, then did throw strongly and a scream came up out of the rock. The man turned and came strolling back, laughing, and swinging the string bag with its bowls and platters. The Prince shrank down behind his boulder and listened as the man went back. He was trembling, and went on trembling long after the postern gate slammed shut.
    He got up, shading his eyes with both hands and went forward. The sun fell on his bald head and beat back from the rock. He limited himself to his one good eye and climbed the knoll.
    The first thing he was aware of was the smell; then after, the flies. The knoll swarmed with them. Their buzzing increased with every step he took, and soon they discovered him.
    He found himself on the edge of a pit. The sunlight lit it right to the bottom, except on one side, where there was a little shade by the wall. The flies liked the pit, evidently, for they buzzed away down there and covered the refuse, the bones and decaying meat, the slimy vegetables and stained stones. The blind man lay in one corner under the sun, his head propped against rock. The only difference between his bones and the others was that his were still covered with skin. He was very dirty. His mouth was open and his tongue showed where the flies did not cover it. As the Prince realized who he was, he heard him make a tiny sound, without moving either his lips or his tongue.
    “Kek.”
    Near the centre of the pit and in a small area cleared of refuse, knelt a man. The Prince inspected him, then cried out.
    “Liar!”
    But the Liar said nothing and went on drinking. His head was in the bowl between his hands and he sucked busily, louder than the blind man’s kek, or the flies buzzing. He lifted his head and the bowl together, to take the last drop. His eyes were above the bowl’s rim. He glimpsed someone kneeling on the edge of the pit and ducked away.
    “Don’t!”
    “Dear Liar! It’s I!”
    Cautiously, forearm lifted for protection, the Liar squinted up. His face was blistered and dirty except where there was new blood on it, and his eyes were rimmed as red as the blood.
    “The Prince?”
    “Help me!”
    The Liar stumbled round in the refuse. He yelled back.
    “You? You don’t need any help! What about me?”
    “I’ve run away.”
    “I’m dreaming. I’m seeing things. They said I was mad—and now——”
    “I don’t want to go back.”
    The Liar put both fists above his eyes and squinted upward.
    “It’s really you?”
    “They’re turning me into a god.”
    The Liar spoke with dreadful urgency.
    “Get me out of here! That sister of yours—tell her to help!”
    “She won’t see anyone,” said the Prince. “And besides, I’m running away. We could go together.”
    The Liar went still.
    “You? Run away?”
    “We could go and live where it’s cold.”
    “Oh so easily,” said the Liar, jeering. “You just don’t know!”
    “I’ve got as far as this by myself.”
    The Liar gave a kind of yelling laugh.
    “We’d go down the river, across the sea, across the land, then more sea——”
    “Yes, let’s!”
    “Have you ever been swopped for a boatload of onions?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Or felt up by a Syrian to see if you’re too old to make a eunuch?”
    “What’s a Syrian?”
    “We’d be sold again as slaves——”
    The Liar paused, licked his cracked lips, stared slowly round the pit then up again at the Prince.
    “Half a boatload, perhaps, only you’re not very strong and you’re not very pretty, are you?”
    “I’m a boy. If I were a girl I’d be pretty. And not have to make the river rise, or——”
    “Those bracelets you’re wearing,” said the Liar slowly. “They’d be thrown in. You might make a eunuch.”
    “I’d sooner be a girl,” said the Prince with a touch of bashfulness. “Could it be arranged, do you think?”
    Under the